Seductive Stranger

She gave him a slightly edited version

of her meeting with her father, described the farm in glowing, lyrical terms, and told him how sad she had been to discover that her old dog had died years ago.

'Typical of you to be so upset about it!' he said, smiling at her lovingly.

'You know you would be, in my shoes.' David loved his own dog back at home in Sydney. 'You'd go spare if you got home and found that Dodger had died while you were away!'

'True,' he admitted ruefully. 'He's a stupid old fool, but dogs do get to you, don't they? Cats I can take or leave, but I would miss old Dodger.'

'And your mother would cry her eyes out,' Prue said. 'Although I think she loves Dodger because he's your dog.' She gave him a coaxing, smiling look. 'David, I really think I ought to ring her! She might be hurt if we didn't tell them about the accident until weeks later. They would feel shut out, excluded.'

'They'll forgive me!' he said with utter conviction, and she sighed uneasily.

'I'm not so sure they'll forgive me!' His mother would certainly think that she should have got in touch with them; she would blame Prue, not her own son, and she would be quite right. 'I ought to tell them, David! They have a right to know.'

His mouth turned down and his face took on that sulky look again.

'Don't nag me, Prue!'

'I'm not nagging, I just think . . .'

'They're my parents, not yours, for heaven's sake!'

She bit her lip. 'I know, but . . .'

'I'm a big boy now, I don't want them rushing over here. Mum will cry over me, and Dad's going to blame me for the crash. He's always saying I'm a rotten driver, you know that. He never trusts me with his bloody car. When he hears there was a crash, he'll think it was my fault, sure as hell. If they fly over here, they'll want me to go home right away, but I've come a long way round the world to see Europe and, accident or no accident, I'm not going home until I've seen it.'

'But, David ... ' she began, and he interrupted her, his voice very loud.

'Will you stop whingeing? Just do what I say, OK?'

He was flushed, his eyes too bright. Prue stared at him, suddenly seeing that he really wasn't very well yet; he was behaving like a petulant little brat, and that wasn't like David at all! She should be humouring him—not arguing with him and upsetting him all the time.

Their quarrel had attracted the attention of the nurse in charge of the ward. She came over to the bed, eyed David with a professional blankness, then looked reprovingly at Prue.

'I think perhaps you had better go now. Mr Henley is still under sedation, and he really ought to get some more rest.'

'I'm not that crook. Nurse!' David said, at once resisting any suggestion that he might be ill.

'I don't think you're the best judge of that, Mr Henley!' the nurse merely said, her lips thinning.

David made a face at Prue, who got up, under the nurse's disapproving eyes; feeling gawky and sheepish, as she usually had when she was a teenager, all long legs and untidy red hair, confronted by hostile, critical adults.

David's mouth had a weary droop. Prue bent to kiss it, but he turned his head away at the last moment, and she kissed his cheek, knowing he had moved deliberately, he was still cross with her.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered, close to his ear. 'I won't ring your parents, don't be cross, darling. Love you.'

The waiting nurse coughed meaningfully; one neat black shoe tapping as she consulted the watch pinned to her apron.

'Come tomorrow,' David said, relenting enough to smile, so Prue turned and walked away down the ward:-She paused at the swing doors to blow him a kiss, but he was leaning back against his pillows, his eyes closed, the flush still high on his cheeks. Feeling very guilty, Prue walked back through the hospital to the car park, to wait for Josh Killane and his sister, whom she had noticed still sitting beside the old man's bed. Prue hadn't actually looked in their direction, she had merely observed them out of the corner of her eye. They didn't seem to be talking; she didn't hear voices from the bed and the old man appeared to be sleeping, so she imagined it would not be long before they joined her.

The car was locked, so she walked around the gardens adjoining the car park. Autumn winds had strewn the wet grass with leaves; bronze, russet, and gold, a few spectral, like grey lace stretched over a fan of fine bones, all colour bleached out of them by the rain. Prue walked through them, enjoying their rustle, kicking them up and watching them fly.

She was thinking about David as she walked, worried by his unusual mood. The accident had been a bad shock; he had lost blood, a lot of it, he had had an operation, he had broken ribs and a head injury—she should have realised how much all that would have affected him, but she had been stupid. She had been insensitive with him, arid she could kick herself. Why on earth did you argue with him? she asked herself fiercely.

She shouldn't have been surprised by David's reaction to the idea of his parents being told about the accident. He loved his parents, of course, and she knew how much they loved him. When they heard the news, they would have flown over here, and they would have wanted David to go back to Australia with them.

He was right about something else! His father would undoubtedly have guessed that the accident was David's fault He would be right, too, wouldn't he? David had been driving carelessly; it was pure luck that neither of them had been killed. Well, luck and the quick-wittedness of Josh Killane. He could so easily have smashed straight into their car, but he had veered away without crashing.