Quinn, by design

CHAPTER SEVEN

Something was wrong. Niall was beginning to know her, to read her moods. It had taken him a while to figure out she was lonely. Like him. Not just the loneliness of loss, but a sense of separateness he recognised because it was the backbeat of his life. She demanded very little for herself. She’d made herself useful on the Mondays she’d been in the workshop. The drop-ins outside their agreed hours had been okay as well. He was beginning to look forward to her smile, to her serious expression when he explained a technical issue to her, and the frown lines screwing up her forehead when she was concentrating.

Niall hadn’t planned on her being good company. Tonight, she was disconcerted enough to need to be with another human being. Rattled enough to make a move on him, surprising both of them. Sending her home would be cold-blooded. The blood in his head had drained to his groin when she’d slid her leg up his thigh. Nothing cold about it.

A test for him or herself? She was still here, so he must have passed.

She’ll need a distraction.

Establishing a foundation as a distraction was a bit extreme even for Cam. Damn the old man for tying Niall in knots through his will.

“Soon”—a piss-poor answer to her questions the other night. She was entitled to soon. Although their definitions of soon were very different. She wanted decisions made yesterday and set in concrete. She was owed, given her childhood. He was still feeling his way.

Cam hadn’t explicitly linked the exhibition to the foundation Although success would give Niall street cred and make him a viable choice as a mentor.

But each time he yielded to a diversion from Lucy McTavish, his plans slipped further behind. With two months until the exhibition, the gallery was pressing for photos of his major pieces. He had a month max before they moved into full-on publicity. Advertising on his site needed to start at the same time.

Niall pictured the almost-finished rocking chair he’d thrown a drop sheet over when Lucy arrived tonight.

He’d hidden it when she’d called in last week as well.

Damned if I know why I haven’t told her.

Then he spotted Lucy making her way from the parked car to his porch. His gut told him she needed company. Turning her away came a close second to kicking a puppy. If he was honest, and he tried to be, he wasn’t helping her because he owed Cam. Or only because he owed Cam. He liked her fierceness, her survival against the odds. They’d moved from guns drawn at fifty paces, to sharing meals and conversation, to a tentative friendship. The bells and whistles of attraction were a complication because the McTavish heiress was in a different league to a struggling woodworker.

“Are we going to the kitchen?” She stopped beside him in the dark of the porch, her delicate scent a torment. She’d come from work—a black skirt, silk stockings he’d sensed through the thick denim of his jeans and a charcoal sweater with a high neck. The severity was broken by the luminous quality of the pearls and the luxurious textures of cashmere, tweed and silk. He had to admire her love of natural fibres.

“I have a living room of sorts.” Pushing open the front door, Niall flicked light switches and took the first door on the right. “See.” He lifted a pile of craft magazines off the lounge and set them on a side table. Then he turned on the heater and sound system. “The room should be warm soon.” As he expected, Leonard Cohen filled the room—mournful bloody sod that Niall was. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“I’ll help.” She followed him through to the kitchen, and he fought to keep from hauling her back into his arms to finish what they’d started in the loading bay.

“Are you sure beer’s okay?” He stared into his fridge, aware a beer could be downed in fifteen minutes. Not enough time for her to settle. “I’ve got a curry if you’re hungry.”

“If it’s not too much trouble.” She was worried about outstaying her welcome.

“A zap in the microwave, and hey, presto, we have gourmet vindaloo.”

She giggled. That was better. He shoved the freezer containers into the microwave, set the timer and passed her a beer.

“Tell me about your friends from the funeral.” A cack-handed way to go back to the beginning, but he was convinced her distress tonight was rooted in her past. “Do you want a glass?”

“What sort of glass?” She was suspicious of his glassware. He held up old Vegemite jars. Her reaction was swift. “You have got to be kidding.”

“They were free.” And he usually reserved them for a drop of Jameson’s with his twin.

