by Caro Carson
Naturally, she’d made herself available to the unknown owner. Quinn came last in her list of priorities. He was torn between feeling sorry for himself and being worried for her. She claimed to be happy when she felt needed and helpful, but Quinn thought she was being more of a doormat than she knew.
Quinn said nothing, and Diana’s chatter resumed.
“We’re on our way,” she said, a chipper little skipper of the lime-green Bug. “I didn’t have the car last night to get to the store for more dog food, so it was lucky I had a pot roast in the freezer. He loved it.”
Whether two-legged or four-legged, what male wouldn’t love to have Diana fawning all over him, dropping everything to make him a pot roast?
She could have called him. He could have brought her a bag of dog food. Diana shut him out of her world. Except for the volunteers at the shelter and the TV-watching crew he’d met so briefly that first weekend, Diana kept him carefully separate from her friends. From her real life.
We really aren’t a good match, Quinn. She’d said it so earnestly, standing in front of her retro refrigerator.
It bothered him. If she continued to shut him out of her life, then her prediction would certainly come true.
Quinn was going to set a different tone this weekend by fully including her in his life. His friends were going to love her. Diana needed to see that her fears about being a poor match for him outside the bedroom were unfounded.
He supposed breaking his silence would be a good step toward his weekend goals.
“Why didn’t you have your car last night?” he asked.
“I had to loan it to someone.”
His friends wouldn’t mooch off her. They’d never borrow her car. They kept their dogs at canine spa facilities.
Diana began turning down side streets. The dog’s owner lived near the highway, all right. Close enough to make the property undesirable, judging by the neighborhood.
“Leave the air running, I’ll be right back,” Diana said. She was out of the car and coaxing the dog to squeeze out in a flash. Quinn watched through the windshield as she wrestled the animal to the door of the shabby duplex. Then she returned to the trunk and started unpacking the suitcases to get to the dog food.
The owner of the Saint Bernard was apparently content to let Diana not only buy the dog food but to haul it up the cracked sidewalk herself. Cursing inwardly, Quinn released his shoulder belt and got out of the car.
Without a word, Quinn reached into the trunk to sling the fifty-pound bag over his shoulder and followed Diana to the duplex. An unkempt man stood in the door, watching them sweat as they approached. The man couldn’t stir himself to meet them halfway, apparently. Couldn’t help the woman who’d watched his dog on short notice. Diana smiled and chatted and accepted his rudeness in a way that made Quinn feel close to boiling over.
He dropped the bag at the doorstep.
“What’s this?” the guy mumbled around the cigarette dangling from his lower lip.
“How about ‘thank you’?” Quinn challenged him.
“I don’t take charity.”
“Good, then you can pay Diana for this bag of dog food.”
Diana looked alarmed. “Don’t be silly. The dog food just goes with the dog.”
The man glared at her, looking as surly as Stewy on steroids. “You keep it.”
“I don’t have a dog. What would I do with dog food?” She giggled and nodded as if she were making perfect sense. It was an act, of course, and Quinn could see it was an act, but Diana apparently knew what she was doing. When she said, “We’ll just move the bag inside,” the guy shrugged instead of keeping up his argument.
Quinn didn’t like the guy’s lack of gratitude. Move it inside your damned self, he started to say, but stopped when he saw the man was balancing on one leg. His only leg.
Quinn felt like an ass. He hauled the bag over the threshold, then turned toward the man in silent question. When the man jerked his chin toward the kitchen, Quinn obeyed and set the bag against the wall by the battered refrigerator.
The man was uncomfortable with the help. He’d already stated he wasn’t a charity case, but he couldn’t have much money. Diana had clearly been trying to save his pride by insisting she had no use for the dog food, so he might as well take it.
Diana said her goodbyes to the mammoth St. Bernard. She offered her hand to the amputee in a businesslike manner, another subtle way to make the man feel they were equals, not charity-giver and helpless recipient. While the man shook her hand, Quinn saw him set his other on the waist-high dog’s head for balance.
Diana had made another brilliant match.
She wasn’t making Quinn late by running a frivolous errand. She hadn’t let herself be taken advantage of, either, but had instead deliberately spent her money on someone she deemed a worthy cause. Most of all, she wasn’t clueless, and Quinn was ashamed of himself for having thought it. So how did a man go about apologizing without explaining what he’d thought?
Diana was silent as they drove out the other side of the duplex’s semicircular drive. Quinn slid his seat back as far as it would go, then angled himself to watch her as she drove. She was beautiful, flushed from the heat, but she was blinking a little too rapidly. He hoped they were tears of pride in herself.
“Do you remember the morning after our one-night stand?” he asked.
She kept her eyes on the road, but wrinkled her nose at his question.
He persisted. “I said that I knew I was lucky to be with you, do you remember that?”
“Yes.” She waited at the red light that would let them onto the highway’s entrance ramp.
“I was right that morning, but every day, I find out that I was more right than I knew. That was a beautiful thing you did, finding a way to help that man when he was dead set against receiving help. Your instincts about people amaze me.”
