lesson to learn [070-011-4.0]

By: penny jordan

Synopsis:

Romance novel.


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bearing the same name or names.  They are not even distantly inspired
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are pure invention.

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First published in Great Britain 1992 by Mills & Boon Limited This
edition 1998 Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited, Eton House.  18-24
Paradise Road, Richmond.  Surrey TW9 iSR > Penny Jordan 1992 ISBN 0 263
80849 1

Set in Times Roman lO'/i on 13 pi by Rowland Phototypesetting Limited
Bury St.  Edmunds, Suffolk

Printed and bound in Spain by Litografia Roses S.

A.

" Barcelona

ERICA JUST

cover illustrator for the Penny Jordan Collector's Edition

Erica Just is an artist and illustrator working in various media,
including water colour pen and ink, and textiles.  Her studio is in
Nottingham.

Her work is inspired by the natural forms, architecture and vibrant
colours that she has experienced on her travels, most especially in
Africa and India.

Erica has exhibited her work extensively in Great Britain and Europe
and has works in private and public collections.  As an illustrator she
works for a number of companies and also lectures on textile design
throughout the country.

Artwork copyright Erica Just 1997

CHAPTER ONE

sarah settled herself comfortably against the trunk of the willow and
closed her eyes.  Letting the soft gurgle of the stream gently lull her
towards sleep, she firmly ignored the pangs of guilt trying to remind
her that she was supposed to be thinking about her future; about her
superiors' concern that because of her lack of detachment, her apparent
inability to stop herself from becoming emotionally involved with her
pupils, she was seriously hindering her career as a teacher.

Ignoring the niggling reminder that her cousin had given her this
morning, that sleep could sometimes be used as an anodyne against
depression, she told herself that it was as a result of the stress of
the recently ended term that she felt so exhausted, so drained, so
completely unable to take charge of her life and direct it firmly back
into the ambitious channels she had planned for herself during her time
at university.

Then it had all seemed so simple: she would get her degree, she would
go into teaching; she would progress up her career ladder, perhaps even
moving into the private sector for a while before applying for the
challenging position of head teacher, and she would attain that goal
before her thirtieth birthday.

And yet here she was at twenty-seven, acknowledging--or, rather, being
forced to acknowledge-that in her original formula for her career she
had neglected to take into account one vital factor, namely that she
would become so involved with her pupils, so concerned for them, that
her own needs, her own plans, her own life, would become completely
submerged in her desire to help them.

Exhaustion was how her doctor had sympathetically described the intense
physical and mental weakness which had overtaken her midway through
last term; stress--the stress of modern living and of a job that made
far too many demands upon her.

Her superiors had confirmed that diagnosis, but had been less
sympathetic, telling her that her problems were self-inflicted;

pointing out that no one had asked her to take on the extra
responsibility of organising out-of-school activities for the
twelve-year- olds in her care; that no one but herself was to blame for
the fact that she seemed to have no de fences against taking her pupils
and their problems to her heart and suffering with them.

The enormous comprehensive where she worked had a far too rapid
turnover of staff, quickly disillusioned by the problems caused by
dealing with such vast numbers of children; the children themselves,
many of them from disadvantaged backgrounds, were sometimes difficult
to deal with, Sarah had to acknowledge that, but most of them, given
time and encouragement, would respond.  She gave a small sigh.  Forget
about your job, her doctor had advised her.  Take yourself off
somewhere relaxing; lie in the sun.  unwind.  Of course, that would
have been impossible.  Teachers did not spend the entire long summer
break without any work to do, as so many people outside the profession
seemed to believe, but then had come the news that, even if she was not
actually being formally suspended, her future as a teacher was in grave
doubt. Which was why she had come here to Shropshire to stay with her
cousin and her husband in their quiet country village, where Sally, her
cousin, had promised her she would find all the peace and relaxation
she needed.

Ross and Sally had been married for two years;

Ross worked for an innovative engineering firm in Ludlow, and Sally was
an illustrator, working from a small downstairs study in their pretty
ex- farmhouse.

Both of them had made Sarah welcome, but their jobs meant that she was
left very much to her own devices during the day.  Which was what she
wanted.  or at least what her doctor had said she needed.  And it was
true that since she had come to Shropshire two weeks ago the problems
of her pupils, and the anxieties caused by her over- involvement with
them, were beginning to lessen their grip on her, but even that was
causing her to feel guilt, to remind herself that they, unlike her,
were not fortunate enough to have kind cousins living in idyllic
country surroundings, so that they too could escape from the
enervating, choking heat of a city simmering under a very un-English
and long- lasting heatwave.

On the news at night there were photographs of parched dry fields and
parks, of empty streams, and city streets with melting tarmac, and hard
blue skies.

A small plopping sound from the stream caused her to open her eyes and
focus on the fish jumping out of the water to catch flies.  It was a
fair-sized trout, and the sight of it made her smile, remembering
childhood fishing trips with her father and brother.

Her parents were in Canada now, visiting John and Heather and their
twin sons .  which was why Sally's invitation had been such a
godsend.

Sarah had always got on well with her cousin.  Sally was her senior by
three years and there had always been a bond between them.  She had
been chief bridesmaid at Sally and Ross's wedding two years ago,
although it had been over a year since she had last seen them.

The shock Sally had tried to hide when she had met her from the train
had been quickly followed by her cousin's verbally expressed concern
over her loss of weight and the tension dulling her skin and her
eyes.

When she had first arrived no one seeing them together would ever have
believed that she was the younger, Sarah acknowledged, but now, as she
gave in to her body's demand for rest and relaxation and tried to put
aside her mental and emotional guilt at being so self-indulgent, she
was slowly starting to regain some of the weight she had lost so that
her five-foot frame looked more slender than gaunt, and her skin had
begun to lose its city pallor and strain.  That was the trouble with
being a redhead: at times of emotional, physical or mental upset one's
skin did tend to reflect those stresses and become so pale in contrast
to one's hair that the effect was over- dramatic.

How the days she had spent outside had given her a warm peachy glow,
and Ross had jokingly remarked over dinner the previous night, and
Sally had commented as she was coming out this morning, that she was
once again starting to look like the stunning sexy redhead who had
generated so much male curiosity and comment at the wedding.

Sarah had pulled a face and grimaced at her.  She personally would
never have described herself as either sexy or stunning.  She moved,
trying not to recall the problems she had had when she had first
entered teaching and some of her male colleagues, and even the older
male pupils, had refused to take her seriously because of her looks.

It was the combination of red hair and startlingly intense green eyes,
plus the high cheekbones and pointed chin she had inherited from her
mother, that was responsible for the unintentional sensuality of her
looks.

In her teens those looks had caused her endless problems, often ant
agonising her own sex and making it difficult for her to make friends,
and equally often leading the boys she met to assume that she was far
more sexually aware and adventurous than was actually the case.

At university she had found that the best way to deal with the problem
was to adopt a firm no- nonsense manner in such direct contrast to her
looks that it immediately made it obvious that she was at university
for the serious business of studying and obtaining her degree and not
to have a good time.

By the time she had left university and started her first job she had
learned to tuck her long hair into a neat chignon, and to play down her
facial features by wearing only a minimum of make-up.  She always chose
sensible, sturdy clothes, suppressing her own unruly and dangerous urge
to wear something more feminine and appealing.

Sally had grimaced with distaste when she had met her from the train,
immediately condemning the beige shirt waister dress she was wearing as
unbelievably frumpy and sexless.

Sarah had started to point out that, as a teacher, the last thing she
wanted was to be regarded as sexually provocative, but she had been too
exhausted, too drained, to bother.  Just as she had been unable to find
the energy to resist when Sally had dragged her off to Ludlow and
ruthlessly insisted on replacing almost everything in the sparse
wardrobe she had brought with her.

Which was why today she was dressed in a skimpy halter-necked white top
and a pair of cut-off denim jeans, her bare feet thrust into a pair of
trainers, her hair caught up on top of her head in an untidy ponytail
to keep it off the back of her neck.

This heatwave was so enervating.  It was an effort to think, never mind
to move, or was it more because she was so exhausted that it seemed so
much simpler to let others direct the course of her life, to simply
give in and let herself go with the flow?

Behind her, upstream, a small creature disturbed by the passage of
someone along the path made a noise that set the birds off in sharp
shrill cries of warning.

Immediately Sarah felt her own muscles tense in response.  This path
was so quiet that she had almost begun to think of it as her own
private retreat.  As she drew herself further into the protection of
the willow's overhanging branches she hoped that whoever was coming
towards her would walk past her without stopping to chat.

It was a new experience for her, this reluctance to involve herself
with anyone.  A result, perhaps, of the lecture she had received from
her superiors when they had warned her that her over-involvement with
her pupils was detrimental to her career.

She closed her eyes, determinedly blotting out the sound of someone
approaching her hiding-place, but it was impossible to ignore the timid
and very youthful voice that said uncertainly and very anxiously,
"Excuse me, but is this the right way to Ludlow?"

Unwillingly she opened her eyes.

A child.  a boy, no more than six years old at most, was standing
watching her.  He was fair-haired and blue-eyed, a little too thin for
his age and with an anxiety about him that her senses quickly
registered and recognised.

Even while she was telling herself that, whoever he was and whatever he
was doing here all on his own on this remote country footpath, it was
nothing to do with her, and that all she had to do was to answer his
question and set him on his way, another part of her, that
compassionate, caring, womanly part of her that had already caused her
so many problems was wondering who he was, and why he was here, so
very, very much alone, and so very, very young.

As she sat up and studied him she fibbed, "I don't really know, but
I've got a map somewhere here with me ... if you'd like to come and sit
down for a moment I'll have a look at it."

That was true at any rate, she did have a map, and she also had the
very generous lunch that Mrs.  Beattie, Sally's wonderful daily, had
packed up for her that morning.

Reluctantly the child took a step towards her, looking backwards over
his shoulder as he did so.  Now there was fear in his eyes as well as
tension.

What was he running away from?  Sarah wondered as she deliberately,
very slowly opened the rucksack beside her, and equally deliberately,
with nonchalant casualness, removed a can of soft drink and some
sandwiches. The child was betraying his youth by his very lack of
preparation for his odyssey.  His clothes, too, seemed to have been
chosen without much regard for their practicality--a pair of heavy
jeans, a T-shirt, and on his feet what looked like a pair of baseball
boots.  The jeans were far too hot and heavy for this weather and they
were also too big for him. His T-shirt and his boots, though, were
obviously expensive, which ruled out the jeans having been bought with
extra growing-room.  which seemed to suggest that whoever had bought
them had not really been sure of his size.

A tiny frown touched her forehead as Sarah deliberately took her time
over extricating the map from the rucksack.

Pretending to be unaware of his tension and the anxious way he kept on
looking back in the direction he had just come, she patted the ground
beside her, and said easily, "Come and sit down.  I'm afraid I'm not
very good with maps, so it may take me quite a while to find out if
you're on the right path.  I'm only on holiday here, you see.  What
about you?  Do you live round here?"

She watched him as he automatically started to respond to her question
and then caught himself up after he had started to say, "Yes.  I
live..."  his face suddenly settling into stubborn unhappy lines.

"I'm staying here," he told her gruffly.

"But I don't really live here."

"Ah."

Sarah unfolded the map, and then, although she herself was not
particularly hungry, she unwrapped some of Mrs.  Beattie's sandwiches
and started to eat one, pausing to indicate the open foil-wrapped
package and to say, "Would you like a sandwich?"

He nodded his head, and then said huskily, "Yes, please.  I am rather
hungry."

He had excellent manners; his speech was almost old-fashionedly formal,
as though he had spent a long time with older people.

Thoughtfully Sarah watched him as he devoured his sandwich.

She knew already that she would not let him go;

that she would have to somehow or other win his confidence and then
restore him to his family.

A child of his age on his own .  there were so many hazards.  so many
dangers, from man as well as from nature.  His family, whoever they
were and wherever they lived, must be going frantic with worry if they
knew that he was missing.

She suspected he had not come very far and that the exhaustion she
could see so clearly in his eyes came more from misery and fear than
from the physical effort of having walked a long way.

He had a scratch on one arm where he had obviously pushed past a
bramble, and there were smears of dirt on his T-shirt.  He had finished
his sandwich and was eyeing the others in the pile with a hungry
intensity that made Sarah hide a small smile as she offered casually,
"Finished?  Have another?"

"You know," she told him as he bit eagerly into the bread, "I'm not
sure that you are on the right path.  From this map, it looks as
though..."  She paused, frowning, ignoring the tension she could feel
emanating from him.

"I think you could possibly pick up the path half a mile or so further
on."

"Half a mile; is that a very long way?"

"Fairly ... and then it's another six or seven miles to Ludlow.  Are
you going there for something important?"

As she looked at him she saw that he was avoiding her eyes, not wanting
to lie to her, but obviously not wanting to tell her the truth
either.

"Never mind ... there might be a short cut," she offered, re-studying
the map.

"It's a pity I don't have a car, otherwise I could drive you there."

She paused to see how he was going to react to this suggestion, and was
relieved to see hesitance and reluctance.

"I'm not allowed to go in cars with strangers," he told her
immediately.

Sarah suppressed a small sigh.  Poor kid, hadn't anyone warned him that
talking to strangers could be equally dangerous?

"No, of course not," she agreed gravely, investigating the rucksack and
offering him an apple.  He was still standing up and she patted the
ground beside her again and invited, "If you come and sit down here you
can have a look at the map.  I'm not very good at reading them."

"No... my mother isn't either..."  He broke off, his expression
suddenly changing.

"I mean... she wasn't."

He had turned his head, tucking it into his shoulder defensively, a
betraying tremor wobbling his voice.

Was his mother no longer alive, as his words seemed to imply, or was
she merely no longer a part of his life?  Sarah was in no doubt now
that he was running away and that he was desperately unhappy, but he
was still obeying her suggestion and coming to sit down beside her.

He was old enough to have left his baby-fat behind him, but his arms
and legs still had the softness of early childhood, and as he sat down
beside her he smelled of clean young skin and sunshine.

"My name's Sarah... what's yours?"  she asked him as she moved the map
so that he could look at it.

"Robert," he told her, 'although.  "

"Robert... that's a very grown-up name," Sarah admired.

"Doesn't anyone call you Bobbie?"

He shook his head.

"My ... my ... Nana used to call me Robbie, but he said it was a baby's
name.  He calls me Robert."  His face suddenly crumpled up, tears
shimmering in his eyes, and Sarah respected that the 'he' referred to
with such anger and dislike was most probably his father.

Unwilling to probe too much and to frighten him into silence before she
had obtained from him the information she needed, she didn't push him
but said simply and pacifically, "Well, Robert is a very grown-up name,
and I expect you must be... well, at least eight."

She could see the way her words caused his chest to swell with pride
and his tears to disappear.

"I'm six," he told her.

"Almost seven.  Well, I'll be seven in May."

In May.  It was only July now, which meant that he was in fact only
just six, but Sarah widened her eyes admiringly and commented that she
had thought he was much, much older.

"Won't your... your nana be missing you, though, Robert?"  she
suggested gently.

"She'll be wondering where you are, I'm sure.  Did you leave her a
note?"

Immediately his eyes filled with tears as he shook his head and burst
out, "Nana's dead.  She died in a car accident with my mother and
Tom... and I had to come back here and live with... with him.  I hate
him.  I want to go back home.  I don't want to stay with him any
more.

Mrs.  Richards could look after me.  She did before when my mother and
Tom were away and Nana was ill.  I don't have to stay here with him. 
My mother told me that.  She said I didn't have to see him if I didn't
want to and I didn't want to.  I don't like him.  My mother said he'd
never wanted me any way.  that he only wanted me to get at her.  "

As she listened to the jumbled staccato words Sarah fought down the
wave of compassion making her own eyes moisten and her heart ache.

From what he wasn't saying as much as from what he was, she was
beginning to build up a clear picture of what must have happened.  His
parents were either separated or divorced; he had obviously lived with
his mother and perhaps his grandmother as well in some other part of
the country, and from what he had said it sounded as though he had lost
them in a car accident and was now living with his father.  A father
who, it seemed, had never wanted him and who had perhaps only
reluctantly accepted responsibility for him now.  Poor child, no wonder
he was so unhappy, no wonder he was running away, but, much as her
heart ached for him, much as she sympathised with him, she had to find
a way of discovering where he lived and who his father was.

"So you're going to find Mrs.  Richards, is that it?"  she hazarded,
causing him to nod his head.

"Where does she live?  Is it far away?"

"She lives in London," he told her importantly.

"London; that's a long way to go," Sarah commented sympathetically.

"A

very long way.  Have you been walking for a long time?  "

"I left after breakfast," he told her immediately and innocently,
causing Sarah a panic of guilt for the way she was deceiving him.  But
it was for his own good.  his own protection.

"I had to wait until he... my father had gone to work.  Mrs.  Jacobs
went out shopping.  She told me not to go out of the garden.  I don't
like her."

Mrs.  Jacobs.  Sarah bit her bottom lip.  Surely she had heard Mrs.
Beattie mentioning a Mrs.  Jacobs who was one of her neighbours in the
village?

She had gained the impression that the two women were not good friends
and that Sally's cleaner heartily despised and disliked the other
woman.

"Did... did you leave your father a note?"  Sarah asked him.

He shook his head, his face settling into a stubborn mask.

"He won't care.  He'll be glad to see the back of me," he told her.

"Mrs.  Jacobs says I'm a nuisance and that I cause too much dis ...
dis..."

"Disruption?"  Sarah suggested.  She suppressed a sigh as he nodded his
head, plainly impressed by her mind-reading abilities.  Much as she
sympathised with him, she was going to have to get his address out of
him and take him home.

Unpleasant though both Mrs.  Jacobs and his father sounded, she could
see no obvious signs of any kind of physical or emotional abuse about
him, and she was experienced enough to have recognised them had they
been there.  For all his fear and apprehension, he lacked the desperate
silence, the smell of fear that seemed to emanate from such children.

But he was unhappy, desperately so, and she could not help wondering a
little about his father, questioning what manner of man he was.  She
had the impression from what Robert had told her that his father saw
him as a burden.  a nuisance.

"And that's why you're going to London... to find Mrs.  Richards."

"I'd rather live with her than with my father," Robert told her, tears
filling his eyes as he repeated, "I don't like him."

Instinctively Sarah opened her arms to him, and he ran into them, his
small body shaken by sobs as she held him, soothing him, comforting
him.  Poor baby, and he was still only a baby, for all his attempts to
pretend otherwise.

Soon, when he had calmed down a little, she would try to coax him into
agreeing to go home, but for the moment it was more important to win
his confidence and comfort him than to question him, and so she let him
cry, gently rocking him, while she smoothed his fair hair.

Absorbed in what she was doing, she missed the warning signs of the
birds' flight as an intruder disturbed them, so that her first
intimation of his arrival was when the protective fronds of the willow
were swept aside, and she looked up to see a very tall and very angry
man standing glaring furiously at her.

"Robert."

The curt demand for the child's attention gave away their relationship
even before Robert started trembling against her, clinging on to her.

"It's all right, Robbie," she whispered, soothing him, anger darkening
her own eyes at Robert's father's lack of sensitivity.

"If you would kindly let go of my son..."

The words were a demand rather than a request, and immediately Sarah
felt herself reacting against them, her already low opinion of him
dropping several more notches as she reflected on his poor handling of
the situation, and his apparent inability to see that his attitude was
simply terrifying and upsetting his son.

"You must be Robert's father," she commented, forcing back her anger
and trying to stand up.  Not an easy feat with Robert still clinging to
her, but somehow or other she managed it, automatically assuming her
classroom manner, forgetting how inappropriately it went with her
casual clothes and almost childish pony-tail and make-up-less face,
until she saw how at first angrily and even contemptuously she was
being observed.

"Yes, I am," he agreed flatly.

"But I've no idea who you are, or what you're doing with my son.
However, I'll have you know that the police take a pretty dim view of
child abduction."

Abduction.  Sarah sucked in a mouthful of air,

too stunned by what he was implying to be able to respond verbally.

Robert was clinging even harder to her now, and she wasn't sure which
of them was shaking the most, Robert from fear or she from anger.

As she swallowed the air she had gulped she retaliated with some
heat.

"Yes, and they take an equally dim view of... of parental cruelty."

"Parental cruelty?"

He had started to walk towards them, and now he came to an abrupt halt.
His skin was tanned but suddenly his face had lost all its colour.  Not
from shame or guilt, but from rage.  She could see it glittering in his
eyes.  He had very, very pale blue eyes, like shards of ice, she had
thought at first, but now suddenly they were burning so hot that she
could almost feel the searing lick of that heat against her skin.

Unlike Robert, he wasn't fair-haired but much darker, although she
noticed that his thick dark hair was touched faintly with gold at the
ends as though he had at some time or other spent a long, long time in
a very hot climate.

Surprisingly, though, facially he was very like his son, or, rather,
Robert was a miniature version of him.  They had the same
bone-structure, the same nose, the same mouth, but whereas in Robert
that full bottom lip trembled with baby emotion and vulnerability, in
his father it betokened a sensuality and sexuality which made Sarah
itch to distance herself physically from him, her body alive to a sense
of danger that went far deeper than any immediate and conscious
awareness of his anger and irritation.  She didn't allow herself to
ponder on this, though; she was far too concerned about Robert and his
panic- stricken reaction to his father's arrival on the scene to have
the time to concentrate on her own atavistic awareness of his father as
a man.  no, not as a man.  as a male.  a hunting, arrogant, sexual male
being to whom she was a natural form of prey.

"Parental cruelty," he repeated grimly now, jerking her attention back
in focus.

"What the hell are you trying to say?  What has Robert been telling
you?"  he demanded.

Without making any move towards her, without either raising his voice
or using any kind of aggressive force, he was nevertheless attempting
to intimidate her, and she responded immediately to that attempted
intimidation, raising herself to her full height, her chin firming, her
eyes steely and cool as they held his gaze.

"Robert hasn't said anything," she told him not quite truthfully.

"He was in far too distressed a state.  He's a very unhappy little
boy," she added pointedly, adding, to reinforce the point, "He was on
his way to Ludlow ... to London."

She saw the way the blood surged up under the other's skin, and knew
how much he hated being confronted with the truth.  In other
circumstances she might have felt sorry for him.  He was wearing an
expensive business suit, and she noticed that his hands were badly
scratched, and his shoes covered in dust, as though he had pushed his
way relentlessly down the narrow stream-side path, desperately seeking
his missing son.  But motivated by what?  Anger?  She could certainly
see that in his face, along with impatience and irritation, but what
she could not see there was any love, any remorse, any guilt.

"Come here, Robert," he was demanding tersely now, frowning when his
son refused to obey him.  He was plainly unused to dealing with
children, Sarah suspected, and, thinking of the child clinging
piteously to her side, she said quietly, "Perhaps if I came back with
you...?"

Immediately the tanned male face tightened in rejection, the blue eyes
cold and biting as they studied her.  She could see the refusal forming
on his lips, but before he could speak Robert burst out frantically, "I
won't go back.  I won't go with you ... I hate you... I hate you... and
Mummy hated you too."

He was crying again, tearing, racking sobs that, if they weren't
checked, could easily carry him into hysteria.  Instinctively Sarah
bent down and picked him up, lifting him in her arms, so that his face
was buried in the hollow of her throat, his small arms wrapping
fiercely round her as she rocked and soothed him.

As she talked quietly to him she heard his father cursing under his
breath.

He shot back a cuff and glanced at his watch, and the sympathy she had
started to feel for him He'd as Sarah heard him say edgily, "That's
enough, Robert.  Look, I've got a meeting in half an hour..."

He must have seen the contempt, the dislike that flashed through her
eyes, Sarah recognised, because he stopped speaking, his mouth firming
into a hard angry line before he told her acidly, "I'm a businessman as
well as a father.  I have a responsibility to my work force as well as
to my son.  The outcome of an important new contract is in the balance
here, and this meeting is a crucial one.  Without it... well, let's
just say that without it I could have to let some of the work force go.
Why on earth he had to choose today of all days to play up like this...
You do realise that Mrs.  Jacobs is out of her mind with worry, don't
you?"  he demanded of his son.

"She had to ring me at work to tell me you'd gone missing, and if it
hadn't been for the fact that Ben saw you heading for the stream
path... And as for you..."  he gave Sarah an angry, bitter look 'surely
you realise that a child of his age, on his own, has to have left home
without those responsible for him knowing where he is, and instead of
encouraging him you could at least have attempted to take him home. 
"

His accusation took Sarah's breath away, but before she could deny his
statement he was speaking to his son again, reiterating curtly, "We're
going home, Robert."

But, as Sarah had known would happen, Robert refused to let go of her,
clinging desperately to her when his father tried to take hold of
him.

It was, she knew, out of necessity and nothing else that the man was
obliged to stand so close to her, close enough to put his arms around
her as he tried to unwind Robert's hands from behind her neck.  She
could smell the hot man scent of his skin, see the tiny pores of his
face, dark where his beard would grow, his lashes a thick and enviably
long fan against his skin as he frowned over his impossible task.

Uncomfortably aware of just how she was reacting to him, of the tiny
female ripple of unexpected and unwanted response that jarred through
her body, Sarah tried to step back from him, driven, as much by her
need to put some distance between them as by her desire to help his
son, into saying huskily, "Look, it would be much easier if I came back
with you."

She could see the refusal .  the rejection.  and his dislike in his
eyes as they focused brilliantly on her.  He was still far too close. 
far, far too close, she realised as she felt her breath stop in her
throat, and her heart started to pound unevenly.

"I'm not going back.  I want to go and live with Mrs.  Richards,"
Robert was protesting, still clinging to her, adding piteously, "Don't
let him take me.  I hate him."

"Oh, for God's sake!  Very well, then, you'd better come back with
us.

It's this way.  "

Some people had no sense of gratitude, Sarah reflected grimly as he
turned on his heel, patently expecting her to follow, but to her
surprise he stopped, lifting back the branches of the tree so that she
could step through, and then picking up her rucksack before saying more
quietly to Robert, "You've got two legs, Robert, and you're far too
heavy for..."

"Sarah.  Sarah Myers," Sarah supplied automatically for him.

'for Miss Myers to carry you all the way back to the house.  "

"Don't want to walk," was Robert's response, his bottom lip jutting out
stubbornly as he turned his head and looked at his father.  Sarah's
neck was wet from his tears and she felt a wave of tenderness and
concern wash over her as she willed his acerbic parent to at least try
to understand and to have some compassion for him.

"Very well, then, if you won't walk I'll carry you."

As she felt the way Robert shrank back from his father Sarah's tender
heart ached for the little boy.

"Why don't you show me the way, Robert?"  she suggested, gently putting
him down but protectively keeping her own body between him and his
father as she took hold of his hand.

As she turned her head she saw that her gesture had not been lost on
Robert's father.  His mouth was curved into a line of bitter
cynicism.

"Quite the little mother, aren't you?"  he goaded her grimly.

"What is it about your sex that makes you so obsessively unable to
behave with any kind of logic where children are concerned?  Can't you
see that he's?"

"That he's what, Mr...?"  Sarah intervened furiously, challenging
him.

He looked at her, frowning as though surprised by both her attack and
her desire to know his name.

"Gray.  Gray Philips," he introduced himself flatly.

"And you must be able to see that Robert is deliberately working
himself up into a hysterical state."

Quietly, so that Robert couldn't overhear her, Sarah contradicted
equally flatly, "No... what I see is a little boy who's lost everyone
who loves him... a little boy who has apparently been left in the
charge of a woman who neither likes nor cares about him ... a little
boy who has no one he can turn to other than his dead mother's
housekeeper."

