'It's a rule that children of Timmy's age don't go on trail-rides.' Virginia's voice was icy, and Alison sensed that she was restraining herself, that if it were not for the little boy's presence in the room she would be saying a lot more.'I know that,' said Alison. 'The thing is, I think an older child would have been thrown too, in the circumstances.'
'An older child is stronger and more competent.'
'Timmy is competent. I wish I could make you understand, Virginia. You see...'
'I understand that you decided to do what you wanted. This camp has been one of our best—no accidents, no mishaps of any kind, a spotless record until now. And with three days to go you've ruined it! All along, you and Timmy...' Virginia glanced at the boy and stopped. Perhaps she realised that she had already said too much in his presence.
'Instead of going on with this discussion,' Clint put in briskly, 'let's get Timmy seen to. Come on, old fellow.'
So saying, he lifted the little boy in his arms and walked out of the sick-bay. Alison followed them, hungering for a tender look, some comforting word.
But at the car she felt suddenly helpless. She looked at Clint, then at Virginia beside him. In the end, all she could do was give Timmy a quick, reassuring hug.
To Clint, there was nothing she could say.
CHAPTER TEN
THE NEXT few hours were the unhappiest Alison had spent at Bushveld. Her thoughts kept going to Timmy. Although she knew that the accident could have happened to anyone, still she blamed herself for it. If only she had remained steadfast in the face of the little boy's pleading, nothing would have happened to him. The fact that it was his recently injured leg which he had fallen on was a particular cause for anxiety.
If only Clint would phone and let her know about the child! But the hours passed, and by the time the evening braaivleis had ended, and campers and counsellors had retired to their cabins, there had still been no word from him. It occurred to her that when Clint did get back, he would probably go straight to his cabin, and she would have to wait until morning to find out about Timmy.
It was quite late when there was a knock at Alison's door. She ran to open it.
'Clint! Oh, Clint, I didn't think you'd still be coming!' she exclaimed.
He stood still a moment, taking in her distraught expression. Something moved in his eyes, but she was in no state to notice it.
Then he said, 'Why not, Alison? I told you this morning that I'd come.'
'Yes, I know. But that was before... Clint, how's Timmy? Where is he?'
'He's fine.' Incredibly, he was smiling. 'He's gone to bed. We got back to camp about fifteen minutes ago, and I've just left him in his cabin. He's probably asleep by now.'
'Oh, Clint...' Alison felt weak with relief, 'I've been so anxious!'
'I knew you would be. I tried several times to phone you from town, but for some reason I couldn't get through to Bushveld. And on the road coming back we only passed one phone-booth, and the phone was out of order.'
Alison pushed a hand through her hair. 'I didn't know what to think... I was sure something really dreadful had happened to Timmy.'
'No, Alison, he's fine.'
'Virginia was right, I suppose,' she said ruefully. 'I shouldn't have let Timmy ride.'
Clint smiled his wonderful devil-may-care smile that Alison had thought never to see again. 'You gave that young man his best day at camp,' he told her.
Alison drew in her breath. 'Really?'
'Really.' Clint was laughing as he dropped his long body into a chair, and motioned to Alison. 'Come and sit on my lap while I tell you about it.'
There was nothing she wanted more.
For as long as she could she sat quite still, savouring the hardness of his thighs beneath her, the strength of the arms that circled her, feeling the beat of his heart against her chest, her own heart beating faster when his lips moved in her hair.
She didn't feel like talking, but there were things she had to know. 'Tell me about Timmy,' she invited.
'Because of the previous injury, the doctor sent us to the nearest hospital for X-rays. You'll be glad to know the leg was just bruised.'
Alison expelled a tense breath. 'Oh, thank God! You don't know how I worried. I kept blaming myself.'
'Needlessly. It was in fact a freak accident. There are snakes in the veld, and they scare the hell out of the horses. It could have happened to anyone.'
Alison tilted her head back to look at him. 'That's not what you said this morning. Actually, you didn't say anything—you just looked so grim. Why didn't you stand up for me, Clint?'
