The Wedding Promise. Grace Green

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      Sara noticed her face had become very white. ‘Come sit down on this sofa and put your leg up while I get the ice.’

      After a token protest, Andrea allowed herself to be helped onto the sofa, where she lay back, her eyes closed. ‘There’s a bottle of aspirin in one of the drawers,’ she said huskily. ‘Could you bring me a couple?’

      ‘Of course.’

      From above came the sound of someone moving about.

      ‘That’s Dad,’ Andrea offered with a weak gesture of one hand. ‘He’s packing in the master bedroom. Like I said...’ Her voice trailed away.

      Sara hurried to the kitchen, and found the bag of peas in the freezer section of the fridge. Locating the aspirin wasn’t so easy. She pulled out drawer after drawer, riffled through the tidy contents of each one, and had reached the last, in a cabinet at the far end of the kitchen, when she heard Logan Hunter’s voice come from the doorway behind her.

      ‘What the hell,’ he said in a tone of quiet menace, ‘are you doing in my house?’

      She put a hand to her throat as she swivelled round, and threw him a shaky smile. ‘You startled me! I’m just looking for—’

      ‘What you’re looking for, and what you’re going to get, lady, is trouble. You’ll find nothing else here. I don’t keep money stashed in the kitchen, and if you’re looking for drugs in that medicine cabinet you’ve come to the wrong place—’

      ‘Daddy!’ Horror filled the voice that came from behind Logan. ‘Don’t! Mrs Wynter came to help me—’

      Sara looked beyond Logan as he spun round, and saw Andy hopping along the carpeted hallway in her bare feet, bracing her hand against the wall with each jerky hop.

      ‘Andy? What the—?’ Logan sounded shocked.

      ‘I fell, Dad, and twisted my ankle, or sprained it or something. I had to ask Mrs Wynter to help me back to the house, and then she offered to get me an ice bag and some aspirin.’ Face ashen, Andrea started to slump, and would have slid to the floor if her father hadn’t moved fast.

      He scooped her up in his arms and, muttering under his breath, took off with her in the direction of the small sitting room, leaving Sara standing alone in the kitchen, feeling limp as a wet rag herself.

      Her hand shook as she put the aspirin bottle on the countertop. It shook as she set down the frozen peas beside the aspirin. And by the time she had poured a glass of cold water from the tap, and placed it by the peas, her whole body was trembling.

      The man, she decided with a rising tide of anger, was an ogre...and he certainty didn’t deserve to have a daughter as sweet as Andrea.

      She hoped the child was going to be all right.

      But, either way, she herself was going to avoid both father and daughter, for the rest of her time on the island.

      And if that turned out to be impossible she’d place a call to Zach and ask him to come back early and pick her up.

      No way would her creative juices ever have a chance to start flowing again as long as Logan Hunter was around.

      The thought added fuel to her anger, and resentment burned to her very bones as she let herself out by the kitchen door and stomped back down the hill to the cottage.

      CHAPTER THREE

      JUST before noon, Sara heard heavy footsteps outside the bathroom window and recognised Logan Hunter’s purposeful tread.

      What did he want this time?

      And his timing couldn’t have been worse, she decided as she glanced ruefully down at her skimpily clad figure!

      She jumped when she heard his loud rat-tat-tat on the front door.

      Wrapping a huge terry towel around herself, over her undies, she padded barefoot out of the bathroom, and was halfway along the passage when he knocked again.

      She stopped at the closed door and spoke through it. ‘What do you want?’ Her tone was frosty.

      ‘I want to talk to you.’

      ‘This is not a good time.’

      She listened. There was no sound of retreating feet. Heaving out a frustrated sigh, she leaned back against the door and looked down the narrow hallway to the living room. A dingy little room. And bare as a baby’s bottom. Minimum amount of furniture...sofa, two armchairs, one coffee table, one ancient TV. ‘I said,’ she threw into the hallway, ‘this is not a good time.’

      ‘Then I’ll wait here till it is. What I want to say has to be said.’

      ‘Through the door, then.’

      ‘To your face.’

      ‘Sorry, but—’

      He shoved the door open and sent her flying down the passage. She only just managed to keep her balance, but as she scrambled to stay upright the towel became dislodged, caught under her feet and she tripped. Flailing in the air, she fell against the wall with a sideways thud that jarred her shoulder and knocked the breath out of her.

      Logan Hunter loomed over her, his arms outstretched in an offer of help that wasn’t only too late, but also unwelcome.

      ‘You,’ she gasped, ‘are a menace!’ She snatched up her towel and breathlessly wrapped it around herself... but not before he’d treated himself to a good eyeful of every creamy curve! Resentment swept through her with the steaming heat of tropical rain.

      ‘Hey,’ he protested, ‘how was I expected to know you were leaning against the—?’

      ‘What right do you think you have to push your way in here as if you owned the place...?’ She halted, jolted by the sudden stunned expression in his eyes. ‘What’s the...?’

      ‘You’re green,’ he choked out. ‘What in the world happened to you? Are you sick?’

      He staggered back against the opposite wall as if the very sight of her had knocked the knees from under him.

      ‘All right,’ she snapped, ‘say what you have to say then get out.’

      ‘It’s a face mask.’ He ran a hand over his mouth, and she was sure he was hiding a smile. ‘Ruined now, of course. Cracked all to hell.’ The smile couldn’t be contained. It became a chuckle. And then a full-bodied belly laugh. ‘Hey, I’m sorry ... but if you could only see yourself—’

      ‘Say what you have to say,’ she gritted, ‘and get out of here!’ Out of my life!

      ‘First of all, then—’ his voice had a strangled sound ‘—I came in here as if I owned the place because I do own the place.’

      ‘When it’s rented out, you have absolutely no right whatsoever to come in here without an invitation.’

      ‘Which СКАЧАТЬ