Page 20 of Rehabbing the Beast
Chapter Twelve
“He’s not coming, Gran,” Quinn said. The small clock hanging on the wall read 12:30 pm. Siobhan heard the ‘I told you so’ Quinn wisely withheld, for the sweet child had been certain he would not come. She took no satisfaction in being right, her hopes of being wrong crushed beneath the weight of the truth.
Quinn hid it well, her face revealing only what appeared to be mild disappointment, but Siobhan felt the lass’s pain in her own heart. It wouldn’t do to speak of it, though. Quinn should be allowed to keep her dignity intact.
Siobhan shook her head, staring out the window. “I doona understand it,” she murmured, more to herself than Quinn. He’d had the look, Siobhan was certain of it. The man was every bit in love with Quinn as she was with him. It was there in his eyes, plain for all to see. His shock had been nearly as obvious. Clearly, the two shared the same gift of denial as well.
* * *
SETH FORCED HIMSELFto put one foot in front of the other, his hip and knees screaming out in pain. He was walking under his own power, yes, but it was only in the last several weeks that he’d been able to accomplish such a feat. To complicate matters, he was operating on minimal sleep and the mountain was fuckingsteep.
He looked at his watch, cursing as he did so. 12:30.Shit. He had misjudged the time. Even allowing himself an extra hour from what he thought it should have taken hadn’t been enough; he’d had to keep stopping along the way lest his legs give out completely. For the hundredth time, he wished he’d been able to drive his car, but the locals had assured him it would not be able to handle the cart path that was little more than a trail of switchbacks from the village to Siobhan’s secluded cottage. They’d been right.
Just when he thought he could not take another step, he saw the tendrils of smoke rising from the chimney just ahead. That gave him the extra incentive he needed.
He had just lifted his hand to knock when the door was thrown wide open. Quinn took one look at his pale face and the sheen of sweat covering his skin.
“Youwalked!?!” she practically yelled at him. “Are you insane?”
He blinked as the sweat dripped from his forehead. It wasn’t exactly the reception he’d been hoping for.
“Gran, help me,” she called, and suddenly he felt Quinn wedging herself beneath his right arm, her hand around his waist. Siobhan was on the other side, doing the same. He was about to protest, afraid that his weight would crush one or both of them, but he didn’t have enough breath left to do so. As it turned out, like her granddaughter, the spry old woman was a lot stronger than she looked.
They got him over to the couch and Quinn was gone, only to reappear a moment later with a glass of brandy and a cool towel. As she dabbed gently at his face, he was stricken by the look of worry and concern he saw on hers. He’d seen that look so many times, glimpsed it before she’d had a chance to hide it away behind a mask of quiet determination. Why had he never recognized it for what it really was?
“You... care... for ... me,” he said as he began to catch his breath.
“Of course I do, you big idiot!” she snapped impatiently, though it was worry in her voice, not anger. “What were you thinking, walking all the way up here like that! You haven’t been off the walker long enough to attempt something like that!”
No, he hadn’t, but... how did she know that? Was she a mind reader, too? That possibility had the color creeping up his neck. If she had any clue the kind of things he’d been thinking all the times she’d been touching him...
“How ... do ... you know ...how long?”
A sudden rush of guilt suffused her features. Quinn tried to move away but he caught her wrist and met her eyes, demanding an answer.
“Ah, well, I may have called Deiter a few times,” she admitted hesitantly.
Seth blinked as relief flooded through him, only to have his inner beast sitting up, alert. She’d been checking on him this whole time, when he thought she had simply turned around and never looked back, never given him a second thought? No wonder Deiter took his pound of flesh every day. The big son-of-a-bitch must have suspected how Quinn felt about him.
“His legs?” Siobhan asked, reminding them of her presence.
“Yes,” Quinn confirmed. “Let’s get these jeans off.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Seth said, trying to sit up as they ignored him completely and each slipped off a sneaker and began to tug at his pant legs.
Quinn rolled her eyes, the action filled with female scorn and distinctly un-Quinn like. “Like you have something I haven’t already seen a thousand times.”
He felt the color rising in his cheeks. Yes, technically that was true, but that was before he knew she liked him. When he could use cruel words and a scowl to push her away before she got too close to the truth.
“No way around it. We’ve got te strip ye down te yer braies. Now be a good lad and lift yer hips a bit. My, but he has a nice tight arse, Quinn.”
Seth stared open-mouthed at Siobhan, even as Quinn cried out, scandalized, “Gran!”
Taking pity on him, Quinn grabbed a small lap quilt and handed it to him. He snatched it from her hands and wasted no time in spreading it over his personal areas. Siobhan smirked, but said nothing.
They managed to get his jeans off without too much trouble, now that Seth had his security blanket and was being a bit more cooperative. Then Siobhan sat down and instructed Quinn to get some of the special oils she’d mixed earlier.
“Wait,” Seth said, his impending sense of panic overriding his breathing difficulties when he saw Siobhan putting the oil in her hands instead of Quinn’s. “I want Quinn to do it.”
Siobhan smiled. “Are ye here te court my granddaughter, Seth O’Rourke?”
“Well, yes, but—"
“Then ‘twould be improper for her te attend te ye with such a state of familiarity. I will have none of that, do I make myself clear?”
Seth looked to Quinn in a desperate plea for help, but she just smiled (or was that a smirk?) and held up her hands in a ‘what can you do’ gesture. He thought she seemed much less bothered by the prospect of her grandmother touching him than he was.
His inner beast lay down and covered his head with his paws.
