Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

“I won’t…sleep with you, Logan.”

His smile was hard-edged. “I’d as soon have you wide awake.”

“You know what I’m talking about.” Caryn’s voice was ragged. “You can joke about it all you like, but I’m serious!”

“Who’s joking?” He was looking at her now as if he were seeing her for the first time— and not particularly liking what he saw.

KAY THORPE was born in Sheffield, England, in 1935. She tried out a variety of jobs after leaving school. Writing began as a hobby, becoming a way of life only after she had her first completed novel accepted for publication in 1968. Since then, she’s written over fifty and lives now with her husband, son, German shepherd dog and lucky black cat on the outskirts of Chesterfield in Derbyshire, England. Her interests include reading, hiking and travel.

Worlds Apart
Kay Thorpe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

THE sea was way out at present, the evening tide not due to turn for another hour or so, although when it did it came in fast.

Caryn headed away from the town, carrying her shoes in her hand in order to feel the sand gritting between her toes. Living on the coast was one of life’s compensations as far as she was concerned. She always felt sorry for those who only saw the sea infrequently.

As always when she came down here at this time of day, this time of year, memory came flooding back fullforce. She wasn’t sure why she continued to do it—unless it was to keep the hatred alive in her heart. At sixteen she hadn’t known what it was to hate, until Logan Bannister had taught her. Even after two years, the hurt of it could still constrict her throat.

Lost in the past, she neither saw nor heard the horse approaching, only becoming aware when it was almost on her. She stood rooted to the spot as the man astride the big chestnut brought it to a halt in front of her, gazing up at him in disbelief. Her mind was playing tricks on her; it had to be!

Steely grey eyes slid over her, taking in every detail of her piquant features under the heavy crop of blonde hair before moving on down to linger for a lengthy moment on the jut of her firm young breasts beneath the thin cotton of her shirt. A muscle jerked faintly in the welldefined jaw line.

‘Hello, Caryn,’ he said, coming back to her face. ‘You’ve grown up.’

‘It happens to us all,’ she responded with an effort, fighting the shock. ‘Some faster than others.’

The muscle jerked again, and his hands tightened momentarily on the reins. His smile was brief and wry. ‘You’ve also acquired a sharp tongue.’

‘Only where I consider it merited.’ Caryn was surprised by her own turn of phrase. She drew herself up to her full five feet four and slid her hands into her jeans pockets, unaware of how the movement emphasised the slender curve of her hips. ‘How long are you home for?’

One dark brow lifted. ‘Is it important to you?’

‘Not to me,’ she claimed, ‘but it may be to Margot.’

‘I hardly think so. She married Duncan Ashley.’

‘On the rebound. After you ran out on her!’

Sensing the animosity simmering in the air, the chestnut made a restless movement, brought under control by the firmness of the hands holding the rein. Logan Bannister slid a leg over the animal’s back and dropped lithely to the ground, tall and leanly muscled in the tailored breeches and fine white shirt. His shoulders were broad and powerful, his forearms tanned the colour of old teak beneath their light coating of dark hair. His face was tanned too, skin stretched taut over hard male cheekbones. Looking up at him from her eight or more inches disadvantage, Caryn felt every nerve in her body tense anew.

‘One thing we should have clear,’ he said softly. ‘I never at any time gave Margot grounds to believe we had a future together. If she thought otherwise, then I’m afraid she was mistaken.’

Blue eyes flashed. ‘You mean she was just one more scalp to your belt!’

Anger flared in the grey eyes and just as abruptly faded, replaced by a weary acceptance. ‘You don’t have to remind me. I’ve lived with it this last two years.’

‘You think I haven’t?’ This time there was no attempt at concealment. ‘For all you knew—or cared—I might have been pregnant!’

‘If you had been I would have heard about it,’ he said.

‘And done what?’ she demanded. ‘Come back and married me?’

His lips twisted. ‘I’d have faced whatever music I was called on to face, but I doubt if marriage would have been seen as the ideal solution by anyone at the time.’

Caryn drew in an unsteady breath. He was so much in control of the situation, so utterly unrepentant. When she found her voice again there was venom in it. ‘There are no circumstances in which I would have considered marrying a rapist!’

‘Rapist?’ The tone was ironic. ‘I don’t seem to recall having to use any force.’

She flushed hotly, only too well aware that the word had been ill-chosen. ‘Seducer, then,’ she substituted, rallying her forces with an effort.

‘But from which side did the seduction come?’ The question was dangerously soft and silky. ‘You were so eager for my kisses, for the touch of my hands—for anything and everything I wanted to do to you. Did you make one attempt to stop me?’

‘Swine!’ Her voice choked off. Blinking back the hot, fierce tears, she turned blindly away.

‘Caryn, wait!’ He was right behind her, seizing her by the shoulder to spin her back towards him. There was regret in the grey eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Why not?’ she asked huskily. ‘It’s true. I threw myself at you.’

‘But I didn’t have to respond,’ he said. ‘If I’d packed you off home that night the way I should have done, it would never have happened. I was the one at fault, not you.’

She was silent, gazing up at him, conscious of the burning warmth of his fingers reaching through to her skin—those same fingers that had once caressed her with such tender passion; her breasts tingled at the very memory of it. He aroused the same feelings in her now as then, she acknowledged, distressing though it was to admit it. Only it made no difference to her hatred of him.

‘Let go of me!’ she said through her teeth. ‘I can’t bear you to touch me!’

He did so immediately, standing back with hands raised in a gesture of defence, expression wry. ‘All right, then, I won’t. Just listen to what I have to say.’

‘There’s nothing to say,’ she fired back at him. ‘Nothing I’d want to hear—unless it’s to tell me you’ll be leaving again tomorrow.’

Logan was silent for a long moment, studying her face, his own blanked now of all expression. ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ he said at length.

‘Then if not tomorrow, when?’

It was another moment or two before he answered, still giving little of his thoughts and feelings away. ‘I’m home for good—or at least for the foreseeable future.’

Caryn felt her heart give a painful lurch before settling back down to a steady if somewhat faster beat. ‘I thought you had business interests overseas,’ she got out at last.

‘So I have,’ he acknowledged. ‘And still shall have. My partner will continue to run the stud farm in Australia, while I take over here.’

‘I’d have thought,’ she said, ‘that the time to do that would have been after your father died last year. Assuming, of course,’ she added pointedly, ‘that you weren’t actually disinherited.’

Broad shoulders lifted. ‘Let’s just say there was a condition I wasn’t prepared to fulfil at the time.’

‘But now you are?’

‘Now I must.’ He paused, eyes reflective as they dwelt on her face. ‘My mother has less than a year to live. I intend to see she has everything she wants—whatever the cost. She wants me here, so I stay. I’m sorry if that doesn’t meet with your approval, but I really don’t have any other choice.’

Caryn bit her lip. There was no way she could oppose that statement. Logan was home, and she would simply have to grin and bear it.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘About your mother, I mean. Can nothing be done?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing that hasn’t already been tried. It’s a form of leukaemia, arrestable for a time but incurable in the long term. It’s all downhill from here.’

‘She knows the prognosis?’

‘Of course. She insisted on it.’ His smile was brief. ‘She was always the brave one.’

