Free Tainted Gold by Lynn Michaels Page B

again as he took his clothes out of her arms. “Don’t worry, Quillen, I’m an earth doctor.”
    “Tucker, be serious —”
    “I am.” He spun around and caught her shoulders in his hands as she followed him into the street beside the Jeep. “I’m an honest-to-God doctorate in geology, but if you ever call me Dr. Ferris, the wedding’s off .” He landed another off-the-mark kiss on her chin, opened the door, slid into the seat, and started the engine.
    Rubbing her arm again, Quillen backed away, the pavement cold on her bare feet as the Jeep squealed away from the curb. It roared down the block and Tucker honked the horn at her as the brake lights flashed around the corner and the Wagoneer disappeared into the night.

Chapter Four
    There were no more tremors that night. But on Monday afternoon, when Quillen laid her brush down on her palette and left her drawing board to answer the doorbell, disaster struck again.
    Miss Deidre Smythe (Smythe, not Smith), president of the Junior League, Mrs. Desmond Cassil’s bridge partner, and the bad apple in Quillen’s barrel of tenants, stood in the hall. Her severely styled hairdo was as blue as the knit walking suit she wore, and her sharp, ferretlike nose wrinkled distastefully at Quillen’s faded jeans and paint-stained, oversize denim shirt.
    “Obviously you are busy, Miss McCain, so I shall make this brief.” She opened the black leather purse clutched in her liver-spotted fingers, shut it with a snap that made Quillen start, and handed her an embossed beige envelope. “I am vacating my apartment forthwith. I realize, since I am breaking my lease, that I forfeit the damage deposit placed on the premises. I hope you will find a good use for it.” Her agate-hard brown eyes flicked dismissively over Quillen’s clothes again, her nose twitched, and she marched up the stairs, her spine regimental straight.
    Any other day, Miss Smythe’s notice would have been cause for celebration, but Quillen’s knees felt like half-set Jell-O, her heart like stone as she closed the door, crossed the room, and slid the envelope, unopened, next to Paula’s on the mantel.
    On the wide, ivory-painted sill above the windowseat, Grandma Elliot’s china clock counted the seconds in faint, chimelike ticks. Frowning at the hand-painted face as she entered the studio, Quillen sat down heavily on her high navy leather stool. She bent and threaded her cold, leaden fingers together, leaned her elbows on the bottom edge of her board, and pressed her thumbs against her chin.
    It was four-twenty-seven. Mrs. Desmond Cassil’s bridge luncheons began promptly at one o’clock on the first and third Monday of every month, and ended just as promptly at four.
    “There are other methods of persuasion,” Cassil had said, though Quillen wouldn’t exactly call this persuasion. Coercion and intimidation seemed better words—but extortion was by far the most apt.
    Untangling her fingers, Quillen clenched her hands into fists and tried to muster anger. She couldn’t. For the only time in her life that she could remember, the McCain Irish failed her and she sat, trembling and ashen, at her board.
    With all her heart she wished Tucker were here to gently cuff her chin and tell her to pluck up. Oh, God, how she wished it. She was bone-aching tired of being alone and being strong. She wanted somebody to hug her and tell her it was going to be all right…and more than anything, she wanted that somebody to be Tucker.
    Like a zombie, Quillen sat there until the panic atrophying her brain and her body ebbed away. On the sill, the china clock chimed five, and she winced, blinded by the glare of the Luxo illuminating the painting of the prince.
    “Clever, Quillen,” she muttered as she switched off the lamp and blinked away the fuzzy green spots in the center of her vision. “You’re losing tenants left and right and burning up a five-dollar fluorescent ring to boot.”
    Sliding off her stool, she went into