A Convenient Proposal

‘Ready?’ Quinn rose as he spoke, and it dawned on her he was tall, very tall. He towered over her five feet eight by at least six inches, and he needed a haircut. Her eyes widened slightly as the thought hit and she pushed it aside firmly. She didn’t care if his hair grew down to his feet; it was no concern of hers if that quiff kept falling in his eyes.

‘I’ll meet you round the front.’

She had been hesitating on how to finish the meeting. It seemed a bit fatuous to thank him for the coffee, but she couldn’t very well just ask for the key again. Now, as Quinn spoke, she found herself gaping at him before she shut her mouth with a little snap. So he was still determined to escort her to the cottage? She swallowed back the hot retort that had jumped to her lips and almost choked with the effort, before sweeping past him and wrenching open the front door.

Calm down, Candy; don’t let him get to you. She stood for a moment on the doorstep and breathed deeply of the crisp, cold English air before striding over to the Fiesta and unlocking the door.

Once inside the car she started the engine and then waited. Within moments a sleek, beautiful champagne-coloured Aston Martin nosed on to the front drive from the back of the house. It figured. She allowed a small cynical smile to play round her angry mouth. This was a car women would take a second and a third glance at, and she didn’t doubt that was why Quinn had bought it.

Oh, why was she being so bitchy? she asked herself in the next moment, as Quinn raised a hand in acknowledgment before easing the car past the docile little Fiesta. He was entitled to drive any car he liked!

Harper had liked powerful cars. The statement was in answer to her previous thoughts, and she recognised it as such as she followed Quinn out on to the main road. The realisation made her nip at her lower lip. No, she wasn’t going to do this. She wasn’t going to get all bitter and twisted and tar all men with the same brush. No doubt there were still a few men out there, nice, ordinary men, who were capable of being faithful all their lives. The thought was without conviction, and she frowned at herself before shrugging irritably.

It didn’t matter one way or the other anyway. She didn’t intend to fall into the trap of commitment and all that hogwash ever again, so it was pointless to think along these lines. She clamped her lips together, straightened her back and followed Quinn into the sort of narrow country lane that was pure picture book England.

They passed several huge thatched cottages with magnificently laid out gardens, and within a moment or two the lane had narrowed still more to show green fields either side of the drystone walls.

Candy was just thinking she hoped they didn’t meet any traffic from the opposite direction when Quinn’s indicator began to flash and his snail’s pace slowed still more, before he eased the Aston Martin into a pull-in just big enough to take two cars.

‘Oh, Essie…’ Candy spoke out loud, as though Xavier’s wife was in the car with her, but her first sight of the cottage Essie still couldn’t bear to sell was enchanting.

It was tiny, minute, but the narrow winding path that led to the gnarled front door, the pretty front garden, the white-painted exterior and quaint leaded windows under their bonnet of thatch were chocolate-box material.

The cottage looked to have masses of ground at the back, and she could imagine the gardens would be a blaze of colour come the spring, but even now, with the bare branches of the trees silhouetted against the dying gold sky, the vista was breathtaking. She could understand now why Essie had hung on to her little corner of English heaven, even though Xavier had a penthouse in London for when he was over on business. If this was hers she wouldn’t sell it. No way.

And she was allowed to stay here as long as she liked— Essie had been adamant about that. ‘Months, a year, two years, for ever,’ Xavier’s wife had said airily when she had first offered Candy the sanctuary. ‘Make it yours, Candy. It’s the perfect spot to resume your painting and it’s great to think of the place being used again. Xavier arranged for a lady to dust and air the place every so often, and there’s a gardener who keeps the outside under control, but other than them you won’t see a living soul unless you want to.’

The last words stayed with her now, as she opened the car door and looked over to where Quinn was holding the rickety garden gate open for her.

‘Come in and have a nose round first and then I’ll get your cases,’ he said evenly, but without a smile.

‘There’s really no need. I can manage perfectly well—’

‘And then I’ll get out of your hair,’ he cut in with cool aplomb. ‘Okay?’

