Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Copyright

“I loathe you!”

If Madeleine had guessed the reaction that would provoke, she’d have run for cover. But by the time she realized she’d pushed him too far, he had her face cupped in his hands and his mouth hovering above hers.

Resist him! her shocked mind urged. Instead she wilted, and let him kiss her. Thoroughly, erotically and in his own sweet time.

He lifted his head. “How much do you loathe me, Madeleine?”

CATHERINE SPENCER, once an English teacher, fell into writing through eavesdropping on a conversation about Harlequin romances. Within two months she changed careers and sold her first book to Mills & Boon in 1984. She moved to Canada from England thirty years ago and lives in Vancouver. She is married to a Canadian and has four grown children—two daughters and two sons—plus three dogs and a cat. In her spare time she plays the piano, collects antiques and grows tropical shrubs.

A Little Corner Of Paradise
Catherine Spencer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

SOMETHING—the sight of his last living relative’s face, perhaps—brought Edmund back from the no-man’s land separating life from death.

In an all too brief moment of lucidity the old man begged, ‘I don’t want to see it sold. Don’t let them take it away from me, my boy.’

‘Take what, Grandfather?’

‘The Spindrift Island property.’ Edmund clutched his grandson’s hand, agitation lending him fleeting strength. ‘Flora doesn’t understand what it meant to your grandmother. She’ll let them take it unless you put a stop to it.’

It was Nick’s first inkling that such a possibility existed. ‘Who are “they”?’ he asked, appalled.

But Flora, who he knew had been hovering outside the door, eavesdropping as she always did whenever he spent time alone with his grandfather, fluttered into the room and told him that it wasn’t good for Edmund to get so stirred up.

‘Stay out of this, Flora!’ Nick snapped, his patience at an end. “This isn’t any of your business.’

‘Yes, it is,’ she protested quaveringly. ‘I need to talk to you privately, Nick.’

‘Later,’ he snapped, and turned back to his grandfather. But it was too late. Edmund was already slipping back to that murky other world. ‘Politicians,’ he muttered vaguely, ‘they’re all crooks. Never trust them, my boy. They line their pockets on other men’s misery…’

Nick waited until his grandfather slept again, then ushered Flora into the day-salon with rather less courtesy than was acceptable in her social circles. ‘What the hell is this all about, Flora?’

She dissolved into fat tears on the spot, which merely increased his ire. He hated women who resorted to crying in order to blackmail a man and bring him to heel.

‘We’ve run out of money,’ she wailed.

‘Don’t be daft,’ he replied unsympathetically. ‘Even you can’t have gone through Edmund’s entire fortune.’

But the devil of it was, she had. Almost to the last red cent. Certainly to the point that for over five years the property taxes hadn’t been paid on the Spindrift Island summer place.

‘The local council’s going to take it away from us unless we pay,’ Flora bawled. ‘And that’s not all. They’re going to sell it for just enough to cover the debt. But your grandfather gets so upset whenever I try to explain that I’ve stopped talking to him about it.’

At first Nick didn’t believe her. Couldn’t believe that Edmund’s wealth had been depleted to the point where something as basic as tax had gone unpaid. But, when he started delving into the accumulation of papers on the desk in his grandfather’s study, the truth became woefully apparent. Poor old Edmund was on the brink of bankruptcy.

Nick couldn’t stand idly by and let that happen. So he did the only thing he could to prevent it.

CHAPTER ONE

MADELEINE was just setting off with Peg Leg for their early walk over the dunes on Thursday morning when Andy Latham’s patrol car swept up her driveway and stopped outside her front door.

‘Glad I caught you, love,’ he said, climbing out. But despite the endearment she knew at once that he’d come on official business because the next thing he did was plant his peaked police officer’s cap firmly on his blond head. Andy always played strictly by the rules, which was one of the reasons Madeleine felt so comfortable around him.

She smiled warmly. ‘You don’t look too worried, so it can’t be serious, Andy. Did I violate a parking by-law or something?’

‘Funny you should ask that,’ he replied, his own smile not quite as brilliant in return, ‘because where someone is parked is what brought me out here—though the someone in question doesn’t happen to be you.’ He bent down to pat Peg Leg, who was hopping around on her three good paws begging for affection as usual, and by the time he looked up again his expression had turned sober. ‘You’ve got uninvited company. Someone’s set up camp down on the old Tyler property. I could see fresh tire-tracks on the driveway when I passed by on my way here. Apparently he showed up in town late yesterday, and stopped by Wickman’s Garage to get directions. A man in a four-wheel drive Jeep, towing a big, flashy RV, according to Brent, and definitely no one from around these parts.’

‘Should I be worried?’ Madeleine asked lightly, but Andy continued to look grave. Since he took his work very seriously, however, that in itself wasn’t too surprising.

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘At the very least you should be aware, and take suitable precautions to protect yourself.’

Protect herself? From a camper? ‘Don’t be absurd, Andy. It’s a free country and there aren’t any signs posted on the Tyler land warning against trespassing. He’s probably just some harmless old man looking for a spot to do a little quiet fishing.’

‘He’s not old, and I’m not so sure he’s harmless. He showed too much interest in the area for my peace of mind—found it so fascinating, in fact, that he ended up buying Brent a pint down at the Edgewater Arms after the garage closed for the night.’

Madeleine laughed again, genuinely amused. Brent Wickman was famous for his willingness to gossip with anyone who’d stand still long enough for him to open his mouth. To find a listener willing to treat him to a beer while he indulged in his favorite pastime must have struck him as an abundance of riches far surpassing the usual. ‘That might make the visitor a beggar for punishment, Andy, but it hardly makes him an ax-murderer.’

‘Probably not, but times have changed since your great-granddaddy settled here in the 1900s. This isn’t the safe little backwater it once was, Madeleine, and you’re not a landowner’s wife, living within hailing distance of half a dozen farmhands should you need help. You’re out here alone.’

‘No, I’m not,’ she objected. ‘I’ve got a three-legged Golden Lab who’d give her life to protect me.’

As though to prove the point, Peg Leg continued to circle Madeleine nudging her knee every once in a while and wriggling with ecstasy when Madeleine reached down to pat her.

‘You’re a woman living alone, in virtual isolation from the rest of the community, and you think it’s cute to go out and not lock your doors,’ Andy replied. The decidedly official edge in his voice suggesting that, for once, he was close to losing patience with her. ‘And that, Madeleine, is why I decided to come out in person to warn you, instead of doing what I’m supposed to be doing right now, which is reading over last night’s reports on the misdemeanors of Edgewater’s juvenile offenders.’

‘You could have called instead, and saved yourself the bother,’ Madeleine pointed out reasonably. ‘One convenience Spindrift Island does enjoy that wasn’t an option in my great-granddaddy’s day is telephone communication with the rest of the world.’

‘I didn’t phone because I knew that if I did you’d pretend to listen, agree in all the right places, then hang up and promptly ignore everything I’d said.’ Andy sounded justifiably aggrieved. ‘Instead, I drove all the way out here and, before I drive all the way back again, I intend to find your mysterious neighbor and establish his motives for arriving unannounced on a little-known patch of beach separated from the mainland by a five-mile stretch of causeway. I intend to have his license plates checked out and, if I have any reason at all to suspect he’s not on the level, I’ll haul him in for questioning.’