'Put yourself in my position, darling,' he said, and tucked her head firmly back where it belonged against his shoulder. 'I was as worried as you were about Timmy. I knew we had to get him to a doctor. And you'd deliberately gone against Virginia.' She felt the laughter bubbling in his throat as he added, 'Again.'
'So you do think I was wrong...'
'I don't.'
'Are you saying I was right!'
'Not entirely.' Clint was laughing again. 'You were wrong to break a rule of the camp.'
'But?' She could hear that there was a 'but' in it somewhere.
'You did the right thing for Timmy. Guess what his first words were when we left the hospital? He wanted to know if he could ride again tomorrow. He said the trail-ride was the best thing that had happened to him in camp. You gave that little boy the happiest time he's had since the motor accident.'
'Then you don't mind that I defied Virginia?'
'I suppose I wish it hadn't been necessary.' He put a hand through her tumbled hair, stroking it away from her forehead. 'I wish you and Virginia had the same way of looking at things, but you don't. You explained it to me yourself after one of your set-tos. Virginia is methodical and efficient; she lives by learned theories and concepts. You let your emotions rule your head every time.'
'And break all the rules in doing so.'
'Yes. But then, some rules deserve to be broken. For Timmy, your way has been the better one all along.'
She snuggled closer against him. 'I want to see him,' she said.
'Tomorrow.' Clint's voice had changed. When he spoke again, there was a new tone in his voice. 'When you saw me tonight, you seemed surprised.'
'Yes...'
'Why, Alison?'
'I didn't think you'd come,' she confessed.
'Why not?'
He sounded so serious all at once that she was bewildered. 'I've already told you the reason.'
'I want to hear it again.
'Things had changed. There was Timmy—the accident ... You seemed so angry with me.'
'People do get angry, Alison. Even people who mean a great deal to each other. It's the way life is. But anger doesn't have to change the things that matter.'
'Maybe not,' she sighed.
'I was angry the night I came to your cabin and found you'd gone to Brian's party. But we got over that.'
Something was tightening inside her. 'You're trying to tell me something.'
'It's true I was upset about Timmy. But it didn't change what you and I have together, Alison.'
What do we have? I love you. But do you feel anything more than physical desire for me? she thought.
'I didn't know what to expect,' she admitted.
'You were thinking of Raymond.'
'Yes.' She swallowed hard on a throat that was suddenly dry. 'It's true I was thinking of him. Things went wrong after we argued, after he was angry.'
'I believe things went wrong long before that,' Clint said quietly. 'I believe Raymond realised before you did that what you had all along was a sister-brother relationship.'
'You could be right.' Alison was on the verge of tears.
'The way Raymond went about things was wrong,' Clint went on. 'He should have told you about his feelings—about Edna. But maybe he didn't have the courage to tell you.'
Her lips quivered. 'Do we have to talk about Raymond now?'
'Yes. Because you have
to understand that I'm not Raymond. Don't you know that yet, Alison?'
'I think I do.' Her voice was choked.
'Well, that's good.' His voice changed. 'Do you know we're talking a darn sight too much? That's not what I came here for.'
The words sent a hot current of feeling rushing through her. Putting her arm around his neck, she whispered, 'Kiss me, Clint.'
He made a sound in his throat. 'What do you think I've been wanting to do ever since I left you this morning?'
Their first kisses were as tantalising as always—playful stroking around the corners of lips, a nibbling of ear- lobes, playful but intoxicating, kindling the desire for much more.
But within minutes the tenor of their kisses began to change. There was passion in their lips now, hunger and possessiveness, and the need to explore the sweetness of each other's mouths. There was a fiercely joyous meeting of lips and tongues and teeth, while at the same time their hands began to move over each other.
'You're so lovely,' Clint said once, when they drew apart to take breath.
'Am I?' Alison wanted to hear him say it—as often as possible.
'The loveliest thing that ever happened to me. Beautiful, sexy, desirable—you're all those things, Alison.'
'You're lovely, too.' It was as much as she had ever allowed herself to say. Pushing her fingers into the opening of his shirt, she slid her hands, flat-palmed, over his chest.
