Page 31

“I’ll see you Monday.”

Monday was the other side of three nights Lucy would spend rattling around at home alone. Climbing into her cold car, she worked out Niall had never once closed his door to her.

––––––––

“Can you open the loadingdock for me, please?” Lucy was still dithering about which of the bowls and jugs she’d use for the washstand. She couldn’t delay much longer. Although calling in uninvited tonight was a yearning rather than a plan.

Gran’s birthday, and she couldn’t bear to be alone on the first major family anniversary since Grandpa’s death.

Her real plan had been a night wrestling with the contents of the basement, until she was too tired to think, then she’d found herself driving to Niall’s for the fourth time in two weeks. She’d stopped at the end of the street to call him, the muted music coming down the line tonight sounded like hard rock. She phoned again when she reached the back gates.

“That was quick. What are you bringing in?” he asked above the music. Listening to Meatloaf belting out “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” followed by the bang of a door closing and the echo of footsteps confirmed he was walking the length of the cement-floored loading bay.

“Two wash bowls and jugs.” Lucy didn’t admit she’d been able to see his lights when she’d made the first call. Now she watched the roller doors rise and spotted his figure near the control panel. The gates opened to allow her entry to the yard. She swung the van around and backed in.

“McTavish’s Antiques.” He opened the driver’s door to let her out. Another small act of kindness, making her feel welcome when he must be itching to get to whatever he did on Friday nights. “Gran’s jug deserves only the best transport?” he queried.

“I’ll be collecting some new pieces in the morning.” Lucy inhaled a bit deeper than necessary, filling her lungs with his increasingly familiar blend of citrus soap and sandalwood. The combination was insidiously reassuring and ... addictive. “I’ll go straight from home tomorrow, so thought I’d use it tonight.”

“Let’s get them unloaded then.” He waited for her to unlock the back of the van.

“Am I interrupting anything?” Lucy blurted, her fingers tangling in her gran’s pearls. “I mean, tonight? You sounded distracted when I called.”

“Communing with my muse.” The defeat in his voice puzzled Lucy.

What or who did Niall Quinn use as inspiration?

The frames for Leopold’s next exhibition had been boxed up ready to go on Monday. He never talked about his own pieces, and the absence of any uploads to his website since they’d met meant she never asked. Whatever his debt was, paying it seemed all-consuming. She understood the compulsion.

“I’m your landlord, yet you never remind me I should make an appointment to visit.”Would his muse have to make an appointment? Lucy’s spurt of envy for the unknown woman he shared his creative secrets with rattled her.Pull yourself together, Lucy.

“You called.” He shrugged, his expression unreadable. “And I’m currently working for you.”

“I’m not here to check what you do in your own time.” She stamped her foot, exasperated by her neediness and his rock-solid composure.

He grinned. “You’re a bit too ready with foot stamping and raising your knee.”

Lucy stepped closer, the urge to shock him overwhelming good sense and good manners. She’d come for his company. And to forget it was her gran’s birthday, and that Lucy was the last of her family.

Sex was a kind of oblivion, and to see friendly, consensual sex as wrong was a repudiation of her mum that Lucy didn’t have the hypocrisy to stomach. His gaze held steady while she lifted her knee. He stilled, maybe braced a little, but didn’t step back. She slid her knee up the outside of his thigh, enjoying the slide of silk stocking over thick denim, the contrast creating a fizz in her bloodstream. He wrapped a large, calloused hand under the back of her thigh. When he tugged her closer, his blunt fingers scored gentle brands through the flimsy fabric to her skin.

“You’d best call a halt soon, Liùsaidh, or this might not end as you planned.” His growl was incendiary, and he smelled like sin.

“You don’t know what I’ve planned,” Lucy purred, leaning into his chest.

“A quick tumble with the carpenter?” His second hand settled on her hip, splayed so she felt the imprint of each finger and his thumb through her skirt. His strength made her shiver in anticipation—a taste of possession. “If that’s your plan, be prepared to stay all night.”

“Is that an invitation?” Heat rose up her throat at his readiness to call her bluff.

“It’s a warning. Just because you’re twisted in knots about whether or not to use your gran’s things, you shouldn’t play with fire.” His finger traced the figure eight at the back of her knee—her lucky number.

Lucy slid her leg out of his loosened grasp and stepped back, unsettled to find a quick tumble had lost its appeal. He wasn’t a stud for hire to blot out pain and memories for a few hours. “You’re a pain in the arse, Quinn.”

“So I’ve been told. But you must be spooked to be using a word like arse.”

“You and your ‘fecks’ are a bad example,” she muttered, her stomach doing a deep dive. He was right. Cursing proved to both of them that she was flustered. She smoothed down her sweater. Toning down her expletives after her mum’s death was her act of service to spare her gran’s blushes.

Lucy had hooked up with men before. But if she and Niall went to bed, she wanted it to be because they liked as well as fancied each other, not a snatch-and-grab because she was afraid to be alone.And where the hell had that thought come from!