The Shining Of Love

She frowned over his reaction to her. Why would such a man even bother to show an interest, let alone feel one? It wasn’t as though she was strikingly attractive.

She had a slim, trim figure nicely proportioned to her average height, but it was hardly spectacular. She was lucky with the natural wave of her hair, and her eyes were certainly attractive in shape and colour. She wished her nose wasn’t tip tilted, since it always caught the sun if she didn’t wear a hat, and she would have preferred not to have a dimple in her chin. But she counted herself passably pretty. More than passably compared to most of the young women who populated Alice Springs.

She had no doubt Leith Carew could choose from the cream of society in more than this continent, and in such a wide field of beautifully polished and sophisticated women, Suzanne felt sure she would be quite ordinary.

Perhaps, for him, she had simply been an on-the-spot diversion from burdens that were weighing too heavily on him. She wished he hadn’t reacted like that. It had made her feel wrong instead of...

Instead of what?

Suzanne shook her head in vexation. Forget it, she sternly told herself. It couldn’t have been important. And Leith Carew would soon go back to his own world, which was a long, long way from hers.

She immersed herself in paperwork, not looking up from her desk until a knock came on her door. Brendan, she thought, but it was Leith Carew who stepped into her office.

Again Suzanne was gripped by a sense of something meaningful that went beyond any logical reasoning. It ran through her mind that this man had a part to play in her life or she had a part to play in his. Improbable as that was, the strange feeling could not be easily dismissed.

He closed the door behind him and stood in front of it for several moments, his eyes probing hers for answers he wanted or needed. There was a rigidity about his body that suggested he was holding a tight control over himself. He looked sick.

“I wondered—” he started forward as he spoke “—if you were free this evening. I’d like to have your company.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Carew. I’m not free,” Suzanne answered softly, realising the medical reports Brendan would have read to him must have conjured up images that would have been harrowing.

He picked up the solid glass paperweight from her desk, rolled it around in his hand, then gripped it hard as though he needed to hold onto something solid. His gaze slowly lifted to hers again, a compelling intensity in the dark green depths.

“I know we’ve barely met, but I feel you’re someone I can talk to. Be with. Won’t you give me your company for one evening? Help me forget...other things...for a while? There’s nothing for you to be wary of—” he winced “—unless being seen with me is too distasteful.”

“No, it’s not that,” Suzanne assured him gently. He was hurting badly, but she couldn’t give him the solace he was looking for. “I’m simply not free to be with you, Mr. Carew.”

He frowned. “Couldn’t you cancel whatever arrangements you’ve made? I’m only asking...”

“No. I’m sorry, but no,” Suzanne said firmly.

His face tightened. His mouth compressed in frustration with her outright rejection. The appeal in his eyes hardened to an arrogance that challenged her decision. “Tell me what arrangements you’ve made and I’ll speak to the person or persons concerned.”

He was not used to being refused. Suzanne offered him an ironic little smile. “You misunderstand me, Mr. Carew. I am not free. I have a husband. And you’ve just been speaking to him.”

He stared at her with a look of stunned disbelief. “You’re married...”

“To Dr. Forbes,” Suzanne finished for him with quiet dignity.

Leith Carew visibly shuddered. His gaze dropped to the paperweight in his hand. His fingers tightened around it, and from the way his knuckles gleamed white Suzanne thought he would have crushed the glass to powder if it was possible.

His tension stirred the same unease he had evoked earlier. Suzanne’s sympathy for him was stretched thin. Although his meeting with Brendan could never have pleasant associations for Leith Carew, surely he realised that was not Brendan’s fault. She resented the look of repugnance on his face.

“How long have you been married?” he suddenly shot at her.

Surprised by the question, she answered automatically. “Almost three years.”

“And the magic hasn’t worn off yet?”

The mockery in his voice suggested a soul-deep cynicism, and there was a flare of savagery in the eyes that slashed at hers. Suzanne recoiled both mentally and emotionally from all he was projecting at her, yet even as a cutting retort leapt to her tongue, she bit down on it. He was reacting like a wounded animal. She had disappointed him. It would be wrong to hit back at him for lashing out at her.

“Our marriage doesn’t depend on magic, Mr. Carew,” she said calmly, her eyes holding his with steady, heartfelt conviction. “It’s based on commitment to each other.”

“Till death do you part?”

“Yes. That’s how it is for Brendan and me.”

He challenged that contention for several angry moments before the feral glitter in his green eyes faded into a bleak sadness. He looked at the paperweight, then slowly replaced it on her desk.

“That’s how it was for Ilana and Hans,” he said with bitter irony.

“I’m sorry,” Suzanne murmured, compassion spearing through the turbulence he had stirred.

He gave her a twisted smile. “Forgive me for trespassing. And thank you for your time.”

He turned and walked to the door. Suzanne was riven by the sense of unfinished business between them, yet she knew she couldn’t answer the need that he had opened to her.

“Goodbye, Mr. Carew,” she said softly, hoping he would find solace for his pain with someone else.

“No. Not goodbye,” he rasped, then looked at her, his eyes burning with a conviction that defied barriers. “We’ll meet again, Suzanne Forbes. The timing isn’t right, here and now, but the day and the hour will come when it is.”

His words seemed to thump into her heart. He had felt it, too, she thought dazedly.

“Au revoir, Suzanne,” he said with very deliberate emphasis.

He closed the door on this encounter and walked out of her life. Until their paths crossed at another time and place. But when? And why? Suzanne wondered. Her hand reached out and picked up the solid glass paperweight. His fingers had dulled its natural gleam. It felt cold. She shivered and thrust it away from her.

I love Brendan, she thought fiercely. I’ll love him all my life. Leith Carew can’t change that. Nothing ever will.

A surge of totally irrational feeling made her snatch up the paperweight again and drop it into the bottom drawer of her desk. Out of sight.

CHAPTER TWO

THE PROBLEM of Leith Carew did not go away. Suzanne wished she had not met him. The memory of his powerful presence and personality kept sliding between her and Brendan, intruding on the natural intimacy they had built up between them.

Normally she talked to Brendan about everything of interest that happened at the clinic or the centre, but something held her back from relating the details of Leith Carew’s private visit to her. She even affected a disinterest in Brendan’s comments on the man, quickly turning the subject aside in favour of a less disturbing topic of conversation.

Rightly or wrongly, she felt Leith Carew was somehow a threat to the happiness of her marriage. He had left her with a sense of inevitability that could not be denied or repressed. The day and the hour would come when they would meet again. Suzanne was afraid of what it might mean to her, so she did her best to deny him any space in her life.

Three days after his visit to the medical centre, Leith Carew was on the evening news. His strong face leapt out at her from the television set, making her heart skip a beat. She could no longer view him as a two-dimensional person.

“I’ll start putting on dinner,” she said, leaving Brendan to watch the news alone while she raced off to the kitchen to busy herself with their evening meal.

He followed a few minutes later. “They’ve called off the search for Amy Bergen,” he said with a grimace that expressed his repugnance for any unnecessary loss of life.

“Why?” Suzanne cried in dismay. Her mind told her there had been no hope of survival for the little girl, yet as long as she wasn’t found, hope persisted anyway.

“They’ve recovered a piece of her clothing.”