by Helen Brooks
As he walked back into the cottage the telephone began to ring, and, seeing that Candy was still upstairs, he put the carriers by the door and walked across to lift the receiver, stating the number as he did so.
There was a moment's pause the other end, and then a female voice said uncertainly, 'Quinn? Is that you?'
'Essie?'
'Oh, it is you!' Quinn could tell she was smiling by the sound of her voice. 'I'm so glad Candy isn't by herself on Christmas Eve. Is she there?'
'Powdering her nose,' Quinn said shortly. 'Look, I invited her to come and spend a couple of days with me over Christmas—the weather is expected to be bad, deep snow, and as my parents are in residence I thought we might make a little party of it. She's not too keen, so put in your two pennyworth, would you?' Okay, so it was sneaky, but he needed all the help he could get.
'Oh, yes, all right.' There was a slightly longer pause this time, before Xavier's wife said, 'Quinn? There's nothing wrong, is there?'
There wasn't anything that was right! 'No, everything's great,' he lied cheerfully. 'I think I can hear Candy coming; I'll just tell her it's you.'
Candy was halfway down the stairs when he called to her, and her face had a scrubbed, soap and water look to it. He remembered how her body had felt as she had nestled on his lap, and all the good work the cold outside had done was lost. 'It's Essie,' he said evenly, jerking his head at the phone. 'I've told her you are coming to me for Christmas and she is thrilled you aren't going to be here by yourself, so don't worry her by saying anything different.'
'Quinn—'
'Remember the baby,' he warned softly.
'That's emotional blackmail,' she sniffed weakly, the hot retort she had been about to make dying on her lips as she noticed the vivid mark of her hand across one bronzed cheekbone. She had never hit anyone before and she had had to start with Quinn! And it had been no light tap either.
By the end of the conversation with Essie she acknowledged it was a fait accompli. Essie had enthused it would make her Christmas—as it would Xavier's—that Candy was with friends over the holiday. They had been just the tiniest bit worried about her, Essie had confided gently, but, knowing she was with Quinn, she and Xavier could relax. They had been pleased when she had told them she was having Christmas lunch with Quinn some weeks back, but this made so much more sense if the weather forecast was bad.
Candy spoke to Xavier next, and just hearing her uncle's voice made the lump in her throat grapefruit size. They chattered for a few minutes and then Xavier asked to speak to Quinn.
The men's conversation was brief and succinct and consisted mainly of monosyllables on Quinn's part.
'What did he say?' Candy asked hesitantly when Quinn put the phone down. She had told herself during the call she wasn't going to ask but she couldn't help it.
'He merely expressed fatherly concern as to my intentions,' Quinn said shortly, one dark eyebrow raised in a quizzical fashion as he glanced her way.
'He's not my father.' It was pithy, but she was sick of everyone poking their noses in her business, Candy told herself aggressively. She wasn't a child!
And that was exactly what Quinn made her feel—a spoilt, irrational child—when he said calmly, 'He loves you, Candy, and so does Essie. You can't blame them for being interested in your welfare.'
She could! Oh, yes, she could. This present sorry situation had come about by Xavier and Essie's interest in her welfare! She was a grown woman of twenty-four and she had been used to looking after herself for a long time—she hadn't needed them to ask Quinn to be her guardian angel! Her face reflected the fruit of her thoughts, and as he caught her scowl Quinn eyed her reprovingly. 'You'll have lines before you're thirty,' he said with irritating equability.
'Well, you won't have to look at them so it doesn't matter much one way or the other,' Candy said tartly, catching sight of the cat carriers as she spoke, which caused her face to darken further. He was so sure of himself!
Quinn's mouth twisted as he followed her glance and she knew he had read her mind accurately.
'Throw a few things into a case and get your brood ready and we'll be off.' He glanced at her as he spoke, noticing the defiant tilt to her head as she stared back at him.
'I told you. I'm not coming.'
'And what about your promise to Essie?'