Caryn knew the woman only by sight. The Bannisters moved in a different social circle. If Margot Sinclair’s younger brother hadn’t invited her to that party two years ago, she would probably never have met Logan either.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I really am. It must be dreadful to know you’re going to die.’ She hesitated, searching for some way of extricating herself from this whole situation with a degree of dignity. ‘I’d better be getting back,’ was all she could come up with. ‘Mom will be wondering where I got to.’

‘How are your parents?’ Logan asked as she began turning away, and she looked back at him with reluctance.

‘They’re fine.’

‘Good.’ For a brief moment he seemed to hesitate, as if about to say something else, then he shook his head and swung himself back up into the saddle, holding the animal on the spot for a moment to lift a hand in a brief salute.

Caryn stood gazing after him as he cantered off in the direction from which he had come. It was still there. Just the same. Hatred was no barrier, it seemed, against physical attraction. She could remember as if it were yesterday that heart-jerking moment when she had looked up into those grey eyes for the very first time.

At sixteen, her emotions had been so intense, so immediate, so indiscriminate, his fifteen years’ seniority no obstacle. To Logan neither, it had turned out, but only up to a point.

With Whitegates only a couple of miles up the coast, and Barston the nearest town, there was little doubt that she would be seeing him around in the weeks and months to come, disturbing though that fact might be. She would simply have to learn to live with it.

Home was no more than a ten-minute walk from the beach in a suburb that had once been a village in its own right before earlier prosperity had spread Barston out to encompass it. It had been a very wet May and early June this year, giving no boost at all to the holiday trade on which the town depended. One of the few unspoiled coastal townships left in England, boasted the seasonal brochure with some truth, but that very lack of modernisation made the weather all the more vital to its viability as a resort.

Detached from its neighbours, and built to a cottagey style that blended well with the general Norfolk landscape, the house had been in the Gregory family for three generations. In today’s financial climate, maintenance had lapsed a little, lending the place a slightly shabby appearance due to peeling paintwork. Caryn’s father was no handyman, and he knew it, preferring to hire professionals as and when he could afford it. Caryn had offered to try her hand at the job, but he wouldn’t hear of it. No daughter of his, he said, was to go climbing ladders on his behalf.

Indoors, she followed the aroma of newly baked bread to the comfortable family kitchen, smiling at the woman washing up pans at the sink.

‘That smells good! Thank heaven for an old-fashioned mother!’

Susan Gregory laughed, pushing back a straying lock of fair hair with a soapy hand. ‘If liking to bake is old-fashioned, then that’s what I am. It wouldn’t do you any harm to learn.’

‘My hand would never be as light as yours,’ Caryn disclaimed. ‘It’s more used to hammering on a typewriter. One of these days, Taylor, Taylor and Simmerson might step into the twentieth century and acquire a wordprocessor. It would certainly make life easier.’

‘Why don’t you suggest it?’ asked her mother, and received a wry shrug.

‘I have, but the words fell on deaf ears. We “have no need of new-fangled notions”, to quote Mr Taylor senior. I don’t suppose they have while they can find someone mad enough to tackle the job as it stands.’

‘They pay you well,’ Susan responded on a faintly reproving note. ‘You’re not thinking of looking for another job, are you?’

‘In Barston?’ It was Caryn’s turn to laugh. ‘I’d be lucky to find one that wasn’t seasonal. Short of moving elsewhere, which I’ve no intention of doing, I suppose I must count my blessings.’

‘If you’d done as well in school as everyone expected you to do, and stayed on to take your A levels, you’d have had far more scope,’ her mother pointed out, not for the first time. ‘I could never understand why you finished up with such low marks in most of your GCSE subjects.’

‘Exam nerves, I expect,’ claimed Caryn with a lightness she was far from feeling. ‘Anyway, I did well enough in business college, even if the prospects round here are somewhat limited.’ She went to pick up the kettle, anxious for a change of subject. ‘I’ll make some tea. Dad’s always ready for a cup about this time.’

Her father was seated reading the evening newspaper when she took the tray through some minutes later.

‘Not going out tonight?’ he asked mildly, taking the cup she poured for him from her.

‘I’ve been out,’ she said.

‘To the beach?’ He shook his head. ‘That’s no way to spend Saturday evening. At least, it wasn’t in my younger days. You spend too much time on your own, Caryn. A pretty girl like you can’t be short of companionship.’

‘None I’m particularly interested in.’ Caryn kept her tone deliberately light. ‘Don’t worry about it, Dad. I like being on my own. Anyway, Jane will be back from holiday next week, so I shan’t be much longer. Unless she decides to get serious over Roy Gillingham, of course, in which case girlfriends have to take a back seat.’

‘She’s too young to be serious about anyone,’ John Gregory declared. ‘So is Roy Gillingham, if it comes to that. Your mother and I were both in our middle twenties before we married, which is why we’ve lasted so well. No teenagers can know their own minds.’

‘Probably not,’ Caryn murmured, steeling herself against the intruding memories. ‘I think I’ll have an early night and catch up on some reading. Mom said she’ll be through in a minute.’

Redecorated by herself only a few weeks ago in green and white with touches of pink in the curtains and covers, her bedroom somehow no longer pleased her as much. Lying on her back on the bed, gazing at the ceiling, she felt confined and restless. There had to be more to life than this day-to-day existence. Perhaps it was time, after all, that she thought about moving away from Barston. Not just to Norwich either, but further afield. There was a whole world out there waiting to be explored.

It was seeing Logan again that had brought this on, she knew. Closing her eyes, she could visualise him in detail. Remembering was painful, but she couldn’t stop herself from doing it…

‘And this is Michael’s little friend, Caryn,’ declared Margot Sinclair on an indulgent note.

Logan Bannister’s smile was slow, eyes riveting as he extended a hand. ‘Hello, Caryn.’

‘Hello.’ Her voice sounded odd, Caryn thought, hoping the warmth she could feel under her skin didn’t show in her face. She wasn’t normally prone to blushing, but then neither was she normally prone to falling in love at a moment’s notice. Logan was devastating; there was no other word for it! Not handsome in the way of her favourite film star, perhaps, yet somehow infinitely more exciting.

The fingers which had closed about hers were long and tensile, his grasp hinting of a latent strength. Without looking directly, she was aware of the crisp whiteness of his shirt cuff against tanned skin, of the glint of gold from the watch encircling one lean wrist. Having contact removed was sheer deprivation.

‘Are you in university too?’ he asked.

Margot laughed. ‘Hardly, darling! Caryn’s still in school. About to sit your GCSEs, I believe?’ she added.

‘Next month,’ Caryn confirmed with reluctance; she would have been more than ready to accept a couple of years’ promotion in this man’s eyes.

‘With straight A passes in all subjects,’ said Michael Sinclair lightly, slinging a casual arm about her shoulders. ‘Isn’t that right, angel?’

‘Hopefully,’ she murmured.

‘Good luck,’ proffered Logan, and she felt the impact of his smile once more.

‘Are he and your sister engaged or anything?’ she asked Michael on what she hoped was a casual note as the older couple moved on.

‘Not as yet,’ came the answer. ‘Although I’m pretty sure Margot has it in mind. And what she wants she usually gets.’

Caryn didn’t doubt it. A sizzlingly beautiful brunette, Margot Sinclair could probably have any man she chose. Logan must be around thirty himself, and eminently eligible. The Bannisters had a stud farm a few miles along the coast, and were said to be extremely wealthy. Logan certainly looked the part. The pale grey suit he was wearing had a cut and fit unmistakable even to her relatively untutored eyes.

