CHAPTER SIX
The earth thundered beneath Quinn’s feet as if Godzilla were after them. But it wasn’t Godzilla who trotted their way. It was a black horse. A recently gelded stallion, he assumed, by the way he was acting with all the snorting, head tossing, and tail flagging.
The moon glinted off his glossy coat, and Quinn caught snippets of a raised tail, a magnificent head held high. In a fantasy world, the horse would be breathing fire.
Quinn held his hand out through the rail as the horse got closer.
“Careful,” Jenna said. “He’s liable to take a finger or two or four.”
“You wouldn’t do that, now, would you?” he said to the horse.
The horse stopped out of reach and trumpeted a dragon-sized lungful of air through his nose, blasting him with moist heat and hay breath. The horse stretched out his neck, pawed the ground, sniffed near Quinn’s hand, and stepped back.
Quinn climbed the metal rails of the corral and hooked his arms over the top, holding his hand out again.
Dink whined.
“Seriously, Quinn, you need to be—”
“Careful?” Quinn laughed. “Hell, I survived a helicopter crash. I think I’ll survive a little horse.”
“He’s not so ‘little’. And too cunning to trust.”
“What’s his name?” Dink nosed Quinn in the back of his calf, as if worried about him.
“Vader.”
“As in Darth Vader?”
Her head moved, and he assumed it was a nod, but in the darkness, he wasn’t positive. “Because he’s black?”
“Because the evil Force is strong in this one.” Jenna butchered the impression of Obi Wan’s voice. She’d always sucked at impersonations, but if she’d been a little kid, he’d have given her a trophy for trying.
“I’m sure he’s just misunderstood.”
“Yeah.” Jenna snorted out a laugh. “Tell that to Sidney and the black hoofprint-shaped bruise on her thigh.”
The horse stepped closer, neck outstretched, rear legs tucked underneath, ready to bolt. “’S okay, boy.”
Vader inched closer.
Dink pawed Quinn on the back of his boot.
“Quinn!” Jenna hissed.
Quinn ignored her. There was something about that horse. Fear. Yes. In his body language, in the snorts, in the tautness of his muscles, the flash of white in his eyes.
But there was something else, too. Something that resonated with Quinn, something he couldn’t pinpoint. He knew that reaching out was right in the same way that he could hear his engine spool up, listen to the whine, feel the vibration, and know all systems were a go.
Vader wasn’t mean. He wasn’t evil. He was—
Vader brushed his soft muzzle against Quinn’s fingertips. The horse startled and jumped back. Quinn kept his hand steady. “’S alriiight,” he said, his voice soft and low.
Dink plopped down in the dirt beside Quinn with a heavy sigh and a disgruntled grumble, as if to say, It’s your funeral. Jenna placed her hand on the back of his jeans, tucking her fingers around his belt, ready to yank him off the rails if Vader got ugly.
It wasn’t cold out, and it might have been his imagination, but heat radiated off of her hand. He envisioned that same hand sliding down his abdomen, looping around his belt buckle—
Another touch.
This time Vader didn’t dart away. Warm, moist air blew across his fingers as Quinn brushed the velvet nose. Jenna’s hand on the back of his belt loosened and she climbed up a rung. Vader charged at her, and she leaped off, out of reach. Growling, Dink tried to slip through the rails.
Jenna caught the dog before he squirmed through.
“You okay?” Quinn asked.
“Sit. Stay,” she ordered. To Quinn, she said, “See what I mean. Vader’s like a lifelong politician. Can’t be trusted.”
“Back up a bit.”
“Quinn—”
He turned his back on the horse. “Come on.”
“Okay, okay.” She took several steps back, dragging Dink along with her. “Don’t take your eyes off of him.”
Reaching out again, Quinn said, “Prove her wrong, buddy.”
Vader stomped the ground and shook his head, then his whole body. The horse’s tension eased. Vader licked his lips and stepped closer, one heavy clomp at a time. Jesus, how tall was this horse?
The insides of Quinn’s upper arms ached as he held himself against the rail, his right hand shaking from the effort it took to keep his arm outstretched. Again, the nose on his fingers, the hot breath in the palm of his hand.
Vader lipped his palm as if searching for treats. When he didn’t find any, he sniffed the back of Quinn’s hand. Vader worked his way up to Quinn’s wrist, to Quinn’s forearm, stopping in the middle, where the healing was the slowest. Vader sniffed deeply and tugged at Quinn’s shirtsleeve with his teeth.
