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

EPILOGUE

Copyright

“Do…do you like him?”

Josh didn’t look Karis in the eye but traced a small brown finger through a dusting of sand on the floor.

Karis sat clutching her knees. “I like him very much, Josh. I like him because he’s your daddy and because he has a lovely smile and is very good-looking, almost as good-looking as you,” she teased, and Josh looked up and grinned. “He has been very sad living away from you,” Karis continued. “I want you to be a family again.”

“I’m happy with you and baby Tara,” the boy murmured, and Karis drew him into her arms. If she could have one wish now it would be to find herself engaged to be married to the little boy’s father….

NATALIE FOX was born and brought up in London, England, and has a daughter, two sons and two grandsons. Her husband, Ian, is a retired advertising executive, and they now live in a tiny Welsh village. Natalie is passionate about her three cats, two of them strays brought back from Spain where she lived for five years, and equally passionate about gardening and writing romance. Natalie says she took up writing because she absolutely hates going out to work!

A Marriage in the Making

Natalie Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

KARIS watched with interest as the Estrella slid smoothly alongside the jetty, the oily throb of its engines barely audible over the swish of surf on the white sands of Fiesta’s private tropical island.

In the shade and the leafy seclusion of a banyan tree on the edge of the beach, unobserved by anyone on board, Karis gently readjusted baby Tara on her hip as the vacationers started to alight from the yacht.

There were the usual this week: several middle-aged, portly gentlemen in Bermuda shorts with beautiful golden-skinned blondes sashaying along the wooden jetty after them. The more leggy and beautiful the blonde, the richer the portly gentleman, it appeared.

Karis watched them come ashore with a soft smile of amusement on her full lips. There had been a time when she had found it unbearable to watch the disembarking ritual, almost despising those people for coming here to enjoy themselves. They were usually couples and, however ill matched some might appear, they were nevertheless together, which made her feel her own loss so deeply.

It had got easier over the months, though, and now she could watch with amusement instead of envy and irritation. She might not have a partner of her own any more but she had something those leggy blondes hadn’t. She had the love of two adorable children, a certain measure of contentment in her life now and Josh had helped her regain her self-worth, which she hadn’t possessed when she had arrived a year ago.

And Josh—where was he? Karis turned to see him happily engaged in trying to entice a land crab out from under a clump of cactus a little way along the deserted beach, so Karis didn’t feel guilty for giving the last two passengers left on deck a little more of her curious attention.

He was gorgeous—neither middle-aged nor portly but obviously affluent judging by the cut of his white linen trousers and midnight-blue silk shirt He was tall, with glossy black hair and dark, broody good looks, and Karis gazed at him in awe for a few seconds and then shifted her dark eyes to the lady with him. She was gorgeous too, as would be expected. Her hair was reddy gold and her flowing silk print outfit was lovely and Karis had to admit she looked rather more intelligent than the usual females who came to the island for fun and sun.

Beautiful people the couple might appear but, alas, beautiful people they didn’t sound to Karis, who was totally mesmerised by the charismatic stranger who was speaking now in such a controlled manner to his companion.

‘Leave the luggage, Simone,’ he ordered firmly. ‘There are staff to take care of it and nothing can get lost.’

‘I’m not taking any chances,’ came back the determined reply—a cutting remark which, to his credit, her companion ignored.

The man, with his eyes hidden by dark sunglasses, stood with his hands gripping the curving rail of the yacht, his jaw set as if in stone, and Karis guessed he was determinedly controlling his impatience and temper. He waited, silently, broodingly, while his companion curtly instructed one of the crew to haul her bags out from under the rest of the luggage now and to take it up to the plantation house and deposit it in her suite and nowhere else.

‘Honey child,’ drawled the good-humoured West Indian, ‘I crew this yacht and that’s as far as my duties go. You wanna packhorse you—’

‘Packhorse at your service, ma’am,’ came the cry from Leroy, one of Fiesta’s houseboys, as he ran barefoot along the jetty to greet them.

Karis pressed two fingers firmly over her lips to stifle her amusement as she watched the spectacle of Leroy charming and disarming the irascible red-gold lady with his open, honest grin of welcome and his willingness to obey her any command at a moment’s notice.

The impressive-looking man with her didn’t appear to notice what was going on, the taming of his companion. He was leaning on the rail now, in a world of his own, gazing at the small tropical island, his jawline still rigidly set, his broad shoulders tense and unyielding under the silk of his shirt as it rippled against him in the rush of a tropical breeze. Karis imagined his eyes to be glacier-blue under cover of his heavy sunglasses, because for all his obvious good looks he appeared a cold sort of person and one not particularly pleased to be here.

Karis remembered her own feelings on approaching the island for the first time, on the very same yacht. Her small fists had gripped the rail the same way and the beauty of the small paradise island, set like a precious jewel in a sea of turquoise satin, had gone unregistered by her as it appeared to be by him now. She hadn’t been able to appreciate its loveliness because of trepidation at the thought of the new life ahead of her. To have had to come this far across the world to free herself of a past that had caused her such pain had quashed all but anxiety from her senses.

The stranger had a similar look about him—as if he lived with regrets and was doubtful that coming here was a good idea—and Karis was intrigued.

But it was all supposition, Karis mused as she watched the two of them, with Leroy following under a mountain of luggage, walk along the jetty to the beach and the garden path that led to the main house of the island. She couldn’t be sure what the stranger was thinking or feeling because she didn’t know him, but it was just the overall impression he gave—one of reluctance and withdrawal and not wanting to be here.

Suddenly Josh’s warm, sandy hand slipped into hers and she gripped it reassuringly and gave him her full attention now. The small boy was watching the visitors too, his dark, dark eyes unreadable. It had been one of her greatest joys when she had first broken through his reserve and been able to read those dark eyes. It had become a frequent occurrence recently but now they were closed off from her.

‘More visitors,’ she told him softly. ‘No children this time, though.’ She gave his hand another reassuring squeeze. The diminutive five-year-old in her care needed the company of other children. She grinned to cover a sigh, not wanting him to pick up on her disappointment. ‘You’ll have to put up with baby Tara for a playmate for a little longer.’

But Tara wasn’t enough for Josh. She was only a tot and not able to communicate with him sensibly. He needed children of his own age and older, not that he mixed all that well when they did come to the island. It usually took him a few days to assess any young visitors tentatively, and by the time they were ready to leave Josh was just about relaxed enough to try and make friends. Most of the time Karis felt he was only making the effort to please her anyway. Josh must have been born a loner, she supposed, but she still encouraged him to socialise whenever she had the opportunity.

So, no children this time. If there had been they would have eventually found their way to Karis’s cottage where they would have been made welcome. ‘Nanny Extraordinaire’, was how Fiesta referred to her in her more charitable moments, but most of the time she treated her with indifference. Karis was the hired help, hired to keep Josh out from under her feet.

And Josh was difficult and moody and unresponsive a lot of the time. Like now, as he stared rigidly at the three people coming up the beach towards the plantation house, the male visitor with his hand gently at the woman’s’ elbow in case she stumbled in the deep sand, neither speaking but Leroy making up for it with a cheerful banter of useful and useless information about the island that was apparently falling on deaf ears.

Karis felt stirrings of something she didn’t want to acknowledge—that old feeling of envy and regret she used to feel when the laughing, loving couples came happily ashore. These two were hardly love’s sweet dream but Karis nevertheless felt a pang or two of envy of the woman with such a heart-wrenching good-looking partner. Cool and aloof he might appear, but he was with her all the same, and courteous and attentive too. They were together, a couple, him and her, here to enjoy a vacation in paradise, and it squeezed at Karis’s heart She had no partner any more, not even one to argue with now and then, and at this moment, for some peculiar reason, she felt her loss more poignantly than usual.

Quickly dismissing such irrational thoughts of envy, Karis stepped forward out of the shade of the banyan, intending to walk along the beach to her cottage with the children. Tara was still asleep against her shoulder and Josh was in need of his siesta, but suddenly the boy’s hand tightened in hers and pulled at her, stopping her dead in her tracks. At the same time he let out a peculiar sound from deep in his throat.

