A Convenient Proposal

by Helen Brooks

  Quinn had already offered Jamie the promotion to practice manager-cum-vet, with the apartment as part of the package, and as Jamie and his fiancée were getting married at the end of the year the younger man had nearly snapped Quinn's hand off, so fast had he grabbed at the proposition.

  For the time being Candy was using the spare bedroom as her studio, and the fact that she had to concentrate hard on meeting her schedules helped enormously. She was too busy to brood, although always at the back of her mind there was a shadow clouding what should have been one of the happiest periods of her life.

  And then a new and very real worry wiped out all introspection in one fell swoop.

  Candy had been ringing Xavier and Essie every afternoon for a regular update—Essie had been due to have the baby at the end of June, but by the end of the first week of July baby Grey still hadn't made an appearance.

  'It's too comfortable in there,' Xavier had informed her cheerfully the last time they had spoken. 'Food on tap, no worries, every need catered for! A Grey knows a good thing when it sees one!'

  But her uncle's voice hadn't been so light-hearted when the telephone had rung the next morning, at six a.m.

  Quinn had taken the call, listening quietly for a few moments before saying, 'She's in the best place, Xavier; it'll be fine, I know it Here, I'll pass you on to Candy.'

  'What's the matter? Is it Essie?' Candy had shot up in bed as soon as Quinn had mentioned her uncle's name; she had been expecting the call to be for Quinn, who was on call that week.

  Quinn had his hand over the receiver as he said quickly and softly, 'Essie's okay; she's had the baby, a little girl, but the baby needs an emergency operation. Here, Xavier will explain, but be upbeat, right?'

  She nodded dazedly, taking the telephone and saying tentatively, 'Xavier?'

  'Hi, Cottonsocks.' It was his pet name for her, and in spite of Quinn's previous admonition the endearment brought stinging tears to her eyes, but she endeavoured to keep all trace of them from her voice when she said, 'Essie's had the baby?'

  'A little girl.' It didn't sound like her uncle's voice, and she knew he was trying to keep a whole host of emotions under control when he continued, 'She's beautiful, very much like you were when you were born. A mass of black hair and great big blue eyes; the nurses are raving over her. The thing is…'There was a pause, and Xavier's voice was husky when he said, 'She has something wrong with her heart. There's a long technical name for it but I can't pronounce it She needs an operation right away, within the next twenty-four hours.'

  'I'm coming out.' She didn't stop to think about it.

  'There's no need. You're busy and—'

  'I'm coming, Xavier.'

  A longer pause this time, and then Xavier's voice was even thicker when he said, 'Essie would like that She's…she's holding on in there, but she would definitely like that.'

  'I'll phone the airport right away. Give Essie my love and tell her it will be all right. Oh, Xavier, I love you.'

  'I love you, Cottonsocks.'

  And then, as he went to put the phone down, she said urgently, 'Oh, I forgot to ask. What's the baby's name?'

  'Rose Candice, like her big cousin. Goodbye, Cottonsocks.'

  'Goodbye, Xavier.'

  She was crying now, she couldn't help it, and as Quinn took the telephone from her shaking fingers and replaced it by his side of the bed she said bewilderedly, 'They've named her after me. I'm Candice Rose and they've called her Rose Candice,' through the flood of tears pouring down her face.

  'Candy.' Quinn caught her to him and held her fast for some minutes as she wept against his bare chest, but he said little.

  When she pulled herself away, saying, 'I must phone the airport and get a flight,' he merely nodded, his face almost expressionless.

  'I'll arrange that,' he said. 'You go and have a shower and get ready and I'll run you to Heathrow.'

  He wasn't coming with her. She knew she shouldn't ask. It wasn't part of the arrangement to sit and hold her hand— she was supposed to be the cool career woman and hostess with the mostest—but she found herself saying, 'You…you don't think you could arrange for Jamie and the others to cover for you for a few days?'

  'I'd prefer not.' It was short and succinct.

  'I'd like you to come, Quinn. I…I need you.'

