A Convenient Proposal

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.

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?'