Cold Shadow (Cold Country #2)(7)

Nathan looked at him with patient eyes. All the play gone now. "You couldn't have stopped it. He broke into my cabin the day before. He was waiting for me. If I'd come home that night, it would have been the same. Or worse. Over the years, much of what he said came back to me. It wasn't all about Quinn either. A lot of it was personal. He loathed me, but he wanted to fuck me. It made him hate me more. His homosexual fantasies were messed up. He wasn't gay but the things his uncle did to him … " Nathan shuddered. "He was a monster. After he killed Theo-who he worshiped, by the way-I became the sole focus of his depraved mind. Not Quinn. He sat outside the cabin and watched Quinn and me through the window. He got off on it. He told me things while he …  Shit, Drew, except for the first time, what he did was sometimes tender. He kissed and seduced me and made love to me."

"Does Quinn know that?" Drew heard his voice tremble. He didn't want the image.

"He knows. He was there when the nightmares came. He didn't understand why I didn't fight Harper. He didn't understand how he made me want him. After the initial rape, and the last one, hell, Quinn and I have done worse to each other. By the time you got there, Brody Harper was gone; the creature that lived in his brain that hated fags took over. That's the monster who carved me up."

"You know most of that might not even be real memories. You weren't exactly in your right mind either, you know? You'd retreated to that time in Bosnia. You had a massive concussion, you were … "

Nathan's lips grew tight as he watched the little girl clamber down from the trampoline and run over to the swings. When she was high in the sky, he turned back to Drew, his eyes were cold and distant. "He begged me to fuck him, Walker. He begged me to make love to him like I had Quinn. And I did. In Quinn's fucking Jeep. He told me he loved me. That he was sorry. Then he hung me from the damned thing and tried to kill me. I won't ever forget that. And that is one thing Quinn does not know."

"I won't tell him." Drew's stomach roiled at the mental image. "I wish you hadn't told me."

"Sort of wish I hadn't either. Really don't know why I did." He lifted his hair off his shoulders and squeezed the water out. His eyes were dark, remote. "I told the therapist some of it, not all. The dreams stopped, at any rate. I thought it would stop him, you know. I thought it would keep him from killing me. I was terrified. I was a grown damn man and I was shaking on the floor like a little girl. I did what he wanted. It still killed me. Anyway-"

"Daaadddyyy!" Emma's high pitched screech cut him off. Drew looked up just in time to see her launch her body into the air and land hard on the ground, the swing barely missing her head before she sprinted across the yard to fling herself into Quinn's arms.

"Eeeemmmmaaa!" came the echoing reply of a man happy to see his child. He twirled her around in the air, the muscles in his long, lean arms flexing as he did.

Drew had to draw in a long breath. Damn, Quinn Anders was a fucking god now. He looked almost the same as he had back then, still the same blond hair curling lightly around his face, the same haunting blue eyes. He was thin back then. He was still slim and lean but he'd lost the hungry look, in body and soul. He looked happy, healthy, whole.

"Daddy, Nathan has a friend over to play. His name is Drew and he's a cop like Nathan is." The little girl talked animatedly, her hands moving over her father's face holding his attention to her. "He looks like a prince. Like in The Little Mermaid."

Drew felt the sizzling gleam in Quinn's gaze all the way to his toes. The humor there was unmistakable. "You know, honey, I think you're right. Drew is a very pretty prince."



       
         
       
        

"Daddy, boys aren't pretty, boys are handsome. Don't you know anything? Aunt Natalie, tell Daddy that Drew is handsome." She wriggled around to look beyond Quinn. Natalie dressed in a swimsuit emerged from the shadows of the house, her smile was all for Drew.

"I'm with Quinn, honey. Drew is way too pretty to be handsome. Just like your daddy and my brother." Natalie placed a peck on Quinn's cheek then Emma's. "Drew is prettier."

"Nuh-uh, my daddy is prettier. He has yellow hair just like me and blue eyes."

"Hey, what about me?" Nathan wailed, the smile in his eyes as he watched the three together was dazzling. "I'm pretty, too, and I thought I was your best guy."

"Oh, Nathan, you're my Nathan. You can't be pretty. Someone might come and take you away and that would make my daddy sad."