She had to get back to the house.Scouring the landscape around her with her gaze, she blinked in rapid succession, but no other sounds followed.Unhooking the bear spray, she held it in her palm and moved through the grass.Chamomile tea sloshed in her stomach, its relaxing effects long freaking gone.She crossed the line of trees then stepped into her backyard.Still nothing.Surely a mountain lion or bear would have attacked her by now.
Still, apprehension blazed between her shoulder blades.Running would only spur on the hunter’s instinct.The cold breeze made the sweat on her forehead turn downright frigid.She wet her lips as her porch’s back steps came within reach.
A movement at the side of the porch caught her eye.Without a moment’s hesitation, she whipped the spray in front of her and compressed the lever.Fluid shot from the nozzle and caught her assailant in the face.
She spotted a glimpse of blue flannel through the mist—a man, not a wild animal, flailing the spray away.But it was too late.He’d caught a cloud in the face.
“Jesus, Josie!Shut that off!”
Her fingers went weak.She lowered the can and wet her lips again.That voice.Never in a million years would she forget that growl.“Q-Quin?”
She stumbled and caught the overhanging wooden railing at the edge of the steps.The dim lamplight shining through the living-room window didn’t illuminate his features, but she knew the hunched form on his knees.Knew the dirty-blond hair, the muscular build.It couldn’t be anyone but Quin.
He coughed.Sharp moans and curses sailed from his lips as he dropped to the ground.He scrubbed his eyes and moved through the mist that hung in the air, crawling devastatingly close to her knees.
He groaned and mopped at his eyes again.“Yeah, it’s me.Wish I could see your face, but you fucking blinded me.”Moisture coated his cheeks.
Josie’s tongue moved around the dry cavern of her mouth.The thick stench of the bear spray clung to the air.She backed away before the fumes got her and stared as the man on the ground struggled to breathe.
Quin Levington.
The air squeezed out of her lungs as her lips moved silently over his name, playing with the letters as if she were at a bloody wine tasting.But there was nothing delicious about him.Not anymore.
She clenched her hands.Hitting him would feel really effing good, but the bear spray had done a better job of hurting him.“You have no right to be here.”The words came out on a rushed breath, followed by the crushing pain that suffocated her every time she thought about Quin.About how he’d left.How he’d made everyone in their mountain community hate his guts.
He gasped and shuffled to the bottom step, using his hand as a guide.“Can you get me something for my eyes?I’m dying here.”
She opened and closed her hands at her sides.A small ball of pity started to unravel in her chest as she watched him.He rubbed his fingers over his eye sockets.Tears coated his cheeks and the skin of his face flamed a bright red.
Hours ago, she would have been tickled at the idea of Quin being sprayed with bear mace.She didn’t welcome the guilt that came instead.Damn him for taking that enjoyment from her too.
The moon coated them in its glow, reminding her that it was late.That his presence was an intrusion.But for the life of her, she couldn’t make him leave.Especially since shehadtemporarily blinded him.
She swiveled around his sitting form and marched up the steps, growing more annoyed with each stomp.She bumped open the back door she always kept unlocked because small-town mountain folk didn’t do something as paranoid as lock their doors.In the kitchen, she pulled out a clean dish towel from a drawer and wet it with cold water.She returned outside and dangled the cloth in front of him.“Here.”
He accepted the towel and massaged it over his face as he exhaled a shaky breath.“Fuck, that burns.Did you really have to do that?”
“Did you really have to come to my house?”She moved down the remaining steps, stopping in front of him, and jammed her fists on her hips.Outrage sizzled her senses.Millions of times she’d prepared herself for the day she’d come face-to-face with Quin again.She had a rant stored somewhere in the back of her mind that should have been locked and loaded.But laying her eyes on the familiarity of Liam’s best friend—her friend too, or so she’d thought—had taken the steam from her attack.
He blinked and sucked back air sharply, as if his sinuses burned too.“Yeah, actually, I did.It’s not like I could have approached you during your circle.”
He’d been watching.Nostalgia tingled her insides rather than the sense of being violated.Quin wasn’t a stranger to her way of life, and there’d been a time when they could talk all things spiritual for hours.She’d missed that ease she’d had with him.Liam had always respected her ways but hadn’t really shown much interest.
And Quin was right.After everything that had happened when he left Whistlemore, he couldn’t exactly walk up to Dez, McKenna, and her.Not without enduring a shitload of anger from her friends.
“You don’t need to be here at all.”Whatever had brought Quin to her door wasn’t her problem.He hadn’t come to her with his issues before he left.He hadn’t asked for her help or her trust...No, he’d just up and left when she’d been at the lowest point in her life.
“Can we talk?”He shifted his weight so that one of his knees touched the earth.“I’ll beg if I have to.”The end of his eyebrow quirked up, a trait that had always made her melt, and still did.Even if his eyebrows were slightly swollen and violently pink.
There was a time when she’d leaned on Quin.When his presence helped soothe the pain and absence that had haunted her every minute since Liam died.And then she’d had to mourn Quin’s absence too.Only he’d had a choice.
Her brain spun.The heat of anger combined with the tiredness tugging on her shoulders made her roll her tongue behind her teeth in frustration.“I don’t have anything to say, Quin.”
“Can I tell you why I left?”
She snorted.“I know why you left.You set Rocco’s diner on fire and needed to avoid arson charges.”She sidled past him, bumping her hip into his shoulder.The contact sent a spike of awareness through her body.
He caught her elbow, stopping her on the second step, his hand firm and warm even through the material of her coat.“You really believe I’d do that?”
