Seductive Stranger

He turned into the drive of Killane House without taking any notice; his profile radiated obstinacy, and she eyed him sideways with a mixture of fury and desire which was explosive^ making her feel she might blow up at any minute. What did you do with a man like Josh Killane?

'You're driving me crazy,' she muttered, barely audibly.

'Snap!' he said, pulling up outside his home, then turned with his arm resting on the wheel to look down at her, his face taut with passion.

'Prue, will you please stop arguing with me for a couple of hours, just long enough to have dinner with us? My mother feels very badly about what's happened. She likes you a lot. Will you be nice to her this evening, show her you don't blame her?' His eyes Were serious.

'You don't, do you?'

She shook her head, her mouth twisting. '1 suppose not, and I like your mother, too. I'm glad she likes me.'

'Is it a deal, then?'

She looked into his dark eyes and sighed, nodding.

It was a quiet evening; there were only four of them for dinner—Lucy and Josh, Prue and her father. After the beautifully cooked meal, they sat talking for several hours around a roaring fire, just one fringed lamp switched on, and black shadows leaping up to the ceiling now and again from the flames shooting out of the sweet-scented resinated pine wood. Prue drove home with her father; exhaustion and good wine combined made her sleep heavily, and she woke up to hear sounds outside, cars pulling up in front of the farmhouse, voices talking cheerfully.

Josh and a mechanic had brought her car back. She leapt out of bed, showered, dressed and went downstairs to find Josh in the kitchen drinking coffee and talking to her father. When Prue appeared, Josh looked round at her, his eyes wandering from her burnished head to her feet, mockingly assessing the bits in between and making her go pink.

'Well, up at last?' he teased.

Prue looked at her watch, it isn't that late! Only just nine-thirty, or has my watch stopped?'

'No,' said her father, pouring her a cup of coffee. 'Do you want some breakfast? Egg? Bacon?'

'I'll just have coffee, thanks,' she said, sitting down on the other side of the table from Josh, but smiling shyly at him. 'I see you've brought my car back. That was very good of you, thank you.'

'It was my fault you skidded off the road,' he shrugged casually. 'I got my garage to wash it before we brought it here. It needed it, believe me! It was covered in mud from Where the wheels had churned up the verge while we were trying to shift it.'

'That was very thoughtful, thank you,' said Prue, very self-conscious as she felt her father watching them. Did anyone else realise how she felt about Josh? Did it show, when she looked at him? Or in her voice? Once the thought had occurred to her, she immediately began to feel horribly obvious

, and to flush.

Josh got up. 'I must go, I'll be seeing you both.' He vanished and Prue sat staring at nothing, feeling lonely now that he had gone. That thought appalled her—was she becoming dependent on him so soon?

That was dangerous; she must put a stop to that!

'Prue!' her father murmured, and she looked hurriedly at him, picking up his uneasiness and becoming nervous herself.

'Yes?'

'I was wondering ... I have a mound of paperwork waiting to be dealt with, and I'd be very grateful for some help, if you wouldn't mind?

I've got so much else to get through and . . .'

She laughed, her face affectionate. 'Of course I'd be glad to help, Dad.

How about now, this morning?'

'That would be wonderful,' James Allardyce said with a sigh of relief.

His expression eased her mind of the only .doubt she had had—that he might have made up some phoney job which didn't really need doing, and when she actually saw the old desk piled high with forms, letters, government leaflets and official documents, she was quite sure that her father needed her. He needed a secretary badly, and Prue was a good secretary.

'Leave all this to me, I'll sort it out,' she said confidently, and after a token protest her father obeyed her gratefully.

She spent the next few days working her way through the long neglected office work. James Allardyce's business life was in a complex muddle, and Prue wondered how he had managed to carry on for so long with so many unanswered letters, unpaid bills, not to mention money owing to him in his turn. While he was out on his land—working with the animals, keeping his land in order, his walls mended, his trees in good shape—he had ignored everything else, but Prue gradually tidied up the office and got all the necessary work done. Letters were answered, typed out and posted; bills sent out and bills paid. Everything else was neatly filed where Prue could put her hand on it quickly.

Josh called in most days for some reason or another. He was, after all, her father's landlord, and their working lives intermeshed far more than Prue had ever suspected. He never stayed long, though, and he and Prue were never alone; James Allardyce or Betty Cain or Josh's mother were always there, which made it both easier and harder for Prue. She was relieved not to have the strain of being alone with Josh, but it didn't ease the ache of desire she felt whenever she saw him; Just made it easier to hide, at least from others. She wasn't too optimistic of hiding it from Josh. His quick, shrewd, dark eyes didn't miss anything, and the occasional glance or mocking smile told her how little she fooled him, but Josh was being careful to keep his distance at the moment.