The visitors had reached the gardens at the point where they met the beach, and were only twenty metres or so from them when Josh’s small cry had the man stopping and jerking his head in their direction.

For some reason Karis’s stomach tightened as the others strode on and the man stood stock-still, staring at her with baby Tara on her hip and the small, dark-haired boy, barefoot and brown as a nut as she was, now almost hidden behind her crimson sarong. She felt Josh’s fists clawing into the back of her skirt, twisting the cotton print in his anxious small hands.

The man stared and then slowly his hand came up to strip the sunglasses from his face, and in that moment of revelation Karis knew who he was and the muscles of her stomach clenched ever tighter and her heart thundered perilously.

He said not one word. His eyes didn’t speak either. They weren’t blue at all but a dark, indiscriminate colour that looked as if their hue was gauged by mood. The mood now was cold and hostile as they raked Karis up and down, not settling, not appraising, just coldly grazing over her, making prickles of fear shoot across the surface of her skin.

Josh was stiff behind her, still clutching her skirt, and then Karis felt a tremble shudder through his slim little body. Without taking her green eyes from the stranger, she quickly moved her hand behind her to caress the boy’s bare head tenderly and reassure him he was safe with her.

A slight look of puzzlement chased across the man’s eyes and then they narrowed, and the look chilled Karis to the bone. Disapproval entered the eyes then as the gaze once again slid over her skimpy vest-top and the tumble of wild, unkempt jet hair that skimmed her brown shoulders. A soft tropical breeze flattened her skirt against her long legs and she felt the thin cotton clinging to her, outlining her shape and making her feel almost naked under his icy scrutiny. But there was nothing sexual in the way he was looking at her, only a chilling disapproval—which oddly felt worse.

Josh nervously moved then. Karis was aware of his bare feet shifting agitatedly in the sand and then, with another small, throaty whimper, he let go of her skirt and started to run, crashing through the lush vegetation behind them and on towards the cottage.

Karis’s first instinct was to call out to him, but she stemmed the cry in her throat so as not to alarm Tara. Her small daughter stirred in her arms and Karis wrapped her free hand around the back of her head and held her close, soothing the child back to sleep with her fingers stroking her dark, silky hair.

She never took her eyes off the dark stranger because a peculiar thing had happened to the man’s expression. On sight of the defecting child and the sound of his whimper of anguish as he had fled a look of such deep pain had passed over that handsome though rigid face that Karis’s pulses raced in turmoil.

‘Daniel!’

The piercing cry cut through the hot, humid air, jerking Karis’s senses. The stranger didn’t respond, his hard, muscle-bound body didn’t move a centimetre, but then she supposed he wasn’t the sort to jump to such a shrill command from a woman.

Karis stepped back, desperately wanting to break the eye contact between them because it was unnerving her, but it was so hard to do. Curiosity had frozen her at first and then all sorts of emotions had rushed at her and still he stared at her, fixing her to the spot And how he glared now that Josh had fled in such distress. Was he blaming her for the small boy’s terrified reaction? She didn’t know. Deep concern for Josh was what finally broke her eye contact with him. She swung round, turning her back on the man she now knew to be Daniel.

She knew who he was and Josh had known him too and Karis’s heart squeezed painfully. Still balancing the sleeping baby on her hip, she walked straight-backed along the beach towards the cottage, sensing he was still watching her and helpless to do anything but let the shivers prickle her spine till she was safely out of distance. That cold, cold scrutiny of her had shaken her so deeply and darkly, it seemed as if the sunshine had disappeared for ever. Narrowing her eyes, she had to look up into the blue sky to reassure herself it was still there.

Saffron, the West Indian housemaid, took the sleeping baby from Karis’s arms as Karis stepped up onto the wooden verandah of the white coral stone cottage she shared with the two children. She smiled helplessly at Karis and spoke in a lilting whisper so as not to wake Tara.

‘He’s under the bed, Miss Karis. Making that funny sound again, so vexed it makes your own heart cry out. You’ve done so well with him and now—’

‘He’ll be OK,’ Karis reassured her, and smiled warmly at Saffron, who had been such a support to her this last year. ‘Put Tara down in her cot for me and I’ll coax him out, Saffron.’

‘I tried already, tempted him with his favourite pumpkin pie, but it’s no good; he just yowls and yowls. That child needs a doctor, one of them head doctors—’

‘Hush now, Saffron.’ Karis laughed softly, knowing she didn’t mean it and understanding why she said such things at times like this.

Saffron cared about Josh as deeply as Karis did and when Josh was hurting they all hurt, Saffron’s pain manifesting itself more dramatically than Karis’s with suggestions of psychiatrists and, once, voodoo!

‘You know as well as I do what Josh needs,’ Karis added meaningfully.

‘Well, he ain’t going to get it with that one,’ she said, meaning Fiesta and nodding towards the plantation house that was out of sight of the cottage, across the lush tropical gardens. Clutching Tara to her ample breasts, she turned and padded along the verandah, softly crooning to the baby and rocking her gently.

With a soft, long-drawn-out sigh of agreement Karis stepped into the open kitchen, poured herself a glass of water and sipped it slowly to calm herself. No, Josh wouldn’t get what he needed from Fiesta—a stable family life. Fiesta was too busy running her lucrative vacation business to give Josh what he needed.

It had always been a mystery to Karis why the boy was in Fiesta’s care when it was obvious he wasn’t wanted. At first it had crossed her mind that Fiesta might be Josh’s mother, but apparently not. No mother could treat a child with so much indifference, even if he had resulted from an unwanted pregnancy or was the product of a broken marriage. Nevertheless Josh was in Fiesta’s care and even Saffron didn’t know why or how. All Saffron knew was that there was a father somewhere but a mother had never been mentioned.

Karis carefully sliced a chunk of Saffron’s creamy pumpkin pie and poured a glass of milk for Josh in the kitchen. She carried them on a tray out onto the verandah and along to his bedroom which was next to hers, and firmly dispelled the cloud of depression that was promising to settle if she didn’t watch out. Josh needed reassuring and loving and she needed a smile on her face for that.

Karis made no attempt physically or verbally to persuade Josh out from under the bed. Past experience had taught her the task was hopeless. He’d come out when he was ready and she would be there for him, as always. She sat in a cane chair by the open patio doors, the air breezy and sweet with the scent of jasmine, and started to read softly from one of his favourite books, but as she read her mind was drifting elsewhere, reliving that cold, cold glare from the newly arrived stranger.

The man, with his impressive bearing and indisputable good looks, had mesmerised her from her first sight of him, but it hadn’t been a pleasant feeling—more disturbing than anything else. He had appeared to be as cold and hard as honed steel and yet that look of pain when Josh had defected…or had she imagined it?

‘W…w…w…’

‘Deep breaths, Josh,’ Karis suggested gently as she put the book down and lifted the boy onto her lap to cuddle him. He’d been standing looking over her shoulder for ages as she’d read but she hadn’t let on she knew he was there. It had to come from him otherwise it was hopeless. She held his forehead as he leaned back against her, taking deep breaths as she had suggested.

They had come a long way. A year ago, when Karis had arrived with four-month-old baby Tara, the boy had been silent, refusing to speak except to stutter abuse at Fiesta. Karis had been shocked and deeply upset by his behaviour, and shaken by Fiesta’s uncaring attitude towards the troubled boy. It was obvious he was an embarrassment to her in front of her guests and she wanted him out from under her feet and frankly didn’t care who unburdened her.

While in England, promoting her exclusive, private Caribbean island holidays, Fiesta had advertised for a nanny and Karis had applied. Though she had no qualifications, Karis had been desperate enough to try for the job. At the interview Fiesta had said nothing about the boy being a problem child. It had only been when Karis arrived on Levos that she’d found out just what a problem he was and, worse, that apparently she was the latest in a long line of nannies, most highly qualified but unable or unwilling to cope with the appalling little boy.