Jenna sucked in a breath as if she was going to whisper a warning, but the words never came.
When Vader finished, Quinn reached up and rubbed a hand down the horse’s long nose. Vader pulled his head away but didn’t step back.
Quinn kept his voice soft. “Come on now, don’t be like that.”
The second attempt, Vader remained still. On the third, he leaned into the caress, blowing out a deep sigh and licking his lips as Quinn scrubbed his fingers across the swirl in the center of Vader’s forehead.
Having had enough, Vader turned and slipped back into the darkness.
“Wow,” Jenna whispered behind him. “If I’d recorded that, Sidney still wouldn’t believe it without seeing it with her own eyes.”
Quinn jumped down, and Dink trotted the few steps over, rubbing up against Quinn’s leg and nosing his hand. Quinn sank his fingers into the thick scruff and gave the dog a good scratch beneath the collar. Dink’s leg thumped against the ground like a bass drum, and his doggy lips pulled back into a satisfied grin.
With a final pat, Quinn straightened and said, “He just needed someone to believe in him.” Freud could have written a whole article analyzing that comment alone.
Lucky for Quinn, the man was dead.
Who needed all that psychobabble anyway?
“Quinn?”
“Oh no. No. No. No.”
“You haven’t heard what I was going to say.”
“Don’t need to.” Quinn stepped away from Jenna before she drew him into that silken web of hers that he’d always found impossible to escape. The one that made him do things he shouldn’t. Didn’t want to. “I know that tone. Whatever that devious mind of yours is cooking up, the answer is no.”
She stepped closer. He stepped back. “Hear me out.” She sounded all calm and reasonable, like a seasoned hostage negotiator. Like he had a choice as to whether or not he went along with her diabolical plan.
He groaned. Knowing his answer would be yes. Shit.
Again, she inched closer as if he were the wild stallion that needed taming. His back hit the pen. “I think you should work with Vader.”
He didn’t know what he’d expected her to say, but it hadn’t been that. “What do you mean, ‘work with him’?”
“You know. Tame him, train him. He was brought to us as a last resort. If we can’t make him safe, they’ll destroy him.”
Destroy. The word jarred his back, his bones, his body, like it had when he’d first learned to land a helo when he was all heavy hands and no finesse. “They can turn him back into the—”
“The public lands are overcrowded. The Bureau of Land Management won’t let him return.”
“Jesus Christ.” Quinn planted his hands on his hips. “I’m not here to train horses. I’m here for a funeral, for answers.”
“How long is that?”
“Ten days. My CO wasn’t too upset to see me go. I’m not exactly essential personnel. The only thing I’ve been flying these past few months is the Healing Chair, monitoring flights and pushing paperwork.”
Her finger beneath his jaw surprised him. He hadn’t realized he was looking down. Jenna tilted his head up. Her eyes shone in the darkness. One booted foot stepped between his.
“You’re essential here. To that horse. Tell me you’ll help. For a day. Two. Whatever time you can give him while you’re here. Sidney hasn’t had any luck with him. Maybe you will.”
He pulled his chin away. Heard the scrape of his stubble against her skin. When she touched him like that, it only reminded him what a dumbass he’d been to let her go.
“It would be good for him…good for you.”
Quinn jerked back, bumping his head on the corral. Pain radiated around his skull, but it was a dull throb compared to the sharp verbal knife she’d just jammed between his ribs, millimeters from his strumming heart. “Good for me? What are you trying to say?” His voice held a serious warning, telling her she’d better think twice about what she said next.
She fell back a step. “Training and being with the horses is good for people like you.”
A bark of laughter shot out of him. A black hole from which no humor could escape. “‘People like me’? You mean, helo pilots?” He knew that wasn’t what she meant. He knew she meant—
“People who have suffered a trauma.”
“I don’t need psychoanalyzing.”
“I’m not a psychologist.”
“And I’m not one of your vets. I don’t need a horse. I don’t need a program. All I need is to get back in the air where I fucking belong.”
* * * *
The muscles in Quinn’s forearms burned, his back ached, and more blisters had formed beneath his gloves. The pile of chopped wood on his left reached the height of his waist, but that didn’t keep him from placing another log on top of the old tree stump and swinging the ax again.
Jenna’s words from the night before played on repeat in his head.
People like you.
He levered the ax over his shoulder, using all the power in his arms, his legs, his back, his hands.
