Free Sweet Sanctuary by Charlotte Lamb Page A

Was the Nick who loved Sylvia this man now seated beside her? Was that the real man? Had his aunt lost contact with him while she sought comfort in her dream world at Sanctuary, caring for the animals she rescued because she could no longer cope with the realities of life with Nick?
    Kate had never been able to understand why the warm, amiable man who loved his aunt had fallen in love with so hard, so cold a creature as Sylvia.
    She had believed until now that the shell Nick assumed when he left Sanctuary was merely a discardable disguise. Now she wondered if, perhaps, the shell were not the real man and the man his aunt thought she knew were truly a disguise.
    She shook her head, grimacing. Her thoughts buzzed in her head like bees in a hollow tree.
    Nick laughed. She jumped and looked at him with wide eyes. He smiled at her, his face so warmly familiar that her heart leapt in relief and delight.
    "You looked so funny! You've been making the most amazing faces and mumbling away…"
    She was alarmed. "What did I say?"
    "No idea! It was quite incoherent. I thought you'd fallen asleep and I was going to shake you when I saw you shaking yourself." He grinned at her.
    "I was trying to work something out," she said evasively.
    "Money worries? Anything I can do to help?" He was instantly alert, his eyes concerned.
    She shook her head. "Nothing like that."
    "Like to tell me about it?"
    "Thank you, but it wasn't really that sort of problem."
    He shot her a sideways glance. "You…you haven't been worrying about us, have you?" He was flushed suddenly. He turned his head back and stared ahead into the dusk. "I mean, I hope I didn't upset you when I kissed you. I lost my temper. I meant to apologise before, but I couldn't get round to it."
    "It didn't bother me at all," she said in a manner meant to sound lightly casual, but which came out somehow rather snubbing.
    Nick laughed again, but harshly. "I'm glad."
    He did not sound glad, she noted unhappily. He sounded… But she turned away from the thought as from, something that hurt.
    "All the same," he went on after a moment, "you must take what I said about Jimmy seriously. I did mean that."
    Yes, she thought, you meant
that
. But you didn't mean that kiss, the kiss so stupidly given and so irrevocably received.
    "Do you hear me, Kate?" He looked at her angrily, frowning. "Jimmy is a flirt. You seem to get on well with Helen. She knows Jimmy only too well. Ask her if you don't believe me."
    "I don't need to do that," she said quietly. She had already recognised Jimmy. Flirts were not that hard to recognise, even for someone as inexperienced as herself. She had not been prepared to listen to Nick, that was all. She had not wanted him to lecture her as though… as though she were a
child
. That had been the painful point. Who wants to be considered a child when they are fully aware of their womanhood?
    Nick had misunderstood her, however. His face darkened again. "You don't need to? Of course, I forgot how much you want experience! I only hope you won't have to pay too highly for it. Nothing is cheap today, you know."
    The harshness of his tone was bitter to her. She did not answer him. It hurt too much to quarrel with him.
    After a moment he sighed. "I really don't know what's wrong with me! I seem to be turning into a surly bear. I'm sorry, Kate. I meant well."
    "I know," she whispered, smiling without looking at him.
    "Pax?"
    She smiled and nodded. "Pax."
    He took one hand off the wheel and briefly touched her hands where they lay in her lap. The contact sent an electric shock up her arm to her heart. Never in her life before had she been so aware of the effect emotion can have on the body. Her mind and her body had been separate until now. Suddenly every tiny emotion caused a reaction physically. She was conscious of every pulse in her body, every nerve-end, every beat of her heart. She was even more conscious of Nicholas. His separate intake of breath, his tiny movements, reacted in