At first Karis had thought she couldn’t cope herself, not with Tara and the sadness and tragedy of her own past to come to terms with as well. But something about the badly behaved boy had tugged so painfully at her heartstrings that she hadn’t been able to leave. And, strangely, having to care for Josh, having to give so much of herself to gain his confidence, she had found he had unknowingly given her much in return. She had arrived on the island a shadow of her former self, rock-bottom low and with little self-esteem, only to find a very frightened little boy with much the same hang-ups and misery. It had brought her up short. In a child, disturbance and melancholia were all the more tragic. It wasn’t natural for a child to be so deeply unhappy.

So Karis had forced her own self-pity behind her, cared for Josh and her own baby daughter, and made life bearable and as much fun as possible for them all. It had been a long, hard, painful haul to win Josh’s trust, and there were still days when he was difficult, but on the whole he was a much happier child than he had been a year ago and Karis was no longer the shadow of grief she had been when she had arrived.

‘W…will he take me away?’ Josh breathed at last.

Karis held him close, smoothing a hand across his hot brow. ‘Will who take you away?’ she dared to ask, wanting confirmation from him that Daniel was who she thought he was. Fiesta wasn’t at all forthcoming about Josh’s past. Karis had asked her about Josh’s parentage once but a tight-lipped Fiesta had told her to mind her own business and do what she was paid to do: look after the boy.

‘My father,’ Josh blurted. ‘Will he take me away?’

So he was Josh’s father. She had thought so when he had removed his sunglasses. They had the same eyes—cold and inhospitable, suspicious, cautious…and yet there were times when Josh’s eyes showed deep warmth and love and bright humour and perhaps the father had the capability of such emotions in him too. The thought gave a curious twist to her senses.

‘I don’t know,’ Karis admitted truthfully. She was always honest with him because he was too intelligent to be fobbed off with excuses. ‘But I’ll find out what’s going on, Josh,’ she promised, hugging the boy to her.

And she would. Daniel Kennedy, Josh’s father, was on the island and the reason must be to see his son and discuss his future with Fiesta, for surely he didn’t expect the wealthy socialite to look after him indefinitely? And where was Josh’s mother? That Simone certainly wasn’t his mother because Josh would have said if she was.

It was so worrying to Karis. Caring for him every day of their lives, she knew that the child needed a stable home life, preferably with a full set of parents, and though she had done her best a nanny’s best wasn’t enough to carry the child through the rest of his childhood. And when he did go? She, with Tara, would have to move on and carve out another new life for them both because they couldn’t go back. Karis wouldn’t be welcomed back; she didn’t want to go back. She’d learnt a lot here—not least that a simple life was worth a king’s ransom in terms of peace of mind.

‘Can we go to the creek?’ Josh asked tentatively. One hand was curved over his shoulder, twisting a strand of Karis’s jet hair around his fingers as she cuddled him. The small, intimate gesture of confidence and caring for her always pulled at Karis’s heart. She knew that in his way the boy cared very deeply for her and if his father had come to take him away…

It didn’t bear thinking about but a small thought stayed around long enough to have Karis grasping at it with both hands. If his intention was to take the child off the island he would still need a nanny—unless, of course, there was a mother around…but no one knew if one even existed. Both Josh and Fiesta were a closed book where Josh’s past was concerned. It was as if he had never lived before his two years on this island.

‘Yes, we’ll go to the creek,’ Karis decided quickly, bear-hugging the boy to her and planting a squidgy kiss beneath his ear, making him laugh.

Daniel might come to the cottage looking for his son but Saffron was here and would tell him where they were. Optimistically Karis imagined telling him all about his estranged son, what a good swimmer he was, how well he could read—an amazing achievement for a five-year-old who a year ago hadn’t been able to string a sentence together.

Yes, she would have so much to tell him, so why was that grey cloud of uncertainty looming? She knew but didn’t want to think about it. One day soon, she and Tara would lose Josh to his cold, unfeeling father and…No, she wouldn’t think about it, not yet. Josh wanted to swim and dive and chase sea turtles under the water and frankly so did she.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind staying on while I’m over at the main house, Saffron?’ Karis asked later.

Saffron lived over at the staff cottages behind the plantation house and Karis had never had reason to ask her to stay late before. She had no social life and there was certainly nowhere to go on the tiny island even if she had. She had never been issued with an invitation to join one of Fiesta’s house parties, of which there were numerous in the holiday season. She was staff after all.

‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Saffron told her as she finished off the washing up and turned to gaze at Karis, who was trying to do something with her unruly hair in front of the kitchen mirror. ‘Best if you find out what that boy’s father’s intentions are.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Karis murmured thoughtfully. She coiled her hair in a bundle on the top of her head and secured it with a gilt clasp. She had dressed in her best outfit—a slip of a silk dress in dark green with fine shoulder straps. Her feet were bare, though. After a year of tropical island living shoes and even sandals were unbearable on her feet. She supposed she had gone native this last year but the laidback lifestyle of the West Indians had appealed to her after the formality of life in Britain. She was freer here than she had ever been before. But she was bowing to convention now, making the best of herself to face Fiesta and possibly Josh’s father, because it was important that she give a good impression…but blow the shoes!

‘Are you sure Josh’s father didn’t come to the cottage while Josh and I were along at the creek?’ she asked as she tucked an unruly wisp of dark hair back into the clasp.

Earlier she’d told Saffron about Josh’s father arriving on the island and had fully expected him to come to the cottage to see his son once he had unpacked. She couldn’t believe that he hadn’t.

‘I’m sure,’ Saffron assured her. ‘I sat out on that verandah all the time and he didn’t come near.’

And yet Karis had been sure they had been watched as they’d swum and practised diving in the tiny creek on the other side of the island, only fifteen minutes’ walk away but far enough to claim seclusion. Fiesta’s guests were generally a lazy lot who never ventured far from the opulent plantation house with its swimming pool and the bar lavishly stocked with every cocktail ingredient imaginable.

She must have been mistaken, unnerved by that dark man’s unyielding eyes as he had stopped and stared earlier, and imagined he must be shadowing her and Josh.

‘It’s awful,’ Karis sighed, and licked her fingers and smoothed them over her dark brows. ‘He hasn’t seen him at all since I’ve been looking after him. It’s the first time I’ve seen him.’

‘He came when you were on St Lucia with Tara for her check-up, six months ago,’ Saffron told her, rubbing her hands on a tea-towel as Karis swung to face her in surprise. ‘You remember the boy was yowling for a week when you came back.’

‘I thought it was because he was angry with me for not taking him,’ Karis stated in astonishment ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Saffron?’ Oh, she should have done. It would have helped to know the real reason for Josh’s distress.

Saffron shrugged without looking at her. ‘No good you vexing yourself about it too.’

‘Hmm. Maybe.’ Karis exhaled. That was Saffron’s reasoning—ignorance was bliss—and perhaps she was right. Karis would have vexed herself over it.

She would have liked to know all the same; after all, she was the closest to the small, troubled boy and she might have been able to draw him out if she had known what was bothering him. It dragged at her heart to think the child was in such fear of his own father.

‘I won’t be long,’ she told Saffron from the open door onto the verandah. ‘If the children wake—’

“They won’t,’ Saffron laughed, and then the wide grin drained from her round face and she grew serious. ‘I wish you were all dressed up like that for a date.’

‘A date with whom?’ Karis laughed softly and added teasingly, ‘One of those ghastly rich old men that fly down from Miami for Fiesta’s vacations? I’d rather court the devil, Saffron.’

‘Wicked girl!’ Saffron chastised her, with humour softening the remark.

‘Not at all a wicked girl,’ Karis muttered under her breath as she followed the path to the plantation house through the subtly lit gardens. The devil himself was a safer bet than the one man she’d allowed into her life, the man she had married and lost so tragically. Poor Aiden. Karis shivered sorrowfully in spite of the cloying heat. He hadn’t deserved what fate had dealt him, no matter what he had done. But he had given her Tara, the one good thing he had done in his life, and for that she couldn’t allow his memory to fade though her memories of him were tinged with sadness and bitterness most of the time.