“After you consumed the Vegemite! I’ll pass. To answer your question, their names are Clementine and Kelly.”

“Clementine sounds like a Mississippi Delta goddess.” Niall conjured an image of the two women at the funeral, both about Lucy’s age. One a curly-haired compact brunette, the other taller, with a straight, neat bob. Each of them had hugged Lucy long and hard. Lucy had hugged them back; the longest physical contact Lucy had had at the ceremony. “What do they do?” He framed his questions to coax more than a yes or no. The microwave pinged, and he gave the contents a stir.

“Kelly’s a teacher-librarian, works in public education. Whereabouts of mother unknown. Clem’s a social worker and an orphan.”

“And?” He took two mid-twentieth century Villaroy and Boch bowls from his cupboard and set them on the benchtop ready to serve. “Orphans don’t automatically become social workers. Take yourself, for example. There must be something to connect those two dots?”

“Clem had a few bad foster experiences and decided she wanted to make a difference.”

“Did you? Have a few bad foster experiences, I mean?” The microwave pinged again, and he took out the curry. “Cam said they had trouble finding you.” She’d been ten. A mere baby. He’d bet his prized Huon table she’d had to grow up fast.

* * *

“Mum hadn’t had anycontact with Grandpa and Gran for years before she died,” Lucy said, Niall’s earlier empathy for his brother’s friend giving her the courage to answer. “They didn’t know I existed, and she didn’t expect to die. But you worked that out.”

“I did?” He swung to face her, his gaze searching.

“An accidental overdose, like your friend’s mum.” Saying the words always made Lucy’s bones ache. “Anyway, I was fostered for a while before social security traced Grandpa and Gran. They said they wanted me.” Lucy had been back in the care home a week when she got the news. She’d cried herself to sleep. Under the bedclothes, big, silent sobs she couldn’t seem to stop. Hope had jostled with relief because her gran and grandpa were already on a plane to come and fetch her.

“That’s half an answer. You were ten. You’d lost your mum and whatever security you’d known, and been handed over to strangers. Even if they chose Mike and Carol Brady for your foster family, you must have been terrified.” His sober assessment invited the truth.

“The couple were decent, especially her,” she hesitated, because she had been terrified. Cold and lonely, but she’d refused to be helpless. “They took in lots of foster kids.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” He deliberately didn’t look at her, concentrating instead on ladling curry into the bowls. Could he guess what was coming? Her experience wasn’t unique.

“There was an older boy there. He overheard gossip about Mum.” Lucy fell silent, and Niall glanced over his shoulder. In her head the words sounded simple, unemotional, but self-loathing and anger were Sumo wrestlers circling in her belly, each trying to gain the upper hand. “That she worked as a prostitute. I woke up to find him naked in my bed one night.”

“Feck!” He was at her side in seconds, his arms wrapped around her, his cheek resting on her crown.

“He didn’t expect me to fight back. I screamed and screamed.” Her cheek pressed against Niall’s chest, the steady beat of his heart anchoring Lucy to the present. “The woman was there in seconds. They called the police.”

“I’m sorry.”

Lucy lifted her face. His expression held anger on her behalf. “I believe you are. He was surprised I’d fight back, given my mum. He said that.” Lucy had celebrated every punch she’d thrown. It wasn’t until Niall asked his question about Tomas Bechet that she worked out she froze when she was helpless.

“He was an idiot as well as a rapist.” Niall kissed her forehead.

“She was and wasn’t a prostitute.” Lucy’s hand curled in his sweater, keeping him close because a lot of people refused to see shades of grey.

“You don’t need to explain your mum.” Niall Quinn respected her privacy, making it easier to confide hard truths.

“Mostly, she worked in retail. But it didn’t pay enough for her habit. So she slept with men who could get her the drugs she liked.” She paused. Even now, the addiction upset Lucy more than the prostitution. “Or occasionally to pay the rent.”

“Addiction’s an illness.” His acceptance was another comfort.