  'Candy.' It was too harsh, and immediately, as he glanced at her white tear-stained face, his voice gentled, but the darkness was in his eyes as he said, 'I thought you understood. I'm no good at these heart things, and I couldn't do anything anyway. Phone me to tell me how things are and I'll be waiting for you when you get back.'

  He would be waiting for her when she got back. She stared at him as her lovely face paled still further. All they had shared over the last weeks and she hadn't touched him at all. Not really.

  Well, she could beg. Or she could throw a tantrum, or use emotional blackmail, or any one of a number of ploys, but she wouldn't; she loved him too much for that. When he came to her, if he ever came to her, it would have to be because he wanted to commit himself utterly and for no other reason.

  But she had been wrong in one respect. She stared at him, her beautiful blue eyes with their thick dark lashes glittering with tears. She couldn't live one more day, one more hour as they had been doing, without telling him how she felt about him. That burden, on top of everything else, was too great. And if he couldn't cope with how she felt then he would have to decide what he was going to do.

  Her heart turned over and pounded madly. How did one handle someone like Quinn? She could only love him, that was all the skill she possessed, and for this situation it was useless. If she told him she loved him she might lose him altogether, but the only way she could continue in this impossible marriage was with a foundation of truth.

  'I understand.' She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, reaching for her robe draped on the chair to one side and slipping into it before standing to face him as she pulled the belt tight 'You've always been honest about how you feel.'

  'But?' He had positioned several pillows behind his back and was leaning against them, the dark curls on his chest emphasising his tanned maleness as he watched her with unreadable hooded eyes. 'I feel there's a 'but' coming on.'

  She nodded tightly. 'There is. The 'but' is that I haven't been honest with you. Not lately anyway.'

  'Skeletons in the cupboard?' His voice was soft and even, but she had seen the ebony eyes flicker and she knew, however lazy and relaxed he was trying to appear, that the spectre from the past had reared its head again. Laura had tricked him into marriage and then used whatever it took to try and emotionally emasculate him until their lives had been a living hell.

  'No, no skeletons in the cupboard,' she said quietly. 'Not in the sense you mean anyway. I am what I am, Quinn, and the person I am loves you. That's all I want you to know. I don't expect you to respond to that in any way, but I thought it was only fair to tell you. If you can't deal with it…' She paused, and then took a deep breath as she said what had to be said. 'Then we'll talk about it and sort something out. If you need to walk you are free to walk.'

  'If I need…' He was stunned, he wasn't even pretending to be anything else, which was some sort of breakthrough anyway, Candy thought with dry self-mockery. 'How can you say you're happy for us to split when you've just told me in the other breath you love me?' he asked flatly as dark colour flared across the chiselled cheekbones. He was sitting bolt upright now.

  'I didn't say I would be happy.' She forced herself to speak clearly and calmly, although her tummy was churning. 'Of course I wouldn't choose for us to split.'

  'Well, thank you for that at least,' he said with cutting sarcasm.

  'You know exactly what I am saying.' Don't lose your temper. Don't say anything you don't mean. 'You see this marriage as a convenient base for two friends living together, sleeping together and so on, whilst they each pursue their separate lives to a large extent. No heavy emotional demands, no needing each other, no e
xpectations.' And no children, no roses round the door—none of what will make my life worth living when I want you so badly I could die with it.

  'And you see it as—what, exactly?' he asked curtly.

  She had told him she loved him and he hadn't even commented on it! She could feel the quick temper that went with her chestnut red hair rising, and silently warned herself to take care.

  'I'm not going back on our arrangement, Quinn.' She could feel herself beginning to glare and tried to moderate her gaze.

  'Forgive me if I don't see it quite that way.'

  And then suddenly she understood, her love for him making her super-sensitive. 'You're acting like this deliberately, aren't you?' she said half to herself as she stared at him. 'If you don't acknowledge in your heart I love you it hasn't happened! That's it, isn't it? If we fight and argue it can all be passed off as a row, and you were used to rows with Laura. Well, I'm not playing that game! I love you, Quinn. I want to be a proper wife to you, to be everything you need, not afraid to ask you anything too personal in case I'm stepping out of line. I want to be there for you whatever happens—'

  'Shouldn't you be getting ready?'

