Love at Second Sight by Catherine Stein

Author:Catherine Stein [Stein, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, historical romance, fantasy romance, fantasy, steampunk, steampunk romance, mystery, mystery romance, paranormal, paranormal romance, adventure, memory loss romance, memory loss
ISBN: 9781949862263
Publisher: Catherine Stein, LLC
Published: 2021-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

XXII

Love at Third-First Sight

A beautiful young widow sitting in a pub, weeping her heart out. That was something you didn’t see everyday.

Or at least Quinn thought it wasn’t something one saw everyday. It was hard to be certain when he couldn’t seem to remember much of anything. He knew his name was Quinn, because someone—the weeping woman, he thought—had called him by name several times during this strange wave of illness that had left his head all muddled. He looked down at the empty glass and the bottle sitting on the table. It didn’t appear that he’d drunk much. So why was his head pounding? And why did he feel sick to his stomach?

The sensible thing would be to lie down until he recovered, but at the moment his own woes paled beside the broken-hearted tears of the woman sitting next to him. He wanted nothing more in the world than to pull her into his arms and soothe her. Which was ridiculous. He didn’t even know who she was.

“Please don’t cry,” he said.

Quinn wanted to smack himself. Of all the inane things to say. She had every right to cry if she needed. He could have said, “What can I do to help?” or, “Here’s a handkerchief,” or even better, he could have simply let her be.

Everything in him recoiled at the “let her be” idea. Hold her, his brain screamed. Kiss her. Tell her you will never let her go.

Apparently he was some kind of obsessive madman. He patted down his pockets, looking for a handkerchief. He didn’t find one, but he did discover an enormous wad of banknotes tucked into a secret pocket. Apparently he was a very wealthy obsessive madman.

“Oh, Quinn,” the woman sighed, dabbing at her astounding amber eyes with her sleeve. She wasn’t wearing any gloves. Why did that strike him as peculiar? “Do you remember anything at all?”

“I’m quite certain my name is Quinn. And you look so…” Beautiful. Desirable. Like my every erotic fantasy come to life. Goddamn, but he was a scoundrel. “Familiar.” His stomach churned again, and he closed his eyes against the nausea. “Please pardon me. I’m not feeling well.”

Tears were still leaking from her eyes, but the dazzling woman rose from her seat and held out a hand to him. “We need to talk, but it shouldn’t be here. Will you come with me?”

I’ll come with you anywhere, love.

Quinn took her hand, the feel of her cold fingers against his sending a new jolt of protectiveness through him. He wanted to warm her with his own body, skin-to-skin. Which meant he ought to stay right where he was. To keep her safe from his lecherous thoughts and unseemly desires. For God’s sake, she was a grieving widow. A grieving widow who was in a family way, from the looks of things.

He rose from his seat. “Where are we going?”

“The hotel. Do you remember taking a room at a hotel?”

“No.”

“Do you remember where you are? Or how you came to be in this pub? Any details at all?”

“No.

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