Page 67 of Dark Intentions

Chapter Twenty-eight

Two days after the wonderful night she’d spent with Quinn at what would hopefully be their new home, Allison strode up the front steps of Quinn’s house, her face burning with anger and embarrassment. In her hand, she clenched the letter he’d sent her this morning, in which he’d told her that he didn’t have time to see or speak to her until after he’d managed to catch Polly and Daisy’s killer.

After everything that had happened, after they’d announced their engagement and made love, he thought he could tell her in a letter that he had no desire to see her in the near future? How could he be so cruel?

She had no intention of letting him off so easily. If something was wrong, if he didn’t want to marry her anymore, he could at least have the courage to look her in the face and tell her why.

Taking a deep breath, she pounded on the door.

Several long moments passed before the door finally opened, revealing not Quinn, but his handsome, aloof sergeant, Sebastian Ness.

Taken a bit aback, she cleared her throat. “Good evening, Sergeant. May I speak to the inspector?”

Sergeant Ness frowned, looking uncomfortable. “I’m afraid he doesn’t want to see you, Lady Allison. He doesn’t want to see anyone.”

“Then why are you here?” she snapped, not willing to take no for an answer.

The sergeant smiled a bit at that but didn’t step back so that she could enter. “I’ve been helping him out since the accident.”

“Accident?” Allison tried to peer around him, but the sergeant wasn’t budging. “What accident?” Her fear that he’d been harmed was tempered somewhat by her relief that perhaps this had been why he’d sent her the letter. Obstinate man!

Ness sighed. “I shouldn’t have said anything. If he’d wanted you to know, he’d have told you.”

She held up the crumpled letter and shook it in his face. “He didn’t tell me anything, other than that he didn’t want to see me for the next few months. We just got engaged a few days ago! How dare he try to shut me out!”

“You two are engaged?” Ness asked, frowning. “He didn’t tell me that.”

“We are,” Allison stated, her emotions breaking through and causing her voice to waver, which she hated because it was hard to appear threatening when you were only five feet tall and your voice was cracking. “If he’s hurt, I don’t understand why he doesn’t want me here.”

Ness stared at her for a long moment more, then sighed and stepped back, allowing her to enter. “He was badly injured two nights ago,” he told her, lowering his voice. “The doctor says he might not ever walk right again. He’s afraid he won’t be able to do his job anymore. He probably doesn’t want you to see him this way.”

All her righteous anger left her in such a rush she had to fight to find the strength to remain standing. “He might not walk again?”

Ness nodded grimly. “I don’t want you making things worse for him. If I let you in there, can you give him a reason to fight?”

She took a deep breath and then squared her shoulders. “I’ll try,” she promised.

“Well, then, I think I’ll head home. Tell him I’ll stop by again tomorrow to see if he needs anything.” Giving her the ghost of a smile, Ness left her alone in Quinn’s foyer.

Allison simply stood there for a moment, her heart and mind racing. She wished she’d asked Ness more questions about what had happened, but she supposed it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Quinn had been hurt, so badly that he obviously thought he would be a burden to her. It was so like him to push her away rather than allow her to see him as weak.

Leaning back against the wall, she closed her eyes and tried to think things through. Could she go through with this? Could she still be his wife if he could no longer walk? She had to be certain of that before she claimed that she could because there was no going back from here.

A wave of certainty swept through her.

His injuries don’t matter. I love him. I’ve loved him since that hotel lobby in Paris.

A little injury, or even a big one, was not going to change that. He needed her more than ever, and she wasn’t going to walk away from him, no matter how much he might want her to.

Straightening, she marched up the stairs, determined to take whatever awaited her in stride and not let him send her away.

“Who was it?” Quinn asked when she was still half a dozen steps from his room.

Instead of answering, she just walked in, closing the door behind her.

“Allison?” he whispered. “What are you doing here? Where’s Ness?”

“He said to tell you he’ll be back tomorrow to see if you need anything.” She stepped closer to his bed, taking in the bump on his head, his bruised face, the scrapes on his arms. A sheet was drawn up to his bare chest, so she couldn’t see his legs, but he’d obviously been very badly injured.

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