Like Doctor, Like Son Page 7

  Not that she had been an ogre, but Faith was intelligent enough to know that it would have been all too easy for her mother to marshal any number of reasons why, rather than congratulating them on finding each other and knowing they wanted to spend their lives together, they had been too young to know what was best for them.

  It was only now that she could admit to the deep fear that had tempered her joy even then—the conviction that if she’d discovered their plans, her mother’s disapproval could have prompted her to do something to ruin Quinn’s chance at a medical career.

  Over the years she’d wondered whether the autocratic woman had really been totally oblivious to their increasingly passionate relationship—or had it just been her own guilty conscience that had made the references to Quinn’s professional success when he’d returned as the local GP seem a little pointed?

  She’d always been very careful not to say anything that would have aroused her mother’s suspicions. As far as she was aware, no one knew that there had been any sort of closeness between them when they’d known each other at school.

  But this? It was beyond belief.

  Not the fact that she was donating the Barton to a good cause—she’d known for years that Faith would have no need of it and the money from its sale had always been intended for dispersal among her favourite charities. Faith’s own involvement in the hospice movement meant that she was delighted that the Barton would have a whole new purpose after all these years. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she wondered that she hadn’t thought of the idea herself.

  What she couldn’t grasp was why on earth Constance Adamson would want to involve Quinn and herself so closely in the setting-up of the hospice. Why would her mother have decided to do something that was almost guaranteed to throw her in contact with a man she’d never met before she’d been dying?

  ‘Oh, Faith, my dear! How can I ever thank you?’ Molly sobbed as she threw both arms around Faith’s neck, catapulting her out of her thoughts and into the present. ‘Your mother always said she’d remember me in her will but, oh! To be given my little home like this…It must have been your doing.’

  The housekeeper’s emotional outburst took Faith by complete surprise.

  ‘Not at all, Molly,’ she contradicted gently. ‘She decided to give it to you a long time ago. Anyway, it’s no more than you deserve for putting up with her and taking care of her for all those years. You’ve been as close as family to us.’

  It took several minutes to convince the stunned housekeeper of her good fortune and calm her down a little, and all the while there were several similar conversations going on around her with long-time staff exclaiming over their former employer’s generosity.

  Meanwhile, Mr Protheroe was becoming increasingly agitated with the complete disruption of his usual methodical pace.

  When the uproar showed no sign of abating any time soon, the rest of them apparently oblivious to the significance of the unexpected fate of the family home, he finally conceded defeat.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he announced over the continuing hubbub, ‘you will all receive written confirmation of your various bequests in due course. Dr Jamison, I will obviously need to arrange a further meeting with you and Miss Adamson to begin the process of setting up the trust…’

  Never had Faith been so grateful for DJ’s presence at her side. The last few moments had been such a bolt from the blue that she was still shaking, her legs so wobbly that she could easily have been trampled underfoot in the mêlée if she hadn’t been holding on tight to his supportive arm.

  ‘Ready to leave?’ he suggested, having to speak right into her ear to be heard over the happy throng.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she demurred, unsure of the protocol of such occasions. ‘Shouldn’t I stay until…?’

  ‘No one will even see you go,’ he declared sensibly. ‘They’re all too busy celebrating their windfalls.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ she agreed, summoning up a smile. ‘Well, Mother wanted a good send-off when she finally died, and this will certainly mean people remember her with gratitude.’

  In fact, Faith thought she was probably the only person in the room who wasn’t deliriously happy with today’s events. In her own uniquely quixotic way, her mother had managed to put a major kink into her smooth-running life. There was a two-continent concert tour due to start shortly and innumerable tasks to fulfil before then, including several days in a recording studio and a promised appearance at a fundraiser. Surely her mother had known that she couldn’t possibly cancel everything to be on hand to supervise the conversion of the Barton, and as for working with Quinn…

  ‘Did you know what she was planning?’ he demanded, his deep voice right beside her, as if she’d conjured him up just by thinking about him, and filled with a mixture of disbelief and delight.

  ‘I had no idea,’ she said shortly, silently cursing the audible quiver in her voice and hoping he couldn’t see from her face how unprepared she was to speak to him. After their conversation last night she’d known he was going to be here, but after the acrimonious way the call had ended she’d hoped to slip away without having to come face to face with him. She really didn’t feel up to dealing with him in front of so many people.

  ‘If I had,’ she continued distractedly, suddenly close to tears when she considered the enormity of the problem that she’d just been handed, ‘I would have tried to persuade her against it. I’ve no idea how I’m going to be able to cope…in fact, I know I’m not going to be able to manage…I’ve got so much on my plate, so many commitments.’

  If she’d only known what her mother had intended, she could have suggested several logical alternatives, none of which would have necessitated a single meeting with Quinn. It would have been so much easier both financially and emotionally to fund a purpose-built unit out of the money from selling the Barton…or even out of her own pocket, if necessary. Tying her to working with Quinn while the Barton was converted was a nightmare in the making. Surely he could see that, especially with the animosity between them. ‘It would have been so much easier if I could just put the Barton on the market and fund—’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it would,’ Quinn interrupted, his voice suddenly taking on a cutting edge that she’d never heard before. ‘Well, I’m sorry if you were counting on a big infusion of cash when you sold the Barton but, thanks to your mother’s generosity, a lot of people in the area are going to have their lives made a little easier. I think that’s rather more praiseworthy than maintaining one woman…and her hanger-on,’ he added in a snide aside clearly meant for DJ, ‘in luxury that she could easily afford for herself.’

