The Everywhere Man

by Victoria Gordon

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he almost snapped. I promised you dinner and dinner you’ll get. Besides, Andrew’s a GSP man, so we’ll have Jimmy and Sheila outnumbered. And you’ll have to meet Andrew soon anyway, as he’s judging the trials next weekend — or have you changed your mind about entering?’

  ‘I have not!’ Her indignation was so obviously feigned that both of then laughed, then Quinn handed Alix her purse and ushered her through the door.

  On the drive through Brisbane’s busy streets, using his own Citroen instead of the hire car, Quinn told her that Jimmy Grove was one of his oldest friends and business associates, not least because both of them held a strong interest in gun-dogs and shooting.

  Andrew Jamieson, he said, was a semi-retired Perth lawyer who was regarded as one of the country’s top trial judges for both utility and retriever trials.

  ‘But don’t think you can work any feminine wiles on Andrew next weekend,’ he cautioned Alix with a sideways grin. ‘If you’re going to prove old Nick is anything but a lapdog, you’ll have to do it the hard way.’

  Alix shot him an angry look, which he missed because his attention had returned to his driving, but restrained herself from saying anything aloud. You just wait, Quinn Tennant, she thought. And for the rest of the journey she consoled herself with thoughts of his surprise when the trials revealed Nick to have a good deal more training than he imagined.

  During her solitary walks with the dog since the challenge had first been issued, Alix had concentrated heavily on his training, and she felt Nick was as ready as he would ever be to show Quinn he was anything but a lapdog.

  ‘And then won’t you be surprised, Mr Know-it-all!’ she muttered half aloud, and then giggled silently at the curious look the remark drew from the driver.

  When they reached Jimmy Grove’s home, Alix attempted to stay somewhat in the background as the three men greeted each other with warm enthusiasm. But having greeted Quinn, the diminutive, grey-haired man immediately cast an authoritative eye over Alix and said, You II have to marry this one, old mate. My word, you will!” And to the amusement of the other two men and Alix s total mortification, he walked round her, pointing up her qualities as if judging a dog show. ‘The only fault I can see is her taste in dogs,’ the old man chuckled, ‘but in your eyes she ought to be perfect.’

  ‘In my eyes she just might be,’ Quinn replied, and Alix looked up, startled, to find him regarding her with a warmth she had never experienced before. It was almost too much, after the older man’s ribbing, and Alix found herself locked in a stare in which Quinn’s green eyes held her own with a magnetism that sent her weak in the knees and quite lightheaded.

  ‘Personally, I don’t know if that’s any compliment,’ interjected the third man, Andrew Jamieson. ‘I’m inclined to think her taste in dogs is far better than her taste in men if she runs around with you, Quinn. A girl this pretty needs a man of distinction, a mature man, not a young pup like you.’

  ‘The way you two old goats carry on, I couldn’t imagine a sensible girl wanting either one of you,’ came a strange voice from the doorway, and Alix looked up to meet the friendly gaze of a tiny, white-haired woman who smiled warmly and reached out a welcoming hand.

  ‘I’m Sheila Grove,’ she said. ‘The little noisy one is my husband Jimmy and the tall skinny one is Andrew Jamieson. Come in and meet his wife and we’ll have a drink while they go off to look at the doggies. Maybe if we’re lucky they’ll go to the dogs and stay there, in fact. I’m ashamed of you, Quinn Tennant, not even introducing this child properly before turning those two old lechers loose."

  Who had a chance?’ he replied with a grin, reaching down to plant a loud kiss on the tiny woman’s cheek. ‘And we ll all come in for a drink. I’ve seen those scrubbers that Jimmy calls gun-dogs and I’m still not impressed."

  The next half-hour was alive with feint and thrust as the friends argued and quarrelled and sniped at each other about the respective merits of their chosen dog breeds, and Alix found herself drawn into the verbal playground with comfortable ease. Ann Jamieson, a tall, lean, yet vital woman, proved to be as much of a stirrer as any of them, and the atmosphere was alive with the kind of friendly, comfortable repartee that Alix remembered from her own home when her parents were still alive.

