The Heat Of Passion

Jessica drifted out of her thoughts to find herself sitting shivering inside a very cold car with all the windows fogged up. She drove off but somewhere down deep in her mind was an image of Carlo as she had last seen him in the hotel suite. Angry, contemptuous. ..bitter? What the heck did he have to be bitter about? Had he really imagined she would accept that grossly insulting offer? Three months in Carlo's bed, working out her penance for daring to marry another man. What a monumental ego he must have! And the

utterly peculiar way he had gone about making that offer... Her head was thumping again, tension twisting through her like a steel wire.

It was too late to go barging in on her father. Tomorrow morning first thing, she would be on his doorstep, and if he hadn't seen a lawyer yet she would see that he did. It was a crisis and she was good in a crisis. For years it seemed her life had lurched from one

crisis to another.

She was about to phone her father when the doorbell went. She peered through the peephole and recognised the broad, weathered features of the heavily built man on the other side of the door.

'Dr Guthrie... ?' Her brow furrowed. Henry Guthrie was one of her father's oldest friends. He and his wife ran a private nursing home.

'I tried to ring you earlier but you were out,’ he

proffered.

'What's wrong?' she demanded, anxiously scanning

his troubled face.

'Your father's going to stay with us for a day or two

until I can get him sorted out '

'But why.. .1 mean, I gather you know what's happened... but what's the matter with him?' Jessica

prompted sickly.

Henry Guthrie sighed. 'Gerald's been receiving

treatment for depression for some months now '

She paled. 'He didn't tell me...'

'He's been quietly going off the rails ever since your

mother died.'

She shut her eyes and groaned. Four months ago, they

had received news of her mother's death in a car crash, j

From the day she walked out until the day she died, ¦

neither Jessica nor her father had had any contact with

Carole. Her mother hadn't wanted any contact. She had

wiped them both out of her life and had embarked on;

a new life abroad. f

'But he seemed to take it so well,' she protested shakily.

'Didn't it ever occur to you that he took it too well?'

the older man murmured. 'I think that he still hoped

that she would come back. But when she died, he had