Quinn's Woman by Susan Mallery

Author:Susan Mallery [Mallery, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781459294677
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2013-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Quinn’s cell phone rang early the next morning. As there was only one person with the number, he knew who was on the other end.

“Reynolds,” he said when he’d pushed the talk button.

“Hey, Quinn.”

“Major.”

“How’s it going?”

Quinn wasn’t sure why his commanding officer was calling. Major Ron Banner didn’t do social. Either he’d received the report or he’d made a decision. Quinn wasn’t sure which he wanted it to be. If his boss was looking for an answer...Quinn didn’t have one yet.

“I’m doing great,” Quinn told him.

“Good. You’re visiting family, right?”

“Yeah. Big reunion kind of thing.”

“Sounds fun.”

Quinn picked up his coffee. “But it’s not the reason you called.”

“Fair enough. The report’s back.”

“And?”

“The shrinks think it’s a good thing you refused to take out the target. He was your former mentor, you had an emotional connection with him, and the situation wasn’t life-and-death. They feel that if circumstances had been different, had he been threatening innocents, you would have taken care of him. They called it controlled resistance. It seems you have a moral code.”

“Who knew,” Quinn said dryly, more than able to read between the lines. Yeah, the psychologists had given him a gold star. That didn’t matter squat to his CO. “You’re still pissed I didn’t follow orders.”

“It makes my life complicated,” his boss admitted. “But you know it happens.”

“Because your team of assassins is a temperamental bunch?”

“Something like that. You passed on a kill. What I want to know is if it’s going to happen again. The shrinks say you’re ready and willing to return to the job. I’m not so sure. You still want to be a killer, Quinn?”

Those in charge, those who wrote the handbooks, passed out assignments and made sure the men were debriefed, psychoanalyzed and kept happy used words like targets and operatives. Quinn, his boss and those on the team called it like it was.

When he wasn’t busy rescuing Americans from sticky situations and honing his skills, he was moving around the world, taking out those who had been deemed undesirable. He was an assassin on the government payroll. As Ron said—a killer.

Quinn considered the question and realized he didn’t have an answer. Not yet. “I don’t know. I need more time.”

“Take as much as you’d like. I only want you onboard if you’re a hundred percent. No second-guessing, no conscience.”

“Fair enough.”

“You’ll stay in touch?”

“Sure thing.”

He heard Banner making notes in a file.

“Say another three weeks?” his boss asked.

“Fine.”

Quinn disconnected the call and dropped his cell phone on the bed. In three weeks his CO would call again and ask the same question. “You still want to be a killer?” That time Quinn planned to have an answer.

Did he? Sometimes he told himself it was just a job. He was given an assignment and he carried it out. At the end of the month, he got paid. No big deal.

But lately things weren’t so simple. He knew he could go back to work tomorrow and do a hell of a job. But what

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