Worlds Apart

When he lifted her in his arms and carried her into the sand dunes it was all part of that same scenario. When he laid her on the sand and lowered himself to her she knew nothing but delight in his masculine assertion.

Her blouse was a flimsy, sleeveless affair buttoned down the front, her brassiere a wisp of lace that gave easily to the seeking hand. The touch of his fingers on her bare skin made her shiver. Such a delicate touch, tracing a spiral about her breast until it finally reached her aching nipple.

Caryn stifled a cry as he lowered his head to take the proud little nub of flesh between his lips, unable to bear the exquisite sensation yet desperate for it to continue. Her hands slid of their own accord into the crisp, clean thickness of his hair, fingers digging into his scalp, her body arched towards the marauding mouth. She had read so many literary—and not so literary—descriptions of lovemaking, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined it to be as wonderful as this! She was on fire all the way through.

Elasticated at the waist, her skirt slid easily down over her hips. Logan followed its passage with his lips, fluttering the skin of her abdomen and causing her thigh muscles to go into sudden spasm. She caught at him frantically as he brushed the lacy edging of her briefs, hardly knowing what she wanted at that moment. He didn’t resist, but lifted his head first to find her breast and then her lips again kissing her back into a state where she cared about nothing else but having this go on.

He removed her remaining undergarment with dexterity, sliding his hand back along the length of her leg to seek her innermost secrets. Eyes closed, she was lost in a world of pure sensation, pliant to his every demand. There was a brief moment when she thought he was leaving her, but then he came right over her and there was a wholly new sensation, a burgeoning pressure that parted her thighs and brought a bubbling cry to her lips.

Her eyes flew open in surprise as the pressure increased, her muscles tensing involuntarily against the intrusion. It was so much more than she had anticipated— if she had thought this far at all—stretching her, filling her, forging a passage to the very centre of her being.

The pressure became suddenly unbearable, flaring into sharp pain that was gone as quickly as it came, to be replaced by a wonderful glowing warmth. The movement came to her easily, instinctively, lifting her hips in a rhythm as old as time. She heard the rasp of Logan’s breath in her ears but was unaware that the moaning sound accompanying was coming from her own lips. There was a moment of pure ecstasy when she thought she must have died and gone straight to heaven, then everything dissolved into nothingness.

How long the two of them lay, Caryn had no clear idea. She came back to earth to find herself gazing into an evening-misted sky, aware of the weight and warmth holding her down, and of her spreadeagled lower limbs.

They were still joined as one, she realised, although the pressure had decreased to a point where the unity was more sensed than actually felt. She had done that to him, she thought exultantly. Like Cleopatra, she had given her man the ultimate pleasure of climactic fulfilment. She felt neither shame nor regret. At least not then. The wonder of it was all too devastatingly new for any opposing emotion to find purchase.

‘We belong together now,’ she whispered into the dark hair lying so close to her lips. ‘For always!’

For a brief moment there was no response—no movement at all from the man lying with head buried in her shoulder. When he did move it was abruptly, levering himself upright without looking at her directly, face taut and alien.

Too stunned to react, Caryn felt her skirt tossed over her legs as if to hide her nudity, and then he was gone from her line of vision altogether.

When she did finally raise herself up on her elbows, Logan was sitting with his back to her a few feet away, arms resting on bent knees, head lowered. He looked, Caryn thought, like a man with a great weight on his shoulders.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked hesitantly, still not wholly understanding the sudden change in him.

‘Get dressed,’ he said without lifting his head. His voice was rough.

She did so with hands gone suddenly nerveless, fastening the tiny buttons of her blouse with difficulty. Only when she stopped moving did Logan stir himself to turn and look at her. His expression was under strict control.

‘That should never have happened,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’m not making any excuses, because there aren’t any. You’re just a child, Caryn. I had no right to take that away from you.’

‘I’m not a child!’ She was eager to convince him of it, face lit by her turbulent inner emotions. ‘I love you, Logan. You only did what I wanted you to do—what all men and women in love do!’