It was a velvety black tropical night with heavy cloud obscuring the moon and pressing the heat of the day back down to earth, making the air thick and heady. Karis could hear laughter coming from the beach and smell the charcoal grill sizzling T-bone steaks and so she avoided the waterfront route to the house. Fiesta hadn’t got her nickname for nothing. She knew how to throw a beach party.

As Karis strolled unhurriedly through the scented gardens she rehearsed in her head what she wanted to say to Fiesta…and Josh’s father if he was around. The boy needed so much more than he was getting on the island. He needed proper schooling for one thing, though Karis did her best She didn’t want to lose him, dreaded the thought in fact, but his welfare and future were her chief concern and that small thought she had grasped to her earlier was growing in momentum. If this wasn’t just a visit and Daniel was planning on taking Josh back to the States he would need a nanny for him, and who better for the job than the one who had cared for the child and had worked a small miracle on him this last year?

Karis circled the house till she was under the wide wrought-iron balcony of the sitting room, where lights blazed out from the open French doors. She’d checked with Fiesta’s housekeeper where she was and rather than go through the house and run the risk of bumping into any of the house guests, who were usually well on the way to being drunk at this time of the night, she had skirted the house and opted for the balcony and the small flight of wrought-iron steps that led up to it from the rose gardens beneath.

‘What qualifications has she got?’ The brutal query came from above Karis’s head and it stilled her instantly. She flattened herself against the scratchy coral wall of the house, under the balcony where it was shadowy and she couldn’t be seen. The deep, resonant voice was Daniel Kennedy’s and she knew instinctively he was referring to her.

‘Qualifications? You expect someone with qualifications to give your uncontrollable son the time of day? Get real, Daniel. Karis is the only one to have stayed!’ Fiesta argued stiffly.

‘And it’s quite obvious why,’ Daniel stated emphatically. ‘She’s nothing but a child herself, and wild with it—all that hair and barefoot like a native. She must have thought she’d landed on her feet when you offered her this luxurious life. Where the hell did you drag her up from?’

Karis steeled herself, muscles cramping, closing her eyes tightly against the pain of the insult.

‘And the baby on her hip,’ he ground on, not giving Fiesta a chance to explain. ‘I don’t expect her to look after other people’s children when I’m paying her to look after Josh.’

‘Tara is her own child.’

There was a gasp of exasperation from Josh’s father. ‘It gets worse! You never told me all this the last time I was here.’

‘I wasn’t going to cook the golden goose, was I? I took her on because she was young and looked capable enough to handle him. Having her own child didn’t matter to me. As it turns out Karis is good for the boy.’

‘Good for him!’ he responded in disbelief. ‘Some unkempt teenager with an illegitimate—’

Karis’s fiercely clenched fists bunched over her ears to shut the world out. She didn’t want to hear any more—she couldn’t; it was unbearable.

Hurt beyond measure by that cutting jibe against her, she stealthily crept away from the house and only broke into a shaky trot when she knew she couldn’t be heard blundering through the vegetation in the gardens. The suffocating humidity of the night quickly drained her and by the time she reached the beach she was breathless, clutching at her throat for air and ripping the clasp from her hair with her other hand and shaking it wild and free.

Unkempt, was she? Wild, was she? What did he know? Just what did he know? Tears streamed down her cheeks and with a sob she lifted her face to the soft, warm breeze to dry them. She was hurt and angry—yes, very angry.

How could he have said all those dreadful things about her? How arrogant, how unfair, he didn’t even know her! And surely Fiesta could have spoken up for her more loyally? She’d done her very best for Josh and Fiesta knew it, so why hadn’t she told him more forcefully?

Her pulse rate levelled and common sense prevailed at last as she kicked surf at the water’s edge. But perhaps Fiesta was even now telling that poor excuse for a father just how good for Josh she was when he should have been doing the job himself! But she had to concede that Daniel Kennedy had sounded, if in a brutal way, caring as to who was looking after his son. At the expense of her emotions and senses, though, Karis thought miserably. Why make excuses for him? He was the father from hell!

‘And while you are out here gazing at the stars who the devil is watching over my son?’

Karis’s heart missed several beats as her elbow was imprisoned in a vice-like grip and she was hauled back from the surf and onto dry sand. She was whirled around to face her accuser, judge and jury! Condemned before she’d had a chance to speak in defence of herself!

Menacing clouds tore apart to reveal the moon and his stern features were clearly visible as he held her firmly, his eyes steely and accusing. Daniel Kennedy.

Recovering quickly, Karis lifted her chin defiantly and shook her arm from his grasp, and when she spoke her voice was clear and controlled because his insults had angered her so much it had fired her adrenalin, spicing up her strength, giving her courage to stand up for herself.

‘Your son is in good hands,’ she told him confidently. ‘He is asleep and I’m not gazing at the stars as if I’ve nothing better to do. I don’t default in my duties as your son’s carer—even if I am seen as wild and unkempt,’ she added meaningfully.

He looked perplexed for a moment, not understanding the last statement. Karis put him out of his misery at the expense of her own. ‘I came over to the plantation house to see Fiesta and overheard you both talking,’ she explained. Her green eyes narrowed. ‘I walked away when you hit the illegitimate bit,’ she added thinly, and then, giving him a last look of indifference, turned and walked away again. He didn’t follow.

She was still angry and hurt but managed to hide it as she dismissed Saffron, thanking her for staying on to watch over the sleeping children and promising her she would tell her everything in the morning. Saffron seemed satisfied with the promise of a gossip the next day and said nothing but a warm goodnight as she left.

Karis poured herself a fruit juice and took it onto the candlelit verandah to drink it and cool herself down after what she had heard from Daniel Kennedy—his angry implication that she wasn’t doing her job properly. How that hurtful remark made her blood boil. That he should come here after goodness knew how long and start—

‘I’d like to see my son.’

Like a spectre, he had suddenly appeared at the rail of the verandah. Karis looked at him with wide, surprised eyes. At least he had asked—or maybe she was misinterpreting his change of tone and that was an order, not a request.

‘He’s asleep,’ she told him quietly.

He stepped up onto the verandah and Karis was able to see him better in the glow of the candles. He wore tropical whites and was an incredibly forbidding creature. Darkly good-looking and charismatic, with an air of mystery about him, he obviously had the capability of charming the birds from the trees, but not with Karis. As his unyielding eyes challenged hers frostily she was chilled through, in spite of the heat of the tropical night.

‘I said I’d like to see him and I wasn’t asking your permission,’ he stated flatly.

Karis hesitantly stood up. She didn’t like this man. She hadn’t liked him before meeting him so nothing was new. He had a serious attitude problem. He had nothing good to say about her and that was unjustified because he didn’t know her. But he was Josh’s father and unfortunately that couldn’t be questioned so she couldn’t deny access to him, whatever the time of night. Without another word Karis lifted a candle in a jar from the table to light the way.

He followed her along the verandah and she felt his dark, disapproving eyes boring into the exposed skin of her back. Again those prickles of awareness played at the base of her spine.

Carefully Karis slid open the door and, holding the candle up, stepped back to let him pass through into the little boy’s bedroom. To her utter surprise he took her elbow and urged her into the room ahead of him and then shocked her deeply by saying under his breath, ‘I don’t want him to awake and be afraid.’

With her heart twisting Karis stood beside him at the foot of Josh’s bed. What an appalling admission that was. What dark past had these two shared? But at least by visiting him while he slept Daniel was showing some concern for his son’s feelings.

Josh slept peacefully on his back, his head turned to one side, the sheet pushed down to his waist in the heat of the night. The child, in sleep, was unaware he was being gazed down on, Karis with love and caring in her eyes for she did indeed love the little boy…but the father? Karis dared take a sidelong glance at the man who gripped the brass footrail of his son’s bed as fiercely as he had grasped the rail of the yacht he’d arrived on.

He didn’t want to be here, she thought despondently. This was a duty call to his son. His face was set, unyielding, showing no emotion as he gazed down at the boy.

