A Wild Affair

  A Wild Affair

  By

  Charlotte Lamb

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  First published in Great Britain

  1982 by Mills & Boon Limited

  © Charlotte Lamb 1982

  Australian copyright 1982

  Philippine copyright 1982

  Reprinted 1982

  This edition 1987

  ISBN 0 263 75717 X

  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.'

  'What on earth is Vibes?' Mr Jones asked in a harassed voice, rumpling his hair with one hand, and the blonde girl laughed.

  'A music magazine.'

  'Are you a friend of my daughter?' Mr Jones asked in bemused uncertainty. 'What were all those photographers doing here? Why were they taking pictures of my daughter?' His eyes moved round to Joe Aldonez, his frown came back. 'And who's that man who was kissing her?'

  A genuine expression flitted over Carmen Lister's carefully smiling face—Quincy pinned it down as a mixture of incredulity and shock.

  'That's Joe Aldonez, Mr Jones,' Carmen told him, throwing a look of apology in the direction of the other man.

  'Who?' Mr Jones said and Carmen almost winced.

  'Joe's a big star,' she said.

  Mrs Jones had found her way downstairs by now and was staring open-mouthed at Joe Aldonez, her expression making it clear that she, at least, knew who he was—but then so did most women. His records had been hitting the top ten regularly ever since his first disc came out; his deep, husky voice sending shivers down the back of any woman listening as he smokily whispered out love songs which had a smouldering sexiness.

  'Vibes has been running a competition,' Carmen explained. 'You had to answer six questions about Joe's songs and decide which pair of eyes belonged to him— we had a dozen pairs to choose from, it's surprising how difficult that is, I had a job deciding which was the right pair myself.' She smiled and Mr Jones gazed blankly at her. 'The first prize was a date with Joe,' Carmen told him. 'And your daughter won.'

  'I can't have!' Quincy broke out involuntarily.

  Carmen turned and gave her a smile as genuine as the disbelief with which she had realised that Mr Jones hadn't recognised Joe Aldonez.

  'You have, I promise you,' she said. 'You must be thrilled.'

  'I can't have won,' Quincy insisted,' and Carmen laughed.

  'I assure you, you have.' She had rather sharp blue eyes, their lids heavily painted with silvery blue eyeshadow, and her lashes were visibly false; clustering in dramatic sweeps which flicked up and down every time she opened and closed her eyes. They gave her the appearance of a doll, her blonde hair neatly curled around her face, but the faint hardness of her expression when she wasn't smiling so carefully contradicted that pretty, doll-like look.

  'Quincy entered this competition and won?' Mr Jones demanded, staring at his daughter as though he had never seen her before, disgust in his face. Mr Jones did not like pop music—his own taste inclined towards brass bands playing martial tunes—and he was appalled by the thought of Quincy entering a competition with a date with a pop star as the first prize.

  A man of fifty, Robert Jones was wiry and active; his skin freshly coloured from years of working in the open air in all weathers, his eyes brown, his hair almost the same colour although it was slowly gathering streaks of grey which he resented and tried to brush out of sight. He was a man of common sense and quiet humour; his veterinary practice was very busy, but his love of animals helped him to accept the heavy work load his job enforced. He was popular with both his patients and their owners, because his temper was even, his patience almost inexhaustible and his manner cheerful. His one vice was his pipe, which he smoked in secret with an air of guilty satisfaction and constantly resolved to give up.

  'Quincy's a very lucky girl,' Carmen told him. 'We had thousands of entries—even I was surprised by the flood of mail we got, we had to take on extra staff to cope with it all.'

  'Good heavens,' Mr Jones muttered, still staring at Quincy. 'Quincy, I can't understand why you did such a thing!'

  'But I didn't,' she protested, her voice almost shrill in her determination to be heard.

