She stood like stone. Her ears heard, but her heart refused to believe. Her whole life seemed to have been one of waiting, longing for Dan in some way, and now he was behaving as if he was lost, lonely. His unhappiness was too real to mistake.
'You can go if you want to, Anna,' he said bitterly, his head turned away, his eyes on the blue sky through the window. 'I've survived for almost five years without you, what's the rest of my miserable life?'
She said nothing because words wouldn't come, and when he turned to look at her, tears were streaming down her face, her trembling hands held out to him.
'Oh, Dan, I love you so much! There's nothing in my life when you're not there, there never has been! Don't say you love me if you don't mean it. I couldn't bear that!'
For one second he looked at her in disbelief, and then he reached for her, pulling her into his arms, his face against her wet cheeks.
'Anna! My Anna! Surely you know I love you?'
He rocked her against him, his lips searching her face, closing her eyes. His hands twisted into her long hair and he held her fast, looking at her for a long time.
'Darling, there's nobody else,' he said quietly. He took a deep breath, almost like a sigh. 'There's been nobody else for over four years, ever since I found you. I've buried myself on Amara, trying to make it beautiful, gathering things you would love, hoping that one day you'd come to me.'
'You bought Amara because of me?'
It was too soon, too much. Her mind dared not take this all in and believe it.
'I bought Amara so that I could have some peace. I wanted to build a dream place, a place to bring you, somewhere that was just for the two of us. Not many people are welcome on Amara Cay.'
'Daphne is,' she said tensely. 'And the woman who owns the wetsuit.'
'You don't trust me.' His voice returned to bitterness, and he started to move away, his hands rejecting her. 'Don't leave me!' She clung to him frantically, crushing' the last shreds of jealousy. 'I've trusted you all my life! If I hadn't, I would never have-have....'
'Given yourself to me so sweetly, so wildly?' he finished for her, hauling her back into his arms. 'Daphne is a friend, and I hope that you'll have her for a friend too, if only for my sake. The lady with the wetsuit brings her husband.'
He looked down at her with such love that she couldn't doubt him ever. 'I love you!' he said huskily. He raised her hand to his lips, kissing the warmth of her palm.
'Oh, Dan, why didn't you come for me? I thought you were going to marry Daphne! You said so.'
'How could I come? I hurt you so much, and I knew it. I was locked in a whirl of my own guilt, and you were only seventeen. I imagined you were over it. When I came to the wedding and saw how you greeted your doctor, I was sure of that!'
'As if I could be!' She looked up at him with dark eyes, and he sank to a chair, taking her with him.
'I'd better tell you about Daphne,' he sighed. 'You're going to listen to me, Anna, because there must never be any misunderstanding between us again, nothing to separate us!'
'There couldn't be!' She curled up against him and he laughed shakily.
'I'm not taking the risk! I know you of old. You've been elusive all your life!'
Not really, she thought, only too committed to one person, too afraid to show it. Now she could let him know. Now all her love could be poured on to Dan. She rested her head against his shoulder, listening blissfully to the deep sound of his voice.
'Tell me about Daphne,' she said softly, and his arms tightened around her.
'I've known her for years. When I first came over to write the screenplay for a book, I had really no idea how to go about it. Daphne is a screenwriter and she worked with me. I got to know her well and I got to know Trevor Blaine, her fiancé. They were the best friends I had.'
He was silent for a minute, and she knew that this was painful to him.
'You don't have to tell me.' Her hand stroked his face and he captured it, bring it back to his lips.
'I need to. No more secrets, no more ghosts. Trevor was a stunt man,' he continued, his voice low. 'And you know what my books are like-political thrillers, fast and furious, plenty of scope for a stunt man. It's all very well to write these things, but somehow different to get them on to film. Nearly five years ago we came to a really sticky patch in the book that was being filmed. It needed a spectacular accident, and it was important to the story, not just a gimmick. Dean looked at it and said it would have to go. He wanted something else written in. I agreed, but with a great deal of reluctance. Trevor was all for keeping it. He thought it through and said he could do it. He also said it would be the best thing he had ever done, and it would push him right to the top. He even got me enthusiastic, and we overruled Dean. In fact, we haunted him until he gave in.'