‘You’re not a woman, and you’re not in love with me.’ The statement was bald, the tone curt. ‘Infatuated, perhaps, but that will pass. What happened just now…’ He paused, biting his lip. ‘I can only hope to God that there are no repercussions.’

‘It isn’t infatuation,’ Caryn protested, not fully registering the latter remark. ‘Do you think I don’t know the difference? I love you, Logan! I want us to be together always!’

‘It isn’t possible.’ He said it between gritted teeth, body taut as a bowstring. ‘You’re still at school, for one thing.’

‘I can leave. I hate it, anyway!’

‘No, you don’t,’ he returned. ‘You’re going to stay on and take your A levels, maybe go to university. You’ll probably fall in love more than once before you find the man you really want to spend the rest of your life with.’

‘I already found him,’ she insisted, refusing to be turned from what she knew to be the truth. ‘There’ll never be anyone else. I only want you!’

The skin about the strong mouth whitened as his teeth came sharply together. ‘But I don’t want you,’ he said. ‘Not any more. I can’t replace what you gave me, and I’m truly sorry about that, but it doesn’t make any difference. You’ve your whole life ahead of you. You’ll soon forget me.’

‘No, I won’t!’ She still couldn’t believe what he was telling her. Not after the way he had kissed her, caressed her, been a living part of her. He had to love her!

She caught at his arm as he began to rise, pulling with all her strength to restrain him. ‘You can’t just go. I won’t let you go!’

Features set, eyes like steel, he prised her fingers away from his sleeve and got up, leaving her sitting there in the sand with realisation finally coming over her like a heavy black cloud.

‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘I’ve left myself no choice. You won’t see me again unless…’ He broke off, jaw tensing, then turned away abruptly to make his way over to where the chestnut still stood patiently waiting.

Numbed throughout, Caryn watched him swing himself into the saddle and canter off without a backward glance. Only when horse and rider had dwindled to a mere speck in the distance did she finally find the strength of will to make her limbs move.

On her feet she felt sick and shaky and desperately unhappy. Logan didn’t love her; he had never loved her. It had all been a figment of her imagination.

But the feeling inside her was no figment. She felt violated, unclean. Never again, she vowed, would she allow a man to do that to her. She was finished with sex for ever!

It was only three days later that she heard of Logan’s sudden departure for Australia. Three days during which she hadn’t gone near the beach. From love, her emotions had turned to a hatred so intense it coloured her every waking moment.

The dawning realisation that she might turn out to be pregnant made her feel physically ill, the thought of having to tell her parents even more so. Luckily it was only a week before she received thankful proof that she was lucky this time, but the relief in no way tempered her feelings towards the man who had given her cause for such concern. Had he still been around, she would have found some way of paying him back for what he had done to her…

Which she would still if he made any attempt to come near her again, Caryn vowed to herself, returning to the present, although quite what, she wasn’t sure. She could hardly go and tell a dying woman just what kind of a louse her son was.

What she had to do was put the whole affair behind her and get on with her life. Logan Bannister wasn’t worth losing any sleep over.

CHAPTER TWO

SUNDAY was long and quiet. Restless still, Caryn took advantage of the continuing good weather to go for an afternoon stroll into town.

The sun had brought out the holidaymakers in force. For the first time in weeks the main beach was a scene of activity. Some hardy souls had even ventured into the sea, braving a water temperature that made Caryn shiver just thinking about it. She never attempted to swim in the sea before August even in a good season.

At four o’clock, having seen almost no one she knew, she set off to walk the couple of miles back home, not looking forward to the dull evening ahead. Her father was right, of course, she acknowledged wryly. She did spend far too much time on her own. The problem was finding someone she wanted to share that time with.

Apart from Jane, she didn’t have a lot in common with her contemporaries, who seemed to spend most of their time either visiting various public houses or attending discos where the loudness of the music drowned all attempts at conversation. Other than the cinema, or a trip to one of the Norwich theatres, that was about it, she supposed.

It had been different when she’d been going out with Michael Sinclair those few weeks. He had introduced her to another world. She had refused to see him again after Logan left, and had no idea at all of where he might be these days. Not that it mattered anyway.

