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“He was old-fashioned in thinking the man should be the protector.” Lucy sighed. She’d loved him to pieces and despaired of his traditional view of relationships. “It was one of the reasons why my mum and he parted company.”

“It wasn’t a problem for you?”

“You mean because I’m so determinedly independent?” She wished she was fearless. Instead, she’d built her personal force field to transmit a clear message.I can look after myself.A necessity for survival growing up, but being independent didn’t mean she was always strong. “By the time I’d arrived they’d had time to think about what went wrong with my mum. They kept me safe”—she smiled—“so I could live with some over-protectiveness on occasion.”

“Were you returning the favour?” He edged closer on the lounge. “Cam said you were insistent, said his condition didn’t need that level of care. Or that cost. Is that why you installed the high-tech, twenty-four-hour nursing?”

“I didn’t come here to talk about my hang-ups.” She swallowed a mouthful of her beer. In care, she’d never told a soul what she’d been doing the morning her mum died.

“I put truth serum in the beer,” he deadpanned. “Why did you come?”

“Gran’s birthday.” A partial confession.

“And last year you spent it with Cam.” A rumbling lilt, and his voice, like his scent, made Lucy think of bedrock and solid foundations. She let its music settle in her bones.

“Did Grandpa tell you how she died?” Grandpa had selectively shared secrets with his protégé and Lucy—a puzzle she was determined to solve.

“A tragic accident, he said. She fell trying to let the cat in and broke her neck. Cam said having you saved his sanity. But you found her, I think.” He took her empty bottle and stacked it on the bowls.

“We were worried about her.” Grandpa’s praise was a precious gift to receive tonight. “She was getting more forgetful, so Grandpa and I took turns working from home. I was in the kitchen getting her a cup of tea.”

Linking his fingers with hers, he raised her hand to brush a kiss across her knuckles. “You must have been devastated to be so close and not be able to help.” His sympathy penetrated her bones.

Lucy wanted to believe absolution was uncomplicated. But the police and the coroner and the doctor had all had questions. “The police wanted a re-enactment with timelines.Where was I standing? How long was I in the kitchen? Did I hear the cat? Did I hear the fall? How long did it take me to reach her?”

“When did this happen?” He rested their joined hands on his thigh.

“I called emergency. The police arrived first.”

“Were you alone?”

“What do you mean? With Gran?” Confusion slowed Lucy’s reactions.Have I made another mistake?Please, no. Doug had asked the same question.

“Did you have someone with you when you were questioned? Was Cam there?” He lifted her onto his lap. “You would have been in shock.”

“Grandpa was out of town at an auction. Took a few hours to get back.” Lucy sat awkwardly in his embrace. Her hand closed over the strand of pearls, an unbreakable link to her gran. “They had some base lines of my actions. The last entry on my computer, my mobile in my pocket, the call to emergency.” She’d swallowed her anger during the endless interviews and pulled every emotion that dared to surface deep within her.

“Then they didn’t need to make you feel guilty.” His rage trickled through her, blasting away doubts she’d never been able to fully escape.

“I shouldn’t have left her alone.” Lucy tossed her most constant self-reproach to Niall Quinn’s judgment.

“Impossible. Unless you have”—his kneading at the base of her neck stilled—“that’s the real reason for the hospital-in-the-home setup.”

“I couldn’t trust myself to supervise him all by myself.” She swallowed the lump rising in her throat. She hadn’t planned to explain her motives, but he’d figured it out.

“A tragic accident, Cam said, but losing her an inch at a time was killing him.” He tightened his hold and pressed her face into his shoulder, his lullaby lilt reinforcing his words. “Cam said she’d have chosen to go fast, if the choice had been hers.”

“She—they—both—had living wills. Do not resuscitate.” Her grandpa had told Lucy what he’d told Niall, but the similarities to her mum’s death had been too raw for her to forgive herself for not anticipating a problem. Lucy had been present, but not present.Again. “I was seeing someone at the time,” Lucy mumbled against his throat.

“Define seeing.” His hand stroked her hip and thigh, a steady caress easing the tension she’d carried all day. Carried for years.

“I thought our relationship might be serious.” In reality, she’d thought she was grown up and capable and no longer likely to make fatal mistakes with people she loved.

“But it wasn’t.”

“How very unemotional you sound, Mr. Quinn.” A spurt of rebellion flashed through her. “Doug, my lover, congratulated me on being in another room at the critical time. He laughed and insinuated that I’d set it up really well, that I’d accidentally on purpose caused her accident.”

“Did you knee him in the balls?” Niall’s body stilled beneath Lucy’s, his disgust at Doug’s reaction as comforting as another caress.