Sarah knew that she was being deliberately emotive, but she couldn't
help it.  There was something about this impatient, critical man that
pushed her into needing to bring home to him his child's emotional
plight.

"What I can also see is that you don't appear to know very much about
children, Mr.  Philips."

Sarah drew in her breath at the way he looked deliberately at her own
bare left hand before taunting softly, "And you do?  Do you have
children of your own, then?"

To her mortification, Sarah felt her skin flushing as she was forced to
admit, "No ... no, I don't."

"Then I suggest you wait until you do before you start handing out the
homespun advice," he told her grittily.

Thoroughly incensed by his attitude, Sarah corrected him impetuously,
"I might not have any children, but professionally--' " Professionally?
" Gray Philips cut in sharply, frowning at her.

"What exactly does that mean?  What exactly is your profession?"

"I'm a teacher," Sarah told him, wondering even as she said the words
just how much longer they would be true, and then pushing her fears and
doubts behind her as she felt Robert's hand trembling in her own.

No matter how much she might dislike his father,

she was not helping Robert by allowing her antagonism to take hold of
her.

He 'hated' his father, Robert had said with childish intensity, and
Sarah had not missed the brief look of pain that had touched Gray
Philips's mouth as he had listened to his son's rejection of him.

Despite her sympathy with Robert, she had to acknowledge that his
father had every right to insist on taking the little boy back home.

She could not stop him from doing that, but what she could do was to go
with him and to satisfy herself as much as she could that it was the
confusion and grief of losing those people that he loved that was
upsetting Robert so much and not any actual mistreatment by his
father.

Oddly, despite his antagonism towards her, she could not quite convince
herself that Gray Philips was mistreating his child.  He had been too
angry for that .  his reaction to his son's disappearance too free of
guilt and deception to suggest that he knew exactly why Robert had been
running away.

He was walking ahead of them now, pausing to hold aside the vicious
brambles blocking the path, his frown deepening as he saw the way
Robert clung to her side.

It was twenty minutes before they were in sight of the village, but
Gray Philips didn't walk towards it, instead branching off on to an
even narrower and more overgrown path, which came to an abrupt end
outside a solid wooden gate set into a high brick wall.

Gray Philips opened the gate for her, standing to one side so that she
and Robert could precede him through it.  Out of good manners, or as a
means of ensuring that .  that what?  That she didn't pick Robert up
and run off with him.  What chance would she have had of out pacing a
tough adult male like him?

The garden inside the brick wall Was overgrown, the brambles even
thicker than those on the path outside.  Beyond the wilderness of
undergrowth a cordon of trees guarded a green lawn and formal
flowerbeds, and beyond that lay the house, all mellow brick and
unevenly leaded windows.

It was old, Sarah recognised, Elizabethan, and much, much larger than
her cousin's farmhouse.

Whatever Robert's father might not be, he was quite obviously a very
wealthy man.  But wealth did not buy happiness, and, even while she was
admiring the house, she was not envying him the money that had enabled
him to buy it.  What good was money when his son was so obviously
afraid of him.  when his wife had presumably left him?  Had she been
afraid of him as well?  But she must have loved him once.  She had
married him, after all.  they had had a child.

A tiny shudder went through her as she recognised the dangerous course
of her thoughts.  To question someone's personal life so intimately and
intensely, even within the privacy of her own thoughts, was so alien a
response within her that she instinctively recoiled from acknowledging
what she was doing.

Robert's footsteps lagged as they crossed the lawn.  He was holding
back, dragging his feet.  His father stopped, frowning down at both of
them.

"Is Mrs.  Jacobs still here?"

Sarah found she was holding her breath, praying that Gray Philips would
deal sensitively with his son.  would hear as she did the thread of
fear that ran beneath the words.

If he did, he gave no sign of it.

"No, she isn't," he told Robert curtly, and then, as though unable to
stop himself, he dropped down on one knee in front of the small boy and
placed his hands on his shoulders, demanding gruffly, "Robert, why did
you do it?  Why did you run away?  You must have known how worried Mrs.
Jacobs would be.  You know you aren't allowed to go outside the
garden... you know."

Robert was still clinging to Sarah's hands.  He had started to tremble
violently, and tears poured down his face as he burst out passionately,
"I don't like it here.  I want to go home... I want Nana.-.I want Mrs.
Richards.  I don't like it here."

Immediately his father's hands dropped from Robert's shoulders.  His
face was in shadow as he turned slightly away, his voice harsh and low
as he said roughly, "Robert, your grandmother is dead.  You know
that."

He stopped as Sarah made an instinctive sound of shocked distress.

"What do you want me to do?"  he challenged her.

"Lie to him?  Pretend that none of it happened... that his mother, her
lover and his grandmother are still alive?

"Come on, Robert.  Let's get you inside, and this time no running
away."

As he stood up he took hold of Robert's arm, firmly taking charge of
him, but Robert still clung to Sarah, pleading with her not to leave
him.

His father might not be actively unkind to him, but he seemed to have
little or no idea of how to deal with him, Sarah recognised as she
instinctively tried to soothe Robert's panic, smoothing the soft hair
back off his hot face as she promised, "If you're a good boy and go
with your father now, Robert, I'll come and see you tomorrow if you
like."

"There's no need for that."

She met the look Gray Philips gave her with an equally challenging one
of her own.

"Not according to you," she agreed coldly.

"But Robert--'

"I don't want you to leave me.  I want you to stay with me," Robert
said, and burst out crying.

Kneeling down beside him, she tried to comfort him as best she could.

"I can't stay now, Robert," she told him.

"My cousin will be wondering where I am, but I promise I'll come and
see you tomorrow."

She looked defiantly at Gray Philips as she said the words, challenging
him to refuse to allow her to see his son, and then, before Gray could
say anything to her, and desperately trying to blot out Robert's
tearful pleas to her to stay, she turned her back on both of them and
hurried back towards the wooden gate.

CHAPTER TWO

half an hour later, as she walked towards her cousin's house, Sarah was
still trembling with a mixture of shock and disbelief.  She still could
not entirely believe it had all actually happened.  That poor little
boy.  He had been so upset .  and his father had been so remote.  so. 
so irritated and impatient.  so completely unaware of how to respond to
his son's misery and despair.

Sally was in the garden when Sarah opened the gate, dead-heading her
roses.

"Are you all right?"  she asked with some concern.

"You look upset."

Sally was frowning when Sarah had finished explaining to her what had
happened.

"Gray Philips ... I'd heard that his son had recently come to live with
him.  The boy's mother.  Gray's ex- wife, was killed in a car
accident.

She was pretty wild, according to local gossip.  She was having affairs
with other men almost before the ink had dried on their marriage
certificate.

"I never met her, but apparently they separated be 9

fore the little boy was born.  I believe that Gray fought for custody
of him, but lost, and that there were difficulties over access, which
might explain the child's apparent antipathy towards his father.  It
must be very traumatic for him.  "

"Yes, dreadfully," Sarah agreed vehemently.

"The poor little mite was in a terrible state."

Sally's eyes rounded.

"I didn't mean for the boy, I meant for his father... Gray."

When Sarah frowned she asked quietly, "Think about it.  You've never
been allowed to see your child, never had anything to do with him, and
suddenly he's there living with you... hating you... probably blaming
you for his mother's death.  Imagine the state he must have been in
when he found out that Robert had gone missing."

Sarah's frown deepened.  Sally was making her feel quite guilty .  as
though she had somehow been unfair towards Gray Philips, as though she
had deliberately misjudged and condemned him.

"So you're going back to see him, the little boy, tomorrow, then?"

Sally asked her.

"I promised I would, although his father wasn't very pleased."

Sally gave her a thoughtful look.

"You're such a soft touch," she told her wryly, 'but don't get too
involved, will you, love?  Rumour has it that Gray Philips is a man
who, because of the breakdown of his marriage, doesn't have a very good
opinion of our sex.  "

"That's his problem, not mine," Sarah responded firmly, and yet she was
aware of a sense of dismay as she listened to her cousin's words, even
though they only confirmed what her instincts had already told her.

And yet why should she feel dismayed?  Gray Philips meant nothing to
her; she hadn't even particularly liked him, and she certainly hadn't
liked the way he was treating his son.

But she had responded to him physically.  She had been very, very
intensely aware of him as a man, aware of him in a shockingly sexual
and intimate way that was totally foreign to her nature.

She had had a brief love-affair when she was at university, a
relationship with a fellow student which had lasted a little over six
months, but the sexual side of that relationship had never been as
important to her as the emotional one.  Even before she was ready to
admit that she had fallen out of love with Andy, she had lost all
interest in him sexually.

Since then she had been too busy, her life filled with too many other
things to allow her the time to develop a committed relationship.  She
had male friends, went out on dates, but none of the men she knew had
ever had one tenth, one hundredth of the effect on her that Gray
Philips had had.

Trembling a little, she pushed that knowledge away from her, not
wanting to confront or analyse it.

Beside her Sally was saying, "I don't know about you, but I'm starving.
Let's go in and have something to eat."

over dinner that evening Sally related the events of Sarah's encounter
to Ross.

"Gray Philips..."  his eyebrows rose '. hmm.  That's interesting.  What
did you make of him, Sarah?  He's very well thought of by the local
business community.  A son of local boy made good.  He took over an
ailing family business when his uncle died, a light engineering concern
in Ludlow, and he's managed to turn it right round and make it very
successful.  I have met him, although I don't know him very well.

He's the sort who seems to prefer to keep himself to himself.  Doesn't
play golf.  and he isn't a member of the new private sports centre
that's opened outside Ludlow recently, and yet he certainly looks
pretty fit.

"I had heard that he'd got his son living with him.  My boss happened
to mention the other day that Philips had been in touch with him,
asking if his wife could recommend a good agency to supply him with
someone to take charge of the child.  Apparently he's been having
problems in that direction.  A wealthy single man..."  Ross gave a
small shrug.

"It seems the kind of woman he wanted to employ is reluctant to work in
a household without another woman in it, and the kind that does want
the job seems to be more interested in keeping him company than his
son.  He has got a housekeeper now, though, I believe."

"Elsie Jacobs from the village," Sally told him, pulling a face.

"And you know what she's like.  Hardly the ideal person to have charge
of a small child."

"Mm.  So what did you think of him, then, Sarah?  Impressive, isn't
he?"

"If you happen to like arrogant, bad-tempered and completely
insensitive men, then I suppose he is," Sarah agreed tartly.

Ross loved to tease her, and was constantly telling her that it was
time she found herself a man and settled down, so she knew quite well
what lay behind his question.  This time, though, she wasn't going to
rise for Ross's very obvious bait, nor his assumed mock-chauvinistic
pose.

"It's the little boy, Robert, I feel sorry for," Sally told her
husband.

"From what Sarah was saying, he was almost distraught.  He was trying
to run away to London to find his grandmother's housekeeper.  It must
have been awful for him to lose everyone he loved, everyone who was
familiar to him, like that."

"Mm... although by all accounts his mother was far from the madonna
type," Ross interrupted.

"People locally don't seem to have a very high opinion of her, but
then, I suppose, with Gray being local and her not, and the marriage
only lasting for such a short time... And to deny Gray any kind of
access to the boy..."

"Surely no court would do that without good reason?"  Sarah pointed
out, frowning.

"Well, you'd think not, but get yourself a good enough lawyer and who
knows?  And apparently she, the mother, was pretty good at putting on a
performance when she deemed it necessary, whereas Gray, from what I
know and have heard of him, isn't the type to actively sue for people's
sympathy and compassion."

"No, he isn't," Sarah agreed feelingly, remembering how much Robert's
father had ant agonised her with his curt dismissal of her and his
manner towards his son.

Ross shot her a very thoughtful look.

"All the same, he's very well thought of locally, and he's done quite a
lot for the community."

"Pity he hasn't done something for his son," Sarah said grimly.

"If you could have seen him... He was so upset... so... so unhappy."

Ross frowned.

"You're not trying to suggest that

Philips is actually harming the boy in some way, are you?  "

Immediately Sarah shook her head.

"No... at least not in any physical sense, and not deliberately, but
emotionally... There doesn't seem to be any kind of bond between them
at all.  I suspect he... Gray Philips looks on his son as just another
responsibility, a burden he's had to assume.  He seemed more concerned
about a meeting he was supposed to attend than Robert... and, of
course, to Robert he's a stranger.  If there hasn't been any contact
between them since Robert's birth..."

"And if, as you seemed to think was the case, his mother talked to him
about Gray as though he was some kind of monster, he's bound to be
afraid, isn't he?"  Sally put in.

"Not an easy situation for any man to deal with, but in Gray Philips's
present position it must be doubly difficult," Ross commented,
explaining, "There's been some talk of a large multi-national wanting
to take over the company.  Gray is the major shareholder, but there are
other family members holding shares, who, it seems, are in favour of
the takeover because it will give them instant cash.  Gray, on the
other hand, quite naturally wants to retain ownership of the business,
so there's an awful lot of behind- the-scenes negotiating going on.  I
suspect that ultimately he'll have to buy out the other shareholders;

that will mean raising one hell of a lot of money.  No, I shouldn't
want to be in his shoes right now," Ross concluded.

that night in bed, for the first time since her historic and depressing
interview with her superiors, Sarah found that it wasn't their
criticisms of her that were going round and round in her brain as she
tried to go to sleep, but that instead she was reliving her run-in with
Gray Philips.

Strange how powerful the human mind was.  Without even the slightest
conscious effort of will she could mentally visualise him in such clear
and sharp detail that she could see the changing expressions cross his
face; could hear the strong male sound of his voice; could picture each
gesture, each movement he had made, almost as though the man himself
were there with her.

She turned over in bed, fiercely closing her eyes, trying to block him
out of her mind.  It didn't matter what Ross had said to her; she still
felt that Gray Philips could have done more, ought to have done more to
help his son.  That poor little boy, to be so cruelly robbed of those
he loved.  to be removed from a familiar and loved environment to one
that to him must appear totally hostile and unfriendly.  To be forced
to live with a father who all his young life he had been told was
someone who did not love him.

"I hate you," Robert had said to his father with all the vehemence of a
frightened child, and just for a moment Sarah had thought she had seen
some nicker of emotion burn in those so cold ice-blue eyes.  But what
that emotion might have been she did not know.  Anger and impatience
most probably.  certainly he had not displayed any other kind of
emotion.  any kind of warmth or love.

Perhaps in one way it had been wrong of her to promise to visit Robert
without first obtaining his father's permission.  perhaps she had done
so deliberately because she had known that that permission would have
been withheld, but how could she have lived with herself if she had
deliberately and uncaringly turned her back on the little boy,
shrugging her shoulders and telling herself that he was not her
concern?  No, she could not have done that.  It ran completely counter
to her whole nature.  Tiredly she allowed herself to drift towards
sleep.

'look, why don't you take my car?  I shan't be using it today, so you
might as well.  "

They were sitting having coffee in the kitchen, and Sally's offer of
the use of her car made Sarah say gratefully, "Well, if you're sure you
don't mind, although I'm not sure how to find the house.  The path went
to a back gate and..."

"I've got a map of the village.  The house isn't difficult to find.

I'll get the map and show you.  "It was Gray Philips's grandfather who
originally bought it," Sally explained when she returned with the map,
which she spread out on the kitchen table, pinning it down with her
half-full mug of coffee.

"Gray's father was the older brother and should have inherited both it
and the business, but he was in the army.  He was killed in action when
Gray was quite small.  At least, that's what Mrs.  Richards told me.
His mother apparently remarried and went to live in America, leaving
Gray here.  He was brought up by his grandfather, his uncle never
married, and-again according to Mrs.  Richards--Gray was sent to
boarding-school and then on to university, so that he virtually only
spent his holidays here when he was growing up."

Sarah was frowning as she listened to her cousin.  Against her will she
felt an aching tenderness, an awareness of how very lonely Gray
Philips's childhood must have been, but surely that loneliness should
have made him more compassionate towards his own child and not less?

Then again, she knew enough about psychology to know that an adult
would often inflict on his or her own children the same miseries they
themselves had suffered, sometimes deliberately, but more often than
not quite subconsciously, unaware that, out of their own deeply buried
pain and resentment, they were unable to let go of the past and their
subconscious resentment of another child, their child, enjoying a
happier childhood than they had known.

Most people when confronted with such a truth were both appalled and
angry, repudiating it immediately, even when it was explained to them
that they were not consciously aware of what they were doing.

Was Gray Philips like that?  Did he subconsciously resent his son's
happiness?

She was leaping to unfounded conclusions, Sarah warned herself as she
forced herself to concentrate on studying the map.  allowing her
emotions to take control of her.  What Robert needed right now was not
someone to reinforce his lack of trust and love for his father, but
someone to gently encourage him to form a bond with Gray.

That task was not hers, she warned herself half an hour later as she
got into Sally's car.  All she could do was to try to comfort Robert as
best she could and to gently point out to him the dangers of trying to
run away.  It was a pity that Gray Philips had not taken the trouble to
find someone more sympathetic and understanding than Mrs.  Jacobs to
take charge of his son, since he plainly was not prepared to give
Robert the emotional comfort and support he needed himself.

She found the entrance to the house easily enough.

Automatic gates swung open as she drove towards them, admitting her to
the gravel-covered drive.

The front view of the house betrayed that it was even larger than she
had first imagined and built in the traditional Elizabethan E-shape.

The drive swept round not to the front of the house, but through a
brick archway and into what had once been the stable-yard.  Parking her
car here, Sarah climbed out.

Was it her imagination or did the sound of her shoes crunching over the
gravel seem preternaturally loud?

She walked round to the front of the house, pausing to admire the
double row of clipped yews that framed the main path as she did so.

Beyond them in the distance she could see the shape of a formal pond
and the spray of a fountain.  Reflecting that it must cost a fortune to
keep the house and garden in order, she mounted the steps and pulled
the bell chain.

For a long time nothing happened, and she was just about to wonder
angrily if Gray Philips had given Mrs.  Jacobs instructions not to
admit her, when the door suddenly opened to the extent of its safety
chain and a small, familiar voice asked uncertainly, "Is that you,
Sarah?"

"Robert... Where's Mrs.  Jacobs?"  she asked the little boy as he
reached up to release the safety chain.

"She's gone home," Robert told her when the door was open and Sarah
went inside.

"She said she wasn't paid to look after the likes of me and that I was
getting on her nerves," he added woefully.

The hall was low-ceilinged and beamed, with a polished wooden floor and
an enormous cavern of a fireplace.  It was immaculately clean and yet
somehow unwelcoming.

The oak coffer against the wall cried out for a pewter jug full of
flowers, the floor for a richly coloured rug, and stairs with
barley-sugar twisted and carved posts and heavily worn oak treads led
to the upper storeys of the house.  A window set halfway up them in
their curve let in a mellow shaft of sunlight, and, even while she
admired the heavy wrought-iron light fitting that hung from the
ceiling, Sarah was wondering why no one seemed to have thought to fit
the window-seat with a comfortable squashy cushion, and thinking how
bleak the house looked despite its shining cleanness.

"Are you here all on your own?"  she asked Robert as he took hold of
her hand and started to tug her in the direction of one of the doors
leading off the hallway.

"Yes.  My father's gone to work."

"And Mrs.  Jacobs has left.  Is she coming back?"

"No."  Robert shook his head.

"She said she wasn't going to set foot in this place again.  At least
not while I was here.  Children are a nuisance, she said, and there are
plenty of places she can work where she doesn't have to put up with
them."  Tears suddenly brimmed in his eyes as he turned to look at
her.

"My father is going to be cross with me, isn't he?  But it wasn't my
fault that I spilt the milk.  I slipped on the kitchen floor."

Sarah felt a mingling of anger and disgust.  How could any father leave
his child in the sole charge of a woman as plainly unsuitable as Mrs.
Jacobs, and how could any woman walk out on a six-year-old child when
she knew there was no one to take charge of him, and when she must also
know how vulnerable he was?

Robert pushed open a door which Sarah saw led into the kitchen.  Her
frown deepened when she saw the pool of milk marking the stone floor,
its surface ominously broken by shards of glass.  Had Mrs.  Jacobs
really left without cleaning up the broken glass?  It seemed that she
had.

Quietly telling Robert not to go near the broken glass, Sarah set about
cleaning up the mess.

While she was doing so he started to explain tearfully to her how the
milk had been spilt when he was pouring it into his breakfast bowl of
cereal.

The fridge from which he had taken the milk had a freezer section
beneath it, and a handle surely far too high for the easy reach of a
child of six.

When she heard how he had dragged a stool across the floor and climbed
up on it to open the door, ap N

parently while Mrs.  Jacobs was sitting down drinking a cup of tea, she
was so angry both with Mrs.  Jacobs and with Robert's father that she
felt it was just as well that neither of them was there for her to vent
her anger on them.

Surely the older woman must have realised the potential danger of a
child of Robert's age climbing on a stool to open a fridge door?  And
surely in any case the little boy should not have been left to get his
own breakfast?

Not wanting to pry and take advantage of his innocence, Sarah
nevertheless had to ask him why Mrs.  Jacobs had not poured out the
milk for him.

"She said it wasn't her job to feed me," he told Sarah.

"And, besides, she was very cross.  She said I didn't deserve any
breakfast after what I'd done yesterday.  She said I ought to be
whipped and locked in my room."  His face grew shadowed and fearful.

"You won't ... you won't tell my father about the milk, will you,
Sarah?"

"Not if you don't want me to," Sarah assured him, mentally crossing her
fingers.  She had every intention of making sure that Gray Philips knew
exactly what she thought of a man who left his child in the sole charge
of a woman like Mrs.  Jacobs.

It was almost lunchtime, and when she discovered that because of the
accident Robert had not had any breakfast she opened the fridge and
stared in disgust at its meagre contents.  The freezer section below it
was packed with microwave dishes and TV dinners, but there was nothing,
as far as she could see, nutritious enough for a growing child.  no
fresh fruit, no fresh vegetables, nothing in the fridge that could in
any way constitute the ingredients for a well- balanced healthy meal.

The bread-bin, when she found it, held half a loaf of dry, unappetising
white bread, although the biscuit barrel was well stocked.  Sarah
turned away from this in disgust to announce firmly, "Robert, you and I
are going to do some shopping."

It was warm enough for Robert to go out in his shirt and shorts, but
before they left Sarah found an envelope in her handbag and wrote down
a brief note on it, leaving it propped up on the kitchen table in the
unlikely event of Mrs.  Jacobs's alerting Gray Philips to the fact that
she had left Robert on his own and his coming home to ensure that he
was safe.

Since she had no keys to any of the doors, she had to leave the back
door unlocked, and as they drove away she prayed that no one would
break into the house while she was gone.

In their nearest market town they had a good selection of food stores,
so there was no need for her to drive as far as Ludlow.

After they had parked the car and collected their trolley she asked
Robert what he liked to eat, and was pleased to discover from his
answers to her questions that his mother had obviously been very strict
about a healthy diet.

However, when she made some comment about his mother, he shook his head
and told her, to her surprise, "But I didn't live with Mummy and Tom. I
lived with Nana.  There wasn't room for me at Mummy's house, and
besides..."  He scowled and dragged his toe along the floor, telling
her gruffly, Tom didn't like me.  Peter's father liked him," he added
wistfully, causing Sarah to cease her inspection of the shelves and
pause to look at him, asking questioningly, " Peter?  "

"He was my friend at school," Robert told her.

"He lived with his mummy and his daddy.  His daddy used to play with
him.  He was teaching Peter to play football," he told her enviously.

Poor little scrap.  Sarah ached to pick him up and hug him and to tell
him that it wasn't his fault, that he had just been unlucky in the
adult males in his life, because she could see the fear in his eyes,
the belief that it was somehow his fault that first his mother's lover
and then his own father had rejected him.

It seemed odd, though, that, after going to all the trouble of
obtaining sole custody of him and refusing to allow his father to see
him, his mother should then allow him to live full-time with his
grandmother.

She was frowning a little over this as she scanned the shelves.  She
had plenty of cash with her, money she had brought with her when she
had arrived from the city and which so far she had had no need to
spend, thanks to the generosity of her cousin.  According to Sally and
Ross, Gray Philips was a wealthy man, and certainly wealthy enough to
provide his son with a proper diet, so there was no need for her to
scrimp on her purchases.

She could only marvel at the quality and training of a housekeeper who
apparently was content to feed a grown man and a growing child on
pre-cooked frozen microwave meals.  There was nothing wrong with such
things for emergencies or days when cooking was inconvenient or
impossible, but as a sole source of food.  As she paused to ask Robert
if he liked fish she tried not to contemplate how Gray Philips was
likely to view her interference.

Her shopping complete, she and Robert headed back to the car.  He was
chattering to her about his grandmother as they did so, and Sarah could
tell how much he missed her--more, it seemed, than he missed his
mother, but then, if he had lived with his grandmother.  It would
account for that oddly old fashioned air he had about him at times,
that grave,

almost too adult manner that set him apart from the other children of
his age that she knew.

Once they were back at the house she was relieved to find that there
had been no intruders, but neither, it seemed, had Mrs.  Jacobs changed
her mind and returned.

Had the woman no sense of responsibility, to leave a six-year-old child
completely on his own?

After she had made Robert some lunch and seen him clean his plate she
asked him if he knew what time his father normally came home from work.
One thing was certain: there was no way she could leave Robert here on
his own, which meant that she would have to wait with him until Gray
Philips returned.

Robert shrugged his shoulders in response to her question.  His father,
it seemed, came home at a variety of different times, and she was
appalled to discover from his artless chatter that more often than not
the boy had been left by the housekeeper to get his own supper and get
himself ready for bed, Mrs.  Jacobs having apparently threatened him
that he would be in serious trouble if his father came home and found
him still up.

The housekeeper seemed to have reinforced Robert's fear of his father
by using Gray as a threat against him, but, angry as she was with the
other woman, Sarah was even more angered by Gray Philips himself.

Surely anyone with an ounce of sense must have known what was going on.
must have seen what was happening?  Which meant either that Gray
Philips couldn't be bothered with his son, or, even worse, simply
didn't care.

Once she and Robert had washed up from lunch she telephoned Sally and
explained the situation, adding that she felt she had to stay with
Robert until his father returned.

"Yes, of course you must," Sally agreed firmly, denying that it would
cause her any problems if Sarah kept her car.  When Sarah explained to
her what she had found when she had arrived at the house.  Sally told
her, "Well, I'm not entirely surprised.  Mrs.  Richards was here this
morning, and she was saying that Mrs.  Jacobs is the last woman fit to
have charge of a small child.  Apparently she detests children."

After she had replaced the telephone receiver Sarah reflected that Gray
Philips, as a local, must surely know of his housekeeper's reputation,
and yet he had still left her in charge of his son.

Unwilling to stray too far from the house in case Gray Philips
returned, Sarah spent the afternoon in the garden with Robert.  He was
an intelligent child, if perhaps a little over-sensitive and in need of
a slightly more robust attitude towards life.  That was probably
because he had had no adult male in his life to pattern himself on,
Sarah reflected as Robert chattered openly about his life before he'd
come to live with his father, and confirmed that he had been living
with his grandmother and not his mother and that, moreover, it did not
seem as though he had actually seen a great deal of his mother.

At six o'clock they went inside, and at her suggestion Robert went
upstairs for a bath before she made his supper.  He insisted on her
going with him, and a little reluctantly she did so.  She didn't want
Gray Philips to come back and think she was prying round the house.