She had seen him before, of course, but only at a distance when riding his horse along the beach, which he seemed to do most evenings. Having met him now, there was no reason why she shouldn’t wave a greeting in future, she thought. He might even stop to talk, although about what she had no idea. It didn’t really matter providing she got to be near him again.

Up until now, Michael had seemed so mature and sophisticated at nineteen and in his first year at university. She had been flattered by his attention at the spring dance last month, and hadn’t been reluctant to see him each weekend since, but there had never been any real romantic interest on her side. His kisses were no more than pleasant, while she imagined Logan Bannister’s to be out of this world! He was a man, not a boy. A real man!

She made sure to be on the beach the following evening around six-thirty, heart leaping when she saw him coming. He reined in at once when he spotted her, smiling down at her with every indication of pleasure.

‘I’ve seen you down here most evenings,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t know you were Michael’s girlfriend.’

‘I’m not,’ Caryn denied, and saw his brows lift. ‘I mean we’re just friends,’ she amended.

‘What else, at your age?’ Logan asked lightly. He touched his heels to the stallion’s sides, lifting a hand in farewell. ‘Bye for now.’

That was the beginning. Before too long he was not only stopping to talk to her, but getting down from his horse to walk with her while they talked about everything under the sun. Caryn lived for those moments. Unlike her parents, Logan treated her as an adult. With him she felt like an adult—a grown woman. Certainly the emotions he aroused in her went far beyond a girlish crush.

The suspicion that he might return her feelings came to her gradually, sparked by a certain look in his eyes, a certain note in his voice. Margot Sinclair might have it in sheer looks, but could she hold his interest in quite the same way with her views on current affairs, on literature and art? Could she make him laugh with her comments the way little Caryn Gregory did?

Because of Logan, she found herself reading Romeo and Juliet, which she was studying for GCSE, with new insight, identifying with the lovelorn teenager in a way she had never done before. But it was in Antony and Cleopatra that she found the real stimulation of her awakening senses. Here was a woman whose love for a man knew no bounds—a woman who saw no shame in declaring that love both in words and in action—a woman for whom there could never be any other man but Antony.

For Caryn there could never be any other man but Logan. She already knew that for a fact.

With her mind constantly in the clouds, her GCSEs were a disaster. Apart from English Literature, she doubted if she would finish up with more than Cs or even Ds for the rest. But it was a long time before the results would be through, and at present she had far more pressing concerns. Before anything, she had to know how Logan really felt about her.

Normally she would walk to meet him along the beach. This particular evening she sat and waited for him to come to her, heart thudding against her ribcage in the knowledge of what she was about to say to him. Like Antony, he would sweep her into his arms, press kisses on her lips, her eyes—everywhere and anywhere he cared to press them!

Then he was there, reining in to sit looking down at her with an expression in his eyes that told her she wasn’t mistaken.

‘Take me for a ride,’ she said, and he laughed, swinging her up in front of him, his breath warm on her neck, his body so hard and muscular at her back.

She had never ridden on a horse in her life before, but it felt so good to be up there above the sands, secure in Logan’s embrace, oblivious of the way her short summer skirt rode up her thighs. He kept the animal to a steady walk, one hand on the rein, the other about her waist. She could feel the pressure of his thighs against the back of hers, stirring her senses to a point where she scarcely knew what she was doing any more, and cared even less.

Blood singing in her ears, she took hold of his hand and moved it upwards to the region of her left breast, hearing his sudden sharp intake of breath as his fingers came into contact with the firm young curve.

‘For God’s sake, Caryn!’ he said gruffly against her hair. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing!’

‘Yes, I do,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you like touching me this way?’

‘Like it?’ The words came out on a groan. ‘Of course I like it! I…’ He broke off abruptly, moving the hand sharply away. ‘I think I’d better put you down.’

He brought the horse to a halt and dismounted, reaching up to seize her about the waist, face grimly set. ‘Come on.’

Caryn allowed herself to slide down into his arms, putting her own about his neck and burying her face in his shirt-front as she found her feet. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she begged. ‘I love you, Logan!’

His whole body was rigid. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying,’ he reiterated. ‘You don’t even know what love is.’

‘Yes, I do. It’s the way you make me feel.’ She was desperate to convince him. She lifted her face to his, searching the grey eyes and seeing the look she had seen before slowly ousting the grimness. Instinctively she pressed herself closer to him, feeling the hardness of his chest against her breasts, the tingling in her nipples. Her lips were slightly parted, youthfully full and moist, trembling a little in their eagerness for his touch.

He kissed her roughly, as if in a deliberated attempt to frighten her off, but she refused to be intimidated by it, kissing him back with a fervency that took him by surprise and elicited an involuntary response. It was so different from Michael’s kisses, stirring emotions only vaguely sensed up to now, turning her limbs to jelly and starting a burning heat in her lower body.

A low groan broke from Logan’s lips as she moved instinctively against him, and he tried to put her from him. But she wouldn’t be put, clinging to him with all her strength, wanting this to continue. For a brief moment he resisted, then he groaned again and went on kissing her, pressuring her lips apart and sending quivers of excitement racing through her. He was Antony, she was Cleopatra, and they were in love. Wonderfully, intoxicatingly in love!

When he lifted her in his arms and carried her into the sand dunes it was all part of that same scenario. When he laid her on the sand and lowered himself to her she knew nothing but delight in his masculine assertion.

Her blouse was a flimsy, sleeveless affair buttoned down the front, her brassiere a wisp of lace that gave easily to the seeking hand. The touch of his fingers on her bare skin made her shiver. Such a delicate touch, tracing a spiral about her breast until it finally reached her aching nipple.

Caryn stifled a cry as he lowered his head to take the proud little nub of flesh between his lips, unable to bear the exquisite sensation yet desperate for it to continue. Her hands slid of their own accord into the crisp, clean thickness of his hair, fingers digging into his scalp, her body arched towards the marauding mouth. She had read so many literary—and not so literary—descriptions of lovemaking, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined it to be as wonderful as this! She was on fire all the way through.

Elasticated at the waist, her skirt slid easily down over her hips. Logan followed its passage with his lips, fluttering the skin of her abdomen and causing her thigh muscles to go into sudden spasm. She caught at him frantically as he brushed the lacy edging of her briefs, hardly knowing what she wanted at that moment. He didn’t resist, but lifted his head first to find her breast and then her lips again kissing her back into a state where she cared about nothing else but having this go on.

He removed her remaining undergarment with dexterity, sliding his hand back along the length of her leg to seek her innermost secrets. Eyes closed, she was lost in a world of pure sensation, pliant to his every demand. There was a brief moment when she thought he was leaving her, but then he came right over her and there was a wholly new sensation, a burgeoning pressure that parted her thighs and brought a bubbling cry to her lips.

Her eyes flew open in surprise as the pressure increased, her muscles tensing involuntarily against the intrusion. It was so much more than she had anticipated— if she had thought this far at all—stretching her, filling her, forging a passage to the very centre of her being.

The pressure became suddenly unbearable, flaring into sharp pain that was gone as quickly as it came, to be replaced by a wonderful glowing warmth. The movement came to her easily, instinctively, lifting her hips in a rhythm as old as time. She heard the rasp of Logan’s breath in her ears but was unaware that the moaning sound accompanying was coming from her own lips. There was a moment of pure ecstasy when she thought she must have died and gone straight to heaven, then everything dissolved into nothingness.