People who have suffered—
Kch-whop, kch-whop.
He didn’t need to be fixed.
Kch-whop, kch-whop, kch-whop.
He wasn’t broken.
“You know we have a machine that does that now, right?” Mac said from beside him.
The ax slipped in Quinn’s hand, the head glancing off the log, the blade sinking deep into the tree stump. Quinn wrestled it free. “Christ, you guys need to stop sneaking up on people when they’re swinging an ax.”
Mac shrugged. “You need to quit being so jumpy.”
The machine Mac referred to had been parked about five yards away, so he figured the question had been rhetorical, but he answered her anyway. “No gym for strength training. Figured this was the next best option for rehabbing my arm.”
He rested the handle of the ax against his leg and glanced at his mentor, and one of the reasons he’d joined the Marines. He thanked God for that decision every day.
Even on the bad days.
Dressed in her usual jeans, boots, and T-shirt with her brown ponytail hanging out the back of a tattered USMC baseball cap, she tossed him a bandana. He wiped the sweat off his face and chest.
She looked a little pale, a little green around the gills. “You feeling all right?” he asked.
“Something I ate.” She bobbed her chin toward his Frankenstein’s monster arm, deflecting the attention. She was an expert at that. “How’s the arm?”
He shrugged. “Long way from the heart. I think I’ll live.”
“But will you fly?”
Despite how hard the question hit, Quinn felt his lip curve up, not in a smile, but a close enough approximation. “You are direct. I’ve always liked that about you.”
“Most people find it annoying.”
He shrugged. “It suits you.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’ll fly again.”
She cocked her head, catching his hesitation and the way his words lacked complete faith. Direct and perceptive.
“What’s your plan B?”
Plan B. Fuck that. “I don’t need one.”
“That’s what I used to tell myself, too. Spent that first year after my medical discharge on the road, me and my Harley. Too many nights on the cold ground and too many days with nothing in my head but the nightmares. Trust me. You need an exit plan. Even if you don’t use it for twenty years.”
From behind him, one of the wild horses called out. He didn’t have to turn around to know it was Vader who’d answered. Quinn recognized the call, the frantic, frenetic whinny of a soul in trouble. If he were a horse, would he sound any different?
Would he want help?
Finger by finger, he plucked the sweat-soaked gloves off of his hands and stuffed them into his back pocket.
“You going to help Sidney with that horse?” Mac asked.
Jesus Christ. He drew a hand down his face, over the two-day-old growth of stubble he hadn’t bothered shaving off. “Not you, too.”
She crossed her arms over her chest.
“I don’t need the program,” he said.
“Didn’t say you did.”
“I’m not fucked up.”
Mac’s lips twisted into a sardonic smile, as if his fucked-up-edness was as debatable as global warming or putting ketchup on a thick steak. “I didn’t think I was, either.”
She tossed him his T-shirt and bumped her chin toward the round pen. Sidney slammed the gate behind Vader, and the horse cantered along the rail, mane and tail unfurled behind him as if tearing off into a storm.
“When your men, your crew, your friends die…it’s never easy.” Mac clapped him on the shoulder and steered him toward the round pen.
That tightness in his chest returned, a strangling, staggering, smothering guilt. That sense that if he’d been a better pilot, had had faster reflexes, had done anything differently, maybe some, or all, of his crew would be alive today. The fact that he’d been green-tabled, and the FFPB, the Field Flight Performance Board, had cleared him of any wrongdoing, didn’t make living with his crew’s deaths any easier.
That was one murderous bitch of a firestorm.
He’d flown in storms before.
Not like that.
Didn’t matter. It had still been a damn training mission.
Sometimes, when his thoughts dared go where they shouldn’t, when his memories threw off the cuffs and chains and clawed their way up from the dark recesses of his mind, he wondered, if his crew had died by enemy fire, if that horrifying circumstance would ease the guilt. Just enough for him to catch a full breath so that every second of every day wasn’t suffocating.
He doubted it would.
But he wondered.
They stopped a few feet from the round pen. Vader cantered by, that big brown eye on Quinn as the horse thundered around. By the second round, the horse slowed a fraction. By the third, he’d broken down to a trot. Sweat lathered the horse’s neck. His nostrils were flaring, his massive sides heaving. Trying to catch a breath. Catch a break.
Like Quinn.
“I don’t need this,” Quinn said, but his words lacked conviction as his hands reached for the gate latch.
“Maybe not,” Mac said, “but the horse does.”