“Mum was very matter-of-fact about sex. She liked it, and claimed she liked most of the men.”

“You’re also not responsible for your mother’s actions.” He worked his fingers down her spine, massaging each vertebra. “Nor for her relationship with her parents.” He released her and turned back to the bench. “I need to reheat the curry.”

“I’m not very hungry,” Lucy apologised.

“Me neither, but we should try.” He returned the bowls to the microwave and blasted them for a few seconds. “I’ll bring them through. The other room should be warm by now.”

“Thanks for this.” Lucy sat on the edge of the lounge, taking a small mouthful of curry, the bottle of beer at her feet. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

“I should be thanking you. Otherwise, I might have forgotten to eat tonight. And, feck, my mum would call that ungracious.” He almost blushed. “It’s good to have company.”

“Do you mind if I put my feet on the sofa?”

“Make yourself comfortable.”

Heeling off her shoes, Lucy curled her feet under her, settling more deeply into one corner of the sofa. He seemed to relax as well. “Who’s singing?” she asked.

“Leonard Cohen, a poet who was famous years before you were born. A bit depressing.” He hit the remote, and silence enveloped them. The mood shifted to companionable. Lucy had eaten a few meals with him now and had the rhythm. “If you eat some more, so will I,” he said.

She chewed another mouthful.

“Why haven’t you seen your friends in the last few months?” he asked, before slapping a hand to his forehead. “I’m an eejit. You were at the shop all day and with Cam the rest of the time. It’s also why I never bumped into you at the house.”

“Life’s got in the way lately. Kelly’s travelling for work and Clem’s swamped with work and life. Grandpa wanted me to tell him what was happening in the shop.” Except she knew now that was only part of his plan.

“Cam wanted to know what I was doing as well. Did he make you show him pictures of new stock?” He set his half-empty bowl on the floor beside him.

“Grandpa wanted to distract me from the fact he was dying.” It had taken every ounce of Lucy’s self-control to sit with him every night without screaming at him not to leave her.

“I didn’t see Cam with your clarity. I admire your fearlessness.” He took her unfinished bowl and added it to his own. “But pretending he wasn’t dying was never going to fly.”

“He was old-fashioned in thinking the man should be the protector.” Lucy sighed. She’d loved him to pieces and despaired of his traditional view of relationships. “It was one of the reasons why my mum and he parted company.”

“It wasn’t a problem for you?”

“You mean because I’m so determinedly independent?” She wished she was fearless. Instead, she’d built her personal force field to transmit a clear message. I can look after myself. A necessity for survival growing up, but being independent didn’t mean she was always strong. “By the time I’d arrived they’d had time to think about what went wrong with my mum. They kept me safe”—she smiled—“so I could live with some over-protectiveness on occasion.”

“Were you returning the favour?” He edged closer on the lounge. “Cam said you were insistent, said his condition didn’t need that level of care. Or that cost. Is that why you installed the high-tech, twenty-four-hour nursing?”

“I didn’t come here to talk about my hang-ups.” She swallowed a mouthful of her beer. In care, she’d never told a soul what she’d been doing the morning her mum died.

“I put truth serum in the beer,” he deadpanned. “Why did you come?”

“Gran’s birthday.” A partial confession.

“And last year you spent it with Cam.” A rumbling lilt, and his voice, like his scent, made Lucy think of bedrock and solid foundations. She let its music settle in her bones.

“Did Grandpa tell you how she died?” Grandpa had selectively shared secrets with his protégé and Lucy—a puzzle she was determined to solve.

“A tragic accident, he said. She fell trying to let the cat in and broke her neck. Cam said having you saved his sanity. But you found her, I think.” He took her empty bottle and stacked it on the bowls.

“We were worried about her.” Grandpa’s praise was a precious gift to receive tonight. “She was getting more forgetful, so Grandpa and I took turns working from home. I was in the kitchen getting her a cup of tea.”