How long the two of them lay, Caryn had no clear idea. She came back to earth to find herself gazing into an evening-misted sky, aware of the weight and warmth holding her down, and of her spreadeagled lower limbs.

They were still joined as one, she realised, although the pressure had decreased to a point where the unity was more sensed than actually felt. She had done that to him, she thought exultantly. Like Cleopatra, she had given her man the ultimate pleasure of climactic fulfilment. She felt neither shame nor regret. At least not then. The wonder of it was all too devastatingly new for any opposing emotion to find purchase.

‘We belong together now,’ she whispered into the dark hair lying so close to her lips. ‘For always!’

For a brief moment there was no response—no movement at all from the man lying with head buried in her shoulder. When he did move it was abruptly, levering himself upright without looking at her directly, face taut and alien.

Too stunned to react, Caryn felt her skirt tossed over her legs as if to hide her nudity, and then he was gone from her line of vision altogether.

When she did finally raise herself up on her elbows, Logan was sitting with his back to her a few feet away, arms resting on bent knees, head lowered. He looked, Caryn thought, like a man with a great weight on his shoulders.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked hesitantly, still not wholly understanding the sudden change in him.

‘Get dressed,’ he said without lifting his head. His voice was rough.

She did so with hands gone suddenly nerveless, fastening the tiny buttons of her blouse with difficulty. Only when she stopped moving did Logan stir himself to turn and look at her. His expression was under strict control.

‘That should never have happened,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’m not making any excuses, because there aren’t any. You’re just a child, Caryn. I had no right to take that away from you.’

‘I’m not a child!’ She was eager to convince him of it, face lit by her turbulent inner emotions. ‘I love you, Logan. You only did what I wanted you to do—what all men and women in love do!’

‘You’re not a woman, and you’re not in love with me.’ The statement was bald, the tone curt. ‘Infatuated, perhaps, but that will pass. What happened just now…’ He paused, biting his lip. ‘I can only hope to God that there are no repercussions.’

‘It isn’t infatuation,’ Caryn protested, not fully registering the latter remark. ‘Do you think I don’t know the difference? I love you, Logan! I want us to be together always!’

‘It isn’t possible.’ He said it between gritted teeth, body taut as a bowstring. ‘You’re still at school, for one thing.’

‘I can leave. I hate it, anyway!’

‘No, you don’t,’ he returned. ‘You’re going to stay on and take your A levels, maybe go to university. You’ll probably fall in love more than once before you find the man you really want to spend the rest of your life with.’

‘I already found him,’ she insisted, refusing to be turned from what she knew to be the truth. ‘There’ll never be anyone else. I only want you!’

The skin about the strong mouth whitened as his teeth came sharply together. ‘But I don’t want you,’ he said. ‘Not any more. I can’t replace what you gave me, and I’m truly sorry about that, but it doesn’t make any difference. You’ve your whole life ahead of you. You’ll soon forget me.’

‘No, I won’t!’ She still couldn’t believe what he was telling her. Not after the way he had kissed her, caressed her, been a living part of her. He had to love her!

She caught at his arm as he began to rise, pulling with all her strength to restrain him. ‘You can’t just go. I won’t let you go!’

Features set, eyes like steel, he prised her fingers away from his sleeve and got up, leaving her sitting there in the sand with realisation finally coming over her like a heavy black cloud.

‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘I’ve left myself no choice. You won’t see me again unless…’ He broke off, jaw tensing, then turned away abruptly to make his way over to where the chestnut still stood patiently waiting.

Numbed throughout, Caryn watched him swing himself into the saddle and canter off without a backward glance. Only when horse and rider had dwindled to a mere speck in the distance did she finally find the strength of will to make her limbs move.

On her feet she felt sick and shaky and desperately unhappy. Logan didn’t love her; he had never loved her. It had all been a figment of her imagination.

But the feeling inside her was no figment. She felt violated, unclean. Never again, she vowed, would she allow a man to do that to her. She was finished with sex for ever!

It was only three days later that she heard of Logan’s sudden departure for Australia. Three days during which she hadn’t gone near the beach. From love, her emotions had turned to a hatred so intense it coloured her every waking moment.

The dawning realisation that she might turn out to be pregnant made her feel physically ill, the thought of having to tell her parents even more so. Luckily it was only a week before she received thankful proof that she was lucky this time, but the relief in no way tempered her feelings towards the man who had given her cause for such concern. Had he still been around, she would have found some way of paying him back for what he had done to her…

Which she would still if he made any attempt to come near her again, Caryn vowed to herself, returning to the present, although quite what, she wasn’t sure. She could hardly go and tell a dying woman just what kind of a louse her son was.

What she had to do was put the whole affair behind her and get on with her life. Logan Bannister wasn’t worth losing any sleep over.

CHAPTER TWO

SUNDAY was long and quiet. Restless still, Caryn took advantage of the continuing good weather to go for an afternoon stroll into town.

The sun had brought out the holidaymakers in force. For the first time in weeks the main beach was a scene of activity. Some hardy souls had even ventured into the sea, braving a water temperature that made Caryn shiver just thinking about it. She never attempted to swim in the sea before August even in a good season.

At four o’clock, having seen almost no one she knew, she set off to walk the couple of miles back home, not looking forward to the dull evening ahead. Her father was right, of course, she acknowledged wryly. She did spend far too much time on her own. The problem was finding someone she wanted to share that time with.

Apart from Jane, she didn’t have a lot in common with her contemporaries, who seemed to spend most of their time either visiting various public houses or attending discos where the loudness of the music drowned all attempts at conversation. Other than the cinema, or a trip to one of the Norwich theatres, that was about it, she supposed.

It had been different when she’d been going out with Michael Sinclair those few weeks. He had introduced her to another world. She had refused to see him again after Logan left, and had no idea at all of where he might be these days. Not that it mattered anyway.

Reaching the crossroads on the outskirts of the town proper, she took advantage of a gap in the traffic to save waiting for the green man to put in an appearance. A misjudgement, she realised immediately, hearing the sudden blare of a horn from a car that seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

Hurrying to get across, she stumbled on the kerb and almost fell her length, hitting one knee against the stone edge with sickening force as she went down. She was vaguely aware of hearing a car door slam, and then there were hands under her arms, lifting her back into her feet.

‘Thanks,’ she said wryly, trying to ignore the pain from her knee. ‘That was stupid of me.’

Her voice died in her throat as she turned her head to glance at her rescuer, the apologetic little smile freezing on her lips.

‘Yes, it was,’ agreed Logan briefly. ‘You gave yourself a nasty crack. How does it feel?’

‘It’s nothing,’ Caryn assured him, recovering her tongue if not her equilibrium. ‘I’m fine!’

‘I’m sure,’ he returned with satire. ‘You’d better get in the car and I’ll run you home.’

‘I said I’m all right!’ she snapped. ‘I don’t have far to go, in any case.’

‘St Albans, isn’t it? We have to pass the end of your road.’ His tone was unequivocal.

For the first time, Caryn became aware of the woman occupying the passenger seat of the silver blue Mercedes drawn into the roadside. Dark-haired like her son, Helen Bannister was well enough known by sight around the town, if not exactly on intimate terms with the general population. She was watching the scene now with a curious expression on a face that already showed signs of deterioration in health by its lack of colour and hollow cheeks.

