Page 23 of The Couple’s Secret (Detective Josie Quinn #23)

Nineteen

Noah’s hand drifted down Josie’s spine. His lips pressed against the top of her head.

With a sigh, she nestled her cheek against his chest. The sound of his heartbeat, sure and steady, made her drowsy.

They were sprawled across their couch, Josie on top of him.

Normally, Trout would be sitting on the floor nearby, whining about them not leaving him any room to lie with them.

But after dinner, Wren had retreated to her room, and he’d gone with her.

It was a rare night when all three of them were home for more than fifteen minutes.

There was a movie that Josie and Noah had wanted to watch.

They’d tried to entice Wren to join them, but she had politely refused.

They put it on anyway, but it hadn’t held their attention.

Cuddling was way better.

“I got a call today from the vow renewal venue,” Noah said. “They need the final deposit. I thought you were going to take care of that.”

Josie buried her face in his chest, muffling her words. “I’m not sure we should do it.”

“What? Why?”

Lifting her head, she grimaced at the fleeting look of hurt in his eyes. “We should be prioritizing Wren, not our vow renewal.”

“We can do both, you know.” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “We already postponed it once. I thought you wanted this.”

There was a note of disappointment—no, defeat—in his voice which made her feel terrible. It had been his idea. She hadn’t realized how important it was to him until this moment. She thought he’d mainly suggested it to make her happy.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I did want it. I do. But I wonder if this is the right time for it. I’m worried about how it will impact Wren.

After talking with her the other day, I think she doesn’t really feel secure with us.

Not yet. I’m worried that she thinks we’ll decide caring for her is too difficult and kick her out.

We should be focused on making her feel like she really has a home with us.

I want her to know that we’re not going anywhere, no matter what. I want her to feel like a priority.”

He nodded along with her words, a pensive expression on his face. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

Josie snuggled deeper into his arms. “We have a few days before we lose our deposit. Just think about it.”

They fell silent, neither of them bothering to watch the movie playing on the television.

Josie’s limbs relaxed in a way that they hardly ever did.

This was as close to inner peace as she ever got.

Noah holding her. His warm body beneath her.

His strong, steady heartbeat against her cheek. Easy silence.

She dozed off and when she opened her eyes again, the credits were rolling on the television screen.

“We should get up,” Noah murmured. “You have to pack.”

Josie groaned. “I don’t want to go.”

The news was out that Tobias Lachlan and Cora Stevens had finally been found.

The moment Riley started calling funeral homes in Brighton Springs, Denton PD was flooded with calls from reporters.

Josie had hosted a press conference earlier that day confirming that they’d been located in the Susquehanna River in Denton and that their deaths had been ruled homicides.

After she and Gretchen met with the Chief and their press liaison, they chose to leave it at that for the time being.

Josie knew this was only the beginning of the furor.

Dalton Stevens had hung up on her three times, but she had managed to get in touch with John Fanning.

He lived in Florida now, but he was flying in for the funerals which were being held in Brighton Springs two days from now.

Josie and Gretchen planned to attend as well.

Sometimes it was instructive to see who came to the funerals of murder victims. They’d meet with Fanning, track down Dalton Stevens, and trace the path Tobias and Cora had taken the night they were killed.

Plus, Zane had offered to speak to them again at his home and Josie really wanted a look inside.

She wasn’t even sure why since they had confirmed that Riley had taken all of Cora’s personal things.

Josie had insisted they could squeeze everything into one day but Chief Chitwood, Gretchen and Noah had told her she was crazy.

“Wait,” Noah said. “You’re telling me that you —Josie Quinn—don’t want to do something work-related?”

He was mocking her. She swatted his bicep and then got distracted by how hard the muscle felt under her touch. “It’s not just because of Wren. You and I haven’t been apart since…you know.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” he said, reaching up to stroke her hair. “We can have phone sex.”

Josie lifted her upper body so she could look into his hazel eyes. “Be serious.”

“I am serious.” He grinned. “We’ve never had phone sex.”

“Noah.”

“Josie.”

She tried to disentangle herself, but he didn’t let her.

Apparently, they’d entered an alternate dimension.

Some realm where everything was reversed because now she was the one who wanted to talk about their feelings while he wanted to pretend they didn’t exist. If this was what personal growth felt like, she’d rather have a root canal.

Still, she pressed on because this was important.

“You’re still having nightmares,” she said, watching the playfulness in his eyes drain away and hating it. The abduction—more specifically, the savage beatings he’d taken while being held against his will—affected him far more deeply than he was willing to admit.

“I sleep without you all the time,” he said, voice low and tense. “When we work opposite shifts.”

“That’s not the same,” Josie said. “I’m never more than a half hour away.”

“I don’t—” His jaw tightened. She wondered if she should have left it alone, but she owed him this after all the times he’d been there for her.

The times he’d patiently pushed her to deal with her trauma head-on.

In the last nine months, her sweet, easygoing, good-humored husband had become frayed around the edges.

He’d seen a therapist as a condition of returning to work but the moment his required sessions were finished, he stopped attending.