Dan sighed, his face resting in her hair.
'I don't know what went wrong. Perhaps Trevor was over-confident, perhaps he prepared a bit carelessly, perhaps he lost his concentration, or maybe it was just impossible. He crashed. When they got to him, he was dead.'
'And you felt completely responsible,' she said softly, her slender arms winding around him.
'Yes. Daphne was sedated and in hospital for almost a week, and I went every day. I was filled with guilt. I felt that it was all down to me. I should have just said no and written it out.'
'When she finally began to talk, she could only talk to me, and she told me she was pregnant. I asked her to marry me and she just looked at me blankly, but I went on and told her that she needed someone to take care of her, to help bring up Trevor's baby. It wasn't going to be any sort of marriage, we didn't even need to discuss that. We were just friends, and finally she said yes. The ring you saw was Trevor's. It never left her finger and I knew it never would.
'Everyone who was close to us knew all about it and they rallied round. For a long time she couldn't be left alone, and when I came to England, I brought her with me. That's when you saw her and when I realized that guilt had robbed me of something that had been there right under my nose for most of my life.'
'Why didn't you explain to me?'
She lifted her head and kissed him, quick, loving kisses that went some way to banish the somber mood that had grown on him as he talked softly. He held her close.
'How could I? Daphne needed me, and you were just becoming a woman. You needed to forget me. It was a childish fixation and nothing more. I was the one with the problem.'
He tilted her face and looked into her eyes, his lips coming to touch hers.
'I used to look at you when you were a child and puzzle about what to do, what you needed,' he murmured, his eyes moving over her face longingly. 'You always looked as if you wanted me to care for you, but if I tried you acted as if I was a monster. I always went away worried about you, worried about the strange creature who had moved into our lives and who watched me with dark, wary eyes.
'Dad used to tell me about the scrapes you got into, but I could hardly believe it. When I was home you were unnaturally still, watching and waiting, secret and dark. I used to go off worried, wondering why you were so scared of me. I had this picture in my mind of a thin little girl with long black hair and dark, intelligent eyes.
'When I came home with Daphne, I just couldn't believe the change that had taken place in three years. You came out of the door to meet us and you were a woman. Cool, controlled, exotically beautiful. It stunned me!'
'I wanted to cry,' she confessed. 'You brought Daphne and everything seemed to fall to pieces!'
'Darling, don't!' He drew her close and kissed her, his hand warm and possessive against her face. 'I've never wanted to hurt you in my life.'
His head sank to her breast, his hands caressing her. 'You bewitched me! All that long week I couldn't see enough of you, but you were no closer to me than you had ever been. You avoided my eyes, and when I looked up unexpectedly those dark eyes were always on me, the same look in them that I remembered, wanting something that I couldn't understand. T
his time though you were grown up, beautiful, poignant, sitting in the shadows, like a tantalizing little phantom at the edge of my world. I wanted to pull you into my world, into my life. Before the week was out I was so much in love with you that I knew I had to go and never come back!'
'I thought it was the end of my life!' She smoothed the thick hair from his forehead and he looked up at her quizzically.
'Was it?'
'You told me that I'd recover. I did, at least my logic told me that I had. Maybe I would have recovered faster if you hadn't kissed me.'
'I didn't mean to! When you didn't come to say goodbye, I had to see you, although I knew how dangerous it was. When you cried, I wanted to take you with me, but my conscience was too strong. Daphne needed me it was all my fault, and I'd already asked her to marry me. You had a life ahead of you. You were brilliant. You didn't need me.'
'I did!' She looked at him almost angrily, and he smiled slowly.
'I knew that when I kissed you, but it was all too late. I never thought I'd get another chance.'