Reaching the crossroads on the outskirts of the town proper, she took advantage of a gap in the traffic to save waiting for the green man to put in an appearance. A misjudgement, she realised immediately, hearing the sudden blare of a horn from a car that seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

Hurrying to get across, she stumbled on the kerb and almost fell her length, hitting one knee against the stone edge with sickening force as she went down. She was vaguely aware of hearing a car door slam, and then there were hands under her arms, lifting her back into her feet.

‘Thanks,’ she said wryly, trying to ignore the pain from her knee. ‘That was stupid of me.’

Her voice died in her throat as she turned her head to glance at her rescuer, the apologetic little smile freezing on her lips.

‘Yes, it was,’ agreed Logan briefly. ‘You gave yourself a nasty crack. How does it feel?’

‘It’s nothing,’ Caryn assured him, recovering her tongue if not her equilibrium. ‘I’m fine!’

‘I’m sure,’ he returned with satire. ‘You’d better get in the car and I’ll run you home.’

‘I said I’m all right!’ she snapped. ‘I don’t have far to go, in any case.’

‘St Albans, isn’t it? We have to pass the end of your road.’ His tone was unequivocal.

For the first time, Caryn became aware of the woman occupying the passenger seat of the silver blue Mercedes drawn into the roadside. Dark-haired like her son, Helen Bannister was well enough known by sight around the town, if not exactly on intimate terms with the general population. She was watching the scene now with a curious expression on a face that already showed signs of deterioration in health by its lack of colour and hollow cheeks.

‘I think you had better do as Logan says,’ she called through the opened window.

Logan settled the matter by taking Caryn’s arm in a firm grasp and propelling her over to the car, leaving her with no alternative, short of causing a scene, but to slide into the rear passenger seat when he opened the door for her.

‘Put the belt on,’ he instructed. ‘It might only be a few minutes’ ride, but better to be safe than sorry.’

Safe enough in body, perhaps, Caryn thought hollowly. Fate played some dirty tricks.

Seated right behind Logan as he put the car into motion again, she was too close for comfort. The crisp, clean line of his hair across the nape of his neck made her ache with the longing to reach out and touch. Nothing had changed. Not where her senses were concerned. Everything about him made her ache.

Helen Bannister half turned in her seat to offer a somewhat reticent smile. ‘Such a lovely day for a walk after all that rain!’

‘Yes, it is.’ Caryn could find nothing to add to the abrupt affirmative. None of this was Mrs Bannister’s fault, she reminded herself. The woman could have no idea of the underlying currents between her son and this stranger he had picked up from the roadside. So far as she was concerned, he was simply playing the Good Samaritan.

‘You must be in a lot of pain after a knock like that,’ continued the other. ‘Knees are always the worst places to injure.’

Caryn forced a smile of her own. ‘It really isn’t hurting very much at all,’ she lied. ‘It was my own fault anyway. I should have waited for the green light.’

Logan made no comment, but she could sense his glance through the driving mirror, imagine his sardonic expression. They were already approaching the turn-off from the main road. He took it without hesitation, as also the next turn into St Albans, drawing to a halt in front of the Gregory residence.

‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘Safe, if not exactly sound. You should get that knee seen to. You might have chipped the bone.’

‘I will,’ she affirmed, hoping no one happened to be looking out of the front windows at present. ‘Thank you for the lift.’

‘I’ll help you out,’ he said as she reached for the door-handle. ‘At the very least it will have stiffened up.’

He was right, Caryn discovered, biting off an exclamation as she moved her leg. Perhaps not chipped, but certainly badly bruised. Fortunately her job didn’t call for a lot of walking.

Logan came back to open the door and extend a hand. She took it with reluctance, relinquishing it again the moment she was out of the car and standing on the kerb. Turning her head, she directed a brief smile at the other occupant.

‘Goodbye—and thank you too.’

Mrs Bannister nodded but didn’t speak. She looked, Caryn thought fleetingly, as if she scarcely knew what to say.

Logan made no further attempt to touch her in any way. Wearing a soft leather jacket in light tan, and silky roll-necked sweater, he looked every inch the landed gentry. Only on the surface, though, she reminded herself. Underneath he was pure dross.