‘You’re making this sound like the prologue to a murder mystery,’ Madeleine grumbled.

Andy sighed and caught her hand. ‘No, I’m not. I’m trying to make you admit to the wisdom of caution.’

Perhaps he was, but all he’d really done was whet her curiosity. Quite eager to meet the object of such manifest suspicion, she assumed her most docile expression and smiled sweetly. “Then let’s go and check him out together.’

Placated by her apparent surrender, Andy led the way. ‘He’s probably camped down near the lodge,’ he decided. ‘It’s the most sheltered spot at that end of the island and about the only choice he’s got, since there’s no other road that’s passable except for yours.’

Delighted to be taking a different route from the usual, Peg Leg stumped along behind, her rocking gait perfectly adjusted to her having one leg less than Nature had intended.

It was the last week of September. Already the vine maples had turned scarlet, and the chill of autumn lent a snap to the air. The sand on the dunes was soft as flour, quickly covering the flawless polish of Andy’s boots with a powdery bloom, but where the tide had receded the beach was firm and smooth.

No alien footprints, Madeleine noticed as she followed Andy around Tyler Point, a jagged spit which marked the boundary between her property and the resort, and which made for treacherous passage at high-tide. Whoever he was, the visitor clearly had no interest in intruding on her privacy, and would probably resent their sneaking up and disturbing his.

As it happened, however, he was the one to take them by surprise. Half-hidden, by the shade of the arched stone gateway that topped the steps leading from the beach to the lodge, he was waiting for them, and had obviously been tracking their arrival from the minute they’d rounded the point, but neither she nor Andy was aware of him until Peg Leg picked up his scent.

At about the same time he stepped forward into full sunlight, and the first thought that struck Madeleine was that Brent Wickman had been right on at least one score: the visitor was not old. Probably somewhere between thirty-five and forty, she surmised hazily, feeling almost struck senseless by a bolt from the blue of his eyes.

His gaze homed in on her and wouldn’t let go, and the insane thought occurred to her, Make a clean break now, before it’s too late. Or was it the other way around? Was she the one anxious not to sever the connection? Because, ridiculous though it undoubtedly was, no matter how hard she tried, her eyes fastened on him with the determination of a compass needle swinging to the magnetic north.

Nor was that the end of it. She might have run a mile uphill from the tight constriction in her chest. And then, when it finally eased, she felt a sort of soft implosion, as if her heart had suddenly clenched in on itself in order to release an abundance of sweet-flowing warmth into her veins.

Shaken by so turbulent a reaction, she clasped her hands tightly, but it wasn’t enough to still the jerking of her nerve-ends. They were live wires, sparking electricity despite her best efforts to subdue them.

Every cliché in the book, and then some! she decided disdainfully, but how else could she begin to describe the sheer physical impact of the man standing in front of her?

Although he stood a full six feet tall, Andy appeared almost short beside him. Nor was it just the stranger’s height that was impressive. Power oozed out of every pore to swarm around him, invisible yet almost tangible. Power of muscle and sinew, certainly, but, more potently, power of command, coupled with an almost unholy force of personality.

Here was a man who didn’t understand fear and would never bow before it, but he was not dangerous or violent. Madeleine knew these things at once—partly because he didn’t so much as flinch at the sight of a large, bristling dog charging up to him, and partly because, after a suitable sniffing of his ankles, Peg Leg signified her approval by allowing him to scratch behind her ears.

Andy wasn’t so easily won over. ‘Nice morning,’ he said, civilly enough, but the hand resting on the holster at his hip was anything but friendly.

Still not the least bit intimidated, the stranger merely nodded. ‘Very,’ he agreed, his gaze flicking briefly, dismissively, over Andy before returning to Madeleine with curious intensity.

Still helpless to look away, Madeleine gazed back, her heart stalling and racing erratically.

Beside her, Andy let out an irritable ‘Ahem!’ and planted one boot on the top step. ‘Great day for fishing,’ he observed. ‘Anything biting?’

The stranger shrugged. ‘Search me.’

Andy sounded as if he’d like nothing better. ‘You’re not here to fish, then?’

Sparkling with amusement, the blue eyes swivelled from Madeleine to encompass Andy’s stony features. ‘No. Are you?’ the stranger taunted.

A faint flush ran along Andy’s cheekbones. ‘Perhaps. I’m Officer Latham, Edgewater Police Department.’

‘Congratulations,’ the man replied insolently, his amusement speeding to the corners of a mouth that looked as if it was having a hard time not openly laughing.

Andy turned quite red at that. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Probably because I didn’t throw it out. Since you appear to be so interested, however, it’s Hamilton. Nick Hamilton.’

‘If you’re not here to fish, why are you here?’

Nick Hamilton’s raised eyebrows suggested it was none of Andy’s business, but he chose not to voice the opinion. Instead, tapped at the camera slung around his neck. ‘Photography. I’m a bird-watcher.’

‘You’re not local.’

It was as much an accusation as a statement, a fact which prompted Nick Hamilton to restore his attention to Madeleine. Once again, that amused insolence baited a man who was truly one of Edgewater’s finest. ‘No,’ Nick Hamilton agreed, bathing Madeleine in a conspiratorial smile. ‘Is that against the law, Officer?’

‘Not necessarily,’ Andy snapped, stepping protectively closer to Madeleine.

Nick Hamilton didn’t miss the move. His gaze narrowed. ‘Ah, I see,’ he murmured ambiguously. ‘I’m trespassing on someone else’s property and in danger of being arrested if I don’t move on?’

‘No.’ Andy seethed in frustration.

‘In that case…’ Smiling broadly, Nick Hamilton shrugged his formidable shoulders and strolled away across the fractured paving-stones of the lower terrace. Raising his camera, he focused the lens on a flock of seagulls circling and squawking a few yards out to sea.

But Madeleine continued to stare at him, fascinated. He had the voice of a late-night disc jockey—smoky, sexy, alluring. And devastating bedroom eyes—also smoky, sexy and alluring. A thatch of dark, unruly hair. A mouth that had her swallowing to ease the persistent dryness in her own throat. A smile so potent that she almost melted in its warmth.

Andy would probably arrest her if he knew what she was thinking!

‘He seems harmless enough,’ she muttered in a cracked voice. ‘I think you can leave me with an easy mind, Andy.’

‘I don’t.’ Andy glared at the stranger with cold suspicion. ‘I’d bet my last dollar that that guy’s no more a bird-watcher than I am.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Gut instinct, Madeleine. And I’ve been on the force long enough to trust my instincts—plus the fact that no bona fide bird-watcher would waste time or film on common seagulls when there are colonies of bald eagles and blue herons not half a mile away.’ He sighed and touched her elbow. ‘I don’t suppose I can convince you to stay away from the beach until I’ve had a chance to check him out?’

‘You suppose right,’ Madeleine said, at last recovering something of her poise, ‘but, if it’ll make you feel better, I promise I’ll call you at the station when I get home.’