For that reason she had kept strictly to the kitchen, firmly
suppressing any temptation to open the doors into any of the other
rooms.

But now, with Robert pleading with her and insisting that he would not
have a bath unless she came with him, she reluctantly followed him
upstairs on to the wide-galleried landing with its polished board floor
and its dark portraits.

Against one cream wall was another oak chest, just as bare of any touch
of homely warmth as the one downstairs, and, remembering the profusion
of flowers she had seen in the garden, she itched to be able to gather
up some of them so that their rich colours broke up the sombreness of
the house.

Two passages led off the landing.  Robert grasped her hand and took her
down one of them, stopping outside the door at the end of the passage
and then opening it.

His bedroom was large, and surprisingly thoughtfully and well equipped
for a boy of his age.  There was a large toy cupboard against one wall,
a desk and chair, a comfortable single bed with a duvet on it depicting
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.  Beyond the bedroom was a door which
Robert told her led to his bathroom.

The bathroom was as well equipped as the bedroom, with a shower as well
as a bath, but there was a dirty rim round the bath and a pile of damp
towels on the floor.

"Mrs.  Jacobs said she wasn't cleaning in here 'cos I was a bad boy,"
Robert told her when he saw Sarah looking at the towels.  His face
clouded suddenly as he added almost tearfully, "At Nana's I had my
special things in the bathroom, my frogs and my boat, but Mrs.  Jacobs
threw them all away.  She said they were only for babies."

Sarah's heart ached for him as she was torn between her feeHngs for
Robert and her fury at the other woman's unbelievable lack of
compassion and understanding.

"Never mind.  Perhaps we could make a paper boat for you to sail for
tonight," she suggested, adding, "It won't sail very well, though."

Instantly Robert's face lit up.

"Could we really do that?"  he asked her, so obviously thrilled by her
suggestion that she laughed.

"Yes, if we can find some paper," she assured him.

Instantly his face fell.

"I haven't got any paper.  Mrs.  Jacobs took it all away because she
said it was making a mess.  There's some in the study, though.  We
could go down and get it."

Sarah hesitated.  The last thing she wanted to do was to start rooting
around in someone else's house, knowing how much she would hate another
person invading her own privacy, and yet she had promised Robert, and
if he knew where the paper was.  The study, as he called it, was more
of a small library, complete with library shelves and an impressive
stock of leather-bound books.

A huge partner's desk dominated the floor space, even if the computer
terminal on it looked slightly out of place.

Two large bay windows overlooked the gardens, their leaded lights
glinting in the evening sunshine.  The window-seats in the bays were
covered in faded damask, the fabric adding a comfortable homely touch
to an otherwise austere room.

The paper, it seemed, was kept in the bottom drawer of the desk, but
when Robert tried to open it it was too heavy for him.

A little unwillingly Sarah got down on the floor beside him to add her
efforts to his.

"What the hell's going on in here?"

Sarah froze as she heard the angry male demand, feeling Robert creep
closer to her as his father's anger reached out to engulf both of
them.

Feeling like a thief caught in the act of stealing something, Sarah
turned round slowly, wishing she was standing up and not kneeling down;
not a good position in which to defend herself, and certainly not a
good position from which to confront someone.  especially not a someone
who was standing over her, glaring furiously down at her, and
apparently putting the very worst kind of construction there could be
on what she was doing.

"We were looking for some paper so that we could make a boat to sail in
the bath."

Robert's uncertain, nervous little voice broke the hard silence.

Both adults focused on him but with very different expressions.

Sarah's was soft and tender, her hand going out instinctively to touch
his cheek, to offer him some kind of comfort and reassurance, while his
father's, if anything, became even more grim and irritable.

"You were what?  Would you mind explaining to me what's going on
here?"

Gray Philips demanded, turning to Sarah.

"And where the hell is Mrs.  Jacobs?

She was supposed to stay with Robert until-I got back.  "

At her side Sarah felt Robert start to tremble and knew immediately
that he feared his father would blame him for the fact that the
housekeeper had left.

Without allowing herself to dwell on Gray Philips's reaction to what
she was doing, she touched Robert gently on the arm and said softly to
him, "Robbie, you go upstairs and get ready for bed while I talk to
your father, will you?"

He was more than glad to obey her suggestion, scrambling to his feet
and almost running through the door and up the stairs.

Once she was sure he was out of earshot Sarah got to her own feet.  She
had taken off her shoes when she had kneeled down on the floor and they
were a couple of feet away from her.  Wishing she had them on for the
extra inches they gave her, she drew her body up firmly and tilted her
chin, defiance and determination mingling in the look she gave the man
watching her.

His silence was, if anything, even more intimidating than his original
anger, but there was no reason for her to be intimidated by him.  He,
after all, was the one who was responsible for Robert.  who had left
him, a child of six years old, alone in the house without any form of
adult supervision.

Reminding herself of this brought little comfort, but it did enable her
to say defiantly, "It seems that Mrs.  Jacobs has left..."

CHAPTER THREE

sarah's heart was pounding far too rapidly.  There was a long, long
silence before Gray Philips made any kind of response to her statement,
but during that time the mental messages that passed between them were
as fiery and volatile as a box of firecrackers, and even before he
demanded savagely, "What?"  Sarah knew that he was blaming her for the
housekeeper's defection.

"She left before I got here," she told him quickly, and then, fearing
that he would transfer blame to Robert, added bitingly, "I should have
thought that as Robert's father the very least you could have done was
to ensure that you left him in the charge of someone caring and
responsible and not a woman who everyone knows can't stand children."

She saw from his expression that her goad had hit home.  His eyes
hardened and then glittered with dislike, but before he could say
anything Sarah continued angrily, "Do you realise that she wasn't even
feeding him properly?  He hadn't had any breakfast.

There wasn't a scrap of food in the house suitable for a child of his
age, and--' "You have been busy, haven't you?"

The softly venomous words silenced her, with all that he wasn't saying.
The look he gave her reduced her to the very worst kind of prying Nosy
Parker and made her writhe with self-guilt and mortification.  What was
I supposed to do, she wanted to challenge him, let Robert starve?  But
she had too much pride to attempt to defend herself.  The real guilt
was, after all, his and not hers, she assured herself.

"If you were so concerned for Robert's welfare surely the most sensible
thing would have been to ring me?"

The words dripped acid that corroded her composure.

"Perhaps if I had known where to contact you I might have done exactly
that," she told him shakily, reaction beginning to set in.

"Robert knows my office number."

She could feel herself flushing.  She ought to have thought of that.
ought to have.  She gnawed distractedly on her bottom lip, wishing now,
when it was too late, that she had not acted so impetuously and
emotionally, reactions which this man could never, ever understand.

Her primary desire had been for Robert .  for his well-being, but now
all she could manage in her own self-defence was a weak and shaky, "I
thought I was doing the right thing."

How had it happened?  she asked herself in angry despair.  How had
their positions been reversed so that she was the guilty party, and he
her accuser?  Wasn't he, after all, the one at fault, while she.  she
had acted simply out of a desire to protect Robert?

All she could do in her own self-defence was to throw at him what she
knew to be the dangerous challenge of announcing, "Even if I had known
your number, Robert seems to be more..."

She stopped abruptly, unable to bring herself to accuse him of allowing
his child to be afraid of him, even while she felt it was the truth.

Too sensitive.  too painfully careful of the feelings of others, and,
because of those faults, too vulnerable to make a good teacher; that
was what her superiors had said, and now their criticisms were
resounding in her ears, telling her that she had every justification
for accusing Gray Philips of, at the very least, not seeing the effect
his irascible hard-edged manner was having on his son.  She acquitted
him of deliberately fostering Robert's fear, but in her eyes not to be
aware of the little boy's misery and unhappiness was almost as great a
crime.

Now, as she faltered into an uncomfortable silence, it seemed that Gray
Philips did not share her reluctance to use the words she had felt
unable to utter, because he completed her sentence for her, saying
grimly, "Robert seems to be what?  More afraid of me than reassured by
my presence--is that what you were about to say?"

His mouth curled contemptuously as he added, "Let me give you a piece
of advice, Miss Myers.  Once you've started to level a criticism at
someone, don't back off halfway through it.  By doing so you're
suggesting that you lack any real belief in what you're saying."

Immediately Sarah retaliated, too angry this time to care if she
offended him.

"That's not true," she told him fiercely.

"Robert is afraid of you.  If he weren't..."

She stopped again, and dulcetly he supplied for her, "If he weren't
he'd turn to me for comfort and reassurance and not you--is that what
you were about to say?  Hasn't it occurred to you that, as a child who
has only been used to female company, Robert might not be so much
afraid of me but might instead be finding it difficult knowing how to
react to me?"

Sarah knew that her Hushed face gave her away, and -once again she
mentally cursed her own emotional reaction to the situation.

Feebly she countered, "But Robert's mother was... had--' " A lover?
Indeed.  In fact, she had a succession of them.  " He saw her face and
smiled cruelly at her.

"You look shocked.

It's the truth, but then, of course, we aren't supposed to speak the
truth about the newly dead, are we?  We're supposed to focus on their
good points.  " His face became bitter and closed up.

"As far as I'm concerned, my ex-wife didn't have any good points, and
for your information Robert didn't live with his mother but with his
grandmother;

my ex-wife, having hounded me through the courts to ensure that I was
denied access to my son, to ensure that I could have no real place in
his life, then casually handed him over to the care of his grandmother.
You see, Angela didn't love Robert; she wasn't capable of loving anyone
other than herself.  " He broke off and, in an oddly vulnerable and out
of character gesture, ran his hand through his hair, an almost baffled
expression darkening his eyes as though he himself was as startled by
what he had said as she was.

He looked, Sarah realised in that odd moment when she saw him not as an
antagonist.  not as the father of a vulnerable, frightened child, but
as a man, very tired.  It couldn't be easy for him, to become solely
responsible for a child who, despite the.  fact that he had fathered
him, was a complete stranger to him .  a child, moreover, who was
coming through the trauma of the death of all those people closest to
him.

But, even so, to have left Robert in the charge of a woman like Mrs.
Jacobs.  By all accounts.  Gray Philips was a wealthy man.  wealthy
enough to provide his son with a properly trained nanny.

Almost as though he had read her mind, he told her less acerbically, "I
have spent most of today interviewing prospective nannies for Robert,
so far without success."  His mouth hardened fractionally and Sarah
remembered what Ross had said about the problems Gray was reputedly
having in finding someone suitable to take charge of his son.

"I shall be spending most of tomorrow doing exactly the same thing,
hopefully with better results."

Even though she knew it was none of her business, Sarah could not
prevent herself from asking, "Since whoever you employ is going to be
looking after Robert, wouldn't it be wise to allow him to have some say
in your eventual choice?"

"And have him pick some blonde bimbo look-alike of his mother?"  he
demanded in disgust.

A small shock of sensation ran through her as Sarah listened to him.

Later, trying to analyse it, she was uncomfortably aware of an emotion
that if not actually jealousy was a pretty close relation to it,
although why she should be jealous of Robert's dead mother she had no
idea whatsoever, unless it was because, from his bitterly derisive
words, Gray Philips had drawn for her a picture of a woman so very,
very different from everything that she was herself.  Although his
words had been outwardly derogatory and unflattering, woman-like, she
had immediately stripped away that outer wrapping of criticism, and had
guessed from Gray Philips's description that his ex-wife had more than
likely been extremely pretty.  extremely feminine, and probably very
spoilt and wilful in the way that such women were, expecting and
receiving male indulgence as their rightful due.

It did not matter that she could reassure herself that no man would
ever condescend to her in that kind of way, that her looks would never
encourage any man to treat her as a pretty, brainless doll and that she
was grateful for it; some small, hitherto unknown part of her had
instantly and shockingly lamented the difference between herself and
the woman Gray Philips had so harshly described.

So far all the indications had been that his ex-wife was someone he had
disliked and despised, and very strongly so, but then wouldn't a man of
his intelligence, who had experienced what he had experienced in his
marriage and subsequent divorce, almost force himself to feel the kind
of emotions that he felt the world would expect him to feel towards his
ex- wife when perhaps secretly in the depths of his heart he.

He what?  Still loved her?  What if he did?  Sarah asked herself
stoutly. His feelings for his ex-wife had nothing to do with her, even
though they might explain his attitude towards his son.

Warily she digested her thoughts, acknowledging that it disturbed her
that she should have such strong feelings about a man who was virtually
a complete stranger to her.  just as he.  Gray himself, disturbed
her.

Unwillingly she forced herself to confront the truth she had been
dodging since her first meeting with him.  He was different from all
the other men she knew; more.  more dangerously male; somehow, more. 
more sensual.  Even more uncomfortably she was forced to acknowledge
how very aware she was of him as a man, a totally new experience for
her.  She had come across more handsome men, had had her fair share of
teenage crushes on unattainable pop stars and the like, but this was
the first time she had experienced such an intense rush of physical
awareness of a member of the male sex, and it disturbed and distressed
her, all the more so because his attitude both towards her and towards
Robert surely proclaimed the fact that he was the very opposite of all
that she had always believed would appeal to her in a man.  There was
no softness about him, no gentle, caring tenderness.  no hint that he
had absorbed all the lessons that his sex were supposed to have
absorbed over the last decade and emerged from that learning process as
a caring, thoughtful human being, brought to the humble realisation of
how much his sex had sinned against hers over the generations and eager
to make amends for those sins.

And yet.  and yet.  she could not in all honesty accuse him of being
aggressively, sensually male.  of using his powerful sensuality.  or
even of being overly aware of it.  Irritation, impatience, anger. 
these were the emotions he had shown her, and now, as she stood there
in front of him, she was uncomfortably aware of being an intruder in
his home, of acknowledging how little she would have relished returning
home at the end of a tiring day to find that a stranger appeared to
have invaded that home in her absence.

These feelings made her say quickly, "I'd... I'd better go.  Now that
you're back..."

She was making for the door as she spoke, suddenly very, very anxious
to be free of his disturbing presence, even while she acknowledged that
he was not the one responsible for the effect he was having on her and
that the fault was hers, if she was so feeble-minded and vulnerable as
to allow herself to become sexually responsive to a man who was so
plainly oblivious to her as a woman.

"Without saying goodbye to Robert?"

The dry words made her stop and flush as she heard the cynicism behind
them, and what made it worse was that it was true, that just for a
moment she had been so wrapped up in her own emotions and fears that
she had almost forgotten about his little boy.

Now she said defensively, "No... of course not.  I was just going to
ask you if you minded if I went upstairs and said goodbye to him."

The look he gave her, accompanied by raised eyebrows and a cynical
twist of his mouth, deepened her embarrassment and guilt.

"Be my guest," he told her sardonically, adding, "I'm sure you don't
need me to show you the way."

She wanted to protest.  to explain to him that she had not been taking
advantage of his absence and Robert's innocence to violate the privacy
of his home, but she knew that her protests would only be met by a
sardonic wall of cynicism, and, besides, why should she explain or
apologise?  She knew the truth, even if she also knew that he would
refuse to accept it.

Shakily she headed for the door, stopping uncertainly, waiting for him
to step to one side so that she could go through.  When he did so she
discovered as she walked past him that she was holding her breath, as
though she was desperately afraid of somehow inadvertently coming into
physical contact with him, as though by holding her breath she could
somehow make herself smaller, but as she approached him he stepped even
further back from her, allowing her plenty of space in which to move
past him, and neither did he make any attempt to accompany her as she
went upstairs.

Robert was still in the bathroom.  He looked up anxiously when she
walked in, his expression turning to relief when he saw her.  She
explained to him that she was about to leave, steeling her heart
against the look he gave her when he pleaded with her to stay.

As a compromise she waited until he had finished washing, and then
helped him to get dried and dressed in the clean pyjamas she found in a
drawer.  She noticed as she took them out that they were brand-new,
with the labels still inside them.  As she removed them Robert told her
innocently, "Mum was going to buy me some new ones but she couldn't
afford it."

Sarah frowned as she helped him into them.  She had gained the
impression that Robert's mother and grandmother were comfortably off
financially.  Had she been wrong, or had Robert's mother simply been
the sort of woman who was too selfish, too selfabsorbed to realise that
her growing son needed new clothes, who had perhaps offloaded whatever
guilt this neglect had caused her by claiming that it was a lack of
money and not a lack of concern that had been responsible for such
neglect?

Only once she had tucked him up in bed, and ensured that he was
comfortable, did Sarah feel able to leave.

As she went downstairs she glanced at her watch, realising guiltily
just how long she had been with Robert.

In the hall all the doors were closed.  A sign that Gray Philips
expected her to leave without imposing her unwanted presence on him a
second time?  Very probably.  After all, he had made it quite clear how
he viewed her presence in his home.

She was just about to open the front door, when she heard him saying
from behind her, "Not bothering to say goodbye, Sarah?"

There was so much sarcasm in his voice, so much unexpected criticism
and condemnation of her manner of leaving, almost as though she was in
some way deliberately trying to sneak out without having the good
manners to observe the normal civilities, that she immediately felt as
guilty as she had done when he had walked in and found her apparently
rifling through his desk drawer.

As she had done then, she flushed to the roots of her hair, even while
she cursed the vulnerability of her tell-tale fair skin.

"I ... I didn't want to disturb you," she told him nervously.

"No, I'm sure you didn't."  He was looking at her, studying her, and
for some reason her embarrassment changed to a suffocating, acute
awareness of him, just as though something had touched a deeply rooted
sensual chord within her, so that her whole body seemed to vibrate in
response to that awareness of him.

Still looking at her, he said silkily, "What a pity you didn't think
about that before, isn't it?"

And then he walked up to her, forcing her to step back from him in
order to keep some distance between them.

For one crazy, stupefyingly out-of-character moment she actually
thought he was going to touch her, to take hold of her.  to.  She
swallowed with difficulty, her attention unwittingly focusing on his
mouth, her pulses racing as she wondered what it would feel like
against hers.  what it would feel like if he did take hold of her.  if
he did bend his head.  if he did.  One thing was for sure: he would be
no tentative, uncertain lover .  and he would not be inexperienced
either. He would.  She closed her eyes, trying to dismiss her wild
thoughts, and while they were closed she heard the sharp snick of the
front door catch being unlocked.

The realisation that he had not intended to touch her at all, but had
simply been opening the door for her, performing the small simple
courtesy of any householder in seeing a guest, wanted or otherwise, off
his premises, sent a sharply painful wave of mortification grating
against her too-tender nerve- endings.

As he started to open the door she tried to rush through it,
desperately anxious to get away, not so much from him, but from her own
idiotic response to him, but unfortunately in her rush to escape she
misjudged the width of the opening and jarred herself painfully against
the door-jamb, causing her to cry out with the shock of the impact.

Now he did touch her, not as a would-be lover, but as an impatient,
grim adult confronted with the idiocy of an unknowing child, holding
her firmly within his grip as he opened the door a little wider, while
saying, "I have heard that some women are inclined to mentally distort
their body shape, but even a child of six couldn't have got through
that space."

His criticism stung.  Impetuously she lied, "My cousin will be
wondering what on earth has happened to me.  I must get back."

"Indeed, and those few vital seconds you could have saved in squeezing
through a barely open door would have made all the difference.

Strange, isn't it, how you only became aware of the sudden rush of time
once you'd left Robert?  "

There was nothing she could say, and now mercifully the door was open
enough for her to walk through it.  All she had to do was to pull free
of his grip, which had mercifully relaxed, and try to pretend to
herself that her inelegant and hasty retreat was not making her look
even more of an idiot.  As she fled towards her car she refused to give
in to the temptation of turning round to see if Gray Philips was
actually watching her as intently as she felt him to be.

Of course, she would have to crash the gears of her cousin's car, and
send the gravel spinning as she reversed the vehicle, and of course
Gray Philips would have to be watching her with an unreadable
expression on his shuttered face as she weakly gave in to the
temptation to look in the direction of the front door before finally
driving off.

naturally, when she got back Sally wanted to hear what had happened.

"You poor thing, you must have been embarrassed to death," was her
sympathetic comment when Sarah explained how Gray Philips had walked in
and found her apparently going through his desk.

"Still, he must have been grateful to you for stepping in like that and
taking charge of his little boy."

"Not so as you'd notice," Sarah told her wryly.

"Poor chap.  I don't envy him," Ross remarked later over a cup of
coffee.

"It can't be easy for him, having to take charge of the boy and to find
someone responsible to take care of him."

Sally threw a cushion at him.

"Men--you're all the same, sticking up for one another," she accused
him.

"What kind of father would leave a six-year-old in the charge of
someone like Mrs.  Jacobs?"

"The kind who doesn't have any alternative," Ross told her drily.

"Umm ... well, if you ever did that to our children--' Sally began, but
he interrupted her, getting up to carry the cushion back to her,
telling her provocatively, grinning at her, " Well, I shan't have to,
shall I .  not with you to look after them?  "

Sarah tried not to feel envious of the rapport and closeness between
her cousin and her husband.  Ross might pretend on occasions to be the
typical macho male, but there was no doubt that their marriage was very
much one of equal partnership, and Sarah had no doubt that when their
children eventually came along both of them would take equal
responsibility for them.

"Don't be too hard on Gray," Ross said quietly to her now.

"It hasn't been easy for him.  I happened to mention at work today that
you'd got involved with his son, and one of the other men who was
around when Gray was first married said that his wife was a first-class
bitch.

Rumour has it that she tricked Gray into marriage by allowing herself
to get pregnant, and then, once she realised that, despite his money,
he wasn't the type to go in for the kind of hectic social fast-lane
life she wanted, she upped and left him, refusing to allow him any kind
of access to the child.  Apparently she even told him that if he tried
to push for legal access she would tell the court that the baby wasn't
his.  but she was quite happy to take the money he paid her.  and all
this from a man who openly admitted that when Gray first married her
and brought her here he was bowled over by her looks.  Looks which
apparently were not matched by an equally attractive personality.  "

"Well, that's as may be," Sally interrupted her husband.

"But, if he was so keen to have access to his child, how come he's now
so irritable and distant with him?"

Ross shrugged.

"Who knows?  Perhaps he's afraid to let the boy get too close to him,
or perhaps the boy won't let him.  After all, from what I've heard, the
mother wasn't the type to miss out on any opportunity to score off on
Gray.  Who knows what she might have told the boy?

Can't be easy for Gray.  "

"No.  Well, let's hope he finds someone suitable to take charge of him,
and soon.  Robert's already tried to run away once, and a child of that
age is so dreadfully vulnerable.  It makes me shudder to think of what
could have happened to him if Sarah hadn't found him."

"I didn't find him," Sarah corrected her.

"He found me, so to speak."

She was frowning as she turned to Sally.

"Do you think he might try to do that... to run away again?"

Only this afternoon she had gently tried to point out to Robert the
dangers of what he had attempted to do.  His grandmother had, it
seemed, warned him of the dangers of speaking to strangers, especially
those with cars, but she had neglected to explain why, and Sarah had
been torn between wanting to strengthen that warning with something
more concrete than his grandmother's vague suggestion that strangers
were dangerous and a reluctance to interfere in the upbringing of a
child who wasn't in any way connected with her.

"So shall we ask him or not?"  she heard Sally saying to her, and came
out of her thoughts to discover that her cousin was apparently planning
a dinner party and that, moreover, she was asking her if she thought
she should invite Gray Philips.

"Don't ask me.  I mean..."

"You're embarrassing her," Ross told his wife, his comment increasing
Sarah's embarrassment rather than alleviating it.

"Oh, Sarah, I'm sorry.  I wasn't trying to match- make," Sally told her
immediately.

"No, it's just that we haven't had a proper dinner party since we moved
in here, and now that this long commission is almost completed I'm
beginning to suffer from a slight touch of cabin fever, although I
suppose officially the dinner party season doesn't really start until
the children go back to school.  Still, as I've always said, some rules
are made to be broken."

"Why don't you admit that you're as curious as hell about Gray Philips
and that this is the only way you can legitimately think of to satisfy
that curiosity?"  Ross teased her.

Now it was Sally's turn to flush.

"Well, of course I'm curious," she defended herself.

"And Sarah isn't helping.  My daily described him as " very much a man.
You know what I mean,"" Sally told them, imitating her cleaner's
manner, 'but you, Sarah.  well, you haven't so much as mentioned what
he's like as a man.  only how you feel about his shortcomings as a
father.  "

She gave her cousin a distinctly speculative glance.

"Is he as macho as Mrs.  Beattie seems to think?"

"I wouldn't describe him as macho exactly," Sarah told her truthfully,
but even as she answered her cousin's question she was acutely aware of
all that she was not saying.  all that she was withholding, even from
herself.  such as the way she reacted to him physically.  such as the
way she had so stupidly, so cringingly willed herself into believing
that he'd been about to kiss her, even to the point where she had
almost actually experienced the sensation of his mouth against hers.

"To be honest with you, I haven't really registered all that much about
him," she lied now.

"It's his relationship with Robert that concerns me."

"So you won't mind if I invite him to dinner, then?"  Sally asked
slyly.

What could she say?

"As long as I don't have to sit next to him.  No, I don't mind at all,"
she replied, striving to appear unconcerned.

But she had forgotten how well Sally knew her and all those small
betraying mannerisms that gave away so much, although it was later on
when the two of them were alone that Sally said quietly to her, "Look,
if it really does bother you, I won't invite Gray Philips round for
dinner."

"Bother me ... of course it doesn't bother me ... why should it?" 
Sarah retorted defensively, ignoring the look her cousin was giving
her.

CHAPTER FOUR

Two days went by without Sarah either seeing or hearing anything of
Robert or his father.  She told herself that she was glad, that Gray
Philips had obviously found someone responsible to take charge of his
son and that the little boy was settling down in his new environment.

Sally, who had reluctantly gone back to work to finish her commission,
was still making plans for her proposed dinner party, which had grown
from the original intimacy of six or eight people to a number closer to
twenty.

"Perhaps we ought to have a buffet party instead," she murmured more to
herself than to Sarah as they sat drinking their coffee one morning.

"Yes, a Sunday lunch buffet party.  What do you think?"

"I think it sounds a lot of hard work," Sarah told her honestly.

"Mm... maybe, but a buffet do would be much less work than a full-scale
dinner party, and much more in line with my cooking skills," Sally
admitted with a grin, adding, "Remember that dinner party I gave when I
was going out with John Howarth?"

"Wasn't he the one who was the embryo chef?"  Sarah asked her, her
forehead crinkling as she tried to remember which of Sally's many
boyfriends she was referring to.

That's the one," Sally agreed.

"I remember I was planning to serve a souffle for pud, only something
went wrong and I ended up giving them ice-cream and apple pie... do you
remember?"

"Yes, I do, since I was the one who had to go hurtling out to buy the
damn thing," Sarah agreed feelingly.

"I never saw John again after that.  I wonder why."

Both of them burst out laughing.

"Ah, well, back to work," Sally explained, finishing her coffee.

"What are you going to do?"

"Take myself off for a long walk," Sarah told her.

Sally frowned.

"You mustn't let this school business get you down," she told her
gently.

"I know you, Sarah.  You're a delicate plant, all too easily inclined
to withdraw and curl up inside yourself when you feel you're under
attack.  I wish I could do more to help you through this difficult
time."

"You are helping me," Sarah assured her.

"But it's something I've got to sort out for myself.  Who knows?
Perhaps they're right and I'm not cut out for teaching."

"But you love it so much, and besides..."

"What else can I do?"  Sarah asked her drily.

"I don't know, but there must be something; after all, according to the
Press, teachers are leaving the profession in droves, and they must be
going somewhere."