Linking his fingers with hers, he raised her hand to brush a kiss across her knuckles. “You must have been devastated to be so close and not be able to help.” His sympathy penetrated her bones.

Lucy wanted to believe absolution was uncomplicated. But the police and the coroner and the doctor had all had questions. “The police wanted a re-enactment with timelines. Where was I standing? How long was I in the kitchen? Did I hear the cat? Did I hear the fall? How long did it take me to reach her?”

“When did this happen?” He rested their joined hands on his thigh.

“I called emergency. The police arrived first.”

“Were you alone?”

“What do you mean? With Gran?” Confusion slowed Lucy’s reactions. Have I made another mistake? Please, no. Doug had asked the same question.

“Did you have someone with you when you were questioned? Was Cam there?” He lifted her onto his lap. “You would have been in shock.”

“Grandpa was out of town at an auction. Took a few hours to get back.” Lucy sat awkwardly in his embrace. Her hand closed over the strand of pearls, an unbreakable link to her gran. “They had some base lines of my actions. The last entry on my computer, my mobile in my pocket, the call to emergency.” She’d swallowed her anger during the endless interviews and pulled every emotion that dared to surface deep within her.

“Then they didn’t need to make you feel guilty.” His rage trickled through her, blasting away doubts she’d never been able to fully escape.

“I shouldn’t have left her alone.” Lucy tossed her most constant self-reproach to Niall Quinn’s judgment.

“Impossible. Unless you have”—his kneading at the base of her neck stilled—“that’s the real reason for the hospital-in-the-home setup.”

“I couldn’t trust myself to supervise him all by myself.” She swallowed the lump rising in her throat. She hadn’t planned to explain her motives, but he’d figured it out.

“A tragic accident, Cam said, but losing her an inch at a time was killing him.” He tightened his hold and pressed her face into his shoulder, his lullaby lilt reinforcing his words. “Cam said she’d have chosen to go fast, if the choice had been hers.”

“She—they—both—had living wills. Do not resuscitate.” Her grandpa had told Lucy what he’d told Niall, but the similarities to her mum’s death had been too raw for her to forgive herself for not anticipating a problem. Lucy had been present, but not present. Again. “I was seeing someone at the time,” Lucy mumbled against his throat.

“Define seeing.” His hand stroked her hip and thigh, a steady caress easing the tension she’d carried all day. Carried for years.

“I thought our relationship might be serious.” In reality, she’d thought she was grown up and capable and no longer likely to make fatal mistakes with people she loved.

“But it wasn’t.”

“How very unemotional you sound, Mr. Quinn.” A spurt of rebellion flashed through her. “Doug, my lover, congratulated me on being in another room at the critical time. He laughed and insinuated that I’d set it up really well, that I’d accidentally on purpose caused her accident.”

“Did you knee him in the balls?” Niall’s body stilled beneath Lucy’s, his disgust at Doug’s reaction as comforting as another caress.

“I was physically sick when I realised Doug was serious.” She’d been disoriented. Like her mum after a heavy night on her favourite white powder. “His accusations were worse than the cops or anyone else. They were just doing their job.”

“What did you do?” He pressed a kiss to her hair, barely a touch, but it warmed her from the outside in.

“I told him he wasn’t funny. If he thought that, we’d been making a mistake.” And Lucy had blessed whatever instinct had kept her from telling Doug about her mum’s death.

“You built a hospital-in-the-home for Cam.” He rubbed a thumb and forefinger over her pearls. “You wear your gran’s pearls. You tend their business.”

Her hand covered his on the pearls, and tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m unreliable.”

“You’re fierce and protective where you love. You weren’t responsible for your gran’s death.”

A pardon, one she hadn’t allowed herself to accept from her grandpa. Niall manoeuvred himself around on the lounge until he was stretched full length with Lucy cuddled against his chest. He pressed her head to his heart, and his support was echoed in the steady rise and fall of his chest.