Then Josh stirred and in that instant Daniel Kennedy’s lashes flickered. A tiny, fleeting reaction that had Karis’s heart beating wildly in the hope that she might see some of the love this boy deserved from his father.

The flickering reaction to his son’s movement was gone as swiftly as it had appeared. Stiffly he stepped back from the bed and so did Karis, and then the candle flame wavered as the movement of his body turning to face her stirred the still air around them.

‘You have cared for him well,’ he said, his voice so low and throaty, she scarcely caught the words.

A compliment? She hadn’t expected one.

‘To outward appearances,’ he added, so meanly that Karis’s heart nearly stopped with shock.

Once they were back outside on the verandah Karis slid the door shut behind them and lifted the candle so she could see his face more clearly.

‘I don’t think you will be disappointed, Mr Kennedy,’ she said softly but firmly.

‘I’d better not be,’ he said thinly. ‘I don’t want to start my married life putting right all the added damage you might have done this past year.’

He gave her no space, no time to respond to that wicked, uncalled-for criticism. He was gone into the airless night before she’d fully taken in what he had said.

Karis stood for a long while on the verandah, staring out over the gardens and not seeing anything, trying to cool her anger and to grasp at the reality of what he had said. Starting married life? Daniel Kennedy was married to that beautiful but awful screeching woman and this was their honeymoon?

Was Daniel Kennedy divorced from Josh’s mother and Simone the second wife or even the third or the fourth? Oh, it didn’t bear thinking about. Poor little Josh. He didn’t deserve that.

And it was none of her business, Karis told herself miserably and unconvincingly. The night seemed to oppress her and the cloying heat to press down on her and she was swamped with dreadful thoughts of that Simone taking over and being Josh’s mother.

The pair of them had come to take Josh off the island. They were good-looking but seemed distinctly lacking in terms of character.

And then she felt again that mysterious snap of envy she had been whiplashed with earlier. She did envy that siren Simone. She envied her for being married to Josh’s father and claiming Josh for her own and she envied them all starting a family life together because that was something she had been cheated out of in her own life. But that was all she envied Simone for; the rest of her feelings were taken up with pity. Being married to Daniel Kennedy must be like living with Satan’s first cousin: hell on earth.

CHAPTER TWO

‘HEAD tucked in. Beautiful. Bend your knees, Josh. Super. Go for it,’ Karis encouraged warmly from the rocks below.

The boy didn’t hesitate this time. From a higher rock he executed the most perfect dive into the warm, limpid waters of the creek. Karis raced into the water and swam strongly towards him.

‘I did it! I did it!’ Josh spluttered in excitement, his wet face flushed with pleasure as he bobbed up and down in the water, stretching his arms out to her.

‘I knew you could,’ Karis laughed as she hugged him tightly, and then tipped him back into the water and spun round so he could straddle her back. He screamed with laughter as she swam to the shore with him. Once they were on the beach she felt Josh stiffen suddenly. She let him go and he slithered down her back to the warm sand and stood rigid behind her.

Daniel Kennedy stood watching them from another outcrop of rocks, his eyes shaded by sunglasses, so that Karis couldn’t gauge whether he looked pleased with his son’s dive or not.

Josh had seen his father too, hence the stiffening of his slight body and his hiding behind her now. Karis moved aside because to screen him from his father was wrong, but before she could grasp his hand to reassure him he was gone, sprinting in the opposite direction to his father, back towards the cottage where Saffron was watching over baby Tara.

With a sigh Karis picked up her sarong to wrap around her wet, bikini-clad body while she tentatively watched Daniel coming towards her across the sand.

He stopped in front of her and stripped the glasses from his face. He was frowning and really Karis wasn’t surprised. She doubted he smiled very much.

‘Were you responsible for that performance?’ he asked her tightly.

Karis knotted the sarong at her cleavage and tensed in surprise as Daniel Kennedy’s eyes, frown and all, settled on the knot for a few dangerous seconds. For a newly-wed he certainly hadn’t thrown off the cloak of bachelorhood yet, Karis thought ruefully. Obviously a man with an eye for women, which explained a lot. The second or third or fourth wife theory gained strength in her mind. Perhaps this Daniel Kennedy was into serial marriage.

Deliberately folding her arms across her front to hide the cleavage he found so fascinating, she lifted her chin and asked bluntly, ‘The dive or him running away?’

The frown deepened and his concentration shifted to the defiance in her eyes. ‘The dive,’ he insisted quickly and quite challengingly, too, as if he thought her too smart by half even to have suggested otherwise.

Lucky for him, Karis thought. ‘Yes, I’ve been teaching him. It was Josh’s first perfect dive,’ she told him, and then added, ‘I’m Karis Piper by the way. We missed out on formalities last night.’

She forced a smile, trying to warm to him for Josh’s sake. She’d given her own attitude a lot of thought overnight. She didn’t like him and so long as there was an R in the month of April she doubted she ever would, but, putting personalities aside, she had to do her best for the boy and if being nice to his father helped she’d have a go at the very least. She even lifted her hand to him.

He took it and their exchange was brief but long enough for Karis to know he had blood running through his veins, not iced water as she might have anticipated. His touch had been surprisingly warm.

‘Yes. I know who you are, Miss Piper.’

‘Mrs, as it happens,’ she asserted quickly, giving him a warning flash of her green eyes. ‘My daughter, Tara, isn’t illegitimate and I’m not a teenager either,’ she added tightly, reminding him of what she had overheard last night. ‘To classify me correctly you would have to file me under the emotion-weary widow heading. I thought you would have checked with Fiesta by now, seeing as you pay my wages for looking after your son.’

So much for the be-nice-to-Josh’s-father resolve. But hardly her fault, she excused herself; he wasn’t exactly the easiest subject to be nice to.

His steely eyes glared at her hard. ‘You have a lot of spirit. I’m not sure that is enough qualification to be caring for my son.’

Karis’s heart flipped in defence. This man was something else. Not real at all, as Fiesta had suggested when she had overheard them arguing the night before.

She met his cold glare with eyes equally determined not to be put down. ‘I think being spirited is an ideal qualification to be looking after Josh, Mr Kennedy. Lesser spirited people than myself haven’t achieved a smidgen of what I’ve done for him.’

‘And what exactly have you done for him?’

His tone was unremittingly censorious and Karis gave up the struggle not to rile against it. ‘Plenty,’ she stated, and added with a sweet smile, ‘Why don’t you spend some time with him and find out?’

She stooped down to gather up Josh’s towel and hoped her cheeks weren’t flushed with anger. She really had tried but he was impossible.

‘I intend to do just that,’ he told her determinedly.

Karis straightened herself up and looked at him, her eyes narrowed. ‘Not before time,’ she let slip before she could help herself.

He caught her arm as she turned away, a grip so jarring it cascaded droplets of water down from her hair to glisten on her sun-warmed bare shoulders. He let her go immediately after securing her attention.

‘There is a reason for everything,’ he told her quietly and seriously. ‘Choices and decisions have had to be made for my son in the past, all with the best intentions and all unavoidable. Whether those harrowing decisions were right or wrong only time will tell. I care very deeply for Josh and I want what is best for him. I always have and I always will. Please remember that before you pre-form impressions in that pretty little head of yours. Don’t fight me, because I need your help to smooth the path between me and my son before I take him away from here. Have I made myself clear?’

Karis stared blindly at him for a few seconds, wondering whether to argue with that in case he hadn’t noticed she was a human being and didn’t like being spoken to as if she were some newly acquired puppy needing to be housetrained. But she shouldn’t care how he treated her because her feelings were immaterial; it was his son that mattered.

So, he wanted her to smooth the path for him, did he? The request was heart-wrenchingly sad coming from a father to a stranger who had cared for his son. And did he seriously think she would object to what he had in mind? That was even sadder. Couldn’t he see how much she cared for the little boy?

‘Will I have your full co-operation?’ he urged when she made no attempt to answer him. There was only a slight softening of tone in the request.