‘Make sure you do. I’ll be waiting to hear from you. And don’t forget we have a date tomorrow night.’

Madeleine sighed, mildly irritated that, like too many other people around town, Andy insisted on acting as if she needed a keeper—as if, because she’d been fooled once by a man, her perceptions were permanently impaired. Would she never be allowed to forget one bad judgement call?

‘Quite the knight in navy armor,’ a voice at her shoulder remarked drily, as Andy strode back the way he’d come. ‘Does he have a white horse waiting to transport him back to duty?’

Madeleine realized that, far from concentrating on his bird photography, Nick Hamilton had witnessed the entire exchange between her and Andy, although she couldn’t be sure he’d been able to hear what had been said over the rush of the surf. ‘About two hundred horses, actually, contained under the hood of a car painted dark blue to match his uniform,’ she replied, loyalty to Andy compelling her to hand back to the stranger a taste of his own sardonic medicine. ‘He’s a very capable police officer, and you were unkind to tease him like that.’

‘I suppose I was.’ But the admission didn’t wring forth any indication of remorse. Indeed, the little smile tilting the corners of Nick Hamilton’s mouth suggested that he was quite pleased with himself. He bent down to fondle Peg Leg’s soft ears, then straightened up and subjected Madeleine to another thorough examination. ‘You live around here?’ he asked, squinting against the sun.

‘About a quarter of a mile down the beach.’ She pointed. ‘You can just see the chimneys sticking up above the dunes.’

‘By yourself?’

She hesitated, torn between truth and evasion. ‘Not quite.’

He saw through that little subterfuge in a flash. ‘Just you and your dog, you mean?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted, and tried deflecting his curiosity by firing a question of her own. ‘What about you? I think we’ve already established that you’re not local, so where are you from?’

His glance slid away, over the sea to the horizon, where a cluster of small islands floated in the morning mist. ‘Down south,’ he said vaguely, and from that she assumed that he meant that he was American, not Canadian.

‘How did you find this spot? It’s not on any of the maps.’

‘You’re beginning to sound like your blue-uniformed friend,’ he chided her softly. ‘Will it help ease your mind to know that I don’t have a criminal record? That I’m gainfully employed and pay the balance on my credit cards every month?’

She flushed. ‘I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that we don’t see too many tourists out here as a rule, and I wondered what attracted you to the area.’ She shrugged and looked around—at the weeds growing up between the paving-stones, the unpruned shrubs, the rose garden half buried in sand where the beach had crept up to reclaim its own. ‘The resort’s hardly a visitor’s mecca any more.’

‘Someone I know mentioned it in passing as a place worth seeing and, now that I’m here, I’m so fascinated by what I’ve stumbled across that I’ve got no desire to move on. A man’s heart and soul went into the construction of this place.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the lodge. ‘But dreams are all that are holding it together today. It deserves a more dignified fate than the slow and painful death it’s presently undergoing.’

Madeleine heartily agreed. ‘It was a magnificent private resort at one time, a sort of scaled-down Hearst Castle,’ she told him. “The man who built it used to fill it with guests from all over the world.’

‘And now it’s abandoned.’ He shrugged, all cagey insouciance. ‘Does anyone else live out here—besides you?’

Just for a second, Madeleine wondered if she was being naïve to believe he was harmless, and debated telling him that a skeleton staff still worked at the resort. But, as he’d so accurately pointed out, the building was practically sagging at the seams. The lie would have been pointless as well as a violation of her principles.

Furthermore, Peg Leg—the dog who’d perfected the art of conveying utter contempt for people she disliked by removing herself as far as possible from their presence—had settled down at this man’s feet, wearing that grinning canine expression of hers that signified total trust and relaxation.

In view of such overwhelming evidence in his favor, and the fact that Nick Hamilton was smiling at her again and turning all her moral fiber to mush, Madeleine shelved her uneasiness. ‘No. Just me and my dog.’

‘Don’t you find it lonely?’

‘Not at all. The peace and quiet are what make it so special.’

‘Good. I could use a little peace and quiet for a change.’

Madeleine took that as her cue to escape the scene gracefully, before she made a complete fool of herself. ‘Well, you’ll find plenty of that. Apart from beach-combing and bird-watching, there’s not much else to keep you entertained out here.’

He looked her over again. And again that vibrant jolt leapt the distance separating them. ‘Oh, I don’t know that I agree with that,’ he said gently. ‘I can think of a couple of other very pleasant ways to pass the time.’

His approach was more polished, but not since Martin had any man so overtly plied her with sexual innuendo. Only by drumming up a reminder of the disaster that had ensued from succumbing to male flattery that first time was Madeleine able to resist it now. ‘I’m sure you can,’ she replied coolly, and turned away, snapping her fingers for Peg Leg to follow.

To her dismay, Nick Hamilton’s hand closed over her shoulder, detaining her, and another stab, of alarm this time, underscored her discomfiture. Beyond the fact that he was incredibly good-looking—the worst kind of recommendation in a man!—she knew nothing about this person holding her with such subtle strength. ‘Please don’t do that,’ she said, unable to suppress the shiver that skated over her.

He let go of her at once. ‘I’ve made you uncomfortable,’ he mourned, his voice charmingly, ingenuously, contrite. ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention at all.’

She really did feel like a fool then, especially since Peg Leg seemed not the least disturbed by the fact that he’d dared touch her mistress. Madeleine managed a faint smile. ‘That’s all right’

‘No, it’s not,’ he said, beguiling her all over again with his sexy, sandpapery voice. ‘I’ve frightened you, when all I meant to do was let you know what a very delightful woman I think you are.’

She blushed like a thirteen-year-old with a bad case of hero-worship, and went a little weak at the knees. ‘Thank you. I…um, I have to get back now, but if there’s anything you need during your stay—use of the phone, perhaps, or fresh water—you know where I live.’

‘Yes,’ he said, his gaze roaming warmly over her face. ‘I know where you live.’

Watching her leave, Nick pursed his lips in a silent whistle and shook his head in mystified disgust. When the gregarious garage attendant had let slip who lived next door an instant picture had sprung to mind of the sort of woman Nick expected to find. Long, slender legs and sweetly flaring hips had no more place in that picture than eyes the soft gray-green of wild sage, or the dense fluting of lashes half a shade darker than the hair tumbling wildly around a face that belonged in a Renoir painting. Nick had itched to run his fingers through that hair. Any man would.

And the blush! Women today didn’t blush when a man tossed a compliment their way, for Pete’s sake; they smacked him in the mouth. And where was the sober tweed skirt and twin-set, the graduated pearls and prim, horn-rimmed glasses he’d justifiably envisioned? By what right did the local Heritage Society come by a president who was so stunningly desirable?

This was going to throw a monkey wrench in the works and no mistake! She belonged in another era. Hell, another century! How was he supposed to contend with an opponent soft-hearted enough to own a three-legged dog and who, when he had the temerity to touch her, prefaced her request for him not to do so with a softly uttered ‘please’? She didn’t play fair.

