Quinn - Iris Johansen [7]
“Yes, it could.” He paused. “But the odds are against it. I’m not going to lie to you.”
“I knew that. I’m not a fool. I grew up on the streets, and I know all about the scum who are out there.” She looked wonderingly up at him. “But I have to hope. She’s my baby. I have to bring her home. How can I live if I don’t hope?”
He felt as if he were breaking apart inside. He could feel her pain, and it was becoming his pain. “Then hope.” His voice was hoarse. “And I’ll hope with you. We’ll explore every way we can to find her safe and alive. There’s nothing I won’t do. Just stick with me and give me a little help.”
She hesitated, gazing up at him.
Believe me, he urged her silently. Put your hand in mine, trust me, let me guide you. Something strange is happening here, but it’s not anything bad. I won’t let it hurt you.
She moistened her lips. “Of course I’ll help.” She stood staring at him for a moment. She could feel it, sense what he couldn’t say, he realized. In her pain, she couldn’t define the nature of what she was sensing, but perhaps it would become clear to her later.
As, God help him, it was becoming clear to him.
She glanced away from him as she put the pan in the cupboard. “I’m afraid, you know,” she said unevenly. “I’m afraid all the time. My mother gave up and just went to bed, but I can’t do that. I have to keep fighting. As long as I’m fighting, I have a chance to find Bonnie.”
Tentative trust. It was the first step. Come closer. Let me hold you safe from the storm.
But he could only nod, and say, “Then we’ll fight together. I’ll stay with you until we get through this.” He paused. “If you’ll let me.”
Together. The concept was strange on his lips. He had always been a loner, totally self-ruled, shunning the dependence implied in the word. But he offered it to her.
And Eve didn’t even realize how much it meant.
Or maybe she did. There was something in her expression …
She slowly nodded. “I think that would be very kind.” Her words were oddly formal. “Thank you, Agent Quinn.”
* * *
AFTER HE’D LEFT THE HOUSE, Joe sat in the driver’s seat of his car, staring at the sunny front porch of Eve Duncan’s home. There was nothing sunny about anything inside that house, he thought. There was pain and trouble and a woman who was battling just to stay alive after her reason for living had been taken from her. The short time he’d spent with Eve had been full of disturbing images and emotions. Emotions he hadn’t expected and had wanted to reject. His responses had been completely foreign to who he thought himself to be.
What the hell had happened to him?
He had felt like Sir Galahad wanting to fight dragons and lay them at her feet. She had moved him, possessed him, and made him see himself in a different light.
It was insane. She was only a woman and one who would bring him only trouble. Dammit, he couldn’t even think of sex in connection with her. She was wounded and might remain that way for a long time. Sir Galahad? There was nothing pure about Joe. He was earthy and sexual, and he had always leaned toward being more like wicked Mordred, or maybe Lancelot, who enjoyed toying with a married Guinevere.
Okay, it was temporary insanity. If he couldn’t have her, then what he was feeling would surely pass. That was his nature where women were concerned.
But sex hadn’t been the force that drove him toward Eve Duncan. It might have been a light shimmering in the background, but he hadn’t been aware of wanting her sexually. And that was a first for him. Maybe it had been there, and he hadn’t wanted to admit it.
No, it was something else, powerful, protective, completely without precedent in his experience.
And he wouldn’t put a name to it.
If he didn’t recognize it, then it might go away. Much better for him. Much better for her. Because he wasn’t a man who