‘I think you had better do as Logan says,’ she called through the opened window.

Logan settled the matter by taking Caryn’s arm in a firm grasp and propelling her over to the car, leaving her with no alternative, short of causing a scene, but to slide into the rear passenger seat when he opened the door for her.

‘Put the belt on,’ he instructed. ‘It might only be a few minutes’ ride, but better to be safe than sorry.’

Safe enough in body, perhaps, Caryn thought hollowly. Fate played some dirty tricks.

Seated right behind Logan as he put the car into motion again, she was too close for comfort. The crisp, clean line of his hair across the nape of his neck made her ache with the longing to reach out and touch. Nothing had changed. Not where her senses were concerned. Everything about him made her ache.

Helen Bannister half turned in her seat to offer a somewhat reticent smile. ‘Such a lovely day for a walk after all that rain!’

‘Yes, it is.’ Caryn could find nothing to add to the abrupt affirmative. None of this was Mrs Bannister’s fault, she reminded herself. The woman could have no idea of the underlying currents between her son and this stranger he had picked up from the roadside. So far as she was concerned, he was simply playing the Good Samaritan.

‘You must be in a lot of pain after a knock like that,’ continued the other. ‘Knees are always the worst places to injure.’

Caryn forced a smile of her own. ‘It really isn’t hurting very much at all,’ she lied. ‘It was my own fault anyway. I should have waited for the green light.’

Logan made no comment, but she could sense his glance through the driving mirror, imagine his sardonic expression. They were already approaching the turn-off from the main road. He took it without hesitation, as also the next turn into St Albans, drawing to a halt in front of the Gregory residence.

‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘Safe, if not exactly sound. You should get that knee seen to. You might have chipped the bone.’

‘I will,’ she affirmed, hoping no one happened to be looking out of the front windows at present. ‘Thank you for the lift.’

‘I’ll help you out,’ he said as she reached for the door-handle. ‘At the very least it will have stiffened up.’

He was right, Caryn discovered, biting off an exclamation as she moved her leg. Perhaps not chipped, but certainly badly bruised. Fortunately her job didn’t call for a lot of walking.

Logan came back to open the door and extend a hand. She took it with reluctance, relinquishing it again the moment she was out of the car and standing on the kerb. Turning her head, she directed a brief smile at the other occupant.

‘Goodbye—and thank you too.’

Mrs Bannister nodded but didn’t speak. She looked, Caryn thought fleetingly, as if she scarcely knew what to say.

Logan made no further attempt to touch her in any way. Wearing a soft leather jacket in light tan, and silky roll-necked sweater, he looked every inch the landed gentry. Only on the surface, though, she reminded herself. Underneath he was pure dross.

‘I need to talk to you,’ he said in low but urgent tones.

Body tensed, nerves stretched, she said jerkily, ‘I don’t think we have anything to talk about.’

‘Yes, we do.’ He paused, added with purpose, ‘You wouldn’t want me to come to the house, I assume?’

Her head lifted sharply. ‘No!’

‘Then meet me tonight on the beach. Seven o’clock. Same place.’

He was gone before she could say yea or nay, rounding the car bonnet to slide back behind the wheel. Mrs Bannister lifted a hand in farewell as the vehicle moved off.

Staring after it, Caryn wondered what on earth Logan could have to say to her that hadn’t already been said last night. Nothing she wanted to hear, at any rate, so he could wait in vain.

On the other hand, he might very well keep his threat to come to the house if she failed to keep the appointment, and how would she explain that to her parents? She had no choice but to go, regardless of how she might feel about it. He had made sure of that.

It was something of a relief to find that her arrival had gone unwitnessed. Her knee was painful, and as Logan had warned, already stiffening up, but she managed not to limp on her way upstairs to view the damage.

Just badly bruised, she judged from a cursory inspection. It would probably be black and blue by morning, so short skirts were definitely out. Fortunately, fashion didn’t dictate any particular length at present.

They ate at six, as they always did on a Sunday. Right up until ten to seven, Caryn was vacillating over keeping her appointment with Logan. She reached a final decision on the strength of curiosity alone—or so she told herself.

Her announcement that she was going for another walk drew no particular comment. Her mother was ensconced in front of the television for her favourite situation comedy show, her father was still engrossed in the Sunday newspapers—the two of them settled into comfortable middle-age. Nothing wrong with that, Caryn supposed, yet tonight it somehow seemed indicative of everything she didn’t want for herself. Life was for living, not stagnating. It was high time she gave some serious thought towards exchanging one for the other.

She was at the appointed place on the hour, to find the stretch of beach empty of all but the gulls. By ten past she had begun to think the whole thing had been Logan’s sick idea of a joke, although what possible entertainment he might get from that she couldn’t begin to imagine. She was on the verge of leaving when she saw horse and rider finally approaching.

Logan came up at a fast canter, drawing to a halt far enough away to avoid showering her with sand kicked up by the chestnut’s hooves.

‘Thanks for waiting,’ he said, dismounting. ‘I had a call from Australia.’

Caryn retained her seat on the ledge of sand as he moved towards her. ‘I only came because you made it impossible to refuse,’ she said stonily. ‘Not because I want to be here. Just say what you have to say.’

He contemplated her in silence for a lengthy moment, eyes veiled. When he did speak it was with an odd note in his voice. ‘I need to know how you really feel about me now, Caryn.’

The question dried her throat. She gazed at him with darkened eyes, fighting the almost overwhelming urge to jump up and rake her nails down that lean brown cheek. ‘How would you expect me to feel?’ she got out with an effort

His smile was wry. ‘What I’d expect and what I can hope for are two different things.’

Her voice seemed to be coming from a long way away. ‘So what do you hope for?’

‘That you’ll be prepared to marry me,’ he said.

This couldn’t be for real, she thought dazedly. He was making fun of her. He had to be!

‘Don’t look so stricken,’ he said on a dry note. ‘All I’m asking for is a simple yes or no.’

‘All?’ She drew in a shaky breath. ‘I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing, but you’re not doing it with me!’

He caught her arm as she began to turn away, pulling her back round to face him and holding her there, a look of determination on his face. ‘It’s no game, believe me. I need you, Caryn.’

Need, not love, a part of her mind registered, but the shock was still too great to take any real account of the distinction.

‘I don’t understand,’ she managed to get out. ‘Why now?’

His lips twisted. ‘Because you’re eighteen, not sixteen. Old enough to know your own mind.’

Eyes wide and dark, she gazed at him in silence as she grappled with the implications of that statement. When she did find her voice it came out low and husky. ‘Are you trying to tell me you felt the same way two years ago?’

‘Why else do you think I went away?’ he asked. ‘You were sixteen, I was thirty-one. I doubt if your parents would have sanctioned marriage between us—whatever the circumstances.’

He was right about that, Caryn knew. They would have been utterly devastated had they been forced to learn of her premature initiation into womanhood, but there would have been no marriage. Not at sixteen. She searched the firm features with a sense almost of desperation, heart and mind in turmoil. Right at this moment she didn’t know how she felt about him—about anything. It was all too much to take in.

As if in recognition of her dilemma, he drew her to him, sliding a hand behind her head to tilt her face up to his. The kiss moved her immeasurably in its gentle yet inexorable seeking. She found her arms moving of their own accord up about his neck, her whole body surging into closer proximity. There had never been anyone else who could make her feel this way—as if fireworks had been lit inside her. She wanted him to go on kissing her, to make love to her, to lift her to that seventh heaven she had experienced so briefly yet never once forgotten.

