The Tender Years Read Free Page A

as was to be expected with a newly engaged couple.
    ‘A table in the comer,’ from Luke who hadn’t booked because he’d made up his mind on the spur of the moment. ‘And we’ll have a drink first, in the restaurant.’
    ‘The lounge is crowded,’ observed Christine. ‘So I’m glad we’re having our aperitifs at the table.’ She was fighting to put her disappointment from her mind, and fighting also to put Steve from her mind. She hadn’t yet thought of what she was going to feel like at the wedding; she dared not.
    Luke’s gaze was perceptive and faintly troubled. ‘I think it will be a good thing for all of us when this wedding is over and the couple have gone from Pirates’ Cay for good.’
    Silence. The wine waiter arrived and Luke ordered a martini for Christine. Her feelings were mixed regarding Steve’s decision to live in Nassau.
    ‘With lemonade,’ he added and ordered a double whisky for himself.
    ‘A double!’ blinked Christine. ‘You never have a double. In fact, you don’t often have whisky at all.’ ‘Today, my child, I feel the need of that particular kind of sustenance.’
    ‘Why?’ she asked briefly. Had his love affair of which Greta had spoken gone wrong?
    ‘If you don’t ask questions, Chris, you won’t be told any lies.’ With a hand lifted to suppress a yawn, Luke picked up a menu and began perusing it. Christine frowned darkly at him, wondering greatly at his mood. Morose? Mentally she shook her head; Luke was never morose. He had a logical and set approach to life, taking whatever came along and putting it down to fate. She could never imagine him straining at the reins, becoming discontented with his lot. And yet.... Of late he had given the impression of some underlying yearning, some almost desperate reaching out for something just beyond his range. She looked at his face again, as he read the menu, noticing the firm and noble thrust of the chin and matching strength of the jaw; the mouth was full and, she realised with a little shock of surprise, had an element of sensuality about it she had never seen before, or ever expected to see. It was tight suddenly as she watched. What thought had come to him in this instant? she wondered, and unwanted colour filtered into her cheeks as he glanced up from under dark lashes any girl would give a great deal to possess. He had caught her unawares, caught her doing . . . what? His lashes flickered with the movement of his tawny eyes and she lowered hers swiftly, for there was some emotion within her rising for him to read if he had the smallest chance to do so. What was this quivering so close to her heart?
    ‘What were you thinking just now?’ he asked, lowering the menu but holding it open in both hands. She noticed his fingers, long and lean yet sensitive, like those of a pianist. She knew their strength because he used to lift her and toss her into the air, then catch her, saying she was little more than a doll. Eleven, then twelve . . . and then her teens and the beginning of real pleasure and pain, the ability to suffer, to be happy beyond words, to laugh or cry . . . no wonder Luke said she was volatile. Sixteen and Luke coming and going in her life as he had done for five years but now he had begun to treat her as an adult and she liked it. He had taken her out in his yacht, taken her to Nassau with him on three occasions, with the casual permission of her uncle and the more reluctant agreement of her aunt. Sometimes Christine wondered if her adoptive mother disliked Luke. As for Greta’s opinion of him . . . she said little but looks spoke volumes. Nevertheless, she managed with her innate charm to attract and although Christine felt sure Luke had never had a crush on Greta, he had never once, by word or glance, shown anything but amicability. Christine rather thought his attitude towards her would have been one of indifference had it not been for his friendship with her father.
    It had begun when Luke’s father had