CHAPTER FOUR
Quinn~
Things were definitely looking up. The fairy princess was opening the doors to the town castle for him. Summer residents and day-trippers weren’t precisely barred from the Bean, but after they bought their lattes and pastries, they could never find a free table. Whereas they could always get one down the street at the Wheel House. That was where Quinn usually bought his coffee – when he didn’t make his own.
From the moment he had set eyes on Moira Fairchild, he had been consumed with lust. Not that he had done anything about it. The rules on West Haven were simple and strict. Don’t mess with the locals unless you were serious. That meant no putting any moves on the sweetest, prettiest fairy of them all. But he was beginning to think he would have to defy the rules.
He knew Moira was a fairy because all the Fairchilds were Fae. The first settlers on West Haven and the founders of the town of Mystic Bay had been Fairchilds. Theirs was not a prolific family, any more than his own was, but there were Fairchilds sprinkled over the island like flowers in a meadow. And the present mayor of Mystic Bay was Moira’s cousin, Robin Fairchild, who was the originator and sponsor of the Tidewater Art Fair as well as his landlady.
Moira Fairchild was little. She wore strappy high-heeled sandals to disguise the fact. That brought her about level with his heart. A good height. At least it suited her. She was built on lush lines, a pint-sized Mae West, with huge eyes set in a heart-shaped face, and plump pink lips. In fact, she was plump all over. She looked kissable. Huggable. Beddable.
Her bright eyes were sometimes blue, sometimes green, sometimes as gray as the sea on a cloudy day. Her hair was a silvery shade of blonde that looked too pale to be real, but probably was. Unless all the Fairchilds, young and old, used the same brand of hair dye.
He had looked Moira up on the internet when he first started to do business with her. She was a native of West Haven, although for the last seven years she had been running a couple of art galleries in Seattle and Portland. Fairchild’s had recently closed its gallery doors, and she had retreated to her childhood home and opened a much-needed art supply store.
He guessed that she was around his age. Perhaps a little younger. Normally he would have avoided an islander no matter how much she turned his crank. But Moira was no innocent. She had lived and worked and owned prosperous businesses in the two biggest cities in the northwest. If she was looking for a little dalliance, he could handle that. There was no point hoping for marriage. On West Haven, the Fae didn’t lower themselves to marry hunters.
At his age, even if he couldn’t expect dragonlings, he should be looking for a bride. And he should be immune to the sort of enchantment this fairy was using on him. Either Moira Fairchild was more powerful than she looked, or he was more susceptible. Because he was completely enthralled. He was going to have to get her out of his system, even if she broke his heart.
On the other hand, his disguise seemed to be holding. Madame Mayoress knew who he was, of course. He had had to divulge his name when he applied for a place in her Art Colony. But he preferred to keep his connection to the Drakes of Shoreside to himself.
If he was going to disoblige his family by becoming a full-time painter, he had better have the excuse of talent. However, he didn’t want his family name to be the deciding factor in the judging of his work in the upcoming Art Fair, so he was only using his given name.
It wasn’t a lie. He had been born John Quinn Drake. On Drake Investments letterhead, he was John Q. Drake. His family had always called him Quinn to distinguish him from the grandfather he had been named for. He signed his work Quinn. Always had. Every canvas he had cranked out in the last month had Quinn scrawled in the right-hand corner.
He had taken further steps not to be recognized. He had been flying every night. The frequent shifts had accelerated the growth of his hair and beard. Both now curled luxuriantly. He looked nothing like the sophisticated analyst who gazed stiffly from the glossy pages of Drake Investments Annual General Report.
As a final touch, each time he went into Mystic Bay, he tossed on an ancient smock that he had found stuffed into a cupboard in Willow Cottage. Although it made his eyes water, it was the perfect disguise. The grubby, paint-stained garment was stiff with age and reeked of turpentine and cheap booze.
Moira was neatly arranging the remainder of the tubes from the opened package on her display shelf. He hoped that she was not going to take a loss on their deal. Although she had initially seemed satisfied with it, her scent had subtly altered to indicate concern.
Mutual satisfaction was the most important thing in any negotiation. Both parties had to think that they got the best of any deal. Sounded impossible, but usually people wanted different things, so that a successful agreement was never zero sum.
On the other hand, he had not played fair today. He had used his talent to manipulate Moira into giving him what he wanted. He needed that Suffolk Green. He was working on a series of panels of the old forest that were intended to hang as a single unit.
That dark blue-green color was devilishly tricky to match. Every time he had blended his own, it had looked fine until he changed the light source. If it was the same color in daylight, under incandescent light it looked yellower or browner. He had spent far too much time trying to match it before he came into town. Not that visiting Fairchild’s Art Supply wasn’t a treat.
Moira looked up from the paint rack and smiled at him. “Ready?”
Oh, boy. Was he ever! Her smile made him stand to attention and made blood pool in his lower half. He tried for nonchalant. No woman liked to be taken for granted. He and Moira had a great deal of ground to cover before he could openly display any sort of sexual attraction.
He raised his little bag. “I am.” He let her go out the door ahead of him, not just because it was courteous, but because it gave him a view of her heart-shaped bottom. The lush globes dipped and swayed beneath her silky print skirt.
Before she went out, she had flipped a sign that said, BACK IN 10 MINUTES. Now she turned her key and set off for the Bean. Her legs were much too short for him to use his normal stride, but he didn’t mind slowing down so he could drag out this opportunity.
“How long have you been painting?” she asked with the tiniest of frowns between delicate feathery brows. She must darken them, because they were smoky brown rather than invisible.
He shrugged. “Since I learned to hold a paintbrush.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“Art school?”
She nodded.
“I didn’t. At least, not since high school.” This was true. He had studied business at Harvard, and explored technique with Elena Androvitch, who was one of the great landscape artists of the northwest. But he had not gone to art college.
“Really?” Her brows rose, and so did her voice.
Damn. She didn’t believe him. “I had a teacher in Seattle. But no formal classes,” he said easily.
“Yeah? Who?”
Well, of course, Moira had run successful art galleries, even if she had never handled Androvitch’s work personally, she would know who Elena was.
He cleared his throat. “I’m not allowed to say. I promised her confidentiality.” Which was true.
Elena had charged him a small fortune for lessons and forbidden him to spread it around that she gave them, lest she be inundated with requests from other hopeful students. It was his profound hope that she had taught him out of admiration for his talent, rather than his family name.