“Aw, shucks,” she said, trying to be humorous when he could see he’d made her blush with his praise.
His silence was well-intentioned this time. She needed a minute to soak in a compliment without laughing it off.
“I hardly know what to say to that,” she said.
“For me, it was a lesson in humility. I’ll never doubt your errands are important, and your matchmaking skills are phenomenal.”
Then, because he was making her tear up when she needed to be clear-eyed to drive, and because Diana preferred laughter, always, he tried for a little humor. “If all that weren’t humiliating enough, I also have to deal with the fact that I now know I got kicked out of your bed last night to make room for a Saint Bernard.”
Her laughter warmed his heart, but that crack of doubt wouldn’t go away completely. A few carefree miles passed before he put together the details.
Diana was a phenomenal matchmaker, a woman who understood others instinctively.
We really aren’t a good match, Quinn.
The icy feeling returned to his chest.
Chapter Fifteen
The gas gauge was dangerously—and unsurprisingly—near empty. Diana had hoped to make it to the lake without having to run that errand. It was nearly ten when she pulled into the gas station.
“I’ll be super quick.”
She could have saved her breath. Quinn was already out of the car, sliding his credit card into the pump with one hand and removing her car’s gas cap with the other. He didn’t seem angry, just focused. Very doctor-ly. This made sense, since she was making him late to a doctor-ly meeting.
Anger, though, might have been more normal. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate his restraint, and all his kind words about how important her errands had been. After all, spending the past hour’s drive to the lake in a tiny car with an angry bear wouldn’t have been too pleasant for her, but she was the reason he was late to a
n important meeting, and she knew it.
Despite Quinn’s apparent good mood, Diana was getting nervous. It didn’t have much to do with making a meeting on time. It had more to do with entering a foreign world, one where everyone would focus on hard things. Natural disasters. Human suffering. How was a person supposed to look on the bright side of such things?
She couldn’t, and she was afraid to spend a weekend with a group of people who were tough enough to actually seek out tragic situations.
It’s just a party on a lake. It will be fun.
She ought to be more excited. Last summer, she’d had a ball at a friend’s house on this same lake. They’d drunk sweet wine coolers and eaten salty potato chips on his dock. He’d owned a Jet Ski, and Diana had taken a turn on it. Maybe Patricia would have a Jet Ski, and Diana could ride behind Quinn, the way she did on his motorcycle. That would make for a fun weekend.
First, however, there would be some kind of business meeting. Quinn was wearing work clothes. No tie and stethoscope, but still, slacks and a button-down shirt didn’t exactly scream “lake house weekend” to her. She wasn’t part of the meeting, but Patricia would be. Patricia wasn’t afraid of natural disasters.
Diana bet Patricia wouldn’t be in shorts and a tank top, either.
It was too late to pack a different wardrobe, but Diana had brought a long-sleeved white shirt to wear over her bikini. If she wore it over her tank top now, she’d arrive looking a little less casual. She popped the trunk and went to find—
Nothing. Her banana suitcase was gone. She quickly checked the backseat, but only her monkey luggage was there, the one containing her makeup and hair dryer, and the bottle of champagne she’d bought for a hostess gift. Her bathing suit was in there. Nothing else to wear.
She’d taken the luggage out to get to the dog food. It was probably sitting in the duplex’s semicircular driveway. Or, more likely, it had been stolen by now.
She shut the trunk, maybe with a little more force than she’d intended to.
“What’s wrong?” Quinn asked, watching her as he pumped the gas.
There’s enough misery in the world without me adding mine to it. Diana forced a smile. She’d already made him haul dog food in dress clothes. She’d already made him late to his meeting. She wasn’t going to complain about something neither he nor she could fix.
“I hope you really, really like my outfit. It’s the only one I’ve got with me.”
* * *
The awkwardness began in earnest when they reached the iron gates. Diana rolled her window down, but before she could push the call button on the security box, a man’s voice came through the speaker.
“Your name, please.”
“Diana Connor.”
There was a brief pause. “Are you expected?”
Quinn leaned across her. “Quinn MacDowell.”
He had that tone to his voice again, the one that said he was in charge, so listen up.
The security guard did. “Good morning, Dr. MacDowell. Welcome back.” The gates began swinging open.
Of course. Diana Connor meant less than nothing in a place like this. She drove her little Bug several hundred yards to the edge of a cliff. Miles of blue-green water were visible beyond a modern house.
She pulled into a large parking area to the left of the house. Diana popped the trunk, but when they got out of the car, Quinn casually shut it again with one hand and took her keys. “Don’t worry, they’ll get the luggage.”
Awkward, but interesting. Diana wondered who “they” were. The two-story house was elegant and expensive-looking with its natural stone exterior, but it didn’t look big enough to hold all the people that must have arrived in the other cars. The entire bottom floor was a four-car garage. From the parking area, curving stone stairs were set into the hillside that sloped up to the top story’s rather grand double doors.
As they reached the top of the stairs, one of the doors opened and an older gentleman in khaki slacks and a navy blazer greeted Quinn.
