Like Doctor, Like Son
Page 13
It wasn’t the first time he’d approached the French doors this way and the memory of that first time was enough to stop him in his tracks.
She’d been playing the piano that time…the same tune, too. But it was what had happened when she’d finished playing that had replayed over and over in his memory ever since, keeping the pain of loss alive. He’d never been able to watch the piano scene in the film with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts for the same reason.
She was playing in the dark, he realised when he finally reached the French doors, surprised that there wasn’t at least the glow of candles to show that she was really there. Not that it could be anyone else playing that melody in just that way. He’d played each one of her CDs so many times that every note was permanently imprinted in his memory. But even the most sophisticated technology couldn’t reproduce the sound of Faith Adams playing in person. And as for Faith Adamson playing that particular composition…
He reached for the handle, anticipation doubling his pulse rate.
He’s here!
Faith’s hands hesitated momentarily over the keys, startled by the sudden knowledge, but long years of practice and too many public performances to count had schooled her into playing on no matter what the distraction.
As to how she knew Quinn was there when she couldn’t possibly see him, well, it was just one of those things that she’d always known, right from the first. There was just something…some special connection between them, perhaps. Whatever it was, she was able to sense his presence when he was near—like now.
She lifted her head and stared towards the French doors, knowing that he was out there somewhere. Or was it just wishful thinking, remembering that long-ago time when he’d slipped in through the open doors that night, his eyes sending shivers of anticipation through her as soon as they’d met hers across the length of the room.
Her hands grew still on the keys just in time for the familiar click to tell her that he’d opened the door.
‘Hello, Quinn,’ she said, hoping he couldn’t hear the tremor in her voice. She’d known that this moment of reckoning would probably have to come one day and her dread had increased with every day since her mother’s bequest had made it inevitable.
‘Couldn’t you find any candles?’ he asked, the sound of his footsteps getting closer. ‘I’m sure Molly would have some somewhere.’
‘Molly’s not here tonight and, anyway, I don’t need light to be able to play.’ She closed her eyes to focus on his presence, feeling the air move over her bare arms as he stopped beside her, drawing in the unforgettable mixture of soap and man that could only belong to Quinn.
‘What about DJ?’ he prompted, dragging her out of the spiral of memories that had started to draw her in.
‘DJ?’ Her pulse hitched as her guilt weighed heavier than ever on her conscience. Was this really what she had wanted? Now that the time had come, she wasn’t so sure. What would Quinn think of her when he knew…?
‘He could have found some candles for you,’ Quinn said impatiently. ‘You can’t afford to have a fall, stumbling around in the dark. You’ve got concerts to play, remember?’
‘DJ’s away, too,’ she said, almost floating with unexpected pleasure when she realised that it was concern for her safety that had prompted his question. ‘And I don’t need candles to find my way around the Barton. I’ve lived here all my life.’
Suddenly she didn’t feel quite as brave as she’d thought she was, not quite ready to destroy these last few minutes together. Surely it wouldn’t matter if she prolonged them by offering him a drink before she finally admitted what she’d done and why she’d had to do it.
She stood up and turned and with her first step ploughed into hard male warmth.
‘Oh!’ she gasped, flailing her arms to try to regain her balance.
‘Careful!’ She felt strong warm hands descend on her shoulders to steady her, rescuing her when she would have fallen ignominiously onto her bottom.
They both froze for several endless seconds, and just that quickly everything changed.
‘Faith?’ he whispered, snatching his hands away almost as if the contact had burned him. But in the dark her senses were more acute. In his voice she’d heard the ache of longing—the same longing that had tormented her for the last seventeen years.
It had been more than sixteen years since she’d last felt his touch and suddenly she couldn’t bear the thought that she might never feel it again.
Even as she reached out to find his face in the darkness the voice of reason was telling her that he would never forgive her, but her desire was far too strong to listen to the warning.
‘Quinn?’ she whispered as she savoured the prickle of his emerging beard against her sensitive fingertips.
She felt the tension that froze him under her touch and was afraid that he would brush her away at any second, but then she found the corner of his mouth and when she touched his lips, drew a questing thumb over the remembered curve and heard his breath shudder in response, her heart leapt.
It nearly stopped altogether when he took control, wrapping powerful arms around her even as he sought her mouth with his.
Oh, she’d missed this, she thought, willingly parting her lips to admit his plundering tongue then challenging him to a sensual game of give and take in the dark warmth.
Quinn’s shoulders were even broader than they’d been when he’d been eighteen, she realised as her hands began their frantic exploration. Her fingers fought with shirt buttons in their quest to feel the silky heat of his naked skin, desperate to know if that had changed, too.
It hadn’t, unless she counted the fact that it felt even better…hotter and silkier than ever stretched taut over muscles that had fascinated her far more in the flesh than they ever had in an anatomy book.
‘Faith,’ he gasped when she raked her nails through the thick pelt of dark hair and found a tight male nipple then ducked her head to tease it with her tongue.