'I never promised her a thing,' Candy said sharply. 'You had told them I was coming to stay with you and I didn't contradict it, that's all. They are far enough away to remain in blissful ignorance unless you tell them different, which I'm sure you won't do…in view of the baby,' she added sarcastically.
'And my parents?' Quinn asked flatly. 'You're quite happy to ruin their Christmas? They are expecting me to bring my girlfriend to meet them, so when I go back and say we're no longer an item how do you think that is going to make them feel?'
'You should have thought of that before you said I'd stay.'
But her voice was no longer so certain, and Quinn was quick to ruthlessly press the advantage her soft heart had given him. 'Candy, my mother all but had a nervous breakdown when Laura and her grandson were killed three years ago,' he said quietly, his voice having the advantage of the ring of truth. 'Since then…well, I've dated occasionally over the last year or so but there has never been anyone special. She was so pleased when I mentioned your name.'
'You—!' She swore, a very modest swear-word, but it was so unlike her she blushed scarlet as she continued, 'That's terrible, Quinn. How could you do that to her when you know this is just a façade we're putting up?'
'I didn't realise it would affect her the way it has,' Quinn said soberly. 'At the time of the accident they hid most of their distress for my sake; it was only when I mentioned you that my father told me later how thrilled she was and what it meant to her that I was recovering—' He stopped abruptly.
'It was bad for a time?' Candy asked softly, before mentally kicking herself at the banality of the words. His wife and his son had violently been snatched from him and she asked him if it was bad!
But Quinn didn't seem to find the question trite. 'Yes, it was bad,' he said heavily. 'The worst.'
'I'm sorry, Quinn.' And she was, desperately so. 'Of course I'll come and stay. But—'
'What?' The black eyes were unblinking as they honed in on her troubled blue gaze.
'After Christmas, when they've gone home, we need to have a talk,' she said flatly. 'Agreed?'
'Agreed.' He smiled, a sexy quirk of his mouth that was quite natural and therefore ten times more attractive, and he walked over to her, reaching out and splaying his hands round her waist as he pulled her against him for a moment, dropping a light kiss on her nose. 'After Christmas,' he said silkily.
'I mean it, Quinn.' She could feel his fingertips against her lower ribs through the long-sleeved jersey top she was wearing, and the strength and warmth of his gentle force-fulness was seductive, much, much too seductive for her fragile equilibrium.
'Absolutely,' he agreed with suspect meekness.
She drew in a deep breath, wondering how on earth she had been so criminally insane as to think this idea could ever have worked in the first place. A platonic friendship with Quinn? You might as well ask a girl to stop breathing.
'Good.' She pushed away from him but he wasn't quite ready to let her go.
'Harper must have been crazy,' he said softly, looking down into the brilliant blue of her eyes.
'Yes, well, he obviously didn't think so,' she returned weakly, trying again to ease herself out of his grip but with no success.
'Do Essie and Xavier know about his other women?' He was remembering the note in Xavier's voice earlier and thinking that it was probably just as well Harper wasn't around any longer or else Xavier might be facing a prison sentence!
'No, no one does except you.'
There was a split second's silence and then Quinn said, 'I'm glad you trusted me enough to tell me, Candy.'
'I didn't intend to,' she said tightly, 'and I'm
not at all sure I trust you, if you really want to know.'
There was another silence, and then Quinn began to laugh, really laugh, his head thrown back as he fairly roared.
'You certainly have a way of bringing the male ego down a peg or two, don't you?' he said amusedly when he had control again.
'I think your ego is quite able to look after itself.' Candy's voice was severe and she hadn't laughed. 'Would you let go of me now, please?'
'Why? I think this is rather nice,' he said comfortably.
So did she, and that was exactly why she had made the request! 'Nice isn't always good,' she said firmly.
'True.' His head was tilted now and the ebony eyes were laughing at her again. 'But in this case…'
He didn't prolong the kiss, and it wasn't at all like the other time, but nevertheless Candy's knees were melting by the time he let her go with a casual, 'Go and pack your case, then, and I'll sort out the moggies.'