"Well, with your qualifications I'm sure you wouldn't have any problems
in finding something else, although it would mean starting again,
probably at the lower end of the career ladder."

"Stop worrying about me," Sarah told her cousin affectionately, smiling
at her, but in reality she felt far from smiling as she reviewed the
problems that lay ahead of her.

Did she really want to go back to teaching, to her old school, knowing
her every move was being monitored and criticised?  It was true that
she loved teaching.  loved her pupils, but wasn't it also true that she
was over-inclined to become too emotionally involved with them?

That was a flaw in her own personality and not something that could
ever be entirely eradicated, no matter how much she might try to train
herself to do otherwise.  And yet if she wanted to continue with her
career she was going to have to find a way of stopping herself from
caring so deeply.

She walked for a long time, trying to resolve the feelings of guilt and
inadequacy which had hung over her like a dark cloud ever since that
fateful interview It didn't matter how often she told herself that she
was not a failure, she could not reassure herself; she had been tried
and found wanting, and, no matter how much her friends and family tried
to comfort her, they could not alleviate the burden of despair that
knowledge had brought her.

And yet, if she left teaching, what was she to do?  Retrain in another
field?  Which field, though?

It was late afternoon when she returned to the cottage, approaching it
from the back across the fields, using the gate in the hedge at the
bottom of the long garden rather than walking round to the front.

As she walked up the garden path Sally opened the back door, beckoning
to her, and pressing her finger to her lips as Sarah frowned and called
out, "What is it?  Is something wrong?"

"You've got a visitor," Sally told her almost conspiratorially.

"Gray Philips.  I've put him in the sitting-room.  He's been here ages.
I thought you'd be back much earlier."

Gray Philips!  Why did he want to see heri Her heart had started
pounding erratically, and she was conscious of a sense of anxiety
coupled with a reluctance to see him.  Her hair was all tousled from
her long walk, and she suspected that she must be the complete
antithesis of the women he was used to.  the women he admired and
desired.  She only had to remember the way he had described his late
wife.  the emotion she had sensed beneath the cynical words he had
used.

Stop that, she derided herself as she pulled off her boots in the
laundry-room, ignoring Sally's desire for her to hurry.

"If he's waited this long, he can wait a little longer.  At least until
I've combed my hair and washed my hands," Sarah told her grimly,
unwilling to admit even to someone as close as her cousin how reluctant
she was to see him.

"He's getting pretty impatient," Sally warned her.

"I'll go and tell him you're here."

Despite her intention not to hurry, once she was upstairs in her room
Sarah discovered that her hands trembled as she washed them and that
she was combing her hair far faster than normal, while anxiously
scanning her unmade-up face and wishing that it looked different.  less
ordinary.  She even told herself that the lipstick she was so
unsteadily applying was simply a confidence booster and nothing more,
but when she realised that she was halfway through stripping off her
old jeans and shirt and exchanging them for a clean top and a skirt she
knew it was pointless trying to deceive herself any longer.

She stared down at the floor, shivering a little.  What was the matter
with her?  Did she really think she was going to make an impression on
Gray Philips as a woman simply because she was changing her clothes?
Did she really not have the intelligence to know that, while initially
clothes--or at least the right kind of clothes--might attract a man's
visual attention, attraction, real, gut-wrenching physical awareness of
the kind she had experienced for him had nothing to do with clothes,
and everything to do with something far more subtle and sensitive?

She was simply not Gray Philips's kind of woman, and if she had any
sense she ought to be thankful for that fact.  Ross had suggested that
his marriage had left him feeling bitter and antagonistic towards the
female sex, and she suspected that, though he might be willing to enter
a physical relationship with a woman, he would be extremely guarded
where his emotions were concerned, while she.  Shaking her head, she
pulled on her clean clothes.  She had -to stop this.  It was not only
dangerous; it was addictive as well.  Instead of allowing her thoughts
to stumble heedlessly down such forbidden paths she ought to be
concentrating her mind on trying to work out just why Gray Philips had
come to see her.  Was it because of Robert?  Had something happened to
the little boy?  Had he perhaps run away again?

Her fingers shook as she zipped up her skirt, mentally praying that
that wasn't the case.  But no, it couldn't be.  Gray Philips would
hardly have wasted so much valuable time waiting for her to return if
Robert was actually missing.

She went downstairs, heading for the sitting-room.  The door opened and
Sally came out just as she approached it.  Sally grimaced wryly at her
and whispered, "Rather you than me.  Sexy he might be, but he's not
exactly communicative, is he?"

When Sarah walked into the sitting-room Gray Philips was standing with
his back to her, looking out into the garden.

She had walked in very quietly, her feet not making any sound on the
thick pile carpet, but nevertheless he must have either heard her or
seen her reflection in the window, because he turned round
immediately.

To her own intense annoyance, Sarah heard herself apologising
breathlessly, "I'm sorry you've had such a long wait.  I was out
walking."

What on earth was she doing?  Why on earth did she feel this need to
placate him almost?

The frown with which he had greeted her lifted, an oddly thoughtful
look lightening his eyes as though he too was aware of the
contradiction of her behaviour.

"I should have rung first," he responded curtly.

"But, once I'd got here, it seemed foolish not to wait... although...
I've got an appointment at five, so I'll come straight to the point if
I may."

When Sarah inclined her head he asked her coolly, "Is it true, as I've
heard on the local grapevine, that you're here to think about your
future career and that although you're a qualified teacher you may not
be returning to that career?"

His words were carefully chosen, Sarah recognised, so as not to
antagonise her, and that in itself was surprising enough to make her
focus on him.

He was watching her very closely, and had also closed the distance
between them, so that there was only the length of the sofa between
them.

A tiny pulse started beating frantically in her throat as all her fears
and vulnerabilities came crowding in on her.  She knew all too well
what else he would have heard on that same grapevine, and reflected how
cynically contemptuous he must have been on hearing the gossip.

It was that awareness that made her lift her head and face him
challengingly to say almost as cooly as he had spoken to her, "If you
mean have my superiors suggested to me that it might not be a good idea
for me to return to teaching because of my getting too involved with my
pupils, then yes."

The look he gave her made her skin flush vividly, although for once
there was neither contempt nor anger in his eyes.  Instead he was
looking at her with something that in someone else she might have
described as humour and approval, and yet the thought of this man
having a sense of humour and approving of her seemed so remote as to be
impossible.  a trick of her imagination.

"And you haven't lined up a fresh job for yourself as yet?"  he was
asking her.

Sarah shrugged.

"No... not as yet."

Her tone implied that it was not a line of conversation she wished to
pursue and that neither were her future plans any of his business.

"Good."

Good?  What did that mean?  Her eyes rounded as she looked
questioningly at him.

"What does that mean?"  she demanded bitterly, her introspective
thoughts of the afternoon colouring her reaction to his satisfied
exclamation.

"That you're glad I'm not inflicting either myself or my irrational
emotions on a fellow employer?"

What on earth was she saying?  she asked herself angrily as she fought
to rein in her absurd overreaction.

"What it means," Gray Philips told her, ignoring her outburst, 'is that
I'm glad you haven't committed yourself to a new job, because it means
that I can ask you if you would contemplate coming to work for me.  "

Going to work for him.  Sarah felt her jaw drop as the shock of his
words hit her.

"But I don't know anything about engineering," she heard herself say
stupidly.

There was a small pause, as though what she had said had taken him off
guard, and then he was saying wryly, "You won't need to.  At least, not
unless Robert suddenly develops an interest in it."

"Robert?  But--' " What I'm asking you is whether you'd be prepared to
come and work for me as Robert's companion and mentor," he told her,
forestalling her questions.

"You want me to look after Robert."

Her shock showed in her voice and her face.  After what had happened
between them she had felt that she would be the last person he would
want anywhere near his son.

"But I thought... you said... I thought you were interviewing
nannies."

"I was, but unfortunately none of them proved suitable--or, at least,
four of them seemed to be well qualified for the job, but when I took
your advice and introduced them to Robert he rejected them all.  Then
he told me that what he would really like was for you to look after
him."

Sarah was still staring at him.  Whatever she had thought about him,
however she had judged him, she had never, ever thought that he would
allow his son--a son, moreover, whom he appeared to view more in the
light of a nuisance than anything else-to sway his own judgement.

"But ... you don't like me."

She bit down hard on her bottom lip, wondering what on earth had
happened to her common sense.  What an idiotic thing, to say something
that, no matter how true it might be, should never, ever have been
voiced.

He seemed to think so as well, because his eyes darkened and his mouth
thinned.

"I don't have to like you," he told her grimly.

"Nor, for that matter, is it necessary for you to like me.  I'm trying
to put Robert's need first here, Sarah.  Isn't that what you wanted me
to do?"

The soft accusation was more of a taunt than an admission that he might
have been wrong in his treatment of his son.

"But ... but ... I'm not trained for that kind of work," she
protested.

"I'm a teacher."

"A teacher who, according to the local grapevine, is so soft-hearted
that she spends more time trying to sort out her pupils' emotional
problems than she does in teaching them.  A strong mothering instinct
isn't something that can be taught or learned, Sarah."

A strong mothering instinct.  For some reason the words brought a huge
lump to her throat.

"But I'm not sure if I can make that kind of commitment," she
protested.

"And it wouldn't be fair to

Robert to allow him to become dependent on me when--' "I'm not asking
you to make a permanent commitment to him," Gray Philips interrupted
her.

"That would be impossible and inadvisable, both for him and for you,
but I can't deny that at the moment he's a very vulnerable little boy.
For some reason he seems to have developed a bond with you.  He is my
son, Sarah, and quite naturally I want him to be happy... to hopefully
forget in time that--' " That's he's lost his mother and his
grandmother?  " Sarah asked him tautly.

"That would be impossible and unfair.  He needs to be able to remember
them, to talk about them.  And how can he feel he can talk to you about
them when you've made it so clear how you view his mother?"

She broke off, aware that she had said far too much.

"I'm beginning to see why you're not suitable teacher material," Gray
Philips told her unkindly.

She had to turn her head away so that he wouldn't see the quick rush of
tears to her eyes.

More out of hurt pride than anything else, she heard herself telling
him almost violently, "I'm not suitable as a substitute mother either,
and if that's what you want for Robert then I suggest you find him one
in a rather more conventional manner."

"Remarry, you mean."  His eyes were as sharp and dangerous as
splintered glass, his expression hard and bitter.

"Shall we abandon this emotional quagmire and get back to reality?"  he
demanded tersely.

"I'm not suggesting for one moment that you should provide Robert with
substitute mothering.  I'm merely trying to ascertain whether you would
be interested in working for me as Robert's nanny.  And if you are
interested in doing so I must warn you that I shall want a written
commitment from you to remain in my employ for a minimum of twelve
months."

Sarah wanted to refuse, to tell him that it was impossible for her to
even contemplate working for him when it was plain that they could
never get on.  And it wasn't just that .  there was also her dangerous
awareness of him as a man.

"If you did take on the job I would be prepared to allow you a very
free hand in your dealing with Robert."

"Leaving you free to ignore him," she accused bitingly.

The look he gave her only reinforced her doubts.  Much as she liked
Robert, much as she ached to be able to help the little boy, she could
not work for his father.

"Don't give me your answer right now," Gray Philips was telling her,
ignoring her attempts to tell him that she had already made up her
mind.

"I'll call round tomorrow and you can give me your decision then.  No
doubt you'll want to discuss my offer with your cousin and her
husband."

For some reason his tone irritated her.

"Why should I?"  she demanded belligerently.

"I am an adult and perfectly capable of making my own decisions about
my life."

"I'm sure you are, but most of us like to get the views of those
closest to us when we make major changes in our lives."

While she digested this silken comment Sarah reflected that she doubted
that he had ever listened to anyone else's views in his entire life.
But he had listened to Robert's, an inner voice reminded her.

He was already walking past her and heading towards the door.  In
another minute it would be too late for her to tell him that she had
already made up her mind and that she did not wish to accept his offer
of a job, and yet she was letting him open the door, letting him walk
away from her, letting him assume that she was actually going to
consider his proposition when she knew, and surely he must know too,
that it simply could not work.

She was standing watching him drive away when Sally came into the
sitting-room and asked her eagerly, "Well?"

"Mm?"  She turned round, unwilling to take her eyes off the
disappearing shape of his car.

"Oh ... it was nothing really.  He wants me to look after Robert for
him, but he's stipulated that I would have to commit myself to doing so
for a period of twelve months."

"What?  He's offered you ajobT Sally beamed at her.

"Oh, that's wonderful.  I was dreading your leaving.  It's been
terrific having you here, especially with Ross having to work away so
often.  Oh, Sarah, I'm so pleased."

"I haven't accepted," Sarah interrupted her.

"He's coming back tomorrow for my reply, but--' " But what?  You'll
take it, of course.  I mean, what's twelve months?  It will be a
wonderful breathing-space for you.  giving you time to think about what
you really want to do.  "

"I'm still employed as a teacher," Sarah reminded her quickly.  She was
beginning to feel as though she was being sucked down into a quagmire.
as though only she could see the impossibility of working for Gray
Philips and the dangers it involved, but then, of course.

Sally knew nothing about those disruptive, unwanted feelings he aroused
within her, and she was certainly not going to tell her.

"Come on, love," Sally coaxed her, 'you know as well as I do that
you've been dreading the start of the new term.  I know how good you
are with children emotionally.  How good you are at--' "Mothering,"
Sarah supplied sardonically for her.

Sally gave her a frowning look.

"You're too hard on yourself.  Everyone knows how important a child's
early years are, and everyone knows that in the majority of cases it's
a child's mother who shares those years.  You've said yourself how
concerned you are for Robert, and here's your chance to help him."

Sarah shook her head.

"I'm not so sure it would be a good thing," she resisted stubbornly.

Sally gave her a shrewd look, and told her, "Well, you've got
twenty-four hours to think about it and, of course, the final decision
must be yours."

Which didn't stop her unsubtly pointing out all the advantages of
accepting Gray Philips's offer throughout dinner and long after they
had finished eating, and of course Ross fully supported her, adding his
own approval and persuasion.

If it weren't for Gray Philips himself she would have been only too
happy to accept the job, Sarah acknowledged as she lay in bed waiting
for sleep to claim her.  She liked Robert .  felt drawn to him, and she
knew she could help him.  Was it really fair of her to put her own
needs, her own vulnerabilities, before a child's?  Surely she was
capable of either dismissing or ignoring her awareness of his father?

After all, she was pretty sure that Gray Philips would ensure that they
had the minimum of contact with one another, and her role as Robert's
nanny would mean that he was not likely to spend much time in the house
while she was there to take charge of

Robert.  If she did take the job it would have to be on the condition
that she did not live in, but commuted daily.  Which meant that she
would need a small car.  Well, she had sufficient savings to allow her
to buy one.  but why was she thinking along such lines when she had
already made up her mind that she simply was not going to take the
job?

'there's a letter here for you," Sally announced over breakfast as she
went through the post.

"Mm... looks very official," she commented as she handed it over.

A tiny thrill of nervous apprehension went through Sarah as she opened
it, her breakfast ignored as she read it once and then a second time.

"Sarah, what is it?  What's wrong?"

It took Sally's anxious question to lift Sarah's head from the letter,
her eyes vague and dark with shock as she said unsteadily, "They're
sacking me.  After all they said about giving me time to adjust...
about it just being an informal interview..."

"Sacking you?  But surely they can't do that?"  Ross interrupted
grimly.

Sarah shrugged.

"Well, it says in here that they're having to make cut-backs and, since
I was the last teacher to be taken on, it follows that I'm the one they
must ask to leave."

"That's not being sacked," Sally objected, but Sarah shook her head and
asked her bitterly, "Oh, no?  What is it, then?"

Both her cousin and her husband tried to comfort and reassure her, but
Sarah felt too miserable.  too depressed, too much a failure almost, to
be comforted.

"Well, at least that settles one thing, though," Sally commented to her
later when Ross had left for work.

"You'll have to accept Gray Philips's offer now."

Have to?  The words sent an icy chill racing down Sarah's spine.  She
wanted to protest, but the words just would not come.  She felt too
battered, too defeated to say anything.  Self-pitying tears filled her
eyes.  She was a failure.  who would employ her as a teacher now?  How
would it look on her CV to have to write that she had been sacked.  or
as good as?

Dark, despairing thoughts went round and round in her head.  The last
thing she wanted to do was to work for Gray Philips, and yet Sarah was
right: what alternative did she have now?  She could hardly expect to
live on either her parents' or her cousins' charity while she spent
potentially months and months looking for another job.  Not when she
had already been offered work.

No, Sally was right.  No matter how much she might long for things to
be different, she now had no alternative but to accept Gray Philips's
offer.

CHAPTER FIVE

sarah told Gray Philips as much later in the afternoon, conveying the
news to him in a stilted, bitter little voice which did little to mask
her true feelings.

Oddly, though, he did not seem inclined to question her lack of
enthusiasm, saying only, "Good, I'm glad that's settled, although we
still have to discuss salary and time off.  There's an empty room next
to Robert's which has its own bathroom."

Instantly Sarah stopped him.

"I can't live in," she told him quickly.

"That's out of the question."

He was frowning now.

"I'll undertake to stay with Robert if you have to work late," she
added before he could make any comment.

"But I cannot live in."

He was watching her, she knew it, even though she could not bring
herself to look directly at him.  Was he going to ask her why not?  She
held her breath, praying that he wouldn't, not knowing what reason she
could possibly give him that would make any sense; she only knew that
she could not, for her own self-preservation, sleep under the same roof
as this man.

She laughed bitterly at herself.  Heavens, she sounded like someone out
of a bad Victorian novel.  What harm was sleeping under Gray Philips's
roof going to do her?  The harm that any kind of intimacy with him
would bring her, she told herself miserably.  The danger lay not in
him, but in her awareness of him, and because of that.  because of that
it was absolutely essential that she did not allow herself to fall into
the trap of daydreaming that sleeping under his roof meant that.  Meant
that what?  That it was only a short step from there to sleeping in his
bed. in his arms.  Pathetic.  She was being completely pathetic.

"But if you do that you'll need a car," he pointed out.

Sarah still didn't look at him.

"Yes, that's right.  I was planning to buy one anyway," she fibbed.

There was a long pause during which she prayed that he would say he had
changed his mind and the job was no longer on offer, but to her shock
he said instead, "Well, I should have preferred you to live in for
obvious reasons, but if you're insistent on not doing so I suppose I
shall just have to accept it."

She could hardly believe it.  She turned her head, unwittingly allowing
him to look straight into her eyes.

The grimly aware expression in his suggested that he was perfectly well
aware of her reluctance to take the job, and she prayed that he was not
also astute enough to work out why she was so reluctant to do so.  But
then, he couldn't be, could he?  He couldn't have made it plainer that
he was not looking for any kind of emotional involvement or commitment
from any member of her sex, and surely, if he had suspected how
vulnerable she was to him, he would have been the first to keep a very
healthy distance between them.  No, she was safe enough there.  But if
she ever had reason to fear that he had guessed how she felt.  Well,
then, she would have to leave, twelve months' contract or not.

He was talking about money now, and the salary he was prepared to pay
her was more than generous.

As Sally told her later when he had gone, she would have been a fool to
have turned him down.

She only wished she could be equally convinced.

gray wanted her to start work for him immediately, but, as she
explained to her cousin, she could not really do so until she had
equipped herself with a car.

Immediately Sally offered generously, "Why not use mine in the
interim?"

But Sarah shook her head.

"No, I can't do that.  It wouldn't be fair to you."

If she had hoped to delay things by the need to acquire a suitable car
she soon discovered that she had been living under a misapprehension,
because that evening, just after they had finished dinner, the phone
rang.

Ross went to answer it and came back ten minutes later to say, "That
was Gray Philips.  It seems that he might have found you a suitable
car.  It certainly sounded quite a bargain.  It's a private sale, only
one owner, an older woman who rarely used it, so the mileage is very
low."

Sarah opened her mouth to object and point out to her cousin by
marriage that Gray Philips had no right to take matters into his hands
so arbitrarily and that she was perfectly capable of finding her own
car, but before she could do so Ross continued extolling the virtues of
the second-hand model Gray had found for her, and both he and Sally
were so enthusiastic and full of praise for what Gray Philips had done
that Sarah felt unable to express her true feelings.

She was still smouldering with pent-up resentment when the three of
them set out for the nearby village, where the owner of the car
apparently lived, half an hour later.

She told herself, as she sat seething in silence in the back seat of
the car, that nothing and no one was going to manoeuvre her into buying
a car she had not chosen for herself, that she objected to being
treated like a child incapable of making her own decisions, incapable
of running her own life.

It was an attitude she maintained right up until the moment she saw the
car, clinging on to it even in the face of Sally and Ross's enthusiasm
and even after having been introduced to its existing owner, a
charmingly vague widow in her late fifties, who innocently answered one
of the questions which had been tugging at Sarah's mind by explaining
that she worked for Gray Philips as a member of his office staff, and
that it was when she had happened to mention that she was thinking of
changing her car that he had announced that he knew of someone who
might be interested in buying it.

Yes, Laura Greig was undoubtedly genuine, and at any other time Sarah
would have been touched by the way she referred to her car, almost as
though it possessed feelings and emotions rather than as an inanimate
object.  However, because of the way she felt that Gray Philips was
trying to manipulate her, to usurp her right to decide her own life,
she stubbornly clung on to her determination to reject the car.

That was, until she saw it.

She had no idea what she had actually expected-certainly, after meeting
Laura Greig, she had had some vague notion that her car would turn out
to be small and sturdy, and, while no doubt it would be immaculately
maintained and carefully serviced, it would also be rather dull.  beige
or grey in colour most likely, and, even though she had never had any
desire to own a vehicle that was either flashy in colour or fast, for
some reason the fact that Gray Philips should decide that a car chosen
by a very pleasant, but nevertheless rather staid widow in her late
fifties would be suitable for her stirred up inside her the kind of
rebellious feeling she could not remember feeling in years; certainly
not since she had left her early teens behind.

To be confronted, therefore, by a shiny bright red convertible with
cream leather seats, its hood folded back in the warmth of the
late-evening sun, was such a shock that Sarah had to blink several
times before she could actually really believe what she was seeing.

As she glanced from Laura Greig to the car and then back again she saw
a faint flush colour the older woman's skin.

"My grandson helped me choose it," she explained a little
breathlessly.

"I wasn't so sure at first, but you know..."  She touched the car's
body work lovingly as she spoke, and then she added regretfully, "My
daughter's expected third baby turned out to be twins, and of course
there's just no way I can get all four children into Henrietta's back
seat, so I'm afraid..."  She gave a faint sigh.

Henrietta said nothing, merely standing four N

square on the drive, her paintwork gleaming, but Sarah could have sworn
that she wasn't regretting the loss of the four grandchildren as
potential passengers.

"She is beautiful," Sarah heard herself saying, and knew the instant
she had spoken the words that she was lost.

Half an hour later, with the formalities complete, Sarah listened
light-headedly as Laura Greig admitted, "I know it's silly, but I'm so
glad that Henrietta is going to a good home."  She flushed again.

"My son-in-law thinks I'm crazy ... but she's the first car that's ever
been just mine.  While my husband was alive..."  She gave a tiny
sigh.

"When Gray described you to me as the ideal person to buy Henrietta
from me, I wasn't so sure.  In fact, right up until the moment I met
you I was quite sure I was going to have to tell you that I'd changed
my mind."

Sarah listened to her, trying not to allow herself to wonder if Gray
Philips, beneath his outwardly insensitive manner, was not perhaps a
far better student of human nature than she had actually realised.

Later, when they were driving home, Sally commented, "Gray Philips must
think an awful lot of you, Sarah.  I mean, to go to all that trouble
for you..."

"I don't think it's that he has a particularly high opinion of we...
more that he's at his wits' end to know what to do with his son," Sarah
corrected her wryly.

"Mm."

Sally didn't sound totally convinced, but Sarah resolutely refused to
allow herself to be seduced into the folly of deceiving herself that
Sally was right.  After all, she had had ample evidence of exactly how
Gray Philips viewed her, and she knew quite well that, if Robbie hadn't
formed such an instant and strong attachment to her.  Gray would never
have considered employing her.

Since it was going to be a full twenty-four hours at least before Sarah
could take legal possession of the car, and get it taxed and insured.
Sally insisted that, rather than delay starting her new job, she must
borrow her car.  Unwillingly Sarah accepted her generous offer, knowing
that, little as she wanted to start work for Gray, for Robbie's sake
she could not delay doing so.

It was the good manners instilled in her as a child that forced her to
telephone Gray Philips once they had returned to the cottage.

When he answered its ring just as she was about to replace the receiver
she stifled the mingled feelings of panic and delight that flooded her
to say in an unnaturally stilted voice, "I hope I haven't disturbed
you, but I just wanted to thank you for going to so much trouble on my
behalf with the car."

"You've been to see it, then."  Unlike hers, his voice was firm and
free of any hesitance.  That's good.  Did you like it?  "

His question surprised her, especially after the high-handed way in
which he had virtually ordered her to go and view the car in the first
place.  Caught off guard, she responded honestly and
enthusiastically.

"Yes... yes, I did, although it wasn't quite what I expected."

She stopped, angry with herself for being betrayed into so much
enthusiasm, but Gray appeared not to have noticed, because all he said
was a casual, "Well, I'm glad that's settled.  You'll be here in the
morning, then?"

Sarah took a deep breath.

"Yes," she agreed.

"What time would you like me to arrive?"

"Well, I generally leave around eight.  If you could be here for
then... It's early, I know.  But I like to be at the factory for
half-past.  Mrs.  Jacobs used to give Robert his breakfast, and..."

"Of course, I'll make sure that he's properly fed," Sarah started to
assure him grittily, but he stopped her, surprising her when he told
her coolly, "Yes, I'm sure you will.  However, what I was going to say
was that, in view of the fact that you'll have such an early start, it
might be best if you had your own breakfast with Robert.  That is
unless you have the same deep-rooted objection to eating in the house
as you appear to have about sleeping in it."

Sarah didn't know what to say.  She could hear the sarcasm in his voice
very clearly, and it made her cringe.  He was making her sound like
some kind of fictional Victorian spinster, the type who would have
refused to sit on a chair previously occupied by a man.

When she thought she had her own voice safely under control she
responded as neutrally as she could.

"Thank you.  I agree it would be much easier all round if I had my
meals with Robert, although, of course, in that case there will have to
be some adjustment in my salary too--' The explosive sound of derision
he made silenced her.

"Look, I'm not going to argue with you about the cost of a few bits of
food.  From the look of you I suspect you probably eat less than Robert
anyway.  Women!  When will you ever learn that no man ever equated
thinness with desirability?  A woman who is confident and happy about
her natural shape, who enjoys her food and shows it, is far, far more
attractive than some neurotic female who's constantly worrying about
her weight and picking at her meals..."

Sarah inhaled sharply and then held her breath while mentally counting
to ten.  There is nothing wrong with my appetite," she told him
shortly.

"And if I'm a little on the thin side it's due more to stress and
worry--of the threat of losing my job--rather than any desire to starve
myself in order to impress some man."

"I'm glad to hear it," Gray told her smoothly.

"I don't want Robert adding unhealthy and potentially dangerous eating
habits to all his other emotional problems."

"If you really thought I was likely to do that I'm surprised you wanted
to employ me," Sarah countered sharply.

