Under the Moon (25 page)

Quinn’s phone rang. She looked at the display. “It’s Chloe.”

“That’s what we need.” He smiled, but it was tense.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Chloe!” Her voice was full of relief and excitement.

“It’s so good to hear from you! I tried to call but—”

“I know, Tanda told me. Asshole took my phone, too. The Society’s monitoring calls, but I don’t think they’re getting anywhere.” She laughed, a brittle sound. “So, what are you doing? Do you have time to come see me? Or I could come to you.”

The last part sounded reluctant, so Quinn hurried to reassure her. “No, we’ll come there. I have plenty of time. Tomorrow morning?”

“Perfect. I know it’s silly.” She paused, and Quinn could hear the rush of waves in the background. “It doesn’t work for me now, but I don’t want to leave the shore.”

“It’s not silly. It makes perfect sense.” Even during the new moon, Quinn sensed it rising. Even when she was close to normal, she never felt like anything but a goddess. The idea of losing that froze her insides. It would be the worst kind of torture. “I wouldn’t dream of taking you away from it.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Great! Hey, is it okay if I bring Sam?”

“Of course. He’s always good for my ego. Thanks, Quinn.”

“You’re welcome.”

She quirked a smile at Sam when she’d hung up. “You’ll need to lay on the charm tomorrow. She can’t wait to see you.”

He didn’t smile back. When he closed the lid of his laptop and pushed his chair back to lean over his knees, she braced herself.

“What’s between you and Nick?”

Nothing
stuck in her throat. She swallowed hard, then admitted, “I don’t know.”

He dropped his head. Quinn bit her lip, unsure what to say or why he was asking. She couldn’t measure the silence and like a fool, filled it.

“He’s always been my friend. My security. He somehow knows me without explanation, understands what I need and what I don’t. He’s fiercely loyal and defensive.” She stopped, struck by the realization that she could also be describing Sam.

He raised his head when she didn’t continue. “What happened that night?”

“When I was abducted?”

He nodded, and she studied him, again wondering why he was asking. But the pain she’d seen behind his eyes in the first couple of months after she stopped recharging with him wasn’t apparent now.

“Um…let’s say he was…upset.”

Sam’s brows lowered. “He didn’t hit you, did he?”

“No! God, no!” She laughed and passed a hand across her face. She never talked about Nick like this. “We…reacted…unprofessionally.”

He rose to his feet and stood inches away. Confused, Quinn didn’t move. He slid his hand along the side of her jaw, cupping her face and neck and stroking his thumb across her cheek.

“You never kissed me, Quinn.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I never kissed anyone else, either.”

“Because of the intimacy.” It wasn’t a question, and it wasn’t wrong. “Is it more than you can give?”

“No. It’s more than I can take.”

Sam nodded. “But you kissed Nick.”

Quinn opened her mouth but had no response. He must have seen them from the hotel office. Sam framed her face in both his palms, tilted his head, and lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was tender, loving, but nothing like Nick’s kiss earlier. A tear slipped out from beneath her lashes and slid down her cheek, then along Sam’s finger. A matching tear leaked from the other side. Sam released her mouth but not her face, and his eyes shone. Not with need or competition, but with regret.

“I love you, Quinn.”

She buried her face in his chest. “I love you, too, Sam,” she whispered, knowing he’d understand how she meant it. Sam’s arms came around her, comforting. Pure friendship. Quinn’s heart thrummed with her relief.

“Don’t give up on him,” he said. “It’s not the same. He loves you, too.”

Quinn backed up and palmed away the moisture on her cheeks. Nick’s story wasn’t hers to tell, but despite his recent lapses, she didn’t believe anything was going to change.

“I don’t deserve you,” she said instead.

He smiled crookedly. “Nope. But you do deserve to be happy.” He sat back at his computer. “Let’s talk about Chloe.”

Later that night, as Quinn lay in bed staring at the ceiling, her entire being seemed lighter. Freed from the burden of guilt over rejecting Sam, yes, but also hopeful. Which was stupid, because nothing had
really
changed for her and Nick.

They’d never discussed the soul-deep connection they’d made the first time Nick was assigned to her or the friendship that had deepened with every new moon. The heat between them had always been there, too, but never acknowledged or acted upon. The strength of his duty had always been apparent. But Quinn had yearned for Nick like a fish yearned for water. When she needed to recharge she chose men who reminded her of him, and the encounters always ended in disappointment. Sometimes, when she chose unwisely, they ended in something worse. Nick never knew.

One night about ten years ago, Quinn had built up the courage to make a move. Tension in the bar had been high, and a fight broke out at closing time. It was one of the few times she witnessed Nick in action. She wasn’t afraid to carry a bat into the fray, but Nick had beaten her there, landing enough blows to break it up and haul the main offenders outside. Then he’d cleared the bar and returned to her, fired up and eyes blazing with the strength of emotions neither one of them had ever acknowledged out loud.

And Quinn had taken a chance. She dragged him behind the bar and kissed him. He kissed her back at first, his hands tightening on her hips hard enough to leave bruises and ignite five years of banked passion. But when Quinn tried to take it further, he pushed her away. She stumbled against the liquor shelves hard enough to rattle the bottles. He flinched, but Quinn ignored the flare of pain, both where the hard shelves dug into her back and in her rejected heart.

