I stiffened at his blunt words, my cheeks flushing.
His voice was closer to my ear now, rumbling through me. “You just need to touch me and all the hair on my body stands on end. That hyperawareness … that need deep in my gut … I’ve never felt that for anyone but you. We were just kids and you’re still the best I ever had.” He moved in front of me, his feet almost in the water, heat and longing blazing in his eyes. “Do you know how lucky we are? To have that kind of connection?”
I stumbled backward, my heart racing, my skin tingling with that so-called connection. Quinn had never spoken to me like this when we were kids. His openness scared the shit out of me.
It made me defensive. “Aye, Quinn. I do know how lucky wewere.”
“Taran.” He reached for me, but I took a few more steps backward up the beach.
“I … I think I believe you,” I admitted reluctantly. “That you loved me then but were trying to do the right thing. But my heart can’t let go of the fact that you let go of me.”
Quinn’s eyes glistened with tears. “But I didn’t. Don’t you understand? I didn’t and I can’t. I’ll never love anyone the way I love you.”
His words hit me hard, and a torturous tug-of-war began between the part of me that believed him and sympathized and the part that was terrified of having my heart broken all over again. I’d spent the last year in grief beyond my imagining.
I just wanted peace from turmoil.
“If you can tell me that you feel nothing for me, Taran Macbeth, I’ll walk away for good. I give you that promise.”
I opened my mouth, the words that would stop all this tickling my tongue.
But suddenly, my mum’s voice was in my head.Youmightregret telling a truth, sweetheart, but you’llalwaysregret a lie.
“I don’t know what I feel, Quinn.” I tugged off his sweater and tossed it to him. He caught it, his brow furrowed. “I just need … time.”
“We’ve already wasted nineteen years.”
“Youwasted nineteen years,” I reminded him harshly.
Quinn tilted his chin up with a stubbornness I recognized. “You’re right. If you need time, I’ll give you time. You could take another nineteen years to make up your mind, and I’ll still be right here waiting.”
I paused at that because the truth was Quinn had changed. He’d never opened up to me back then like he had today. Being vulnerable had never been easy for him. “I don’t take it lightly,” I assured him. “You being honest with me. I don’t take it lightly. I’m not … I’m not toying with you deliberately.”
He frowned, lifting a hand as if he wanted to touch me. “Taran, I would never think that of you.”
I nodded, exhaling heavily as I turned. “When you’re ready to tell me about this suspect of yours, let me know.”
I’d just given him my back when he called, “After you left … I used to come here every year and roar into the sky.”
My breath faltered again as I whirled to stare at him in disbelief.
Quinn nodded, expression tortured. “Every year. I always wondered if the clouds carried the sound of it over to the mainland … to you.”
His poetic words caused fresh tears to spill down my cheeks. “Quinn …”
“All I’m saying is that you weren’t alone in your pain. I just want us both to be free of it … and I think there’s only one way that happens.”
I heard a tinge of desperation in his confession, and guilt joined the fray of my internal war. All I could do was nod in acceptance of his words and hurry away before I did something I wasn’t sure I was ready—or ever would be ready—for.
26.Quinn
Abead of sweat rolled down my temple as I stepped back to survey our day’s work.
“Happy?” Felix, the joiner from the kitchen manufacturer, asked as we surveyed the Keatons’ new kitchen. The couple had ordered it from Germany, and it had been delayed for so long I’d tried to convince the client to cancel it and order somewhere else. But they insisted this was the kitchen they wanted.
It had arrived first thing this morning, and I’d helped the small team from Germany fit it.
I could see why my clients had insisted this had to be the one.
