He squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll get there. These things take patience.”
She turned her grey-eyed gaze—which seemed to reach into his soul—in his direction. “Why do you do this?”
“What? Hang out with a gorgeous woman? I’d think that self-evident.”
She rolled her eyes. “No. Why do you use your abilities to help others? You’re in just as much danger as I am from these people. So why?”
He considered her earnest expression. Unable to resist, he reached out and tucked a silky strand of hair behind her ear. Beyond a soft flush on her cheeks, she didn’t react or stop waiting for an answer.
Making a snap decision, he whipped out his phone and texted Max his plans. Then he bent down and grabbed Quinn’s purse, holding it out to her. “Come on.”
She regarded him with raised eyebrows. “Where are we going?”
“I need coffee—good coffee—if I’m going to talk about why I do what I do.”
Quinn took a sip of her coffee and cocked her head at Cain, who sat across the table from her in the cozy, boho-style shop, a look of pure bliss on his face as he gulped down scalding coffee. Black.
“I don’t get it,” she said.
He gave a hum of enjoyment as he lowered his cup. “Don’t get what?”
“I like coffee as much as the next girl, but, while this is good, I don’t taste much difference from the coffee shop on the corner by my house.”
“Then you’re not a true coffee lover.” Cain grinned, and the impact struck her in the solar plexus. He didn’t smile often, and now she was kind of grateful for that fact. Over the last ten days, her awareness of Cain had blossomed into full-blown attraction.
Despite the fact that he was a battle-hardened Special Ops leader, Cain had a chivalrous streak a mile wide. Small thing like holding doors. Bigger things like taking her out for coffee to try to get her mind off the people they weren’t saving.
Fact was, she liked him—as a person. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with that.
Cain leaned back and propped his foot on his knee. “You asked why I do this?”
She took another sip of her coffee. “Yes.”
“I went into the navy as soon as I graduated from high school. With my…special abilities, which include ability learning, enhanced marksmanship, and weapons proficiency, I did well. Eventually, I became a S.E.A.L. and spent several years putting my skills to use for my country. I’d like to think I saved lives.”
That explained the dangerous edge she could sense in him. And the way he moved. The way he entered a room and took in every detail. Despite the humbleness, truth rang in his words, and she could sense what he wasn’t saying. He definitely saved lives.
“Why’d you quit?”
“I got a call from my parents. My sister was missing. Like me, she had inherited their telepathic abilities, hers manifesting in a true psychic ability to see the future.”
Darkness infiltrated his voice now, and Quinn wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what came next.
“Max was her fiancé. She’d met him through mutual friends like us. Together, we managed to track her down.”
Quinn closed her eyes. “It was too late, wasn’t it?”
Cain twisted his cup in his hands, gaze far away, trapped in memories which made his mouth flatten in a grim line. “Yeah.” He took a swig of coffee.
“Like you, she’d been taken to be used for her skills. When she deliberately started feeding them false futures, losing them millions, they killed her. Two days before we found her.”
Unable to help herself, Quinn leaned forward and put her hand on his arm. He tensed under her touch, not in a psy-to-psy kind of way, more like he hadn’t been expecting it, but she refused to pull away. “I’m sorry.”
He stared into her eyes for a long moment, and somehow she knew that he’d taken comfort, even a small amount, from her words and her touch.
“Yeah,” he muttered.
“Delilah was involved in our finding Casey, my sister, in the first place. She offered me and Max a job, hooked us up with the Thor look-a-likes, and the rest is history.”
Quinn’s lips twitched at his description of the twins. That was how she thought of them. But she wasn’t letting him just skip over the important part. “You couldn’t save her, so you save others now.”
Again, that steady gaze reached inside her. “Is that what your powers tell you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t need to be a Psy to see that.” She placed a hand on the side of his face, his beard tickling her palm. “You’re a good man, Daniel Cain. You would have saved your sister if you could. Your sister would have seen that. She knew you loved her.”
If she hadn’t been touching him, she would’ve missed how much her words shook him up. He tensed under her hand, and desolation—bleak and dark—filled those blue eyes. “I know,” he muttered.
She lowered her hand but jerked when he suddenly grabbed hers before she could sit back. “You remind me of her sometimes,” he murmured, soft and low. “Same feisty streak. Same determination to help others. Same caring heart.”
Her turn to be shaken now—he seemed to see her. The real her. If she wasn’t careful, she could fall for Daniel Cain. Every doubt associated with that thought made her panic and pull back. Time to do something to cut through the thick intimacy which surrounded them.
She squeezed his hand. “I like her already.”
He smiled and let her go. “Same way of not letting anyone get too close.”
Her eyes widened as she caught the teasing twinkle in his. Did he want to get close?
Part of her wanted an answer to that, and part of her didn’t. She definitely needed some distance, and they had more important things to deal with right now. “We need to get these guys, Cain. Before they ruin another life.”
“We will.”
CHAPTER 6
Cain sat, his butt numb, in the uncomfortable seat in their interpretation room and listened as Quinn translated with amazing ease while the delegates on the other side of the glass did their thing. Even though he could do the same when he touched her, the skill never ceased to impress him. Yes, her gift gave her an advantage, but still, her job demanded cognitive prowess to both listen and speak almost simultaneously while jumping through additional linguistic hoops such as syntax, humor, and colloquialisms.
Plus, he could listen to the husky rasp of her voice all day and never tire of the sound. Lately, he’d taken to fantasizing about hearing her voice as they made love. A fantasy not helped by the soft flowery scent of her skin, which filled the small space and surrounded him. The same thing happened at night when they slept. Or she slept, and he lay there wide awake.
Cain gave himself a mental shake and focused on the Mauritolla delegation. His attention needed to be on Max at this instant, not on the woman in the booth beside him. After the first week of getting nowhere, Cain ordered Max to employ his Illusion Manipulation, disguising himself as one of the Bahamian delegate’s entourage, who sat beside the Mauritollans, in an attempt to get someone closer. That had been two weeks ago.
With a weary sigh, Quinn flipped off her microphone and pushed back from the desk, her chair rolling silently across the carpeted floor. “Should be it for the day.”
A quick check told him the U.S. delegate was speaking now, giving him and Quinn a break for a while, as they had no need to translate to English.