It was Logan himself who brought matters to a halt by putting her firmly, if with reluctance, away from him. He was smiling, eyes fired with a desire he made no effort to conceal.

‘Still the same lovely, warm, responsive Caryn,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve dreamed about making love to you again, but it isn’t going to happen like this. We have a lot to talk about first.’

Still held fast in the grip of her turbulent emotions, Caryn allowed herself to be drawn to a seat on the wedge of sand she had so recently vacated. Logan kept an arm lightly about her shoulders.

‘Before we go any further,’ he said, ‘I have to tell you that my mother knows the whole story, and has done from the start. She kept an eye on you for me. If there had been any hint at all of a pregnancy, I would have come back and faced up to it, but going away seemed the best thing for us both at the time.’

Caryn said slowly, ‘Does she know about… now?’

‘Yes.’

‘And approves?’

‘Yes,’ he said again, and hesitated a moment before continuing, ‘She’s the main reason I’m not prepared to spend too much time rebuilding a relationship between us. It’s her dearest wish to see me happily married.’ There was a pause, a change of tone. ‘You are going to marry me, aren’t you, Caryn?’

‘It’s all so sudden,’ she protested. ‘I can’t take it in.’ She could feel herself trembling as reaction began to set in. ‘You didn’t attempt to see me last year when your father died.’

‘I dared not let myself. I was only here a few days, anyway.’ He brought up his other hand to trace the line of her mouth with the tip of a finger, making her tremble with another, quite different emotion. ‘You told me once that you loved me,’ he said softly. ‘Does that still follow?’

Caryn was hard put to it to think of anything other than what he was doing to her with that slow caress. She caught at his hand, staying the movement yet not pulling away. ‘We hardly know one another,’ she whispered. ‘Not in any real sense.’

‘We know how we feel,’ he returned. ‘That’s the most important.’

Caryn wasn’t sure. She felt totally confused. For this to happen after two years of hatred was beyond all reason. How could she even begin to sort out her emotions?

‘Does your mother really consider me the kind of wife you should have?’ she asked. ‘There must be others far more suitable.’

‘Suitable to whom, and for what?’ Logan queried. ‘If I’m going to take a wife at all, then it has to be my choice.’

He studied her for a brief moment, then tilted her chin and kissed her again, this time with less restraint, parting her lips in surging response. Caryn didn’t try to think, only to feel—the way she had always felt about this man deep down in her heart. He had been her first love; she wanted him to be her only love. Nothing else seemed important right now but that.

‘I take it the answer is yes,’ he said with a touch of arrogance when he lifted his head at last. ‘It must be soon. There isn’t a lot of time left.’

‘It can’t be that soon.’ She was breathless, heart racing, mind in a whirl. ‘What do I tell my parents?’

‘The truth, up to a point,’ he suggested. ‘Just leave out the more intimate detail. They’ll surely understand the need for haste when they know about Mother.’

‘She won’t mind their knowing?’

‘Providing they keep it to themselves. The last thing she’d want is for the whole town to know.’ Logan took her hand, pressing the back of it to his lips in a gesture that warmed her all the way through. ‘You’re of age. It’s your decision, not theirs. Your life.’ His smile was an inducement in itself. ‘You won’t regret it, Caryn. I’ll make sure you don’t.’

Caution went to the winds. Whatever the cost, she thought recklessly, she couldn’t turn her back on this dream come true. Logan had to love her, even though he hadn’t actually used the word. How else could he contemplate marriage?

‘Yes,’ she breathed, not trying to keep her emotions in check any longer. ‘Yes, Logan, I’ll marry you. As soon as you like!’

He made no attempt to kiss her again, much as she wanted him to. His acknowledging nod was verging on the perfunctory. ‘Give me half an hour to return Ballantyne to the stables, and I’ll come and see your parents,’ he said. ‘Or better still, why don’t you come on back with me, then we can drive in together?’

It was all going too fast, much too fast, but Caryn wouldn’t allow herself pause for reflection. Logan was in charge all the way; that was how she wanted it. It was how she had always wanted it.

He put her up before him on the horse, the same way he had that other evening. Only this was different, so different, she thought blissfully, leaning against him. She could feel the strong beat of his heart through the two layers of clothing, the radiating body heat. The muscles of her inner thighs went into spasm at the memory of that other time. Such an age ago, but never forgotten. And soon to happen again, if Logan had his way. Only this time they would be man and wife.

Whitegates lay back from the coastal road. Built of mellow brick, and Georgian in design, the house was large and imposing, the formal gardens immediately surrounding it full of life and colour. The stables lay off to the rear, reached via a lane running alongside the property, with the seventy acres of privately owned land stretching beyond.

A youth came out to the yard to take the horse as Logan handed Caryn down from its back. She knew him by sight if not by name, and was aware that he recognised her too from the way he gaped at her.

‘You can talk to Mother while I get out of these things,’ said Logan, turning her back towards the house. ‘It won’t take me long.’

‘What do I say to her?’ Caryn asked, panicking at the very thought of facing the woman.

‘Just be yourself,’ he advised. ‘She won’t bite.’ He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘She wants this as much as I do.’

Neither of them more than she did herself, came the fervent thought as she looked up into the lean features. She belonged to this man, wholly and for ever. Time had no bearing. A day, a week, a year, even two yearsit was all the same.

They went in through a side door, passing along a corridor to emerge into a lofty hall panelled in oak. The staircase rose from the centre, branching off at the halfway point to galleried landings either side. Black and white tiles polished to a high but non-slippery sheen covered the floor.

Glancing around, Caryn felt intimidated by the obvious signs of wealth allied to superb good taste, conscious of her simple cotton trousers and shirt, her windblown hair. Even in jodhpurs and riding boots, Logan looked completely at home.

He crossed to double doors on the right and ushered her through to a room full of soft evening light. A beautiful room, full of antiques yet with a lived-in look that gave her fresh heart. Seated on a brocade sofa by the side of the white marble fireplace, Mrs Bannister welcomed the two of them with a smile that seemed wholly genuine.

‘I gather that congratulations are in order?’ she said to her son. To Caryn, she added, ‘Come and sit by me. We have to get to know one another.’

‘I’ll leave you to it, said Logan. ‘I’m going up to change.’

Stay, Caryn wanted to beg, but he was already closing the door in his wake. Feeling totally at a loss, she moved to do his mother’s bidding, perching on the very edge of her seat.

‘Do make yourself comfortable,’ the older woman invited. ‘I realise how difficult this must be for you, but I can assure you that I thoroughly approve my son’s choice.’

‘But you don’t even know me,’ Caryn pointed out bemusedly.

‘I know of you—and of your family. The Gregorys are very well respected.’ She paused as if to choose her words, eyes reflective as they dwelt on the face turned towards her. ‘You’re very young. The only question I would ask is, are you quite sure this is what you want?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Caryn could say that without hesitation. She gave a laugh. ‘I’m still reeling from the suddenness of it all, but it’s definitely what I want. What I always…’ She broke off, colouring and looking down at the hands clasped in her lap. ‘Logan said he’d told you… everything.’