On the other hand, neither did he—which was the chief reason he’d earned the reputation among his colleagues for ferreting out world news before it happened.

Frowning, he swung back along the path to where he’d parked the RV next to the lodge, a plan of attack already taking shape in his mind. Wooing the lady next door could conceivably backfire. But, as the old saying went, a man could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and, as long as he never forgot that the sweet-talk was merely the means to an end—in this case winning the right to do as he saw fit with the Spindrift property-he could circumvent any complications that might arise.

Looked at from that perspective, the fact that his only neighbor should turn out to be young and gorgeous was a distinct advantage, and simply made his task a lot more agreeable than it would have been had she turned out to be old and ugly.

Phase One of Operation Tyler began to take rather tantalizing shape in his mind. Always provided, of course, that good old home-town Andy Latham hadn’t already staked a firm claim on her affections. Because there was a limit to how down and dirty even Nick Hamilton was prepared to act. He drew the line at poaching on another man’s territory.

Madeleine hadn’t expected to see him again but, just after ten on Saturday morning, Nick showed up on her back doorstep. ‘Hope I’m not calling at a bad time,’ he said, ‘but I cut myself trying to open a can of coffee.’ He held up a thumb wrapped in a bloodstained handkerchief. ‘I think I need a Band-Aid.’

‘I think you do, too.’ She opened the door wider and ushered him into the kitchen. ‘Have a seat and I’ll see what I can find. Are you sure you don’t need stitches?’

‘No.’ He slouched in a chair at the table and with his good hand petted Peg Leg, who greeted him like a long-lost friend. ‘It just needs something to bind it closed for a day or two.’

Madeleine found the first aid kit and sorted through it for the package of waterproof dressings and the iodine she always kept handy. “This should do the trick. Let me have a look.’

She reached for his thumb but he drew it back, nursing it gingerly, and regarded the bottle of iodine with fearful suspicion. ‘That’s OK. I can take care of it myself. If I could just rinse it off…?’

Madeleine contained a smile. Strange dogs and un-friendly police officers might not faze him, but threaten him with minor surgery and he was ready to keel over. The god had clay feet, after all. Thank the lord! ‘There’s a powder-room just down the hall. You’ll find clean towels in the cabinet under the sink.’

‘Thanks.’

While he was gone she started a fresh pot of coffee and popped an apricot strudel in the oven. By the time he reappeared, his thumb securely taped, she had set out two mugs and a couple of paper napkins. ‘I thought you might need something to revive you.’

He smiled wanly. ‘Are all men cowards at the sight of blood, or is it just me?’

‘You’re braver than most. You dressed the injury yourself.’ She held the coffee-pot poised over his mug. ‘Cream and sugar?’

‘Just sugar. Three lumps.’ He laughed, a light, rusty snort of amusement. ‘I need a lot of sweetening.’

From what she’d witnessed he seemed plenty sweet enough, but she realized it was an opinion based on very meager evidence. For all she knew, he could possess a foul temper and a wicked tongue, and be a wife-beater to boot—a reflection which raised the rather interesting question of his marital status. Offering him first aid, however, scarcely entitled her to pry into his personal life.

He suffered from no such reticence concerning hers. ‘How was your date?’

‘Date?’ She paused in the act of slicing the strudel.

‘With the knight in navy.’ He grinned unashamedly. ‘I eavesdropped the other day. Are the two of you, as they say in trendy circles, an item?’

‘I…er, no.’

He didn’t miss her hesitation. ‘But he’d like you to be?’

‘When are you going to marry me, Madeleine?’ Andy had asked lightly just before he’d dropped her off after dinner the night before. It wasn’t the first time he’d proposed, nor the first time she’d turned him down with the joking suggestion that he was married already, to his work.

‘Andy’s a good friend,’ she told Nick. ‘We’ve know each other since we were children.’

‘I take it from that that you were born here? Have you always lived in this house?’

She looked around the big country kitchen, scene of so many happy times. In winter, when she’d come home from school, there’d always been a fire glowing in the tiled woodstove in the corner.

Among her earliest memories was one December when she’d come down with bronchitis. Her mother had wrapped her in a quilt in the big rocking-chair that still sat next to the hearth, and she’d fallen asleep to the smell of hot mincemeat, the sound of carols on the radio, and the sight of flames flickering through the heavy glass window on the stove door. The way she remembered it, it had been Christmas when she woke up, and she had been all better again.

‘Except for a few years, right after I graduated from university, I’ve never lived anywhere else.’

Nick frowned. ‘Don’t you find it a bit removed from neighbors? That place next door doesn’t look as if it’s been lived in in years.’

‘It hasn’t, but Edgewater is only five miles down the causeway. I can be in town in no time at all. I’m not really as isolated as you might think.’

‘As long as you’re mobile I don’t suppose you are, but what if you had an accident and couldn’t get to the phone?’

‘I’d be missed around town and someone would come looking for me.’

‘Like the knight in navy?’ he inquired irreverently.

She shot him a reproving glance. ‘Among others, yes. People here tend to look out for each other. It’s one of the more endearing qualities of small-town life.’

He smiled. ‘From the way you say that, I get the feeling that you’ve found it has its drawbacks, too, and I’d love to hear about them—but I’ve taken up enough of your morning.’

He pushed away from the table and stretched. Peg Leg immediately hopped out of her basket by the stove and bounced over to him, tail wagging furiously. Hunkering down before her, he pulled gently on her ears and stroked her muzzle.

‘She’s trying to persuade you that she needs a walk,’ Madeleine said.

‘I wouldn’t take much persuading.’ Eyes shaded by disgracefully long lashes, he leaned forward and practically rubbed noses with Peg. I’ve always liked dogs. What happened to her leg?’

‘She was shot, either by a farmer or a hunter, when she was a puppy, which probably accounts for her fear of loud noises. I found her at the side of the road about four years ago. Her leg was so badly damaged that it had to be amputated.’

‘Are you nuts, or what?’ Martin had scoffed when he’d heard what she’d done. ‘It’ll cost a fortune to get that mutt fixed up, and if you think I’m about to foot the bill—ha-ha, no pun intended!—you’re mistaken.’

But Nick looked up at Madeleine, his eyes quite breathtakingly beautiful in his face. ‘A charming, lovely woman with a heart,’ he murmured. ‘Talk about a dynamite combination!’

‘Thank you.’

‘And you’re certainly well-protected. A person would have to be a fool to mess with you with her around.’

‘You don’t seem too intimidated by her,’ Madeleine said, then blushed at the implied insult in her words.

Nick grinned. ‘Well, of course not, because I don’t intend you any harm and she’s smart enough to know it.’

He was a nice man, an injured man. Furthermore he was right: Peg would tear him apart if he threatened her in any way. ‘Would you like to stay for lunch, Mr Hamilton?’

He stood up and brushed one palm against the other, taking care not to jar his thumb. ‘No, ma’am, thank you very much. I’ve already outstayed my welcome. But I would like to take a rain-check, and I’d very much like to hear more about this lovely old house of yours.’