  Only Andrew Jamieson was relatively quiet, apparently deep in thought for some minutes and oblivious to the gay raillery surrounding him.

  ‘McLean!’ he interjected suddenly, halting a quip from Jimmy in mid-sentence. ‘By heavens, you’re from Melbourne, aren’t you?’ And without waiting for a reply, ‘I remember you now; you’re Doc McLean’s daughter. Ho, Quinn, you sure picked a winner this time! Alix’s father was one of the best Labrador men in the country until he got smart and switched over to raising GSPs.’

  Then he laughed out loud at Quinn’s slightly surprised expression. ‘And you didn’t even know, did you? My very word you didn’t. Hah! Well, I’ll tell you something else you don’t know — this girl’s father bred both the grandparents of that liver bitch of yours. Alix probably knows more about her pedigree than you do.’

  Quinn joined in the laughter, despite it all being at his own expense, but several times during the hour that followed Alix caught him looking at her rather suspiciously.

  He said nothing, however, and indeed had little chance to. Andrew Jamieson monopolised Alix entirely after that, recalling a host of shooting experiences in which he and her father had taken part over the years. Most of them were before Alix was born, and she tried valiantly to steer Andrew away from any tales that might add to Quinn’s suspicions; she didn’t want him finding out too much about her own involvement in such activities until the coming trials.

  Sheila Grove halted the conversation at one point to invite Quinn and Alix to stay for dinner, and Quinn accepted after seeking and receiving a nod of approval from Alix. Shortly after dinner, however, he declared the need for an early night, and they returned to the hotel not long after ten o’clock.

  Alix was somewhat surprised that Quinn said nothing during the drive about her father’s dog-breeding activities, especially considering his personal involvement because of Anna. She was quiet during the drive because she had already formulated an answer to any questions he might raise, but it wasn’t required.

  Instead, once they had reached their suite, Quinn said only that he had quite enjoyed the evening despite the change in plans, and Alix had to agree.

  ‘A nightcap?’ he asked then, ‘or are you ready to call it a night and head off to bed?’

  ‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind a small sherry,’ Alix replied, and although she didn’t really want the drink, it was all she could think of as an excuse to prolong the evening.

  It had been pleasant; especially because of the change in plans, Alix thought. The Quinn who had shared his evening with good friends of long standing was yet another Quinn she had never seen, and from many points of view quite the nicest of the facets she had experienced with this multi-sided man.

  He was more boyish, somehow, quicker to laugh, to smile, to share himself The aloofness so necessary in business was shed like an unneeded cloak, as was the harsh masculinity that both attracted and repelled her. Even now, in the sanctity of the hotel suite which only a day before had been rife with an atmosphere of sexuality and passion, there was now only a glow of comfortable ease, of pleasant, shared experience.

  After bringing her sherry, Quinn took his own drink and went to stand at the window, staring down at the passing traffic and the myriad lights of the busy city. At first Alix thought he was upset with her, but after a moment she realised he was only enjoying the quiet and gentle peace of the luxurious room. And he was sharing it, without the need for obvious speech or action.

  The whole scene was so domestic, by comparison to the tension-fraught incidents of the night before, that Alix couldn’t help the lump which rose to her throat. If Quinn were to think of making love to her tonight, she thought, it wouldn’t be with violen
ce and harshness, but with a gentleness that matched the pleasant mood of the evening. But would that make much difference? Deep in her soul she knew it might make all the difference. Just the thought of it had a stirring effect upon her.

  Even as she sat there, watching him with the certainty that he wasn’t aware of her observation, Alix could feel the light tingling somewhere below her tummy, a warm spacious feeling that gradually extended itself upward to the fullness of her breasts and downward to weaken her knees.

  She longed to rise and go to him, to tangle her fingers into the shaggy curls of tobacco-coloured hair at his collar, to feel the shifting of the muscles in his back and shoulders, to smell the clean, masculine fragrance of him against her own lighter scent.