‘Enough!’ he groaned and swept her off her feet. ‘We need to find—’ he began, then swore when he crashed his shins straight into the piano stool.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked in concern, knowing just how much that could hurt from her own encounters with it. In fact, she was surprised that he hadn’t dropped her. He was going to have some colourful bruises by the morning. ‘What were you looking for, anyway?’
‘A flat surface,’ he growled fiercely, sending shivers up her spine even as he slid her down his obviously aroused body until her feet finally reached the wooden floor. ‘What did you expect after teasing me like that? I’m going to explode if we don’t…’
Desire radiated from every syllable and the heat burned away any qualms that might have urged caution.
‘You’d better follow me, then,’ she suggested, stretching one hand out to the piano in the darkness to tell her in which direction to go to find the door. ‘I know where all the flat surfaces are.’
Unerringly, she made her way out of the room, every nerve singing with awareness that Quinn was right behind her. When they reached the bottom of the broad sweep of stairs he took her by surprise, swinging her up into his arms again.
‘Stairs I can manage,’ he said tautly, setting off two at a time. ‘Just tell me which direction when we get to the top.’
‘Second door on the left…In a hurry, are you?’ she teased, tightening her arms around his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. She was startled by her own daring until she remembered that she and Quinn had always carried on like this. Still, it was a definite boost to her ego that he should be so eager.
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ he muttered, and she wasn’t certain she was supposed to hear the words. Before she could comment they’d reached her bedroom.
His arms tightened around her as he leaned back against the door, and in the sudden silence she heard the latch close with an unexpectedly loud click.
He stayed still for so long that she was afraid he was having seco
nd thoughts. Her heart sank at the idea, but she could understand it if he was. After all, a man with such a prominent position in the community couldn’t afford to…
‘I hope you haven’t changed your mind,’ he said, and she marvelled that they were already on the same wavelength.
‘Not in this lifetime,’ she whispered with a flood of relief. ‘I was just wondering what was taking you so long. The bed’s straight ahead of you, about five paces—’
The rest of her words were lost, forgotten as Quinn began a searing kiss that continued even as he set about ridding her of every stitch of clothing.
Without a word he lowered her to the bed and she only realised that he was equally naked when he covered her body with the searing heat of his own.
If she hadn’t already been so aroused she would have blushed when he discovered just how ready her body was for his possession, then he sank deep inside and nothing else mattered than the meteoric explosion that shattered them both.
It was pitch dark when Quinn woke from one of the most erotic dreams of his life.
Then he realised that Faith was still sprawled bonelessly across his body and he knew that it hadn’t been a dream at all. None of it. They really had done all those deliciously decadent things to each other, over and over again until they’d finally been unable to stay awake any longer.
He hardly dared breathe in case Faith woke, needing a few minutes to assimilate the impossibility of what had just happened.
For seventeen years he’d alternately mourned the loss of the woman he’d loved so deeply and hated her for the way she’d left him. And in all that time, in spite of the vivid memories that had haunted his nights, he’d never dreamed that he would ever know again the pleasure of holding Faith while she slept after sharing the most intense fulfilment that two people could know.
What he didn’t know was whether Faith would regret what they’d done.
She certainly hadn’t regretted it while they’d been pleasuring each other, as avid to touch and stroke and caress as he had been.
He stared up towards the ceiling and swore silently, wondering if he’d just made the same monumental mistake as he had so long ago.
It had been more than sixteen years since he’d last touched her silky skin but even the innocent contact of catching her before she’d fallen had been enough to set off a chain reaction that had started at his hands and ended several burgeoning inches below his belt. After that, instinct had taken over. Instinct and hormones.
What sort of a fool was he?
He could lie here with his arms around the only woman he’d ever loved and know that he still loved her, every bit as much, but he still didn’t know why she’d left him. And because he didn’t know, he had no idea whether she would do it again.
Just the thought of going through that agony a second time made his heart clench with dread.
All his old insecurities reared their ugly heads.
Had it been his fault that she’d left? Had he done something…said something…that had driven her away, driven her so far away that she’d completely abandoned her chosen career?
He’d never been able to make himself believe that her vows of love had been nothing more than lip service to an ideal when all she’d really wanted had been a teenage fling. He might have been gullible, but Faith hadn’t been that sort of girl…and if she had been, there had been boys infinitely better suited to her family’s position in Rookmere than the son of the town’s latest drunk.
No, the longer he’d thought about it, the more convinced he’d become that only something serious could have forced her to have such an abrupt change of heart and he’d been determined, when he’d heard that she was returning, that he would finally get some answers.
He’d ostensibly come to the Barton last night to find out if Faith had recovered from her desolation at Fliss’s death, but he’d fully intended using the time to ask some far more pointed questions.
Faith whimpered in her sleep and his heart leapt when she burrowed even closer to him.