‘Yes, he did. Two years ago. It was the only way he could make me understand why he had decided to accept his friend’s invitation to partner him in Australia.’ The tone was matter-of-fact. ‘It seemed the best thing at the time.’

Caryn said softly, ‘Because of me you lost your son for two years.’

‘Not wholly. I visited him. In any case, he and his father didn’t get along too well, so it was better for them both to be apart for a while.’ Her voice briskened. ‘That’s all in the past. We have the future to look to now. You’ll be prepared to live here at Whitegates after you’re married, I trust?’

‘Well, yes, of course.’ Caryn hadn’t got that far in her imaginings as yet, and could find no other answer.

‘You’ll have your own rooms, of course. The house is big enough to convert the upper east wing. Plenty of room for a nursery too.’

‘Nursery?’ Caryn’s head came up, eyes startled. ‘Isn’t that looking a bit far ahead?’

‘I hope not too far.’ The smile was still there, but slightly strained now, the grey eyes so like her son’s petitioning. ‘I’d give a great deal to see my grandchild before I die.’

‘Of course.’ Caryn could think of nothing else to say. She and Logan weren’t even married yet. If they were to grant his mother’s wish, they would have to move fast. She felt disconcerted by the request, even while she could appreciate the motives behind it. Everything was moving too fast.

She was relieved when Logan came back into the room. He had exchanged the jodhpurs for linen trousers and a fine cotton shirt in a pale green that enhanced his tan. Her heart jolted at the very sight of him. It just didn’t seem possible that he was to be her husband.

‘Ready?’ he said. ‘Let’s go and get it over with.’

For the first time Caryn allowed herself to consider the shock they were about to drop on her parents. How on earth did she make them understand?

‘It’s too soon,’ she heard herself saying apprehensively. ‘They never even met you before!’

‘They’ll adjust,’ Logan declared firmly. ‘They’ll have to adjust.’

‘Logan will take care of it,’ his mother assured her.

Caryn came to her feet with reluctance. Logan might, but she would still have to face her family after he had gone. They were going to be devastated, disbelieving. How could they be anything else in the circumstances?

‘I’ll see you again soon,’ said Mrs Bannister. She looked tired, her face pale. ‘Very soon.’

They were in the Mercedes and heading down the drive before Caryn found her tongue. ‘I think I’m going to wake up and find this is all a dream,’ she said, unsurprised to hear the quiver in her voice.

Logan looked amused. ‘Would you like me to pinch you to prove you’re awake? It’s real enough, I can assure you.’

She glanced at him sideways as he brought the car to a halt before turning out on to the road, viewing the clean-cut profile with an undeniable thrill of excitement. He moved the car out from the drive, and accelerated away, hands firm on the wheel. Good hands, thought Caryn, watching their movement; long and lean and knowledgeable, the nails neatly trimmed and cleanrimmed. If he was nervous, he certainly wasn’t revealing it. He looked totally at ease.

Sensing her scrutiny, he glanced her way with a brief smile. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll do the talking.’

It wasn’t a long journey. Caryn knew a wave of sheer panic when Logan brought the car to a halt at the front gate. She fought it down, but could feel herself trembling inside when she got out of the vehicle.

‘Bear up,’ said Logan softly, closing the door. He slid an arm about her shoulders and drew her close for a moment, his lips warm against her temple. ‘It will be all right, you’ll see.’

Eventually, perhaps, she thought, but it was the here and now that had to be got through first.

The front door was unlocked, the way it usually was during the day despite all the warnings. Susan Gregory came out from the living-room as Caryn closed the door again.

‘You’ve been a long…’ she began, breaking off abruptly on taking in Logan’s presence. Surprise gave way to confusion as her gaze moved from his face back to her daughter’s, then her natural good manners took over. ‘Mr Bannister, isn’t it? From Whitegates?’

‘That’s right,’ he returned easily. ‘And the name is Logan. I’m sorry to spring things on you this way, but better sooner than later.’

The confusion grew. ‘I don’t understand. What things?’

He indicated the room from which she had just emerged. ‘I think you and your husband should hear it together.’

Throat dry as a bone, Caryn felt his hand at her centre back ushering her ahead of him into the room in her mother’s wake. Her father looked at the newcomer in surprise, then questioningly at Caryn.

‘Is there something wrong?’ he asked.

Face registering little, Logan reached out an arm and drew Caryn to his side in a gesture unmistakably possessive. ‘Before anything else, we should tell you that we’re going to be married.’

The silence following that forthright announcement seemed to Caryn to stretch interminably. The two stunned faces gazing back at them looked to be carved from stone. John Gregory was the first to recover his power of speech.

‘Isn’t this a bit sudden?’ he asked on an amazingly mild note. ‘I know who you are, but I wasn’t aware that you and Caryn knew each other. Didn’t you just get back from Australia or somewhere?’

‘That’s right,’ Logan said again. ‘Only yesterday. I’ve waited two years. I wasn’t prepared to wait any longer. It would be nice to have your blessing.’

Nice, but by no means essential, his tone suggested— to Caryn at least. She kept her eyes fixed on her father’s face, neither caring nor daring to glance in her mother’s direction.

‘I know it has to be a shock for you both,’ she said huskily, thinking that that had to be the understatement of the year. ‘It was for me too. But it’s what I want. More than anything in the world!’

‘I don’t understand,’ said her mother blankly. ‘It doesn’t make any sense! You were just a schoolgirl two years ago!’

‘Which is why I went away when I did,’ put in Logan smoothly. ‘To give her time to grow up. Even if you’d been willing to grant approval then, which I very much doubt, I couldn’t have traded on a sixteen-year-old’s feelings. Fortunately, Caryn still feels the same way. We want to be together.’

‘Are you saying you were seeing each other while she was still in school?’ demanded Susan on a shocked note. ‘You must be nearly old enough to be her father!’

The dark head inclined, mouth wryly slanted. ‘Possible, if unlikely. Caryn was a very mature schoolgirl in a lot of ways. We shared a lot of interests.’

‘Michael Sinclair introduced us at a family party,’ said Caryn swiftly. ‘You remember Michael?’

‘Of course I remember Michael. You brought him to meet us.’ Susan’s voice had sharpened. ‘This is quite ridiculous!’

‘I think the two of you had better sit down,’ said John Gregory. ‘You too, Susan,’ he added to his wife. ‘We have to discuss this.’

‘There’s nothing very much to discuss,’ Logan returned. ‘Apart from wedding arrangements perhaps. It would probably be easier all round if we made it the register office rather than a church ceremony. Easier and quicker. Before the end of the month for preference.’

‘Now just wait a minute!’ Relatively calm up to now, the older man was beginning to sound agitated. ‘Everything else aside, what’s the rush? You haven’t been back five minutes!’

‘There’s a good reason,’ said Caryn, deciding it was time she put in a word. She glanced at Logan, taking his nod as recognition and approval of what she was about to impart. ‘Mrs Bannister doesn’t have long to live,’ she went on, trying to sound as matter-of-fact about it as the woman herself had been earlier. ‘She naturally wants to see Logan settled before she goes. The longer we wait, the weaker she’s going to become.’ She paused, looking from one parent to the other in an appeal for understanding. ‘I don’t want to wait either.’

‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ said Susan Gregory to Logan on a subdued note. ‘I heard she’d been ill, but I had no idea it was so bad.’

‘She’s accepted it,’ he returned levelly. ‘But you can appreciate that I’d want her to be as happy as possible while she’s still with us, and this will help.’