Karis swept her wet hair from her brow to stop the drips of water from obscuring her view of him. ‘I care for your son and care for his future too, Mr Kennedy,’ she told him sincerely. ‘I want what is best for him and if you think I won’t give you my full co-operation then you are making a bad character judgement.’

His eyes darkened angrily for a fleeting second but then it was gone and he said coolly, ‘Good. So long as you are on my side all should be well.’

On his side? What was this—a war? Well, if sides were to be taken she would always lean Josh’s way. A child needed protecting. Josh was afraid of his father and there had to be good reason. Sure, she’d co-operate but Josh would always come first with her.

‘When do you intend taking him?’ Karis asked tentatively.

She wouldn’t be able to bear it but she had known it had to happen at some time in the child’s life. A year was too long to have cared for the boy, with no parental support. Every waking hour had been spent with him and Tara. She knew him as well as her own daughter.

‘Sooner rather than later. Simone isn’t fond of the Tropics.’

Had Karis just heard right? She stared at him in dismay. If this was cooperation she was out of it already. ‘I don’t think your wife is the first consideration here,’ she managed to get out. ‘I think—’

‘Simone is not my wife yet and you are not employed to think further than the care of my son,’ he retaliated quickly.

A mysterious surge of relief rushed at her at the news that Simone wasn’t Josh’s stepmother yet, not Daniel’s wife either. But anger was in hot pursuit, bringing a flush of defensive words from her mouth for what he had just said.

‘Just a minute, Mr Kennedy. That isn’t fair. Yes, I’m employed to care for Josh and, as you must know, it hasn’t been easy. You turn up here, out of the blue, expecting your son to run to you with open arms and then wanting to whisk him out of a settled life because your lady doesn’t like the Tropics. What about Josh’s feelings in all this?’

‘That’s enough!’ he ordered thickly.

‘Oh, no, it isn’t nearly enough!’ Karis went on determinedly. ‘Child psychology obviously isn’t your forte; as for being a father, you are even less qualified. None of this can be rushed. Josh’s feelings must always come first. I might not have any official qualifications to look after children, Mr Kennedy, but I sure as hell know how to love them.’

In a fury she crumpled Josh’s towel into her fist and stormed away from him, bare feet grinding so hard into the sand that they were hot and raw by the time she reached the gardens.

Regret for her outburst washed over her as soon as she stepped into the kitchen of the cottage to find a subdued Josh munching a biscuit at the kitchen table. She wanted to cover her face and wish it all away but couldn’t because Josh would know something was wrong.

She hadn’t any right to speak to Daniel Kennedy that way and she was deeply ashamed of her outburst now. After all, he was the boy’s father and nothing in the world could change that. She shouldn’t be fighting him, she thought remorsefully, she should be co-operating as he had suggested because little Josh’s welfare and future were all that mattered. Trouble was, he made her so mad, stepping back into his son’s life and expecting so much, so soon, and treating her with such disdain when he hadn’t even given her a chance to show him how good she had been for his son.

She took a deep breath of new resolve. This little boy mattered, not her feelings. ‘I’ve been talking to your father and he was thrilled with your dive, Josh. He said—’

A shadow darkened the doorway and Karis turned, expecting it to be Saffron with Tara, but it wasn’t; it was the devil himself and on sight of him her skin prickled warily.

He spoke and this time he didn’t shout or sound angry. He actually sounded quite pleasant. ‘I said I wished Karis would teach me to dive too because I’ve never quite been able to do it. She said she wasn’t sure so I thought I’d ask you. Do you think she should give me lessons, Josh?’

Josh stared hard at his biscuit, not able to raise his eyes to his father. Karis held her breath, watching the poor boy struggling with some sort of inner conflict he obviously couldn’t cope with.

Karis glanced back at Daniel leaning in the doorway. Their eyes met and locked in mutual understanding and Karis was pleasantly surprised that his had softened considerably, as if he was sorry for being so sharp and censorious with her. He was trying; that was something at least. For Josh’s sake of course she would meet him halfway, but only for Josh’s sake.

She broke the eye contact first and went to the fridge for drinks for everyone. ‘I’ve thought about it, Josh, and think it’s a good idea. We could teach him together because you are so good at it now.’ She laughed, trying to make fun of it all. ‘But I bet he’s rotten at it. Should be good for a laugh at least.’

Josh didn’t think the idea at all amusing. To Karis’s horror he flung the half-nibbled biscuit down and flew from the kitchen, out of the door opposite the one his father was leaning in. Karis closed her eyes in sufferance and said nothing till they heard the slam of a door on the other side of the cottage. His bedroom door, as Karis knew of old.

‘You’ll have to give him time,’ she murmured, fully expecting Daniel to fling some sort of accusation at her for Josh’s negative action. To her surprise he seemed to sag in defeat and sat down in the cane chair Josh had so rapidly vacated.

For a moment Karis felt a wave of sympathy for him. So far he had received one rejection after another from his son.

‘A drink?’ she offered, and started pouring juice from the fridge anyway when he didn’t reply. She wasn’t sure what to follow her query with. There was something so deep and emotional between these two that she wondered if they would ever come out of it father and son again.

‘Is he always like this?’ he asked at last. ‘Still so sullen, unresponsive and hating the world?’ He acknowledged the drink Karis put before him with a nod of his dark head.

Karis leaned on the fridge and sipped her drink, watching him from under her thick lashes. ‘With everyone but me. He warms to Saffron too but not to the degree he trusts me,’ she told him truthfully.

He looked up at her but Karis couldn’t read his expression. It was beyond her. She almost wished she hadn’t made the admission. If he had any feeling for Josh it must have hurt to hear that his son cared more for a stranger than himself, his own father.

‘I’m sorry if that sounded as if I’m the only one that matters to him but the truth is I fear I am,’ she told him. She let out a small sigh. ‘He’s difficult and it’s been a battle. I nearly didn’t stay when I first met him, but I think…’ Her voice cracked as she thought about all the traumas she and Josh had faced together and overcome and what state the boy would be in now if she had rejected him from the off as all the others had done.

‘Go on,’ Daniel urged abruptly.

His tone said he was hurt and she went on quickly, ‘I felt so sorry for him when I arrived. I had a child of my own and I wouldn’t want Tara pushed from pillar to post and that’s what has happened to him.’

His eyes narrowed painfully. ‘Do you think I wouldn’t have done it any other way if I thought it would have helped? I’ve paid for the best care for him,’ Daniel responded flintily.

‘I’m sure you have,’ Karis relented wearily. But the best care in terms of wages paid wasn’t nearly enough for Josh. She sighed and went to the table to sit across from him. ‘Mr Kennedy, I don’t know your circumstances and I don’t want to pry. I don’t know you and you don’t know me. I understand how you feel, finding someone with no qualifications caring for your son, but Fiesta was right. Everyone else gave him up as a bad job and—’

‘So why did you stay?’

‘I’ve told you, my heart went out to him,’ she admitted softly. ‘I couldn’t forsake him before giving him a chance. I suppose it made a difference that I was a mother and could relate to him. If that was my own daughter in those circumstances I would want someone to help her and not give up on her because she was so troubled. It did help being a mother myself.’

‘And, from what Fiesta says, a mother with nowhere else to go and very eager for this job in paradise,’ he said disparagingly.

Karis stiffened, her heart tightening at the truth of that. She remembered being evasive with Fiesta over her personal circumstances when she had applied for the job. Silly really, withholding her background when her very background was so important for the job. But she had been desperate to get away at the time and unable to think clearly and had just hoped that her eagerness to take on the care of the little boy would be enough for Fiesta.

It had as it happened but the fact that Fiesta had taken her on without delving too deeply into her past should have acted as a warning flare, and of course on meeting the irascible young boy she had understood why. Fiesta had been as desperate to sign her up as she had been to start a new life.

Karis shrugged away her hurt. ‘That’s true,’ she conceded quietly. ‘I was more than glad of the job for reasons that are my own but I’m not lying when I tell you I felt drawn to your son. Everyone else had forsaken him and—’

‘And so you keep saying,’ he interrupted wearily, and suddenly got to his feet. ‘The world had rejected him and you were his saviour. What do you want—a damned medal?’ he breathed, on the edge of anger now.