Josie had hoped the nightmares would wane with time, but they hadn’t.

Noah slept so poorly at night that she’d found him napping on this very couch during the day so many times that it was starting to bear the imprint of his body—and it was a new couch.

He swallowed, hand drifting down to her ass. With a light squeeze, he said, “I’m fine. I just need you.”

“Right.”

They’d had more sex in the last nine months, even after Wren arrived, than in the entire two years before that.

At first, it was life-affirming. Them needing physical intimacy to reassure themselves that the hell they’d endured was truly over.

That they had one another and no one was going to tear them apart again.

But now, she suspected he was using sex as a way to avoid dealing with his feelings.

He was insatiable. Part of her knew she’d want to kick her own ass later for trying to put a stop to it, but Noah’s mental health took priority.

“It’s one night, Josie.” His hand slipped under the hem of her shirt, tracing circles over the skin of her lower back.

Fighting her body’s response to his touch, she said, “You need to see someone, Noah. Please.”

Again, he tried to blow her off with a teasing smile. “What are you saying? We should see other people?”

With an angry huff, Josie pushed herself off him, untangling her legs from his so she could stand.

Her cheeks heated with anger. “Don’t!” she snapped.

“You almost died. It’s a miracle you don’t have permanent injuries!

It was traumatic. Stop acting like it wasn’t.

Your nightmares are not getting better. It’s been almost a year! You need help, Noah.”

He sat up. Anger flashed through his eyes. Josie was so unaccustomed to seeing it that it set her back on her heels. Maybe this was good, though. She had to get through to him somehow.

“I need help?” he said.

She put her hands on her hips. “You know you do.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

A few years ago, that remark would have leveled her.

Not only was it completely out of character for him, it was a low blow.

The cruel, casual way he tossed it out at her made it worse.

The traumas Josie had endured in her childhood alone had left her emotionally raw.

They’d been mortal wounds to her innocence and sense of self.

Battles she had to fight each and every day well into adulthood.

She’d had no idea how to deal with the aftermath.

She’d had to learn to accept help. It had been painful, but she’d done it.

She’d worked on herself because her actions affected the people she loved—Noah most of all.

Now, she was strong. She’d gotten better at having these messy, unpredictable conversations about feelings.

Well, feelings that weren’t her own. Instead of retreating and licking yet another wound, Josie glared at him.

“Go ahead, lash out at me. It won’t help.

All it’s going to do is make you feel like shit later when you realize what an asshole you’re being. ”

She saw the surprise on his face and the moment he tried to shutter it.

“If you don’t want to go back to the person the Chief made you talk with, we’ll find someone else,” she continued. “Or…or talk to Luke! He went through the same thing.”

Noah stood up. A muscle in his jaw ticked furiously.

Through gritted teeth, he said, “Let me get this straight. You want me to talk to your ex-fiancé about how it feels to be tortured for information you don’t have?

What? Over a couple of beers? How would that go?

‘Hey, I know you almost married my wife, but wanna swap stories of how it feels to be beaten so badly you piss yourself?’ Really, Josie?

Oh, I know, we’ll invite him over to the house that he almost moved into when the two of you were engaged and throw some steaks on the grill.

Maybe over dinner, I can casually ask him how he felt when he was in so much pain that he couldn’t figure out whether dying would be better or worse.

Or what it was like for him lying in a puddle of his own blood and filth, wondering if he did make it back to you, whether he’d be permanently disfigured?

Yeah, that would be fun. Let’s do it. We can compare notes. ”

Her heart was beating too fast in her chest. It was the most he’d said about what had happened to him since he gave his statement to the state police after he was rescued. “Noah, I?—”

“I’m not discussing this with you right now.”

“Okay,” she said softly. Part of her wanted to push him.

Try gently coaxing more details from him.

Not because she needed to hear them—she had her own nightmares about what had been done to him—but because he was as close as he’d ever been to opening up.

At the same time, she didn’t want to leave town with tension or anger between them.

Reaching out, she placed her hand over his heart, relieved when he didn’t recoil.

“But promise me we’ll discuss it after I get back. ”

Before he could answer, they both heard the distinct click of Wren’s door closing upstairs. Josie’s body went rigid. Dread passed over her like a cold gust of air.

Noah tipped his head back, closing his eyes. “Shit.”

Wren had been listening. How much had she heard?

Did it matter? Josie recalled all the articles she’d read about parenting last year when they were preparing to adopt an infant.

Adults fought all the time. Modeling healthy conflict resolution was an important part of parenting.

Sharing stories of your past traumas with your child, when done using age-appropriate language and maintaining boundaries, could strengthen your bond and inspire trust.

Blah, blah, blah.

They weren’t Wren’s parents, and she was already afraid, unsure of her place with them.

“How much do you think she heard?” Noah whispered.

“Enough,” Josie said. It was probably shitty of her to play this card, but she needed Noah to get help. She needed them to work—the three of them. “If you won’t talk to someone for my sake, do it for Wren. She lost everything. She needs us to be at our best right now.”