  Faith gasped in shock at the unexpected attack but before she could draw breath to refute his misconceptions he was gone.

  ‘Hey!’ DJ exclaimed, clearly incensed. He took a step as if to go after Quinn but Faith tightened her grip on his arm.

  ‘Don’t, DJ. Please…just leave it,’ she pleaded. ‘I need to get out of here.’

  She could tell he was simmering as he escorted her swiftly out of the solicitor’s office but at least he waited until they’d emerged into the sharp wind that awaited them outside before he boiled over.

  ‘What is that guy on?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Where does he get off, accusing you of wanting to live off the money from selling the Barton?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, DJ,’ Faith soothed. ‘He probably didn’t realise that I could easily—’

  ‘I don’t care what he does or doesn’t realise,’ he interrupted with all the hot-headedness of youth. ‘He shouldn’t have said anything until he checked his facts. If he knew how much you’re worth, he wouldn’t have dared to imply that you were upset not to get your hands on a bit more money.’

  ‘That’s the whole point, isn’t it?’ Faith reminded him gently. ‘I’ve deliberately kept a low profile ever since…well, since I started my music career. So it’s no wonder that people don’t know what they’re talking about. I prefer
it that way.’

  ‘Even so, it’s still not right for him to say things like that,’ DJ persisted as he handed her courteously into the waiting taxi. ‘He shouldn’t make snap judgments about people he only knows through hearsay.’

  Her sense of fair play warred with caution and won.

  ‘Actually, he knows me a little better than that,’ she said quietly. ‘We went to school together in our final year. We were studying the same subjects and sat the same exams.’ A kaleidoscope of images flashed through her brain—pictures of the magical times they’d spent together getting to know each other, falling in love with each other.

  ‘In which case, he should have known that you weren’t like that,’ he said heatedly.

  ‘It was a long time ago and we were different people then,’ she said softly, still having difficulty reconciling the person Quinn was face to face with the humorous man she’d begun to discover over the telephone. The boy she’d known almost seventeen years ago was so similar to that man—thoughtful, witty, flirtatious, teasing, playful and passionate, but with a steel core of unshakable integrity running right through everything he did.

  It wasn’t quite as pleasant to be around the other man she was coming to know in their face-to-face encounters. He had a much sharper tongue with an edge of bitterness to it. He seemed even less likely to trust than the wary Quinn she’d first met…far less likely to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

  Their taxi driver seemed to think that he had to act as a tour guide and between his descriptions of the route they were taking back to the Barton and his asides about the owners of the other properties they were passing, Faith was glad that there was no chance of continuing their conversation.

  Later that evening, to the mellow sound of DJ unwinding with his saxophone, Faith tried to sort out the thoughts that had been plaguing her ever since Quinn’s verbal attack this afternoon.

  From everything Molly had told her about the local GP, it had been totally out of character. Over supper this evening, Molly had chatted at some length about how highly thought of he was by his patients and how willing to put himself out to help, often going above and beyond the call of duty.

  ‘His patients are really glad he decided to come back here once he became a GP,’ she’d said as she’d supervised the serving of another delicious meal for which Faith found she had little appetite. DJ, of course, had cleared his plate in no time and was ready for more. ‘Old Dr Jordan wanted to come back to work after his heart bypass operation, but it was obvious that he was never going to be able to carry that sort of load again, not with just part-time assistance. Dr Jamison was only supposed to be his locum until he was fit again, but when Dr Jordan’s wife persuaded him to retire, he asked Dr Jamison to stay on.’

  ‘So the new broom has been sweeping clean, has he?’ Faith asked, knowing that just one innocent-sounding question would serve to set Molly going again.

  ‘He’s done that all right,’ she agreed enthusiastically. ‘Of course he’s younger and he’s got much more energy than old Dr Jordan, but it’s more than that. He’s got that young Dr Reed in the practice now to share the load, and he’s been setting up all sorts of clinics so that patients with the same sort of problems can get together—like the weight-watching one I’ve been going to on Thursday evenings. He even persuaded the leisure centre in Weston to do a special concession on admission rates to the gym and swimming pool if we produce our card to show we’ve been for our weekly check-up.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s how you’ve managed to lose that weight you’ve been complaining about all these years!’ Faith exclaimed. ‘I can easily get my arms all the way around you these days, you’re so much slimmer.’

  ‘That’s all down to Dr Jamison’s encouragement,’ Molly said proudly. ‘And he’s done the same for the kiddies with diabetes, and the ones with asthma, and he’s set up a whole series of people—like a hypnotherapist and a herbalist—to help people wanting to give up smoking.’