Shocked, Karis stared at him, her lips white. Why was this man being so cruel? Why was he always so angry?

Suddenly he let out a long sigh and raked his dark hair from his brow. ‘I’m sorry,’ he breathed roughly, impatient with himself more than her, she sensed. ‘Of course you don’t expect a medal. Look, this isn’t going to be easy and I’m fully aware of the problems ahead. I want my son with me now. You have a special bond with him and…and…’ His voice faltered slightly but he recovered quickly. ‘I need your help,’ he finished quietly.

Karis licked her dry lips at his plaintive request. It stabbed painfully at her emotions.

‘Insulting me is going a funny way about enlisting my help, Mr Kennedy,’ she said slowly and deliberately. ‘I’ve done my very best for Josh and you’re right, I don’t want a medal; I don’t even want your praise or your thanks. It’s enough for me that he hugs me tightly when he says goodnight, it’s enough that he trusts me. All I’m concerned about is Josh’s future—the one you are preparing to offer him.’

Slowly Karis got up from the table and faced him. She really had nothing to lose by baring her thoughts and feelings to him. Very shortly her job here on the island would be over and done with. She dared not even think of her own circumstances when that day came because Josh filled her mind at the moment.

‘I know I’m speaking out of turn here,’ she started, ‘and I apologise up front, but this needs to be said before we go any further. With your attitude I doubt if your son will have a very happy future. He needs care and attention and time and love and from what I’ve seen of you and your fiancée I doubt you could rustle up a fraction of any one of them.’

There, it was out, exactly how she felt about him and that awful Simone.

He was leaning back against the work surface, his arms folded across his chest, and looking at her with eyes narrowed warningly. But Karis wasn’t put off. She had more to say and concern and love for Josh made her brave enough to say it. ‘All I’ve seen of you so far is a broody menace where I’m concerned, Mr Kennedy. I don’t know why you attack me so when you have seen for yourself Josh is well cared for. I’m doing my best and I always have done and Josh has responded to my love and caring. If I didn’t think the idea ridiculous I’d take it that you were….’ Her voice suddenly went as if it had been switched off.

And then Karis knew. It swept over her, all-enveloping, all depressingly sad. She saw it all now—his attitude problem, his abrasive reaction towards her starting from the time he had stepped ashore and seen that she, a supposedly wild and unkempt teenager, held his son’s love and trust in her hand. It must have torn through him like a serrated knife.

‘Jealous,’ he finished for her, in a tone that was dull and weighted.

Karis lowered her lashes. Her heart was thudding at his being brave enough to make such an admission. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured faintly. ‘I didn’t really understand at first and then, just now, I couldn’t even say it because it’s so awful.’ She lifted her face and looked at him, her eyes wide and apologetic. ‘You are jealous of me because Josh loves and trust me, aren’t you?’ she whispered.

‘Yes,’ he admitted. His hand came up and tore through his hair as if that admission had taken the strength out of him. ‘In the short time I’ve seen you both I can see how you are together,’ he went on roughly. ‘Yes, I’m jealous of the hold you have over my son.’

Karis shook her head, realising that the snap of sympathy she had felt just now could be abruptly vaporised away by just one ill-chosen word. Did he mean to say the things he did? she wondered.

‘Just a minute. The word is bond, not “hold”, Mr Kennedy,’ she corrected him firmly. ‘I do not have a hold on your son. I do not like the menacing implication of that word.’

His eyes held hers stoically and he didn’t retract the word or apologise for how Karis had taken it—as another insult. ‘Hold or bond, whatever, it will pass when my son learns to love and respect me. It’s what I’m here for after all. Then your services will no longer be needed and you will be out of his life and that is the way it should be.’

His sudden cool, calculated plans for Josh’s future and her swift, cruel dismissal shook Karis to her very roots. She almost physically shrank away from him and in fact must have moved because his hand shot forward and grasped at her wrist as if he recognised she was about to tear out of the room before he was finished with her.

‘That’s the way it must be,’ he said quietly, ‘and you must have known that when you took the job on. Nothing is for ever. Now, if you have anything more to say on the subject of my son I would be pleased to hear it. Do you have anything more to say?’ he asked, as if her life depended on her giving him a satisfactory answer. His eyes held a curious challenging glimmer.

Suddenly the firm grip on her wrist eased slightly as he waited for a response from her. Unwittingly she gave it as his thumb ran erotically over her pulse point, backwards and forwards, tiny strokes of fiery pressure that sent her blood whooshing through her veins. She felt sure he could feel it. Karis stared at him in mute confusion. Why was he doing this—touching her so intimately? And why on earth should the blood rush in her veins this way?

Suddenly she couldn’t bear the close contact a second longer and she snatched her hand away. He didn’t protest. Her eyes flamed with indignation as she rubbed at her wrist but his eyes suddenly sparkled teasingly and it was such a sudden mood swing it shocked her.

‘I’m glad you did that. I was beginning to think you were enjoying it,’ he said smoothly.

Karis didn’t need this sort of teasing banter to follow an intimate touch that had unsettled her so deeply. She lifted her chin because she wasn’t going to take it.

‘Did you enjoy it?’ she asked directly, considering attack to be the best defence. He only smiled enigmatically, which was no answer either way. To her surprise she found her mouth suddenly had a will of its own. ‘You did it so you must have wanted to. Your motivation puzzles me, though. Past experience has taught me that small, intimate gestures like those are usually connected with sounding the ground for further exploration but so far you have done little else but insult me so you can’t possibly like me. So why did you do it? Heaven forbid it was a test of my morality.’

‘Let me put your fluttering heart at peace, then,’ he mocked, and Karis felt her temperature rise. ‘Fluttering heart’, of all things! ‘I thought you were about to leave in a hurry and I wasn’t finished with you. I realised I must have come across as a bitter father and I wanted to smooth it with you. Then I felt your pulse and it intrigued me because it raced so at my pressure. I wondered why.’

And because his eyes were loaded with mischief now she couldn’t bear it. Her eyes narrowed warningly. ‘Let me put your fluttering heart at peace, Mr Kennedy. My pulse races in defence of my feelings, not in excitement of them. I am your son’s carer and just because I am on my own with two small children to look after that doesn’t mean I suffer from a fluttering heart and the vapours when a man touches my wrist. In future we talk and think only of your son’s welfare and future. I would like you to keep your lightness of touch and your suspect innuendoes to yourself. Now, you think on all that before you dare speak to me again!’

With that she turned her back on him and was down by the edge of the water on the beach before she had herself fully under control. The warm water lapped her ankles, cooling her feet deliciously.

His touch had nearly broken her. That small, intimate, tender caress, so completely unexpected, had very nearly broken her. She didn’t even like him but it just went to show her state of mind when a stranger could make her pulse race so easily and effectively.

Karis crumbled to the sand in the shade of a dense palm and hugged her knees to her. Human contact, a man touching her, him touching her. No one had for so very long. She was always with the children, Tara and Josh, all day, every day, at all times. And when they slept she sat alone. Never anyone for her to turn to for comfort. No one to wrap his arms around her and just hold her. She ran a handful of sand through her fingers. Her life was just this, she thought ruefully: sand slipping away. No passion, nothing for her own lonely heart, just her life trickling away.

His touch, for whatever reason, had burned her loneliness into her soul like a branding iron. It felt like a searing, agonising scar on her senses and all because of a small, intimate caress of her wrist of all things. Imagine the effect of more, she thought desperately. The touch of his lips and…

She felt a light hand on her shoulder and she jumped in alarm, her heart thudding. Daniel was looking down at her and she felt her cheeks burn because of what she had just been imagining. He couldn’t know but all the same she looked away from him and trickled more sand through her fingers.

He sat next to her under the palm. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said sincerely. ‘Deeply sorry for hurting you the way I do. None of this is easy for me.’ He shrugged slightly. ‘You aren’t at all what I expected. That first sight of you on the beach threw me completely when I arrived. You looked so young and natural, barefoot and with the breeze tossing your hair wildly around your shoulders, a baby on your hip and my son clinging to you for comfort. He was afraid of me and needing you and it tears at my heart for what I’ve lost.’