“I don’t know why I’m crying.” Lucy scrubbed her cheek.

“You’re crying because it’s your gran’s birthday, and she’s not here anymore. You’re crying because your granda died, and you’ll never see his like again. And maybe even a bit for your mam.”

“I’m sorry.” She clutched his damp shirt, hiccupping to a halt.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he growled against her ear. “Look at me, Liùsaidh.”

Her stomach did backflips when he used her full name. Because of the music in his Irish lilt. Because he was the only person who called her by her full name. Because using her given name made concrete the connection between her and her gran. She lifted her head. His face was close to hers. Lucy had watched him for days now, knew his patience was real, knew he took his time with a task because his self-respect demanded it. Doing something the right way was more important than speed or money to him. He wouldn’t tell her something just to make her feel better.

He caressed her jaw. The pads of his fingers were rough from the honest work he did each day, yet exquisitely tender. “You control this.” He brushed a kiss across her forehead and ran his nose down her cheek. Drawing his head back, his hands rested at her waist. He was offering himself without conditions.

Lucy couldn’t believe she could just reach out and take. With care, she lifted the pearls from her neck and placed them on the coffee table beside them. Cupping his face in her hands, she kissed him, desire threaded through with gratitude. His kiss was lovely, slow and sumptuous, and she let herself sink into it. When his tongue traced her upper lip, she opened her mouth on a sigh.

“You kiss like you work,” Lucy marvelled, her hands holding his head for the second she could bear to lift her mouth from his. “Striving for excellence.”

His generosity dispelled the caution that was her constant companion. Lucy relaxed against him, knowing he’d take her weight. She nuzzled along his collarbone, searching for the source of the scent he carried with him. This unhurried dance was almost innocent: her hand sliding under his sweater, his indrawn gasp when her palm covered his nipple, her moan when he kneaded the back of her neck.

“Let me undo your hair?” His fingers slid through her plaited skein, teasing tendrils free.

“That feels wonderful.” Lucy sighed. His gentle scalp massage radiated pleasure to her toes. Wanting to see him, she pushed herself upright.

“I’ve wanted to get my hands on your hair since the day we met,” he growled, and her muscles unravelled some more. “You should wear it out more often.”

“I like your hands.” Lucy caught one between hers, holding it palm up while she traced the outline of each finger and thumb, then pressed a kiss to its centre. “I watch when you work. There’s poetry in them and reverence and beauty. I’m babbling.” She rested her forehead on his chest.

“We can babble together.” He wrapped her close, his cock between them, straining against his jeans, while his caress of her spine was light.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” Lucy murmured, wriggling and enjoying the groan he couldn’t silence. Being with him brought a kind of freedom. He allowed her to be in the moment, to take pleasure in small things, to not always be on guard.

“It might not mean anything”—he gritted his teeth—“but it sure as hell feels like something.”

“We could have an affair.” She walked her fingers down his chest, toward his belt buckle. An affair with him would include laughter and conversation and respect. He didn’t know, but respect was his secret weapon in seduction.

“You’re going to ravish me?” His hands cupped her buttocks and lifted her more comfortably onto his erection.

Lucy moved her hips.

“I think what you just did is X-rated in movies,” he managed. “More please.”

She stilled. “I shouldn’t tease, but you’ve made me feel better. Thank you for tonight.”

“Do you want to thank me some more?” He waggled his eyebrows, his gaze solemn.

“Mixing desire and gratitude is a recipe for disaster.” Lucy kissed his chin, then unhooked her leg to sit at his hip. “Believe me, I know.”

“What’s the ratio?” He sounded winded. “Fifty-fifty, forty-sixty?”

“Right this minute, I’d say seventy-five percent desire to twenty-five percent gratitude.” She rested her hand on his aroused cock. “You deserve one hundred percent desire.”

“I can work with the current odds.” He flexed against her hand.

“Never sell yourself short.” Lucy pressed a kiss to his cheek.