They stepped inside. Diana experienced a fleeting sense of vertigo, for they were standing in a spacious marble foyer at the top of a polished marble staircase. Beyond the iron railing, there was nothing but open space to the floor below. The lake view was spectacular through the two-story-tall windows.
Diana turned back to their host, and stuck her hand out to the gentleman. “You must be Mr. Cargill. Thank you so much for inviting us.” She wished she’d thought to pull the champagne out of her monkey suitcase to give him.
The man shook her hand briefly, then let go and tucked both hands behind his back. “You are welcome here, miss, but I am not Mr. Cargill. He is not currently in residence.”
Awkward. So very awkward.
Quinn put his hand on the small of her back and handed her car keys to the...whatever he was. The butler? Did people really have butlers?
The sound of a woman’s heels coming briskly up the marble stairs was followed immediately by the appearance of Patricia. Well, the top half of Patricia. She stopped once she’d climbed high enough to see them. “You’re here. Finally.”
Quinn kept his hand on Diana’s back as they started down the stairs. Her sandals didn’t make an elegant clicking sound with her every step. They were completely flat, so they sounded about as glamorous as bedroom slippers as she walked down to Patricia’s stair.
Patricia kissed Quinn on the cheek. Her hair was up in a French twist. Her silk navy blouse topped wonderfully flowy gray slacks, and she looked cool and sophisticated and every inch at home.
Diana felt underdressed and disheveled, like a woman who’d hauled a Saint Bernard in and out of her car all morning in the Texas summer heat.
“You remember Diana Connor from the gala.” Quinn’s introduction sounded so formal, but it fit the surroundings.
“Of course. The real estate agent. How nice to see you again.” Without offering her hand or a peck on the cheek, Patricia turned back to Quinn and took his arm. “You’re late, darling.”
“Only ten minutes.”
“I’ve held this meeting for as long as I possibly could, but we have so much to cover.”
“I think Texas Rescue will manage to operate this year despite a ten-minute delay.”
With that dryly delivered line, Diana knew she’d come full circle. The urbane man in a tuxedo was back, the unflappable one, the one who didn’t laugh.
Or rather, Diana was back in his world.
She’d invaded this world once, naively thinking it would be a lark to go to a formal gala. She’d stolen a perfect moment by dancing with Quinn, then a perfect night, and a weekend. For three weeks, she’d been stealing moments with a man whom she never should have met. And now, in this lakeside mansion, she’d come back to the world where people wore silk and had butlers.
“Diana, do join us in the meeting room after you’ve had a chance to...freshen up.” Patricia looked toward the top of the stairs. “I see Robert has your luggage. He’ll show you to your room.”
“This is all I’ve got,” Diana said, tapping the neckline of her shirt. She smiled as she said it, so that Patricia wouldn’t feel sorry for her or be concerned that her guest felt embarrassed—although her guest most certainly did. Heck, even if she’d had her luggage, Diana wouldn’t have had anything appropriate to change into. Then again, that was the bright side: the forgotten suitcase gave her the perfect excuse for being so underdressed.
Quinn started shepherding them down the stairs. “We had a luggage mishap on the way here.”
“Oh?” Patricia said invitingly, and Diana braced herself for a retelling of her dumb move with the dog food.
Awkward. Diana would have to laugh at her own stupidity.
Quinn didn’t offer any details, however. “Since my ten-minute delay has already upset your sense of punctuality
, let’s go straight to the meeting. I assume everyone is in the billiards room?”
Quinn was watching out for her. She knew he was just as bothered by arriving late as Patricia was, but he was being a gentleman by not blaming Diana. The same was true of the way he hadn’t said that Diana had left her luggage on the ground and driven away like an idiot. Everyone could have had a good chuckle at her absent-mindedness, but it really wasn’t funny, and Diana was grateful to be spared.
But no matter how kind Quinn was being toward her, Diana was the odd man out in this house. She stayed by his side as they walked through the gorgeous great room, which was furnished with dark, carved woods and rich leather upholstery, a well-designed interior that could hold its own against the spectacular lake view. It was undeniably magnificent, but it was meant to impress, and Diana felt all the intimidation it dished out.
Patricia walked on Quinn’s other side, chatting easily with him like the friend and colleague she was. Diana fell back a step, intentionally, when they reached another staircase to descend to a third level that hadn’t been visible from the driveway. From her step behind them, it was easy to admire Quinn and Patricia. They looked so elegant together, moving in sync in their well-tailored clothes against the backdrop of this mansion.
They’d looked just as good together at the gala.
Patricia put her hand on Quinn’s arm casually—or perhaps, not so casually. She cast one smooth glance at Diana over her shoulder. Diana absorbed all the impact of that single, well-designed look: she was the guest of a woman who didn’t want her in her home.
Diana couldn’t blame her. She was, after all, sleeping with the man who was Patricia’s perfect match.
Awkward didn’t begin to describe it.
* * *
Quinn remained standing with Diana as Karen Weaver opened the meeting with a weather update. There was one chair available, but he was half of a couple. Party of two, and Patricia knew it. Hell, he’d brought Diana at her invitation.