She ought to say she hadn’t meant she was waiting for him to leave. It was the polite thing, the courteous thing to do. But she had meant just that and she wasn’t going to lie. Candy raised her chin a notch or two, nodded brightly, and walked over to the gate. She had to brush past him to get through, and as she did so the smell of him, a mixture of delicious aftershave and something lemon, teased her nostrils, making her senses jump.

It didn’t help either that he seemed even bigger and darker than before, in the heavy black leather jacket he had pulled on over his working denims, or that the muscled strength that padded his shoulders and chest was intimidatingly close.

She concentrated on walking to the front door with every ounce of her will, and by the time she reached it she was able to stand aside and let Quinn open the door for her with the magic key without a tremor. A few more minutes and then she would be alone. She could kick her shoes off her aching feet, have a long soak in a hot tub and fall into bed. That was all she wanted. Exploring, shopping for groceries, everything else could wait until tomorrow. She had never felt so exhausted in all her life.

The interior of the cottage was everything the outside promised and more. Polished wood floors, beamed ceilings, whitewashed walls with one or two good paintings—it was perfect, Candy decided happily.

The open-plan sitting room and tiny kitchen had stairs leading upstairs to the cottage’s bedroom and diminutive bathroom and furniture was at a minimum—just a rich deep red sofa and two easy chairs, a nest of small occasional tables, a tiny bookcase tucked under the window and two bar stools standing under the little breakfast bar which separated the kitchen from the sitting room.

There was no TV, no microwave—although a hardy stove dominated the kitchen space—no fridge and no washing machine.

‘I’ve had the telephone reconnected.’ Quinn indicated the phone resting on the top of the nest of tables. ‘And the fire’s ready to light. There are more logs and coal stored in the old potting shed at the back of the cottage and a list of everyone—doctor, dentist, coalman et cetera—pinned to the inside of the top cupboard.’

‘Oh, right, thank you.’ Candy was beginning to feel like a worm. There were fresh flowers in a vase on the bookcase, and when she opened a couple of the kitchen cupboards they were full of food. The bread bin held a crusty loaf, there was a box containing fruit and vegetables on the breakfast bar, at the side of which stood a pack of thick steaks, bacon, eggs and other produce, including a couple of bottles of very good wine. She took a deep breath and asked, ‘Did…did you get everything in?’

Quinn shrugged. ‘No problem. I didn’t think you’d want to shop your first afternoon.’

‘How much do I owe you?’ she asked jerkily, her cheeks fiery red.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said shortly.

‘Oh, but I must pay you.’

‘I said don’t be ridiculous.’ This time it was accompanied by a scowl that brooked no argument, before he swung round and walked over to the tiny stone fireplace, reaching up for the box of matches on the wooden mantelpiece above and flicking a match to the coals and wood in the grate. ‘It’s a bit chilly now, but it will soon warm up,’ he said quietly. ‘There’s no central heating, so it’s advisable to make sure you don’t run out of fuel.’

There was a small, fraught silence while Candy wondered whether to press the matter of payment for the supplies, but she found she didn’t dare. ‘Thank you,’ she said again.

‘There’s a TV point if you want to get one. Essie never liked the idea herself.’

‘Neither do I,’ Candy said quickly. ‘I shall be painting most of the time anyway, and I love to read, especially in front of a real fire.’

‘A homebody?’ Jet-black eyes wandered over the slim, expensively dressed and beautifully coiffured figure in front of him and a thick black eyebrow rose derisively. It made Candy want to hit him.

‘Actually, I am,’ she affirmed tightly.

‘Right.’

Candy reminded herself about the food and the flowers and the fire now burning brightly in the grate and swallowed hard.

‘I’ll get your cases in.’ There was something in the silky voice that told her he was well aware of the restraint she had just employed and had relished it.

She went exploring upstairs while Quinn brought her things in, and found the bedroom, with its pretty drapes and matching bedspread and leaded window under the eaves, delightful. There was no wardrobe or dressing table—Essie had warned her about the makeshift bar she had nailed to the wall which she had intended to replace with a wardrobe one day—but Candy didn’t mind that. She could perhaps buy a small pine wardrobe to match the bed, she thought to herself, and a few other things for Essie before she left. She’d see how the painting went. She had a list of contacts from her agent in Canada and several had appeared hopeful.

