Seductive Stranger

Prue could believe that! She hadn't seen much of Lynsey, but she had a shrewd idea that the other girl had a strong will and something of her brother's tenacity.

'Is she still quarrelling with Josh?' asked James Allardyce, and Lucy gave him a wry smile.

'Afraid so!'

'Josh should be more understanding!' Prue's father said, and Prue laughed.

'And pigs should fly!'

Lucy gave her an astounded glance, and her father looked shocked.

'Prue!'

'I'm sorry, but it's true . . . expecting Josh to be understanding is as realistic as asking a pig to fly. He doesn't understand women and he never will.'

'Don't you think so?' Josh's mother said, staring at her with a thoughtful expression.

'Well, I don't expect you to agree with me, you are his mother, after all,' Prue said defiantly. 'But it doesn't surprise me that he tries to push his sister around, or that she quarrels with him all the time. If I were her, so would I!'

'You quarrel with Josh a lot?' his mother asked, and Prue went a little pink, her green eyes restlessly moving away from Lucy Killane's curious gaze.

'If he tries to ridge roughshod over me, yes! Maybe it's because I grew up in another country, with different rules and attitudes—but I won't put up with a man giving me orders.'

'Oh, dear,' Lucy said, smiling. 'I can see Josh has rubbed you up the wrong way.'

When she had gone, James Allardyce said to Prue rather huskily, 'I'm so glad you and Lucy are getting on better now. 1 was sure you would like her when you got to know her.'

Prue smiled, sympathy in her eyes. She was sure now that her father loved Lucy Killane, and almost sure that Lucy did not feel quite the same way about him. Her affection was sisterly, Prue suspected. She was fond of him, but had never been in love. My mother was wrong, Prue thought; well, half wrong, anyway! But would that have been any comfort to her mother, since it was true that James Allardyce did love the other woman?

'I like Lucy very much,' she said gently, and her father glowed with pleasure.

'Good.' He gave her a faintly mischievous look. 'And maybe one day you'll start to like Josh, too!'

Prue stopped smiling and glowered; green eyes glittering in her flushed face. 'That is never going to happen!'

David was due to leave the hospital very soon. The following day, Prue stayed within earshot of the telephone in case she was given the word to come and collect him. His specialist was visiting him that morning, and the ward sister had told Prue that he might decide that David was fit enough to go home, so Prue had packed a case with clothes for David, and taken it into the hospital the previous day. If he was given the go-ahead, he could be dressed and waiting by the time Prue arrived to pick him up.

James Allardyce was working in the field nearest the house that morning. If the call came, all she had to do was yell to her father then hurry and then drive to the hospital to pick David up.

She was feeling oddly edgy as she waited for the phone to ring. On the one hand, she couldn't wait for David to rejoin her; she was aching to get on with their holiday, and then with their life together. She had loved him for a long time, nothing could ever change that.

On the other hand, though, she would miss her father terribly; she loved the farm and the landscape she saw each morning when she got up; and she was rather nervous about going away with David. It would be crazy to say he seemed like a stranger; but something had happened to them both since the crash. His weeks

in hospital had separated them somehow. David had lived through an experience she hadn't shared, and at the same time she had been reliving the childhood he hadn't known, rediscovering her father, realising she belonged here, after all. She had found out a lot about herself in the process, too.

She had seen David every day, of course—but she had increasingly felt like a stranger; they had talked in a cheerful way, but so politely, a distance between them, some barrier she didn't understand. Prue frowned, telling herself fiercely that when they were together again, and far away from here, they would get back together again. They still loved each other just the way they always had! She couldn't imagine marrying anyone but David—why, their friends had always said that theirs was a marriage made in heaven, fated!

Prue made herself some coffee and stared at the phone, willing it to ring. Betty Cain had whisked around the house and left; everything was tidy and she had nothing to do but wait.

Fifteen minutes later, she was washing up her coffee-cup and spoon in an obsessive need to do something to pass the time when Josh walked into the kitchen from the garden, wearing well-washed old blue jeans which fitted him like a glove, and a skin-tight black ribbed sweater over an old grey shirt.

Prue looked over her shoulder, with a stifled little gasp, her eyes restlessly skating over his lean figure, surprised by a faintly dishevelled look about him. He was usually so well groomed: hair smoothly brushed, nails immaculate, clothes exactly right for whatever occasion he was attending. Today, she sensed that he was in too much of a temper to bother how he looked—he was probably a hazard to anyone who was foolish enough to cross his path, too, but he was here, and short of running away there was no way she could avoid him, so she nodded warily instead.

Josh nodded to her, his brows black as night, his eyes blacker.

'Dad's in Lark Meadow, if you want him,' she said in a hurry, hoping he would go in search of her father.

'I came to see you.' His tone was uncompromising and she wondered nervously what was wrong. Had his mother repeated what she'd said about him? Oh, good grief! Prue inwardly groaned—I hope not! She could have sworn that Lucy Killane wouldn't do that.