There was silence from his end that went on for so long that she
actually began to think he must have hung up on her, and then, just as
she was about to put her own receiver down in reciprocal irritation, he
told her quietly, "It isn't my opinion of you that's important, but
Robert's, and besides..."  He stopped speaking as Sarah heard quite
clearly the sound of his doorbell ringing.

"I'm afraid I have to go.

I'll expect you in the morning, then, at eight.  Goodbye, Sarah.  "

She discovered as she replaced the receiver that she was trembling
inside.  When she closed her eyes in angry self-disgust they
immediately stung with sharp tears.

What was the matter with her?  If she hadn't known it already, that
biting little exchange must have warned her how antagonistic he was
towards her, how little he liked her, never mind desired her, and yet
just because she had spoken with him she was reacting like a child who
had just been given its heart's desire.

Thank God she wasn't going to be living in.  She tried to envisage
coming down to breakfast in the morning with Robert and finding him
already there, drinking coffee and reading his paper.  perhaps wearing
some kind of to welling robe, his legs bare, his body still damp from
the shower.

The physical desire flooding her body shocked her mind and bruised her
emotions.  She had never seen herself in this light before, never known
she was capable of such uninvited sexual awareness.  Would never have
believed herself capable of such explicit mental visualisation, even to
the extent that.  She took a deep breath and then another, trying to
subdue her rioting thoughts.

Mindful of the early start she would need in the morning, she went to
bed early, but she only slept fitfully and was awake long before her
alarm went off, in the end abandoning the folly of lying there waiting
for it to ring, and instead getting up and going downstairs to make
herself a cup of coffee before going back upstairs to get showered and
dressed.

She dressed, bearing in mind the nature of her new job, pulling on a
pair of culotte-type shorts in practical cotton, wearing them with a
matching brightly coloured T-shirt, and then adding a sweat-shirt in
case the day proved to be cooler than the clear blue sky suggested.

On her feet she wore a pair of well-worn canvas shoes, and into the
large bag she was taking with her she had put a plentiful supply of
papers, pencils and a notebook, so that once she had elucidated from
Robbie just what stage he was up to educationally she could set about
drawing up a suitable programme in order that she could teach him while
at the same time ensuring that he was enjoying himself.

Although Gray had stipulated that she had to sign a contract ensuring
that she would remain in his employ for a full year, he had not said
what he expected her to do once Robbie went to school at the beginning
of the new term.  Of course, he would expect her to take Robbie to
school and then to collect him in the afternoon and to remain with him
until he himself returned from work, but what about the time in
between?  Was she to take total charge of Robbie's life as though she
were in fact a substitute mother .  buy his clothes, wash and iron
them, be there in case there were any problems at school?  They were
only just into the school holiday, she reminded herself, and there was
plenty of time for her to ascertain exactly what Gray Philips had in
mind.

One thing was certain: he was not the type of man to be reluctant to
tell her exactly what it was he wanted and expected from her.

It was ten to eight when she arrived, and, having carefully parked
Sally's car so that it did not obstruct Gray Phi lips's exit, she made
her way to the house.

While she was hesitating about whether to ring the front doorbell or go
round to the back door the front door opened, and Gray Philips was
standing there, beckoning her inside.

Instead of the to welling robe of her imaginings, he was wearing a dark
navy suit and a crisp white shirt, together with a soberly striped tie,
and yet she had to confess as she walked into the house that his effect
on her senses was just as powerful and erotic as though he had been far
less formally dressed.

What was it about the sight of a tall, broad shouldered man wearing a
dark expensive suit as casually as though it were a pair of jeans that
was so instantly compelling and so instantly.  so instantly sexy?

Perhaps the answer lay in Gray's assurance and self-confidence, in the
fact that he was wearing such formal clothes so carelessly and
easily.

As she hesitated, not sure if she was to walk straight through into the
kitchen or not, he closed the front door.

As she automatically turned round she saw he was looking at her, one
eyebrow lifting as he studied her casual clothes.

Immediately she said defensively, "You didn't say that you wanted me to
wear a uniform.  I'm not a trained nanny, and I thought Robbie would
feel more comfortable with me... more relaxed if..."

"If you looked like a teenager rather than an adult," he supplied
mockingly.

A teenager.  He was being ridiculous, and if he was trying to imply
that her clothes were too young for her .  but then, to her shock, as
she glowered at him he added softly, "Mind you, it's just as well he is
so young.  With those legs..."

The long, lingering appraisal he gave the lower half of her body was so
unexpected, so totally at variance with his previous attitude towards
her, that she could only stand there, her face bright red, her eyes
flashing with indignation.  Quite what she would have said to him if
the kitchen door hadn't opened and Robbie hadn't come hurtling towards
her, to virtually fling himself into her arms, she had no idea, but by
the time she had bent down to catch the little boy, lifting him up into
her arms while she said hello to him, her anger had gone, melted away
by the touching delight of Robbie's pleasure in seeing her.

"Believe me now, do you?"  Gray was saying to his son as Robbie wrapped
his arms round Sarah's neck, refusing to let go of her.

Darting a quick glance at Gray, Sarah saw that his eyes were shadowed
and that he quickly averted his face from her, as though he didn't want
her looking directly at him.

Ross had said that originally Gray had fought desperately to retain
custody of his son.  If he cared for the little boy at all it must have
hurt him dreadfully to have been turned into a complete stranger to
him.  a stranger, moreover, whom Robbie so obviously disliked and
feared.

"My father says that you're going to look after me, that you're going
to be here every day," Robbie was saying to her, although Sarah's heart
ached over that formal, stilted 'my father' when he should still have
been saying "Daddy'.

"Yes, that's right, Robbie," she confirmed, while beside her Gray
frowned and told her curtly, "Give him to me, he's too heavy for
you."

Too heavy for her?  Sarah was about to deny that she was so feeble that
she couldn't carry the weight of a six-year-old, and an almost too thin
six-year-old at that, when she reminded herself that Gray was Robbie's
father, and that for Robbie's sake one of her tasks while she was here
with him must be to build some bridges between father and son so that
Robbie could develop the trust and love in his sole parent that every
child needed to have if they were to thrive and develop emotionally.

However, as she started to pass Robbie over to Gray, the little boy
tightened his arms around her, his body going stiff with denial of what
she was doing.

"I've brought some paper with me, Robbie," she told him cheerfully,
ignoring the pleading look in his eyes as Gray took him from her.

"And tomorrow, if you like, we can go shopping and buy some coloured
pencils."

"Today.  I want to go today," Robbie told her, but Sarah shook her head
and repeated firmly, "I'm afraid not, Robbie.  Until I get my new car
we won't be able to go out because the one I'm using at the moment
doesn't have any rear seatbelts in it."

That had been one of the things she had been most insistent upon when
she had decided to purchase her shiny bright red convertible.  Rear
seatbelts were a must if she was going to feel comfortable with Robbie
as a passenger.

"But we'll find plenty of things to do today," she told him with a
smile, asking, "Have you had your breakfast yet?"

When he shook his head she suggested, "Then why don't we let your fa
daddy go to work?  Then you can have something to eat and you and I can
decide what we're going to do today."

As she spoke Gray was already heading for the kitchen; Sarah followed
him, her attention immediately focusing on the large wooden kitchen
table with its half a dozen chairs, the table, like the kitchen,
designed to accommodate the needs of a busy and close family, and yet
all that was on it was a solitary mug of coffee and a half-eaten piece
of toast on a plate.

For some reason the sight of that single mug and plate made her ache
inside.  How could she blame Gray Philips for his attitude towards her
sex?  He had presumably loved Robbie's mother when he married her, had
expected to share with her all the pleasure and closeness of a warm
family unit, instead of which his wife had been consistently unfaithful
to him before leaving him and taking with her his child.

Gray had already put Robbie down on the floor, and instantly the little
boy came and pressed close to Sarah's side.

"I've had a spare set of keys cut for you," Gray told her, reaching
into his pocket and then handing them over to her.  As he did so his
fingers brushed accidentally against her wrist, causing her to tense
and withdraw quickly from the physical contact.  Her flesh tingled
where he had touched it, an odd, insidious sensation of heat and
weakness creeping up her arm.

"I should be back for six this evening."  He was frowning, his mind
already elsewhere, and just for a moment Sarah weakly gave in to the
desire to ask herself what it would be like if she were married to him,
if Robbie were her child.  Would he leave her with a cursory peck on
the cheek, a distant promise to try not to be late, or would he, as the
fullness of his lower lip seemed to suggest, allow a more sensual side
of his nature full rein in the privacy of his own home?  Would he kiss
her tenderly and lingeringly, give her the kind of kiss that would stay
with her all day, an implicit promise of a different kind of shared
intimacy to come later in the day once Robbie was asleep and they were
on their own?

With a tiny shock Sarah recognised that her body was already responding
wantonly to the erotic stimulus of her dangerous thoughts.

Beside her Gray reached for his coffee, grimacing in distaste as he
realised it had gone cold.

Leaving both it and his toast unfinished, he picked up the briefcase
standing on the floor beside the chair.

For a moment before he headed for the door he hesitated and looked at
Robbie, and, although Sarah silently willed him to make some gesture of
affection and warmth towards his son, he made no move to approach him,
saying only with curt sternness, "Now remember, Robert, behave
yourself," and then he was gone, his footsteps echoing across the
wooden floor of the hall before that front door closed behind him.

"Sarah... Sarah, I'm hungry."

Robbie was tugging at her sleeve, looking up at her.  His mouth was
exactly like his father's, Sarah recognised with a small pang as she
smiled back at him and asked him what he would like to eat.

CHAPTER SIX

A week passed, and, although she and Robbie had very quickly
established an excellent relationship, Sarah felt as though she had
done nothing to improve the relationship between Robbie and Gray.  But
then, how could she when Robbie saw so little of his father?  On
several occasions Gray had returned later than he had planned, having
rung her from the factory to say that he was going to be delayed and
asking her if she could possibly stay on, so that she was the one who
put Robbie to bed and who read him his bedtime story.

She could tell that Gray was irritated by her refusal to live in, but
she was determined to stick to her decision.  Seeing him in the
morning, standing beside the kitchen table in shirt-sleeves, quickly
gulping the half-cold mug of coffee that seemed to be the only
breakfast he had, was enough to make her so achingly and wantonly aware
of him that she knew she was far too vulnerable to risk actually living
in the same house with him.  And yet why should she feel this way about
him?  He had certainly not given her any encouragement to do so, and
she had never thought of herself as being so highly sexually motivated
that she could ever succumb to such an acute attack of a desire and
need that was purely physical.  Which meant.  Which meant what?  That
she had fallen in love with him?  At her age?  Surely she was beyond
that kind of folly? Falling in love was something that belonged to
extreme youth.  With maturity and experience came the knowledge that
real love was something that grew slowly and sometimes painfully; that
it was a delicate plant that needed careful nurturing.  And besides. 
besides, her feelings went deeper than mere sexual excitement and the
adoration of some out-of-reach mythical male on to whose real character
she had grafted a whole host of ideological and impossible attributes. 
In the morning, when she watched Gray grimacing over his cold coffee. 
when she saw the way Robbie turned away from him and to her, she ached
inside for him. In the evening, when he came back from work looking
drained and tense, she wanted to comfort him, to share his burden with
him, to open her arms to him and hold him in much the same way as she
did Robbie, to pour out over him the loving tenderness of her
instinctive emotional response to his need, and then he would move, say
or do something that would make her so aware of him as a man that
immediately and dramatically her feelings would change, becoming so
intensely sensual and keen-pitched that the ache inside her body was an
embarrassment and an anguish to her.

This was not being 'in love'.  This was love itself, this complex and
uncomfortable mixture of emotions and needs that common sense and logic
told her she had no right and no reason to feel, but which still
persisted in growing inside her.  But how could she love him when he
was still in so many ways a stranger to her?  The intimacy of being in
someone's home for so many hours of the day of necessity laid many
aspects of their lives open, but these were only domestic details, like
the fact that he ironed his own shirts and did his own washing.  like
the fact that he seemed to have little or no idea what size clothes his
son took, and, although he had bought Robbie new clothes immediately
that he had come to live with him, to replace those which he was
rapidly outgrowing, none of them really seemed to be the right size,
nor really suitable for a child living in the country and surrounded by
a large garden.  Robbie needed tough outdoor clothes, sensible track
suits T-shirts and shorts, not the dull, old-fashioned things that were
all she could find in his wardrobe.  Robbie needed a mother, she
acknowledged, warning herself that she must never allow herself to fall
into the trap of letting Robbie see her in that light, for his sake
even more than her own.  While she was an adult,

and therefore technically at least capable of knowing the pain she was
ultimately inflicting on herself, Robbie was still only a child.  She
could not.  must not allow him to become so attached to her that when
she eventually left he would suffer.

She did as much as she could, casually mentioning his father during
their conversations, making it so that it was as though Gray was very
much a part of Robbie's life, even if Robbie himself stubbornly refused
to admit him into it.

Today was her birthday, and tonight Sally and Ross were taking her out
for a meal.  There had been cards on the breakfast table at the cottage
for her this morning and both Sally and Ross had got up especially
early to be there with her while she opened them.

When she left she contrasted the warmth of affection that existed
within her own family with the loneliness of Robbie's family life.  Her
parents had sent her a card and a long loving letter; there were cards
from her brother and his family in Canada, from cousins and aunts and
uncles, from old school and university friends now scattered all over
the country and Europe in different jobs; and this evening she had the
treat of being taken out to dinner at a very special and expensive
local restaurant to look forward to.

At the weekend, when she had not worked, as

Gray had been at home to look after Robbie himself, Sally had dragged
her off to their nearest town, where she had insisted on buying her a
new dress, despite Sarah's protest that it was far too expensive.

"I'm being well paid for this latest commission," Sally had told her,
adding with a grin, "Besides, it makes me feel less guilty about my own
extravagance.  What do you think Ross will think of this?"  she had
asked Sarah, parading for her inspection in an extremely slinky black
jersey dress with tiny shoestring straps.

"I think if you wear it when we go out for my birthday he'll be wishing
me a million miles away by the time we go home," Sarah had told her
frankly.

It had worried her at first, that her presence might become an
irritation to her cousin's husband, causing friction between husband
and wife, but, as Sally had assured her, Ross was far too easygoing a
husband for that kind of thing.

"Besides," she had added with one of her familiar grins, 'the internal
walls of the cottage are a couple of feet thick, and you know yourself
how impossible it is even to hear the phone ring from one room to
another, so if Ross wants to make mad, passionate love to me.  " She
had broken off to laugh at the expression on Sarah's face, teasing her,
" I'd forgotten how easily embarrassed you are.  Besides, from what
I've heard, having adults sharing your roof with you is nothing.  It's
once you've got children running around and bursting into your bedroom
at precisely the wrong moment that you really begin to understand
frustration.  "

This time both of them laughed.

after her weekend away from him Robbie was tending to cling to her,
wanting constant reassurance that she was not going to go away, wanting
plenty of cuddles and confirmation of her physical affection for him.
He was a very loving little boy, although, from what Sarah could gather
from his comments about his mother and the life he had lived with his
grandmother, his mother had never been particularly loving towards
him.

Sarah had noticed how worried he was about touching her with sticky
fingers, and how he sometimes tensed a little as though half expecting
her rejection.  His mother, she had learned from his innocent chatter,
had had long pink nails and always worn high-heeled shoes.  Perhaps
unfairly, Sarah acknowledged, she was beginning to get the impression
that Gray's ex-wife had been far from the devoted mother she had
pretended to be.  a woman who had preferred to leave her son in his
grandmother's charge, so that she was free to live the life of a single
woman.

Reminding herself that life could be extremely difficult for single
parents, who should never be expected to devote every single second of
their lives to their children, Sarah tried hard not to pass judgement
on Robbie's mother.

One thing the woman most definitely had done, though, was to inst il in
Robbie a very definite fear and rejection of his father.  Sarah only
had to mention Gray's name for Robbie to tense, screwing up his face,
although he had for the first time on Friday evening, when Gray had
been late, commented to her, "I'm glad that Daddy's working late
because it means that you'll stay with me for longer, doesn't it?"

It was the first time he had referred to Gray as "Daddy', and gave
Sarah hope that she might in time help him to overcome his antipathy
towards his father.

This morning Gray had told her that he intended to come home early, and
so she had not, as she had originally intended, told him that because
she was going out to dinner she would need to leave on time at six, but
it was now a quarter-past six and there was no sign of him, and when
she had rung the factory there had not been anyone there to answer the
telephone.

Now, gnawing her bottom lip, she looked at the clock and decided that
she would hang on until seven before ringing Sally to warn her that she
might not be able to make it in time.

In the end it was ten-past seven when she eventually picked up the
receiver to dial her cousin's number.

Sally answered the phone straight away.

"Oh, no!"  she exclaimed when Sarah told her that Gray wasn't back.

"Didn't you explain to him this morning that we were going out?"

"No," Sarah admitted.

"He said he would be back early.  I've tried the factory and there's no
reply, and, of course, I can't leave Robbie on his own."

"No, of course not," Sally agreed.

"The table's booked for half-eight... and I doubt if we can get them to
change it.  The restaurant is very popular."

"Look, if I can't get back in time there's no reason why you and Ross
shouldn't go by yourselves," Sarah told her.

"Sarah, this is your birthday treat," Sally reminded her.

"Oh, drat the man!  What does he think you are?  To not even have the
courtesy to ring you and let you know..."

"He's normally very good about that," Sarah found herself defending
Gray.

"Look, I'll give it to half- past seven, and if he isn't back by then
I'll ring you and let you know."

Half-past seven.  Robbie's bedtime arrived without any sign of Gray.

Sighing to herself, Sarah rang her cousin.  Sally was very forthright,
and rather angry about the situation, but accepted that Sarah had no
option other than to stay with Robbie.

"I hope you let Gray know how unfair he's being," Sally told her,
assuring Sarah that she and Ross would go on ahead without her so that
the evening wasn't completely wasted.

"Although it seems very unfair, since it was your birthday we were
supposed to be celebrating."

Having soothed her cousin, Sarah turned to find Robbie standing a few
feet away from her, his face puckered with anxiety.

It hurt her so much that he should be so afraid.  so vulnerable.  so
aware of how very unreliable adult promises, adult love could be.  She
picked him up wordlessly, hugging him to reassure him, and then said
cheerfully, "Come on, Robbie, bath-time."

"May I have a piece of cake for supper?"  he asked her, his frown
turning to smiles.

Sarah shook her head.  She and Robbie had spent the morning making a
birthday cake which they had eaten with due ceremony at teatime.

"No cake at bedtime, Robbie," she reminded him.

"How about a lovely crisp apple instead?"

Solemnly he nodded his head.  He was such a biddable, obedient child.
too biddable and quiet at times, she reflected, watching him.

Of course, the fact that he had been brought up in his grandmother's
household was probably partially responsible for that, and there was,
after all, nothing wrong with good, old-fashioned manners, but in

Robbie's case a little more exuberance, a little less tension and
apprehension, would make it far easier for him to adjust when the time
came for him to start his new school.  Sarah was afraid that the robust
company of other children of his own age might prove too overwhelming
for him and send him right back into his shell.  She had already been
making enquiries to ascertain if there were any out-of-school
activities he could take part in which would enable him to meet other
children of his age, and this week she was taking him swimming at a
time when she had found out that other children were likely to be at
the local sports centre.

By eight o'clock Robbie was bathed and in bed.  Sarah read him his
favourite story before he went to sleep.  She had noticed that whenever
he was stressed or upset he tended to fall back on the security of
needing the familiar to comfort him.  Slowly she was trying to widen
his horizons, to help him become less apprehensive and insecure, but it
would be a long, slow process.  something that could not be
accomplished quickly.  Something which might do more harm than good
when the time eventually came for her to leave him.  Would he see her
then as yet another adult who was deserting him?

Sighing to herself, Sarah went back downstairs, taking his dirty
clothes with her to put them in the washing-machine.

Since she had no option but to await Gray's return home, she might as
well find something useful with which to occupy her time.

In the kitchen, the buddleia she and Robbie had picked from the garden
provided a rich splash of colour on the pine table, even though the
flowers were beginning to fall already.  Robbie had a surprisingly
well-developed eye for a child so young and had produced a very
passable drawing of the flowers.  She had pinned it to the notice-board
she had put up in the kitchen, again with Robbie's help, although she
had asked Gray's permission first before doing so.  He had raised his
eyebrows a little but had made no comment other than, "Well, if you
think it's necessary."

Not necessary, perhaps, but useful.  Every teatime she and Robbie made
a list of all the things they had done and all the things they wanted
to do, and both lists were duly pinned up on the board.  Robbie could
read quite well, but his maths was poor.  and Sarah was trying to
improve it by getting him to add up both lists every day, subtracting
one total from the other, turning the learning exercise into a game
which both of them enjoyed.

At ten o'clock, just as she was finishing the last of the ironing, she
heard Gray's car, and saw the security lights come on as he walked
towards the house.

He came straight into the kitchen via the back door instead of using
the front door.  It had been a warm day, the atmosphere a little heavy,
and outside the summer evening air was still warm.

Gray had removed his jacket and his tie.  The top buttons of his shirt
were unfastened, his skin looked slightly damp, and there was a dark
growth of beard along his jaw.

He was, Sarah saw, frowning, and the kitchen light revealed taut lines
of tension beside his eyes and alongside his mouth.

As always the sight of him reactivated all the aching awareness she
fought so hard to control when he wasn't there.  He smelled faintly of
heat and sweat, and the knowledge that he was so male and human was
like a powerful kick in her stomach, a wrenching, agonising tide of
reaction that made her tense every muscle in her body.

His frown deepened as he saw what she was doing, as though for some
reason such domestic intimacy displeased him.

"Robbie asleep?"  he asked her as he put down his briefcase and pulled
out one of the kitchen chairs, dropping wearily into it.

"Yes," Sarah confirmed.

"I won't go up and disturb him, then."

Sarah compressed her lips.  If it was hard getting Robbie to see his
father as someone he could love and grow close to then it was almost
equally hard getting Gray to acknowledge his responsibility to give
Robbie the encouragement and affection he needed to be able to
overthrow his antipathy towards him.

"I'm sorry I'm so late," Gray was apologising.

"A crisis blew up with one of our suppliers.  I had to go to London to
get it sorted out.  I told Mary to ring and let you know I'd be back
around eight, I know, but unfortunately things took longer than I'd
anticipated."

Mary was his secretary, a woman in her late thirties.  It was pointless
now telling him that not only had she not received his message, but
also that she had had other plans for the evening.

Since she had finished the ironing and there was no reason for her to
stay, she picked up her handbag from the dresser, checking that she had
got her car keys.

As she headed for the door she heard Gray opening the fridge door
behind her.

"What's this?"  he demanded, removing what was left of the birthday
cake.  At Robbie's insistence she had iced on it the message "Happy
Birthday, Sarah'.

"It's a cake," she told him stiffly, feeling somehow vulnerable and
defensive.

"So today is your birthday."  He was looking at her in an oddly
speculative way that made her flush with 5

out knowing why she should do so.

"I should have thought a woman of your age would have had far more
exciting plans for celebrating such an occasion than eating home-made
birthday cake with a six- year-old."

The cynical tone of his voice and the way his mouth twisted combined to
fuel her own resentment and pain.

"As a matter of fact, I should have been going out to dinner," she told
him angrily.

"However, since I neither had your message from Mary, nor felt able to
leave Robbie on his own, and since you had assured me this morning that
you would be back early--' " You had a date?  "

Why did he make it sound such an impossibility?  Did he realise how
insulting .  how unkind he was being?  Not for anything now would she
tell him that her date had been with her cousin and her husband.

Instead she told him stiffly, "Yes, I did."

She waited for him to apologise.  to tell her that he was sorry if he
had spoilt her evening, but instead he said cynically, "Well, no doubt
by keeping him dangling you'll have made him even keener for your
company.  Isn't that how the female mind works?"

Sarah glared at him, her love for him overwhelmed by anger at what he
was implying.

"I can't speak for other women," she told him ac N

idly.

"But mine most certainly does not, and now, if you'll excuse me, I'll
say goodnight."

She was still fuming when she reached the cottage, all in darkness
because Sally and Ross had gone out without her.  In the sitting-room
her cards were lined up on the mantelpiece and the window-sill, a
reminder of how happily she had started the day.  Damn Gray Philips .
just because his wife had been the sort of woman who enjoyed
manipulating and hurting people there was no need for him to accuse
her.  She stopped herself.  She was taking things far too personally.
far, far too personally.  becoming far too emotionally involved, not
just with Robbie but with Gray himself as well, while he barely knew
she existed.

Tiredly she went upstairs and prepared for bed.

"So you told him just how annoyed you were, then?"  Sally was
demanding.

"Sort of," Sarah agreed, unwilling to explain just what had happened.

"You mustn't let him take advantage of your kind heart, you know,
Sarah.  You're employed to take charge of Robbie, not to act as a
surrogate mother."

Sarah sighed.

"I've got to go," she told her cousin.

"Otherwise I'm going to be late."

There was nothing unusual in the sight of Gray's car parked outside
when she arrived at the house half an hour later, although it was odd
to walk into the kitchen to find it empty and the lights left on.

A plate with a cold and unappetising piece of half- eaten pizza on it
was on the kitchen table with a half- drunk mug of coffee.

Frowning, Sarah opened the door from the kitchen into the hall.

Silence.  For a moment she wasn't sure what she ought to do.  She felt
rather like someone boarding the abandoned Mary Celeste must have felt,
she reflected as she hesitated.  The sensible thing to do was to go
upstairs and find out if Robbie was still in bed, but she hadn't
forgotten the way Gray had looked at her when he had thought she was
rifling through his desk, and, besides, if he had overslept, as seemed
the case.  The thought of accidentally confronting him, perhaps half
naked as he emerged from his bedroom or bathroom-Stop it, she warned
herself firmly, ignoring her emotional vulnerability and heading for
the stairs.

She was an employee.  paid to take charge of Robbie.  and that was what
she must do.  If Gray had overslept.  Well, she could always send
Robbie in to wake up his father, she told herself as she reached the
landing and opened the door into Robbie's room.

The curtains were still drawn.  There was no sign of Robbie, but she
could hear water running in his

 N

bathroom, though it wasn't that that held her rooted to the floor just
inside the doorway.  No, it was the sight of Gray himself, lying
sprawled on Robbie's bed, still fully dressed and fast asleep.

As she stared at him Robbie emerged from his bathroom, semi-dressed.

"I had a bad dream," he told her in a whisper.

"Daddy came upstairs.

He said that I wasn't to be afraid because he was there.  "

At any other time Sarah would have rejoiced in the natural, easy way
Robbie had called Gray "Daddy', in the way he seemed to accept that
when Gray said 'don't be afraid', there was nothing to fear ... just as
she would have rejoiced in the fact that Gray had heard his son cry out
and had responded to that cry.

"I'm hungry, Sarah.  I want my breakfast," she heard Robbie saying as
he opened the bedroom door and headed for the stairs.

She was just about to call him back so that she could get him to wake
Gray up when Gray himself moved, turning over, frowning in his sleep as
he tried to make himself comfortable in the too small bed.

He must have been exhausted to be able to sleep at all in that confined
space, especially when he was sharing it with Robbie, Sarah reflected,
stepping back towards the door, expecting at any moment that he would
open his eyes, but instead he flung out his arm,

and in doing so knocked over the covered glass of cordial and water she
always left for Robbie.

Sarah reacted instinctively, darting forward, too late to do anything
other than rescue the glass from the damp carpet, but it was while she
was kneeling on the floor beside the bed that she suddenly felt Gray's
hand touch her hair.

