LITMIR.BIZ

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momentarily on her flushed skin.

      ‘Yes, the build-up to a wedding can be wearing,’ Heather agreed sympathetically. ‘When is the big day, by the way?’

      ‘We haven’t decided finally yet. Malcolm—my fiancé—has to go to New York soon, and he isn’t quite sure how long he’ll need to be there. Once he gets back we’ll fix a firm date.’

      ‘Hardly an eager bridegroom, then?’ Zachary Fletcher drawled, joining in the conversation. ‘Haven’t you warned him what happens to laggards in love?’

      Despite his reference to the old Border ballad Tamara knew that he was implying that she was the one urging Malcolm into a marriage he wasn’t too keen on, and she longed to be able to tell him that he was quite wrong and that Malcolm simply wasn’t the type of man to rush anything.

      ‘Oh, we all have trouble getting our men to the altar these days,’ Sue laughed. ‘That’s what comes of sexual equality. There isn’t the same need to rush that there used to be—It’s much better too, don’t you think?’ she appealed to Tamara. ‘Just imagine marrying a man and not knowing the slightest thing about him sexually. It’s almost as archaic as an arranged marriage to a stranger.’

      ‘Yes,’ Tamara agreed blankly, hoping that her expression wouldn’t betray her, but how could she admit in front of Zachary Fletcher that her sexual experience of any man, let alone Malcolm, was practically nil?

      Oh, there had been a few tentative caresses when she was in her teens, but shyness and Aunt Lilian’s stern lectures had withered any natural desire to experiment, and as the years had gone by she had grown more and more ashamed of having to admit the truth. Not even Malcolm knew that she was a virgin. The subject had never come up, and for the first time she began to wonder how Malcolm would react. There had been a time in her late teens when she had begun to think that the truth must be written all over her face, and it had made her awkward and shy when she was approached by boys, but it was something she had eventually overcome.

      It had been obvious that Zachary Fletcher hadn’t guessed the truth, and she had to fight down her rising anger as she remembered the previous afternoon.

      When Sue claimed Dot’s attention to her horror Tamara found her běte noire at her elbow, looking hard and intensely masculine in the same black jeans, this time with a cotton shirt, which again had long sleeves and was unbuttoned only at the throat, where she could just see the first crisp tangle of body hair shadowing his chest.

      ‘I hope you aren’t going to accuse me of joining the walk simply to force an acquaintance with you,’ she managed to say in an undertone.

      ‘Hardly.’ The creases in his face deepened as he smiled. ‘I’d have to be paranoic to do so, wouldn’t I, seeing that I put my name down first. Do you enjoy walking?’

      He didn’t really sound as though he cared whether she did or not, but Tamara forced herself to answer politely.

      ‘Yes, I do. I was brought up in the country …’

      ‘Well, today’s jaunt won’t be any country stroll. These mountains are pretty steep and I believe the jungle is extremely dense …’

      ‘Are you trying to put us off?’ George joked, suddenly joining in the conversation.

      ‘Not at all. I probably gave the wrong impression. To tell the truth, had I thought the walk would be too arduous I wouldn’t be attempting it myself.’ Zachary Fletcher touched his left leg as he spoke, and Tamara remembered George saying that he had seen him limping.

      ‘I was involved in an … accident,’ he added tersely, obviously reading the question in George’s eyes. ‘I’m here to recuperate, and take enough gentle exercise to get myself fit to resume normal work.’

      ‘You’re in the Army. I believe?’ George prodded.

      ‘Yes.’

      The word was completely devoid of expression, but Tamara had been looking at his face as he spoke, and she caught her breath as she saw it change visibly, closing and hardening, a shutter coming down over his eyes. What on earth had there been in that innocent question to provoke a reaction like that? Unless of course he had been cashiered or some such thing. She had heard of such happenings from Malcolm’s father, and knew they were a terrible disgrace … What did it matter why he had reacted the way he did? she asked herself. She couldn’t care less about the man.

      ‘Looks as if our transport has just arrived,’ George commented. Outside the hotel were two Land Rovers, equipped with extra seats, and open to the fresh air.

      ‘Everyone ready?’

      Everyone was. The quartet were first at the Land Rovers, followed by the young honeymoon couple. Tamara was about to sit beside them when the guide prevented her.

      ‘You sit in next one,’ he told her. ‘I sit here,’ and she had perforce to join Dot and George in the rear Land Rover, her heart thumping uncomfortably when Zachary Fletcher slid his long length in beside her.

      There wasn’t a lot of room in the vehicle; Dot and George were both inclined to plumpness, and Tamara could feel the heat of Zachary Fletcher’s thigh burning through the thin fabric of her jeans. She tried to move away surreptitiously, but it was impossible to do so without squashing up to George.

      The guide climbed into the foremost Land Rover and shouted something to the driver and they were off.

      The road leading from the hotel complex was smooth and well tarmacked, but the moment they turned off it they were on a road which by the looks of it had been neglected for years. As the wheels of the Land Rover plunged into a huge pothole Tamara was flung bodily against Zachary Fletcher. It was like running full tilt into a stone wall, she thought breathlessly as his arm came out to save her and she was held against the hard, muscled wall of his chest and the taut flatness of his belly. It could only have been seconds before he released her, but they were the longest seconds of Tamara’s life. The heat of him seemed to burn right through her thin clothes, imprinting itself against her body. Scarlet colour ran up under her skin as she realised that just as she had been aware of the male contours of his body so he must have felt the soft fullness of her breasts.

      ‘Tamara, are you all right?’

      Dot’s anxious query intruded on her thoughts. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured her, adding formally, ‘Thank you, Mr Fletcher. I was caught off guard.’

      There was something distinctly enigmatical about the look he gave her. ‘It happens to us all,’ she was assured, ‘and please … call me Zach, Tamara.’

      ‘Oh, just look at that view!’ Dot exclaimed, drawing attention away from Tamara’s faintly flushed cheeks. ‘Have you ever been to the Caribbean before, Zach?’

      ‘No.’

      All of them looked to their right, where the ground fell away to the sea, a vivid and impossible blue melting into lilac mists on the horizon.

      ‘It’s so beautiful!’ Dot sighed.

      ‘But very poor,’ George reminded her. ‘I can’t get over the poverty in which a lot of the islanders still live. When you’re here you begin to understand the pull Communism has for some of these people.’

      ‘You’re right,’ Zach agreed. ‘Already there are strong left-wing groups in all the Caribbean islands. They get their education and training in Cuba, and unless the West starts sitting up and taking notice we’re going to wake up one day and find we’ve lost the Caribbean to Castro.’

      ‘Oh, no politics, please!’ Dot protested. ‘Let’s not spoil our holiday! Tamara, just look at that building perched down there on the hillside. It looks as though it’s amost ready to fall into the sea!’

      It was quite a long drive to the beginning of the rain forest, made worse by the appalling condition of the roads. Although St Stephen’s was one of the largest of the Caribbean islands, it had been very badly neglected; however, the hotel manager had told Tamara that

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