Quinn stifled a groan at his body’s instant response, knowing that there was no way he was ever going to be able to grill her, not when he felt a pain at her slightest whimper and became aroused by her sleeping body draped over his.
So what use was it to decide that he was going to pin her down for some answers? Even if she looked him straight in the eye and said she didn’t want him in her life…didn’t ever want to see him again…he wouldn’t believe her. Not after the way she’d responded to him tonight.
In fact, he was no further forward than before, except…Except this time he was going to ask her, point blank, why she’d left him that way, and why she’d abandoned the career that she’d set her heart on. Hopefully her answers would tell him what he needed to know so that he could fight for her, because he was going to fight for her, tooth and nail. His heart had belonged to Faith for seventeen years and he knew that he would never be happy if he didn’t have her in his life.
‘As soon as she wakes up,’ he whispered softly, brushing a kiss to the top of her head. ‘As soon as it’s light enough for me to see her expression and read her eyes…’
As if she was tuned into his thoughts, Faith stirred again and so did his body. This time she didn’t settle back into sleep and when she woke enough to realise just how intimately their bodies were positioned, the only thing on Quinn’s mind was the mind-blowing pleasure they could bring each other.
CHAPTER NINE
NEVER had the Barton seemed so imposing as when Quinn was standing outside the front door, waiting for someone to answer the bell.
Of course, the Adamsons couldn’t just have a bell like everyone else. Theirs had to sound like Big Ben, the chimes echoing for ever through the lofty rooms. And as for the creaking of the hinges as the door swung open…he would have to tease Faith about recording the sound to use it in a horror film.
‘Can I help you?’ the motherly looking woman said briskly.
‘Mrs Adamson?’ Quinn suddenly realised that even a year after he’d met Faith, he had no idea what her mother looked like.
‘Heavens, no!’ she exclaimed with a chuckle. ‘I’m Mrs Beech, her housekeeper.’
Molly Beech, he thought with an answering smile, remembering the number of times Faith had mentioned the woman and her caring ways. Sometimes he’d wondered if she would have preferred the housekeeper to be her mother—Molly certainly seemed to show her more love than her autocratic mother did.
‘Did you have an appointment to see Mrs Adamson? She didn’t mention anyone was coming, but I could ask her—’
‘No!’ That was the last thing he wanted. ‘It’s Faith. I’m…’ He paused a moment and swallowed the need to tell the world that he and Faith were engaged—that as soon as they finished their medical training, they were going to marry. Somehow, he knew there would be a better time for that announcement than standing on the front doorstep. ‘I’m a friend of hers from school and I’ve been trying to get in contact with her for several days.’
‘Oh.’ Her cheery face fell and the ominous feeling that had been growing ever since Faith hadn’t turned up at their meeting place last week loomed larger and blacker than ever. When he added the fact that she hadn’t answered her phone once, no matter how late at night he’d called…
‘Is something the matter with her? Has she had an accident or—?’
‘No, no,’ she interrupted hastily. ‘She’s…just gone away for a while.’ But suddenly she was avoiding meeting his eyes and Quinn knew that wasn’t the whole story. His concern began to mushroom out of control.
‘Please, can you tell me how I can get in contact with her…a phone number, perhaps?’
If he could speak to her he would know, just from the tone of her voice, if everything was all right. Anyway, after seeing or speaking to her nearly every day for months, he was missing her.
‘Molly? Who is it?’ called a rather imperious voice from somewhere at the other end of the vast hallway.
‘Well, I’m sorry but she doesn’t want anyone contacting her at the moment,’ she said coolly. ‘If he leaves his name…’ The words tailed off as she turned away and disappeared from view.
All Quinn’s insecurities reared up and he was already stepping away from the door by the time the housekeeper turned back.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said, feeling the familiar sting of rejection. What on earth had made him think coming to the Barton had been a good idea? ‘I’ll try again when Faith comes back.’
‘Oh, but—’
‘Either that, or I’ll contact her when she goes to medical school,’ he continued as he hurried down the steps and onto the gravelled drive. He headed towards his car, suddenly conscious of just how out of place his Mini looked in front of such an imposing house, even with the gleaming new paint job he’d done last week.
This was the sort of place that was accustomed to Rolls Royces and Bentleys, not Minis rebuilt from scrapyards, and he was little better. How could he have fooled himself into thinking that Faith would ever be happy with someone like him when she could have so much more?
The telephone rang while they were both still fighting for breath, their hearts beating so fast that there was almost no energy to spare for picking up the receiver.
Years of having to react to emergencies at short notice meant that Quinn reacted first and he forced himself to reach out towards the sound, fumbling in the darkness until he found the instrument.
He only just remembered in time that it wasn’t his phone, and when he handed it to Faith he marvelled that until now he’d always been on the other end of it when it had rung in this room. Then the significance of a phone call at this time of night hit him—that and Faith’s gasp of dismay and sudden flurry of questions.