A New Year Marriage Proposal (Harlequin Romance) (11 page)

* * *

Two days before opening of the Wylde Ward, Quinn and Mara had sorted out the security system at the safe house and tweaked things to make it safer.

‘I need to settle up with you,’ Carissa said, and brandished her bank card at him. ‘I want an invoice, your bank sort code and account number, and I’ll do a direct transfer.’

‘I don’t feel comfortable charging you for the system,’ Quinn said. ‘And as I run my own business I can write things off as charitable donations. I’m very happy to do that in this case.’

Carissa shook her head. ‘That wasn’t the deal—and if you do that, then I can’t ask you for help the next time I need something done for Project Sparkle.’

He shrugged. ‘Quinn O’Neill, computer geek. Will work for brownies if they’re made by Carissa Wylde.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Or her grandmother. He’s not fussy.’

Her eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘That’s very sweet. And flattering. But, no, Quinn. If nothing else, you have Mara’s time and expertise to pay for. And the stuff you bought for the surveillance system. I need to pay you.’

‘How about we compromise,’ Quinn suggested, ‘and I let you pay for Mara’s time?’

‘
And
the hardware.’

He could see that she wasn’t going to budge on this. ‘OK. Do you want to make yourself a coffee while I sort out the costings?’

‘Was that Quinn-speak for will I make you a coffee, too?’

He smiled. ‘That would be nice.’

By the time she’d finished making the coffee, he’d sorted out the bill.

She scrutinised it—he knew she suspected that he’d undercharged her, rather than thinking that he was trying to rip her off—but eventually she nodded. ‘OK. The money will be in your account first thing tomorrow.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And then,’ she said, ‘there’s our wager. About the virtual Santa.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Double or quits.’ She paused. ‘So, do you see the magic of Christmas?’

No. He didn’t. There had been places where he had—but he rather thought that had more to do with Carissa herself rather than Christmas.

‘I think,’ he said carefully, ‘it’s complicated.’

She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘OK. I get that bits of it are over-commercialised and there’s too much greed. I know you hated the Christmas lights. But you liked the skating.’

‘The skating was to do with the fact that it’s winter and not with Christmas,’ he said. ‘If you were in Australia, you’d be skating in July.’ Though he had definitely seen the magic there. When he’d kissed her.

‘And you liked the Fantasia.’

‘But not because of it being Christmas. I liked the fairground. Fairs happen all year round.’

‘You bought me a peacock decoration for my tree,’ she pointed out.

‘Peacocks,’ he reminded her, ‘are not Christmassy.’

‘Oh, yes, they are—in medieval times, they were Christmas dinner,’ she said.

He scoffed. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘For the nobility,’ she said. ‘I looked it up. Richard II served peacock to ten thousand people at Warwick Castle for Christmas dinner, as part of a feast that lasted for five days. Apparently they were roasted without the skin and the feathers, then when they were cooked they were sewn back into their skins, their beaks were painted with gilt, and they were served on a platter with their tails fanned out.’

‘Sounds like a recipe for food poisoning,’ he said with a grimace.

‘Maybe.’ She paused. ‘And there was the carol concert. You said you liked that.’

But most of all he’d enjoyed being with her. ‘It’s complicated,’ he said again.

She put her hands on her hips and stared narrowly at him. ‘So you
do
see it, but you just can’t admit it because you’re stubborn.’

He sighed. ‘No. I just don’t like Christmas. I probably never will.’

‘Was it that bad when you were little?’ she asked.

He felt the panic seep through him. Had he said something indiscreet? ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ he prevaricated.

‘When people really hate something, it’s usually because it has bad memories for them,’ she said, ‘and that usually dates back to when they were little.’

‘You’re quite the psychologist,’ he said.

She sighed. ‘Quinn, every time I think we’re getting to know each other, you clam up on me.’

Busted. He couldn’t think of anything to say to that, because he knew it was true. So he didn’t say anything.

She frowned. ‘I just wish...’

‘What?’

‘Never mind.’

‘Now who’s clamming up?’

She shook her head. ‘OK. You win. I’ll pay you double for the virtual Santa.’

He backtracked swiftly. ‘No. It’s a charitable donation.’

‘A charitable donation of a virtual Santa, from someone who hates Christmas.’

