The Lovers (Echoes From The Past) Read online

  “Hi, Gabe,” she said, hoping that Gabe called just to chat and not to discuss her investigation. She wasn’t ready to share with him what she’d seen. Not yet. “How are you?”

  “Splendid,” Gabe replied sarcastically. “I’ve just had a call from Rhys Morgan. He wants a written proposal for the first episode on his desk by Monday morning.”

  Quinn sighed, annoyed. “Gabe, I’ve only just received the report from Dr. Scott. I’ve barely had any time to do any research. I’m simply not ready.”

  “I know, but Morgan wants an outline for the program, and he wants to discuss the dramatization.”

  Quinn growled into the phone, making Gabe laugh. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about Rhys Morgan. He had impressed her, that was true, but he’d also put her on her guard, placing her at a disadvantage. He wanted her to headline his new series but somehow still managed to make her feel as if she should be the one impressing him and defending her reputation.

  “Why don’t you come up to London tomorrow? We’ll have dinner, a couple of drinks, and discuss this when you’re in a better mood,” Gabe suggested. Quinn could hear the smile in his voice. Gabe knew her well enough to realize that she was growing weary of solitude and would love some company, especially if the company was as pleasant and undemanding as Gabe’s.

  “I have a better idea. Why don’t you come here? I’ll cook. To be honest, I’m a little travel worn right now.”

  “Even better. What can I bring?”

  “Yourself and a bottle of sauvignon blanc,” Quinn replied, smiling to herself. It’d been ages since she actually used her kitchen for anything more than making toast. It would be nice to have someone to cook for.

  “Seven all right?”

  “Perfect.”

  Quinn hung up the phone and slid deeper into the hot water.

  Gabe showed up on time, bearing two bottles of wine and a happy grin. He opened one of the bottles while Quinn dressed the salad and sliced the loaf of Italian bread she’d picked up earlier. It was crusty and fresh, and it would go well with the seasoned olive oil she’d set out on the table next to a dish of olives.

  “Something smells great,” Gabe said as he handed her a glass of wine. Gabe appreciated good food but could barely boil water and ate most of his meals out. His refrigerator usually contained milk, chilled white wine, and not much else.

  “Homemade gnocchi Bolognese,” Quinn replied proudly. She’d spent hours making the meal, but the simple task of cooking made her feel relaxed and purposeful. She liked to listen to whatever music was appropriate to her menu, so she slipped in a disc of Tosca and allowed the soaring music to fill the previously silent space, making her feel less alone. She fancied herself an independent woman who didn’t need a man to complete her, but the absence of companionship weighed heavily on her. It’d been a long time since she lived alone, and she was finding it a challenge.

  Quinn heaped the gnocchi into a large bowl, decorated the dish with a few strategically placed leaves of basil, and set it on the table. “Voilà, dinner is served.”

  “Great. I’ve been saving myself all day,” Gabe said with a smile. “I always enjoy your cooking.”

  “And I always forget how much I enjoy cooking. It’s no fun cooking for one person,” Quinn added as she took a piece of crust and dipped it into the oil before popping it into her mouth.

  “Have you learned anything?” Gabe asked carefully as he helped himself to Caesar salad.

  “I have,” Quinn replied thoughtfully, “but it’s not exactly something I can share with the tenacious Mr. Morgan. I can hardly tell him the truth.”

  “Have you met him?” Gabe asked, surprised by her response. It seemed that Rhys hadn’t told Gabe of their meeting.

  “Yes,” Quinn replied without going into the details of their encounter.

  “Just tell him what you know,” Gabe suggested as he tucked into the food with relish.

  “I know quite a bit, Gabe, but I can’t support any of it with scientific fact, and Rhys Morgan doesn’t strike me as someone who would just accept what I say without proof.”