* * * *
From the shade of the overhang at the front of the barn, Jenna watched Quinn work Vader in the round pen. She wanted to move closer, but she was afraid to break whatever spell he’d cast over the horse.
That was all it could be. Pure, unadulterated sorcery.
How else could any sane person explain how Quinn was able to put his hands on the devil’s own horse?
“Amazing, huh?” Sidney stepped into the shade, a cold bottle of water in each hand.
“Yeah.” Jenna accepted one of the bottles and took a couple of large swallows, feeling the cool liquid slide down the back of her throat and pool in her stomach. “He’s always been good with horses, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Quinn eased down the horse’s side, running his hands in long, soothing strokes down the horse’s neck, up over the withers, and across his back.
“I’ve seen this before. Not with a wild horse,” Sidney said, “but with a palomino paint ranch horse left with a trainer at a barn to be legged up before going to the auction. There was this little girl taking lessons from me. Ten years old, looking for her first horse. I remember she came around the corner and the horse stuck his head over the stall door, and I swear that horse did a double take. I’ll never forget the look in that horse’s eyes. Like, there she is, there’s my little girl.”
“Love at first sight?”
“Pretty much. Here’s this horse that had just dumped two trainers, and when the little girl gets on, he’s a total prince. Doesn’t put one hoof wrong.” Sidney tipped her bottle toward Quinn and Vader. “That right there. That’s a lifetime kind of horse for Quinn. Like Eli is for me.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think Quinn is looking for that kind of commitment. From a horse or anything that isn’t seventeen tons of metal and rotor.”
Jenna left Sidney at the barn and walked toward the pen as Quinn worked his way up to the horse’s neck. Scratching at the base until he hit Vader’s itchy spot. Vader bobbed his head up and down, his lips twisting with pleasure. Quinn gave him one last pat and turned him back out into his corral. The horse trotted around the enclosure, then settled back down and tore a mouthful of hay from a hay net.
“Quinn Powell, the mighty horse whisperer,” Jenna said as she opened the round pen for him and bent at the waist. “I bow to your greatness.”
“Yeah, yeah, cut the crap,” Quinn said, but for once he had a genuine smile on his face.
He stole her water and drained it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He winked at her and gave the bottle back.
Jenna’s heart didn’t skip a beat. Her breath didn’t catch. No butterflies danced in her belly. But the tips of her ears heated and she turned away before he glimpsed her smile.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Seriously, it was just a wink.
And that flash of dimple.
“That was my water.” She tried her best to sound irritated, but as she turned back, he flashed that dimple again, so she figured her tone wasn’t very believable. Damn. She was in trouble.
“Come on,” Quinn said as he guided her back toward the cabins. “I’ll buy you a drink in town.”
“Town? What for?”
“To find Crystal.”
Jenna stopped walking and turned toward him. “How do we do that? The sheriff’s office hasn’t even been able to find her.”
“From what Frank said, I don’t think they’re looking too hard. We canvass Murdock. Show her picture around. Ask questions. Find the bad guys. You know, like in the movies.”
“Sure,” Jenna said. “I’m Turner. You’re Hooch.”
He flashed her a grin. “I was thinking something a little more mysterious, like Batman and Cat—”
“I’m not wearing a skintight bodysuit.”
“You’ve got the legs for it”—he tipped his head and looked at her behind—“and the ass.”
She socked him in the shoulder but laughed anyway. “Go.” Jenna shoved him toward his cabin. “Take a shower.”
Forty minutes later, they were rumbling down the streets of Murdock. They drove by a few parks, from the tourist part of town to the dismal part. No railroad tracks separated the two sides, only a downhill slope. Neat yards with white picket fences gave way to chain link and weeds, to unfenced front yards where rusted-out cars and broken-down furniture grew as thick as spring flowers.
The first pass through Murdock didn’t take long. It wasn’t that big of a town. On the second pass, they parked on the main drag and set out on foot.
“So, where to?” Jenna asked as she settled her favorite tan cowboy hat on top of her head, her ponytail dangling out the back.
Shrugging, Quinn pointed up the street. “This way is as good as any.”
Main Street had a quasi-touristy vibe that didn’t quite hit the mark. Dusty souvenir and T-shirt shops, abandoned spaces with For Rent signs in dirty windows. A bar that hadn’t yet opened for the day. A mom-and-pop sandwich shop. Three pawnshops scattered up and down the street.