‘Do you want these cases upstairs?’

Upstairs? The thought of Quinn in the bedroom was enough to send her scurrying down the bare wood stairs with more speed than was advisable, considering their steepness. ‘No, it’s all right,’ she said breathlessly as she almost collided into him at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I’ll sort things out later.’

‘Leave it to tomorrow, if you can; it must have been a long day.’ She had looked like a young kid for a moment as she’d galloped down those stairs, but a kid with deep bruised shadows under her eyes and a soft mouth that was drooping with tiredness. He’d noticed she limped slightly too; it was barely discernible, but it was there.

Quinn’s thoughts made his smile warm and open as he held out his hand. ‘Goodbye, Candy,’ he said softly. ‘If there’s anything you need don’t hesitate to call.’

Candy hesitated for a moment, and then she carefully placed her small paw in his big fingers as she said, ‘Thank you. I mean that. I didn’t mean to be rude earlier, but it’s just that I want to be left alone.’ And then, realising that was insulting in itself, she groaned inwardly, adding quickly, ‘What I mean is—’

‘You mean you want the space to breathe.’

He was still holding her hand, his dark head slightly bent towards hers, but it was the note of something undefinable rather than the actual words that brought her startled blue eyes into line with his ebony gaze. She didn’t like the feel of what his hard, warm flesh was doing to her, or the fact that she knew she ought to pull away and couldn’t. But the knowledge that he knew how she was feeling, really knew, had shocked her into immobility.

She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips and saw him follow the motion with his eyes, and the warmth it engendered was enough warning for her to be able to say, ‘Yes, that is what I mean,’ her voice guarded now.

‘Just don’t cut yourself off so completely it becomes impossible to take up the reins again.’ His voice carried a roughness now, a huskiness that increased the warmth tenfold.

Did he know how sexy he was? she asked herself before she was aware what she was thinking. She didn’t think she had ever met anyone with such naked magnetism in all her life.

‘I’ve no intention of doing that,’ she said shakily. ‘I’m going to work here, at my painting. I’ve already got the possibility of an exhibition in London if my agent can fix it up, and—’

‘I wasn’t talking about work.’ Suddenly her hand was free, and ridiculously she felt bereft. ‘I’m talking about here, inside.’ He touched the black leather over his heart. ‘There comes a point where feeling dies—take it from one who knows—and once it’s gone it can’t be resurrected.’

He was talking about himself. Candy stared at him. She wasn’t at all sure how they had reached this point, but suddenly she knew he was talking about himself.

‘You tell yourself that one day you’ll perhaps take a chance again, open up, get back into the game, and then after a time you wake up one morning and realise you’re self-sufficient. You don’t need anyone.’ His eyes were granite hard now, and inward-looking.

‘Surely that’s good?’ she asked faintly.

Her voice seemed to bring him back to the present and he blinked once, a mask covering his face as he said, his voice remote, ‘Maybe, maybe not. Who knows?’ The brief moment of intimacy was over.

Candy remained where she was as Quinn walked to the front door, but once he had opened it and stepped out into the bitingly cold air, in which the odd desultory snowflake was beginning to whirl and dance, she followed him to the doorway and watched him walk down the narrow garden path in the grey twilight.

‘Goodbye, Candy.’ He turned at the gate, raking back his hair as he said, ‘I might make the odd phone call to check you’re still in the land of the living, but I promise no house calls. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

It was what she had wanted, and she couldn’t have made it any plainer, so why did she feel so wretched now? Candy asked herself as she watched him back the Aston Martin out into the lane.

She was tired; that was what it was. And the day had been full of different impressions and images—she wasn’t thinking straight.

She raised her hand once as he left, but he didn’t glance her way.

Fine. She bit down hard on her lip and then closed the front door and turned to survey her new home. The breakfast bar was still piled high with food, and then she saw the little note he must have scribbled while she had been upstairs. It was propped next to an opened bottle of red wine and it read, ‘Have a couple of glasses while you cook the steak. The salad’s all ready. Q.’

She drank the first glass sitting in front of the crackling fire, and she was fighting back the tears without having any idea why she wanted to cry. After putting the steak on a low grill she took the second glass up to the bathroom with her and sipped it while she soaked the aches and pains of the long journey away.

