“Oh, Quentin,… hi.”
“Don't sound so surprised, Allison. This is still my house.”
“Of course I wasn't surprised, Quent. Don't be silly.” Allison paused. “It's just that I thought Lizzie would pick up. I've gotten used to calling her over there.”
Quentin crossed his legs on the coffee table. It was payback time. “Your timing's off.”
“What do you mean? Is Liz there? Pass her along, hmm?”
“I mean, you're too early to interrupt us in flagrante delicto.” He glanced at his watch. “Call back in an hour or so.”
“Quentin!” Allison exclaimed.
“Bye, Ally.”
“Quentin, wait! Quentin?”
“You've got five seconds.”
“Okay, you're onto me.” Allison sighed dramatically. “What do you want? Should I engage in self-castigation? Promise I'll never hatch another devious scheme?”
“Don't make promises you can't keep.”
“All right, all right. But remember, big brother, you're there alone with Liz and I'll expect my trust to be repaid.”
“Contrary to popular belief, I'm neither a depraved animal nor an ogre,” Quentin said dryly. “I've even heard some women have confessed to liking me. 'Charming' and 'gentlemanly,' I believe, were the words used.” He paused. “On the other hand, that could just be a vicious rumor.”
Allison laughed. “You of all people shouldn't believe gossip!”
“Yeah,” he conceded.
“Just remember what I said,” Allison replied before hanging up.
Quentin replaced the receiver, shaking his head. He got up to get himself some chips to go with the beer.
It was ironic. Here he was, parked in front of the television on a Saturday night, alone with his beer and chips. He shook his head. He led a far more boring life than most people—including his family, it seemed, and not to mention, Elizabeth—believed.
He picked up the discarded report from the couch and scanned it. Settling back he began to read.
Half an hour later, he'd digested most of the report and searched for last month's report from the same manager. The only way to get a good picture was to put things in historical context.
He searched his briefcase with no luck. It was probably on top of his desk. In the study.
He paused in the doorway to the room where he usually worked at his desk. The yellow light cast by the lamp failed to reach the shadows at the edges of the room.
Elizabeth sat in the easy chair, reading. Unobserved, he studied her. Her hair was up, pinned in a loose knot, some tendrils escaping and caressing her face. Tortoise-rimmed glasses perched on the edge of her nose, a slight frown betraying her concentration.
She looked adorable and Quentin was unprepared for the tenderness he felt. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Don't you know that frowning causes lines?”
She glanced up. “You startled me!”
“Sorry.” He made his way into the room. “I just came to find the report I'm missing.”
Remembering the glasses, Liz quickly took them off. She hardly ever got caught wearing them. It helped that she was only slightly farsighted.
“Don't take them off on my account,” Quentin said in an amused voice.
She reached for her eyeglass case, embarrassed he'd read her actions. “I guess you've discovered my dark secret. Are you going to tell your brothers that Liz Donovan is the mousy librarian sort that you took her for all along?”
He glanced back at her and stopped rifling through the papers on his desk. “It's a good thing you took them off—”
She knew how she looked, but did he have to spell it out for her?
“—because I think women in glasses are very sexy.”
Her eyes shot to his face.
“I see I've surprised you. Again.”
She thought about what her reaction had been to seeing his bedroom for the first time and felt heat rise on her face.
He removed a stapled-together set of papers from a pile. “Finally.”
“I'm glad you found the report.”
He walked over and sat himself in an armchair nearby. “Aren't you going to ask me why?”
She pretended to pick a piece of lint off her khaki shorts. “Why what?”
“Why I think women in glasses are sexy.”
“I'm sure you have your reasons,” she said politely. She waved a hand. “After all, ah, men seem to discover their 'type' early on.”
He leaned forward and braced his arms on his haunches. “I've given this some thought.” He turned his head toward her and Liz raised her brows inquiringly. “It's the intelligence that glasses signal.”
“Hmm.”
“Also, they kind of make a man itch to peel away the layers. What's she hiding? Can she be wild and uninhibited as well as prim and proper? That's the mystery.”
She folded her arms. “I see.”
“The library was one of my favorite hangouts.” He grinned. “All those sexy librarian types hitting the books.”
“Sort of like the fox in the henhouse, hmm?”
He sat back and laughed. “Sort of,” he said, still grinning.
“What about those women you're always pictured with in the papers? Bambi or whatever?”
“Bambi?” he spluttered, laughing again.
She nodded seriously.
“All right.” He held up his hands in mock defeat. “I'll admit I haven't been picky when it comes to my Friday night dates.” He shrugged. “I've taken out whoever is around and willing to go to these boring social functions I always seem obligated to attend.”
“And 'whoever is around' is the sleek high-society type.”
He sighed. “Whether the woman is my type or not is often beside the point.” He nodded to the papers she'd set aside. “Work?”
She felt herself smile. “Yes. We bespectacled librarian types spend a lot of Saturday nights alone working.”
The corner of his mouth curled up. “So do we dashing playboy types,” he admitted. “I'm camped out with my files in front of the TV in the other room.”
“Oh!”
“Why don't you join me?” He looked around the study. “Work someplace else for a change.”
The offer was tempting, Liz thought. She didn't have a good reason to refuse, so she let him move her things to the other room, hobbling behind on her crutches.
When they had her settled in an armchair, Quentin put the television on mute so that he could keep tabs on the game while he and Elizabeth worked.