A Convenient Proposal. HELEN BROOKS

wind, which was driving the snow before it in fierce gusts, and after the routine fight with the aged door of the potting shed she had stepped into the relative sanctuary of its dank dryness.

      After filling the coal scuttle and lugging it back to the cottage she returned with the sack for the wood, but it was as she reached for the first log that she heard it. The faintest cry, almost a squeak. Mice? Rats? She froze, her heart thudding. Mice she could tolerate, but rats? Their teeth were a little too large and sharp for comfort. Still, if she didn’t bother them they probably wouldn’t bother her.

      She was actually bending to reach for the log again when the sound came once more. It wasn’t a squeak, she told herself silently. It was a miaow, a faint mew. There must be a cat in here, but how had it got in and when, and where was it from? She tried, ‘Puss, puss, puss,’ but to no avail.

      Was it hurt or just sheltering from the cold? After some five minutes, when she was getting more and more chilled, she was just on the point of leaving to fetch a saucer of warm milk when a third mew brought her on all fours to peer along the back of the potting shed behind the six-foot pile of stacked logs. And then she saw them. It looked as though there was the smallest hole in one corner, where a couple of bricks had crumbled away, but it had been enough for the mother cat to creep in to give birth to her kittens. And they were tiny, minute, they couldn’t be more than a few days old at most, and the she-cat wasn’t moving.

      Don’t let it be dead. Oh, please, don’t let it be dead. Candy stared in horror at the pathetic little scene and then, as one of the three kittens squirmed a little and made the mewing sound again, she looked at the great pile of wood apprehensively. If she attempted to move it, it might fall on the little family and squash them, but she couldn’t just leave them here to die either.

      How long had it been since the mother cat had had food or water? It could be hours or days; she had no way of knowing.

      Quinn. He was a vet. He would know what to do. She was halfway back to the cottage in the next breath, and once inside she opened the cupboard and looked for his number. She knew it was there; she had looked for it on her first morning in England whilst assuring herself she would never, ever use it. It was halfway down the list of emergency numbers—‘Quinn Ellington, Veterinary Surgeon.’

      She dialled the number with shaking hands, finding she was more upset than she had realised. But there was something so pitiable about the mother cat’s valiant attempt to find shelter and safety for her kittens and the way she was lying curled round the minute little scraps to keep them warm.

      It was Marion who answered the telephone, and Candy cut through all the social niceties when she said urgently, ‘This is Candy, Xavier’s niece. I have to speak to Quinn; it’s an emergency.’

      ‘Candy?’ When she heard Quinn’s deep voice after a brief pause she found, ridiculously, that she had to fight for control against the tears welling up in her throat.

      ‘Oh, Quinn. There’s a cat in my potting shed and it’s not moving and I can’t reach it and it’s had kittens—’

      ‘Whoa, whoa.’ The interruption was firm but gentle. ‘Slowly, nice and slowly. Start at the beginning.’

      And so she did, and after she had related it all there was another brief pause before he said, ‘It sounds like time is of the essence, so I’d better not wait until evening surgery is finished. Jamie and Bob will have to split my patients between them; it can’t be helped. It’ll take me a few minutes to fill them in on a couple of the more complicated cases and then I’ll get going. I’ll be with you in ten…fifteen minutes. All right?’

      ‘The…the lane is full of snow. I don’t know if you’ll be able to—’

      ‘No problem,’ he interrupted her abruptly, but she didn’t mind. ‘The four-by-four will take care of it. Goodbye for now.’ And the phone went dead.

      For the next fifteen minutes Candy darted between the front gate and the potting shed some three or four times, but the female cat hadn’t moved or opened its eyes, and by the time Quinn’s Landrover Discovery eased its way into the pull in she was convinced it was dead.

      She all but leapt on Quinn at the garden gate, actually taking his sleeve and hurrying him along the path until his quizzical gaze made her realise what she was doing.

      ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She dropped her hand from his jacket as though it was red-hot, flushing hotly. But she had never been so pleased to see anyone in her life.

      Quinn’s big body seemed to fill the potting shed, and after he had squatted down on his heels and peered behind the assembled logs his face became grim. ‘We’ve got to get them out of here, but you’re right; it’s too risky to try and move this lot unless we absolutely have to. If I can get round the back of the shed I might just be able to reach in the hole where she came in and pull them out one by one that way.’

      Candy stared at him doubtfully. The potting shed was in a nice sheltered position, tucked away behind the cottage, but it was completely surrounded on three sides by bushes and vegetation. Whatever way you looked at this it seemed like mission impossible. ‘You’d never manage it,’ she said mournfully. ‘It’s not possible.’

      He turned from his contemplation of the cat and kittens and then rose to his feet. ‘Those last three words are not in my vocabulary,’ he said shortly, ‘and I’m surprised they’re in yours.’

      Candy was stung. ‘What does that mean?’

      ‘You’re a gutsy lady, and gutsy ladies don’t give up before they’ve even started.’

      Gutsy? What did that mean? What had Essie told him? Candy didn’t stop to think before she voiced her thoughts, and none too gently. ‘What do you know about me?’ she asked sharply. ‘What has Essie said?’

      ‘Essie?’ Quinn looked genuinely surprised. ‘Essie hasn’t said anything beyond the fact that you wanted a break for a few months? Why, what should she have said?’

      ‘Nothing.’ In spite of the zero temperatures outside Candy was hot now. Her and her big mouth. But it was him—he seemed to bring out the worst in her.

      Quinn continued to hold her wary gaze for a moment more before he said, his voice even, but with an edge that spoke of irritation, ‘I merely meant that to take the decision to uproot yourself and come to pastures new after the sort of accident you’ve been recovering from took some guts. Okay? Nothing more, nothing less. If you’ve a whole host of skeletons in your particular cupboard I couldn’t care less, Candy.’

      Well, that put her in her place, didn’t it?

      ‘But what I do care about is trying to get this cat and her kittens in a position where I can make an examination, and as quickly as possible. Clear?’

      ‘Perfectly.’ She glared at him.

      ‘Right. Now, I’m going to go round the back and see what I can do and I want you to remain here and keep an eye on them. If you see my hand come through give a yell and we’ll go from there, with you directing me. Do you understand?’

      ‘Of course I understand,’ she shot back tightly. ‘I’m not stupid.’

      ‘No one said you were, Candy.’ He was employing the same tone with her as he would with a difficult animal, she just knew it, and she couldn’t remember when something had rankled more. Impossible man! Impossible, insufferable, annoying…

      She stood to one side as he made to pass her, and then when he paused in front of her she raised her gaze to his face. He was close, very close. There was barely room for one let alone two in the potting shed, and Quinn was a big man.

      He was studying her with an air of quizzical amusement that turned his face into hard angles and planes and made him twice as attractive. She felt her heart give one mighty flip and despised herself for it, but his flagrant masculinity was something that her hormones just didn’t seem able to ignore. In fact she doubted if any female would be able to ignore Quinn Ellington.

      ‘What?’