‘I’d like to show it to you,’ she said, her last faint trace of reservation slipping into oblivion. ‘Come tomorrow instead, if you’re not busy. About one o’clock?’

‘I’m not busy,’ he said, and was almost through the door when he turned back.

Madeleine looked at him inquiringly. ‘Is there something else?’

‘Just one thing,’ he said, his eyes alight with amusement. ‘I don’t want to appear nosy or anything, but do you mind telling me your name?’

‘Madeleine,’ she said, laughing, and thought how silly she’d been ever to have felt that he might not be as trustworthy as he first appeared.

CHAPTER TWO

HOUSED in a dignified turn-of-the-century stone building that was the twin of the Town Hall situated on the opposite side of the Market Square, the Edgewater Memorial Library had somehow managed to survive the passage of time unscathed. Its high-ceilinged rooms were cooled by old-fashioned fans in the summer and heated by a set of clanking old radiators in the winter.

Wire baskets, lined with moss and stuffed with seasonal flowers, hung at precise two-foot distances from each other along the eaves of the front portico. Dilys Steach, the head librarian, measured to make sure they didn’t deviate by so much as an inch either way. ‘I expect certain standards,’ she was fond of pronouncing.

‘Certain standards’ included discouraging gossip. Other people might relish passing along the latest dirt, but Dilys never did. It was the senior librarian’s unbending adherence to this principle that had saved Madeleine after Martin’s chicanery had been exposed before the whole town.

‘This is not a coffee-house, erected for your backbiting pleasure,’ she had declared sourly to those people who, in the aftermath of the scandal, had whispered together behind their hands and flung meaningful glances Madeleine’s way whenever she happened to come across them in the book aisles or the reading-room. As a result, the library had become her retreat, its quiet rooms, with that slightly musty odour of vellum and old leather peculiar to Victorian libraries, a sanctuary of peace and order.

Monday was her day off but on Tuesday following her lunch with Nick, Madeleine showed up for work with a smile on her face that refused to go away. It was still firmly in place when Sadie Brookes, her friend and secretary to the mayor, popped in for her daily visit during her morning coffee-break, even though doing so was guaranteed to elicit Dilys’s frosty disapproval.

‘Thought you’d want to hear the latest,’ Sadie whispered, leaning over Madeleine’s desk. ‘Council has been spared having to expropriate the Tyler Resort. The tax arrears were paid in full yesterday.’

‘How nice.’ Finding it difficult to bring her mind fully to bear on the information, Madeleine continued to smile dreamily. ‘We all know what an unpopular move land seizures are.’

Sadie groped for the glasses that spent most of their time perched on top of her head and propped them on her nose, so that she could take a closer look at Madeleine. ‘You’re not your usual alert self today, my dear. I’ve just told you that your precious lodge won’t be put on the auctioneer’s block and snapped up by some money-grubbing tycoon with no soul. I expected that, as president of our revered Heritage Society, you’d be jumping up and down with glee. What’s the matter? Have you fallen in love or something?’

The absurd question sent Madeleine’s thoughts winging back to Sunday and for one preposterous moment she almost answered ‘yes’.

Nick had shown up on her doorstep precisely on time, with a bottle of wine in his uninjured hand. Memory, she’d quickly discovered, had not played her false. Even allowing for the fact that this time she was half prepared for the impact of him, he still struck her as the most formidably attractive man she’d laid eyes on in all her thirty-two years.

She stood five feet nine in her bare feet, closer to five-ten in the shoes she’d been wearing at that moment. He’d towered over her, lithe, muscular, powerful. His hair gleamed damply from a recent shower, his smile captivated, his eyes seduced. But, more than all those things, she’d experienced again that same muffled detonation inside, that sense of having been poleaxed by the magnetic force surging between them.

Once more overcoming the inclination to stammer and drool like some half-baked teenager, she’d ushered him inside and, after an initial moment or two of awkwardness, conversation had come easily. Lunch was no more than half over before he knew that she was a librarian and had worked at college level for five years prior to resuming her career in her home town. And she knew that he had majored in political science and journalism, and traveled all over the world as a foreign correspondent.

‘Sort of polar opposites, aren’t we?’ he’d remarked later, as she showed him around the house.

‘We don’t seem to have much in common,’ she’d replied, all the while excruciatingly conscious of the attraction arcing between them.

‘Apart from our mutual appreciation of old houses, no.’ He’d run an admiring palm over the satin-smooth mahogany of the stair banister, but his eyes had lingered on her mouth. ‘Sometimes, though, it’s the differences that…weld a relationship.’

She’d heard confusion in his voice, and she’d understood why. It defied logical explanation that two strangers could come face to face for the first time and seem to recognize each other. As if, rational intellect notwithstanding, their hearts had said, ‘You’re home. The searching’s over.’

Yet, rational or not, attraction, awareness—call it what you like—had stretched between them, a fine, indestructible line fraught with sexual repercussions.

But still, in love?

‘Of course not,’ she said, not quite meeting Sadie’s probing gaze.

Never one to be easily put off if she scented romance, Sadie smirked. ‘Got a hot date lined up, then?’

To her chagrin, Madeleine almost smirked back. ‘No,’ she said, deciding that a lie of omission was justified in this case. An invitation to join Nick in a simple dinner cooked over a fire on the beach next Friday hardly qualified as hot, after all—except, perhaps, in the most literal sense. ‘What makes you ask?’

‘You’ve got the same sappy grin on your face that that benighted Peg Leg wears all the time,’ Sadie said.

‘There’s no law against smiling, Sadie.’

’There is in your case.’ Sadie hooted, not in the least deterred by Dilys’s ‘Tsk tsk!’ of censure. ‘You’re a librarian and you’re supposed to look smugly academic—though now that I take a closer look, maybe “smug” does fit your description after all, along with “besotted”, and a few other words I can think of. And I’d bet my last dollar that Andy Latham isn’t the one responsible for the change.’

‘Andy’s a nice man, Sadie.’

‘And about as comfortable as an old boot. There’s no spark between the two of you, Madeleine, so quit trying to fool me into thinking there is.’

‘Andy and I enjoy a mutually rewarding… friendship. He takes me out for dinner at least once a week, and we often catch a movie in Dunesport.’

‘I visit my grandma every Sunday afternoon and have a whale of a time,’ Sadie said scornfully, ‘but it no more sends my blood-pressure soaring than your sitting across from Andy and watching him scoff a steak puts yours into overdrive. You have stars in your eyes, my dear, and roses in your cheeks. In fact—’ she stood back and planted her hands on her hips ‘—you present a disgustingly blithe picture of what my old dad used to call “feminine pulchritude” and I have only one piece of advice for you: make the most of whatever—or whoever—is causing it. You’ve spent enough time lamenting the con-artist’s betrayal, my friend, and if something better’s shown up on the horizon, then “Hallelujah!" I say.’

Andy, however, disagreed, as Madeleine discovered after work that same afternoon. She was in the parking lot behind the library, fishing in her purse for her keys, when his patrol car cruised to a stop beside her. ‘Got time for coffee with an overworked cop before you head home?’ he asked, poking his head out of the window.

She smiled. ‘I’ll make the time, Officer.’

