First Time, Forever. Cara Colter
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mistakes in the past, but in my business you can’t afford to lose your focus. Believe me, I don’t waste a whole lot of time in soul-searching.”
“Then why did you bring up the subject of past mistakes, McGuire? I didn’t say anything about that.” She searched his features curiously. “I don’t think what you see is what you get with you at all. I think there’s a very different man underneath that hard exterior—maybe a better man than you realize. Maybe he’s the man you’re at war with.”
Quinn stared at her—but not the flat, angry stare he’d directed at her earlier. With a start Jane saw raw pain film his eyes, before all expression was quickly veiled as the thick dark lashes came down. As if he had a headache, he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.
“Dammit, Sister, if I’d known you’d turn out to be this persistent, I would have told you to let me die the first time we met. Is it an emissary you’re sending me now instead of letters?”
His words had been barely audible, but she caught the gist of them. They didn’t make any sense, she thought, confused. “I may not know who I am, McGuire, but one thing I’m sure of is that I’m not your sister. You’ve got me mistaken with someone else.”
He opened his eyes, his gaze meeting hers. “That must be what I’m doing, darlin’,” he said heavily. “But when you quote her almost verbatim, you can’t blame a man for feeling a little beleaguered.” He saw her lack of comprehension. “Just someone I knew once. She’s dead.”
She still didn’t understand what he was talking about, but what did it matter now? she thought in defeat. She hadn’t convinced him to help her, and when she left this place she’d be walking out alone into the night. He’d made up his mind about her. Nothing she’d come up with had persuaded him to change it.
Maybe only his own words could, she thought with sudden hope.
“I’m your unpaid bill, Mr. McGuire,” she said, taking a shot in the dark. “I’m the debt you referred to earlier—the debt that got transferred. She saved your life, didn’t she?”
Jane was just piecing together fragments of his own incomprehensible remarks, not even knowing if they would make any sense to him, but Quinn’s reaction told her that one of those fragments had found its mark. His head jerked up, the pale gaze a little out of focus, and when he spoke his voice was low and strained.
“Dammit, yes—you saved my life. I never denied it, and I never tried to get out of repaying you, Sister. But now you’re trying to save my soul—and to do that, you want me to turn my back on the rest of them. I’m telling you once and for all I can’t do it!”
Jane felt as if she’d just pulled the pin on a grenade and had it blow up in her face. She scrambled to bring some semblance of normality back to this suddenly chilling conversation.
“She’s dead, Quinn. Whoever she was, she’s dead and gone.” Needing only to assuage the naked pain that etched his features, she placed her hand lightly on his clenched fist. “I’m not her, and I’m not her emissary. And whatever debt you feel you owed her, she sounds like the kind of woman who wouldn’t ask more of you than you could pay. I should go now.” Her eyes sought his. “I should have gone before I reminded you of all this. I’m sorry.”
Slowly his hand relaxed. He looked down at it, and at hers, pale against his own tanned skin. “I’ve just come off a bad assignment,” he said softly. “The way things have been going lately, I’m sure the next one will be much the same. I know you’re not her, darlin’. I’m not that far gone. Chalk it up to a slip of the tongue, will you?”
It hadn’t been, she knew. For a moment he hadn’t been seeing her in the seat opposite him, but a ghost—a ghost who, for reasons she’d never know, had some kind of loving hold over him.
“You’re touching me.” His low comment interrupted her thoughts. “I thought you said you didn’t do that.”
“I don’t.” With a jerk she drew her hand back, flustered. “I mean—I didn’t know…I didn’t realize I’d—”
“It’s okay, I won’t report you this time.”
He was actually smiling, she saw with a slight shock. The expression took some of the harshness from his features, and all of a sudden she realized that he was a devastatingly good-looking man. Trust Quinn McGuire, she thought shakily, to keep the most dangerous weapon in his arsenal concealed until he really needed it. With an effort, she brought her attention back to what he was saying.
“The police are right. If a stalker’s determined enough, sooner or later he’s going to accomplish what he sets out to do—unless he loses your trail or someone puts him out of action permanently. And that’s illegal. They call it murder,” he added dryly. “But tell me what’s been happening to you, and I’ll see if I can come up with any kind of strategy.”
At his words, she almost sagged with relief. She was well aware that just making that concession went against the man’s ingrained wariness. They’d gotten off on the wrong foot, and he was still making no promises. But his cautious acceptance of her was a start. She had a ghost to thank for that, she thought.
“I couldn’t sleep at night in the hospital. At first it was just because of the—the pain. But my physical injuries weren’t that bad, and after a few days that wasn’t what was keeping me up.” She swallowed. “I’d lied to the doctors. I’d given them a false name, the most common one I could think of, and told them I was a street person so they wouldn’t ask me too many questions. But I knew they didn’t really believe me.”
“Why did you lie right from the start? If you knew your memory was a blank, wouldn’t you have wanted them to investigate?” Quinn was still playing devil’s advocate, but this time with no edge to his voice.
“I don’t know.” It wasn’t an adequate answer, but it was the only one she had to give him. “I realize how crazy it sounds, but as soon as I regained consciousness and found that I couldn’t remember a single thing about myself, I felt like—” She stopped, her eyes squeezing shut for a second. Opening them, she took a deep breath and went on, feeling his gaze on her. “I felt like I’d been given a second chance. I didn’t want to know who I’d been before. I just wanted to slip into this new, empty life and start fresh.”
“That doesn’t sound so crazy.” His expression was unreadable. “Go on.”
She looked at him. “Anyway, at night the cleaning crew would come through the wards. One of them was an older woman—Olga Kozlikov. She would stop by my bed and talk to me sometimes, when the nurse on duty wasn’t watching. She said she was Russian, and had come here to make a new life for herself.”
“So you had a common bond.” He raised his glass and drained it. “Two refugees, right?”
Jane was startled into an unwilling smile. “I hadn’t thought of it in that way, but you’re right. One night I told her a little about my situation, and she seemed to understand how I felt. She said she’d lived for so long fearing the authorities under the old regime in Russia that she herself still didn’t trust the police, even though she knew it was very different here in America. She told me she’d help me.”
“So she set you up with some clothes and some money and helped you find a job?”
She nodded. “Three or four days after I was admitted, the doctor who’d been monitoring me suggested it might be a good thing if I talked to the police about the accident. That scared me, because there really wasn’t much to tell—a dozen witnesses had given statements saying that I’d run right out into the road, and there’d been no way that the woman who’d hit me was responsible. And although no one knew that I had complete amnesia, I’d told them I had no recollection at all of the accident.”
“And that’s true? You don’t remember it?” He gave her a searching look. “Whatever you’ve told anyone else, it’s important that you don’t lie to me, do you understand? If I think you are, then