  “Morgan leaves nothing to chance. That’s why he’s so good at what he does. Can you share with me what you’ve learned?” Gabe asked. Quinn knew he was curious, but for some reason, she was reluctant to tell him about Elise. Something about the girl’s peculiar situation and her frustration and loneliness made Quinn feel as if she were betraying a confidence. She supposed it was ridiculous to feel this way about someone who was long dead, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell Gabe of Elise’s predicament.

  “I’ll tell you everything once I know more,” she promised. “In the meantime, we have to figure out how to present my ideas to Morgan.”

  “Have you got anything at all that we can share with him?”

  “Our lovers lived during the mid-seventeenth century. At that time, Mayfair was sparsely populated, not yet being the desirable location it became in the eighteenth century. There were several grand homes belonging to noble families in the area. There must be some record of who lived at the address where the skeletons were found during the period in question. Once I establish a tangible connection between the victims and the family, I’ll have something to present to Morgan.”

  Gabe leaned back in his chair as he surveyed Quinn. “But how will you explain the rest?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet, mostly because I still don’t know what happened. Oh, I do wish you’d kept me out of this, Gabe. Rhys Morgan is not going to accept some theory without proof. He’s too much the consummate professional to just wing it, no matter how intriguing it might sound.”

  “Let me help,” Gabe offered. “If you give me the name of the family, I might be able to dig something up.”

  “The house belonged to Lord Edward Asher, but I really haven’t looked into him yet. I haven’t had the chance.”

  “Asher? Really?”

  “Have you heard of him?” Quinn asked with interest. She’d studied seventeenth-century history, but it wasn’t really her area of expertise.

  “The name is familiar. I’m fairly certain that he served on the Privy Council and was a great favorite of Charles II, but I must double-check my facts.”

  “Yes, he was a favorite,” Quinn answered dryly. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized how much she despised the man. He’d been gone for hundreds of years, but the residue of his persona now lived in Quinn’s mind.

  “I take it he’s not one of the good guys,” Gabe remarked as he noticed the look of distaste on Quinn’s face.

  “No, he’s not,” Quinn replied with disgust. “The man is reprehensible.”

  “And long dead,” Gabe pointed out, a smile playing about his mouth.

  “Not to me. You see, Gabe, that’s the problem with delving into the lives of these people.” Quinn sighed. “I can’t help getting involved. I know they died hundreds of years ago, and their problems died with them, but for as long as I’m investigating them, they are as real as you and I. They are living, breathing people who are trying to make the best of their lot in life. I don’t only see their actions but hear their thoughts and feel their anguish, and I suffer alongside them whether I want to or not. See, it’s not like reading a book or watching a film, where the immediate goal of the story is to entertain. I know that these people were real, and what they went through mattered.”

  “Did you feel that way with your Roman soldier?”

  “Perhaps not as much. Atticus had enjoyed a fairly good life until he was cut down in battle. He made an educated choice when he joined the army. He wished to see something of the world and maybe cloak himself in glory while he was at it. He could have stayed at home and farmed the land alongside his father. Atticus would have lived to a ripe old age and raised a family of his own, unless some illness struck him down. Instead, he died when he was hardly more than a boy, but that was a risk he’d been prepared to take.”

  “So, how is this different?” Gabe persisted as he
twirled the stem of the wine glass thoughtfully in his hand.

  “Life has never been as straightforward for women. A young girl was at the mercy of her father until she became the chattel of her husband. Some women got luckier than others, or perhaps they were more cunning and understood how to manipulate the circumstances to their benefit, but some girls were thrust into unexpected situations where there was nothing they could do but find a way to survive.”

  “And this one clearly didn’t.”

  “No.”

  Gabe poured her more wine and set the empty bottle aside. “Say you could get rid of this gift you possess once and for all. Would you do it, Quinn?”

  “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know. To have the ability to tell someone’s untold story is a precious gift, but it’s also a responsibility. I feel like I am no longer an impartial bystander; I become a part of the story.”

  Gabe looked at Quinn, his eyes soft with compassion. “Is it because you don’t know your own?”