‘From someone who hates Christmas,’ he said, ‘but who can still see the good that other people are doing and appreciate that. And I’ll be there on the day.’ Because he knew how important the day was to her and he wanted to be there for her—but he didn’t want to admit that. So he added swiftly, ‘You know what systems are like. They crash when you really need them to work properly. It makes sense for me to be there to fix stuff if it’s needed.’

‘Your systems,’ she said, ‘apparently work without glitches. It’s not going to crash.’

‘And you’ve just tempted fate to make it crash badly,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there.’

‘OK. And thank you.’ She bit her lip. ‘You have a good heart, Quinn. I just wish you’d realise that.’

Maybe he had. Maybe he did. But deep down he knew he wouldn’t be enough for Carissa, so once the ward opening day was over he’d back off, very quietly, and let her get on with her life.

CHAPTER TEN

T
HE
NINETEENTH
OF
D
ECEMBER
.

The day when Carissa always tried to be brave, to celebrate the wonderful life she’d been able to share with her parents until she was fifteen—until her father’s plane had crashed on the way to a charity gig, killing him and her mother and leaving Carissa orphaned.

The day that was always a gaping hole in her life, when the world had no colour or sparkle and it felt as if her shoulders were weighed down by a million sorrows.

And she knew it was as hard for the rest of their family. Not that any of them regretted a moment of the lives of Peter and Isobel Wylde: the regrets were for the time they hadn’t had together, for the milestones they’d missed sharing.

‘Smile,’ she told herself as she picked up the bunch of white roses she always took to her parents’ grave on the anniversary of their deaths. ‘You’re celebrating their lives today. The Wylde Ward is finally opening. You’re going to do them proud.’

She walked into the churchyard, took the previous week’s flowers out of the vase, topped up the water and threaded the stems of the roses through the little holes in the vase.

‘I miss you,’ she said. ‘I miss you so much. I wish you were here today to see what you’ve achieved—that the ward you wanted to build for the hospital to thank them for saving me is finally going to be opened today. I wish you were here to play the Santa song, Dad, and get everyone to sing along with you. And I wish you were here to watch him, Mum, with all that love in your face.’

But it wasn’t to be.

She blew out a breath.

‘And right now I could do with a bit of advice,’ she said. ‘I’ve spent three years keeping men at arm’s length because I was such an idiot over Justin, and I can’t trust myself to pick someone who won’t treat me the way he did. And now I’ve met Quinn. He’s special.’ She bit her lip. ‘I think you would’ve liked him. Nan and Poppy like him. Granny and Gramps will meet him today, and I’m pretty sure they’ll like him, too.’

There was a ‘but’.

‘But I think he’s been badly hurt in the past. He keeps his emotions all wrapped up. Sometimes he just closes off on me. And I don’t know if I’m going to be enough to make him change that. I don’t know if he’ll ever open up to me.’ She finished arranging the roses. ‘Maybe it’s time I took a risk. He’s been so brilliant over the virtual Santa. Maybe today of all days he’ll let me in.’

But she was pretty sure that he wouldn’t.

‘I love you,’ she said softly. ‘I wish you were here. I know you’re in me, but I wish you were here so I could hug you both and you’d talk back to me. Which is really selfish, because I have the most brilliant family in the world, and your parents and your brothers and sisters have always been there for me.

‘But I so wish you were here. I wish you could meet Quinn. I wish...I just wish we’d had more time together. That you could be there on my wedding day, and on the day when your first grandchild is born.’ She sighed. ‘Not that I even know if I’m ever going to get married and have children. I’d like to, but I don’t know how Quinn feels about me—I don’t know if he feels the same way, and I don’t know if he wants marriage and children. And now I’m being selfish and maudlin and it’s your special day, so I’m just going to shut up and get on with it. But I miss you. I really, really miss you.’

She stroked the top of the headstone, then headed back to Grove End Mews, knowing that she had a hundred and one last-minute things to do for the opening of the ward. She’d already printed her list out in order of priority, and she started ticking her way through it as soon as she got home.

Quinn called round. ‘I guess we need to go to the hospital and finish setting up. I want to do a test once we have the system working, to make sure there aren’t any bugs. Are you ready?’

No. She was filled with panic. But you were supposed to fake it until you make it, she knew, so she forced herself to smile. ‘Ready.’

He took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Your parents would be so proud of you.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Carissa couldn’t quite trust herself to speak, because the emotions welled up and blocked her throat.