The total unexpectedness of it turned her rigid, unable to move. 
unable to breathe.  unable to do anything.  His fingers moved slowly
against her scalp.  He made a deep, soft sound of pleasure, before
coiling his hand round her hair and tugging it gently as he urged her
down towards him.

His eyes, she saw, were still closed, and he was in effect still fast
asleep, totally unconscious of what he was doing.  Which meant.  which
meant that she had to remove his hand from her hair right away and then
wake him up.  Heaven alone knew who he thought she was.  Some unknown
woman with whom he had had the kind of intimate relationship that.  She
swallowed hard.  She was so close to him now that she could see the
pores of his skin, the dark growth of his beard, the silky curl of his
eyelashes.  She could smell the warm male heat of his body, and
instinctively, to prevent herself from overbalancing, she had
unwittingly placed her hand on his chest so that beneath her palm she
could feel the heavy, slightly uneven thud of his heartbeat.

"Mm..."  Her own heart pounded as he nuzzled the soft skin of her
throat, his thumb stroking rhythmically behind her ear.  Her senses
were overwhelmed by a fierce flood of sensation, her nipples
tightening. swelling, her whole body shockingly responsive to his
touch.  His beard rasped roughly against her tender skin and yet the
sensation was more erotic than unpleasant, sending tiny shivers of
pleasure darting under her skin.  Instinctively she moved closer to
him, arching her throat so that his mouth could caress it.  The hand
she had placed on his chest tightened, her fingers curling.  She could
hear the sound of her own uneven breathing, could feel how her body
trembled and ached.

She was wearing a thin cotton top and a pair of shorts, and when Gray's
free hand cupped her breast she gave a small, startled gasp of shock,
but he was oblivious to it, his eyes still closed, his mouth still
nuzzling her throat, his tongue-tip stroking it, his teeth gently
dragging exquisite trails of pleasure over it.

Sarah trembled against him, knowing that she should pull away from him,
and yet somehow or other the message she gave her body to do so became
either confused or ignored, so that instead of pulling away she was
doing exactly the opposite and was in fact pushing herself closer and
closer into his intimate embrace.  her body wantonly ignoring the fran
tic messages from her brain to move away from him before it was too
late, before he woke up and realised what he was doing, what she was
allowing him, encouraging him, almost, to do.

She shivered as his thumb stroked slowly against her nipple, swallowing
the small moan of pleasure that bubbled in her throat.  His mouth
dragged erotically against her skin, seeking her lips, and she couldn't
stop herself from turning her head so that he could find them.

When he did so her heart jerked to a standstill, her senses sent into a
dizzy frenzy by the urgent caress of his mouth against her lips.

This was no tentative, seeking kiss, but the kind of kiss a man gave a
woman whom he intimately and passionately desired.

But who was that woman?  Not her, Sarah acknowledged, going still in
his hold, her desire suddenly chilled and cold, her body stiff with
anguished shame and rejection.

Gray was still kissing her, his teeth biting sharply into her bottom
lip as he sensed her resistance.

The unexpectedness of that sharp pain made her cry out and jerk back
from him.

Instantly his eyes opened, a frown drawing his eyebrows together as he
stared at her.

Frantically Sarah scrambled to her feet, stammer N

ing in panic, "You knocked over Robbie's water glass.  I'm sorry if I
woke you."

He was still frowning, and she could almost feel him thinking.  trying
to catch hold of an elusive memory, a troublesome vague awareness.

He was, she realised, focusing on her bottom lip.  Instantly she caught
hold of it between her teeth, trying not to wince as the broken skin
stung, her heart pounding heavily in her ears.  She felt sick.
vulnerable.  so afraid that he might remember and blame her.  so afraid
that he might think that she had been the one.  that he might guess. 
but when he spoke he demanded irritably, "What the hell am I doing in
here?"  making it clear that he had no memory of what had happened, and
freeing her to say unsteadily, "Robbie said he had a bad dream and that
you came up to him.  You must have fallen asleep with him."

Gray gave a grunt, which might have been an assent or might not.  He
swung his legs on to the floor, cursing under his breath as he
complained, "God, my back."

Sarah was already backing towards the door.  His movements had dragged
his shirt out of his trousers, revealing the taut male flesh of his
abdomen and chest.  He stretched and she heard his bones crack.

"What time is it?"  he asked her, cursing again when she told him.

"Hell, I've got a meeting in half an hour.  I'll have to ring Mary and
get it delayed."

He was still frowning, his thoughts quite obviously on his work,
nothing in his manner to suggest that he was remotely aware of what had
happened, and yet as she opened the bedroom door he looked straight at
her, his gaze searching her face before dropping to her mouth.

Inside she was trembling so violently that she was surprised he
couldn't see it.  Her bottom lip was still clenched between her teeth,
the pain from her torn flesh increasing with every second, but she
dared not let him look at her bitten lip and remember.

Opening the door, she turned round and hurried through it.  Downstairs
Robbie had helped himself to his cereal.  There was a milk moustache
around his mouth, and he looked up, giving Sarah a wide beaming smile
as she walked into the kitchen.

she had her back to the door half an hour later when Gray walked into
the kitchen.  Immediately she tensed, unable to turn round and look at
him.  Had he realised.  remembered.  or had he been so deeply asleep
that he had no recollection of having touched her.  kissed her?

She heard him open the fridge door and she forced herself to turn
round.  Her heart was thumping violently with anxiety and pain; he
looked so remote,

 I

so distant.  looking at him now in all the formality of his
dark-clothed suit, it was almost impossible to believe that he had. 
She swallowed, reminding herself that it had not been she he had been
making love to; that it had not been she whom he had kissed and
caressed.

He had removed some orange juice from the fridge and was about to turn
round.  Immediately she busied herself, fussing over Robbie.

"Are we going to have some more birthday cake today, Sarah?"  Robbie
was asking her.

Sarah knew that Gray was watching her, studying her, and, even though
she could feel the slow crawl of hot colour seeping up over her throat
and face, she refused to turn her own head and look at him.  It was
like having to resist an actual physical force, she recognised as she
fought her own powerful desire to turn her head and see why he was
watching her so closely.

Ten minutes later, having finished his own breakfast, Gray picked up
his briefcase and headed for the door, pausing only to say curtly to
her, "If you've got a moment, please, Sarah."

Numbly she followed him out into the hall.  He had remembered after
all. And he was going to demand to know why she had not stopped him. 
why she had not woken him, why she-"I think it would be a good idea if
Robbie was to abstain from eating any more birthday cake," he told
her.

"I suspect that was probably the cause of the bad dream that kept both
him and me awake last night."

Sarah focused on him and heard him continuing critically, "I really
would have thought you would have had more sense than to allow him to
eat such stuff anyway ... all that sugar and fat..."

"I used a low-fat sugar-free recipe," Sarah informed him stiffly.

How dared he imply that she was responsible for Robbie's nightmare when
he.  It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that, if he really
was concerned about Robbie's bad dreams, he could find the cause of
them far closer to home than looking for it in her cooking, but the
shock of his unfair criticism when she had been expecting him to raise
a very different subject indeed was numbing her brain so much that she
couldn't get her tongue round the words she wanted to say.

As he turned away from her she bit down hard on her bottom lip,
forgetting how tender it was.  The resultant pain made her cry out
involuntarily, causing him to stop and turn back to look at her.

The moment his glance focused on her swollen lip her skin burned with
hot embarrassment and guilt.

"If I were you I should tell your boyfriend to be a little less rough
next time," he told her contemptuously as he opened the front door.

He was halfway through the door when her temper got the better of her,
her voice husky with anger as she told him shakily, "I don't have a
boyfriend, and for your information..."  She stopped abruptly,
realising with shock what she had been about to say.

"For my information what?"  Gray prompted her.

He was looking at her mouth again.  With a sick surge of awareness
Sarah realised just what she was doing.  She pressed her trembling lips
together and averted her head.  Her whole body was shaking with shock
and panic, her eyes huge and dark with the strain of her emotions.

Involuntarily her tongue-tip touched her swollen lip, in a movement
that was both explorative and soothing; a gesture that betrayed to the
man watching her that she was completely unused to wearing such public
evidence of a man's urgent desire.

Her lips were very soft and inviting, and now swollen and marked by
that betraying bruise.

His body tightened warningly, the ache that had been with him when he
had woken up intensifying sharply.  It had been a long, long time since
he had experienced such an almost uncontrollable surge of desire.

His sexual appetite had waned considerably during the last months of
his marriage, and, unlike other men he knew, following his divorce he
had not experienced any desire to go out and punish the rest of the
female sex for his wife's infidelity and betrayal by entering into as
many casual sexual relationships as he could.

It was true that there had been a couple of relationships, but both of
them had initially been more cerebral than physical.

It came as a shock to him now to realise that he was capable of such a
gut-deep physical, aching, compulsive need, and even worse that that
need.  that ache should be directed at a woman whom he had determinedly
and consciously held at a distance.

It was only later in his car, driving towards the factory, that he
allowed himself to question why he should have felt that almost
instantaneous awareness that she was someone against whom he would have
to erect barricades; that she was someone who could threaten the
emotional and physical control he exerted over his life.

He cursed himself, acknowledging that it had not been a good idea to
employ her, but what alternative had he had?  There was Robbie to
consider.  Robbie, who was his child.  his son.  Robbie, who, thanks to
his mother's teachings, was afraid of him.  And yet last night,
frightened by his bad dream, Robbie had clung to him .  crying out to
him, begging him to stay, and, holding the small and frighteningly
fragile warmth of his small son in his arms, he had been overwhelmed by
such a surge of love and pain.  love for the child who was, after all,
a part of himself, and pain for all the years they had been apart, for
all the trauma and sorrow that had marked their relationship.

He couldn't understand what was happening to him.  After cutting
himself off from his emotions, after telling himself that it was safer
not to feel.  not to love, he suddenly felt as though all his
protection had been ripped away from him, leaving him raw and bleeding;
leaving him vulnerable and in pain.  leaving him so confused and
overwhelmed by his own feelings.  so shocked by the knowledge of what
was happening to him. He took a deep, steadying breath, shivering a
little as he remembered how he had felt this morning looking at Sarah's
swollen mouth; how he had been angrily, almost savagely jealous of the
man who had the right to kiss her so passionately that she neither
noticed nor cared that he was hurting her.

"I don't have a boyfriend," she had said.  And yet someone had touched
her, kissed her.  God, if he closed his eyes he could almost feel how
it would be to have her mouth under his, to hear her soft cries of
mingled pleasure and panic filling his ears, to touch the feminine
curves of her throat, her breasts.  to feel her body beginning to
respond to his and to know.  He swore abruptly as the other driver
sounded his horn at him and he realised that the lights had changed to
green and that he had been sitting staring into space.  This had got to
stop.  It was something there was no room for in his life.  something
far too dangerous to allow into his life.

Once he had believed he was in love and that he was loved in return,
and he had been wrong on both counts.  He was never going to fall into
that trap again.  Never.

Never.

CHAPTER SEVEN

gray puzzled her, Sarah acknowledged.  He was a man of such
contradictions; a man who one moment could be the most caring and
loving father to his child and yet who the next could withdraw from him
almost as though he was afraid.

But afraid of what?  Not, surely, of Robbie himself.  Afraid of loving
him, perhaps?

She frowned as she mulled the thought round in her head.  It was almost
two weeks since that fateful morning when she had arrived and found
Gray sleeping in Robbie's bed, when he had in his sleep taken hold of
her and caressed her and kissed her.

But no, she must not allow herself to think .  to remember.  She had
always told herself more times than she cared to dwell upon that that
incident was something around which she must build a fortification
strong enough to ensure that its memory remained sealed away,
untouched, undisturbed, un- thought of for the rest of her life.

Because if it wasn't.  if she allowed it to dominate her thoughts and
her feelings.  She gave a deep shudder.

There was no future in the way she felt about Gray, no hope of his ever
returning her feelings, of his ever coming to love her; she knew that
from the way he treated her; from the cool civility that sometimes did
not quite mask his antagonism towards her.  He employed her as Robbie's
nanny simply because he had not been able to find anyone else, but she
knew now how much he resented her presence in his home, how much he
resented her.  She had seen the way he looked at her whenever Robbie
ran to her for a cuddle, or whenever Robbie turned to her for something
he wanted, and she knew that Gray disliked his son's growing emotional
dependence on her.

She too was increasingly uneasy about it although, she suspected, for
very different reasons.  Robbie was a very vulnerable child.  She had
tried her best to widen his horizons, to introduce him to other
children, and to some extent had been successful, but he still clung to
her.  still rushed quickly back to her side as though he was half
afraid that she might have disappeared in his absence.

All quite a natural reaction, given the trauma he had been through, of
course, but what Robbie needed in his life was someone permanent to
whom he could give his love and his dependence, not someone like her
who would only be a part of his life for a relatively short time.

It was true that Robbie was slowly becoming more responsive to his
father, thanks to her own unceasing and gentle encouragement to him to
see Gray as his friend rather than his enemy, and it was also true that
Gray was becoming more responsive to him, showing a much gentler and
more caring manner towards him than he had originally done, and yet
sometimes, just as she was congratulating herself on having helped to
forge a real bond between them, almost always--or so it seemed--when
Gray was actually showing physical affection for Robbie he would draw
back in some way from him, his body language clearly betraying his
tension and wariness.  Almost as though he was afraid of allowing
himself to love his son.  But what kind of man would feel like that?
What kind of man would be afraid of loving his own child?

The kind who had once had that child taken from him and who perhaps in
some illogical way feared that it might happen again?  The kind who was
afraid of allowing himself to love his child because, in his own
deepest emotional awareness, love was so closely connected with pain
that he could not differentiate between the two?

Sarah wished it was possible for her to talk more freely to Gray about
his feelings and about her own fears that he was hurting Robbie with
his rejection of him; that he was teaching Robbie to mistrust his own
natural feelings, to reject his own natural desire to show his father
love and affection; but, even if

Gray had been more approachable, she doubted if she could have overcome
the barrier of her own love for him enough to discuss the subject with
the frankness it needed.

Because of that as much as because of her love for Gray she was
beginning to seriously question if she was the right person to have
charge of Robbie.

She had tried once, very hesitantly, to voice her doubts, but Gray had
immediately grown grim-faced and taut-mouthed, accusing her of wanting
to break the contract they had signed, and she had been forced to
withdraw, knowing that it was impossible for her to voice all her
disquiet in a way that would carry weight and conviction.

Gray mistrusted anything based on emotions, she had learned that much,
and she reflected rather bitterly that he must once have loved Robbie's
mother very much indeed to be so damaged by the destruction of their
relationship.

And yet when she said as much at home to Sally, and Ross had overheard
her, he had quickly shaken his head and told her, "That's not what I've
heard.  By all accounts, the only reason they got married was because
she was pregnant, and it seems he had to put pressure on her to go
through with it.  Apparently no one was really surprised when the
marriage eventually failed, because it was common knowledge right from
the start that whatever passion had led to

Robbie's conception had turned to dead ashes long before their
marriage, never mind his eventual birth.  "

When Sarah made a soft sound of distress Ross shook his head again.

"You know your trouble, don't you?"  he told her.

"You're far too soft-hearted... far too idealistic."

"It's Robbie I feel sorry for," Sally interrupted.

"Poor little boy.

He's lucky he's got you, though, Sarah.  "

Sarah shook her head.

"I'm afraid I could be doing more harm than good.  He needs someone
permanent in his life."

"You mean you think Gray should remarry.  Well, I doubt that he'll ever
do that," Ross told them.

"Rumour has it that he swore after the divorce that he'd never marry
again, and he certainly doesn't come across as the kind of man it would
be easy to get close to emotionally."

"No, he isn't," Sarah agreed feelingly.

And yet Gray wasn't a cold man.  Even without that kiss she would have
known that.  Sometimes it was almost as though she could actually feel
the tension of everything that he was holding back inside himself like
a heat given off through his skin.

Since she had started working for him he seemed to have become
increasingly short-tempered with her, increasingly critical and
sometimes so unfairly that she wondered if he was actually trying to
provoke her into breaking their contract and leaving.  And yet if he
wanted to get rid of her he only had to say so, surely, and he had not
struck her as the kind of man who would be too cowardly to take that
kind of action, using unfair manipulation instead so that the burden of
the decision lay with her and not with him.

And yet there were times when he looked at her almost as though he
hated her.

He was also coming in later and later at night so that she was forced
to stay on well beyond her finishing time of six o'clock.

Whenever she mentioned this fact he countered by reminding her that he
had wanted her to live in.

Take tonight for instance, she reflected tiredly as she ironed the last
of Robbie's new school shins.

Gray had promised that he would be back for six, as she had explained
to him that she was going out for dinner, making up a foursome with
Sally and Ross and a business acquaintance of Ross's, who was in the
area for a couple of days on business.

They were not trying to match make Sally had assured her when she had
first mentioned the dinner date; Sarah was not so sure, but she owed
her cousin far too much to refuse to go along with their plans.

However, it was now half-past seven, and she had already had to ring
Sally and warn her that it looked as though she would not be able to
join them, and predictably and understandably her cousin had not been
too pleased.

"Oh, this really is the limit," she had complained.

"It's almost as though he's done it deliberately.  Have you rung the
factory?"

"Yes, and apparently no one seems to know where he is.  He left after
lunch for a business appointment and said that he would be coming
straight home."  Sarah had bitten her lip and asked her cousin
anxiously, "You don't think there's been an accident, do you?"

Instantly Sally's anger had evaporated.

"Oh, heavens, I hope not ... but perhaps you'd better check.  Although
I should have thought if something like that had happened...
Still..."

"I'll ring the police," Sarah had told her shakily.

half an hour later, having confirmed as best she could that there were
no reports of Gray being involved in an accident, and yet shakily
conscious of the fact that that did not necessarily mean that nothing
had happened to him, she was just sitting beside the phone when she
heard the sound of his car coming up the drive.

Instantly her fear turned to adrenalin-fuelled rage, not just that he
should be late, but that he should have, even if unknowingly, put her
through so much anxiety and dread.

She was on her feet as he walked in through the door, her face pale
with strain, her eyes huge and glittering in the darkness of the
lamp-lit hallway, a slim, almost ethereal silhouette whose feminine
shape and posture suddenly made Gray ache so unbearably and agonisingly
that it took a physical effort for him to stop himself from going up to
her and taking hold of her, from holding her and touching her, from
kissing her.  not as though she were a stranger, but as though she were
a woman with whom he had been so intimate already that her body and its
responses were so well known to him, that her senses were so receptive
to and so aroused by him that he could make love to her there where she
stood, expunging all the irritations, the pain, the anguish, the sheer
weight of everything that oppressed him by losing himself within her,
and that in doing so he would know that she understood, that she
accepted.  that her feelings for him.  her love for him would allow him
such a selfish release of all that was pent up inside him, without
criticising or condemning him for it.

He had even taken the first step towards her when suddenly his illusion
was shattered, her voice cold and ice-sharp as she demanded bitingly,
"You promised me you would be back for six.  I have a dinner date
tonight."

The shock of that cold little voice, and the look that accompanied it,
was like a jet of iced water touching too hot skin, causing an almost
physical pain within him, so that he retaliated immediately, for once
his emotional guard failing him as he threw back at her, "What stopped
you leaving, then, if your dinner date was so damned important?"

Sarah stared at him in shocked anger.

"You know that I can't leave Robbie on his own," she told him.

"Why not?"  Gray demanded savagely.

"His mother did.  In fact, it was because she left him on his own so
much that her own mother eventually intervened and took charge of him.
Well, if your damned dinner date is so important to you... more
important than Robbie ... don't let me keep you.  In fact, if it's so
damned important to you you can leave now, and don't bother coming
back."

His attack was so unexpected, so flagrantly unfair that Sarah could
only stare at him in shocked disbelief.

She could feel the tears starting to sting her eyes, and knew with
appalling clarity that if she stayed where she was she would be unable
to stop herself from bursting into tears.  The last thing she could
cope with now was to have Gray witness her emotional weakness and
vulnerability, and so she did the only thing she was capable of
doing:

she snatched up her bag and, averting her face, she almost ran past
Gray and through the still half-open door.

Crashing the gears of her car in her frantic desire to get away, she
drove down the drive, stopping just before she got to the main road so
that she could steady her nerves and blow her nose.

It made no difference to the tears now flooding her eyes, she
discovered as she gulped back the sobs threatening to overwhelm her.

It was just shock, she told herself.  Just shock, that was all.  But
beneath her shock ran a quickly rising tide of misery and pain.  It
made no difference telling herself that she had known all along what
Gray was like; that she had warned herself not to allow her feelings
for him to paint him in softer, warmer colours than the harsh, critical
shades which really portrayed him .  that it was her own fault if now
she was suffering for that vulnerability.

But to attack her like that when he was the one.  She gulped back her
tears and blew her nose again.

She still could not believe that he had actually dismissed her.  That
he had actually lost his temper with such savagery and immediacy.  that
he had actually lost emotional control like that when he was always.
always so strongly in control of what he felt and how he reacted.  when
he hardly ever said a single word that had not been prejudged.  when he
never made a move that wasn't guarded and wary.

By the time she reached the cottage her temper had cooled, leaving her
feeling sick and shaky.

She had never been a violently emotional person, always thinking of
herself as a little too quiet, her emotions contained and controlled,
but this evening.  She gave a small shudder as she let herself into the
empty cottage and filled the kettle with water to make herself a
drink.

Perhaps because of the too abrupt swing from the fear of thinking that
Gray might actually be injured, and lying helpless and unaware in some
distant hospital, to the bitter reality of his arrival home whole and
unhurt, and so patently uncaring of the anxiety, the fear he had caused
her, never mind the fact that he was so late when he had known that she
was going out, had been the cause of her unexpectedly intense anger.

Yes, she had some cause for reacting the way she had, but as for Gray
himself .  he had seemed almost to welcome her anger.  to invite and
incite it, and yet he must have known that he was in the wrong.  And
then, to have dismissed her.  She gave another shudder, deeper this
time.  She would have to go back, of course, if only to explain to
Robbie.  But how could she explain.  what would she say?  She certainly
didn't want to do anything that might prejudice the very fragile
relationship Robbie was trying to establish with his father.

Another different kind of anger swept over her.  How could Gray be so
selfish, so uncaring of Robbie's feelings?  Didn't he realise how this
could affect the little boy?

It was late when Sally and Ross returned, and of course they had to
hear the whole story, Ross frowning when she related Gray's reaction to
her own anger.

"It seems to me that it's a situation you're well out of," he announced
when he had heard her out.

"But Robbie--' Sarah began.

Ross shook his head.

"I know how concerned you are for him, Sarah," he told her.

"As I said before, you're far too soft-hearted.  But, to some extent,
while you're living here with us we are responsible for you.

Yes, I know you're an adult .  and fully capable of making your own
decisions, but I'm not at all happy with the way Gray has started
behaving towards you.  In fact I'm half tempted to go round there and
have a word with him.  "

"Oh, no ... please don't do that," Sarah begged him.

She had gone so white and looked so strained that, even though he was
still frowning and looking very grave, Ross gave in and said, "All
right, if you prefer me not to, but I can't pretend that I'm not
relieved that you won't be working for him any longer."

"I'll have to go back to see Robbie," Sarah told them both.

"I can't just leave him, even if Gray does explain to him."

"Why don't you leave it until either Sally or I are able to go with
you?"  Ross suggested, but Sarah immediately shook her head.

"No, I'm not hiding behind either of you.  As you said, I'm an adult
and as such I am fully capable of fighting my own battles.  Tonight I
was off guard... but tomorrow..."

she was awake well before dawn, hardly having slept at all, and she
dressed carefully, not in her normal work clothes, but in a smart sober
suit that reflected the sternness of her mood.  She had no intention of
trying to persuade Gray to change his mind, of grovelling at his feet,
so to speak, and begging for her job back, but she was determined that
she was going to see Robbie and that she was going to explain to him as
gently and as best she could what had happened, without in any way
laying any blame at his father's door.  For Robbie's sake, she could
not.  would not do that.

When she drew up outside the house half an hour later it was ablaze
with lights.  Even before she was out of the car the front door was
flung open and Gray came racing down the steps towards her, asking her
urgently as she opened the car door, "Robbie... is he with you?"

Robbie with her7 In his anxiety Gray had taken hold of her arm.  He was
standing so close to her that she could smell the hot, sharp scent of
maleness and fear that clung to him.  An overnight growth of beard
darkened his jaw.  He was wearing a T-shirt and a worn pair of jeans;

he looked, she recognised, as though he had been up half the night, and
the anxiety that surrounded him almost like an aura was now enveloping
her as well, her eyes darkening with fear as she demanded sharply, "No,
Robbie isn't with me.  Why?"

"I can't find him, I brought some work home with me last night.  I
don't know why ... but I couldn't sleep well."  He was avoiding looking
at her, Sarah noticed, his voice uneven and harsh as though it masked
emotions he was reluctant to betray.

"I was up early.  I went to look in on Robbie and he wasn't there. I've
checked the house but there doesn't seem to be any sign of him."

A shocked feeling of disbelief was gripping Sarah.

"Last night," she asked him sharply.

"Did you go up to see him last night after I'd left?"

Now he focused on her, his eyes bloodshot and vague with emotional
strain.

He hesitated and then shook his head.  and even though she had not
voiced her criticism he defended himself bleakly.

"I'd brought some work home with me.  I thought he would be asleep.  I
didn't want to disturb him."

You mean you didn't want to be bothered, Sarah thought bleakly, but she
kept the thought to herself.  She could tell from his expression just
how much he was suffering.  just how guilty he felt.  Nothing could be
achieved by criticising him now.

When she remained silent there was a small pause, and then to her
surprise he said gruffly, "Thanks."

The shock of it made her look at him, her eyes wide and unguarded as
they betrayed her emotions.

"For what?"  she asked him shakily.

"For not saying what I know you must be thinking.  That I should have
gone up to check on him."  The emotion .  the despair .  the guilt in
his voice made her body physically ache in sympathy with him.

"God knows, I know I should have done it... but I didn't, and now he's
gone."

"You're sure he's actually left the house?"  Sarah asked him.

"As sure as I can be.  I've searched every room and cupboard twice
over.  My one hope was that he might have come to you."

Her mouth had gone dry with fear and anxiety.

"The police," she asked him quietly.

"Have you...?"

He shook his head.

"No.  I was just about to ring you, to find out if he was with you, and
if not to ask for your advice."

He had been going to ask her for advice.  The shock of it made her gape
up at him.

"You don't believe me?  I'm not surprised.  After the way I behaved
last night... Oh, God... where on earth is he?  Why has he left?  I
thought he was settling down ... coming to realise..."

"I think we'd better ring the police," Sarah told him gently.  Without
realising what she was doing she had reached out and touched his arm;

a soothing, comforting gesture, an automatic response to his anguish,
and yet when he stopped speaking, and looked first at where her hand
rested on his arm and then at her, she suddenly became heart-jerkingly
aware of the hard heat of his skin, of its fine covering of silky hair,
of the way his muscles tensed beneath her touch, of the sheer living,
breathing maleness of him.

Her breath caught in her throat, she couldn't breathe.  couldn't think
couldn't move, and then suddenly she jerked back from him, her face
paling with awareness and guilt.

How could she be feeling like this when all her thoughts, all her
emotions ought to be concentrated on Robbie?  How could she have ever
allowed herself to feel that searching shocking surge of physical
desire, especially when Gray himself had made it so clear how little he
liked her, never mind how little he desired her?

