Rush (Phoenix Rising) (23 page)

She burst out laughing and pressed her forehead to his chest.

“I’m serious,” Quaid said. “I’m just glad Keira’s not here. Cash is going to have to get moving on that protective skin he was creating at the Castle. I might need it.”

Jessica’s mind made a hairpin turn as she was recalled to their dangerous situation. When she lifted her head and looked into his eyes again, this brief—very brief—interlude seemed so minor in the grand scheme of all they still had to accomplish to be free to pursue a relationship.

She laid her hands against the soft cotton over his chest. “I know it might be hard to see right now with all the stress they’re under, but Kai and Keira would both die before they’d let anything happen to you again. They’re just—”

“Protective. I know. I’ve already gotten that lecture from Cash.” He brushed his thumb over her cheek, his dark gaze following the motion. “I love your freckles. Sometimes they look like they’re shimmering when you dream.”

Surprise parted her lips.

Quaid kissed her softly. “Ready to face them?”

Confused again, but not willing to delve into the whole dreaming scenario after having so successfully dodged it, she said, “That’s my line.”

Quaid opened the door and Jessica stepped out into the hallway, her body tingling, her heart yearning, her mind twisting.

Mitch and Kai’s argument met Jessica’s ears halfway down the hall.

“What now?” Quaid asked.

“Who knows?”

They rounded the corner into the living room and Jessica glanced toward the kitchen, where Kai had been before Jessica had wandered and ended up in the bathroom up against the wall having sex with her husband.

How
had that happened, exactly?

“You would
ruin
chili with Heinz 57?” Kai asked.

“Hardly ruining it, Ryder.” Mitch still sat at the dining room table, shirtsleeves rolled up on his forearms. He was leaning sideways in a tired slump, one hand holding a pencil over a legal pad, the other propping his head up with his hand deep in his hair. His gaze ran over the screen in front of him, its blue-white light reflecting softly off his glasses. “It’s an award-winning recipe.”

“Award winning where? The Internet?”

Mitch turned, hooked one arm over the back of his chair and looked into the kitchen. He acknowledged Jessica and Quaid headed that way with a lift of his chin, but kept a scowl for Kai. “The woman who made that recipe for me studied at the Cordon Bleu.”

Kai leaned into the counter, arms stretched out and gripping the edges, his expression confident and superior, like he owned the kitchen. “And did you eat the chili before or after you had sex?”

Mitch opened his mouth, poised his pencil for retort and froze. Then he deflated. He turned back to the table, tossed his pencil on the paper and scrolled through the webpage on screen with a muttered, “You prick.”

Kai laughed, the sound deep and rich and familiar, bringing back all the fun memories from Jessica’s days as a firefighter.

“I don’t care what you say,” Mitch said, “that recipe I gave Brody is good shit. Have one of the guys make yours and one make mine and we’ll let Quaid decide.”

“Decide what?” Quaid asked.

But Jessica already knew. “Which one you like better.”

“What difference does eating before or after sex make?” Quaid asked, his frown creating that positively adorable little V between his eyes.

Jessica shook her head, prepared to tell Quaid that Kai and Mitch were full of shit, but Kai spoke first. “Everything tastes good after great sex, brother.”

“Good, because I’m starving.” Quaid’s hungry eyes scanned the counter in front of them, which was covered in freshly cut fruit, and stopped on the mixture Kai had sitting in the blender. “Can I have some of whatever that is?”

Oh, hell.
Jessica’s stomach squeezed in mortification. She prayed the comment would go right over Kai and Mitch’s heads. Oh, but no, she couldn’t be that lucky. They both went silent. In fact, everyone went silent, including Teague, Alyssa and Cash on the sofa. The only voices filling the space were Kat’s and Mateo’s.

Kai’s gaze snapped to Jessica’s. Mitch twisted toward the kitchen and hooked his arm over the back of the chair again, this time pulling off his glasses. Quaid, totally oblivious, picked up a piece of mango from the cutting board in front of Kai, studied it a moment, then popped it in his mouth.

And even before he said it, Jessica knew what was coming.

“Mmm, that
is
amazing. I never had it before, but it’s great now.” He picked up another piece and held it out to Jessica. “Jessie, try it. Tell me if it’s better after.”

Kai snorted a laugh he’d been trying to hold. And Jessica caved.

“Jesus Christ.” Jessica covered her eyes and dropped her head.

Kai and Mitch burst out laughing and Jessica’s face burned red hot.

Kai picked up a half-cut mango and threw it at Mitch, who caught it at the last second. “You idiot. I didn’t even feel it because you were pissing me off.”