  In her mind, she felt again the touch of his fingers, his lips upon her breasts, and in her mind she dissolved the anger and tension so that all she remembered was the exquisite delight that had surged through her entire body. So real was the impression that Alix, eyes closed now, sighed softly and shifted her crossed legs—then opened her eyes to find Quinn turned and regarding her with a slightly quizzical expression.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, and his voice was a breeze-like caress in the quiet of the room.

  ‘Y-yes,’ she replied, suddenly aware of how her movement must have looked to this experienced man, and slightly embarrassed by what she felt.

  ‘I think you’re more tired than you realised,’ he said softly. ‘And you’ve barely touched your drink.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alix agreed hesitantly. ‘I ... thought I wanted it’

  ‘Until you had it; a typical feminine reaction,’ he interjected it. And as she lifted the glass, ‘And don’t think you must drink it just because it’s been poured.’

  He crossed the room swiftly and took the glass from Alix’s suddenly nerveless fingers. He replaced it on the sideboard, just out of her reach, then returned to his post by the window and his enigmatic silence.

  Both of them were silent for a few minutes, each alone with thoughts that might have been shared but were not. Alix had no idea what Quinn was cogitating about, and she was just as glad that, for once, he seemed to be making no effort to read her mind. He’d have had a shock if he did, she thought with a silent, hidden-inside laugh. Or was he already aware of how much his mere presence could stir her emotions, not to mention her physical responses?

  Difficult to imagine, especially considering her near-hysteria of the night before, but Alix couldn’t believe that Quinn was totally unaware of his attraction for her. Nor of hers for him, although she was forced to wonder how much of that was purely physical. Was there any possibility that he might one day come to hold the same emotional feelings as she herself?

  His inherent gentleness, she believed, made it at least possible, and yet he held a definite and often obvious wariness of all women, as his latest remarks indicated. Could he really be so cynical, perhaps too cynical?

  Eyes closed once again, she revelled in the fantasy of them being together, here in this luxurious suite, but without the reins and bridles of convention to hold back their lovemaking.

  Alix considered herself a somewhat old-fashioned girl, at least in her attitude towards sex before marriage. But with Quinn her inhibitions were only intellectual, and she knew increasingly that they were inhibitions that could fall easy prey to the tigerish emotions that seemed far closer to the surface than ever before in her life.

  Bruce had never stirred such emotion within her; he had, in truth, never really tried to. And yet she was unsure if Quinn Tennant had ever actually tried to stir her emotions, only her physical reactions, and there he succeeded only too well. She smiled to herself at the thought, then jerked away into instant alertness at the touch on her hands.

  ‘Don’t get so edgy; I’m not planning anything,’ said Quinn, leaning down to regain his light- fingered grasp on her fingers and lift her upright.

  ‘You’ve been falling asleep again,’ he said with a slow, gentle grin. ‘And this is hardly the place for it. Now off to bed with you, and don’t worry about setting an alarm, because there’s no real need for a terribly early start. As long as we’re back by five or six o’clock, everything will be right, so sleep as long as you need to.’

  And before Alix could say a word, he had ushered her to the door of her room, kissed her ever so lightly on the forehead, as if she were a child, and eased her inside. She managed only a whispered goodnight before he had shut the door and left her to a sudden, resentful loneliness.

  Slowly undressing, she lay down upon the large bed, eyes now wide with unexpected wakefulness and her entire body tingling with a need that seemed ready to overwhelm her. So real, so tender had been her fantasies of only a few minutes before that Quinn’s abrupt ignorance of them seemed almost insulting, and Alix let the resentment build in her mind until it was throttled by logic.

  ‘My God!’ she whispered to herself ‘Last night you heaped insults on him for trying to make love to you, and tonight you do the same thing because he didn’t try. It isn’t much wonder he’s cynical about women; with you as an example it’s well deserved!’

  But logic could do nothing for the languorous tingling of her body beneath the sleek fabric of her nightgown, for the tautening of her breasts and the fluttery feeling in her middle as she lay thinking of Quinn and wishing that she hadn’t so insulted him, that he would step through the door that very instant to take her into his arms and give her the physical love that her body craved like a drug.

