around Ella.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, God. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Josh.
It was her turn now to race down the slope. She was fully prepared to dive in to help Josh, only he shouted at her fiercely to stay back that mortified tears sprang to her eyes.
A woman, an off-duty nurse, took charge of Ella, checking her before putting her into her frantic mother’s arms. Next the nurse attended to Tulip, who had come round. She was sitting up, but was ghastly pale. Two strong men were on hand to pull Joshua out of the water, though his expression registered he was fully capable of getting out himself. That was the moment an elderly woman screamed and they all became aware a terrible weapon of destruction was coming at speed from the far end of the lagoon, its infamous notches of eyes and nostrils just visible above the waterline. The crocodile was nowhere as big as Snowy had claimed, probably a female, but it could have taken boy and little girl with no trouble at all.
Josh Hart fell back panting onto the grass, golden arms and legs spread-eagled. She had never in her life spoken more than two words to him but Clio found herself dropping onto the grass beside him. “Did you know the croc was there?” she asked, not daring to touch his tanned, outflung arm.
His fine nostrils flared. “Don’t be stupid, little girl.” He turned his golden-blond head to stare at her, blue eyes ablaze. “There are always crocs around. Snowy did warn you complacent idiots,” he added, adult-like scathing judgement plain on his beautiful, utterly superior face. He might try all he liked to be wicked. She knew he would never pull it off with her.
“But the council men checked,” she offered in protest. When had they checked?
“Well, they got it wrong, didn’t they?” His brilliant eyes burned into her.
“It’s my little cousin, Ella, you saved.”
“I know.” His answer was short and dismissive.
She flushed at the hostility he gave off in waves. Did he hate her?
“You’re Clio Templeton, aren’t you?” he said unexpectedly. “The town’s little sweetheart, its princess.”
His sarcastic tone was no proof against her eternal gratitude. “And you’re a hero,” she said simply. Then, greatly daring, she bent to kiss his cheek. “I’ll never forget what you did today, Josh Hart.”
A look of intense wariness and some other emotion she couldn’t quite catch came into his dazzling blue eyes. “Yes, you will.”
“Never!” She stood up, nine years old, long slender legs, tall for her age, her gleaming sable hair cascading down her back, admiration in her huge dark eyes. “I know a lot of things they say about you are true, Josh Hart, but you’re brave. I’m proud to know you.”
He laughed, such a strange laugh. “Hush now, princess,” he said, and one-armed himself to his feet. “They’re calling for you.”
Afterwards Clio felt as though lightning had been crackling all around them.
She was destined to feel it every time she laid eyes on him.
CHAPTER ONE
WHEN did falling in love begin? Josh pondered as he drove through the starry night.
When one was thirteen years old and a beautiful little girl with long gypsy dark hair and huge lustrous dark eyes bent down to kiss his cheek? When he’d had to swallow painfully hard against a great welling spring of barely remembered emotion? When he’d caught a dazzling glimpse of happiness, a meaning, and a purpose in life? No one outside his tragic mother had ever kissed him or moved his heart. But Clio Templeton had pulled him out of his deep emotional void that unforgettable day. In a way it had transformed him. Made up for a lot of the deprivation he had suffered. Only nine years old but little Clio Templeton had penetrated a shield so thick and strong he had thought no one could get through it. That was until she’d put her rosebud mouth very gently to his water-slicked cheek.
Clio Templeton, the only person in the world to make a breakthrough in the harrowing years since his mother had left him. He didn’t believe to this day his mother had overdosed deliberately. She had loved him. And he had loved her. They had been two against the world. He had no idea who his father was, a callous man at any rate. Maybe he could go the same way. He had to physically resemble the man who had fathered him, because his mother, Carol, had been dark haired, hazel eyed and petite of stature. Whoever his biological father had been, his mother had never revealed his name. And this was the man who had destroyed her dreams, then her life, leaving him a desolate orphan.
So that was his history. His mother had died. He had been left alive with all chance of normal life slipped away. He had been left to cope with life from age five. Total incomprehension. Grief. Loneliness. Extreme isolation. They had even renamed him, picking someone from the Bible. His given name had sounded too foreign. With the years came the terrible anger. He had seethed with it. Not burying it deep. It had all been there on show. As he had grown, his body had become solid muscle. He had eventually shot up to six-three. A formidable height. A formidable body. Back then he might have been a young lion escaped from the zoo. So that was God’s great plan for him, was it? he had reasoned. A probable life in prison? He no longer believed in a God. Why would he? Shunted from one home to another, juvenile detention, he had seen it all, some of it much too shocking to speak of.
He’d had to rise above his past, every rotten episode. But the monumental effort had made him depressingly hard, separating him from other people. No chinks in his armour. He knew a lot of the good people in the town backed off him. They didn’t have the understanding to realize what he’d been through. Probably wouldn’t believe it anyway. They after all had led charmed lives. The tropical town of Templeton was as physically beautiful and prosperous as anywhere in the Promised Land.
By the time he arrived at the Templeton mansion, the cul-de-sac that fronted the estate and the sweeping driveway was parked with luxury cars, the most expensive of them all belonging to Jimmy Crowley. Hell, Crowley was only a year older than he was. The car would have suited rich Granddaddy Crowley better, the old scoundrel, raw, ugly, powerful, but Jimmy was struggling to get across that he too could also become a man of substance. He had to be because Jimmy, along with his family, had convinced themselves Clio Templeton was Jimmy’s. Who else could it be but the most beautiful girl in the world? God knew, Josh didn’t disagree with that.
When he climbed out of his metallic grey Porsche, the scented summer air wrapped around him—frangipani, oleander, gardenia, the rich white ginger blossom and the king jasmine. He found himself gasping with the sheer pleasure of taking in the mingled fragrances. Just about every beautiful tropical flower and plant was represented in the gardens. There was no shortage of space. The Templeton mansion occupied twenty acres of prime real estate even the Templetons would be hard pressed to buy these days. The splendour of the gardens was known state wide. They were opened to the public from time to time. Leo’s mother had had constructed a huge eight-acre manmade fresh-water lake—no crocs to cause concern—with an amazing waterfall spilling over extraordinary big boulders that had been found in the area or brought in. The water supply came from a dam sited well away from the house. No one looking at the lake would ever know it was artificial. The verges were surrounded by luxuriant natural grasses and bullrushes, huge stands of the pure white arum lily, Japanese water iris and groves of tree ferns. The lake was a focal point for the magnificent grounds.
He looked towards the house. The scale of the place over the years had become little short of heroic. There was a certain