“You’re sick, dude.” Mitch pitched the mango back at Kai, narrowly missing his head. It bounced off the stainless-steel refrigerator and hit the floor. “You need to stay out of their business. You need to get laid, dude.”

She dropped her hand and found Quaid frowning in confusion, his gaze alternating between the two men, who were laughing so hard they were crying. Quaid stuffed mango into his mouth three slices at a time.

Jessica pushed the cutting board out of reach, laughing. She couldn’t help it. The combination of Quaid’s pure innocence and Mitch and Kai’s antics was hilarious. She just wished it hadn’t been over her sex life. Especially now. When her and Quaid’s relationship was far from settled.

“No more, Quaid, you’re going to make yourself sick.”

He eyed the mango longingly and licked his fingers. Then he sent a cautious glance at Jessica. “What did I do?”

“You put us back in the firehouse fishbowl.” She sighed, knowing he didn’t understand. “Nothing. It’s fine.”

She pounded Kai’s arm with a fist before wandering over to the sofa and sinking into one end sideways, curling her feet under her. She had to hold her breath to keep from groaning. Her body hurt in a few very strategic locations. Which brought back a flash of erotic memories. And that nagging sense of discontent.

When she looked up, everyone was staring at her, part curiosity, part amusement. “I didn’t plan it. . . .” She shrugged. “Just kinda . . . happened.”

Quaid came in sucking a giant smoothie through a straw and handed a drink to her.

“Made one for you, too, Jess,” Kai said, subdued laughter in his voice. “Both have energy boosts.”

She shot a look over her shoulder toward Kai cleaning up in the kitchen, then looked at Quaid, sucking down the smoothie like water. “Slow down on that, babe, or you’re going to be sick tonight.”

He pulled the straw from his mouth and smiled. Jessica’s stomach went light, like she’d swallowed air. That was his first real smile.

And, oh, he was so handsome, so purely Quaid, her heart ached.

 

When she looked at him like that, Q’s chest filled until it felt like it would crack open. Only, it wasn’t a happy look. She was sad. She looked at him like she
wanted
to love him, if only . . .

If only he could be Quaid. The Quaid she remembered. The Quaid he’d once been.

And he wanted her to love him badly enough to do what he could to find that man inside.

Q sat on the sofa next to Jessica and turned to Teague. He wasn’t sure why, Teague just seemed like the go-to guy. “So how do we do this?”

“We’ve been talking,” Teague said. “And we were thinking pictures instead of just, you know, stories.”

“I made a Facebook page for our team,” Kai said, “a long time ago, before the warehouse fire. Training, goofing around, incidents.”

“Facebook?” Q asked.

Kai waved that topic away. “They’re pictures.”

“Pictures,” Q echoed. That felt . . . comfortable? Hell, no. “Yeah. Pictures will work.”

“Q or Quaid . . . ?” Alyssa said from her position beneath Teague’s arm.

Neither really felt right anymore, like he didn’t fit into either mold. “Either.”

“You really do need to speak up if you feel overwhelmed or you experience any pain in your head.”

He nodded. “Fine.”

“And if you have any flash of memory,” Alyssa said, “we should also stop and explore that before moving on. Otherwise, it could get lost in more images.”

“Okay.”

Teague looked at his wife, who nodded, and he picked up his closed laptop from the side table. When he opened it and tapped buttons, apprehension crawled beneath Q’s skin and he reached for Jessica. When his hand found empty sofa, he turned. She was gone.

Kai came up behind the sofa and took Q’s empty glass. “Showtime?”

“Yeah, where’s Jessica?”

“I’m right here,” she said from behind Kai.

He reached for her and she came to the back of the sofa and took his hand, her other hand holding a glass of water. Kai rounded the sofa and sat on the floor, and Teague set the computer on the coffee table in front of everyone.

“Come sit,” he said to Jessica.

She shook her head, her expression tight, guarded. “I’m going to stand.”

“Okay, here we are.” Teague drew Q’s attention. “Do we want to start with recent and move backward or oldest and move forward?”

When Jessica pulled her hand from his, Q leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. A beehive had been planted in his stomach. Among a turbulent, rushing river. With moss-covered rocks wedged beneath his ribs. And mosquitoes sucking his blood. He glanced at Jessica again.

Her glassy stare cleared long enough for her to say, “Oldest to newest makes most sense.”

Teague shrugged. “Oldest to newest it is.”

He clicked into something called a “photo album” and there were several separate albums labeled by year. Teague clicked onto the earliest year and pulled up the first image—a group picture, taken in front of the grill of a fire engine. Seven people posed there, three crouching low, four standing behind.

