she let the knob go, the door seemed to open by itself, creaking slowly wide. With her heart in her mouth, Bonnie took a tremulous step inside, scooping in a startled breath as her eyes travelled around the room. The tentacles of some indefinable emotion wrapped themselves around her heart and squeezed tight, bringing with it an incredible wave of sadness.
It was a nursery.
Heavy legs carried her further into the room, shaking fingers creeping out to touch the white cradle, swinging it back and forth, back and forth. Her stomach twisted as she gazed at the purity of the snow-white sheets, the delicacy of the pink and white motifs sewn on to the pillow-case. She wanted to cry when she picked up the handmade toys, crafted with such love and attention to detail. And when she opened the baby-record book on top of the chest of drawers, the sudden constriction in her chest only reinforced what she already knew.
It was empty.
Not a word had been entered in that sad, sad testament. One glance had told Bonnie that this nursery had never been occupied. There were no chips on the white furniture, no marks on the wallpaper, no tell-tale damage to the toys.
Sympathy swelled her heart as she thought of old Mrs McClelland. What unfulfilled dreams lay in this room? What heartache?
Her eyes brimmed with sudden tears. Hastily she blinked them away and moved towards the large bay window that gave a perfect view of the ocean. The sun was quite hot through the glass and she flicked open the buttons of her jacket as she stood there, drinking in the view and willing herself to think happier thoughts.
But nothing could distract her from an overwhelming feeling of grief. Finally, her eyes dropped away, and she found herself peering down at the old-fashioned window-seat and the definite hollow in the padded seat.
Realisation jerked her back upright. Good God, she thought shakily. This was where the old lady used to sit and the impression of her body still lingered. How many hours had that poor woman spent here? How many times had she been drawn to this spot?
Something strangely compelling pulled Bonnie down till she was also sitting there, her back against the wooden window-frame, her green eyes glazing as they travelled along the same path those weary old eyes had travelled... into the past.
Only this time the past was Bonnie’s...
Keith had been getting ready for work that final day, buttoning up his policeman’s uniform, looking as handsome and dashing as ever. She’d watched him from where she lay, huddled up under the sheets, still not able to believe what had happened the night before.
It wasn’t that Keith had never hit her before. He had. But only with his hand, and never more than once, or twice.
But last night...
Oh, God, she could hardly bear to remember. The pain had been excruciating. It was still excruciating.
When he came over and sat down on the side of the bed, she couldn’t help cringing away from him.
‘Don’t be like that, Bonnie,’ he reproached. ‘It wasn’t my fault, you know. You made me lose my temper. Why didn’t you just tell me where you went yesterday in the first place? I knew you weren’t shopping. There were too many miles on the speedometer. You should have admitted you’d driven up to Morriset to visit your sister in the first place. I don’t mind you visiting Louise, as long as you ask permission first. If you’d done that, there would have been no reason for you to lie, and no reason for me to punish you for it.’
Bonnie stared at him, her head dizzy with fear.
‘Promise me you’ll ask permission next time,’ he said, cupping her chin and squeezing tight.
Her heart began to thud.
‘I want to hear you say it, Bonnie,’ he snarled. ‘Say, I promise I will ask permission next time.’
‘I... I promise I’ll ask permission next time,’ she choked out, her throat dry, her tongue thick.
‘Good girl.’
When he lowered his mouth to give her an obscenely deep kiss, his hands slipping under the sheets to play with her breasts at the same time, she was almost sick. When his mouth lifted and he began pinching one of her nipples, watching coldly while the pain registered in her eyes, she wanted to kill him.
‘Just a little reminder of what you can expect if you lie to me again,’ he warned before standing up abruptly and striding from the room. ‘Make sure you’re here when I get home,’ he called back over his shoulder.
She would never know if she would have been home at the end of that day, because Keith never came home. He was killed that morning, during a car chase, at an intersection. One of his colleagues called at the house soon afterwards to give her the bad news. He thought her tears were tears of grief, but he was wrong. They were tears of relief.
CHAPTER THREE
JORDAN studied the rough map that the chap at Coastal Properties had given him before gunning the engine of his car and driving off in search of the increasingly enigmatic Mrs Merrick.
His disappointment when he’d found out she wasn’t in the office had been sharp. But his unexpectedly early arrival had drawn some interesting information which he might not otherwise have gleaned about the woman.
Her dashing young colleague had not hidden his contempt for her business ethics, suggesting with a smirk that Jordan was a very lucky man to have someone like Mrs Merrick ‘handle’ him. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.
The various implications would have been clear to a brain-dead moron. A queen’s counsel certainly did not need to have it beaten into his head with a hammer.
Mrs Merrick, in her workmate’s opinion, was obviously not above using her physical assets when trying to make a sale. Jordan wasn’t sure if he was repelled or excited by that thought. It would seem likely that the lady must have some special assets worth trading on if she did business that way. In his experience, females with lax morals were pretty well always easy on the eye.
Yet tramps had never held any fascination for him. And he’d come across a good few in his thirty-six years.
If she was a tramp, that was. He’d found that people eager to offer unsought-after information about others were often lying. Or at least exaggerating. He resolved to keep an open mind on the subject of Mrs Merrick’s morals.
It took him a good ten minutes to find the dirt road, having driven right past it the first time. His patience was wearing thin by the time he made it down the rough track and up to what must have been the weirdest, ugliest old house he had ever seen. Parking next to a green Falcon, he climbed out, did up his suit jacket and dragged in a deep breath.
The moment of truth had come...
Bonnie sighed softly as she sat on in that room of dreams, mindless of time passing. It was as if she had entered another world where time stood still, where people could rest a while before picking up the strands of their lives again.
What first roused her from her trance-like state? Was it a sound, or the draught that suddenly chilled her legs? She stiffened in the window-seat, her eyelids fluttering nervously as they became fixed on the open doorway. Her
