Her Nine Month Confession. Kim Lawrence

taker—well, only once!

      Seeing the shore through a watery haze and pretty much spent, Lily paused and, holding her chin up, felt for the sandy bottom, acknowledging the toe contact with a sigh of relief. She bounced along for a few feet, spitting out water before she could place her feet flat on the sand. With the water at shoulder level she walked her way down to waist level, aware as she did so that she wasn’t alone. There was a figure on the beach.

      She assumed it was one of her fellow guests. This stretch of beach, though not private but because of its remote inaccessibility, was used almost exclusively by the guests at the beach resort. Lily lifted one hand in greeting while she pushed her wet hair back from her face with the other and blinked away the water from her eyelashes.

      Then her vision cleared.

      For a moment shock wiped her mind as she refused to accept what she was seeing. Her heart thudding with adrenaline-fuelled speed, she closed her eyes, wiped away the moisture with her hand and opened them again.

      He was still there, the man in the incongruous dark suit, tall, dark and terrifying familiar. He returned her stare with incredible eyes, the colour rare but not unique—she saw that colour every day.

      The last time she’d looked into those eyes she had melted. She didn’t melt now, she froze. Every muscle and nerve fibre went into shock. Her brain shut down, a protective response to a situation where she had no other defences to fall back on.