  His cool voice was like a slap across the face, and in spite of all her resolve Candy reacted to it in much the same manner. It was either bursting into tears or yelling, and the former could happen in the shower. 'Yes, I'm going to get ready!' she barked angrily. 'And I'm going to see real people, thank goodness. Xavier and Essie have gone through the mill just as much as you have, but they weren't frightened to reach out and take a chance on love when the real thing happened.'

  'And you're telling me you are sure what you feel is the real thing?' he asked with hateful cynicism. 'Isn't that a little presumptuous when just a short while ago you had set your heart on a glittering career without any emotional commitments to mess it up? Or was that some other woman I was talking to?'

  'No, that was me,' she said more quietly. She would never penetrate that cast-iron barrier. This was pointless.

  'So what happened?'

  'You.' She looked straight into the familiar handsome face and said bravely, 'You happened,' and then turned and went into the bathroom.

  She cried in the shower. Not least because she had reneged on every good intention she had had not to tell Quinn she loved him or put any pressure on him or ask him to change. But hell! Her chin lifted slightly as the tears still coursed down her face. She had never pretended to be a saint, had she? And he wasn't a little boy who needed protecting from real life. She loved him. It was a fact of life, and if she had to deal with it the least he could do, in the circumstances, was to bite the bullet and deal with it too.

  She dug her fingers deep into her scalp as she massaged the shampoo into her hair and forced her mind away from her own problems to focus on Xavier and Essie. They were the important ones at the moment. Xavier and Essie and little Rose Candice. The baby had to be all right Xavier and Essie had each suffered so much in their lives before they had found each other; she couldn't believe their child would be taken from them.

  She was still thinking of her uncle and his wife when she walked back into the bedroom. Quinn had placed a small suitcase on the bed for her, and after quickly drying her hair and bundling it up in a loose knot on the top of her head she began to pack.

  'There's a flight at eleven.'

  She raised her head to see Quinn enter the room, making for the bathroom. She tried to think of something to say and failed utterly beyond a quiet. 'Thank you' to which he responded with a curt nod.

  And then, when she thought he had closed the bathroom door, it opened again and he said gruffly, 'There's fresh coffee and toast ready in the kitchen.'

  The drive to Heathrow was strained, and Candy was sporting a thumping headache by the time they reached the airport They had only spoken in monosyllables, and she didn't want to leave Quinn like this, but she didn't know what to say to break the electric atmosphere without causing another row. Had she lost him altogether? She tried not to think of it and concentrate on Xavier and Essie and the baby but it was hard.

  'This reminds me of when I shot up to Essie with a bag so she could go to Xavier when you were injured.'

  They had just entered the terminal and Candy wasn't sure if she had heard the muttered words correctly. She turned to Quinn, her voice a little vacant due to the pain across her eyes as she said, 'What?'

  'Hell, Candy, I might never have met you.' He was wearing a deep violet-blue shirt and black jeans and there wasn't a pair of female eyes that hadn't taken a second glance.

  'Quinn?' She stared at him. How did he expect her to respond when he said things like that?

  'Come on, let's book in and then we can talk. I'm coming with you.'

  'But…'

  She allowed herself to be steered through the throng of humanity and in no time at all they were sitting in the relative tranquillity of the VIP lounge, a pot of coffee steaming gently on the table in front of them.

  'Quinn, I don't understand?'

  'You don't understand!' He tried to smile but it was beyond him. 'How do you think I feel? I'd got it all worked out before I met you. No more trusting anyone, no more loving, no more pain.' His voice was raw and as she looked into his face she was appalled. He was revealing the real Quinn behind the mask, and this man had suffered the torments of hell. It was there in the dark eyes, in the white lines around his mouth and the grating quality to his voice.

