A Convenient Proposal

‘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.