'Why didn't you marry Daphne?' It was worrying her, and he had said that nothing was to be a secret any more.
'She gradually came through it. At first she wasn't in a fit state, and then she came to me and said that she could never marry anyone. Nothing would move her. I helped her through everything and we have become really close friends. Trevor's son was born and he's a wonderful little chap. Now she's met someone else and she's beginning to pick up her life again. Trevor's ring is on her other hand. I don't suppose you noticed that, witch?'
'No, I didn't. I was too busy being jealous, and feeling guilty about it because I liked her. I wondered. What you were talking about. I didn't dare come back.'
'You imagined a love scene?' He laughed down at her and then pulled a wry face. 'We were talking about Anita. Daphne's going to finish off the last bits of the script. Anita won't roll her eyes at Daphne. We were talking about you, too,' he confessed huskily. 'I told her that I loved you, that I was never going to allow you to come back to Amara in case anything happened to you.'
'You still want me to go?'
Her eyes lifted to his face, a burst of fear deepening their brilliance even now.
'I'm going with you!' he said with vibrant urgency. 'I came here today to get tickets for both of us, not just for you. You were hurt on Amara. I was terrified when you had that fever! Then there was the hurricane.'
He pulled her close, taking a ragged breath that showed he still remembered the fear when she was so ill, but she moved back, looking up into his face.
'I love Amara Cay. I thought I'd caused so much trouble, I thought there was Daphne and that little boy. I knew I could never keep away from you if I went back, so I wanted to tell you that I never would go back. I wasn't begging for release, Dan! I was promising to let you live as you wanted to.'
'Say that again,' he urged thickly, his hands warm and exciting on her skin. 'Tell me that part about not being able to keep away from me!'
'I think you know I can't,' she confessed breathlessly.
His hand moved the neck of her dress aside, exposing the golden silk of her shoulder, but it was not enough, and his fingers slipped the buttons, his eyes on the beauty of her naked breast.
'Beautiful, exotic witch!' he breathed thickly. 'Show me how you can't keep away from me!'
She was already aroused by the slowly caressing hand, and his words lit the last flame. She pulled his hand to her breast as her lips opened beneath his; passion, need and excitement present in the swift arch of her body to his touch.
He released her and stood, lifting her into his arms, walking to the bed and lowering her to it, his eyes heavy with desire as he undressed her. She knelt, warm and naked before him as she removed his clothes, her lips tracing the smooth warm of his skin, delight in her at the uncontrolled clenching of strong muscles as she touched him. Her hands traced his body with the same pleasure that he was showing as he touched her, and he trembled violently, pushing her back to the soft mattress, coming to rest beside her, his tawny eyes half closed.
'Now, sea nymph,' he murmured huskily, 'tell me your secrets, speak to me with your dark eyes, and prove that you want me as much as I want you!'
'I-I can't,' she whispered. 'I'm too shy. All my life I....'
'You want to come back to my island?' he murmured, his teeth gently biting her skin, his tongue circling the high peaks of her breasts.
'Yes! Oh, yes! I want to be with you. I want to live on Amara with you. I never want to go away!'
'I keep everyone away,' he teased roughly, his heart pounding against hers. 'If you want to come with me, then show me how much. Make love to me!'
Anna moved slowly, her heart taking on a pounding rhythm as she moved to look down at him. He was serious, because in spite of his teasing words there was a raw look at the back of his eyes, almost a fear, a pleading. He needed her to prove more than an obsession more than a child's strange fixation.
She lowered her head and began to kiss his body, only the memory of the pleasure he had given her to guide her. Her hands moved over his skin, lingering where his body shivered at her touch, her lips following her fingers, her whole being thrilling to know that he found it difficult to lie so still. Her fingers trailed shyly over the strong length of his legs, her tongue against the salt taste of his skin, the flat strength of his stomach, moving slowly lower as his breath became a harsh rasp in his throat.
'Anna!' His hands reached for her, lifting her head, his breathing tortured as he pulled her towards him, forcing her over his heated body, molding her against him. 'I can't take any more!'