  'Quinn, don't. If it's too painful, then don't,' she said with frantic urgency.

  'I sat with him, Candy. For six long hours I sat with him and willed him to live.'

  'Oh, Quinn.' She knew he was talking about his son, but she had thought the child had died in the car. That was what Quinn had led her to believe, more by what he hadn't said than what he had said, she told herself silently.

  'Laura was dead when the rescue team reached the car, but through some quirk, an air pocket or something, they think Joe had a few extra minutes before the water reached him. But it wasn't enough.' He closed his eyes briefly and then, as she reached for his hands and moved close to him, he opened them and said, 'He looked so small and so beautiful in that hospital cot, in spite of all the tubes and wires. I couldn't believe he wasn't going to sit up and grin at me. He was warm and breathing, his eyelashes flickering now and again and his hair curled over his forehead…'

  The tears were washing down his face now and she didn't try to stop them; she merely gathered him into her arms and held him so tightly they shared the same heartbeat They were alone in the room but Candy wouldn't have cared if a hundred, a thousand people were watching. He had held in this pain too long—three years too long.

  'Men aren't supposed to cry.' He raised his head, wiping his face with the back of his hand as he took control of himself.

  'Hogwash!' Her voice was very firm. 'This western world has a lot to answer for, if you ask me. In almost every other culture it's perfectly acceptable—expected, even.'

  'He was my son, flesh of my flesh; I would gladly have died for him, and yet I couldn't save him. I should never have left him alone with her.'

  'Quinn, it wasn't your fault.' She gripped his fingers as hard as she could as she tilted his face to hers with her other hand. 'He wasn't alone, he had the nanny, and you had done everything you could. Sometimes, despite everything we do, the worst happens. You've just said what really counts; you would have died for him without a moment's thought.'

  He couldn't accept it yet, she could read it in his eyes, but she would make him believe it, Candy told herself fiercely. She had seen him with the animals under his care and he was the most compassionate man she had ever known.

  She pressed her lips to his, letting her mouth say what she needed him to hear, and then she was strained to him as he kissed her, long and hard. 'I love you, Mrs Ellington. I don't deserve you, but I love you.'

  'Quinn—' she leaned back a little, looking deep into his hard, handsome face '—you don't have to say that.'
>
  'I've loved you almost since the moment I met you, but I didn't realise it until Christmas Eve, when I saw you laughing with my mother in the kitchen,' he said softly. 'You were so open and warm with her, so generous. But it scared me to death, the thought of becoming vulnerable again, and so I lied to myself and you.'

  'But all that about marrying as friends…'

  'I lied.' He looked at her ruefully, one dark eyebrow quirking. 'It was sending me crazy, the thought that some other guy might muscle in, and so I lied to myself and I lied to you. Can you still say you love a man like me? A liar? A coward?'

  'Quinn, don't look at me like that. I can't think straight when you look at me like that,' Candy murmured helplessly as her love for him rose up in such an overwhelming flood that she didn't know what to do with herself.

  'I love you, Candy, you have to believe me.' The handsome face was deadly serious now. 'When you stood there and told me you loved me…I can't find the words to describe what it did to me. But the letting go, the trusting… I was still trying to fool myself I could have it all, but my way, the safe way. And then you said, when I asked you what had happened, that I had happened. And I knew it was the same for me. You had happened to me, and all the lying and fooling myself in the world wouldn't make any difference.'

  'Oh, Quinn.' Her eyes were crystal-bright, her face radiant.

  'You're the light of my life, sweetheart. My reason for living. I know now I have never been in love before, not until I met you. Everything before was just a cheap imitation of the real thing, but…'

  'What?'

  'It scares me to death, this loving thing. When I lost Joe it was like my guts had been ripped out, and now there's you…'

  'Quinn, I can't guarantee what the future will hold,' Candy said softly, 'but I can guarantee I'll never stop loving you. Xavier and Essie have the real thing, and as bad as this with Rose Candice is I know they will be there for each other and come through it, whatever happens. We will be like that. I promise you.'