In a side alley next to the sandwich shop was a dumpster with the top flipped back beside the store’s side door. A woman leaned against the opposite wall, a cigarette wedged between long, thin fingers. She might have been attractive before her hair had gone stringy, her cheeks gone hollow, and her old clothes hung off her willowy frame like wilted leaves.
An aproned employee came out the door with a couple of bags of trash, which he tossed in the bin. The woman approached him, and he reached into the front pocket of his apron, pulled out something wrapped in paper, and handed it to her.
“Go on, now,” he said, “before you get me fired.”
“Same time tomorrow?” the woman asked.
The man shook his head. “Nah, I pulled the late shift.”
She peeled the paper back. “Thank you,” she muttered around a bite of sandwich.
“Yeah, yeah. Go on,” the man grumbled, but he watched her a moment as she walked down the alley. The man returned to the shop, and Quinn nudged Jenna with his elbow and turned into the alley.
“Hey, what—” Jenna hissed, trying to keep her voice down.
Quinn jogged ahead to catch up with the woman, forcing Jenna to do the same.
“Ma’am,” Quinn called out. The lady stiffened but kept walking. A few more steps and Quinn caught up with her, placing a hand on her arm to stop her. “Ma’am.”
She stopped. Looked at his hand on her arm, took another bite of sandwich. It was almost gone. “No one calls me ‘ma’am’ unless they want somethin’.” She looked him up and down. “And I ain’t got nothin’ to give. Even to a handsome buck like you.”
Jenna stepped up beside him.
The woman glanced from Quinn to her and back again, her eyes narrowing. Quinn reached into his back pocket and pulled out a twenty.
“And I don’t do three-ways. Never have, never will.”
Quinn paused, his hand and the twenty in midair. “Three-ways?” He winked at Jenna, but now wasn’t the time for his brand of humor.
“Wait,” Jenna said before the woman stepped away. “We only want information.”
“What if I don’t have it?”
“The money is yours either way,” Quinn said.
The woman plucked the bill from his hand, tucked it into her bra, and popped the last of the sandwich into her mouth.
“Whaddya want?” she said. “I ain’t got all day.”
From his pocket, Quinn pulled out his cell phone, thumbed through the pictures until he found the one of Crystal. The quality was bad, and Quinn’s screen was cracked, but you could make out her face well enough.
“Her name’s Crystal. We—”
“I know who she is.”
“You do?” Excitement shot through Jenna’s voice.
Quinn replaced his phone. “Where we can find her?”
The woman chuckled and started walking again. “You don’t.” Jenna and Quinn fell into step beside her. “Most people want to know how to get rid of her.”
Quinn stepped in front of the woman to stop her. “Who would want to do that?”
“No one specific…that I know of.”
Again, Quinn reached for his wallet, but the woman waved him off. “Save yer money. I ain’t got nothin’ else to say.”
She sidestepped Quinn and continued on her way, rounding the next corner.
“That was helpful,” Jenna said, adding a heaping helping of sarcasm.
They canvassed the rest of the street. The pawn and other shops. Talked with people on the sidewalk. Some had seen Crystal around. No one had seen her lately. No one seemed concerned, though, like it was normal for Crystal to disappear for days or weeks at a time, only to show back up again later. No one knew where she had gone, or what she was up to.
No one really cared.
They made their way back to the sandwich shop and ordered lunch, eating at one of the two-top bistro tables on the front sidewalk.
“Maybe she’s not missing,” Jenna said.
Quinn sucked down half his soda. “You think it’s one of her regular walkabouts? That she’s gone off to wherever she goes and will be back when it suits her?”
“Maybe.” Jenna twirled a fry around and around and around in a tub of ketchup.
Quinn caught her wrist and plopped her fry into his mouth. “But?”
“I don’t know. Frank seemed very worried. He’s got to be used to her doing this by now. What’s different this time?”
They both came to a conclusion at the same time. “Kurt.”
“And that message she left her dad.” Jenna popped the last fry into her mouth and swallowed. “‘I’m gonna make you proud’? What was that all about?”
“Dunno. But between that and the text messages from Kurt, it sounds like her disappearance was unexpected.”
* * * *
Okay. Not just any hands. Jenna’s hands. He liked the way they fit in his. Liked their warmth, their calluses. He even liked the way she kept her nails chewed back to the tips of her fingers when she thought no one was watching.
Liked how she wasn’t afraid to dig into life and get dirty.