Karis drew painfully on her bottom lip as she stared out to sea. Yes, it must have cost him a lot of pride and pain to make such an admission. Already she had gathered that he was a proud man, a hard one too, a man with a past that had caused his son such misery, but here he was going partway to opening up his heart to her and making it right for his son.

‘I need you to help me get to know my son,’ he went on softly. ‘I need your co-operation; what I don’t need is you fighting me all the time. I’m partly to blame for that, I admit, and again I apologise, but meet me halfway, please. As you said we know nothing about each other and false impressions have been formed and that isn’t a good thing. I do appreciate what you have done for the boy but I’m going to need more, much more from you.’

Oh, he might have apologised and he had sounded sincere but did that man have a heart beating within that impressive chest of his? He’d abandoned his son, after all, and now he was here to claim him back again and it wasn’t going to be easy. Oh, no, not with his attitude and Josh’s fear and her stuck in between the two of them, working towards losing the child she cared for so very deeply. Her emotions were flustered, to say the least, as she turned her head to look at him.

‘Yes, I will help you,’ she told him softly. ‘I was never in any doubt that I would and you shouldn’t have been either. If I argue with you it’s because I know Josh and I have an opinion to air on his behalf. I want the best for him and I’ll go along with anything you suggest—if I think it is right for Josh,’ she added quickly.

He nodded and murmured, ‘Good,’ and they both sat for a while, staring out to sea, each with their own thoughts on what was best for the boy, though Kans’s were punctuated with the awareness of Daniel sitting next to her. Such a strong, hard man, both charismatic and infuriatingly arrogant at times, and yet a small boy had the power to reduce him to a wreck of worry and concern. He cared for Josh, she now knew, and it was a relief.

‘How do you mean to start this bonding with your son?’ Karis asked at last, her voice low and concerned because perhaps he didn’t realise just what a formidable task was ahead of him.

‘I thought you might have some ideas on that.’

‘I don’t have the qualifications, remember?’

‘Nor do I, remember?’ he countered.

She turned and smiled at him and found he was already smiling at her. Karis wasn’t surprised to find she did suffer from a fluttering heart but she was sensible enough to reason that it had come about because of more relief. It was better to be friends with him than enemies.

‘We’re going to get a long way fast, then, aren’t we?’ Karis said ruefully.

He grinned. ‘Let me make a suggestion, then. Let’s start by you bringing Josh over to the plantation house first thing in the mornings and—’

‘Uh-uh,’ Karis uttered negatively, shaking her head. ‘First hurdle to be overcome. Josh doesn’t go to the plantation house. I won’t take him. If Fiesta wants anything she comes to us.’

He stared at her in disbelief. ‘Why don’t you take him to the house? I would have thought it was part of his life, mixing with people.’

‘No one’s ever sober there!’ Karis protested. ‘Is that what you really want for Josh? Association with a load of inebriate vacationers? No way. I won’t allow that’ She got up from the sand and brushed her sarong down. ‘If there is any bonding to be done between you it’s not going to be done in that den of iniquity.’

He caught her arm before she swung away. He was frowning darkly. ‘I thought you had agreed to co-operate?’

Karis stared up at him, wondering what the cause of his sudden about-turn in attitude was. She was only doing her best for the boy. ‘Co-operating doesn’t mean blind submission to your every whim,’ Karis argued firmly. ‘Of course I’ll co-operate if I think it is in Josh’s best interests. I don’t think you entertaining Josh at the plantation house every day, surrounded by a lot of old soaks and languid, leggy blondes, is the right way to go about it.’

He let her go, lowered his head and raked a hand through his hair. Then he looked directly at her and nodded. ‘OK, I agree,’ he surprised her by saying. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. I honestly hadn’t seen it that way. So what suggestions have you got?’ he asked.

Karis wasn’t sure she wanted the ball in her court. It was his son after all. But she knew Josh better. He hated the plantation house. He was always much more comfortable at the cottage, which was his home of course.

‘I presume you and…and Simone are staying in the main house?’

He nodded. ‘Could you take one of the cottages in the grounds instead?’ she suggested.

‘They are all taken, and besides, Simone wouldn’t—’

Karis looked at him when he stopped abruptly. ‘Say no more,’ she said lightly. ‘Wouldn’t have put you down as henpecked,’ she added cheekily.

Because she was smiling he did too. ‘Simone would delight in that remark,’ was his only comment. Then he got back to the subject in hand. ‘Yes, all the cottages are taken. What had you in mind?’

‘I’ve left Josh sulking long enough. Let’s talk about it on the way back,’ she murmured as she turned to head back to the cottage. Daniel fell into step alongside her and as they strolled along the beach she said, ‘Well, I was just thinking that it would be better if you and Simone were away from the vacationers, away from the main house. On your own, in a cottage maybe, it might be easier to handle Josh, but if they’re all taken then—’

‘I agree, but I hadn’t planned on introducing Josh to Simone quite so soon,’ he interrupted.

‘Oh,’ Karis murmured, surprised and relieved all at the same time. ‘Yes, I think you’re wise.’ She turned her head and smiled, hoping to lesson the sting of the truth. ‘It’s going to be bad enough with just you.’

Daniel smiled ruefully without looking at her and nodded his good-humoured agreement.

‘Josh feels more secure in his own environment,’ she went on, feeling braver knowing that Daniel was warming to her suggestions. ‘He has a routine that gives him confidence.’ Daniel nodded again. ‘I think it would upset him terribly to have that routine broken. I think we need a softly, softly approach. Firstly, of course, you must win his confidence, which is what all this is about really. I mean, the fact that you are taking him away won’t matter in the end; when you have won his love he’ll go off and…and…’ Oh, God, her throat was drying up with emotion. Josh would go off with his father and forget she and Tara had ever existed in his life.

She cleared her throat ‘Yes, softly, softly. You should see him every day, at our cottage, not the house, and…and…and then when…well…when things are…Well, really what I think would be a…a good idea…’

Karis had stopped walking. She’d floundered to a stop as her words had dried and died. Daniel stopped too and turned to look at her oddly. He stepped closer and took her shoulders lightly.

‘What are you trying to say, Karis?’

And she knew what she was struggling with. The idea she had for Josh’s rehabilitation with his father was the only sensible course, but would Daniel Kennedy see it the way she did? He might take it all the wrong way, think she was being pushy and taking on too many decisions. But it was only for Josh’s sake, and he would see that because he wanted the same as she did—Josh’s happiness.

She took a deep breath and met his concerned gaze. ‘I think that after a few days, when you have familiarised yourself with Josh’s routine, it would be a…a good idea to move into the cottage with us.’ There, it was out and it was the only way. ‘You want your son’s love and you want to give yours too and it’s the only way you’re going to get it together with him. Daily visits aren’t going to be enough. Josh needs the whole commitment, everything. He wants to feel that in future you are always going to be there for him. Day and night and night and day,’ she finished breathlessly.

Karis stood nervously waiting for his reaction, fiddling with the seam of her sarong at her side because another thought had suddenly struck her. Suppose he thought her suggestion was personal? After all that business with the pulse point of her wrist he might think he had turned her on!

Daniel stood studying the ripples in the sand at his feet, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Eventually, after what seemed like an age to Karis, he looked up and nodded. But no smile accompanied the acknowledgement, just the nod.

‘You agree, then,’ Karis managed, adding deliberately, ‘For Josh’s sake.’

His eyes locked with hers and held them unremittingly. ‘Yes, I agree,’ he conceded at last. ‘With reservations,’ he added mysteriously. Then, with a very small frown of concern, he turned away. Thoughtfully, broodily, head bowed, he walked back towards the plantation house.

‘What reservations?’ Karis called out before he got very far.

He stopped and turned slowly and the look he gave her was darkly meaningful. ‘If you don’t know that, Karis, I shall wonder at your level of intelligence.’

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