A Wild Affair

'What on earth is Vibes?' Mr Jones asked in a harassed voice, rumpling his hair with one hand, and the blonde girl laughed.

'A music magazine.'

'Are you a friend of my daughter?' Mr Jones asked in bemused uncertainty. 'What were all those photographers doing here? Why were they taking pictures of my daughter?' His eyes moved round to Joe Aldonez, his frown came back. 'And who's that man who was kissing her?'

A genuine expression flitted over Carmen Lister's carefully smiling face—Quincy pinned it down as a mixture of incredulity and shock.

'That's Joe Aldonez, Mr Jones,' Carmen told him, throwing a look of apology in the direction of the other man.

'Who?' Mr Jones said and Carmen almost winced.

'Joe's a big star,' she said.

Mrs Jones had found her way downstairs by now and was staring open-mouthed at Joe Aldonez, her expression making it clear that she, at least, knew who he was—but then so did most women. His records had been hitting the top ten regularly ever since his first disc came out; his deep, husky voice sending shivers down the back of any woman listening as he smokily whispered out love songs which had a smouldering sexiness.

'Vibes has been running a competition,' Carmen explained. 'You had to answer six questions about Joe's songs and decide which pair of eyes belonged to him— we had a dozen pairs to choose from, it's surprising how difficult that is, I had a job deciding which was the right pair myself.' She smiled and Mr Jones gazed blankly at her. 'The first prize was a date with Joe,' Carmen told him. 'And your daughter won.'

'I can't have!' Quincy broke out involuntarily.

Carmen turned and gave her a smile as genuine as the disbelief with which she had realised that Mr Jones hadn't recognised Joe Aldonez.

'You have, I promise you,' she said. 'You must be thrilled.'

'I can't have won,' Quincy insisted,' and Carmen laughed.

'I assure you, you have.' She had rather sharp blue eyes, their lids heavily painted with silvery blue eyeshadow, and her lashes were visibly false; clustering in dramatic sweeps which flicked up and down every time she opened and closed her eyes. They gave her the appearance of a doll, her blonde hair neatly curled around her face, but the faint hardness of her expression when she wasn't smiling so carefully contradicted that pretty, doll-like look.

'Quincy entered this competition and won?' Mr Jones demanded, staring at his daughter as though he had never seen her before, disgust in his face. Mr Jones did not like pop music—his own taste inclined towards brass bands playing martial tunes—and he was appalled by the thought of Quincy entering a competition with a date with a pop star as the first prize.

A man of fifty, Robert Jones was wiry and active; his skin freshly coloured from years of working in the open air in all weathers, his eyes brown, his hair almost the same colour although it was slowly gathering streaks of grey which he resented and tried to brush out of sight. He was a man of common sense and quiet humour; his veterinary practice was very busy, but his love of animals helped him to accept the heavy work load his job enforced. He was popular with both his patients and their owners, because his temper was even, his patience almost inexhaustible and his manner cheerful. His one vice was his pipe, which he smoked in secret with an air of guilty satisfaction and constantly resolved to give up.

'Quincy's a very lucky girl,' Carmen told him. 'We had thousands of entries—even I was surprised by the flood of mail we got, we had to take on extra staff to cope with it all.'

'Good heavens,' Mr Jones muttered, still staring at Quincy. 'Quincy, I can't understand why you did such a thing!'

'But I didn't,' she protested, her voice almost shrill in her determination to be heard.

Joe Aldonez moved and her eyes flew round to meet his stare. 'You didn't what?' he asked slowly. His speaking voice had the same husky, smoky quality which had made his singing so immediately recognisable, and it sent exactly the same shiver down her spine. His American accent was soft and drawling, far more noticeable than when he sang.

'Enter,' she explained, studying his face and struck by the odd contradictions in it—the harsh power of the bone structure giving an angularity to cheek and jaw, to the deep forehead and long arrogant nose, which was offset by a startling beauty in the deep, dark wells of his eyes. The same clash was revealed in his mouth; the upper lip firm and cool, the lower warm and distinctly sensual, curving in a half-smile as she stared at him, which made her flush.

His brows winged upwards in a sardonic movement. 'You didn't enter the competition?'

'I didn't,' she insisted.

Carmen's brows met. 'What do you mean? I have your entry form here with me!' She unzipped her shoulder bag and produced a crumpled page, torn from the magazine judging by the look of it, and waved it at Quincy. 'See? You are Quincy Jones, aren't you?'

'Yes,' Quincy admitted. 'But…'

'And this is your address?' Carmen's voice had an irritated ring.

Quincy took the form from her, and looked at it. Her own name leapt up at her, printed in capital letters, below it her address printed in the same hand. 'I don't understand it,' she said, her face puzzled.

'We haven't got time for games,' Carmen dismissed with a shrug. 'I'm sure your parents won't object, if that's what's worrying you, there's no need to pretend you didn't enter.'

'I'm not pretending anything,' said Quincy, then her eye fell on the handwriting lower down on the form and she gave a choked cry of recognition. As she looked up she saw her brother lurking on the top of the stairs, and yelled: 'Bobby!'

He at once began to vanish, but her father had been looking over her shoulder at the form and he, too, had recognised the handwriting.