Free Through the Fire by Donna Hill Page A

Impressed, she turned to him and nearly melted when she saw the half smile and the easy grace of his taut body leaning casually against the off-white wall a few steps from her.
    He shrugged. “It’s home. Want a drink? Something to eat?”
    “Yeah, I’m starved actually. We were working for hours.” She tugged on the hem of her sweatshirt.
    He tipped his head toward the kitchen. “Come on. Tell me what you want.”
    No, you’re not ready for me to tell you what I want, she thought, following him through the open dining room to the kitchen.
    “What do you have a taste for, full-cooked meal, or something light?”
    She walked over to the fridge, where he was poised, peering at its contents. Unlike a lot of men, he kept it fairly well stocked, a variety of food for each meal.
    “Something light sounds fine,” she volunteered.
    “Salad?”
    “Cool.”
    “Beer?” Quinn suggested.
    “Thanks.”
    He handed one to her before taking out the ingredients for the salad. Without much fanfare, he put fresh spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms, and cucumbers on the kitchen counter and a flash memory of doing the very same thing with Nikita on her visit that first night ran through his head. But this time, instead of memories of her opening the unhealed woundof her loss, the recollection didn’t sting, didn’t twist his insides as it usually did. He turned on the water and began washing the vegetables, wondering what that meant.
    “There’s a big bowl in that cabinet over your head,” Quinn said.
    Rae handed him the bowl, smiling. “What can I do?”
    “Relax. Unwind. How’d the session go today?” he asked, momentarily wanting to live vicariously through her.
    “Great. I think.” She took a sip of her beer.
    “Want a glass for that?”
    “No. I’m fine.”
    “So what do you mean, ‘you think’?” He sliced the skin off a cucumber, and glanced at her over his shoulder.
    Rae took a breath and tried to vocalize what she’d been feeling. “Well…I know the work is good. It sounds great and everyone’s loving it. They say it’s the best thing I’ve done.”
    “But…”
    “Something’s missing, Quinn, and I don’t know what it is. It’s just a feeling I have. You know?” She looked at him with her brows furrowed.
    Quinn put the washed vegetables in the bowl, sprinkled some croutons on top, and placed it on the island counter.
    “French or Italian?”
    “French.”
    He took a fresh bottle from the cupboard and placed it next to the bowl. “The plates are on a shelf under your feet.”
    Rae took out two plates, found forks and knives, and put them on the counter, convinced by now that he hadn’t heard her or had chosen to ignore what she’d said.
    Quinn took a seat on the stool. “What do you think it is?” he finally asked, hoping that her answer, any answer would somehow unlock his own mystery, why something that seemed right, remained wrong, untenable.
    “The music is there, every note in place, the lyrics move, but…”
    “But what?” His tone became almost urgent. “Is it you that’s missing—standing on the outside conducting the orchestra of your life from behind a glass wall?” he asked with the precision of a skilled surgeon.
    She looked straight at him as a realizationslowly dawned within her. How could he know, understand what she herself had questioned ceaselessly, unless he, too, had been in that dark space? “ I’m not there. I’m not anywhere,” she confessed, the weight finally being lifted. “It’s as if the soul of me has been erased and I’m just going through the motions.”
    Something inside him opened, shifted, as if a block of ice had been touched by the heat of the sun. He’d needed to hear the words, the words he’d been afraid to say out loud that had danced in his head for three years. He leaned forward, his eyes intense.
    “It’s the same place I’ve been, Rae, what I’ve been feelin’. I can make all the moves, say and do all the right things, and on the