Seductive Stranger

'I know what it means—but do you? Would you recognise it if you saw it, or are you just imagining all this?'

'Why do you keep asking me these questions? Ask your mother. It's her we're talking about.'

'Is it?' His mouth twisted, hard and pale. 'Sure we aren't talking about you?'

Prue was not going to take that. 'Don't try to change this into another attack on me! I'm not standing trial here. You asked me why I didn't like your mother, and I was honest with you.'

'I don't think you're even honest with yourself!'

'Well, snap!' she hurled at him, and Josh glared at her for a second, then, jerked her violently towards him, his mouth coming down in suffocating possession. Prue felt her heartbeat quicken to a sickening speed; she was shaking with a helpless reaction which was neither pain nor pleasure but an inextricable entwining of the two, and she hated that feeling, hated him, too. She had to get away, had to stop him, or she would go crazy, and she fought him, her body straining to escape, but it wasn't her struggle that freed her. It was a sound; a voice, an exclamation.

'Hello? Anyone in? I was . . . Oh!'

Josh lifted his head, face darkly flushed, breathing thickly, a dazed expression in his eyes as he looked round.

Prue broke away as his hands loosened their grip. She swung round to face the back door, which had opened.

Lynsey Killane stood there, staring, mouth open eyes very big and wide. She looked shocked, horrified.

Prue wished the ground open up and swallow her.

CHAPTER SIX

'SORRY, I knocked, but nobody answered,' Lynsey said in a high-pitched voice.

'I won't be a minute!' said Josh, frowning.

'That was what you said when you came in here—and you've been gone nearly a quarter of an hour! It's cold and I'm getting frozen, and I'm bored stiff, so hurry up!' Lynsey gave them both a twisted little smile. 'Whatever you're doing can wait, can't it?' she murmured in a tone that sent a new wave of hot blood to Prue's face, then she vanished like a rabbit going back down a burrow.

The door banged behind her, and Josh stared across the room at where his sister had been standing. He said something angry under his breath; Prue was glad she didn't quite catch the words.

'Her face . . .' she groaned.

'Take no notice of Lynsey!' Josh sai

d roughly. 'Don't you remember your own teens? There's nobody as censorious as an adolescent!'

Prue wasn't comforted by that thought. 'It was so embarrassing!' she muttered.

'Oh? for heaven's sake!' erupted Josh, black- browed. 'Don't make such a song and dance about it! The way you're carrying on, anyone would think Lynsey had caught us in bed together!'

Prue went crimson, and he eyed her ironically. 'What if she thinks ..,?

I mean, she might.. and if she tells anyone . . .' Prue stammered.

if you were a little more coherent I might know what the hell you're gibbering about!' he drawled.

She repeated sharply, 'What if Lynsey tells someone what she saw?'

'She won't!'

'How can you be so sure?'

'I know my sister, and, anyway, I'll have a word with her and make quite certain that she doesn't talk about it.'

'I suppose you mean you'll bully her into doing what she's told!' Prue said with a sudden sympathy for the younger girl, and he gave her a narrow-eyed glare.

i don't bully my little sister, any more than I bully you. Stop inventing fantasies for yourself.'