Runaway Sister Read Free Page A

load of rubbish you do talk,” replied John. “You know perfectly well I shouldn’t have taken you if I hadn’t wanted to, so stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
    Samantha craned her head to look past Jennie at him in surprise. “You’re the second person to tell me that today,” she said. “Only you’ve been more polite about it.”
    â€œOh, really?” said Jennie, curiosity in her voice. “Who was the other sensible person?”
    â€œMr. High-and-Mighty Adam Shaw,” replied Samantha curtly, “and I told him to mind his own business!”
    Jennie laughed, “I can imagine that went down like a lead balloon!”
    Samantha didn’t reply. Her mind was retracing the heated exchange of words she had had with Adam Shaw; the more she thought about it, the more she thought what a colossal nerve he had. It was no business of his whatsoever, in fact when she came to think of it again, his very first remark about her rearing a family of her own had been a cheek! She wondered if he took such an inquisitive interest in everybody else’s affairs, although from his later remark about showing her what all-conquering passion was about, she couldn’t help suspecting that he was probably a male chauvinist pig who thought any woman’s problems could be put right by going to bed with a man!
    Samantha snorted to herself in disgust. Although she had been engaged to Steve for four years he had been the only man in her life. She had never been unfaithful to him, it wasn’t in her nature, and she wasn’t going to start being promiscuous now, just because she was alone. Although she knew this was a problem she would have to face, as Adam Shaw had so rightly said, nothing was private in a hospital. It was such a close, enclosed community that everyone knew everything about everyone else, particularly if they lived on the hospital site, and Samantha knew she would be fair game now for quite a few junior doctors who would think they could take over where Steve had left off. Well, she would have to scotch that idea well and truly as soon as possible. She had positively no intention of becoming romantically involved with anyone else for some time. Once bitten, twice shy, she meditated a trifle sourly.
    Perhaps Adam Shaw had been right about one thing, perhaps she had taken the easy way out with Steve. Now she would wait for that all-conquering passion, as he put it, to attract her to a man, but Samantha knew that for her it had to come hand in hand with a genuine love. The last thing she wanted was sex just for the sake of it.
    â€œPenny for your thoughts!” Jennie’s voice broke into her reverie.
    Samantha smiled wryly in the darkness of the car. “Oh, I was thinking I shall have to be wary of the hospital gigolos, now that I’m on my own.”
    Jennie snorted. “Send them away with a flea in their ears, then they won’t come back—that’s what I always do.”
    â€œYou weren’t very successful with me,” came John’s laughing remark.
    â€œYou’re not a gigolo, and never have been,” said Jennie severely, “otherwise you most certainly would have been sent off with a flea in your ear!”
    Samantha laughed. John and Jennie always bickered in a good-natured way. They were an ideally suited couple and she wondered why they had not married, as they had been going out with one another for over a year, but she had never liked to ask her friend such a personal question. She knew that if and when they made up their minds to marry, she would be one of the first to know.
    They arrived suddenly beside the canal and John parked the car underneath the overhanging trees. It was early spring, but the trees were already in quite heavy leaf, making the lane beside the canal dark and shadowy.
    â€œI wouldn’t fancy coming up here on my own,” remarked Jennie as they clambered out of the car. “Bit