He reached across the table and took her hands. Small hands. Skilled hands. Strong hands.
“Jenna.” There was so much he wanted to say, about how much he’d missed her. About what an idiot he’d been. How sorry he was. But the reality was, he wasn’t convinced he’d do it any differently if he had the chance to do it all again. He loved flying. Lived for it. He wasn’t sure he could give that up for anybody.
Not even Jenna.
From his tone, her eyes narrowed, and she sat back, wary. Smart woman. Instead of saying what was on his mind, he tried on one of those smiles people wore to parties they didn’t want to go to. All teeth and no heart. “About that three-way…”
She laughed and tossed a napkin, hitting him in the nose, breaking the tension. Jenna picked up the tray, and Quinn glanced around again as Jenna tossed their trash.
At the end of the street, he saw an old sign, half-hidden by tree branches—Weller’s Gun and Pa—was all that was visible, with an arrow pointing down a side street. He tapped Jenna on the shoulder and pointed.
“Looks promising,” she said.
They jogged across the street and followed the sign around the corner to a little hole-in-the-wall pawnshop. The bell tinked against the glass door as they went inside. There was no one behind the counter.
Quinn walked straight over to the U-shaped display counter with row after row of new and used guns. Semiautomatics. Revolvers. He’d made his way halfway around when a woman stepped out of the back room.
“See anything you like?” The way she said it, she wasn’t referring to the guns. She was young and lithe and sexy. And she knew it.
Quinn offered a smile, and the woman smiled back the way fishermen do when they’ve hooked the big one. Jenna slipped her arm around Quinn’s waist and said, “My boyfriend’s looking for a gun his friend pawned. It had sentimental value, so he wants to buy it back, only it’s a surprise and we aren’t sure which shop he pawned it at.”
The girl’s smile faltered, but only a little. She still had a potential sale, if not a potential one-night stand. “What kind of gun was it?”
“Sig Sauer P229,” Quinn said, “custom stars and stripes grip. Brought it in within the last week, I think.”
“Let me check the back. My dad might have taken it in.”
Jenna stepped away, and her absence was like hitting an air pocket and losing all lift. Even if Jenna was putting on a show, he’d liked having her arm around him.
Putting on a show? Or had she actually been jealous?
She leaned over the case on the far side of the store, her ass filling out her jeans in a way that made him think of skintight bodysuits and what she’d look like in them; better yet, what she would look like out of them. What she’d feel like—
“What’s up with you?” Jenna said.
Quinn shook off the daydream. It wasn’t easy. “Nothing.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because you’re naturally distrusting and”—he tossed his head toward the back room and the girl—“and jealous.”
She rolled her eyes. “Puhleese.”
“This it?”
They both turned. The girl laid down a soft cloth over the glass and set a gun and empty magazine down on it. The slide was racked back, and a safety cable ran through the slide and out the end of the grip.
The saliva dried up in his mouth, and his hand shook as he reached out for the weapon. The metal had a thin film of gun oil left over from a recent cleaning. He ran his fingers over the cold steel. Noted the nick on the slide, the scuff on the butt where Kurt had dropped it in the parking lot one night. And there was no mistaking that grip. Matte-black stars and stripes. He cleared his throat. “That’s it. How much?”
The girl smiled at him, not like a seductress, but like a girl who knew she had the upper hand. Suddenly, she wasn’t all that pretty.
“Fifteen hundred.” No thought. No hesitation.
Quinn nearly dropped the gun. “Sweetheart, the last time I got screwed like that, it involved a lot of booze and wom—”
“Even with the custom grip, it’s not worth anywhere near that.”
He stared at Jenna.
“What?” she said. “You can’t live with Mac and Boomer and not know your way around guns.”
He smiled at that. Wasn’t sure why.
The girl reached across the counter and took the gun back. “Suit yourself.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Quinn said. “As soon as we leave you’ll sell it for half that and still make a profit.”
“Yes,” she said, “but not to you.”
There was no decision to make. As soon as he’d seen the gun, he knew he’d buy it, no matter the cost. “Fifteen hundred.” Quinn glanced around the store, spotted the security camera in the corner. “But I want to watch the videotape of who sold it to you.”
“Thought your girlfriend said your friend pawned it.” At the word girlfriend, her face screwed up as if she’d stepped in dog shit. She knew they were lying, and she leaned a hip against the counter, enjoying the spectacle too damn much.
“Work with me here,” Quinn said.
