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“Exactly how do you feel, Maggie?”
Slane’s mouth lowered to brush softly against hers, crushing hungrily down as it met with not the slightest resistance.
It was like coming home, she thought incredulously as she lifted her arms and clung to him, her body rejoicing in the swift surge of desire it encountered in his with an abandon that brought a soft groan bursting from him.
Her impassioned reaction brought another groan—almost of pain—as he forced her away and held her at arm’s length.
“No,” he protested hoarsely. “This won’t work! We hardly know any more about one another than we did last time.”
KATE PROCTOR is part Irish and part Welsh, though she spent most of her childhood in England and several years of her adult life in Central Africa. Now divorced, she lives just outside London with her two cats, Florence and Minnie (presented to her by her two daughters who live fairly close by).
Having given up her career as a teacher on her return to England, Kate now devotes most of her time to writing. Her hobbies include crossword puzzles, bridge and, at the moment, learning Spanish.
A Past To Deny
Kate Proctor
MAGGIE WALLACE sat cross-legged on the bed, haphazardly drying her hair. Cocooned in the luxury of Professor Connor Fitzpatrick’s elegant Dublin home, she gazed through the rain-splattered window into the stormy darkness beyond with cosy contentment.
It was a shame that her stay had to coincide with the Prof’s trip to America, she reflected lazily, before giving a wry grin and deciding that it was probably just as well, given their shared penchant for staying up half the night, chatting.
The smile abruptly left her attractive features as she remembered the state in which she had been when the Prof had rung her, announcing a problem that had cropped up which he’d hoped she would help him solve.
Once again, albeit unknowingly, the Prof had come to her rescue, she mused despondently, then gave an angry shake of her head. No, she didn’t need rescuing any more, she told herself firmly, leaning forward and sweeping her shoulder-length dark blonde hair up over her face. She switched the hair-dryer up a notch and dried off the damp underneath parts, but the unsettling thoughts lingered on.
All right, so it had taken far too long, she argued defensively, but she had already begun looking to the future before Peter had turned up out of the blue and momentarily knocked her tentative reawakening sideways. And the fact was that it had actually proved to be a blessing in disguise in that now she could feel the future beckoning her with added strength.
Maggie switched off the hair-dryer and groaned at the distant sound of the telephone ringing. In a house this size any normal person would have at least a couple of extensions, she grumbled to herself as she flew down the stairs to the study, but not the Prof—with his negative attitude to telephones, it was a wonder he actually had one at all.
‘Connor, I hope your ears are burning!’ she exclaimed when she heard the soft tones of the distinguished Irish academic greet her. ‘I nearly broke my neck getting down the stairs to answer this.’
‘The exercise will do you good, darling,’ he chuckled. ‘So tell me, has the lad arrived?’
‘Lad?’ queried Maggie. ‘If you mean the Fitzpatrick Consolidated chemist, he hasn’t contacted me yet.’
‘No—Slane. I could wring that young devil’s neck,’ complained Connor. ‘The one time I’m in his part of the world he takes off for Dublin.’
‘Slane? I take it we’re talking the Yankee Fitzpatrick Slane?’ Maggie drew the receiver back from her ear as a roar of laughter assaulted it from across the Atlantic.
‘The very one,’ chortled the professor. ‘My late cousin James’s boy, and not simply one of that filthy capitalist lot from the other side of the Atlantic I keep telling you about, but the numero uno Yankee Fitzpatrick.’
‘It would serve you right if they cut you off without a penny, the way you talk about them,’ laughed Maggie. Back when they had first met, and for no reason that she could really explain, she had been surprised to discover just how closely related the professor was to the powerful American family that owned Fitzpatrick Consolidated—one of the wealthiest and most commercially ruthless of the big American corporations.
‘Stop sidetracking me, girl,’ grumbled the professor, his aversion to the telephone beginning to assert itself. ‘The point is there’s been a change of plan—it’s Cousin Slane you’ll be assistant to for the tests and—’
‘Connor, I hope you’re joking!’ exclaimed Maggie, her alarm sensors shrieking into overdrive. ‘You told me this would be an opportunity for me to take a couple of weeks to brush up on my rusty lab technique, not that I’d be involved in something so important that the big boss of Fitzpatrick Con—’
‘Maggie, you’ll be dissecting a few plants, damn it,’ cut in Connor. Then he added with a sigh, ‘I suppose, now that I think on it, I’m not at all surprised young Slane’s decided to get involved…And there’s also the fact that it gives him an excuse to return to Ireland, which—’
‘Why would he need an excuse?’