Quinn drove them to the hospital. The radio was playing Christmas songs but he didn’t switch it to something else. Maybe he was relaxing his stance on Christmas, Carissa thought.

She made sure that the room was set up for the official opening, and had a red ribbon ready to cut. The remainder of the Wylde Boys were meeting her there to sing in her father’s honour, so there was a small stage at the side. Best to test the PA system, Carissa decided, and switched on the microphone.

* * *

They’d arranged to borrow two of the offices from the doctors for the backroom staff dealing with the Virtual Santa project. The team was ready in place and the phones were working, and Santa was getting changed. Quinn tested the software and the app to make sure it all worked.

Once Santa was in costume and in position, ready to talk to the kids, Quinn headed for the room where Carissa was due to make her speech to open the ward, and heard someone singing
a capella
.

Carissa.

He’d heard her sing at the carol concert, but he’d never heard her sing more than a snatch of a song entirely on her own. She’d consistently told him that she hadn’t inherited her dad’s talent, but he begged to differ. He loved the sound of her singing. Not wanting her to stop, he waited until she reached the end of the song before going into the room.

‘Phase one’s all ready to roll,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’ She gave him a nervous smile.

He patted her arm. ‘Hey. This is going to be brilliant,’ he said. ‘You’re going to be brilliant. Go and knock everyone’s socks off.’

Just as they’d arranged, Carissa took the tablet round to each child and quietly told Santa their names before she started chatting with them. The children all seemed thrilled to bits that Santa actually knew their names; even the older ones who obviously wouldn’t believe in Santa any more seemed excited and couldn’t quite work out how it was done.

When Carissa had spoken to the last child, Quinn patched himself through to Santa. ‘Can you do me a favour, please?’ he asked.

‘Sure—what do you need?’ Santa asked.

‘Can you ask Carissa what she wants for Christmas? Don’t say I asked—just keep it general.’

‘Will do.’ Santa paused while Quinn patched him back to Carissa.

‘Hey, Carissa—Merry Carissa-mas! Ho ho ho!’

Carissa laughed. ‘Very good, Santa.’

‘You’ve heard that pun before, haven’t you?’ he asked wryly.

‘A few times,’ she said with a smile.

‘You’ve done all this for everyone else, so I wanted to ask you—what do you want for Christmas, young lady?’

Quinn sat up and paid attention.

Very, very close attention, as Carissa’s face filled his screen. She looked wistful and longing. Did she want the same for Christmas that he did?

But then she smiled. ‘I’m quite happy,’ she said. ‘I already have everything I could ever want, and expecting more would just be greedy.’

Arrgh. He should’ve known that Carissa would say something like that. It was her all over.

‘But,’ she said, and Quinn focused again, ‘if you could see your way to sorting out peace on earth and goodwill to all men, that would be quite good.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Santa said.

Quinn wondered, was it true? Was Carissa saying that she didn’t want anything else? Or was she too scared to ask for what she wanted because she didn’t think she’d get it?

* * *

At three o’clock it was time for the official opening. Quinn slipped out of his back-seat role at that point, so he could join Carissa’s family, the journalists and the visiting dignitaries for the ceremony in the main room.

‘I’ll keep this as short as I can,’ Carissa said, ‘because there’s nothing worse than having to listen to someone droning on, especially when you’re not feeling very well or you want to be with your sick child. But today I’m really thrilled and proud to be here. Twenty-seven years ago, I was staying in the children’s ward here—I was only six weeks old, and I had a virus that meant I needed help to eat and to breathe. The staff here saved my life—not just the doctors and nurses, but the support staff who were there to help—and my dad wrote a song about it.’

At that point, the Wylde Boys quietly played the introduction to ‘Santa, Bring my Baby Home for Christmas’, and there was a general cheer.

‘I’m honoured to say that the song found its way into people’s hearts, and my mum and dad set up a trust fund from the royalties so they could give something back to the hospital that had saved their daughter. I ended up here a couple more times when I was little, and I can still remember how kind the staff were.

‘So, today, I’m thrilled to be opening the new children’s ward, named in honour of my parents—the Wylde Ward. It’s taken a lot of time and a lot of hard work, but the team’s been amazing and I’m so proud to have been a part of this. I wish my mum and dad were here to see their dream come true, but I think they’re here in spirit.’