‘I need to talk to you,’ he said in low but urgent tones.

Body tensed, nerves stretched, she said jerkily, ‘I don’t think we have anything to talk about.’

‘Yes, we do.’ He paused, added with purpose, ‘You wouldn’t want me to come to the house, I assume?’

Her head lifted sharply. ‘No!’

‘Then meet me tonight on the beach. Seven o’clock. Same place.’

He was gone before she could say yea or nay, rounding the car bonnet to slide back behind the wheel. Mrs Bannister lifted a hand in farewell as the vehicle moved off.

Staring after it, Caryn wondered what on earth Logan could have to say to her that hadn’t already been said last night. Nothing she wanted to hear, at any rate, so he could wait in vain.

On the other hand, he might very well keep his threat to come to the house if she failed to keep the appointment, and how would she explain that to her parents? She had no choice but to go, regardless of how she might feel about it. He had made sure of that.

It was something of a relief to find that her arrival had gone unwitnessed. Her knee was painful, and as Logan had warned, already stiffening up, but she managed not to limp on her way upstairs to view the damage.

Just badly bruised, she judged from a cursory inspection. It would probably be black and blue by morning, so short skirts were definitely out. Fortunately, fashion didn’t dictate any particular length at present.

They ate at six, as they always did on a Sunday. Right up until ten to seven, Caryn was vacillating over keeping her appointment with Logan. She reached a final decision on the strength of curiosity alone—or so she told herself.

Her announcement that she was going for another walk drew no particular comment. Her mother was ensconced in front of the television for her favourite situation comedy show, her father was still engrossed in the Sunday newspapers—the two of them settled into comfortable middle-age. Nothing wrong with that, Caryn supposed, yet tonight it somehow seemed indicative of everything she didn’t want for herself. Life was for living, not stagnating. It was high time she gave some serious thought towards exchanging one for the other.

She was at the appointed place on the hour, to find the stretch of beach empty of all but the gulls. By ten past she had begun to think the whole thing had been Logan’s sick idea of a joke, although what possible entertainment he might get from that she couldn’t begin to imagine. She was on the verge of leaving when she saw horse and rider finally approaching.

Logan came up at a fast canter, drawing to a halt far enough away to avoid showering her with sand kicked up by the chestnut’s hooves.

‘Thanks for waiting,’ he said, dismounting. ‘I had a call from Australia.’

Caryn retained her seat on the ledge of sand as he moved towards her. ‘I only came because you made it impossible to refuse,’ she said stonily. ‘Not because I want to be here. Just say what you have to say.’

He contemplated her in silence for a lengthy moment, eyes veiled. When he did speak it was with an odd note in his voice. ‘I need to know how you really feel about me now, Caryn.’

The question dried her throat. She gazed at him with darkened eyes, fighting the almost overwhelming urge to jump up and rake her nails down that lean brown cheek. ‘How would you expect me to feel?’ she got out with an effort

His smile was wry. ‘What I’d expect and what I can hope for are two different things.’

Her voice seemed to be coming from a long way away. ‘So what do you hope for?’

‘That you’ll be prepared to marry me,’ he said.

This couldn’t be for real, she thought dazedly. He was making fun of her. He had to be!

‘Don’t look so stricken,’ he said on a dry note. ‘All I’m asking for is a simple yes or no.’

‘All?’ She drew in a shaky breath. ‘I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing, but you’re not doing it with me!’

He caught her arm as she began to turn away, pulling her back round to face him and holding her there, a look of determination on his face. ‘It’s no game, believe me. I need you, Caryn.’

Need, not love, a part of her mind registered, but the shock was still too great to take any real account of the distinction.

‘I don’t understand,’ she managed to get out. ‘Why now?’

His lips twisted. ‘Because you’re eighteen, not sixteen. Old enough to know your own mind.’

Eyes wide and dark, she gazed at him in silence as she grappled with the implications of that statement. When she did find her voice it came out low and husky. ‘Are you trying to tell me you felt the same way two years ago?’

‘Why else do you think I went away?’ he asked. ‘You were sixteen, I was thirty-one. I doubt if your parents would have sanctioned marriage between us—whatever the circumstances.’