  “In part. You have no idea what it’s like not to know where you come from. There are all these people searching for their natural parents, despite the fact that their parents didn’t want them. But, the need to know is stronger than any pain of rejection. They just want to know who they came from and why they were given away. I don’t want another mother. I love the one I have, who’s loved me all my life, but I want to know the woman who gave birth to me, and I want to know why she didn’t want me.”

  “And you want to know if she had the same ability to see into the past,” Gabe added.

  “I do. I have so many questions, but there’s no one to ask, and at this point in my life, I know that I will likely never know who my parents were. The trail had gone cold thirty years ago.”

  “Quinn, have you ever tried to learn anything from the blanket you came wrapped in?” Gabe asked.

  Quinn nodded. “Yes, but I felt nothing at all. I can only connect with the dead, not the living, so I knew for certain that my mother was still alive. That might have changed since the last time I tried.”

  “Have you considered having a family of your own?” Gabe asked, his gaze soft on her face.

  Quinn nodded, tears suddenly springing to her eyes. She thought she was going to have a family with Luke, but instead he broke up with her by text and left the country before she could come back and force a confrontation. She didn’t want Luke back, but she did need closure.

  “Quinn, you must move on. Luke was a fool to let you go,” Gabe said. “Had you been mine—”

  “No, don’t,” Quinn cut him off as she sprang to her feet and started clearing away the dishes. She hadn’t meant to sound abrupt, but Gabe was her closest friend and also her boss. There was a part of her that longed to walk into his arms and let him kiss her, but neither one of them had an exemplary track record when it came to relationships. If their romance fizzled in a few months, she would lose not only a true friend but possibly her job, because working alongside him might prove to be too awkward or painful, depending on the circumstances of their breakup. She simply couldn’t risk that.

  “Quinn, it needn’t end,” Gabe said, as if reading her thoughts, but Quinn just shook her head.

  “Gabe, please, don’t.”

  Quinn never turned from the sink, but she sensed Gabe getting his coat and walking to the door.

  “Goodnight, and thank you for dinner,” he said softly, but still she didn’t turn around.

  “Goodnight, Gabe,” she said to the empty room after the door closed behind him.

  Chapter 16

  Gabe scarcely noticed where he was going as he navigated the nearly pitch-black lane leading away from Quinn’s house and toward the motorway. The windshield wipers were swishing madly, but still the visibility was no more than a few inches, the rain coming down in a torrent. He knew he should slow down, but his agitation clouded his judgment, and he stepped on the gas instead, racing blindly—not toward home, but away from Quinn. He hadn’t meant to reveal his hand, not this soon anyway, but he never could think clearly around Quinn. Luke’s departure had thrown Gabe into turmoil and upended his well-organized existence, forcing him to confront the truth. He supposed he was happy enough with Eva. He’d given up on the idea of ever finding the type of love that made him feel as if he’d come home at last and didn’t wish to ever leave, but Quinn’s altered status changed everything.

  Gabe had come to terms with Quinn’s choice a long time ago and braced himself for the moment when she’d tell him that Luke had finally proposed and she’d joyfully accepted, but Luke, damn fool that he was, had never made the ultimate commitment. Gabe tried to ignore the gossip in the archeological circles, had closed his heart to the black rage that made him want to kill Luke when Gabe heard that he was playing the field. There had been more than one indiscretion, mostly while Quinn was away on a dig and Luke was left to his own devices or was on an assignment of his own. The liaisons were brief and meaningless, by all accounts, but it still made Gabe burn with a helpless fury to know that the woman he’d adored for the past eight years was being deceived by that philanderer who took her for granted. She deserved so much better than Luke, but Quinn appeared to be blind to his faults—or perhaps, given her history, she was just desperate for a family of her own.

  Gabe supposed that Luke could be charming and urbane. He had a certain polish that many academics lacked and had a knack for making women feel beautiful and special. Quinn had been no exception. Luke had managed to charm her and steal her away because Gabe had made the mistake of hesitating too long and putting his professional commitments before his romantic feelings. Luke got there first, and there wasn’t a day since that Gabe hadn’t regretted his decision to wait until the end of the dig to pursue Quinn Allenby.

