A Convenient Proposal

Things? she thought a trifle feverishly, before swallowing hard and saying, with studied nonchalance, 'Absolutely fine, Quinn. The kittens are feeding well and Tabitha is eating like a horse. She's been out once, but came straight back to the kittens.'

'Tabitha?'

'The cat I couldn't just keep calling her Cat or Mother or whatever,' Candy said defensively.

'No, I guess not. Look, I've made a few enquiries, and as far as I can ascertain no one for miles around seems to be missing a tortoiseshell female, but that's not to say you're home and dry,' he added warningly.

'But it's hopeful?'

'Yes, I'd say it's hopeful,' he agreed shortly. 'I'm sending Philippa, my nurse, down later, with a few bits and pieces you'll need, so if there's any supplies for yourself you're short of…?'

'Oh, I can manage, really. I've got the car,' she said hastily.

'You won't get up the lane in that; it was pretty snowbound last night. I'll get her to bring you a loaf, milk, things like that, okay? Look, I must go; we're pretty busy today. Ring me if you're worried about the cat or kittens, won't you?'

'Yes, thank you.'

She was surprised at the flat feeling that assailed her when she put the receiver down, but put it down to anticlimax regarding her worry about what the results of Quinn's investigations might have found. But it looked as if everything was okay. She stared across at Tabitha, who stared back with great smoky-green eyes and then yawned widely, showing shar

p little white teeth. 'He's sending his nurse,' she told the watching feline. 'He's too busy to come himself.' Which was fine. Absolutely no problem. It was good of him to offer to do that, wasn't it? Very good.

Philippa arrived at midday and she was very nice, bustling in with bags of groceries before returning to the Discovery and bringing more cat food, a large bag of cat litter and a tray, a couple of pottery feeding bowls and a big thick blanket she said she'd found in the back of one of the cupboards at the practice, and several other things besides.

She was also a sweet-faced, blue-eyed blonde, with an hourglass figure, a skin like peaches and cream and the sort of wide-eyed, innocent appeal that would turn on any red-blooded male under the age of eighty.

Candy made them both a cup of coffee, listened to Philippa enthuse first about Tabitha and the kittens and then about how lucky she was to be working for such a brilliant vet and fabulous person as Quinn, and how she just adored everything about her job, and then waved her goodbye some thirty minutes later, by which time all the eager, fervent exuberance had made Candy feel as old as Methuselah.

Had she ever been as young and carefree as that girl? she asked herself as she plumped down beside the basket and stroked Tabitha, who greeted her reappearance with a satisfied purr. She didn't think so. The circumstances of her birth, her grandmother dying and Xavier becoming her sole guardian and all the family she had when she was eight had made her a solemn little girl and a wary teenager.

The only time she had blossomed had been when she'd met Harper. Suddenly her fiancé's face was there in her thoughts, and whether it was lack of sleep or all the emotional turmoil involving the cat she wasn't sure, but she found she couldn't keep the memories under lock and key as she usually could.

She had loved him so much and been so happy. She bit her lip hard and glanced down at the tiny kittens—the two little females carbon copies of their beautiful mother and the other, according to Quinn, who had determined their sex the night before, a jet-black little torn—as she sighed deeply.

If they had crashed the night before the accident she would never have known about Ellie-Sue. Ellie-Sue, the waitress at the local fast-food restaurant whom Harper had been playing around with for months and who had decided Harper was the father of her unborn child. He had told her over a candlelit dinner at an expensive restaurant, stating that Ellie-Sue meant absolutely nothing to him and that he loved her, Candy, and had seemed almost surprised when she had stormed out of the building to the car.

They had rowed bitterly on the way home. When he had realised she was serious about finishing the engagement he had turned ugly, telling her it was all her fault, that if she hadn't been frigid he wouldn't have had to satisfy himself elsewhere and that Xavier could easily afford to pay Ellie-Sue enough to keep her quiet.

As it was the girl had married some other guy just three weeks after Harper's funeral, so it looked as though Ellie-Sue had had more than one beau on the go at the same time… Candy rose abruptly, walking across to her painting and jerking off the cover with a trembling hand.

Harper had been marrying her because she was the niece—virtually the beloved daughter—of a millionaire, as much as anything else. He had seen her as a meal ticket An attractive, pleasant meal ticket, but a meal ticket none the less. And she hadn't guessed. She hadn't had so much as the whiff of an inkling before that terrible night. That was what had haunted her—frightened her to death in the aftermath of the accident It had shaken her to the core of her being that she could have got it so wrong, and her faith in herself had been shattered.

Harper had made her feel she was nothing, less than nothing. A nonentity. And it had been a hard, slow climb out of the despair and pain as she had gradually clawed back a measure of self-confidence. But she still didn't trust her own judgement or discernment; perhaps she never would. One thing she did know. She would never put herself in such a vulnerable position again.

She didn't want to fall in love. She didn't want to experience the highs and the lows, the ecstasy and the agony. She was finished with all that She couldn't go through what she had just come out of again and remain sane.

But she didn't have to.

She stood gazing at the painting without really seeing it She was well again. That was a priceless gift in itself. She could make her own future on her own terms and if nothing else the near death experience she had gone through had enhanced even the most ordinary day-to-day aspects of living. She had always been particularly aware of and sensitive to beauty, but now her senses had been sharpened to a point that was almost painful. And that could only improve her painting.

She had lost something but she had been given something back in return. The possibility of marriage, motherhood, all the things that had once been so important, was gone, but she would carve a career that was spectacular. She would. Her soft mouth drooped unknowingly, but then her eyes focused on the painting and her back straightened. Time to get to work.

Over the next three weeks the snow melted, hard white frosts replaced the slush and mud, and December dawned bright but bitterly cold.

Quinn had telephoned Candy every two or three days for an update on the cat and kittens but he hadn't visited, and so when on the first Friday in December she heard the sound of the four-by-four outside she immediately glanced at Tabitha, suspecting the worst. He had found her owner! Oh, she wouldn't be able to bear it.

The cat stared back serenely before cuffing an errant kitten as it attempted to scramble up the first tread of the stairs. It was the black one, of course, Alfie. Although only three weeks old, he was into everything, unlike his demure sisters, but he was bold and cheeky and Candy loved him.

Her heart lurched when she opened the front door and saw Quinn approaching, and it wasn't altogether due to apprehension regarding the cat.