Q recognized the faces—the faces of some of those in this room, only younger. And happier. So much happier. A sudden, dark weight made his chest very heavy.

“Seth is the one you haven’t met,” Kai said. “The blond, top right.”

Q glanced over Seth’s face without any hint of recognition. Then his eyes focused in on the face right next to Seth’s—
his
face. Quaid’s face. No mistake, Q was staring at
his own
face. His throat dried up as he looked closer.

His head was tipped back and to the side, his mouth open and wide in a smile, as if someone had just made a joke he’d found very funny. Arms crossed over his chest, butt leaning against the fire engine’s shiny chrome grill, legs relaxed and crossed at the ankles, he looked completely at ease and carefree.

A chill settled inside Q. And something layered alongside. Something ugly. And dark. Something beyond anger. Beyond fury.

Rage.

The first hints of the rage he knew would eventually try to devour him, possess him. Rage toward whoever had taken from him all he was about to see. Rage toward whoever had substituted life as a test subject for a full, meaningful life as a firefighter. A life with friends who’d loved him. A woman—a beautiful, compassionate, intelligent woman—who’d loved him.

Q tore his eyes from the photo and looked behind him. Jessica was gone.

Q
stared at a photo with a burned structure in the background, fire engines with bright red lights in the foreground, water spouting from hoses pointed at flames dancing from doors and windows. He swore he could feel those flames lick his gut with excitement. The same way the thought of being with Jessica again turned his blood to fire.

“You fucking fell down that ladder, dude, remember?” Kai laughed out the words.

When Alyssa realized there was no way she would be able to contain their language, she put the kids and their toys into a bedroom.

“Don’t even start,” Teague said, “or stories about you tripping over hose line will start coming out.”

Teague clicked to the next picture, an image of two firefighters, their backs to the camera, but looking at each other, so their profiles were visible. A fire of some kind blazed in front of them, which created a dynamic, blurred background for the image. The firefighters were dressed in typical yellow gear, both with red helmets. The taller one wore the helmet, the shorter one held it under an arm.

His gaze paused on the shorter firefighter’s hands. Twirling hair. It was a woman, and she was holding her helmet under her arm while she twisted her hair into a bun. Long, thick, copper hair. His heart thumped hard. He squinted at her face. Jessica. That was Jessica’s profile. God, she looked so . . . young.

“How old was Jessica there?” Quaid asked.

“Would say . . .” Teague tilted his head. “Twenty-four-ish.”

Really basic questions Q didn’t know the answers to popped into his mind. “How old is she now?”

“Thirty-one,” Kai said.

Q looked over at Kai. “How old am I?”

A stark look passed through Kai’s eyes before he forced a smile. “You’ll be thirty-three in a little over a week.”

Thirty-three.
Was that old? Was that young?

He turned back around and studied the picture. It spoke of comfort, camaraderie. Intimacy.

Teague continued clicking through pictures. Photo after photo after photo—in the fire station working, in the fire station messing around, outside training, at actual fires, working on the engines, playing basketball, sitting in lounge chairs with drinks. In every damn one Quaid was smiling. Even when soot or dirt covered his face, maybe even more so, Quaid smiled at the camera.

Q quickly lost track of anything the others were saying. He didn’t need their commentary to know all he needed to know. The photos said everything that mattered to Q, at least everything that mattered right now.

He could see the relationships he’d had with the men around him, and with Keira and Jessica. They’d handed each other tools, let each other climb on their shoulders to reach something, teamed up together to accomplish a task, risked their own safety to save another in danger, taught each other, teased each other. They high-fived, punched arms, slapped shoulders. And they hugged. Guys to guys. Girls to girls. Guys to girls. They all hugged. A lot. In nearly every photo someone had an arm around someone else.

And, God, they smiled. And laughed.

In every damned picture. Their happiness . . . no, their joy—pure, vivid, passionate joy—was palpable.

Then there were the photos of Jessica. Q watched the progression of the relationship between Quaid and Jessica. From interest to flirtation, flirtation to relationship, relationship to love. Yes, Quaid had definitely loved her. And he’d reveled in the way she’d clung to him. He’d leaned into her, held tight, kissed her head.

By the time they reached the last image, Q could see the man Jessica had fallen in love with. He could see why she’d fallen in love with him. And he could also see that man was not inside him anywhere.

While Q might have Quaid’s feelings of loving Jessica, he didn’t have the memories that supported those feelings and he knew without a doubt, what he felt for her now was
nothing
in comparison to what Quaid had felt for her.