“It can’t happen, Quinn.” His tone was raw and harsh, but she believed it was because he
wanted
it to happen, not because he didn’t.

“No other man measures up to you, Nick.” She stepped forward, and this time, when he lurched back, her heart broke open and bled. She didn’t move again, but she couldn’t stop talking. Couldn’t give up, though bitterness coated her tongue and her words. “Believe me, I’ve tried to find one.”

He flinched again, to her gratification.

“I want you as more than this. I want to be more than a job to you.”

“You are,” he growled. “But I don’t have a job, Quinn, I have a duty, a responsibility that goes far deeper than a little bit of lust.”

Quinn gasped and backed away, raising a hand to stop him from saying any more. But he didn’t stop.

“You’re important to me. It would kill me to leave you to another protector.”

She sobbed a laugh. “Don’t say stuff like that. You’re making this worse.” She wished he’d come to her, hold her, reassure her somehow. But he either didn’t trust himself or didn’t trust her, so he stayed where he was.

“I’m being as honest as I can be. You—” He shoved a hand through his hair and gritted his teeth enough to make his jaw muscles flex. “You are incredible. The stuff you do, the people you help—you validate every choice I’ve made. Which puts me in an impossible situation. I can’t do it, Quinn. I’m sorry.”

It was the apology that hammered home the nails of his words. No more harshness, no raw pain, just conviction. And that was it.

Quinn hadn’t bothered trying to convince him that twelve weeks a year was better than nothing, or that she’d never find a man she could have a normal life with. She suspected Nick had hoped she’d find it with Sam when he came to work for her, and maybe at first she’d thought that, too. Instead she’d used him and risked the best friendship she’d ever had.

She rolled over and watched her ivory curtain go from glowing red to glowing green as the stoplight outside changed. A lone car drove up the road, engine whining slightly when the automatic transmission changed gears. She remembered listening to cars outside her apartment even when Nick wasn’t expected, hoping to hear the familiar purr. She didn’t know when that had changed. Maybe soon after she hired Sam.

Who had just told her not to give up on Nick, even as he finally gave up on her. Damn both of them for making her hope, anyway, after a decade of pining silently. No. Forget hope. Forget kisses and crumbling walls and the sense that freedom and love were attainable. No matter what, it wouldn’t happen.

She couldn’t handle that kind of pain again.

Chapter Ten

While our abilities are generally accompanied by compassion and wisdom, goddesses are as human as anyone else. Jealousies, rivalries, and split loyalties are all threats to the balanced dynamic of the Society. However, the truest friendships can also be formed between members, and these often begin at chapter meetings.

—
The Society for Goddess Education and Defense,
Special Session on Relationships

…

Sam, missing his Camaro, insisted on renting a sports car, then complained that men who drove late-model Mustangs were pussies.

“You’re the one who didn’t want another sedan,” Quinn said.

“This is a chick car.”

“They didn’t have Camaros.”

He shot her a pitying look. “Like a modern Camaro compares to my ’84, anyway. But that’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

He set his jaw and looked sullen for the next thirty miles.

Chloe lived in a small cottage on stilts right on the beach near Westerly, Rhode Island. Her little place was crammed between two larger homes but set closer to the water than most of the houses on the street. The ten-foot yard held wild-looking rosebushes and sea grass, and a crushed-shell path led from the rocky driveway to the steps up to the porch.

Sam parked behind the Prius that was under the building, and Quinn got out and strode toward the steps, pausing to inhale the deliciousness of the salt air. The temperature was still mild for November, a light breeze off the water complementing the hazy sunlight. The rolling rhythm of the waves drew Quinn past the cottage and down onto the sand. The moon wouldn’t rise until afternoon, but its tug on the tide echoed in her blood. Today her abilities would be meager, but maybe the energy between moon and ocean would amplify them.

“Quinn?”

She turned. Chloe stood on the cottage’s wraparound porch, shading her eyes against the still-low sun. Quinn smiled and waved, her heart contracting at Chloe’s eyes. Even from this distance, the color was abnormal, bleached. An indicator of her loss that would be difficult to hide.

Chloe grinned and ran down a second set of stairs to the sand, hurrying to meet Quinn in a hug.

“It’s so good to see you!” Chloe tilted Quinn side-to-side, squeezing. She seemed much more chipper and calm than Tanda had. If it weren’t for her abnormally light gray eyes, Quinn wouldn’t know anything had happened to her.

Chloe let go and tucked her arm through Quinn’s elbow. “Where’s Sam?”

“Probably standing at your front door.” As she spoke he appeared around the side of the cottage. He wore jeans and a chocolate-colored V-neck sweater over a white T-shirt and looked very J. Crew with his hair blowing in the breeze off the water.

“Yum,” Chloe said, and Quinn laughed.

“Quite.”

“C’mon. I have breakfast all ready.”

Visiting Chloe was far different from visiting Tanda. Tanda was refined and serious and had still been grieving the loss of her goddess power. Chloe, however, was often described as “kooky,” and her way of dealing with her loss fit the description.

The first thing Quinn saw when she walked into the kitchen was a big framed needlepoint sampler that said, “Once a Goddess, Always a Goddess…Unless You Date Leeches.” She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You were dating the leech?” she asked, though Holly had already told her she was.