‘That Hamilton man,’ he began, as soon as they were seated in the Primrose Café, ‘is he still hanging around?’

‘As far as I know,’ Madeleine said evasively, un-willing to admit more and give Andy the chance to hold forth on the inadvisability of inviting a total stranger to lunch without a bodyguard in attendance. ‘Why?’

‘Just wondered.’ He stirred his coffee vigorously and tapped the spoon three times on the rim of the cup, a habit of his that usually denoted that he had something on his mind. ‘I checked out his vehicles. He picked up both from a rental outfit in Vancouver last week. He holds a valid California driver’s license, collared two speeding tickets in the last five years, and has no out-standing fines.’

‘So he’s harmless, just as I expected.’

Andy looked at her from under puckered brows. ‘"Harmless" isn’t a word that I’d apply to a man like him, especially not where a woman like you is concerned.’

She bristled with annoyance at that. ‘What do you mean, “a woman like me”?’

Andy stirred his coffee again. ‘Well…’ Tap, tap, tap. ‘You’re different.’

‘Different how?’

‘You’re sort of…’ Tap, tap, tap. ‘Impressionable. You’re not as…well, as hard-boiled as, say, Sadie, and that can make you an easy mark to a certain type of man.’

‘What you’re really saying, Andy,’ Madeleine cut in sharply, ‘is that because I made the mistake of marrying Martin I must be a few bales short of a full load. And I have to tell you I’m beginning to resent your attitude.’

‘Well, heck, Madeleine!’ Andy protested. ‘You’ve got to admit that Martin and this Hamilton guy do seem to be cut from the same cloth.’

‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Nick Hamilton is nothing like Martin. Nothing at all.’

‘He’s a sight too smooth for my liking. Too damned full of himself. And you—’ Andy’s warm brown gaze had narrowed with suspicion ‘—you seem unusually sure of someone you hardly know. Or have I missed a chapter somewhere between now and last Friday?’

She hoped that he interpreted the flush on her cheeks as anger and not guilt. Because, she assured herself, she’d done nothing to feel guilty about. ‘You missed nothing,’ she said.

‘And it’s none of my concern anyway,’ he finished gloomily.

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You didn’t have to. The message came through loud and clear that what you do and who you see when I’m not around is no one’s business but your own.’

‘We have no claim on each other, Andy.’

‘I know.’ He stared morosely into the dregs of his coffee. ‘Has he said how long he’s going to be hanging around?’

‘No, but then I haven’t asked him. I didn’t think it was any of my business.’

Andy sighed. ‘Will you promise me one thing? Will you at least be careful? Just because he doesn’t have a criminal record it doesn’t mean he’s harmless, no matter what you might think. I’m only asking because I care about you, Madeleine.’

His obvious concern softened the edges of her annoyance. ‘I know that, Andy, and I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. But you have to understand that I can’t go through the rest of my life expecting that everyone I meet is a carbon copy of Martin, or that because I made one mistake I’m doomed to repeating it. Give me credit for having some brains.’

‘It’s not your brains I worry about,’ Andy said on another sigh. ‘It’s your heart If you’d give it to me, it’d be safe.’

He was right, Madeleine thought, as she drove the five miles out to Spindrift Island. The trouble was, as Sadie had so accurately observed, it wasn’t ‘safe’ that put ‘spark’ into a relationship between a man and a woman. There had to be an undercurrent of excitement, an edge of danger, of risk, to bring it alive. And, in order for it to survive, there had also to be that sense of having found a soulmate to give it balance.

Even at its best, her marriage to Martin had been lacking in whatever vital ingredient made two separate people into a couple. There had been, at least in the beginning, a semblance of passion and desire, but there had never been much meeting of the minds. Nor, as she had ultimately learned to her cost, a mutual under-standing of values or ethics.

On Sunday, however, as Nick’s visit had stretched from one hour to two, and eventually to three, she’d had a little taste of what she’d missed in matrimony. Over and above the erotic pull, she’d experienced a sense of sympathetic communion with Nick; a sense of sharing such as she’d never known with Martin.

So much insight, she thought, pulling into the driveway leading to the farmhouse, and all because a man she’d known only a few days had wonderful blue eyes and the voice of a fallen angel! A man of whom Andy passionately disapproved—but whom Peg Leg found completely and unconditionally acceptable.

Peg Leg, thank the lord, had impeccable instincts.

At six o’clock on Friday evening Nick collected the papers littering the small table in the main cabin of the RV and shoved them haphazardly into his briefcase. Scraping a hand over the day-old growth of beard on his jaw, he headed for the cramped bathroom to shower and shave.

He had a headache, the sort that aspirins couldn’t cure. The sort inflicted on a man by his conscience—something Nick Hamilton didn’t usually allow to trouble him. But the fact was that the success of Phase Two of Operation Tyler, last weekend, bothered him more than he cared to admit. And Phase Three would shortly get under way.

Within the hour Madeleine would show up on his doorstep, never suspecting that the real reason he was pursuing her so assiduously was to bring a speedy and satisfactory end to his stay in the area. Satisfactory to him, that was. Because enforced visits to small towns half buried in sand and crab-traps, and peopled with dogooders concerned with the faded grandeur of crumbling old houses, weren’t his bailiwick. There was a world of political intrigue and modern warfare being played out on the international stage, and his usual ringside seat was growing cold without him.

But he couldn’t turn his back on family. Edmund couldn’t be blamed for the fact that, at ninety-one, his health was failing and his faculties weren’t as sharp as they’d been when he was seventy. The truth was that he’d declined drastically since his first stroke five years ago and, in all honesty, had been losing his grip for nearly ten years, leaving Flora to manage his affairs by herself.

Flora. Lathering his face, Nick tried to subdue the irritation his step-grandmother always provoked in him. It wasn’t her fault she was ditsy; she’d been born that way and was pretty enough, in a fluff-headed sort of way, for people to let her get away with it. Still and all, if he now found himself in a predicament that was leaving a surprisingly bad taste in his mouth, it was Flora he had to thank for it. Allowing her to handle money without adequate supervision was the same as letting a baby loose to play with fire.

Who knew what straits the old couple would have been reduced to if Nick hadn’t found himself between assignments and decided to make one of his infrequent flying visits home? Perhaps if he’d visited more often he wouldn’t now be up to the neck in complications he’d never expected.

The solution to their difficulties had seemed simple enough at the time. Within hours of learning of their financial predicament, he’d flown from San Francisco to Vancouver and rented the Jeep, and the RV that was to be his home for the few days it would take him to straighten out the mess with the back taxes and generally check out the property that was the cause of so much distress and anxiety.

A day’s drive later, he’d seen for himself that years of neglect had reduced the place to a travesty of what it must once have been. It was glaringly obvious even to the most inexperienced eye. Everywhere he turned the evidence confronted him-—mildew, rot, decay—and with each new discovery his dismay increased, fueled by the information that the garage attendant had been so willing and eager to impart.