  The sensuousness of her thoughts made sleep difficult and so light that she was wide-eyed at the slightest sound, fearful that he would come, equally fearful that he would not. He didn’t, and as the slow hours of the night drifted past Alix slipped slowly into a deep and untroubled sleep that was broken only when her healthy young body decided she’d had enough.

  Her wrist-watch told her it was already almost ten o’clock, and she leapt from bed to shower to travel clothing with surprising efficiency. How could she have slept so late?

  She entered the sitting room of the suite with considerable trepidation, only to find that she was apparently alone. The only sign of Quinn was a note propped beside an empty breakfast tray that signified he’d vacated the suite some hours before.

  ‘Hope you don’t sleep TOO late,’ it said. ‘Asked that you not be disturbed before eleven, and we’re leaving at noon provided I get back by then.’

  It was signed only with a massive, scrawled ‘Q,’ with neither salutation nor closing, and the only personal aspect was the sarcastically capitalised ‘TOO’. Not terribly auspicious, Alix thought, but hardly what she must consider ominous.

  She rang down for breakfast, just coffee and toast since they would be travelling for some time and she found that she worked best without a heavy meal in her, then hurried to finish her packing before the breakfast arrived. If Quinn arrived back early and she was ready, they might get an earlier than expected start, which should do something to offset her impression of being a layabed.

  But he didn’t return early, and having exhausted every scrap of reading material in the suite, including the local morning paper, Alix finally took the risk of not being there on Quinn’s arrival and slipped away for ten minutes to purchase a couple of magazines.

  He still hadn’t returned when she got back, but walked in at precisely noon with, of all people, Michelle Keir hard on his heels. The slender, dark-eyed girl gave no evidence of surprise at seeing Alix in the suite, but the venomous look she slipped when Quinn’s back was turned told its own story.

  Michelle, it seemed, was having car trouble again. She had contacted Quinn quite early in the morning to seek his help in getting some proper action from the service station where her vehicle was now lodged, but even Quinn could do little to effect repairs to a badly abused transmission on a weekend. But he could, of course, offer Michelle a ride back to Bundaberg, and had done so.

  Alix was certain at least half the situation was deliberately arranged, but she said
nothing, even when Michelle co-opted the front passenger seat and spent the entire journey ensuring that Alix took no part in the conversation and indeed might as well not have been there at all.

  Thank heaven I bought the magazine, Alix thought. She could only imagine the horrors of the trip had she been forced to sit in silence, listening to Michelle’s chatter as she herself was pointedly ignored.

  Not that Quinn was guilty of ignoring her. It was only that Michelle revealed herself as an expert in turning any of his comments around so as to exclude Alix from further involvement in the conversation. What silences occurred Alix made no attempt to upset, since she preferred quiet travel herself and anything, she thought, would be an improvement over Michelle’s incessant chatter.

  Had she and Quinn been alone on the trip, as expected, there would have been virtually no conversation, she realised, and took some satisfaction from a remembered comment that he, too, preferred to drive without a lot of talk.

  Perhaps he, too, was annoyed by the magpie-like chatter, Alix thought. Not that he revealed anything by his manner, but he abruptly refused Michelle’s one suggestion that they pause for a snack, saying he must return as early as possible for business reasons. His responses to her kaleidoscope of chatter were brief, but never rude, and although Alix got the impression that he was trying to stifle conversation, he was never really obvious about it.

  Alix tried her best to lose herself in her reading, and even at one point considered a nap. The smooth passage of the big Citroen through the gradually lessening traffic was almost hypnotic, especially under Quinn’s casual yet expert handling.

  It was no surprise when he took the Goodwood road instead of following the main highway into Bundaberg, and less of a surprise when Michelle manipulated things to ensure that he would drop Alix off first and then take her home.

  ‘I have to give you credit, Michelle; you’re a dandy manipulator,’ Alix muttered under her breath, but although she was slightly hurt by the ease of Michelle’s manipulation, it was almost worth the pain just to slide out of the car and know she wouldn’t have to hear that voice any more ... at least for a while.