He was right about that, Caryn knew. They would have been utterly devastated had they been forced to learn of her premature initiation into womanhood, but there would have been no marriage. Not at sixteen. She searched the firm features with a sense almost of desperation, heart and mind in turmoil. Right at this moment she didn’t know how she felt about him—about anything. It was all too much to take in.

As if in recognition of her dilemma, he drew her to him, sliding a hand behind her head to tilt her face up to his. The kiss moved her immeasurably in its gentle yet inexorable seeking. She found her arms moving of their own accord up about his neck, her whole body surging into closer proximity. There had never been anyone else who could make her feel this way—as if fireworks had been lit inside her. She wanted him to go on kissing her, to make love to her, to lift her to that seventh heaven she had experienced so briefly yet never once forgotten.

It was Logan himself who brought matters to a halt by putting her firmly, if with reluctance, away from him. He was smiling, eyes fired with a desire he made no effort to conceal.

‘Still the same lovely, warm, responsive Caryn,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve dreamed about making love to you again, but it isn’t going to happen like this. We have a lot to talk about first.’

Still held fast in the grip of her turbulent emotions, Caryn allowed herself to be drawn to a seat on the wedge of sand she had so recently vacated. Logan kept an arm lightly about her shoulders.

‘Before we go any further,’ he said, ‘I have to tell you that my mother knows the whole story, and has done from the start. She kept an eye on you for me. If there had been any hint at all of a pregnancy, I would have come back and faced up to it, but going away seemed the best thing for us both at the time.’

Caryn said slowly, ‘Does she know about… now?’

‘Yes.’

‘And approves?’

‘Yes,’ he said again, and hesitated a moment before continuing, ‘She’s the main reason I’m not prepared to spend too much time rebuilding a relationship between us. It’s her dearest wish to see me happily married.’ There was a pause, a change of tone. ‘You are going to marry me, aren’t you, Caryn?’

‘It’s all so sudden,’ she protested. ‘I can’t take it in.’ She could feel herself trembling as reaction began to set in. ‘You didn’t attempt to see me last year when your father died.’

‘I dared not let myself. I was only here a few days, anyway.’ He brought up his other hand to trace the line of her mouth with the tip of a finger, making her tremble with another, quite different emotion. ‘You told me once that you loved me,’ he said softly. ‘Does that still follow?’

Caryn was hard put to it to think of anything other than what he was doing to her with that slow caress. She caught at his hand, staying the movement yet not pulling away. ‘We hardly know one another,’ she whispered. ‘Not in any real sense.’

‘We know how we feel,’ he returned. ‘That’s the most important.’

Caryn wasn’t sure. She felt totally confused. For this to happen after two years of hatred was beyond all reason. How could she even begin to sort out her emotions?

‘Does your mother really consider me the kind of wife you should have?’ she asked. ‘There must be others far more suitable.’

‘Suitable to whom, and for what?’ Logan queried. ‘If I’m going to take a wife at all, then it has to be my choice.’

He studied her for a brief moment, then tilted her chin and kissed her again, this time with less restraint, parting her lips in surging response. Caryn didn’t try to think, only to feel—the way she had always felt about this man deep down in her heart. He had been her first love; she wanted him to be her only love. Nothing else seemed important right now but that.

‘I take it the answer is yes,’ he said with a touch of arrogance when he lifted his head at last. ‘It must be soon. There isn’t a lot of time left.’

‘It can’t be that soon.’ She was breathless, heart racing, mind in a whirl. ‘What do I tell my parents?’

‘The truth, up to a point,’ he suggested. ‘Just leave out the more intimate detail. They’ll surely understand the need for haste when they know about Mother.’

‘She won’t mind their knowing?’

‘Providing they keep it to themselves. The last thing she’d want is for the whole town to know.’ Logan took her hand, pressing the back of it to his lips in a gesture that warmed her all the way through. ‘You’re of age. It’s your decision, not theirs. Your life.’ His smile was an inducement in itself. ‘You won’t regret it, Caryn. I’ll make sure you don’t.’