She glanced from Quinn to Jenna and back again. “The security tapes loop every twenty-four hours.”
Quinn pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course they did.
“But I know who brought it in.”
“Who?” Jenna asked.
The girl looked at Quinn when she answered. “Guy by the name of Gil Goodman. Most folks call him Moose.”
“What’s he look like, besides big?”
“Dark hair. Full beard. Black dragon tat on his right forearm.”
“How do I find him?”
“Usually he finds you. If you’re unlucky that way.”
Quinn gave the girl a look. The same look he’d used to keep Kurt in line. Most of the time it was…had been…effective.
“Fine.” She gave them a no-skin-off-me-if-you-die kind of shrug. “Some biker bar outside of Murdock. Cruisers, I think. And Moose doesn’t pawn his own stuff. He pawns payments.”
“What do you mean?” Jenna slipped her hand into his. He wasn’t sure she realized she’d done it.
“Moose sells drugs, among other things. If you don’t have the cash, he’ll take whatever you have that he can hock. Tools, guns, your sister.” Her eyes flicked to Jenna. “Your girlfriend.”
Quinn heard Jenna swallow. Hard. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, be careful.”
He paid the ransom for Kurt’s gun. At the door, he turned back and asked, “What day was the gun brought in?”
The girl checked the ticket. “Saturday.”
Jenna squeaked, and Quinn gently pushed her out the door. She leaned back against the brick façade between the pawnshop and the cleaners next door. “Saturday,” she said. “Kurt died the night before. He used his gun to buy the drugs.”
“No.”
Jenna set the bag with the gun on the ground, took both of Quinn’s hands in hers, and pulled him close. “Look at me.” When he did, she said, “He went back to using. I know it’s hard to accept, but we have to face the facts—”
“What facts? All we know is that Kurt is dead and”—Quinn glanced around and lowered his voice so people passing by wouldn’t overhear—“and that some dealer had his gun.”
“Exactly.” Jenna’s voice softened into the same soothing tone she used to calm the horses. It didn’t work so well on him.
She didn’t get it. And he couldn’t explain it to her. He just had this…this certainty deep in his gut that he was right, despite everything that said he was wrong.
He cupped her cheeks and pressed his forehead to hers. “I know you have your doubts, but if you can set them aside, for Kurt, for”—he almost said us. He pulled away—“for now, and see this through, it would mean a lot to me.”
She didn’t answer right away. Quinn’s stomach knotted and twisted back on itself. “Okay,” she said at last.
“Yeah?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
The knots, the twists, the anxiety, eased. Gravity lifted, making him lighter, freer. He didn’t think; he just held her head and kissed her, pulling back almost immediately. He started to apologize, but one look at those green eyes and he knew she didn’t want an apology. Holy hell. He’d missed those lips, that hitch in her breath, that—
“Quinny?”
His sandwich did a backflip on a smoldering mattress of ketchup-covered fries. He tore his eyes from Jenna’s lips and glanced to his right. “Hello, Mother.”
He stepped back. His mother and father stood on the sidewalk, a plastic bag full of clothes slung over his father’s shoulder. His mother pulled him into a hug he had a hard time returning. His father didn’t shift the clothes or offer a hand.
Quinn bobbed his chin at his father. “Dad.” Jenna linked her fingers with his and gave them a squeeze. The sandwich somersaulting in his gut settled down. To his parents, he said, “You remember Jenna Nash.”
“Good to see you again, Jenna.”
“You, too, Mrs. Powell, Mr. Powell.”
His father scowled. He’d always blamed the Lazy S for losing his only son to the Marines. Not that it wasn’t true. Mac and Boomer had opened his eyes to the world beyond dirt and cows and day after day in the saddle.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were home?” his mother asked.
Before he ginned up a believable excuse, his father said, “You flying yet?”
“No. Soon.”
“It’s about time. When you fall off a horse—”
“I didn’t fall off a horse.” Quinn’s contempt slipped its leash and ran free with a snap and a snarl. “My helo crashed.”
“And you were the pilot.” Not a question. A bold accusation.
“I was clear—” Red-hot anger boiled Quinn’s blood as if his cooling system had taken a stray round. He’d already been green-tabled by the FFPB. He wasn’t defending himself to his own father, as well. He turned his attention back to his mother, jabbing a finger at his father’s chest. “That’s why I didn’t tell you I was home.”
He leaned in and pecked her on the cheek. It wasn’t his mother’s fault his father was an asshole.