Today, Quinn knew, was the anniversary of their deaths—a day that must be so hard for her, and yet in true Carissa style she was trying to see the positive. Even though her voice had cracked on the last sentence.

‘I’d like to wish all the ward’s patients a very speedy recovery, and its staff all the support they’ll ever need. And I’m going to shut up now because I think the best way to open the ward is with a song. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Wylde Ward—and the Wylde Boys!’

She cut the ribbon, and the press photographers took plenty of shots.

This time the Wylde Boys played the whole of the Santa song. Everyone in the room joined in singing the song with them at the chorus. Quinn was shocked to discover that he was singing along, too—especially when he realised that he didn’t loathe the saccharine words any more. Because now he knew they were all about Carissa.

He could see the tears glistening in her eyes and he ached to hold her close, to tell her that she’d done her parents proud and she’d achieved everything she wanted. But it wasn’t his place and he couldn’t push in—not if it wasn’t what she wanted.

The Wylde Boys played a couple more songs, including a cover of ‘All I Want For Christmas is You’. Quinn caught Carissa’s eye and wondered if she too remembered the moment when he’d kissed her to that song at the Winter Fantasia.

And then he saw Carissa give the very slightest nod—clearly everything had been delivered and their special guest was ready to make his appearance.

She stepped back over to the microphone. ‘I believe we have a very special guest arriving to see you all.’

Santa walked in with a sled on wheels, laden with beautifully wrapped presents. And he actually had reindeer with him. Real, live reindeer. Young ones, so they were on a leading rein and not actually pulling the sled—but he could see the children’s eyes grow round with pleasure as they saw the reindeer and Santa.

How Carissa had managed to get the reindeer past the health and safety people, Quinn had no idea. But right now he’d be prepared to admit that he could see the magic of Christmas. It was right there in the faces of the children.

The children were all amazed that Santa had brought them exactly what they’d wished for. Even the seriously ill children seemed to brighten as the man in the red suit and white beard strode around, ho-ho-hoing and spending a little time to chat and laugh with each child. She’d chosen the actor to play Santa very well, Quinn thought—but then of course she had, because Carissa Wylde paid attention to all the details.

He noticed that the presents on Santa’s sled weren’t just for the children. Carissa had also bought gifts for all the staff on the ward, from the cleaners through to the clinical director. And Quinn would just bet she’d done the groundwork for that herself, chatting and being sweet and secretly taking notes about their dream presents. Nothing so flashy and expensive that it would embarrass the recipient but something thoughtful and tailored just to them. The junior staff looked shocked that they’d been included, and several were close to tears because they were so touched.

Carissa also gave all the back-room team a bottle of champagne and a box of seriously good chocolates each. Nobody had been left out. In fact, the only person not to have a present from Santa was Carissa herself. And Quinn could have kicked himself for not thinking about that and organising it.

The press were still taking photographs and interviewing Carissa, and even though she must be tired from all that running around and a little fed up with being forced to pose for the cameras, she didn’t show it—she was gracious and sweet, and Quinn thought how much he admired her.

‘That’s our girl,’ said Tom Wylde. His voice caught and he was clearly very emotional, as was Mary. ‘Our Pete would be so proud of her.’

‘She’s amazing,’ Quinn said softly.

Tom gave him a thoughtful look but said nothing, and Quinn knew that he needed to be careful. Until he was ready to talk to Carissa, he didn’t want anyone accidentally dropping hints that he might not see himself as just her neighbour and her colleague.

Finally Santa left with his reindeer, waving and ho-ho-hoing, to cheers and applause. The Wylde Boys played a last couple of songs and then packed up their instruments. And finally Quinn finished packing up the computer equipment he’d brought in.

‘He was pretty sure that Carissa would be busy with her family now, given that it was the ward opening as well as the anniversary of Pete and Isobel’s deaths, but when she walked in he asked anyway. ‘Do you need a lift back to Grove End Mews, or are you going somewhere with your family?’

‘We’re all going out for a meal,’ she said.

He nodded and gave her his best smile. ‘Good. Have a great time.’

She rested her hand on his forearm. He could feel the warmth of her skin through his sleeve, and every nerve end felt as if it had been galvanised.

‘Quinn, didn’t I ask you this morning?’

‘Ask me what?’

‘If you’d come with us for dinner.’