Page 1 of One Night Entanglement
1
Quinn
“According to the laws of the great Commonwealth of Kentucky, that’s not true. Legally, I’m still your husband… and you, Cecily, are still my wife.”
Famous last words, or better known as the words that got me where I am right now. Which is in the guest room of Cecily's house. I've been here before. This place used to be her grandmother's, and the two of us would come here to escape both sets of our parents and be alone as teenagers. Her grandmother was the sweetest lady, but she always trusted us way too much.
I'm still surprised Cecily never got pregnant.
Tossing my bag onto the bed, I unzip it and take out the carefully folded clothes inside before putting them in the dresser drawers Cec indicated I could use. When I've got everything else out, my gaze catches on the box that holds my Bronze Star. Everyone told me I should display it and be proud of it, but I can't be, not when we all lost so much to be able to get it.
"Quinn, I'm fixing something to eat." Cecily's soft voice floats down the hallway from the kitchen. "Do you want anything?"
Walking slowly, I exit the room and approach where she's sitting at an old dining room table. "You don't have to feed me. You're already letting me stay here."
She cuts her eyes over to me. "Letting you stay here is a stretch. You're paying rent, and it's going to keep me from being foreclosed on."
"Better than staying in my truck," I shrug, clearing my throat. "Been doing that for the last few weeks."
"No matter what the two of us have been to each other in the past, I hate that you couldn't come to me when you got home and didn't have a place to go."
I shrug again. "Hate that you couldn't come to me when you were threatened. We've both made mistakes. The one thing we've been able to do since we were in middle school, though, is count on each other."
She makes a noise in her throat. "We have a lifetime of that, Quinn."
"We do, and I'm not asking we get into that right now. I don't want to, but I need to know if you're really feeling unsafe here."
She sighs heavily as she gets up and walks over to the stove. I try not to watch the way her hips sway, the way her shorts hug the curve of her ass. "Mac and cheese with hamburgers good for you?"
"Yeah, and don't sidestep the fuckin' question."
"If you're here? I don't feel unsafe. I know you've been in a war zone. Judging by the new muscles and ink you're sporting, I have no doubt you can protect me."
That little touch of vulnerability causes a clench in my chest. I try to tell myself her noticing the tattoos and muscles doesn't mean shit either. "I will. If they come for you, they're going to wish they never had."
"You're different, Quinn," she smirks. "You've always been strong, always had a dangerous air about you. There were moments when we were teenagers, I'd look at you and I'd be scared, although I knew you wouldn't hurt me. I could see that you would do anything to protect the people you care about. Now it looks like things have changed all the way around."
It doesn't escape me that she's saying she seems to know I've done things I'm not proud of. Then again, she doesn't know what I've been through, has no idea what I've seen, and probably can't even comprehend what the hell didn't get back to the media here. "Shit has been crazy for me the past few years, Cec. It's not anything I really want to talk about, but realize the government taught me how to kill people."
Her shoulders stiffen as she turns to the stove and continues cooking. "So tell me what you plan on doing now that you're back."
This I can talk about. "My military experience streamlined my qualifications for the police academy, thankfully. I went and did the academy, then came back. Just got back two weeks ago, and got hired by Bellehaven PD. They needed a school resource officer over at the high school, and here we are. I start tomorrow."
"Think you're going to enjoy it?" She glances back at me over her shoulder.
It takes everything I have to push away the memory of us fucking in a tent our senior year of high school when our parents thought we were on a field trip with our friends. Instead, we'd lied and gone out to Red River Gorge, pitched a tent, and spent three days screwing like rabbits. It was there I'd asked her to marry me. Her eyebrows are raised, expecting an answer. "Yeah." I clear the memory from my throat and my head. "I've missed the routine of being in the service. Having a reason to get up at a certain time in the morning, and working with people.As usual, I'm a loner, and there needs to be a reason I'm around others."
She laughs. "You're the only person I know who can be by himself for twenty-three hours of a day and be happy about it."
"Yeah..."
Only I'm not as happy about it as I used to be. Now when I'm alone, the memories I've been running from, they rear their ugly heads, and they don't let go.
2
Cecily
It should have been awkward. We were married, for fuck’s sake. For a hot minute, yeah. But still—I stood in front of a judge in Bumfuck, Tennessee, and swore to love, honor, and cherish him until death do us part. Now he’s sleeping on the narrow twin bed in the guest room of a house that won’t be mine for very much longer, and it feels like I’ve got a stranger here.
