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CHAPTER ONE
Quincy was just about to start making supper; her mind divided between macaroni cheese and Brendan's blow-by-blow account of how he had delivered a calf a few hours earlier. A tall, thin young man with dusty blond hair, he had only been practising as a vet for five years and was still at the stage of thinking his job the most enthralling subject in the world, and Quincy, being the daughter of Brendan's partner and therefore accustomed to talk of the medical problems of the animal world, seemed to him the perfect audience. She was not merely a pretty girl, but one likely to listen and applaud Brendan's great triumph. It had been a difficult birth, touch and go for a while, but Brendan Leary had won against all the odds and he wanted someone to appreciate it. The farmer had clapped him on the shoulder and given him a stiff whisky afterwards, he might even pay his bill eventually, but Brendan needed more than that.
Quincy listened, smiling, and although she wasn't saying anything she was looking every bit as impressed as Brendan could hope—she had been listening to such stories all her life, she was fond of Brendan and she was always happy to hear of his triumphs in the face of the thousand and one disasters which could befall his patients.
Her parents were having dinner out that evening, to celebrate Mrs Jones's birthday. Quincy could hear her mother singing in the bath while Mr Jones shaved, his electric razor buzzing in counterpoint to his wife's faintly unsteady contralto. From Bobby's bedroom came the transatlantic babble of his radio—Quincy's brother claimed to be unable to do his homework unless his ears were safely plugged with pop music, a theory his father disputed but had given up trying to argue over with Bobby.
It was a warm spring evening and Quincy had no sense of foreboding, no warning premonition, as she unearthed the cheese grater and filled a saucepan with water in which to boil the macaroni.
When the doorbell went Brendan stopped talking and groaned: 'I knew I'd be called out again! Why is there always an emergency when I'm on call?'
Quincy laughed, shedding her apron. 'Don't be so pessimistic, it's probably Penny, she said she might drive over for a chat.' As she left the kitchen Brendan stared after her gloomily, convinced of the worst. He had used up most of his energy during the day and had been looking forward to a quiet evening with Quincy. She had invited him to supper, as he was on call, and the last thing he wanted to do was spend hours in a draughty cowshed instead of talking to Quincy. She was so easy to talk to—slim, green-eyed, smiling, with short chestnut hair which sprang in soft curls around her face, she had a feminine warmth Brendan found very appealing.
Quincy walked down the hall and opened the front door, then froze in disbelief as she stared at the man outside. She was so amazed as she recognised him that she didn't notice the people jostling behind his wide shoulders. She just stared at that unmistakable face, open-mouthed.
'Hallo, Quincy,' he said in a deep, warm voice, smiling, and then all hell was let loose around her: flashbulbs exploded in her face, men jostled around them, voices yelled questions she hardly heard, the constant explosions of light dazzled and blinded her.
'How does it feel to have a dream come true, Quincy?'
'Look this way, sweetie, smile…'
'Did you ever think you'd win, Quincy?'
Quincy's mind was blown to smithereens—this wasn't happening, she was having some sort of brainstorm, it couldn't be real. Who were all these people, and what on earth were they talking about? She blinked as one of them darted at her, aiming his camera so close she saw stars for a few seconds. When she opened her eyes again she hoped they would all have gone, vanished back into the warm spring night from which they had sprung, but when she opened her eyes they were all still there, snapping around her like hungry barracuda, bawling questions, she didn't understand and could not answer, grabbing her arm on first this side and then that, whirling her like a dervish.
It seemed at the time to last for an eternity, but later she realised it had happened with such speed that it could only have been a couple of minutes from the second when she opened that door, blithely unaware of what was about to hit her, until the instant when Joe Aldonez took a step forward, and, as she quickly looked at him in unnerved query, smiled reassuringly at her.
'Don't look so alarmed,' he murmured.
'Can we have a kiss, Mr Aldonez?' one of the photographers yelled, and the others took up the cry. 'Hey, Joe, kiss her, would you?'
