Shared Too by Lily Harlem Page B

luxurious, was peppered with multicolored dabs of paint I’d spilled over the years.
    After a couple of hours finishing a painting of a local lake at sunset that I’d photographed at the end of the summer, I stood and wandered to the window.
    Stretching out my stiff shoulders and aching back, I spotted Liam letting himself through the gate to the paddock, the dogs bouncing excitedly at his side. He wore soft gray joggers, a pale yellow t-shirt and black running shoes. He picked up a stick, threw it for the dogs then broke into a jog. I was about to turn away, get back to my painting, when I saw him pause. He rubbed his hand over his forehead and swept his palm over the back of his head to his neck before setting off at a jog.
    I hoped this Yoni deal would soon be over. It was making him tired and I sensed he was worried about it too. It was important and complex and he had no one to help him with it. Liam, like Quinn, was at the top of his game, which meant everyone emailed him with their technology problems, leaving him alone when he had a gremlin of his own to deal with.
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    The cottage pie I’d cooked had dried to nothing with each passing hour it sat in the warmer. Liam had been shut in his office since his run and barely even looked up when I took him coffee. He hadn’t appeared at dinnertime and I knew better than to hassle him.
    Quinn was still not back. It was nearly twenty-four hours since he’d dashed off and I hadn’t heard from him. Nothing unusual about that but I was getting anxious to have him home. I wanted to talk.
    I finished parceling up a box of treats for the girls and placed it by the door.
    Suddenly the dogs barked wildly in the yard. I dashed to the window. Quinn’s sleek car with its dazzling headlights pulled up next to my Range Rover.
    “At last,” I said, grabbing oven mitts and retrieving the pie.
    “Stay out.” Quinn’s deep voice filled the kitchen as he maneuvered through the kitchen door and around the dogs’ eager bodies.
    “Hello.” I turned to face him.
    “Hey.” He walked to the table and dropped his keys and pager on it. He looked exhausted, his chin thick with stubble and his eyelids heavy. His hair was messy and I guessed he’d spent the day in his surgeon’s cap.
    “Are you all right?” I asked, placing the oven mitts on the stove by the pie and walking over to him. “You look like you need a hug.” I smiled and wrapped my arms around his waist.
    His palms spread over my shoulders and he smoothed down my arms to my elbows before encircling me in a tight, needy embrace.
    I didn’t speak and I wouldn’t question him about his patients because I could sense something had gone wrong. Something had happened that he had no control over and could do nothing about. People died in hospitals, it was a fact of life. It was a fact of Quinn’s life.
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    He let out a long, low sigh and I pulled back to look into his face. “I made dinner. It should be okay with a little gravy.” I touched his thick, dark brows and slid my fingertip to the sharp bristles of his chin, down his neck and traced around his collar.
    Suddenly my heart stuttered. My stomach clenched. My hand started shaking.
    “What?” I managed, staring at a long, thin pink smudge spreading over the white of his checked shirt. “What’s that?”
    He creased his forehead and reached for my fingers. I snapped away, stepped back, my knees weak. Quinn had lipstick on his collar, lipstick that was the exact same shade of candy pink Eve had been wearing the night before.
    “Ariane,” he said, reaching forward.
    “No, don’t come near me.” I held out my palms to stop him. “Don’t come near me.”
    “But, Ariane, what is―?”
    “What is it?” I finished for him. “What the hell is it? Quinn, you have lipstick on your damn collar.”
    “I have?” He tipped his head as if trying to look at it.
    “Yes.” My muscles began to tremble. Starting in my belly and