She rang the police, dialling the number with shaky fingers.  Their
response was instant and somehow comforting.  There would be someone
with them within half an hour, they assured her, and in the meantime
they must try not to panic.

Try not to panic?  How was that possible?  She only had to think of the
way she had first met Robbie.  of his naive belief then that he could
make his own way to London.

Her heart almost stopped.  She turned to Gray.

"You don't think he's heading for London, do you... for his
grandmother's housekeeper?  When I first met him..."

Gray shook his head.

"I've no idea.  You know more about him... the way he thinks, the way
he's likely to act, than I do.  I was so sure he'd go to you.  That was
all I could think of--that he'd be with you.  God help me.  I even
thought that you had..."  He stopped shaking his head, but she had
already guessed what he had been about to say.

"You honestly thought that?  That I would encourage him to leave
home... a child of that age?"  Although she tried to remain calm, her
voice betrayed her.

"I'm sorry ... II ... I just don't seem to be able to think straight
these days.  As you've probably heard on the grapevine, my experience
of your sex hasn't been entirely conducive to... to trust."

Sarah looked gravely at him.

"Trust, like any other emotion, is a two-way thing," she told him
quietly.

"I would never do anything that might hurt Robbie, no matter what my
personal feelings towards you might be.  I know I overreacted last
night."  This seemed as good a time as any to say what had to be said,
now that the barriers were momentarily down between them and they were
joined together in their anxiety for Robbie.

"But I felt so guilty about letting my cousin and her husband down at
the last minute, especially when they were entertaining a business
client."

Gray was frowning.

"You were having dinner with your cousin?"

"I was making a foursome with them," Sarah told him.  She broke off as
she heard a car coming up the drive.

"That must be the police."

"Yes," Gray agreed tersely, heading for the front door.

"I'll go and let them in."

Half an hour later, having gone through his wardrobe and cupboards,
Sarah had managed to give the police a detailed list of what Robbie was
wearing.

His decision to leave had probably been made on impulse, the WPC told
her, trying to comfort her, because it was their experience that when
children of no matter what age planned to leave home they in N

variably took some favourite possession and a change of clothes with
them.  Robbie had taken nothing, and, to judge from the state of his
drawers, he had dressed himself in something of a hurry as well.

"Did anything happen yesterday... anything at all which might have
caused him to be upset?"

Sarah thought and then shook her head.

"Not as far as I know."

"A quarrel with another child ... or even with you?"  the grave-eyed
WPC pressed her.

Again Sarah shook her head, slowly going through the events of the
previous day.

She had already given the other woman a brief description of Robbie's
past and how she had come to be looking after him, without saying
anything to suggest that Robbie's relationship with Gray was in any way
unsatisfactory.  If Gray chose to tell them otherwise that was his
decision, and it was not one which she intended to make for him.

They were interviewed separately and then together; searching questions
were asked about Robbie and his background, questions that made Sarah
wince, although she noticed that Gray answered them all honestly and
quietly, even when the answers did not reflect entirely well on him.

Once or twice the sergeant interviewing him paused, allowing him more
time to respond, and once, when Gray admitted that he had not checked
on Robbie during the evening, he said sympathetically, "Try not to
blame yourself, sir.  It's something we're all guilty of doing at
times."

Sarah was asked separately and away from Gray if she felt that Robbie
was in any way either physically or emotionally maltreated by his
father.  Quickly she shook her head, knowing thankfully that it was the
truth.  Gray might not be an ideal father, but she acquitted him of
wanting to hurt Robbie in any way.

When the police had gathered as much information as they could they
left, having offered to leave someone with them, an offer which Gray
refused.

Once they had gone Sarah suggested diffidently that she too should
leave, thinking that he must want to be on his own, but to her surprise
he shook his head, saying quickly, pleadingly almost, "No, please... if
you could stay..."

When she made no response he added hesitantly, as though he was groping
for unfamiliar words and motions, "You know Robbie.  He knows you...
needs you... loves you.  If... when they do find him... if you are
here..."

So it was for Robbie's sake that he wanted her to stay and not his own,
but then, what had she expected?

She had rung Sally, of course, to let her know what was happening, and
immediately her cousin had agreed that she must stay.

Halfway through the interminable morning when she went upstairs to
Robbie's room, needing the comfort of being among his things, she found
that Gray was already there, sitting on his son's bed, with his back to
her, his head bowed as he held Robbie's favourite bear.

She was just about to back silently out of the room, when he said
roughly, "No, don't go.  God, when I think of how little he is ... how
vulnerable...!  should be out looking for him... not sitting here,
waiting."

Sarah shook her head, and then, realising that he couldn't see her,
went up to him and told him huskily, "No, the police said we were to
stay here... in case there was any news."

"I feel so helpless," Gray protested.

"I feel I should be doing something.  He's my son, for God's sake... my
child."  He paused, and then said in a much harsher voice, "I suppose
you think this is all my fault, but, believe me, you can't blame me
more than I blame myself.

If only I had checked up on him.  "

As she had done before, Sarah reached out instinctively to touch him, a
simple, silent gesture of comfort and compassion, her throat too taut
with fear for her to be able to speak, but then Gray turned round, his
movements blind and uncoordinated, a look of savage self-contempt on
his face as he cried out to her, "Why... why has he done it?  Is he
really so afraid of me... does he really hate me so much?"

Immediately Sarah shook her head.

"No, no, of course he doesn't," she told him softly.

Somehow she must have moved closer to him because when she looked down
on his own bent head there were only inches between them, and, although
part of her warned her that it was the last thing she ought to do, the
compassion and caring that was so deeply ingrained in her personality
motivated her now, moving her to reach out and place her hand against
his head, a silent gesture of comfort and sympathy.

"Oh, God, Sarah, if anything happens to him..."

But that wasn't why her whole body suddenly went rigid with shock.  as
his action over-set everything she thought she knew about him.  Gray
moved awkwardly, putting his arms around her, holding her so tightly
that she could hardly get her breath, his head pillowed heavily against
her breasts as the tortured words were torn from him.

"Gray..."  Her voice trembled unconsciously, pleading with him to do
what she could not do herself, but when he didn't move, but simply
seemed to tighten his grip on her, his body starting to shake as his
emotions engulfed him, Sarah knew that it had to be she who broke this
unexpected physical contact between them.

CHAPTER EIGHT

sarah reached out to break the physical contact between them, but, as
though Gray sensed what she was about to do, without raising his head,
the words muffled against her body, his breath a hot, vital force that
penetrated the thin fabric of her blouse to make her sensitive flesh
urgently and erotically aware of him, he begged her hoarsely, "No,
please, Sarah.  Just let me ... just hold me."

And then, as she stood there, her body trembling with the shocked
awareness of her own response to him, he swore suddenly and savagely,
telling her, "Oh, God, I don't know what's happening to me any more.

You're on my mind night and day, do you know that?  I dream about you.
wake up aching for you.  imagining.  God, I need you so much now.

I.

"

He tensed suddenly, as though abruptly becoming aware of what he was
saying, of her shock .  and then he started to lift his head away from
her body, his face averted from her as he added, his voice raw with
self-disgust, "Even now, when all I should be thinking about is Robbie,
I still want you... still--' " It's the shock," Sarah told him
wildly.

"It sometimes has an odd effect on people.  It makes them behave
irrationally.  It..."

She stopped speaking as she looked down and saw that a couple of the
buttons on her shirt had pulled free of the buttonholes, leaving her
creamy cleavage fully exposed.

Her hand trembled as she reached for the button, her panicky movement
catching Gray's attention.  Her whole body tensed as she realised he
was looking at her, her breath quickening, her chest rising and falling
far too quickly, betraying her agitation.

As though it had received an inaudible but positive command from him,
the hand she had raised to cover her bare flesh in an instinctive
gesture of feminine modesty fell away, and, while her pulse and heart
rate increased frantically in response to their sensual awareness of
Gray's physical desire, all her other physical responses were slowed
down almost to the point of paralysis, a hazy, dreamy, almost hypnotic,
drugged state of inertia full of brilliant colours and sensitised by
her growing feminine awareness of the fact that Gray wanted her, that
he needed her, that he desired her.

All her ability to reason or question was suspended, obliterated by the
greater power of her emotional and physical knowledge that for once the
barriers between them were down; that for once they were meeting on
equal ground; that for once Gray was casting aside the armour plating
of his dislike of her and allowing her to see the real vulnerable human
being behind that armour.

For once they were united instead of on opposing sides, sharing their
anxiety for Robbie's safety, and because it was her nature to do so,
because her instinctive response to any fellow human in intense pain
was to offer them comfort and succour, Sarah had no thought of
repulsing Gray, no thought of withdrawing herself from him, of denying
him.

What she hadn't bargained for, though, was that her own need.  her own
desire, should be as sharply pitched, as shockingly intense, as his.

She knew that she loved and desired him, but, for her, sexual desire,
even when heightened by the intensity of the love she felt for him, had
been something that was softened and mellowed by an instinctive
reticence, a shyness almost, coupled with a lack of anything more than
the kind of experience gained from youthful experimentation.

And yet now suddenly, as Gray held her, groaning her name against the
soft, smooth flesh of her breasts, tugging the rest of the blouse
buttons free of the buttonholes, she was overcome by an almost savage
flare of corresponding desire, a need so intense that j 75

it stopped the breath in her throat and made her long to cry out with
impatience, to wrench her own clothes from her body and then his, to
lie with him flesh to flesh.  Her whole body went rigid with the
intensity of what she was feeling.  She had to bite down hard on her
bottom lip to stop herself from urging him to hurry.  She could feel
his hands trembling as he tugged off her blouse; she could smell the
sharply acrid male scent of his skin with its heat and muskiness and
suddenly realised that the reason for this was that without even
knowing she was doing so she had started to wrench his T-shirt free of
his jeans, her hands splaying possessively against his body, and
shockingly all the realisation of what she was doing did was to
reinforce and increase the heat burning inside her so that she heard
herself moan in sharp frustrated protest at not being able to remove
his T-shirt completely.

Against her body Gray tensed.  The heat of his breath against her skin
made her tremble and ache with a wanton need to be completely free of
her clothes so that not just his hands but his mouth as well could ease
the torment of need escalating so rapidly inside her.

"What is it?"  she heard him asking her, and then, as though the
tension in her body answered his question for him, he demanded more
roughly, as he released her to strip off his T-shirt, "Is it this,
Sarah?

Is it this that you want .  my flesh against yours .  my body next to
yours?  "

She was trembling so violently that speech was impossible, but the way
her body was reacting to the sight of him, to the words he was saying
to her, to the heat and scent of his flesh, was a far more betraying
response than any verbal answer she could have given him.

In a gesture totally unfamiliar to her, something she would never
normally have done or imagined herself doing, she closed her eyes,
swaying closer to him, unconsciously heightening the allure of her own
body, her breasts covered only by the fine lace of her bra where he had
pushed open her shirt, reaching for him, smoothing her hands over his
skin with eager, aching intensity, her fingers trembling as she touched
him, unaware of just how sensual and arousing her response to him was
until he cried out her name in a harshly guttural voice and gathered
her to him, his mouth hot and moist as he caressed the taut line of her
throat, his hands cupping her breasts, a little hesitantly at first, as
though he was half afraid of hurting or frightening her.

But then, when she pushed closer to him, wordlessly pleading with him,
he reached behind her to unfasten her bra, his hands moulding her naked
breasts, the sensation of the male roughness of his skin against her
own tender softness so erotically stimulating that she cried out in
sharp need,

her hands tensing into the warm flesh of his shoulders, a tiny whimper
of stifled pleasure heightening the aroused tension of their breathing
when he touched her erect nipples.

She heard him say something, and thought at first that the intensity of
her response must have shocked him, but even as she was tensing, trying
to control the way her body ached for him, he was pushing her down
against the bed, pinning the lower half of her body beneath his own so
that she was immediately and exultantly conscious of his arousal,
shockingly excited by the weight and the heat of him between her thighs
while his mouth dragged feverishly along her throat and then lower to
where his hands were cupping her breasts.

As though he knew exactly what she was feeling, as though he shared the
compulsive, almost violent surge of desire that held her in thrall, he
made no attempt at gentle exploration of her swollen breasts, instead
his mouth fiercely drawing on the aching hardness of her nipple.  The
sensation that shot through her made her back arch as her whole body
went into a violent spasm of pleasure, a taut, haunting cry escaping
her lips, her hands clutching at his arms, his shoulders, his back, as
her body became one unbearable ache of anguished need.

She had never known there could be a sensation like this, a need like
this, a desire so intense that it obliterated everything else, that it
reduced the entire universe to that one point on her body, where his
mouth caused her such a sensation of pleasure that it was almost
unendurable.

He was saying something to her, words that flowed over her with the
balm of the soft drag of his mouth against her skin as he tried to
soothe the intensity of her desire.  He was telling her that she was so
exquisitely sensitive that she was making him lose his self-control;

that his desire for her was threatening to overwhelm him; that he
wanted her more than he wanted life itself, Sarah recognised as she
tried half incoherently to respond to his husky disjointed words, and
to tell him that she felt the same way;

that she ached inside so much for him that unless he soothed that ache
with the hard pulse of his body the agony of it would kill her.

She felt him unfastening her skirt, guiding her hands to the fastening
of his jeans and then, as though unable to bear any kind of delay,
taking over the task himself, ripping off his jeans with savage
unsteadiness, while she looked with totally uninhibited and unfamiliar
avid intensity at his body.

He was everything that a man should have been and her heartbeat
increased to a frantic race of rapidity as she stared at him, aching
for him, loving him, her senses bemused by the compulsion that drove
her.

She hadn't forgotten about Robbie.  He was still there, a different
kind of ache, a different kind of pain, her anguish for him somehow or
other the motivating force that had kindled this unexpected and
uninhibited passion.  It was as though somehow being with Gray like
this was some kind of ritual.  some kind of primitive appeasement of a
hungry and cruel power.  some kind of ritual sacrifice of self, that
made her shake with shocked reaction to her own lack of control at the
very same time as she revelled in the way that, having stripped off his
own clothes, Gray removed the rest of hers, and then simply looked at
her.

Up until now her body had been her own private territory, something she
fed and clothed and kept reasonably fit, but not particularly something
that she thought of as sensual or erotic in any way, and yet now.  Was
she imagining it, or did her skin have a new gleam, a new softness. 
had her body always known how to abandon itself into such feminine
wantonness.  how to curve and move so that it would make a man shudder
and then groan before reaching out to drag one trembling hand along its
supine curve.  a hand that tightened almost possessively against her
waist and then lingered on the round warmth of her thigh so that she
moved instinctively and incitingly against its pressure, inviting its
possession of the hidden feminine core of her body?

And all the time he watched her, his eyes registering every tiny
response and reflecting it back to her so that her own desire was
heightened by his, so that, long before she was crying out to him that
she wanted more than the erotic caress of his fingers against her
intimate flesh, he had read her desire to have his body within her own
in the sudden shocked perception that had darkened her eyes, and was
responding to it.

It had been a long time since she had first made love, the fumbling and
unsatisfactory consummation of a teenage passion which had left her
feeling cheated and wondering what all the excitement was actually
about, and, as though he had somehow sensed this, he hesitated, as if
afraid to hurt her, but Sarah had a woman's knowledge of her own body,
and of its needs and its capabilities, and she arched up against him,
holding him to her, feeling his body tremble as he was unable to hold
back on his response to her.

It was an intense, almost savage-edged coming together, a frantic
explosion of a mutual need to expiate their anguish and fear, their
desire escalating with violent speed to a point of fierce explosion
which left Sarah so weak that she was incapable of moving, every muscle
turned to jelly, the hot, slow tears of sexual release seeping from her
eyes.

Unable to raise her hand to rub them away, she let them fall.  Gray had
started to move away from her, but now he stopped, his fingers gentle
as he brushed away her tears, his mouth tender as he licked the
moisture from her skin.

The unexpectedness of such tenderness after the compulsive violence of
their coming together brought a huge lump of pain to her throat.  While
she had been held in thrall to the intensity of their mutual need there
had been no ability within her to think of anything other than the
immediacy of the moment, but now that moment was over, and she was
coming back down to earth, to the sick realisation of what she had
done.  She wanted to move, to cover herself, to crawl away somewhere
and preferably die there, she realised in sick shame, but she felt too
exhausted, too drained to move, and, besides, Gray was still holding
her.

She closed her eyes, wanting, as she had not done before, to conceal
her expression and her vulnerability from him.

She had no need to ask herself what had motivated him.  It had been
sex, that was all, a physical outlet for his anxiety over Robbie.  It
wasn't such an unusual male reaction to that kind of nightmare
situation, after all.  rather like a divorcing couple who suddenly
discovered a need within themselves, just as their emotional commitment
to one another was over, to indulge in fiercely physical sex, sometimes
when sex of any kind had long ago faded almost entirely from their
relationship.  but then she realised that Gray was still holding her,
still touching her, and she started to tremble, her thoughts becoming
confused and disjointed.  He was kissing her, slowly tracing the
bone-structure of her face, his thumb-tip caressing the soft outline of
her mouth, while his tongue explored the delicate contours of her ear,
sending convulsive shivers of pleasure racing over her skin,
re-arousing her body in a way that five minutes ago she would have
sworn was impossible.

This time there was a deliberate, almost controlled slowness about the
way that Gray touched her, a desire that, although equally intense, was
somehow less compulsive, less driven, so that, where before she had
experienced a hard, sharp-edged sexual hunger, this time she seemed to
be wrapped up in a softening languor of sensuality that made her feel
as if she was slowly drifting deeper and deeper into an erotic cocoon
of mindless bliss.  A sensation that was heightened by the slow
scalding heat that poured through her body when Gray caressed every
inch of her skin with the delicately intimate exploration of his mouth,
taking her response to him to such a pitch that she cried out against
the slow inexorable pressure of it,

wanting both the release of fulfilment and yet at the same time the
heightened pleasure of prolonging her slowly spiralling desire.

The seductive caress of his mouth against her inner thigh; the intimate
stroke of his tongue against the most sensitive and delicate part of
her body--these were things that frayed the fragile cord of her
selfcontrol to the point where it finally snapped under the pressure,
causing her to cry out to Gray how much she needed him; how much she
wanted him;

how much she ached for him, and to have that needing, that wanting,
that aching appeased by the tormentingly erotic thrust of his body as
it moved powerfully and purposefully within her own, so that her flesh
responded to his in fluidly rhythmic counterpoint that made him gasp
out her name in the final fiercely compulsive seconds of physical
intensity before the climax came.

Later, drifting into an exhausted sleep she couldn't fight off, Sarah
was aware of Gray moving away from her and of trying to stop him, of
wanting to beg him to stay with her but of being too tired to form the
words.

It was the phone that woke her, bringing her sharply awake, Robbie's
name on her lips as she sat up in bed, wincing as her body revealed its
physical lassitude.  It was only her total nudity that stopped her from
running downstairs, in her anxiety to find out if there was any news of
Robbie, forcing her to stop long enough to pull on her clothes,
ignoring her heightened feminine awareness of the sensual aura that
clung to her skin.  There would be time later to shower and change;
right now her one concern was Robbie; a concern that was fast becoming
fuelled by a deep-seated guilt that she could ever have allowed herself
to abandon herself to the kind of physical sexuality she had shared
with Gray, especially at such a time.  It made no difference telling
herself that people often reacted strangely under intense pressure;

that might be Gray's explanation for his behaviour, but she was not
going to allow herself that kind of self-deception.  She loved Gray. 
and she had wanted him, but she had never dreamed she would ever behave
in such an abandoned and ill-considered fashion, especially when she
knew that Gray felt nothing for her.

As she pulled on her clothes her body chose traitorously to remind her
that, if nothing else.  Gray had most definitely wanted her
physically.

She froze where she was, aching with self-disgust.  Had wanted her, or
had simply wanted the release of having sex with someone.  anyone.

Sickness clawed at her stomach.  Why hadn't she thought of that before.
told herself that before.  not waited until now, when it was too late .
when she had well and truly made a complete fool of herself,

abandoning her principles, her beliefs, behaving like a. like.  like a
wanton to whom sex was an appetite that was only physical, rather than,
as she truly believed, only being of any real worth when it was married
to emotional and mental bonding with one's partner?

Well, what bonding was there between her and Gray?  None.  none at
all.

Apart from the fact that they both loved Robbie.  that they were both
desperately concerned for him.  that they had both been torn away from
their normal modes of behaviour by the unbearable intensity of their
anguish; and their inability to do a single thing to help him;

their helplessness in the face of that anguish.

What was she doing?  Looking for excuses for the inexcusable.  She gave
a deep shudder.  What had happened was something she could understand
and accept happening between an established couple-say, the parents of
a missing child, who, driven by their need to seek comfort in one
another, might become so sexually and intensely aware of one another
that their feelings could result in that kind of heightened intensity.
but for two people who were not lovers .  two people, one of whom
openly disliked the other.  two people, one of whom secretly loved the
other. The sharp ping of the telephone receiver being re placed focused
her thoughts back on Robbie.  She was dressed now, and she hurried
along the landing to find Gray standing in the hallway.  He looked up
as she ran downstairs and then looked away from her, almost as though
he couldn't bear the sight of her.  She froze where she was, fighting a
cowardly longing to burst into tears and crawl away, but then she
reminded herself that he was as much to blame for what had happened
between them as she had been, and held her head up proudly, asking him
tightly, "The phone... Was there any news of Robbie?"

He shook his head, still refusing to look at her.

"No.  Not yet.  That was just the police checking to see if he'd turned
up.  Apparently they've checked and he hasn't been seen anywhere, which
would suggest that he might be trying to head for London.  Oh, God,
when I think how young he is.  How vulnerable.  If only..."

Abruptly he turned his head and looked at her, the shock of being
subjected to such a piercing gaze sending a wash of hot colour flooding
her skin.

"About what happened... before... I... I don't know what to say...
other than to--' " You don't need to say anything," Sarah interrupted
him desperately.

He was going to tell her that it should never have happened; that he
had never intended it to happen.  If he had written it in the sky in
ten-foot letters for the whole world to see he couldn't have made it
more plain that he wanted her to know that he did not really want her
that he did not really feel anything for her.

"We both acted out of character."  She stumbled over the words,
refusing to give in to her pain and anguish.  She wasn't going to let
him think that she had no pride.  She wasn't going to let him stand
there and be the one to say that what had happened meant nothing.  Even
if it was a lie, she was going to make sure that he believed she was as
equally anxious as him to deny the whole incident.

"I ... I believe people do sometimes behave in ways that are... out of
character under intense pressure.  It's ... it's best that we both
forget the whole thing.  After all, once Robbie is found... well, there
won't be any need for us to have any further contact, will there?"

"No, I don't suppose there will," Gray agreed in an oddly rough
voice.

"Unless, of course..."  He broke off, still focusing on her, waiting
almost pointedly for her to say something, she realised, although
exactly what it was he was expecting her to say she didn't know until
he added curtly, "If there should be any ... any consequences... then
of course I'd want to know... to... to take responsibility."

Any consequences?  Sarah's eyes widened in shock as she realised what
he meant.  The last thing she had considered when they had made love
was that she might become pregnant, but now suddenly she went cold and
sick as the reality of that possibility hit her.  The shock of it was
so intense that she had to clutch hold of the banister to quell the
nausea rising up inside her.

Pregnant.  but no.  she couldn't be.  Not so quickly.  not like that,
without any forethought.  any planning.  What was the matter with her?
she derided herself.  Was she so stupid that she didn't really know
just how little it took to become pregnant?  Just how easily it could
happen? An 'accident' was how most women euphemistically described that
kind of conception.  A happy accident, perhaps, for most of them, but
for her. Inside her something shrivelled and died as she acknowledged
how much in other circumstances she would have wanted Gray's child. 
how very special it would feel to know that that child had been
conceived at such a time of trauma .  how very special that child would
always be. but only if it had been conceived in mutual love.  only if
Gray had felt about her the way she felt about him.  only if he had
loved her.  needed her.  wanted her for succour and love.  Which he
most certainly had not.

The pain inside her was so intense, so unbearable that it made her lash
out against him with uncharacteristic cruelty to say sharply, "Well,
let's hope there won't be.  After all, you never really wanted Robbie,
did you, and?"

"That's not true."  His face went tense and set.

"Oh, I know it's what both you and Robbie think, and possibly everyone
else as well, but it simply isn't true."  He gave a harsh laugh.

"My God, Robbie would never even have been born if the decision had
been left to his mother.  She wanted to get rid of him.  I had to
blackmail her financially into going through with the pregnancy.

"It's ironic; without the money I promised her plus my agreement to a
divorce, she'd have had Robbie aborted, and yet once he was born, once
she realised what a powerful and permanent hold having him gave her
over me, she refused to go through with our previous agreement that she
would hand Robbie over to me.  She never wanted to conceive my child,
or any child, and I refuse to believe that she ever truly loved Robbie.
She didn't even have him living with her.  It was her mother who
brought Robbie up."

The bitterness in his voice made Sarah shiver, her own anguish
forgotten as she heard the unmistakable ring of truth in his voice.

"But you sound as though you hate her."  She gave another shudder, the
words an instinctive response to all the pain she could see so clearly
in his eyes.

"And yet you must have loved her... you must both have loved one
another once."

"Must we?"  His mouth twisted bitterly.

"We certainly desired one another, but, as we both quickly discovered,
lust is no substitute for love, and by the time we'd made that
discovery it was too late.  Robbie was on the way and we were married.
Oh, God, where is he?"

The anguish in his voice made her start to move instinctively towards
him, wanting to offer him comfort, to share his pain, but then she
stopped abruptly, remembering what had happened between them and the
fact that she was the last person he would want any kind of comfort
from.

She ached to be able to do something.  anything other than simply
having to wait passively here, letting others do the searching.  the
work, and, if she found the waiting onerous, then how much more so must
Gray, who was, after all, not the kind of man used to being anything
other than in complete command?

When, half an hour later, the phone rang again both of them froze,
simply staring at it, neither of them apparently able to make a move,
until suddenly Gray lunged towards it, grabbing the receiver, saying
his name tersely.

In the silence that followed, while he listened to whoever was on the
other end of the line, Sarah's stomach muscles knotted with tension and
fear.

It seemed to be a lifetime before she heard him saying dully, "Yes.

Yes, I understand.  Thank you.  " And then he was replacing the
receiver, with a slow deliberate care that made her start to tremble
with nervous dread.

When he turned towards her his face was completely expressionless, his
eyes vacant and dull.

Her heart seemed to plummet downwards, like a lift gone out of control,
her lips so dry that she had to wet them before asking in a raw,
cracked voice, "Robbie?  Have they...?"

"They've found him."

His voice seemed to echo inside her skull, as a huge wave of sick pain
engulfed her.  He sounded so drained, so shocked.  so.  She started to
sway slightly, her shock registering in her face.

As he turned to her and saw her Gray made a sudden harsh exclamation
beneath his breath, and then the next moment he was coming towards her,
gripping the tops of her arms, telling her fiercely, "Sarah, it's all
right.  Robbie's all right.  He's safe and completely unharmed... They
found him in a ramshackle old hut where he'd taken refuge.  It's just
it's just that he's told the police that he doesn't want to come home.
They've asked me to go down to the station.  I was wondering... I know
it's an imposition after everything that's happened... but... would you
come with me?"

Sarah couldn't speak.  All she could do was nod her head, still unable
to truly take in the fact that

Robbie was well and safe, after believing that he was not.

Gray drove them down to the police station.  Outwardly he was in
control of himself and his emotions, but Sarah was learning to look
beneath the surface, and she could tell that inwardly he was suffering
almost as much as she was herself.