‘Them Heritage Society folks wield a big stick in these parts,’ the man had confided over his third beer. ‘Right powerful, they are. You need permission from them to paint your own front door once they decide that what you got is so damned old and ugly you can’t wait to set a match to it.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Nick had replied, deciding on the spot that, Heritage Society or no Heritage Society, he wasn’t about to be told what he could and couldn’t do with property that had been in his family for decades. ‘Well, if I decide to take a bulldozer to the place, it’ll be a fait accompli before anyone from the society has time to stop me.’

‘There’s some folks around town that might agree with you,’ the old coot had cackled, ‘but hell, sonny, the president of yon society ain’t one of ‘em, and she’s your next-door neighbor. The minute as she hears that bull-dozer engine start up, she’ll chain herself to the front wheel sooner than let you touch a single brick on the place.’

‘She’ll be escorted off the property with a flea in her ear if she tries.’

‘Not this here president, she won’t. Miz Slater’s plagued with the idea that if something’s old, it’s valuable. She’s been after the society for months now to turn the Tyler place into some sort of historical shrine. You check at the Town Hall if you don’t believe me. They got it in writing down there.’ He’d chewed on his tattered moustache for a while, before dunking it in his beer again, then added gloomily, “They got every sin a man ever committed written down at the Town Hall, and I oughta know. Darn near shut me down last year, they did, all because that old biddy Roberta Parrish complained I didn’t keep a clean enough washroom. As if that’s where I make my money! Might as well face it, sonny. In this town, you can’t fight the Town Hall, and it’s darn certain that you can’t fight yon Heritage Society—leastways, not while Miz Slater’s president you can’t.’

Disquieting news that, unfortunately, had proven all too accurate. When Nick had gone to pay the back taxes he’d checked, and found that designation of the lodge as a historic site was indeed pending. Any structural changes would require a specific permit approved by the Heritage Society. He would have to appear at their monthly meeting and make his application in person before he would be allowed to remove so much as a broken pane of glass. And his biggest obstacle, the busty blonde behind the desk at the Town Hall had informed him, would be convincing the president of the society.

He’d realized then that, unless he came up with drastic action, he could be delayed here indefinitely while his rights were argued back and forth. Stymied, Nick had thanked the blonde then marched out, determined to overcome every obstacle thrown in his path by whatever means presented itself. Which brought him to where he was now: slapping aftershave on his jaw and preparing to play Romeo to an unsuspecting Juliet.

Snorting with disgust, he left the steamy bathroom and resigned himself to carrying on with what he’d started the day he’d met his lovely next-door neighbor. It was a question of priorities—and the fact that his hormones were out of sync with his brain couldn’t be allowed to influence that. He wasn’t about to be sidelined in this godforsaken provincial backwater, reduced to learning second-hand what major developments were taking place overseas. That wasn’t what being an ace foreign correspondent was all about.

Checking the time, he folded a plaid blanket on top of the picnic hamper, weighted it down with a portable radio, and made sure the ice in the cooler hadn’t melted too fast. Earlier he’d selected a picnic site and prepared a fire pit All he needed now was for the moon to rise and the lady to show.

She arrived just as dusk faded into dark, slender and graceful and more than a little flushed, as if she’d raced to get there on time.

‘You look ready for a little R and R,’ he said, jumping right into Phase Three of Operation Tyler. ‘Tough week?’

‘A normal work week,’ she said, pushing her fingers through that long, dark hair and retying the scarf that bound it loosely at her nape. ‘The pace didn’t let up once and I’m glad it’s finally over.’

‘So am I,’ he said, dismissing the twinge of guilt that persisted in plaguing him. ‘And if you’re anything like me, the last thing you want to do on a night like this is talk about your job.’ He took her hand, lightly and briefly. ‘I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again ever since last Sunday.’

He thought her flush deepened at that, though it was hard to be sure in the faint light spilling out of the camper.

‘Have you?’ she returned, and added with disarming diffidence, ‘So have I.’

‘Then let’s forget about work and concentrate on recreation. I’ve got everything ready down on the beach, except for this stuff here. If you can carry the blanket and radio, I can manage the rest.’

‘You’ve gone to so much trouble,’ she said, staring around her when they arrived at his pre-selected hollow in the dunes. ‘I hadn’t expected anything quite so…elegant.’

‘Why not?’ He spread the blanket for her to sit on, placed a couple of cushions in the small of her back, then put a match to the kindling. ‘You’re an elegant lady and deserve nothing less.’

She smiled at him and said, ‘And you’re very gallant.’

He smiled back, and hoped that the deceit didn’t show in his eyes.

CHAPTER THREE

‘A SIMPLE dinner,’ he’d said when he’d issued the invitation. ‘Remember, I’m living out of a camper.’

But it was a camper that ran to mohair blankets and quilted cushions, and his idea of simplicity included champagne cooling in an ice-bucket. Madeleine was glad she’d worn her apricot cashmere sweater and silk-lined woollen trousers instead of the fleecy jacket and jeans she’d originally considered. Glad, too, that vanity had compelled her to sprite her throat with a little Alfred Sung cologne and to add a touch of mascara to her already dark lashes.

‘I got steaks,’ he said, poking at the flames and arranging the bed of coals so that he could prop a metal grill over it. ‘And potatoes and mushrooms. How does that sound?’

‘Perfect.’

All the time he spoke he was busy unloading from the picnic hamper. Little foil-wrapped packages emerged that she assumed were the potatoes and mushrooms, followed by plates made of rather good china, and fluted glasses that, though plain, were definitely crystal.

‘Thought we’d start with champagne,’ he said, tackling the corked bottle with casual familiarity. ‘And smoked salmon. It’s going to take a while before the potatoes are ready.’

The champagne foamed and sparkled in the firelight; the smoked salmon bites glowed like uncut jewels. The air was completely still, allowing the smoke to spiral straight up into the night. Beyond the shelter of the dunes the surf mumbled and complained, but the hollow Nick had found seemed charmed, a place removed from the everyday world. Madeleine sank back against the cushions, that sense of rightness she’d experienced from the first with him flourishing more strongly than ever.

‘A little music, and we’re all set,’ he said, fiddling with the radio dials until he found a station playing light classics. He cocked a dark eyebrow her way, inquiringly. ‘This OK with you, Madeleine?’

‘Perfect,’ she said again, intoxicated by something more potent than the champagne.

The firelight danced over his face, blurring his features with shadows and masking him with a mystery tinged with a delicious edge of danger.

Dropping down beside her, he sprawled on one elbow and tapped the rim of his glass against hers. ‘Here’s hoping that dinner is edible.’

‘I’m not worried.’

He smiled engagingly. ‘Perhaps you should be. I’m not renowned for my cooking, but restaurants are a dime a dozen and I thought something like this—’ he gestured at the scene around them ‘—would be a change. Come to think of it, though, I don’t suppose it’s all that novel an experience for you, living so close to the shore. You probably average a beach picnic a week.’

‘When I was in junior high school, yes,’ she admitted. ‘My girlfriends would come out on the weekends during the summer months and we’d have wiener roasts and beach parties. But it wasn’t the beach that was the big attraction so much as the place next door.’

‘I can understand why,’ he said. ‘I find myself quite obsessed by the poor old relic, too.’

