He shook his head. "The tree knew—"
"The stupid tree doesn't know anything. Not a damn thing. The way it loomed behind you, all of those sharp wooden branches." She swallowed hard.
He tried to smile. "Thought you'd be rid of me once and for all?"
That earned him another slap.
"Ow." He frowned. "I think I've had enough violence for one—"
Then, without allowing herself to think twice about it, she grabbed his face and kissed him hard on the mouth. He seemed stunned by this unexpected action before he grabbed her and pulled her against him,
raking his fingers along her back. She traced her tongue along his lips and then kissed his face, his cheeks, his forehead, his chin, before focusing on his mouth again.
After a minute, they parted, and she shot up to her feet and paced back and forth. Her cheeks felt even hotter than before.
"Goddammit!" she yelled. "I so don't need this right now!"
He just looked up at her. "Janie—"
"No." She held a finger up to stop him. "Don't say anything. Not a word."
He pressed his lips together.
"I don't like you," she said. "Just for the record."
"Understood."
"You're in the way of what I want. And if you knew what I'm supposed to do…dammit ." She stopped talking.
He finally got to his feet. "Janie—"
"You're a vampire," she cut him off. "Not exactly a good thing for me, considering the business I'm in.
And that isn't even taking into consideration my current assignment."
"Got it."
She pressed her hands against her burning face. "I mean, Lenny writes poetry for me.Poetry . It's bad poetry, sure, but he means it. He likes me. I wish I could like him back the way he wants me to, but I can't. And now this? You're a pain in the ass, Quinn. I don't care what you were like when I was a kid, or what I thought of you then. Times have changed."
"Of course they have."
She let out a long, shuddery sigh. "I have to find Angela."
He nodded. "You're a good sister."
"Damn right I am. And when we get that Eye, none of this means anything. You hear me? It means nothing ."
He kept nodding and stood up from the bench.
If she kept talking, would she forget that all she wanted to do was kiss him again? When she kissed him, nothing else seemed to matter.
"So I think we better go," she said. "Like I said before, as soon as we get the Eye, then it's every man or woman to his- or herself—"
He kissed her again, and she tried to decide if she should slap him again, but then she just sighed shakily against his lips and kissed him back, holding him as tightly to her as it was possible to do while still fully clothed.
And it was true. For a moment, nothing else mattered.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" Something tugged at her shirt. "Could you take our picture?"
Quinn broke off the kiss with a loud groan of annoyance, and Janie looked down. A little girl, about six years old, looked up at her with a smile. The girl held out a pink disposable camera to her. Janie looked behind the little girl at two adults who were examining the now benign tree.
She forced a smile. "Of course."
Quinn let go of her, and she noted that his eyes held a mixture of desire and regret. Regret that they'd been interrupted, or regret that they'd kissed in the first place?
The little girl pushed her camera into her hand and skipped over to her parents and the tree. They followed, but Quinn froze in place before he got any closer.
Janie noted his stricken look. "Wait here."
She squeezed his hand before she went over and got the family to pose in place, taking their picture in front of the thing that had nearly torn Quinn into pieces.
Quinn stared at the monster-killer tree while he waited for Janie and renewed what had happened in his mind over and over.
She'd kissedhim , right? Or had he just imagined that?
He eyed the tree warily.
Some tourist attraction.
"Our car broke down," he heard Janie say. "We had to walk a couple of miles to get here."
"Well, that's not a very nice way to spend such a beautiful day," the mother said. "We'd be happy to give you a ride back into the city."
"We would really appreciate that." Janie smiled and glanced at Quinn. "Isn't that nice of them?"
"Terrific."
The family took some more pictures and a bit of video, and then everyone crawled into their rented trailer home. Their couple's names were Bob and Sue-Ellen. The little girl was Sabrina.
Sabrina sat next to Quinn, staring up at him in a way that made him very uncomfortable.
"You were kissing her," she said.
"Hmm? What did you say?"
"You were kissing her," she said again. "I drew a picture."