Q focused on the screen, not sure if he could take any more. An arrow overlaid the image. “What’s this?”

Teague and Kai shared a look. Teague said, “It’s a video.”

“Of what?”

“Uh . . . just your birthday one year. I don’t think it will add anything to the pictures.”

Q thought about seeing this Quaid in living, breathing color. Hearing his voice. Seeing his mannerisms. He was desperate to pick up
something,
some indication that he’d once been this man. “Play it.”

The video began in an industrial kitchen, obviously in a firehouse judging by the men in navy blue uniforms, familiar to Q now after that barrage of photographs. He recognized the youthful faces of Kai, Teague, Luke and Seth. A few other men were there, too, people Q didn’t know.

On the screen, Kai pulled bowls out of the refrigerator and piled them in his arms, while Teague and Luke held something that looked like a plastic pipe and Seth dug in a kitchen drawer. The other men stood around laughing and joking.

“Who’s holding the camera?” Q asked.

“Keira,” Teague said.

“Where’s—”

Q didn’t get Jessica’s name out of his mouth before the door to the kitchen on screen opened and she flew in, her hair down and flowing over her shoulders with her forward movement. She held a brightly wrapped box under her arm and she wasn’t in uniform. She was wearing faded jeans that fit nice tight hips and hung low on her waist. She dropped the package and her purse on a nearby counter, slid off her coat and unwrapped a knit scarf from her neck.

When Jessica looked toward the camera, her grin was so vivid, Q swore he could see all the way to her soul. Her eyes sparkled with joy and excitement. And, God, so much love. The stark difference between the woman on the screen and the woman crying after they’d had sex earlier made Q want to kill someone. Made him want to find the bastards who’d started this whole nightmare and rip their throats out.

Then, her gaze darted to the guys and her mouth opened into a surprised “O.” Her hand flew there. She shook her head and, despite her obvious horror, started laughing. “Oh, my God. You know I’m going to get blamed for this. He’ll
kill
me. Sending him flowers at work was already pushing his limits. Did they get here? Has he seen them?”

“They just came,” Keira said. “He hasn’t seen them yet.” Kai had the bowls on the counter. Teague and Luke had brought the tube over and Seth, his grin wide, spooned a thick frothy white substance into the tube.

Hands on both cheeks, she groaned, then looked up and around. “Where is he?”

“Your sister has him on the phone upstairs,” Keira said. “We asked her to call and wish him happy birthday and keep him talking.”

Q sent a look toward Kai. “What is that thing?”

“We affectionately refer to
that thing
as the Master Blaster Two Thousand,” Kai said. “A handmade, state-of-the-art, whipped-cream-shooting weapon of lethal proportions. Observe the highly aerodynamic chamber of compressed air duct-taped onto the carefully salvaged PVC pipe.”

The thump of footsteps sounded from the computer and Kai pointed at the screen. “Hey, man, this is the good part.”

Q found the people on screen suddenly serious. “Here he comes,” Kai said, his voice filled with urgency. “Seth, finish up.”

They all went into another room, where recliners sat in a semicircle around a big screen of some kind. Behind those, the dining room table sprawled beneath a row of windows; balloons and flowers sat in the center of the table.

Kai, Teague and Luke whispered to each other as they took up their positions inside a doorway through which Q could see the stairwell beyond.

Kai glanced at Teague and Luke. “On three.”

Q could see Quaid’s lower legs as he came down the steps toward the living room. This was surreal. Bizarre. Watching himself . . . a man he couldn’t remember being, relive an event . . . he couldn’t remember living.

“One . . . two . . .”

The real Quaid turned the corner into the room, his head down. When he looked up, he slowed, eyes narrowed.

“Three!” Kai said.

Quaid stopped short, put his hands up, and turned his face away. “Oh, shit!”

Teague let the Master Blaster spray while Luke steadied the aim. Whipped cream spewed from the crude device, coating Quaid’s perfect navy uniform. He cursed again and took a few stumbling steps back, laughing. In less than five seconds, the man was coated, head to toe, in snow-white foam.

How on earth could Q
not
remember that?

On the screen, everyone broke into boisterous laughter, catcalls and whistles. Laughter also erupted out around Q. The camera shook with Keira’s amusement. Quaid stood frozen, arms held wide, mouth sputtering whipped cream. He slowly brought both hands to his face, wiping his eyes clear.

Q couldn’t help it. He laughed, too. But, he ached with the absence of this memory.