She wanted to remind him that they were just friends, that whatever he had told his parents it didn't alter the basic rules of their arrangement, but somehow, in the face of his utter nonchalance, she couldn't find any words that wouldn't make her seem prim and gauche and strait-laced in objecting to the kiss. And so she bit her lip, lifted her chin and marched off to pack her case with as much dignity as she could muster.
CHAPTER SIX
Candy liked Quinn's parents straight away. Mary Ellington was a surprisingly tiny, pretty woman, her thick mass of snow-white hair in stark contrast to her face, which was still relatively unlined, and her husband was an older version of Quinn.
Their greeting was warm, too warm for Candy's feelings of guilt, and when Mary said, her voice hesitant, 'I started getting the tea ready, I do hope you don't mind?' the guilt intensified tenfold.
'Of course not.' Candy managed a fairly normal smile. The other woman was obviously nervous of treading on Quinn's 'girlfriend's' toes. Little did she know it was the first time she had been invited to Quinn's fiat above the practice, Candy thought helplessly.
And what a flat it was! Her first impression, as she had stepped into the enormous sitting room, had been one of aggressive luxury and beautiful co-ordination. The deep pile silver-grey carpet, the magnificent charcoal leather suite and no-nonsense furnishings were relentlessly masculine. There were no soft touches, no hint of a woman's taste anywhere. Even the Christmas cards had been slotted into a little cardboard tree that was more practical than festive, and other than that slight concession it wouldn't have been apparent what the season was.
Candy thought of the cottage, and the cards she had strung up round the walls downstairs, and the little pine tree complete with baubles that the cats had been having the time of their lives wrecking as soon as her back was turned, and felt sad. This place screamed aloneness.
And then she reminded herself, very quickly, that Quinn had mentioned on the drive to the practice that the flat was very much as Xavier had left it.
He had been far too busy, Quinn had explained, to bother changing things, besides which he liked Xavier's taste and would probably have chosen the same colour scheme and furnishings himself anyway.
The dogs were apparently all kept downstairs in the back of the house at night, and so when Quinn brought the two cat carriers in there was plenty of oohing and ahhing from his parents when they saw the kittens, which all four cats revelled in. Quinn had even thought to provide a litter tray and feeding bowls in a recess off the kitchen, and before long the four cats had made themselves perfectly at home and were curled up in the wicker basket, which Quinn had also thought to bring, in front of the gas fire.
When Candy followed Mary into the kitchen to help get the meal ready a few minutes later she found it was a chefs paradise, but with a curiously unlived-in air. Everything was immaculate-—and Quinn's mother had clearly been thinking along the same lines because her first words, once they were alone, were, 'Quinn doesn't eat properly, does he? And it does so worry me. Bernard tells me to stop fussing but I can't help it. That's what mothers do, isn't it?'
Mary smiled a smile that begged for understanding of her maternal anxiety, and there was something in the other woman's sweet face that made Candy forgo the polite remark she had been about to make and say instead, 'I don't really know what mothers do, mine died when I was born, but if I was a mother I think I would be feeling the same as you do.'
'Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry.' Mary laid a small comforting hand on Candy's arm. 'How dreadful for you. Quinn never said.'
The trouble was she didn't have a clue what Quinn had told his parents—or what he hadn't told them, which was perhaps even more relevant, Candy warned herself silently.
And as the evening progressed it became apparent that Quinn's mother was very definitely sold on the idea that her son had made a love-match. Mary was discreet—the older woman didn't have an injudicious bone in her body, Candy thought fondly—but there was just the odd little remark, a glance, a certain gleam in her eyes that indicated what Quinn's mother was thinking.
And it made Candy feel conscience-stricken, ashamed, remorseful to fool such nice people, which was so unfair she told herself bitterly, when this whole giant tangle could be laid fairly and squarely at Quinn's size tens.
Mary had insisted on bringing enough food with her to feed an army for a week, and once they had eaten the evening meal—a truly delicious ham and egg pie of Mary's, with baked potatoes smothered with a blue cheese dip—the two women left the men in the sitting room watching TV and drinking port, and went into the kitchen to prepare the vegetables and stuffing they were having with the enormous turkey Quinn's parents had also provided.
