before saying carefully, ‘It is a possibility that if you spoke to one of the journalists trying to get to Sant’Rosa, they might be able to help you contact your family in England.’
God, no! Lauren had been carefully avoiding them for the past few days. Not that she was interesting to the media, except for the fact that she was Marc Corbett’s half-sister, and Marc was a player on the world stage. She didn’t want anyone poking around in the past and discovering the secret of her mother’s long-ago affair with Marc’s father. Apart from humiliating her mother, any publication of that indiscretion would stress her father, whose health was precarious.
She held out her hand. ‘I’m enjoying my time on Valanu, and you’ve been most kind,’ she told the official truthfully. ‘I’m just worried about what’s happening on Sant’Rosa.’
Sombre-faced, he shook her hand. ‘Yes,’ he said heavily. ‘War is a terrible thing, and it is so sad to see the Sant’Rosans suffering again. However, if what we are hearing is correct, the invaders are already being pushed back beyond the border and their ringleader is dead.’
Rumour or truth? ‘I hope so,’ she said in a flat voice.
Slowly, because the late-afternoon sun beat down with unmitigated ferocity, she walked to her bungalow. Once in its blessed coolness, she poured a glass of water from the jug in the tiny refrigerator and stood slowly sipping it in the minuscule kitchen.
Beneath the high, thatched roof, a huge bed draped in mosquito netting dominated the room; although Lauren slept with only a sheet over her, the coverlet was a work of art, brilliantly quilted in a pattern of hibiscus flowers. With a table and chairs, the only other furniture was a wardrobe that held Guy’s shirt—washed and pressed and awaiting his arrival—and the spare sarong she’d bought the morning after she’d been decanted from the plane.
During the day the woven mats that made the walls were rolled up so that sea breezes cooled the building; at night, they provided privacy.
Spartan, she thought, draining the glass with relief, but clean and comfortable; more importantly, it was cheap. The call she’d made to her parents in England had used so much of Guy’s money that she’d had to watch every penny, haggling for fish and fruit in the market. With funds from home apparently wending their way via outer space, she’d soon be forced to borrow from Guy’s agent when he returned from Singapore.
Apart from her daily trek to report to the immigration officer, she swam, prepared meals and chatted to her landlady’s teenage daughters, trying to satisfy their curiosity about life outside their idyllic island. Unfortunately, such a lazy life gave her too much time to imagine Guy Bagaton dead…
Even though death was no respecter of persons, it was impossible to imagine all that vibrant power cut down by a bullet—or worse.
‘He’ll be fine,’ she said aloud. She had the oddest feeling that if he died she’d know.
‘You don’t even know him,’ she scoffed, and went down to the lagoon to swim off the dust and the sweat of the walk home.
The water lapped against her like liquid silk, soothing and lukewarm, but a blood-red sky to the west heralded the sunset, turning her white skin copper as she strolled back along the beach. It seemed ominous, a bad omen.
‘Grow up,’ she chided, slipping off her sandals at the door. ‘You are not superstitious.’
Once inside she showered and washed her salt-laden hair before changing into her other sarong, a splashy print of gorgeous, improbably coloured frangipani blooms. Thanks to the landlady’s daughters, she now knew three ways of tying the garment. This time she settled for a simple knot above her breasts before sitting on the side of the bed to comb her hair. As the teeth smoothed through each strand, a feather of awareness stroked along her skin.
Several times she looked around, but the tangle of growth that surrounded the bungalow was empty of prying eyes. Anyway, it wasn’t the sort of sensation that whispered of danger. More a feeling of languorous expectancy, as though something good was going to happen…
‘Perhaps your new passport will arrive tomorrow,’ she murmured, looking down at her clenched hand; because she wasn’t married, she’d taken to wearing Guy’s signet ring on her middle finger. It was still too big, but it didn’t slip off.
It was made of heavy gold, and the engraving almost worn away; not for the first time, she turned her hand in the red light of the dying sun, trying to make out its form. Some sort of crest, she thought—a bird? Were those wings? The outline danced in the smoky light and she blinked hard to clear her sight, but had to give up again.
Whatever, he clearly valued it, so when she finally got off Valanu she’d leave it with the agent.
Driven by restlessness, she let down the woven sides of the room and loosened the knot on her sarong, walking out onto the coral platform to enjoy the cooler air of evening on her bare shoulders and arms. A yawn took her by surprise.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ a familiar voice enquired from behind.
ONE hand holding back her heartbeats, Lauren swung around. A large dark silhouette against the violent crimson of the sky, Guy Bagaton stood a few feet away.
Relief and incandescent joy rioted through her, shocking her with their intensity.
Guy demanded, ‘Why aren’t you staying at the resort?’
‘I didn’t have enough money,’ she told him, fighting to keep her voice level. Although he stood about ten feet away, his awareness rested like a blade against her sensitised skin. ‘Your agent is in Singapore—he’s expected back tomorrow.’
Guy said something that made her brows shoot up. ‘So what have you been using for money? The amount I gave you wouldn’t have kept you for a week.’
‘It has,’ she said.
Then her eyes adjusted to the rapidly fading light, and she gasped and raced towards him. ‘What happened?’
He ignored the bandage around his upper arm. ‘It’s nothing—a crease from a bullet,’ he said curtly. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine.’ Brows drawn together, she examined him closely.
He was still villainously unshaven, his autocratic features were more deeply carved, and something in his eyes—a kind of bitter determination, as though he’d kept going through events that no one should ever see—had dimmed his tremendous vitality.
Empathy twisted her heart into a hard knot in her chest. No man should look like that. ‘How did you know I was here?’
He sent her a stabbing glance. ‘It took me a while. In the end I called in a favour from someone who works in the immigration service.’ He looked around. ‘This is no place for you.’
‘Has a doctor looked at that bullet crease?’
‘Yes. She jabbed me and provided me with antibiotics. It’s barely a scratch.’ He held out a plastic bag and, when Lauren automatically took it without stopping her anxious scrutiny of his face,