'You told me to make love to you. Wasn't it right?' she whispered shakily.
'Right?' He could not keep the tight stillness now, his body moved restlessly beneath her, his hands urging her closer. 'It could have driven me mad, worse than I've been these years without you!'
'I wanted to show you that my obsession ....'
He spun her to the bed, his body tightly over hers. 'If it's an obsession, then I'm obsessed too. Its love, darling, love as wild and deep as it can get!'
His lips fused with hers and there were no more words but words of passion, words of love, and in Anna's mind she was back on an island; but it was not Amara Cay, it was an island filled with shimmering lights that faded into velvet darkness, until she opened her eyes to see Dan's triumphant gaze upon her flushed face, the tawny eyes filled with joy.
'You're mine!' he said softly.
'And you are mine,' Anna whispered as he kissed away happy tears that filled her dark eyes.
'Take me back to Amara,' Anna begged softly as they lay close in each other's arms later.
'When I've married you,' Dan said firmly
'How long does it take here?' She looked up at him from her safe resting place against his brown shoulder, and he shook his head.
'I've no idea. I've never been married before.'
They looked at each other for a long time, and Dan smiled wickedly.
'In a minute, I'll get all the information we need by telephone, and then we'll simply wait it out-right here!'
'What about Langford Hall?' Anna asked later when she was not quite so breathless from Dan's kisses. 'What about Edna, for that matter?'
'We need two homes!' Dan said determinedly. 'I'll never let you sit out a hurricane again. We'll spend half our time here, and the other half at Langford Hall. Any unhappy memories will disappear.'
'Edna for one half of the year and Josie for the other half!' Anna laughed. 'Who could want more?'
She looked at him thoughtfully as another idea came into her mind.
'What about my degree, Dan? What am I supposed to do with a first-class honors degree in maths when I'm on Amara Cay for half the year?'
Some of the happiness faded from his face, and he turned to her seriously, a tight anxiety about him. 'You tell me,' he invited quietly. 'You had plenty of plans.'
'Well, I've never noticed a bank on Amara,'
she said with a thoughtful frown that had his smile growing again, so that seems to be out. As to government, I intend to be the whole government of our little kingdom, so temporarily, I'll frame my degree and hang it over the bed!'
'I love you!' Dan whispered urgently, holding her tightly. 'I'm trying not to be selfish; I'm trying not to own everything about you.' He looked at her seriously. 'You're so clever, my Anna, I don't have the right.'
'Don't worry,' she teased, 'I'll think of something to keep my brain from stagnating. I'll tell you something!' she added pertly. 'My children will be the smartest children you've ever met!'
'And every last one of them called Toren,' Dan said contentedly.
In the end they were married in England. They both wanted to share their happiness with Elaine, and Dan had another reason.
'When Elaine got married,' he said softly, 'I looked at you as you walked behind her and I said to myself, "One day, my love, you'll walk down this aisle, but you'll be walking in front and you'll be walking to me." Now it's all come true. I want to see it happen. I want to turn round in that same church with the same people and watch you walk to me, right out of the edge of my life into the centre of it.'
'I tried to keep out of your way,' Anna murmured from the safety of his arms.
'Why?'
'I had to fight the feelings that still hurt, but when I was at Oxford and you told me you were going back to the island, I felt so lonely.' She looked up at him, her hand against the silken rasp of his face. 'Why didn't you go?'
'I never had any intention of going without you,' he said with a smile. 'You didn't want me there, but I couldn't leave you. It was my turn to step into the shadows and wait.'
'What if I hadn't made myself ill with work and that cold?'
'I would still have been waiting,' he assured her deeply. 'I'm glad that I didn't have to, but I would have been at Langford Hall or some other place, just waiting for as long as it took.'
'I can hardly believe that this is all true,' Anna sighed. 'I'm afraid sometimes that I'll wake up and not find your arms around me, that I dreamed it all.'
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