Page 39 of Quinn, By Design

Feck! From what she’d let slip, she went to work, went home, visited him. Not much of a life. Stress is exhausting—he knew that—worrying about money and missing her granda was exhausting. If she got through the essentials every day, she was doing well. Lucy’s friends—Clementine and, what was her name, Kelly—were missing in action—factor in an ex-boyfriend and hell!

“Niall?” Kate was asking for his interpretation, his intercession,his what?

Briefly, he closed his eyes. Niall missed Liam, missed having him as a sounding board, and he sure as hell needed a sounding board for the mess he’d got himself into. “Great idea.” He rearranged schedules in his head. “We’ll be there at six-thirty.” And somehow, he’d keep to himself that he was cancelling his regular family dinners to give Lucy’s work more time.

Fifteen minutes later, Lucy stood beside him as Kate waved from the corner. “I’ll call Kate and cancel.” She wrapped her disappointment in cheery unconcern. “I’ll wait until later today, then call and say I mistook the date, and I have another commitment.”

“Kate will be disappointed.”

“What about you?”

“Haven’t you worked out I’m a grumbling hermit?” Rather, he was a man who’d made too many promises. There weren’t enough hours in the day to keep them all. More sleep was a necessity because her rose and vanilla scent bewitched him enough to contemplate abandoning the workshop in favour of a large bed. For a week at least. “Nobody twisted Kate’s arm. She invited you because she likes you. You’ll like my brother.”

“She’s curious.”

“Curiosity is often the first step in relationships. Hard to make a friend if you don’t have any interest in the other person.” He’d moved from curious to fascinated by all the contradictions in Lucy. Closing the door on the outside world, he turned to her. “Don’t cancel. How long has it been since Cam’s funeral?”

“Five weeks, five days and three hours.” She could probably give him the timing to the second.

“You‘ve worked every single day since. Come to dinner with me and meet my family.” He draped his arm over her shoulder, pulling her into an encouraging hug.

She turned her face up, her lips parted. “Kiss me.”

Niall took the kiss he’d been imagining since she’d walked in. His free hand cupped her cheek. Warm, silky skin, as warm and inviting as her mouth. He let himself drown in her lushness. Her tongue touched his, raising the stakes. She tasted of sin tied up with a big pink bow of goodness.

“I stayed away because I want to kiss you all the time.” Her hands fisted in his shirt, her confession straining the leash he’d put on himself.

“Maybe we make some sort of pact about no kissing around power tools.” Praise the saints, he’d lost the capacity to think straight. “Too dangerous.”

She slid her hand over his crotch and gave it a gentle pat. “Power toolsaredangerous.” Grinning, she stepped back, whipping her hands behind her back. “Hands off in the workshop.”

“I’ve got your pearls.” A piss-poor way of saying “down boy,” but it was the only lifeline handy. She’d forgotten her gran’s necklace on Friday, and he’d returned to the sofa after she’d left to stroke the damn thing. Lucy and he weren’t looking long-term, so his sentimentality bewildered him. He gestured to the table under the window. “I wrapped them up for safekeeping.”

A few weeks earlier, the rectangular scarf spilling over the back of an armchair in a display window had caught his eye. Ribbons of interwoven green, where he could identify shamrock, teal, mint, moss with a thread of laurel. Smooth and soft to the touch, warm where he rubbed it between his fingers, the scarf flowed with the naturalness of running water. He’d bought it with Lucy in mind. A spontaneous purchase tucked in a drawer until she’d left her pearls behind.

She unwrapped the bundle as if her fingers would discover a story in the folds of the fabric. “What a beautiful scarf.”

“Keep it.” He’d known green was her colour. She was like a moth emerging from its chrysalis, unaware of her beauty. When she turned her questioning gaze toward him, he shrugged. “You won’t want to wear your pearls in here.”

“Thank you.” She let the scarf slide through her fingers, before rewrapping her pearls. “Gran had an old pouch she kept them in. This is a better home.”

Tension eased from Niall’s shoulders. In his experience, a debt and a gift were kissing cousins. She was wary of gifts, in the same way she baulked at words of sympathy from strangers but was comfortable with a sandwich or a fruit bowl or a protective covering for her gran’s pearls.

Debt was a demon they shared. Debt and self-respect had been part of growing up in the Quinn household. In recent years, they’d become inextricably linked to the point where an unmet obligation tore at his self-respect. He wasn’t sure of the exact source of Lucy’s fear but would bet his da’s chisel set it had something to do with her childhood.

Which brought him full circle in his thoughts. An honest man would share his secrets before he climbed under her doona. “Maybe we should take a break until Sunday night.”

“A break?” Lucy was watching him, like he guessed she’d watched every adult male until she’d moved in with Cam. Ready to run. She was beginning to trust him, but having caution as your first playmate, the habit tended to stick.

“A cooling-off period.” Niall shoved his hands in his pockets and blundered ahead. “Just to check it’s not loneliness juicing our ...” He stumbled to a halt.

“I am lonely.” She lifted her chin, fearless in the face of his incoherence. “I’m guessing you’re lonely too. I’m not ashamed of considering consensual sex with you because I’m lonely.” She tucked the pearls in her bag and pulled it over her shoulder. “But ... I think you’ve forgotten. I’m the one who called a halt, Quinn.”

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Niall let his ute glideto a halt near his brother’s home. Lucy had been waiting outside McTavish’s when he’d arrived. Sunday was a busy day for the antiques shop, and he’d listened to her descriptions of customers and the sales she’d made while the quiet floral notes in her perfume soothed. He didn’t have a spare slot in his timetable to miss her. He’d missed her anyway. And fretted about his half-arsed attempt to make sense of what the hell was happening to him.

“Ready?” He swivelled to face her.

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