A Mother for His Family. Alison Roberts

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      CHAPTER THREE

      HOW could she have been so gullible?

      Tori had agreed readily, as they had finally prepared for bed last night, that Ben Dawson was a low-life, ready to take advantage of any woman stupid enough to fall for his surface charm. The resigned twist of her face had suggested that the revelation was only to be expected, and she had sighed, indicating that she may have surrendered any notion of being one of those women.

      ‘Well, at least you kissed him, Sas.’

      Sarah’s brush had caught on a tangle somewhere in the length of her hair. Had the knot been caused by Ben’s fingers as they had burrowed for a better grip on her head in order to angle her lips to meet his? She’d welcomed the pain of forcing the bristles through the obstruction.

      ‘I wish I hadn’t.’

      ‘Why?’ Tori had pulled up the sheet on her bed to cover her bare shoulders. ‘Was he no good?’

      Sarah snorted. ‘I wouldn’t say that exactly.’ She’d known she would never forget that kiss. She’d had a horrible feeling she would never experience anything that had the chance of competing with it again, and that was why she wished it had never happened. But how could he not have been good...with the amount of practice he’d had?

      ‘Hmm.’

      * * *

      That murmur of agreement took on a whole new tone in hindsight as Sarah balanced the paddle on her canoe and watched Tori glide further ahead. It had been an interested ‘hmm’, not one of agreement. All she had done had been to fuel Tori’s curiosity, hadn’t she? And in her usual determined style, her foster-sister had gone right ahead planning her next move, cunningly avoiding telling Sarah because she knew jolly well she shouldn’t be doing it.

      ‘I’m not going to do this, Tori,’ she called. ‘It’s a bad idea. I don’t want any part of it.’

      ‘OK.’ Tori was still paddling. ‘I’ll go by myself.’

      She would, too. How many times had she got Sarah into trouble by pulling exactly this kind of stunt? The first time had been only a week after Sarah had moved in with the Prestons. Tori had wanted to play in the ‘out of bounds’ area of bush near the house and had tearfully convinced Sarah that she’d lost her favourite toy there the week before. And Sarah had taken the flak for the small adventure because eight-year-old Tori had already managed to creep past the barrier around her heart with her ready acceptance of her new ‘big sister’ and the stream of small gifts and notes that had been under her pillow every night.