No More Lonely Nights

'Before?' Sian's green eyes narrowed to catlike slits of comprehension. 'Before someone catches up with you?'

The dark girl swallowed. 'So please can we drive On?' she muttered. Sian obeyed, putting her foot down on the accelerator. The car shot forward with a happy roar.

'Why didn't you change out of the wedding dress before you left?' Sian asked curiously, and the girl sighed.

'I didn't think, I just climbed out of the window.'

'Out of the window?' repeated Sian incredulously.

'We live in a bungalow—at least, my father does, and he was at the front, watching out for the car. I climbed out of my bedroom window.'

'Why didn't you just tell your father that you couldn't go through with it?'

The bride groaned. 'I've never been able to talk to Dad. If my Mum hadn't died I might have told her, but Dad was so pleased that I was marrying Cass…' She broke off, and Sian sat very still as she drove, her brain clicking wildly.

She was right, it had to be him, William Cassidy. Everyone called him Cass, especially the newspapers, and he was often in the news because he headed a successful electronics firm with a very active public relations department who managed to keep his name and the firm's products firmly in the public eye. Sian didn't work on the gossip pages, she was strictly a news reporter, but she had vaguely known of his surprise engagement and rapid wedding. Wasn't he marrying his secretary, or a typist, or something? A very ordinary girl, anyway; that had excited the gossip columnists.

'I'm Sian, by the way,' she said carefully. 'What's your name?'

'Annette.'

Sian couldn't recall that name, but then she hadn't

looked at the bride's name too closely. She hadn't been sufficiently interested except to give the story her usual professional glance. One had to keep up with all the news in the paper. Sometimes two stories dovetailed unexpectedly, and if you didn't know about the other one you might miss something vital. She probably wouldn't have connected this girl with William Cassidy, for instance, if Leo hadn't rung her earlier that morning. He had put the wedding into her mind, alerting her.

'It's very kind of you to do this,' the other girl said shyly. 'I realise it must seem a bit odd, but I just knew I couldn't go through with it. All of a sudden I had to get away. Every time I tried to talk to Cass or to Dad the words didn't come out right. They make me feel… helpless.'

Sian slowed as they approached a pull-off for picnicking, a grassy little glade opening from a parking area, but surrounded by trees. The other girl looked startled as Sian drove off the road.

'What's wrong? Why are you stopping?'

'You don't want to drive through London like that, do you? I think we're much the same size. I've got a suitcase in the back, I'll lend you some clothes to change into, if you like.'

'Oh,' Annette said, flushing. 'Oh, thanks, that's very…'

Sian parked and turned off the engine, but before she fished out her case she looked round at the other girl, her face serious. Sian was a slightly built girl of around twenty-five, with classical features and a cool, self-contained air. She gave the impression of having herself and her world well under control, but that wasn't altogether accurate. Sian so far hadn't managed to make her two lives fit, the personal and the professional. At the moment she would prefer to forget any idea of having a private life, anyway. She wasn't risking the minefield of a love affair again for a long, long time, and she looked at Annette with wry sympathy.

'Love's tough to handle, isn't it?'

Tears came into the other girl's brown eyes and Sian looked away, not sure what to say to her.

Abruptly, she muttered, 'Look, I know this isn't any of my business, but I've got to stick my neck out. Are you sure you know what you're doing? I mean, it is quite common for a bride to panic on her wedding day, or so I'm told.' She laughed without real humour. 'Personally, I wouldn't know, of course, I've never got that far, but I've often heard of brides suddenly feeling they've made a mistake. It's a big decision; scary, too, I'd imagine, but once you had gone through with it maybe you would realise it really was what you wanted, after all.'

'No, that's just it,' burst out the other girl. 'It never was.'

Sian looked sharply at her. 'Never?'

'No.' Annette was very flushed, her tearful eyes enormous. 'He asked me and I don't even remember saying yes, but suddenly we were engaged and I felt like someone who had got caught up by something, a tornado, maybe, blowing me away. It all happened too fast and my father was so thrilled. Cass is… well, the man I'm marrying is rich, he can give me so much. Dad isn't after the money, honestly, but he was pleased that I was going to be looked after. Dad isn't very strong; his health is bad and since my mother died we've only had each other, there are no other relatives. Dad was afraid he would die and I'd be alone, so he sort of jumped at Cass, I'm afraid.'

'But you must have liked… the man you're engaged to,' Sian suggested with care.

Annette bit her lip. 'When I met him there was someone else, but he went away. He misunderstood, he thought I preferred Cass, but I didn't— only, when Rick, the other man, left, I was miserable, and Cass was there, and I didn't care about anything. It didn't seem to matter whether I married Cass or not for a long time.'

A great light had dawned on Sian. There was someone else; a man Annette preferred, was in love with, a younger man, Sian suspected, and probably one without much money if he was so jealous of William Cassidy.

'And then this morning he rang me,' Annette whispered, her voice thick with choked tears.

'He?'