Page 44 of The Lovers
“Yes. She’s not turning much of a profit yet, but she is so happy. She even looks different.” Jill had gone from wearing suits and a neat bob to wearing colorful kaftans and letting her hair grow. When Quinn visited her, she had it up in two buns on top of her head with several long tendrils framing her face. She looked like a teenager, but the style suited her.
“Have you reached a fork in the road?” Quinn asked.
“Not yet, but it is coming,” he replied cryptically.
“I can’t say that I know what you mean. I’ve always known what I wanted to do, and I’m doing it. I love it, every moment of it. I never want to do anything else.”
“Then you are one of the luckiest people I know.”
“I’ve never thought of myself as being particularly lucky, but I suppose you’re right,” Quinn replied.
“Most people spend their lives working at jobs that bring them no satisfaction, but they have too many responsibilities and too much fear to chuck it all in and pursue something they love.”
“Not everything you love can be turned into a career,” Quinn said. “Don’t you love what you do?”
Rhys shrugged. “I love stories and films, but once you see everything that goes on behind the camera, you can never recapture the romance of the dream of making movies. It’s all about budgets, backers, temperamental actors, unions, and fickle audiences. A truly beautiful, emotional story can never hope to have the commercial success of a film based on a Marvel comic, and that saddens me. That’s why I like working at the BBC. We still produce quality television, or so I like to think.”
“So, you are not courting any offers from Hollywood?” Quinn asked with a smile.
“God, no. I’m here to stay—at least for now.”
“Come, I’ll show you the St. Peter and Paul church,” she said as they entered the village. “It’s quite interesting. There’s been a church on this site as far back as Saxon times, even before the Norman conquest. Of course, there’s practically nothing left of the original church except for a few blocks of stone in the foundation. The current structure dates back to Tudor times.”
Quinn took Rhys by the hand and pulled him along since he seemed to be hesitating. He’d been about to say something butchanged his mind. They walked up the path toward the church, which sat squat and solid amid the ancient graves, its tower piercing the sky. Even on a sunny day like today, the church looked dour, its gray stone unchanged by sunshine nor enlivened by the foliage of the surrounding trees. There was something timeless and forbidding about the structure, almost as if it had made up its mind to withstand any turmoil or shifts in views and morality that had undermined the Church over the centuries.
Quinn only attended church on Christmas these days, more interested in festive ritual and feeling of belonging to a community than any type of communion with God, but she felt a proprietary pride in the ancient structure and was eager to show Rhys the interior. As a lover of history, there were a few points of interest he was sure to appreciate.
As they approached the church porch, Quinn noticed a woman standing beneath a yew tree. She was gazing up at the church, her expression so wistful that it nearly broke Quinn’s heart. Maybe someone she loved was buried in the churchyard, or perhaps she was in sore need of divine intervention but didn’t feel up to actually going inside and asking for it. She’d never seen the woman in the village before, but that didn’t mean she didn’t live there. The woman seemed startled when she saw Quinn and Rhys approaching, her eyes boring into Quinn in a manner bordering on rudeness. Quinn felt the woman’s gaze follow her as she preceded Rhys into the church. She was grateful to step inside, hoping that the woman wouldn’t follow. Her intensity was unsettling.
She was gone by the time Quinn and Rhys came back out a half hour later.
TWENTY-NINE
Quinn was in much better spirits by the time Rhys left in the late afternoon. He’d walked her to the door but declined her invitation to stay for dinner, claiming that he already had plans in London, which was just as well. The time they spent together felt almost like a date, so Quinn was relieved when he said goodbye, kissed her on the cheek, and headed back to town. She liked him enormously and felt at ease in his company, but she had no wish to send any misleading signals.
The few hours she spent with him distracted her from thoughts of Elise and, more importantly, Gabe. If she didn’t tread carefully, she’d lose Gabe for good, and her resolution not to get romantically involved with him in order not to risk their friendship now seemed pointless. She wasn’t ready to face her feelings for him just yet, but deep down she knew that Gabe was the person her soul instinctively reached out to. Whenever she was worried, elated, or simply in need of a chat, it was Gabe she longed to talk to, to share with. She’d realized over the past two weeks that she hardly thought of Luke. She missed him from time to time, simply because they’d spent eight years together and he’d been intricately woven into the fabric of her life, but it was Gabe she most often turned to when she needed a friend. Luke could be dismissive and aloof when preoccupied with his own thoughts, but Gabe always found the time to listen and to help Quinn work things out without actually telling her what to do, the way Luke frequently did when his patience ran out.
Quinn shrugged off her coat, put the kettle on, and studied the contents of her fridge. She wasn’t hungry enough to make alarge meal, but she was feeling peckish and a little light-headed. Perhaps an omelet with fontina cheese and mushrooms. It was quick and easy. She was suddenly tired. Perhaps she’d overdone it a bit so soon after her injury. Quinn whipped up her omelet, made a piece of toast, and retreated to the sofa to enjoy her meal. She’d make a fire later, but for the moment, she felt too worn out.
As Quinn popped a forkful of fluffy egg into her mouth, she suddenly wondered about Rhys’s private life. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, and she was fairly certain that he wasn’t married, but that didn’t mean he was single. A man in Rhys’s line of work probably met many interesting women. She’d felt a frisson of attraction on his part, but perhaps he was naturally flirtatious and attentive to all women. It’d been a long time since she was single, and the rules of the game had certainly changed since she was twenty-two. She’d found other men attractive, of course, but had never allowed her thoughts to stray any further, her loyalty only to Luke. Now she was single for the first time in nearly a decade, and she was no longer the starry-eyed girl who’d been easily seduced by good looks and a veneer of charm. She’d have to get out there whether she liked it or not.
Quinn was distracted from her thoughts by the ringing of the phone. She set aside her plate and went to retrieve her mobile. She’d left it on the nightstand and now noticed that she had seven missed calls.
“Quinn. Where’ve you been? I was about to come down there to see if you’re all right,” Gabe chastised her. “You should be taking things easy.”
“I walked to the village with Rhys. Sorry, I forgot my phone,” she replied in a conciliatory manner, but this was clearly the wrong thing to tell Gabe.
“Rhys was there?” Gabe demanded, his tone suddenly cool.
“Yes. He came by to see if I was all right and brought me canelés. He likes to bake,” Quinn added lamely.
“Does he, now?”
“Gabe, what exactly are you upset about?” Quinn demanded, going on the offensive. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and Gabe’s ill-disguised jealousy was unnerving.
“Nothing. Never mind. Glad you’re OK. I’ll ring you tomorrow morning.”
“I’m coming to London tomorrow. I plan to visit several churches in Mayfair. I’m going to look through their archives for any mention of Elise.”