Keira panned out with the camera and Q’s gaze locked on Jessica. She was standing to the side, both hands covering her mouth and laughing so hard, tears streamed down her cheeks. The sight made Q’s mouth curve, and made his eyes grow damp.

In the video, Quaid grinned and licked his lips. Shaking his head, he stared down at himself. When he looked up, he raised one white arm, dripping with froth, and pointed at Jessica. “You.”

She gasped around laughter while shaking her head, barely able to speak. “N-no! It wasn’t me.”

He sauntered toward her, slowly, that dangerous grin in place beneath so much whipped cream it was ridiculously comical. Yet, Q was mesmerized by the cocky confidence of this Quaid. The swagger and humor and good nature. Q wasn’t any of those things.

Jessica backed away, hands out, choking on the laughter still trying to bubble out of her. “I swear. It was Seth.”

Keira panned the camera to Seth, who was doubled over with laughter. Everyone around Q laughed, too.

“I’m so nice,” Quaid said, “I’m going to share.” He laughed, low in his throat, grabbed Jessica’s arms, circled her waist and pulled her fully against him.

“Oh, God!” she screeched and squirmed and laughed, gasping for air. “Quaid, you—”

Whatever she was going to say got cut off by Quaid’s mouth—as he kissed her.

Q straightened. Eyes wide, lips parted, he watched his alter ego kiss Jessica. He heard her murmur, some mixture of surprise and pleasure that speared heat between his shoulder blades. He watched as both of them slowly closed their eyes in pleasure.

Their expressions were lost in what Q could only describe as . . . bliss. Quaid slid his hand behind her neck, tilted his head, and opened his mouth over hers. Another murmur sounded in her throat. This one softer, longer. And the way she kissed him back, with so much passion, want, need . . . Q’s throat tightened, making it hard to breathe. Q had definitely not kissed her like that. In comparison, Q had been rough and crude. He thought of how he’d taken her in the bathroom, equally as rough and crude.

The terrible weight of disappointment and self-disgust made Q sink deeper into the sofa.

In the room around the lovers on screen, their coworkers hooted and howled and whistled. Quaid pulled back, wiping at the cream he’d left on Jessica’s face and the way they looked at each other hollowed out Q’s heart. Without even an inkling of doubt, he knew he didn’t have the capacity to love like that. He was too damaged. Too scarred. And what he saw in their eyes had to have been only a fraction of what they’d felt.

Seth yelled, “Showers!” from the laptop and Q focused to see the man’s huge grin in place, triumphant fist in the air. Followed by the rest of the group chanting, “Showers! Show-ers! Show-ers!”

Quaid grinned, leaned down and swept Jessica into his arms. Then he turned and started for the stairs. He kissed her until he reached the stairs and when he broke the kiss to see where he was going, Jessica’s mouth slid to his neck, her hand clawed at his hair.

Quaid cut a quick glance over his shoulder. “Get the hell out of here, O’Shay.”

“Not a chance, Legend,” she said from behind the camera. “You do realize fraternizing on state property, and while on duty is grounds for—”

“Then you should be fired a few times over, sugar.” He barked a laugh. “You don’t think I know what you and Luke are doing in that engine bay? You may be working, but it ain’t on fire apparatus.”

Quaid lengthened his strides, got a head start off the stairs, turned into the bathroom and shut the door in Keira’s face. The sound of a lock clicked. And Jessica’s laugh penetrated the door, drifting out of the screen, traversing all those empty years, shivering over Q.

Whoever was behind this hadn’t just taken five years from Q. They’d taken his whole goddamned past. And his whole goddamned future.

 

Gil Schaeffer held his pipe by the bowl and sucked a deep lungful of his newest tobacco. A rich, smooth blend of three different quality tobaccos, Cube’s uniqueness came from a struggle for power between its sweet and fruity elements. Apropos to his situation he’d thought when he’d bought it.

He leaned back in the ancient leather chair and appreciated the sexual splendor of the dancer atop the bar in front of him. He’d chosen the back parlor of the Alibi Club tonight, hardly in the mood to mingle. Truthfully, he needed a place to relax so he could think. He couldn’t say watching Courtney flatten her bare belly and double D’s on the glossy mahogany less than a foot away
relaxed
him, exactly. But here he could shake off that uptight, senatorial layer he was finding more and more restrictive. Sometimes damn suffocating.

“Mmm,” Courtney hummed, red-thong-clad ass in the air, knees bent, thighs spread wide, bare breasts rubbing the bar.

He found himself wondering what they coated the thing with to make the women’s skin slide across it that way. Then wondered why this was the first time he’d ever noticed.