A Convenient Proposal

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.

By mid-afternoon the coal scuttle was empty and the last of the logs was on the fire; it was time to visit the potting shed once more.

Candy pulled on her boots and bright warm ski-jacket and trudged round to the back of the cottage with her head down against the wind, which was driving the snow before it in fierce gusts, and after the routine fight with the aged door of the potting shed she had stepped into the relative sanctuary of its dank dryness.

After filling the coal scuttle and lugging it back to the cottage she returned with the sack for the wood, but it was as she reached for the first log that she heard it. The faintest cry, almost a squeak. Mice? Rats? She froze, her heart thudding. Mice she could tolerate, but rats? Their teeth were a little too large and sharp for comfort. Still, if she didn’t bother them they probably wouldn’t bother her.

She was actually bending to reach for the log again when the sound came once more. It wasn’t a squeak, she told herself silently. It was a miaow, a faint mew. There must be a cat in here, but how had it got in and when, and where was it from? She tried, ‘Puss, puss, puss,’ but to no avail.

Was it hurt or just sheltering from the cold? After some five minutes, when she was getting more and more chilled, she was just on the point of leaving to fetch a saucer of warm milk when a third mew brought her on all fours to peer along the back of the potting shed behind the six-foot pile of stacked logs. And then she saw them. It looked as though there was the smallest hole in one corner, where a couple of bricks had crumbled away, but it had been enough for the mother cat to creep in to give birth to her kittens. And they were tiny, minute, they couldn’t be more than a few days old at most, and the she-cat wasn’t moving.

Don’t let it be dead. Oh, please, don’t let it be dead. Candy stared in horror at the pathetic little scene and then, as one of the three kittens squirmed a little and made the mewing sound again, she looked at the great pile of wood apprehensively. If she attempted to move it, it might fall on the little family and squash them, but she couldn’t just leave them here to die either.

How long had it been since the mother cat had had food or water? It could be hours or days; she had no way of knowing.

Quinn. He was a vet. He would know what to do. She was halfway back to the cottage in the next breath, and once inside she opened the cupboard and looked for his number. She knew it was there; she had looked for it on her first morning in England whilst assuring herself she would never, ever use it. It was halfway down the list of emergency numbers—‘Quinn Ellington, Veterinary Surgeon.’

She dialled the number with shaking hands, finding she was more upset than she had realised. But there was something so pitiable about the mother cat’s valiant attempt to find shelter and safety for her kittens and the way she was lying curled round the minute little scraps to keep them warm.

It was Marion who answered the telephone, and Candy cut through all the social niceties when she said urgently, ‘This is Candy, Xavier’s niece. I have to speak to Quinn; it’s an emergency.’

‘Candy?’ When she heard Quinn’s deep voice after a brief pause she found, ridiculously, that she had to fight for control against the tears welling up in her throat.

‘Oh, Quinn. There’s a cat in my potting shed and it’s not moving and I can’t reach it and it’s had kittens—’

‘Whoa, whoa.’ The interruption was firm but gentle. ‘Slowly, nice and slowly. Start at the beginning.’

And so she did, and after she had related it all there was another brief pause before he said, ‘It sounds like time is of the essence, so I’d better not wait until evening surgery is finished. Jamie and Bob will have to split my patients between them; it can’t be helped. It’ll take me a few minutes to fill them in on a couple of the more complicated cases and then I’ll get going. I’ll be with you in ten…fifteen minutes. All right?’

‘The…the lane is full of snow. I don’t know if you’ll be able to—’

‘No problem,’ he interrupted her abruptly, but she didn’t mind. ‘The four-by-four will take care of it. Goodbye for now.’ And the phone went dead.

For the next fifteen minutes Candy darted between the front gate and the potting shed some three or four times, but the female cat hadn’t moved or opened its eyes, and by the time Quinn’s Landrover Discovery eased its way into the pull in she was convinced it was dead.

She all but leapt on Quinn at the garden gate, actually taking his sleeve and hurrying him along the path until his quizzical gaze made her realise what she was doing.

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She dropped her hand from his jacket as though it was red-hot, flushing hotly. But she had never been so pleased to see anyone in her life.

Quinn’s big body seemed to fill the potting shed, and after he had squatted down on his heels and peered behind the assembled logs his face became grim. ‘We’ve got to get them out of here, but you’re right; it’s too risky to try and move this lot unless we absolutely have to. If I can get round the back of the shed I might just be able to reach in the hole where she came in and pull them out one by one that way.’

Candy stared at him doubtfully. The potting shed was in a nice sheltered position, tucked away behind the cottage, but it was completely surrounded on three sides by bushes and vegetation. Whatever way you looked at this it seemed like mission impossible. ‘You’d never manage it,’ she said mournfully. ‘It’s not possible.’

He turned from his contemplation of the cat and kittens and then rose to his feet. ‘Those last three words are not in my vocabulary,’ he said shortly, ‘and I’m surprised they’re in yours.’

Candy was stung. ‘What does that mean?’

‘You’re a gutsy lady, and gutsy ladies don’t give up before they’ve even started.’

Gutsy? What did that mean? What had Essie told him? Candy didn’t stop to think before she voiced her thoughts, and none too gently. ‘What do you know about me?’ she asked sharply. ‘What has Essie said?’

‘Essie?’ Quinn looked genuinely surprised. ‘Essie hasn’t said anything beyond the fact that you wanted a break for a few months? Why, what should she have said?’

‘Nothing.’ In spite of the zero temperatures outside Candy was hot now. Her and her big mouth. But it was him—he seemed to bring out the worst in her.

Quinn continued to hold her wary gaze for a moment more before he said, his voice even, but with an edge that spoke of irritation, ‘I merely meant that to take the decision to uproot yourself and come to pastures new after the sort of accident you’ve been recovering from took some guts. Okay? Nothing more, nothing less. If you’ve a whole host of skeletons in your particular cupboard I couldn’t care less, Candy.’

Well, that put her in her place, didn’t it?