‘But it wasn’t always the way it is today.’ She shook her head, remembering how awed she and her crowd had been by the Tyler Resort. ‘Back then, it seemed the epitome of sophisticated elegance to us, a sort of for-bidden Shangri-La that never lost its fascination. I remember one time a whole gang of us went sneaking over there and swam in the outdoor pool.’

‘Did you get caught?’

‘No. There was some sort of costume ball being held and people were too busy having a good time inside to notice what was happening out.’

He laughed. ‘I bet you all had a pretty good time, too.’

‘Not really,’ she said, smiling at the memory. ‘We were too terrified by our own daring, tiptoeing through the bushes and slipping into the water without making a splash, and always looking over our shoulders to make sure no one saw us. The thrills came the next day when we regaled everyone else at school with what we’d done. I suppose if anyone had asked what we all wanted most from life at that time we’d probably have said, to be part of that glamorous segment of society that used to gather on the fringes of our very ordinary lives.’

‘They were probably very ordinary people, too.’

‘Not all of them. When my mother first came here, as a bride, some very well-known names and faces used to be seen at the lodge. Movie-stars, politicians, even minor royalty.’ She paused, recalling winter evenings when she’d been a little girl and the wind had screamed like a banshee around the farmhouse. She had used to cuddle up on the long sofa that flanked the living-room fireplace, and listen entranced as her mother talked about those grand old days. The resort might have sunk into dilapidation, but the tales of its former grandeur endured, untouched by time.

‘You’re looking very pensive all of a sudden,’ Nick said. ‘Does talking about the place stir up unhappy memories?’

‘It’s not the past that’s bothering me; it’s the future— at least, as far as the resort is concerned.’

‘How so?’

She shook her head. ‘Don’t get me started! You came here looking for peace and quiet, not to listen to me rambling on about my pet peeves and boring you to tears.’

‘I cannot imagine ever finding you boring, Madeleine,’ he said quietly.

She laughed. “Then you don’t have a very vivid imagination.’

‘On the contrary, at the moment it’s running wild.’ His voice was low and intimate, his gaze on her mouth so irresistibly sensual that her amusement withered and left her throat arid as a desert. ‘More to the point, though, is that I’m a good listener if you’ll give me half a chance.’ He emptied the last of the champagne into their glasses. ‘So, instead of worrying about boring me, why don’t you just tell me what it is that’s troubling you about the place next door?’

He could charm apples off trees with that voice, she decided, aware that she was falling more helplessly under his spell with each passing moment. ‘It’s nothing very exciting,’ she said lamely.

‘It doesn’t have to be,’ he assured her, his words stroking warmly over her skin. I’ve got all the excitement I can handle right now, just being with you and looking at you.’

A blush sprang to life in the pit of her stomach and spread to points south with embarrassing effect. ‘Um…thank you…I think…’ she managed, drawing her knees primly together and clasping her hands around them to keep them in place.

‘I’m waiting, Madeleine.’

And she was practically trembling! ‘The man who owns it doesn’t care about it,’ she babbled, rushing headlong into an explanation that she prayed made more sense to Nick than it did to her because, in all truth, she hardly knew what she was saying. ‘He hasn’t been near the place in years and he probably doesn’t care that it’s almost in ruins.’

To her relief, Nick turned away and reached into the cooler. ‘Has he said as much?’ he inquired, placing the steaks on the grill as he spoke.

‘He doesn’t have to. The fact that he’s neglected it for so long says it plainly enough,’ Madeleine replied, admiring Nick’s clean-cut profile in the sudden burst of light as the flames flared up around the meat. His face was a study in contrasts—a collage of aristocratic planes and angles drawn in gold against a dark background. He looked invincible, a warrior about to go to war, and she was reminded again of her first indelible impression of power and command.

‘You’re quite sure of that, are you?’

‘Hmm?’

‘The way you spoke just now,’ he explained, with a hint of impatience in his voice that took her aback somewhat. ‘As though you have it on very good authority that the reason he’s neglected the place is that he’s lost interest in it’

‘Oh…’ She really had to put an end to her absorption with Nick Hamilton’s looks. Not only was it embarrassing to discover she’d completely lost the thread of a conversation, it was also foolishly immature. It wasn’t a man’s appearance, it was what he was like on the inside that mattered—a lesson she thought she’d learned a long time ago. ‘Well, what other explanation could there be when you consider that old man Tyler didn’t even bother to pay the taxes on the place until he stood in danger of having it seized by the local council and auctioned off to cover the debt?’

Nick paused in the act of uncorking the dinner wine. ‘Old man Tyler?’

‘The owner.’

‘You know him?’

‘Not exactly. He lives in the States and is something of a recluse now, but I used to see him occasionally, years ago.’

‘Clearly he didn’t leave behind a very favorable impression if you think he simply turned his back on this place and left it to rot without a second thought’

‘Normally I don’t think about him at all,’ she replied, ‘but his lodge is of major concern to me. He might not care what happens to it but I intend to see it restored and protected, if I have to move heaven and earth to do it.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Nick stared into the fire, the oddest expression on his face.

She tilted her head to one side, puzzled. Moments earlier he had accused her of being preoccupied. Now, hands slack around the neck of the wine-bottle, he was the one absorbed in his own thoughts.

‘Have I said something to upset you, Nick? You seem…’ She searched for the exact description, discarding the word that immediately came to mind because it simply didn’t make sense that he should be angry. Yet there was a stillness about him and a tension that suggested that he was coiled to strike at something. ‘Disturbed,’ she finished lamely.

The cork came out of the bottle of Cabernet with an unseemly pop. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s this damn thumb of mine. Ever since I cut it, I seem to be smashing it or squashing it against everything I touch. I’m not used to being so clumsy. Tell me more about this man—what was his name?’

‘Tyler. Edmund Tyler.’

‘Was he one of those romantic sophisticates you admired so much?’

‘He was very handsome, as I recall. Tall, silver-haired, very distinguished-looking. And his wife was a lovely woman.’ Madeleine looked at Nick curiously. ‘Are you really as interested in all this as you seem, or are you just being polite?’

He laughed. His teeth were very white, very straight. ‘I’m never polite just for the sake of it,’ he assured her. ‘I’ve spent a fair bit of time this last week wandering about the place and it’s interesting hearing someone else’s impressions of its history, that’s all. Finish your champagne, Madeleine. The steaks are just about ready and I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.’

The meat was fork-tender, the potatoes delicious, the mushrooms delectable. ‘This is a feast,’ she said.

‘But a bit primitive.’ Nick grimaced as his plate almost overturned in his lap. ‘Maybe I should have suggested a restaurant after all.’

Madeleine looked around. Within the circle of light cast by the fire the sand glowed butternut-gold. Beyond, it was swathed in taupe shadows. Overhead, the stars winked, icily remote, unlike the rising moon which peeped saucily over the edge of the dunes. ‘I can’t think of any place I’d rather be at this moment than right here.’

His smile caressed her. ‘Not even if the resort were open for business and you’d been invited there by a foreign count?’ he teased.

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