  For some while after that dig, Gabe lived in the hope that Luke would tire of Quinn and clear the way for him, but Luke seemed to love her, as much as he could love anyone, until Ashley Gallagher came along. Gabe had seen her several times: a bouncy American graduate student with golden tresses and wide blue eyes set in a china-doll face, atop a body that was all legs and large breasts. Luke seemed charmed by Ashley’s American accent and her giggly forwardness. She played the ditzy Barbie doll to perfection, but Gabe could see the shrewdness behind the eyes.

  Ashley was no fool, and she got her man in the end. A flirtation turned into something more, and Ashley had staked her claim while Quinn was in the Middle East. Luke had gone to the States to be with his new love and to put an ocean between himself and Quinn, whom he couldn’t face. Quinn clearly knew nothing of Luke’s betrayal, and it wasn’t for Gabe to enlighten her. But he finally had a chance, and he’d be damned if he let it slip away. He’d ended things with Eva. It’d been easier than he anticipated, for both of them.

  He was free, and now all he had to do was wait for the right moment. Quinn was skittish and on the rebound, and he had to give her the time and space to mourn her loss and get to a place where she was ready for a new relationship. Sound reasoning, except that all his plans went tits up the moment he saw her again. He’d blurted out the words before he could stop himself. She clearly wasn’t ready to hear what he had to say, but there was no going back. He’d made the opening move and now he had to play the game to the end.

  Gabe swerved as a stray dog ran into the road, its wet fur clinging to a skinny frame and lips stretched back in a snarl. Gabe forced himself to slow down and took the next turn with more care. He was still upset, but he was beginning to regain perspective. His carelessness this evening had been a minor setback. He’d lost the battle, but he hadn’t yet lost the war.

  Chapter 17

  Quinn threw down the dish towel and retreated back to the sofa, suddenly too tired to tidy up. She’d seen a lot of Gabe over the years, but this was the first time he’d referred back to that night in Ireland—well, the second, actually, in as many weeks, and it rattled her. Gabe had seemingly made up his mind to drudge up the past, and Quinn supposed that as an archeologist, that w
as what he was trained to do to clear up any unanswered questions.

  “Had you been mine,” Gabe had said. Perhaps it just slipped out, or perhaps he’d been waiting to say the words all along, his feelings for her buried but never fully forgotten. Had he carried a torch for her all these years, or was this something new, something built on years of friendship and not the attraction they felt for each other before? Had she made a mistake when she’d chosen Luke? She hadn’t thought so, but looking back, she knew that her choice had been motivated by all the wrong reasons. She had been young and impressionable and perhaps a little dazzled by Luke, who’d always been the soul of the party and the bloke all the girls tried to get close to. She had been flattered by his interest, seduced by his good looks and his aura of unshakeable confidence.

  Quinn knew that Gabe had feelings for her. She’d been drawn to him as well, and the intensity of her attraction to him frightened her. She was somewhat relieved that Gabe was in a position of authority, being the dig supervisor, and couldn’t act until the dig was officially over and his pursuit of Quinn wouldn’t be seen as unprofessional and inappropriate. She could have waited, but she hadn’t. She’d gone for Luke, who was easygoing and fun, the polar opposite of Gabriel Russell, who was intense and demanding. In retrospect, she realized that she ran because she wasn’t emotionally ready for him.

  That night, after confiding in him about her gift, she panicked, and she’d allowed Luke to take her home, walking out of the pub without so much as saying goodnight to Gabe, who’d been waiting to walk her back to her B&B. She’d allowed Luke to kiss her that night and had invited him back to her room. She’d been a bit drunk, but not drunk enough not to know what she was doing. She was burning bridges with Gabe, and her plan had worked. She just hadn’t expected her relationship with Luke to evolve as it had. He’d fancied her since they first arrived at the dig, it turned out, and wasn’t about to pass up his chance.