Seductive Stranger

CHAPTER ONE

'YOU'RE quiet,' David said, but Prue was staring out at the stormy landscape, her green eyes bleak, and didn't hear him. They were almost there—and she was getting cold feet. Maybe she should have told David all about it, but that would have seemed disloyal while her mother was alive—and, oddly, more so since her mother's death six months ago.

David waved a hand in front of her face. 'Hey, are you in there?'

'Sorry! I was thinking,' she said, smiling an apology. When they were planning this trip to Europe, she had said that she would like to visit Yorkshire to see her father, and David had agreed without asking a string of questions. It was typical of him; he wasn't curious or interested in the past. The present was all that mattered, he said; and that was just one of the reasons why she loved him. He was easy-going and casual; he didn't brood or cling to grievances as her mother always had.

'How much further?' he asked. '1 seem to have been driving for ever.'

'Just a couple of miles away now.'

'You're right—two miles to Hallows Cross!' said David, looking at a signpost they were passing. 'Weird name!'

'It's a euphemism, actually!' Prue said with sudden amusement.

'It's a what?'

'The village was originally called Gallows Cross…'

'Don't tell me! There used to be a gallows at the crossroads!'

'Yes, but in Victorian times, people hated to be reminded about that, so they changed the name.'

'Oh, it's that sort of place, is it?' David grimaced, and she laughed.

They both spoke with an Australian lilt, although Prue had only lived in Australia for ten years, while David had been born there. His native sun had given him golden skin to match his golden hair; hours on the beach, surfing, swimming and sailing his sleek little yacht had given him a lithe, athletic body. Prue sighed; Australia seemed very far away. She had begun to miss it as soon as they left. It had been spring there; her favourite time of the year. They had arrived in England to find a wet and windy autumn; on the Yorkshire hills and moors the heather was purple, the gorse still yellow, although the bracken was already turning russet and bronze, a colour less vivid than the flame-red hair which 'blew around her face in the wind from the open car window.

This was a landscape of contrasting colours: gentle, misty, blue and grey-green distances, mysterious wooded valleys and softly rounded hills on which grazed ambling sheep. Prue had not seen this countryside since she was thirteen years old, yet it was so familiar that it hurt, like a blow over the heart. She kept catching her breath; a sense of uneasiness was growing stronger the closer they came to her old home, although she couldn't pin down any sound reason for feeling anxious. It must be pure nerves. She had no idea what to expect when they did arrive.

'Penny for your thoughts,' said David, and she started, eyes wide.

'They're not worth it..'

'I can read your face, you know!' he said softly, putting a hand on hers. 'Are you wishing you hadn't come, Prue?' His blue eyes stared down into her green ones, and she shrugged ruefully, unsurprised by his intuition. They had known each other a long time and David knew her very well. He leaned over to kiss her. 'Don't worry, it will be OK, just relax and take things as they come.' It was his motto for life, and she couldn't help laughing.

He grinned back, and at that instant they came over the crest of the hill, and almost ran smack into another car coming from the opposite direction. It was all so sudden that Prue hardly knew what was happening. Dazedly, she saw a red car flash by, horn blaring, tyres screaming.

Prue stared, open-mouth, at the startled face behind the steering wheel, a hard face from which wild, black hair blew back.

David instinctively swerved sideways. The other man had already shot over to the right-hand side of the road, and they might have avoided an accident, but in his panic David lost control, or perhaps the brakes failed. Whatever the reason, still going much too fast, the car smashed into a stone wall with a noise of crumpling metal and splintering glass.

Prue had her seat-belt on; she was flung back and forth like a rag doll, hitting first the door and then the windscreen, her long, red hair thrown across her face, blinding her. She ended up sprawled forward in her seat in a state of shock, and for a moment was barely conscious, until she remembered David and sat up, white-faced. He lay very still over the wheel; broken glass glittering in his hair, blood crawling down the side of his face.

'David!' she groaned, white-faced, unbuckling her seat-belt with hands that trembled, but, before she could scramble over to him, the door beside her was wrenched open, someone grabbed her by the waist and dragged her backwards out of the car.

Startled, Prue struggled, looking round into the grim, dark face of the other driver. She had had the barest glimpse of him as they passed, but that face was burnt into her brain. She was sure she would never forget it,