  Joe Aldonez moved and her eyes flew round to meet his stare. 'You didn't what?' he asked slowly. His speaking voice had the same husky, smoky quality which had made his singing so immediately recognisable, and it sent exactly the same shiver down her spine. His American accent was soft and drawling, far more noticeable than when he sang.

  'Enter,' she explained, studying his face and struck by the odd contradictions in it—the harsh power of the bone structure giving an angularity to cheek and jaw, to the deep forehead and long arrogant nose, which was offset by a startling beauty in the deep, dark wells of his eyes. The same clash was revealed in his mouth; the upper lip firm and cool, the lower warm and distinctly sensual, curving in a half-smile as she stared at him, which made her flush.

  His brows winged upwards in a sardonic movement. 'You didn't enter the competition?'

  'I didn't,' she insisted.

  Carmen's brows met. 'What do you mean? I have your entry form here with me!' She unzipped her shoulder bag and produced a crumpled page, torn from the magazine judging by the look of it, and waved it at Quincy. 'See? You are Quincy Jones, aren't you?'

  'Yes,' Quincy admitted. 'But…'

  'And this is your address?' Carmen's voice had an irritated ring.

  Quincy took the form from her, and looked at it. Her own name leapt up at her, printed in capital letters, below it her address printed in the same hand. 'I don't understand it,' she said, her face puzzled.

  'We haven't got time for games,' Carmen dismissed with a shrug. 'I'm sure your parents won't object, if that's what's worrying you, there's no need to pretend you didn't enter.'

  'I'm not pretending anything,' said Quincy, then her eye fell on the handwriting lower down on the form and she gave a choked cry of recognition. As she looked up she saw her brother lurking on the top of the stairs, and yelled: 'Bobby!'

  He at once began to vanish, but her father had been looking over her shoulder at the form and he, too, had recognised the handwriting.

  'Bobby, you come down here!' he shouted, and Bobby stopped in his tracks. Wearing a silly smile he came down, a step at a time, while everyone stared at him. His face had gone brick-red, a colour which shrieked at his mop of untidy ginger hair and the gaudy yellow T-shirt he was wearing. As he got to the hall, his father's heavy hand descende
d on his shoulder and Bobby looked up at him, his expression placatory.

  'Did you fill in that entry form?' Robert Jones demanded.

  Bobby didn't utter a syllable, he just nodded. Even the tips of his large ears were crimson—although Bobby's hair was pretty unusual, it was his ears which most people remembered and which were responsible for his school nickname, Jugs, or, when his friends weren't in a hurry, Jughandle. Bobby was fifteen and lived in a state of happy squalor, his room cluttered with the assorted debris of a very busy life: model planes standing on every surface or suspended from the ceiling, clothes left wherever he happened to drop them, books and magazines in untidy piles all over the room. Mrs Jones had a blitz on the room once a week, but no sooner had Bobby been allowed back into it again than he set about restoring it to its usual condition. 'Anyone would think that boy had been born in a dustbin!' Mr Jones often complained.

  'Why did you put your sister's name down?' Joe Aldonez asked, and Bobby shot him a wary look. 'Why not your own?' Joe asked.

  'Well, it was for girls, wasn't it?' Bobby mumbled.

  'Then why did you enter?' Carmen asked furiously, and Mr Jones nodded in agreement. 'Yes, why did you enter?' he chimed.

  Bobby became speechless again, shuffling his feet. Joe Aldonez was watching him thoughtfully, one long index finger scratching the side of his jaw as he considered the subject. 'I get it,' he said suddenly. 'You wanted to win one of the transistors, right?'

  'Right,' said Bobby, brightening up.

  'What?' Mr Jones demanded.

  'There were transistor radios as runner-up prizes,' Joe explained. 'Fifty of them, good ones, too.'

  'Bobby Jones, I could kill you!' Quincy snapped, erupting into fury.

  'That wouldn't solve anything,' Joe Aldonez told her with amusement.

  'It would make me feel a lot happier,' retorted Quincy, keeping her eyes on her brother as he edged away.