It was dark when she tottered downstairs again, and it was really snowing outside, thick, heavy fat flakes blotting out the view beyond the window. She drew the thick red curtains, dished up the steak and salad and poured herself another glass of wine in a spirit of recklessness before throwing another couple of logs on the fire.

She loathed men! She bit into the steak and felt the juice dribble down her chin. She did, she loathed them all. And she was going to do exactly what she had made up her mind to do weeks ago in Canada. Concentrate on her painting, forge a career for herself, both here and across the Atlantic, and make her work her life. She knew where she was with paint and paper. They didn’t lie, they didn’t run away and leave her, she could trust them.

She finished the steak and salad, drained the glass, took a long, hard deep breath and headed for the stairs. The dishes, along with the unpacking could wait for tomorrow.

And nothing—nothing—had changed.

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN Candy awoke the next morning it was to a hushed, silent world that was all ethereal whiteness and silver skies. And it was beautiful. It was so, so beautiful.

She stood at the bedroom window as wonder touched her soul and her fingers itched for her canvas and paints for the first time in months. Over a year, in fact.

She skipped her usual morning shower, padding downstairs and finding the suitcase that contained leggings and a thick jumper before hoisting her hair into a high ponytail on top of her head. She didn’t even bother to wash her face.

After a hasty breakfast of toast and coffee she unzipped the case holding her paints and other equipment—ignoring the rest piled in one corner where Quinn had left them, which were demanding attention—and after reorganising the layout of the sitting room to give her maximum light she set to work on the images that had burnt themselves on her mind first thing that morning.

At four o’clock, as the light began to fade rapidly, she emerged from the frenzy which had gripped her all day and realized the cottage was freezing and she was starving hungry.

Once the fire was blazing she cooked herself the rest of the steak and finished off the bottle of wine before selecting a book from Essie’s bookcase and curling up on the sofa until ten o’clock. A hot bath, a mug of cocoa and she was in bed at half past and dead to the world a minute later.

It was another five days before empty cupboards drove her out to get supplies, but at least she had phoned Essie and Xavier and unpacked by then. And she had the makings of a terrific picture too, she told herself, as she persuaded the reluctant Fiesta up the snow-packed lane and out on to the main road towards the town a few miles away.

She had to pass Quinn’s veterinary practice on the way into town but she didn’t glance at it, not even for a moment.

He hadn’t phoned.

And that was fine, perfect, wonderful. Sure it was. It meant he had listened to what she had said and received the message loud and clear. And she wasn’t going to acknowledge the little voice at the back of her mind that kept nagging as to the reason for the bitterness evident in his voice and face either. His past was his own affair, as was hers.

Had Essie told Quinn anything about her? It was another thought which had been popping up fairly frequently over the last five days.

She hoped not. Not that she had anything to be ashamed of, she told herself militantly; it was just her business, that was all. Her grandmother being the town’s tramp, which had caused her mother, Natalie, to be raped by one of her grandmother’s unsavoury ‘friends’ when her mother had been a child of fourteen wasn’t exactly the normal family background people expected. Her poor mother… She thought of the photograph Xavier had given her when she was a young girl which was all she had to remind her she had ever had a mother.

Her mother had died giving birth to her. She had found that very hard to come to terms with, in spite of Xavier’s gentleness and tenderness when he had told her. And Natalie had been just fifteen years old. Although the tragedy had jolted her grandmother out of her life of dissipation until she died, eight years later, the damage had been done, but Xavier had fought their reputation every inch of the way.

Of course, once he had made his first million nothing had ever been said openly any more. Candy’s soft mouth twisted cynically. But in her home town there had still been men who knew the family history and thought they were on to a good thing with her. Not that she had ever told Xavier; he would have knocked them into next week. He had virtually brought her up and she was to all intents and purposes a daughter in her uncle’s eyes.

Her background was one of the reasons why she had thought Harper was so wonderful; he had respected her, he had treated her as though she was a piece of precious Meissen porcelain.

