LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘IF THAT crazy animal isn’t off my property in the next thirty seconds I’ll shoot it!’

      Candy couldn’t stop a startled gasp escaping her lips as she swung round so sharply that she almost overbalanced off the crumbling stone wall where she had been sitting in the weak March sunshine that had no warmth. The man behind her matched the voice: big, hard and uncompromisingly severe.

      ‘I beg your pardon?’ Indignation swamped the fear and her brown eyes narrowed furiously. ‘I have every right to be here! Just who do you think——?’

      ‘I am?’ The tall figure clicked his fingers to his own two black Labradors, who sat immediately by his side like two well trained statues. ‘I know who I am; the point is—who are you? And the statement stands: you have exactly four seconds left to call that thing to order.’

      She looked from the dark brown, bearded face to the heavy shotgun in his gloved hands and her stomach turned over. He meant it! He really would shoot Jasper.

      ‘Jasper!’ Her voice held a note of terror, and immediately Jasper stopped his gambolling to look towards his beloved mistress, leaping up the grassy slope in two bounds and jumping effortlessly over the wall to land by her side, his brown eyes enquiring and his long tongue lolling in its usual ridiculous manner. The two black Labradors didn’t even flick an eyelid as he sniffed interestedly in their direction.

      She bent to fasten the lead round his neck and he looked up reproachfully as the heavy chain slipped over his golden head. It had been years since he had suffered such an indignity, and in front of two other dogs too!

      ‘Don’t you realise that there are sheep about to lamb in that pasture?’ The deep, gravelly voice was familiar somehow, but she couldn’t place it, and now was not the time to reflect. ‘I suppose you’re a townie out for the day?’ The last was said with such contempt that she reared up furiously with a muttered oath, causing Jasper to growl deep in his throat. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but, if there was any defending to do, those two black sentinels had better know he meant business! No one was touching his mistress while he was around.

      ‘I have lived in Downdale all my life, as it happens.’ Her voice was shaking with suppressed anger and hurt. ‘I know exactly what is in that field and all the others round here. Jasper has been brought up with farm animals and would no more chase a sheep than...’ She couldn’t think of an appropriate simile and floundered helplessly. ‘And we have permission to be on this land!’ The last was said with such conviction that the icy blue eyes watching her so coldly narrowed into two chips of glittering glass.

      ‘Really?’ His voice was mockingly arrogant. ‘I think not. I would have known if I had given permission for someone so obviously irresponsible to walk my fields.’

      ‘They aren’t your fields!’ She pushed back the hood of the heavy, thick duffel coat that was protection against the biting wind that scoured the hillside and immediately her hair was whipped into a mad scramble of tangled red silk. ‘They belong to Colonel Strythe and he——’

      ‘Colonel Strythe is dead.’ The statement was completely without feeling.

      ‘I know that,’ she snapped back abruptly, furious that this obnoxious stranger could talk about her father’s old friend, who had been like a member of her own family, so coldly. ‘I was at the funeral last Wednesday, but until they can contact the son the Colonel’s old rules apply...’ Her voice trailed off in horrified realisation as she stared into the only recognisable feature in that dark, bearded face. His eyes. She should have recognised his eyes! Only Cameron Strythe had eyes that were as piercing as a razor-sharp sword and as cold as ice. She remembered those eyes! How could she have forgotten? And the voice, distinct with its strange, gravelly texture that in the throes of adolescence she had thought so attractive.

      ‘I see I need not introduce myself, but, nevertheless, Cameron Strythe at your service . . . Miss . . . ?’

      She ignored the implied question and stared at him as though he were the devil himself. He was so different! She remembered a tall, smiling young man with the charm of a thousand Irish tongues and fair, cleanshaven skin. This man’s face was as dark as an Arab’s with long hair bleached almost blond at the ends. He resembled a wild gypsy rather than the cool, university-educated young man she recalled.

      ‘When did you get back?’ Her voice was a horrified whisper and immediately lost in the wind as it swirled round them with increasing force, the sunlight racing dark shadows across the valley below. She repeated the question more loudly and he looked at her intently, searching her face with those deadly eyes.

      ‘Do I know you?’ Did he know her? She could have laughed if the circumstances had been different. She remembered the last time he had visited the house to see Michelle, her sister. They had been engaged to be married and the wedding date was only weeks away. Candy already had her bridesmaid’s dress, a frothy pink creation in tulle and taffeta. The dress was suddenly there before her, clear in detail to the last tiny rosebud on the hem. Her twelve-year-old heart had been thrilled with such finery, but then there had been a terrible scene that night and Cameron had gone away. And later, a few weeks later, Michelle’s shape had begun to change too drastically to disguise any more, and six months later Jamie was born. The whole affair had broken Michelle’s

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