Follow a Stranger

mole.”

He laughed and picked up her lotion. “Let me rub

some of this into your arms before the sun comes out,

then.”

She had already done so, but she meekly allowed him

to do as he pleased.

“Your skin is so fair,"’ he murmured, his hand slowly

stroking up to her shoulder. “It is like peaches and

cream—I always thought that a silly expression, but now

I know what it means.”

Pallas leapt impatiently to her feet, sending up a

shower of sand. “Sam, come and play beach ball!”

Obediently, Sam closed his pocket chess game and

followed her down the beach.

Marc was leaning on one elbow, watching Kate and

Jean-Paul like a cat at a mouse-hole, his grey eyes

narrowed. She found his unmoving, unreadable gaze

disconcerting. What was he thinking?

Pallas and Sam were running closer to them, shouting

as they threw the ball from one to the other. Suddenly

the ball landed with a thu

d on Jean-Paul’s back, sending

him sprawling over Kate. He landed, a hand on either

side of her, almost knocking the breath out of her body,

and they both began to laugh, after the initial shock.

“I’m so sorry,” Jean-Paul apologised. “I hope I did not

hurt you.”

“Not at all,” she smiled.

He withdrew slowly, looking down at her with a

crooked smile. Over his shoulder Kate saw Pallas’s