‘Does she already know about it?’

Caryn took it on herself to answer that question too. ‘Logan took me to see her before we came on here.’

‘It’s a wonder the shock didn’t kill her!’

‘She’s always known how I felt about Caryn,’ answered Logan without particular inflection. ‘I realise how you must both of you be feeling, and I’m sorry it has to be this way, but that’s the way it is. Caryn is happy about it. I’d like you to be too.’

The arm about Caryn’s shoulders increased pressure for a fleeting moment, then was removed. ‘I think the best thing is for me to leave now and give you all chance to talk in private. Tomorrow will be time enough to start discussing arrangements.’ To Caryn herself, he added on a softer note, ‘Come and see me off.’

She accompanied him wordlessly, reluctant to have him go so soon, even while she recognised the motive behind his departure. She had to face her family alone some time, so why prolong the agony?

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said at the door. ‘You have to get to know your future home.’

‘I’m at work tomorrow,’ she reminded him, and saw his expression alter.

‘I’d forgotten about your job. Are you monthly or weekly salaried?’

‘Weekly,’ she acknowledged. ‘But—’

‘Then you only need give a week’s notice. I’d propose that we arrange the wedding for the twenty-ninth. That’s a week from Wednesday. I can only spare a few days for a honeymoon, but we can take a longer break later.’

Caryn’s head was reeling. He had it all planned. Every last detail! And why not? came the thought. Wasn’t it better to have a man who knew exactly what he wanted and did something about it than one who left everything to others? She had always known him for a forceful character; she wouldn’t want him any different. And hadn’t she been saying only yesterday that she found her job boring? Life as Logan’s wife would be infinitely more exciting!

‘I’ll hand my notice in first thing,’ she promised. She gave a sudden laugh. ‘It’s going to cause quite a furore when I tell them the reason!’

Logan smiled and shrugged. ‘A nine-day wonder. They’ll get over it.’ Bending his head, he placed a brief and unsatisfying kiss on her mouth, leaving her aching for more. ‘You’d better go on back and face the music,’ he said. ‘I’ll be here tomorrow evening.’

He was gone before she could protest, pulling the door closed behind him. Caryn stood for a moment or two gathering herself before returning to the living room. Nothing anyone could say or do was going to change her mind, she vowed. She would marry Logan come what may! As he had said, it was her life, her choice.

All the same, facing the two of them was one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life. Looking from one accusing face to another, she sought defence in a direct frontal attack.

‘I do know what I’m doing, and I’m of age to do it,’ she declared, ‘so please don’t try telling me any different. I was in love with Logan two years ago, and I am still.’

‘You were too young to be in love with anybody two years ago,’ said her mother flatly. ‘You were infatuated with an older man.’

‘Call it what you like,’ Caryn returned defiantly. ‘I know how I felt then, and I know how I feel now.’

‘And what about Bannister?’ asked her father without raising his voice. ‘Are you as sure of his feelings?’

‘Of course. Why else would he want to marry me?’

Susan made a helpless little gesture. ‘I still can’t take it all in. You never even mentioned his name before!’

Caryn felt the defiance crumble. She crossed swiftly to her mother and pressed a kiss on her cheek. ‘It’s going to be all right. It really is. I love him.’

‘A man nearly twice your age!’

‘I’d feel the same way whatever age he was.’ She tried to lighten the atmosphere with a joke. ‘And you have to admit, he’s an awfully good catch!’

‘There’s a great deal more to marriage than money,’ said her mother sharply, taking the remark at face value. ‘How do you know you can trust him? He had quite a reputation in the past.’

‘If he had, it’s in the past,’ Caryn responded, refusing to allow the intimation to bother her. ‘I’d be far more worried if he hadn’t already sown his wild oats, as the saying goes.’ She made an appealing gesture to her father. ‘I’m sorry for springing it on you this way, but please try to understand. I love Logan, I’m going to marry him, and I want you to be happy for me.’

‘If he cares enough for you,’ said John Gregory slowly, ‘he’ll be prepared to wait a while.’

‘Regardless of his mother’s condition?’ Caryn shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t make any difference, anyway.’ She paused, looking from one to the other of her parents. ‘You won’t refuse to have anything to do with the wedding, will you?’

‘Meaning you’ll be going ahead with it whether we do or not.’ Her father’s tone was wry. ‘No, we won’t refuse. How could we turn our backs on our own daughter?’

‘Thanks.’ Caryn hardly knew what else to say. ‘I think I’ll have another early night,’ she tagged on, anxious to escape any further discussion. ‘I’ll be giving in my notice tomorrow, by the way. Logan doesn’t want a working wife.’

She made her escape before any comment could be made, and went straight upstairs to her room, sitting down on the end of bed to contemplate her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. Love not only made the world go round, it also improved one’s looks, she decided, viewing her bright eyes and glowing skin. Confidence, that was the key. With Logan to inspire it in her, she could handle any situation that came along.

CHAPTER THREE

ON THE face of it, the wedding went off without a hitch. Susan would have preferred that it take place in church, but with no dates available until well into August, Logan had refused to wait.

He had made the arrangements himself, and insisted on paying the bills. With personal savings at a low ebb, and an utter dread of being in any kind of debt, John Gregory had been forced to pocket his pride and let matters take their course.

Despite every precaution, news of the impending nuptials had spread through the town like greased lightening. Emerging from the register office to find a whole crowd of well-wishers hanging around the doorstep, Caryn put on a brave face and tried to ignore the fact that most of them were here out of curiosity alone, not through any genuine interest.

Apart from Jane, she had invited no one outside her own immediate family. Logan, however, had extended his list to include several friends. It had been quite a shock to see Margot and Duncan Ashley among them, although the former appeared happy enough to be there. Wearing apricot silk, she outshone every other woman in the place—including the bride herself in Caryn’s own estimation.

In place of a formal reception, they were to eat a buffet luncheon out at Whitegates. Later, she and Logan would leave for the Cotswolds, where they were to spend what she knew would be an idyllic few days at a small but exclusive country hotel he knew of. Caryn could well understand his reluctance to leave his mother alone for any longer time under the circumstances. Less than a year, the medics had said, but that could mean more or less any time.

‘Happy?’ he asked, when they gained the comparative privacy of the hired limousine at last.

‘Totally,’ she said, closing her mind on the image of her parents standing there so forlornly on the pavement. They were to follow on in one of the other cars.

‘They’ll get used to it,’ Logan advised, taking an accurate guess at her thoughts as her face clouded a little. ‘It isn’t as if you’re going to be far away.’

Caryn summoned a smile, a shake of her head. ‘I know.’ She looked out through the windscreen at the sunlit streets, feeling a swelling sense of wellbeing. ‘I hope this weather keeps up—for the next few days at least.’

Logan’s smile was slow. ‘I dare say we can find ways to entertain ourselves even if it doesn’t.’

The very thought of what was to come doubled her pulse-rate. There had been no opportunity over the past few days to indulge that desire they both so obviously shared, nor would she have wanted to do so. What she wanted was a wedding-night to remember—the first time of sharing a bed with the man she loved. It had been a wonderful experience two years ago, but tonight would be better still. Tonight there would be no shattering comedown, no heartbreak to be gone through. Tonight, and all the other nights to come, Logan would make love to her as her husband. They would be together for all time.