  ‘And now he’s going to have the Barton to set up the hospice he wanted,’ Faith mused quietly, wondering where, in all his myriad tasks, Quinn ever found time for a social life, let alone the simple basic necessity of sleep. If his recent phone calls to her were any indication, he certainly hadn’t chosen to have any early nights to catch up.

  ‘None of my business,’ she muttered into the darkness when that thought returned some time around midnight.

  Some crazy part of her had expected him to phone her, in spite of the acrid atmosphere left behind after their last meeting, but as the time ticked away, she realised just how juvenile she was being. She wasn’t a teenager any more, lying in bed and weaving fantasies about the gorgeous young man who seemed to share all her ambitions and most of her thoughts.

  Then, she’d known that she couldn’t count on his late-night calls, knowing he’d only dared to make them if his father had been too drunk to notice him using the phone. It had made her feel guilty to want to speak to him, knowing that he might have to endure another drunken confrontation—even be injured—just so that she could hear his voice before she fell asleep.

  Those days were long gone. Nowadays, he could please himself who he phoned and when.

  Obviously he hadn’t wanted to phone her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘HAPPY birthday, Faith,’ Quinn murmured in her ear, then removed the blindfold.

  ‘Oh, Quinn,’ she breathed, almost lost for words when she saw what he’d done for her.

  It wasn’t actually her birthday. That would be in two days’ time and Molly Beech had already warned her that her mother had booked a table to take her out for a celebration meal at a rather swish restaurant in nearby Weston.

  But this was a complete surprise, and the realisation that Quinn had gone to so much trouble for her was so sweet that she felt the hot press of tears behind her eyes.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he demanded softly, and the hint of uncertainty in his tone had her hurrying into speech.

  ‘I love it!’ she exclaimed as she took in the impromptu picnic he’d arranged for her. In deference to the rain pouring down outside the windows he’d spread a blanket in the curve of the grand piano and surrounded it with the soft buttery glow of candles. But pride of place had to go to the cake, ablaze with one candle for each of her seventeen years. ‘It’s chocolate!’ she exclaimed in delight.

  ‘You told me it’s your favourite,’ he said, and urged her towards the simple fare, none of it apparently bought from the more pricey shops her mother favoured for special celebrations. ‘You told me your mother wasn’t bothering with a cake this year as she was taking you out for a meal, and when you told me that you were going to be alone in the house this evening…’

  At his urging, Faith knelt down on the blanket then curled her legs to one side, carefully leaving room for Quinn to join her.

  ‘Can I pour you a drink?’ he offered, reaching for the bottle standing in the shadow of the ornate piano leg. ‘I couldn’t quite manage champagne, but…’

  ‘You brought me some wine?’ she exclaimed, steadying the plastic cups that looked suspiciously like the ones from the water-dispenser at school.

  ‘There are some advantages to being eighteen,’ he pointed out, with his nose in the air, trying to look supercilious.

  Faith couldn’t help grinning as they ceremoniously tapped the rims of their plastic cups together and took a sip of the sparkling wine. Quinn couldn’t look supercilious if he tried for a year. Sexy, he could manage as easily as breathing with his dark hair and startling green eyes and a body that got her all hot and bothered just thinking about it, let alone gazing her fill as he sprawled out on the blanket beside her.

  The other girls in their class at school thought he was sexy, too, but he didn’t even notice them when they deliberately brushed past him getting to their desks or passing him in the hallway.

  He noticed her, though. She’d seen him watching her in class and when the colour of his eyes darkened from emerald to forest green,
she knew exactly what he was thinking about.

  They were dark now, almost black in the flickering shadows cast by the candles, and gleaming as they glided over her, spreading heat in their wake.

  She knew all too well what he was thinking about because she was thinking about it, too, anticipating the moment when he would say…

  ‘Do you want your birthday present?’ he asked suddenly, his voice deeper and huskier than it had been a moment ago, and she had to stifle a groan. That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say at all.

  ‘You didn’t have to get me a present,’ she demurred uneasily, knowing that he was saving every penny he could towards his expenses at medical school.

  ‘Don’t turn it down until you know what it is,’ he warned with a wicked grin. ‘Come closer and shut your eyes.’

  In spite of her concern that he might have used some of his precious savings, anticipation quivered through her, but there was no rustling of wrapping paper, just the soft sound of movement beside her. Her pulse rate began to rise when she realised that what she could hear was Quinn moving closer to her, then it began to race when she felt his arm circle her shoulders and his breath stir the tendrils of hair against her temple.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ he whispered, and gave her the best present she could have wished for—a birthday kiss that took her all the way to heaven.

  ‘What an absolute five-star pig of a day!’ Quinn groaned as he flopped back onto his bed.

  It was late and he was tired and he knew he hadn’t had the time or the energy for a decent meal, but that couldn’t account for him feeling as if he’d been hit by a truck.

  Not everything had been a disaster, of course. The unexpected bequest of the Barton had come completely out of the blue. He couldn’t possibly have anticipated that the autocratic woman who’d dismissed him without a second thought when he’d wanted to speak to her daughter sixteen years ago, and had totally ignored him since his return to the area, should suddenly have left the future of her ancestral home in his hands.