How could she ever have been so cruel as to suggest that he hadn't
wanted Robbie, when she had guessed all along how much the little boy
meant to him, even if he had refused to show it?  She was shocked by
her own capacity for inflicting pain on him, even if it had been done
in a desperate attempt to defend and protect herself.

If she should have conceived his child the last thing she would ever
consider doing would be aborting it.  But then, all women were not the
same, and, from what Robbie had innocently told her about his mother,
Sarah had already formed the opinion that the other woman had been vain
and shallow, far more interested in herself and fulfilling her own
wants and desires than in her child.  She had been manipulative as
well, using Robbie as a pawn against his father and then cruelly
putting into Robbie's head the belief that his father was someone to
fear.

When they reached the station they were ushered straight into a small
room, where a very tired and frightened Robbie was being comforted by

WPC.

The moment he saw Sarah he broke free of the other woman and came
hurtling towards her.  Instinctively she bent down so that they were on
the same level, cradling him to her, while she stroked his hair, and
felt her eyes burn with tears at the relief of holding his wiry little
boy's body against her own.

On the other side of the room Gray was talking to the detective who had
led the hunt for Robbie.  They were keeping their voices low, but Sarah
caught the odd word.

The detective was saying something about 'a quarrel' and Robbie being
'upset', but Robbie was crying so hard that she couldn't make out any
more.

it was only much later, when Robbie had been put to bed and was safely
fast asleep and she finally could bring herself to leave Robbie's room,
that she learned the full story from Gray, who was waiting for her
downstairs in the kitchen.

"Apparently Robbie heard us quarrelling the evening I was late back,"
Gray told Sarah when she asked him if the police had been able to
discover from him why he had run away.  She herself had been reluctant
to question him too much, especially since he was in such a distressed
and exhausted state.

"He wanted to be with you, apparently, and so while I was downstairs he
got dressed and left the house.  Only he got lost and couldn't find his
way in the dark, and then he became very frightened.  When he found the
disused hut he went inside it, and he must have fallen asleep there.  I
thought I was making some headway with him.  I thought he was beginning
to get over his dislike of me."  He sounded so anguished that Sarah's
throat closed up with emotion.  She ached to be able to open her arms
to him as she had done to Robbie.  To hold and comfort him as tenderly
as she had done his child.  Never had they seemed so alike.  so
vulnerable, and she had to forcibly remind herself that the security of
her arms, her love, was the last thing that he needed or wanted.

"Things can't go on like this," she heard him saying grimly.

"I had hoped that Robbie was beginning to settle down, to accept me as
his father, but now... He needs and wants you in his life more than he
does me."

Sarah's heart jumped with guilt and pain for him.

"He's very young," she told him.

"And don't forget he's not really used to men.  He's been brought up
surrounded by women, and his mother--' " His mother taught him almost
from the day he was born to hate and fear me, and I haven't helped
matters, have I?  I've been so damned afraid of swamping him.  of
oppressing him by my emotions and my needs, that I've held back. 
hoping that he would eventually come to me, but instead.  "

"He needs time to adjust... to grow more accustomed to you," Sarah
tried to comfort him.

"Does he?"  Gray's mouth twisted.

"I think we both know that's not true.

"Give me a child until he is seven" --isn't that what the Jesuits used
to say?  " His mouth twisted again.

"I can't undo all his mother's indoctrination.  Robbie will never truly
1..."

He stopped, shaking his head, leaving Sarah to say softly to him,
"You're wrong, you know.  I think he does love you, but he's so very
young and so very confused, and you've got to remember that he still
believes that you don't love him."

"I don't love himi Of course I love him," Gray told her thickly.

"He's my son, dammit ... my child."

"Not all parents love their children," Sarah pointed out sadly.

"Your own wife... his mother..."

Yes, he loved him, Sarah recognised, aching with pity for him, but he
could not show it, could not physically demonstrate to Robbie how much
he meant to him, and so he held himself aloof from the little boy,
through a fear that, once he allowed Robbie to see how much he did
care, his emotions would get out of control, and that he would swamp
Robbie with a love the little boy did not want.

"Perhaps if you were to show him how much you love him," she suggested
gently now.

"Instead of holding aloof from him..."

Immediately Gray shook his head, barely allowing her to finish before
telling her gratingly, "I've already told you, he doesn't want my love.
Do you know what he told them when the police found him?  He told them
he hated me and that he wanted to be with you.

That he didn't want to live with me because I had sent you away.  He
told them that he wished I was the one who was dead and not his mother.
"

A huge lump of compassion blocked her throat, making her voice sound
thick and raw when she told him, "He's a little boy... that's all.

He's attached himself to me because I'm a woman.  He's been brought up
by women.  Women find it easier to show their emotions, to let down
their guard.  "

"Do they?"

The look he gave her made the colour rise up under her skin as she
remembered just how much she had let down her guard in just what kind
of circumstances.  She had never in her wildest imaginings believed she
could be capable of such sensuality, such eroticism.  She gave a tiny
shiver.  She had tried desperately to dismiss such memories from her
mind, to wipe her brain clear of them, to forget that they had ever
happened, knowing that Gray must have already dismissed them from his
memory; that to him their intimacy had simply been a male expression of
helpless impotence and anger .  a driven need to push away his fear for
his child, to occupy his thoughts and his body with something, anything
that would hold at bay the trauma of what he was going through.

"I'd better go up and check on Robbie," she told him shakily, knowing
she was using Robbie as an excuse to escape from him, and knowing from
the look in his eyes that he knew it too.

CHAPTER NINE

'we need to talk.  "

The abrupt comment made Sarah tense and put down the mug of coffee she
had just raised to her lips.

It was eight o'clock and she had just put Robbie to bed, and had been
about to suggest to Gray that it was time she left.

So far Robbie was recovering surprisingly quickly from his ordeal.  He
had woken up during the afternoon, and, although he had not mentioned
what had happened and had clung physically as well as emotionally to
her, Sarah had been able to question him gently about why he had run
away.

As he had told the police, he had overheard her argument with Gray and
had decided that if she was not coming back then he was not going to
stay with his father without her.  She had told him quietly then how
much his daddy loved him and how worried he had been.  She had told him
as well that sometimes grown-ups quarrel with one another, and he had
seemed to accept what she had told him, although she couldn't help but
notice the way he avoided any kind of contact with Gray.

Now, as she waited.  Gray told her curtly, "Robbie needs you here more
than he needs me.  I know you've already said that you aren't prepared
to live in, but I was wondering if you might reconsider that decision
and move in here."

What could she say?  She ached to refuse but she sensed that he was in
no mood to listen to her, and as for her reminding him that they had
already decided that he should find someone else to care for Robbie.
How could she do that now?

As always her soft heart was her undoing.  and besides, if she was
honest with herself, didn't half of her actually want to stay?  Even
when doing so meant that she would enmesh herself even further in the
web of heartache she was tangling round herself?  Was that really what
she wanted?  She was already far too emotionally involved with Robbie
as it was.  And as for her feeling for Gray himself.  How could she
live here in the same house with him now, after what had happened, and
yet, for Robbie's sake, how could she not do so?  She took a deep
breath, firmly pushing her own feelings to one side, telling herself
that Robbie's needs must come first now.

"I don't want to put any kind of emotional pressure on you," she could
hear Gray saying rawly.

"But for Robbie's sake..."

"For Robbie's sake, I'll stay," Sarah told him, 'but on one
condition:

you must make time for Robbie.  time to get to know him and for him to
get to know you.  " He was about to speak but she wouldn't let him,
quickly overriding him, determined to make her point now before she
lost her courage and with it the ability to make him see how important
it was that the gulf between Robbie and himself was bridged, and
quickly.

"I know you're going to say you're too busy to take time off work but
that's exactly what you must do.  You must put Robbie first.  We both
must."

There was a taut silence.  She knew she was holding her breath, half
waiting for him to deny the truth of what she was saying, to reject her
plea, but instead, to her relief, he said harshly, "I take it if I
don't agree you'll refuse to stay--is that what you're saying?"

She was tempted to agree, but her conscience wouldn't let her, and so
instead she shook her head, telling him, "No, I can't do that ... but
you must see how important it is now for you to establish contact with
Robbie, and the only way you can do that is by spending time with
him.

Can't you see it isn't enough for you to tell me that you love him?

You have to show Robbie that you do.  You have to win his confidence.
his trust.  "

There was a long pause.  She held her breath and then heard him saying
reluctantly, "Very well, then.  I'll have to go into the office
tomorrow to sort out one or two things... but only for tomorrow.  Any
urgent things that crop up I suppose I could always deal with from
here."

he was as good as his word, and almost a week after Robbie had
terrified them both by running away Sarah found herself holding her
breath in tense delight one morning when Robbie actually addressed a
question to his father instead of routing it through her.

True, it was only a simple request to know how they were going to spend
the day, but it was a breakthrough, an acknowledgement on Robbie's part
that his father existed and had a part in his life, and she could tell
from one swift look at Gray's face that he was aware of its importance
too.

The morning brought another welcome relief, when she discovered that
there was no risk of her having conceived Gray's child.  At least, she
told herself that it was a relief and tried to bolster that view by
reminding herself of all the reasons why she could not possibly have
allowed herself to feel the slightest pleasure in the discovery that
she was pregnant, and yet at the back of her mind all the time lay a
small, aching pain, a small, desolate awareness of how much she would
have liked to have had his child,

another Robbie.  or perhaps a Roberta.  The thought made her smile
painfully to herself.  A son or a daughter, her child's sex would not
have been important to her.  what would have been important was that
she would have been carrying Gray's child.  and even though she knew he
would not have wanted she would have done so.

When she went downstairs and found Robbie asking his father if they
could have lunch at McDonald's the desolation that swept her filled her
eyes with tears and made her womb literally ache with emptiness as she
acknowledged that, if she could not have Gray's child, she would
probably never have a child at all, because no man could ever mean to
her what he did, and the thought of sharing with another man the
intimacy she had shared with him, even though she knew that intimacy
meant absolutely nothing whatsoever to him, was almost sacrilege.

She was determined that no one but she would ever know just what it was
costing her to put her own feelings on one side and to stay here in the
same house with Gray, acutely conscious of the way he avoided coming
too close to her, the way he avoided even looking at her sometimes,
almost as though.  As though what?  He was filled with such acute
distaste and embarrassment at the memory of their shared intimacy that
now her physical presence was something he had to force himself to
endure for Robbie's sake?

Some days her nerves were so on edge and she was so completely
conscious of him, ached so much inside for him, that she barely knew
how she was going to stand it, and yet somehow or other she always did.
always managed to remind herself of why she was here, and of how
important it was for Robbie's sake that they presented a harmonious and
united front.

And at the same time she was aware of how difficult Gray was finding
things.  Sometimes the look in his eyes when he watched Robbie and was
unaware of her watching him brought her close to tears of compassion
for him.  How could she ever have doubted how much he loved his son?

She just wished she had the power to wave a magic wand and somehow or
other remove all the barriers between them.  Robbie was such a
naturally affectionate and loving little boy, but his ability to place
his trust in his father had been so damaged by his mother that, for
every step forward they made, he sometimes seemed to take two back.

Like the day Gray took them out for a drive and then on to a country
park for a walk when Robbie refused to walk alongside his father,
instead demanding that he and Sarah should walk along together while
Gray walked alone behind them.

But they were making progress, Sarah assured her N

self.  Last night Gray had read Robbie's bedtime story to him on his
own, and now here was Robbie actually beginning to talk directly with
his father.

It was no wonder Gray looked so strained and tense, though.  Loving
Robbie the way he did, he must be under an almost unendurable
pressure.

And yet she was convinced that, given time, Robbie would turn to his
father, would overcome his deeply ingrained mistrust of him and come to
recognise Gray's love for him.  And once he did her role here would be
finished, her presence no longer needed, and how was she going to feel
about that?  How was she going to feel when she had to leave?

Like Eve locked out of Paradise?  A strange kind of paradise that
reduced her to desolation and the solace of the tears she wept every
night in her sleep;

the ache of longing and love that ceaselessly tormented her, the way
she longed to be able to turn to Gray and to see reflected in his eyes
all that she knew was in her own heart.

Such impossible, idiotic dreams.  Why on earth did she cling to them so
ridiculously when she knew that they could only add to her pain and
despair?

that night, after he had had his bath and Sarah was tucking him up in
bed, when she kissed him goodnight Robbie clung tightly to her and told
her, "I wish you were my mummy, Sarah."

Tears filled her eyes and she had to turn her head away so that he
wouldn't see them, but as she did so she froze.

Gray was standing just inside the bedroom door, and she knew from the
look on his face that he had overheard Robbie's comment.

For a moment he just stood there, looking at her, and then silently,
without a word, he turned on his heel and walked away.

"Is Daddy coming to read my story tonight?"  Robbie asked her chattily,
but for once this sign that he was at last coming to accept Gray's role
in his life failed to lift her spirits.

"I expect so," she responded automatically, getting up from beside the
bed and heading for the door.

When she went downstairs there was no sign of Gray in the kitchen, but
when she went back into the hall she could see a light shining under
his study door.

She knocked on the door, and then when Gray opened it she told him
quickly, unable to bring herself to look directly at him, "Robbie's
waiting for you to read to him."

She walked away without waiting for a response, too embarrassed and too
aware of how he must have felt on hearing Robbie's artless comment to
be able to remain where she was.

She already knew how little he wanted her in his life and that he only
tolerated her presence in his home for Robbie's sake.  She had seen the
way he reacted to her too often to be under any illusions there.

Whenever, by accident, she had come into any kind of close physical
proximity to him he had immediately stepped back from her, had
immediately reacted to her presence by distancing himself from her
physically, just as he had distanced himself from her emotionally after
they had made love--no, not made love.  after they had had sex.

She shuddered in grim distaste but refused to allow herself to alter
the description, just as she had all along refused to allow herself the
palliative of deceiving herself about just how little what had happened
had meant to him.

She heard him going upstairs, but stayed where she was in the kitchen,
expecting that when he came down again he would go straight back into
the study.  They might be sharing the same house, but once Robbie was
in bed at night they remained strictly segregated.  she either in the
kitchen or in her own bedroom.  Gray usually working in his study.

She was busy pretending to read an article in a newspaper when she
heard him coming back downstairs, her body tensing as she waited for
the now familiar sound of the study door opening and then closing
again, the symbolic withdrawal from her that shut her out of his life
and kept the barriers firmly in place between them.

In fact, so sure was she that he would return to his study that when
instead he walked into the kitchen she was too shocked to do anything
other than stare at him.

"I'm ... I'm going away for a few days," he told her abruptly.

"It's ... it's business, something that can't be avoided, I'm
afraid."

What could she say?  What could she do?  Remind him of his promise when
she had agreed to live in .  remind him of how important it was that he
gave Robbie his time and attention?

She opened her mouth to do so and then closed it again, knowing already
that she was wasting her time.  How could he do this?  she wondered
sadly and half angrily.  How could he turn his back on Robbie like this
just when the little boy was starting to lose his fear of him?

"Is it really necessary?"  was all she could bring herself to say, her
voice terse, betraying all that she was not saying.

A dark ridge of colour burnt along his cheekbones.

"Yes, it is," he told her curtly.  But he was avoiding looking at her
and she sensed that he was withholding something from her .  that he
was not being entirely honest with her.

"I'll be leaving first thing in the morning."

Sarah's mouth compressed, but before she could say anything he shocked
her by telling her, "I've already explained things to Robbie.  I think
he understands.  I'll be gone about a month."

A month.  She swallowed back her shock and distress, too stunned to
protest that he could not leave her solely in charge of Robbie for that
length of time.

later that night as she prepared for bed Sarah found herself wishing
bitterly that she could understand as he had claimed Robbie had done.

He had promised her that he would put Robbie first; that he would
concentrate on building up the little boy's trust.  and she had always
felt that he was the kind of man who, once his word was given, would
never go back on it, especially not for material gain.  She knew how
strongly he felt about his responsibility to his work force, but surely
in this instance Robbie had to come first.

And to calmly announce that he would be gone for a full month.  But no,
he had not been calm, she recognised with hindsight; in fact, he had
been extremely tense and on edge.  But why .  why leave Robbie now,
just when the little boy was starting to reach out to him?

She wished she had the courage, the confidence to put such questions to
him, but knew that she did not.  not even for Robbie's sake, much as
she had come to love the little boy.

She swallowed hard, reliving that painful moment when Robbie had told
her he wished she were his mother and the even more painful moment when
she had turned her head and had known that Gray had overhead his son's
comment.

Was it because of that.  because he feared that she.  That she what? 
That she might try to use Robbie's dependence on her to.

Tears blurred her eyes.  Surely he couldn't have such a low opinion of
her?  Surely the fact that she had never once referred to what had
happened between them the day of Robbie's disappearance must have shown
him that she was aware of how unimportant it had been to him .  or how
little he would want to be reminded of it?

When at last she drifted into an exhausted sleep there were tear-stains
on her face, and her heart ached with the pain of loving Gray and
knowing that he would never love her in return.

When she got downstairs in the morning he had gone.  There was a terse
note for her, apologising for his abrupt departure, and thanking her
for all she had done and was doing for Robbie.

For Robbie there was also a note, a touching little gesture which the
Gray she had first known would surely never have made, and over
breakfast, despite her own pain, she kept on bringing Gray into the
conversation, determined to build on the bond that was already
tentatively growing between father and son.

She had her reward later in the day when Robbie exclaimed, "I wish
Daddy were here, don't you, Sarah?"

She forced herself to smile, while saying nothing.  What was there to
say that Robbie, as a child, could possibly understand?

She was already dreadfully afraid that Gray himself had guessed how she
felt about him.  She was quite certain that Sally and Ross had, even
though neither of them had said a word to her about the situation.

A week passed without any word from Gray.  Not that she had expected to
hear from him, Sarah told herself, but still, he might have sent Robbie
a card from wherever it was he had gone on this oh, so important
business that would not keep.

She had been sleeping badly, dragging herself through the days in a
state of inertia and misery, forcing herself to make an effort for
Robbie's sake, acknowledging now just how much comfort she had derived
merely from Gray's presence in the house, even though at the same time
she had been forced to endure her awareness of his physical distancing
of himself from her, as though he could hardly bear sometimes to be in
the same room with her.

She had put Robbie to bed; the house was clean;

there was nothing really for her to do.  nothing to occupy her other
than the book she had bought while out shopping.  She switched on the
television in the sitting-room, and told herself that once she had
watched the news she might as well go straight to bed, but the long
days of loneliness and despair had taken their toll on her, and long
before it was time for the evening's news programme she had fallen
asleep where she was.

Letting himself into the house half an hour later, Gray found her
curled up in a chair in the sitting- room, looking more like a little
girl than a woman, with her hair in a pony-tail and her face free of
makeup.

An aching wave of longing swept him as he stood watching her.  He had
left because he could no longer endure the agony of living in such
proximity to her, and now he was back because he could no longer endure
the agony of living without her.

Pain if he stayed, pain if he left.  He grimaced to himself.  There was
no panacea for his love for her, as she had made it plain enough the
day he had lost his head, lost all control, and had been idiotic enough
to give in to his intense need and love for her, driven by his fear for
Robbie to give in to his feelings, his need in the most primitive and
passionate way there was.  He could never forgive himself for that.
never.

She stirred in her sleep.  He was about to move away, but before he
could do so she opened her eyes.

"Gray."

Sarah couldn't believe her eyes.

Her heart was beating far, far too fast, her voice husky with emotion
as she stared hungrily at him, absorbing the sight of him, the
knowledge that his presence was an actual reality and not merely some
by-product of her over-active imagination.

How many times had she sat here in the evening, tormenting herself by
fantasising about him walking in, coming to her, taking her in his arms
and.

Quickly she pulled her thoughts back to reality.

"But you said you'd be gone for a month."

"Yes."  His voice was terse and tense as though he was having to fight
for self-control.

She focused fully on him, shocked by the realisation that he had lost
weight, his skin taut over his cheekbones, the normal sharp intensity
of his eyes softened and blurred as though he was under considerable
emotional strain.

"I couldn't stay away any longer."  The words seemed to be dragged from
him as though they were a bitter acknowledgement of some kind of
failure.

For a moment she couldn't make any response, too aware of his own
tension to be able to react, and then she realised what he was saying
and there was joy as well as compassion in her voice as she guessed
softly, "You missed Robbie."

"Robbie?"  He stared at her and then told her on a groan, "Yes, yes, I
missed Robbie, but not one tenth as much as I missed you.  Oh, God,
Sarah, I shouldn't be saying this to you, shouldn't be laying this
burden on you, after all the other burdens I've already laid on you,
but coming in here, seeing you lying there... remembering how it felt
to hold you in my arms, to touch your body, to feel it responding to
mine... " After Angela I swore I'd never let a woman get close to me
again;

that I'd never put myself in the position of being emotionally
vulnerable; that sex was something I'd rather live without than take
the risk of admitting into my life, either as a physical appetite that
needed appeasing or as part of a package that carried the added dangers
of emotional and mental bonding with someone who might one day change
her mind and walk out on me, and I thought I'd succeeded.  I certainly
told myself that I was happier without a woman in my life than I had
been married to someone I neither loved nor respected, even if I had
once believed I loved her.

"And then I met you.  From the first moment I saw you sitting there
under the willow with Robbie... my son... the two of you staring at me
with dislike and fear in your eyes, I knew that all I'd told myself,
all the rules I'd made for myself, meant nothing.

"Even then the temptation to just take hold of you and go on holding
you was so intense... I'd never experienced anything like it.  I'd
never wanted to experience anything like it.  I told myself it was just
a freak of emotional responsiveness to the problems I was having with
Robbie, but I knew in my heart I was just searching desperately for
something I could use to stave off the truth.  I knew then that what I
felt for you was a whole world away from the immature choice I'd made
for Robbie's mother.

"Long before the second time Robbie went missing I'd stopped trying to
fool myself.  I knew that I loved you, and that I would love you for
the rest of my life.  I hated myself for that weakness, and sometimes I
hated you as well for causing it.  I can't ask for your forgiveness for
what I did... those memories are too precious to me.  Just to be able
to hold you... to touch you... I swear I never intended things to get
so out of control.  I never intended to do anything more than just hold
you, but once you were in my arms..."  He gave a deep shudder, and
Sarah, who had been listening to him in disbelieving silence, felt a
shivering sensual response convulse her own body, a heated erotic
awareness of him, aroused by what he was saying and what she was
remembering, but she fought it down, telling herself that she must be
imagining what he was saying to her; that she must be hallucinating.

"I went away for Robbie's sake, inventing urgent business that did not
exist, because I knew if I stayed I'd go out of my mind with wanting
you, but once I was away from you things weren't any better.  I thought
about you night and day, ached for you, longed for you... woke up at
night with my body on fire from my dreams of you, and my arms aching to
hold you."  He stopped abruptly.

"I shouldn't be telling you any of this.  I never intended to tell
you.

I'd got it all planned.  I was going to come back and tell you that I
wanted you to leave;

that I thought Robbie was becoming too attached to you.  " He gave a
bitter laugh.

"I didn't even have the guts to tell you the truth and so I was going
to use Robbie as an excuse, even though I know how much he loves and
needs you.

"I heard him telling you that he wishes you were his mother.  God, he
can't wish that more than I wish it.  I wish you were his mother, my
wife, my lover, my woman.  I wish I could stop remembering the way you
opened your arms to me when I needed you, the way you gave yourself to
me so selflessly, so tenderly.  Sarah..."

The anguished way he said her name made her eyes sting with tears.

She was halfway towards him when he said it again, this time with
sharply terse rejection that made her stop to focus on his taut face.

"No, don't come any closer," he begged her rawly.

"If you do..."

It gave her all the courage she needed, ignoring her fear, her
self-consciousness, holding firmly on to what she had heard him saying.
She walked determinedly towards him, asking shakily, "If I do, you'll
what.  Gray?"

She was close enough to him now for her breath to brush his mouth, for
her senses to pick up on the rapid thud of his heartbeat, the stormy
emotional arousal darkening his eyes, the warm male scent of him that
made her nerve-endings quiver.

"I'll..."  He stopped, groaning her name as she looked at his mouth,
refusing to hide any longer how she felt about him.  In the
split-second it took for her to lift her gaze from his mouth to his
eyes her own mouth started to tremble and so did her body.

His arms were wrapped around her, his mouth devouring hers, his kiss so
possessively rough that it almost hurt, but she welcomed the slight
pain because it reinforced the reality of what was happening.  This was
no practised seductive kiss; this was the kiss of a man held in the
grip of such a deep and strong emotion that he was beyond the limits of
his own self-control, and she gave herself up to it, welcoming the
harshly guttural sounds he made in his throat and the pressure of his
hands as they swept over her body, moulding and caressing it as though
he could hardly believe that she was actually real.

When his hands touched her breasts they both trembled.  The ache inside
her body made her cling dizzily to him, returning the words of love he
was muttering into her ear and against her skin, letting the joy
building up inside her have its head so that she was euphoric with the
intensity of learning that he loved her.

"I want you.  I want you so much," Gray was telling her hoarsely as he
cupped her face and kissed her.

"But not yet, not until I've convinced you that I love you ... not
until you've told me that you forgive me for treating you so badly...
not until you convince me that this isn't all a dream and that I'm
going to wake up and find myself miles away and with my arms empty. You
do love me, don't you, Sarah?  This isn't just because you feel sorry
for me?  I know how tender and compassionate you are, how you hate to
see anyone hurting."

"I love you."

Her voice shook a little as she made the admission, but her
apprehension turned to tremulous excitement and awareness when he
started to kiss her, her body responding joyously to his touch, to its
knowledge of his love and desire.

Wrapped in one another's arms, neither of them heard the study door
open, until Robbie demanded curiously, "Daddy, why are you kissing
Sarah?"

"Why?  Because she's going to marry me and be your mummy, that's why.

At least, I hope she's going to marry me," Gray murmured seriously as
he held her slightly away from him and looked down into her eyes.

There was just enough insecurity, just enough tormenting self-doubt and
fear in his eyes to remind her of Robbie at his most vulnerable.

Closing the gap between them, she bent down and took hold of Robbie's
hand with one of her own, her voice soft with love as she assured him,
"I'd love to marry you, Gray.  There is one condition, though."

She felt the tension grip him, and knew what he must be thinking.

Robbie's mother had once imposed conditions on him, but Robbie's mother
was a ghost she intended to banish completely from their lives.

"What condition?"  he demanded harshly.

Against his mouth, ignoring the tension she could feel in his body, she
whispered, "I don't want Robbie to be an only child.  I want you, I
want your love and I want your children.  Gray."

"The first two you've already got, and as for the third... I agree with
you, Robbie needs brothers and sisters.  However, right now what Robbie
needs more than anything else is to be securely tucked up in his own
bed, fast asleep."

The look he was giving her made her blush and laugh, but she didn't
argue when Gray picked Robbie up in his arms and headed for the door
with him.  Soon she would be the one Gray was holding in his arms. 
soon he would be holding her, touching her, loving her.  He had paused
by the door and she saw from the look he gave her that he knew what was
going through her mind and that he shared her need and her love.

Over Robbie's head he mouthed silently to her, "I love you," and then,
as though unable to stop himself, still carrying Robbie, he came back
to her, kissing her gently on the lips and then more lingeringly until
Robbie protested sleepily that he was getting squashed.

"Soon.  I'll be back soon," he promised her as he carried Robbie
towards the door.