They were laughing at the story Candy was telling about Quinn under the hawthorn bush when the man himself walked into the kitchen some time later, and as both women turned to him, their faces alight and their eyes bright with shared amusement, the words he had been about to say died on his lips and he stood in the doorway looking as though he was stunned.
'Quinn?' Candy stared at him, the laughter fading from her face. 'What's the matter? Don't you feel well?'
'What?' And then he seemed to collect himself, the smooth, relaxed mask he was apt to wear sliding into place as he said, 'No, I'm fine. I just came to say I've brought your case up and put it in your room, that's all.'
'Thank you.' She continued staring at him, puzzled.
'Well, once we've finished these potatoes your father and I will leave you in peace,' Mary said briskly as she glanced at her son. 'We'll be back about nine in the morning if that's not too early? That little parish church at the end of the street has a Christmas Day service at ten and I'd like to go, but of course you don't have to come if you'd rather not.'
The last few words had been directed at Candy, and her voice was somewhat vacant as she said, 'That would be lovely...' They would be back? Didn't that mean they had to go in the first place? What was happening here? 'But I don't understand—'
She stopped abruptly as she caught the quick shake of the head Quinn sent her as he looked pointedly from Candy to his mother bent over the potatoes.
What now? She frowned at him, thinking she had been so right when she had said she didn't trust him. If ever a man had his own agenda this one did.
Quinn continued to lean lazily against the door as they finished the vegetables, his conversation easy and amused as he teased his mother and made them both laugh, albeit reluctantly on Candy's part. It was only out of consideration for the feelings of Quinn's mother that she didn't speak out her misgivings, but as they finished the last of the potatoes and Mary began to wipe down the marble worktop Candy looked straight across at Quinn's dark face and said, 'I'll just pop down and say a quick hallo to the dogs, if that's all right?' knowing Quinn could do little else than accompany her.
'Yes, you do that, dear,' Mary said comfortably, 'and I'll be finished in here by the time the two of you return.'
'Right, what is this, Quinn?' Candy didn't wait until they were at the foot of the
stairs outside the flat before she confronted him. 'What did your mother mean about coming back? Where are they going?'
'To the Saddler's Arms, as far as I know.'
'The Saddler's Arms?' They had reached the hall and she stared at him, her blue eyes narrowed in surprise. Ten o'clock on Christmas Eve and they were going out to the pub? 'For a drink?' she asked warily.
'I shouldn't be surprised. Dad always likes a Guinness or two before he goes to bed, says it helps him sleep,' Quinn returned congenially. Too congenially.
'So why can't he have a Guinness here?' she asked flatly.
'Oh, he could, he could.'
She'd hit him again in a minute!
Her face must have spoken for her, because the next moment Quinn took her arm and led her quickly through the big square hall, opening the door which led into the back of the building where the surgery kitchen, operating room and animal quarters were.
'Let go of me.' She shook him off once they were in the corridor beyond the hall and turned to face him again, her blue eyes shooting sparks. 'What's going on, Quinn? And don't prevaricate!'
'Nothing is 'going on', as you put it,' Quinn said equably, 'it's just that the flat only has two bedrooms.'
'What?'
'So as the Saddler's Arms have their big double guest room free, and Mum and Dad decided they preferred that to the pad over the garages—although that's not a bad little place; I bunked down there for a time when I first came—'
'Quinn!' She never shouted; she wasn't the type of person who shouted. 'Are you telling me I've turned your parents out of their room?' she asked tightly, after a long hard breath.
'That's not the way I'd put it,' he said impassively, seemingly quite unmoved by her horror.
'Then how would you put it?' she snapped fiercely.
'I mentioned that lane of yours is a nightmare in bad weather; they agreed it was practical for you to come here if we could get them a room somewhere; we did… That's it,' he finished cheerfully. 'I don't think it even occurred to them that you might be happy to share my room after we've only been seeing each other for a couple of months,' he added with suspect reasonableness. 'They're a little old-fashioned that way.'