The next minute Quincy felt the world swing wildly as she was caught into Joe Aldonez's arms. Her short chestnut curls spilled over his sleeve as he tilted her, face upward. Afraid she was going to fall, she grabbed at his shoulders and then his hard, warm mouth engulfed her lips. Quincy had her eyes open for the first few seconds, until the constant explosion of flashlights forced her to close them.
I'm going out of my mind, she thought. I'm having delusions, this is a hallucination—it can't be happening.
If it was a hallucination, it was strangely potent. Her lips trembled under the sensual movements of his mouth, her body quivering as a gentle hand pressed along her spine, but Quincy had a solid core of common sense. She kept her eyes shut and told herself firmly that it wasn't real. What was happening was happening inside her own head, she was dreaming on her feet, and in a minute she would open her eyes, looking very silly, to find herself staring at the irate and puzzled owner of a sick cow.
'What on earth ?'
Good question, Quincy thought, still clinging helplessly to the man holding her and half believing she was imagining that voice, too, until it bellowed like an angry bull.
'What's going on, for heaven's sake?'
The next minute she was free, glassy-eyed and very flushed, shaking like a leaf while she stared at her father in his old woolly check dressing-gown, standing at the top of the stairs and gaping down at her and the all-too-real circus which was continuing to perform noisily around her.
The photographers took pictures of him, too, and Quincy saw her mother scuttling behind Mr Jones, clutching at the lapels of her blue quilted dressing-gown, as she stared, wide-eyed, at the invasion of her home.
'Well, isn't anyone going to answer me?' Robert Jones demanded.
Everyone tried to answer him at once, the confused gabble merely making him scowl, then Joe Aldonez moved, so fast that Quincy for one wasn't aware what he was doing until it was done, his strategy carried through so smoothly that it met no opposition.
'Thank you, gentlemen, we'll wrap it up for the evening. I'm sure you've got enough pictures now, and Carmen will keep you informed,' he said briskly, driving the press before him like sheep. No doubt they would have resisted had he not appeared to be going with them, his long stride pushing them all backwards, mesmerised by his confidence. The minute they were all outside, the door closed. Angry shouts of 'Hey!' and the thud of fists on the door made it clear that the press were annoyed, but that did not seem to worry Joe Aldonez.
'They'll go in a minute or two,' he told Mr Jones coolly. 'They've got what they came for.' What was that? Quincy wondered, still trying to convince herself that she was not the victim of an hallucination.
Joe Aldonez was not the on
ly person left behind by the tide of press men—with him was a man in a pale blue suit who had said nothing but who kept on smiling, and a blonde girl in a fur-lined sheepskin coat which she wore with an air of elegance Quincy couldn't quite define. Nothing the girl was wearing seemed particularly striking—it was just the way she wore it which left that impression of chic.
'Sorry about the rumpus,' the blonde girl was saying to Mr Jones with a friendly smile which didn't quite ring true—it had a certain careful deliberation which Quincy didn't like. 'I'm afraid it got out of hand there for a minute or two. We should have rung to warn you we were coming, but we wanted to give Quincy a real surprise.'
They had certainly done that. Quincy was beginning to recover from the traumatic shock which the lightning-speed sequence of events had kept her locked in ever since she opened that door, and now she was getting annoyed.
'What…' she began, and the blonde girl turned towards her, holding out her hand. 'Congratulations, Quincy,' she said, the trace of amused patronage in her face and voice making the hair on the back of Quincy's neck prickle angrily.
'What are you talking about? And who are you?' Quincy hadn't looked at Joe Aldonez since the door shut, but she was constantly aware of him, although she couldn't yet allow herself to believe he was really there in person. Had he actually erupted into her life, or was she having some sort of Alice-in-Wonderland dream? Would she wake up in a minute and realise none of this had happened?
'You've won,' the blonde girl said.
'What are you talking about?' Quincy asked.
That was the question which was bothering her father, too. He came down the stairs now, bristling like a porcupine, his damp hair standing up in spikes, and asked it very insistently: 'What's this all about?'
Smiling, the blonde girl offered him her hand and he slowly accepted it without thinking, staring at her.
'Who are you?'
'I'm Carmen Lister, the editor of Vibes. You must be Quincy's father—hallo, Mr Jones.'
