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wary distance to. Life was an adventure—or at least it should be. Her eyes began to sparkle. Who knew, she might even get the opportunity to even the score a bit for her sweet vulnerable little stepgrandmamma and put some of those powerful lordly Crightons in their place. Now that was a challenge she would accept with relish!
    NICK CRIGHTON stifled a small sigh. It had been very kind of his brother Saul and his wife Tullah to offer him a room in their home to recuperate in following the injuries he had sustained whilst visiting one of his clients who was incarcerated in a Thai jail.
    Another inmate had attacked Nick's client in a drug-crazed frenzy and when Nick had gone to help him, he had ended up being knifed.
    Luckily the knife had missed all his major internal organs, even if his recovery was taking longer than expected thanks to an infection that had developed in the site of the wound. That had cleared up now but he had been told by his doctor to take things easy until the wound had completely healed.
    Yes, it was kind of Saul and Tullah to insist that he stay with them, but the truth was that he was beginning to get rather bored by all the cosseting he was receiving.
    He was a grown man, after all, a man used to spending his spare time on the outdoor pursuits he enjoyed: rock climbing and sailing, white water rafting...
    anything with just that little touch of exhilaration and excitement about it—not that he ever took foolhardy or dangerous risks.... Well, not often!
    The last time he had had a medical check-up he had tried to persuade his doctor that he was well enough to return to work. After all, as a lawyer he was hardly likely to be overtaxing himself physically he had suggested slyly to his GP.
    'Mmm...I take your point,' the other man had agreed. 'Sitting at an office desk or even standing in court certainly aren't going to do you too much harm now that the wound has actually started to heal....'
    'Great! So I can go back to work then?' he had pounced eagerly.
    'Don't be so ridiculous, Nick,' the doctor had refused affably. 'You may be a lawyer but I happen to know that your job is very much a hands-on affair.
    You run a business that involves taking the kinds of risks that no sane man with a healthy respect for his own physical safety would ever take.'
    Nick had shrugged, knowing that there was nothing he could say. His work as a negotiator for people caught up in the legal systems of other countries often took him into situations that were physically dangerous. It hadn't been unknown for him when dealing with a particularly corrupt government to bribe his
    'client' out of gaol and then have to make a quick and sometimes dangerous getaway over the border with him or her.

    As a newly qualified solicitor he had volunteered to help the parents of a university friend to make an ap-plication to a far Eastern government for their daughter to be released from prison where she was being held on drug smuggling charges.
    After he had successfully won the case he had been besieged by other parents requesting his help with similar cases.
    It appalled Nick that even now when surely the most naive of travellers must be aware of the dangers, young people, especially young girls, fell into the trap of allowing themselves to be used—sometimes knowingly but more often than not as mules—by drug traf-fickers.
    He did other work, of course, as a locum which allowed him plenty of time to travel. Work to Nick was a means to an end, not an end in itself.
    'I've booked us a table at the Sorters' new restaurant for tonight,' Tullah had announced this morning over breakfast. 'They've got their Michelin now and I must say I'm looking forward to sampling their latest menu. You'll enjoy it, Nick.'
    Well, yes, he would enjoy it, but...but what he was hankering after right now was something a little bit more adventurous than domesticity of the type enjoyed by his brother Saul and his wife and family. It was all very well...all very