She forced her mind away from Harper. How could she have been so naive, so trusting, so utterly pathetic and dumb? No, it didn’t matter now. She breathed deeply, willing the sick feeling that always accompanied his name to die. Harper was gone, killed in a mass of twisted metal that had borne no resemblance to the car it had been once it had finished rolling down the mountainside.

She was now on the borders of the small Sussex town, and on entering the main street a minute or two later she spied a parking slot to one side of the ancient cobbled marketplace and took it quickly, before she lost the chance.

It was a tight squeeze between a large four-by-four on one side and a badly parked BMW on the other, which was probably why it was still vacant when everywhere else was packed. However, Xavier had taught her to drive in the acres of ground surrounding his lovely home in Vancouver when she’d barely been out of pigtails, and he had coached her so well she could virtually park on a postage stamp.

Manoeuvring completed, she cut the engine, carefully wriggled out of the door and turned to look about her—straight into a pair of dark approving black eyes.

‘Very nice.’ Quinn indicated the Fiesta with a wave of his hand as he grinned at her. ‘Do all Canadian women drive like you?’

Candy had frozen. He was standing inches from her and he was even bigger and darker than she remembered, and undeniably drop-dead gorgeous, from the top of his raven head to the soles of his muddy boots. And he was muddy. Filthy, in fact.

‘Hallo, Quinn.’ It was late, but better than nothing.

‘Hallo, Candy.’ It was very serious, but his eyes were smiling. And then, as a number of dogs in the big four-by-four began to bark and yap at the sound of his voice, he shouted, ‘Quiet, the lot of you,’ and it worked like magic.

‘This is yours?’ Candy asked in surprise.

‘My working vehicle,’ he said easily. ‘The farmers would think I’d lost it if I turned up in the Aston Martin.’

‘Yes, yes, I suppose they would.’ Keep talking, act naturally, forget the fact you aren’t wearing any make-up and your hair needs washing. ‘And the dogs…?’

‘All mine.’ There was a warmth in his voice as he glanced at the furry heads and bright eyes staring interestedly out of the back of the big vehicle. ‘I’ve had them about eight months now, five in all.’

‘Five?’ she queried brightly, ignoring her pounding heart.

‘Bit of story attached to them, I guess. There used to be an old lady in the town who had a little sanctuary for strays, and when she died unexpectedly these five were the ones who weren’t taken when we appealed for owners for the inmates. So…’

‘You took them when time ran out?’ Candy said quietly. She didn’t like the story, or, more to the point, she didn’t like what it did to her. She didn’t want to think of Quinn as the sort of man who would care for the vulnerable and helpless. She didn’t want to think of Quinn at all!

He shrugged. ‘I was ready for some company, that’s all, and they’re a good bunch on the whole, although the little Jack Russell throws his weight about a bit.’

She stared at him. He was playing it down but he loved those dogs; she could see it in his face and hear it in his voice. Candy’s own voice was remote and somewhat toneless when she said, ‘Well, I must be going. Nice to see you again.’

‘Likewise.’ His voice was cool now, and outdid hers in tonelessness.

She nodded at him, furious with herself that he made her want to take to her heels and run like the wind on the one hand and on the other… She wanted to remain here, talking to him like this and finding out more and more about him for the rest of the day. Which was plain stupid. Worse, downright dangerous. He was too good-looking, too charismatic, too…everything to mess with. Just like Harper.

She was conscious of his eyes on the back of her neck as she walked towards the first of the row of shops at the side of the marketplace, but she didn’t look back, and when she came out of the greengrocer’s some five minutes later the four-by-four was gone and in its place was an inoffensive little Mini.

The sky suddenly seemed greyer, and she was conscious of the icy wind cutting through her ski-jacket as she stood staring over the marketplace. And then she turned, very sharply, as though she was throwing something off, and made for the next shop, her shoulders straight and her head high.

It snowed again that night, and by morning the wind was working up to a blizzard, but inside the cottage all was warm and snug. Candy had learnt to bank down the fire each night to keep the downstairs of the cottage warm for morning, and when she first rose emptied the previous day’s ashes into the big tin bucket she had found hidden under the sink before she poked the fire into a blaze again and put fresh coal and logs on the burgeoning flames.