'Provocative as well!' His breath hissed in his throat, and his voice was ragged. 'A beautiful and provocative little siren, luring me the way the mermaids used to do.'
'Not the first time you've called me a mermaid. Where do I lure you to?' she asked against his lips.
'To the greatest joys, darling.'
Which was where he was taking her. As he pushed the pyjama top from her shoulders and began to make love to her breasts, touching and kissing alternately, her nipples hardened into his fingers, and she thought she would go crazy with pleasure.
Somehow Clint seemed to know all the most sensitive areas of her body. The little hollow at the base of her throat, the soft skin beneath her earlobes. The palms of her hands and the delicate soles of her feet. Teasing strokes of a rough tongue sent shudder after shudder through her system. She ached to have his lips return to hers, so that their kisses could be mutual ones.
At length, Alison could stand it no longer, and she buried her hands in his hair and guided his head back to her mouth. The warm hiss of his breath blew between her lips, then he was kissing her again—and she him— with all the passion that was in them both. There was a fierceness in their kisses, but a sweetness too, like nothing she had ever known, so that all she wanted was for the kissing to go on and on for ever.
She felt dizzy when Clint raised his head and looked down at her. And then he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. As if she were a bride being carried over the threshold, was her involuntary thought.
She began to tremble as he undressed her. Finally she was naked, and now it was his eyes that were making love to her body. There was something very akin to worship in them as they moved over her—over her soft breasts, the nipples pink and hard with desire, her hips, slender yet seductively rounded, and the long, shapely legs.
He removed his outer clothes, keeping on only his underwear as he lay down beside her on the bed. Their arms went around each other, each seeking to be as close to the other as possible. Long, hard male body against the soft female one, in a closeness that was such a heady onslaught on Alison's senses that her hunger, already intense, was fanned to a flame that was almost unbearable.
A small moan of pleasure escaped her as they lay facing each other, thigh to thigh and hip to hip, and began to kiss once more. Clint's hands were moving over her, shaping themselves to the soft mounds of her buttocks, then sliding between their two bodies to caress her nipples again.'I want so much to make love to you, Alison,' he said at last, his voice husky. 'Properly, the way a man makes love to a woman. But I don't know if you're ready for it.'
She couldn't have said why she was shy suddenly, so that she stiffened in his arms. Perhaps it was because she had never made love with a man, and, though she loved Clint and wanted him to make love to her, she felt suddenly tremulous. And so terribly vulnerable—for he had never said that he loved her. If he had, it might have been different.
The moment of indecision got through to him. 'You have to be ready for this,' he said raggedly. 'Otherwise there's no point.'
'Perhaps I am ready,' she whispered.
'You have to be sure.'
'Perhaps I am,' she said again.
'That's not good enough.'
'Clint...'
'It's important that there should be no regrets later.' With an obvious effort, he pushed himself away from her. 'God, Alison, you don't know what it does to me to leave you—but in the long run it's better for us both if I don't take what you're offering.'
Nerves raw, she watched him dress. She wanted to stop him, to draw him back to her, but some inner hesitation, even now, kept her lying where she was.
In the doorway, he stopped and looked back at her. 'When you're certain you're ready, tell me, darling. I'll be waiting for you.'
Alison lay for hours, just as he had left her, aching with the frustration of having been left unfulfilled, trying to ignore the pain that came with the knowledge that camp was ending and that she would not see him again after that.
She loved him so much. She had never dreamed that it was possible for her to love a man as much as she loved Clint. It was a love she had tried so hard to fight, but the battle had been unequal from the start. And he would never know it.
But he could! It was already morning when she sat up suddenly, struck by an electrifying thought.
'When you're certain you're ready, tell me,' he'd said.
Well, she was ready to make love with Clint, and she would tell him so. They could make love tonight—one glorious night that she would always have to remember. She would tell him also that she loved him. She had reached the point where she had nothing to lose.
Eagerly, Alison jumped out of bed. After showering, she pulled on the first clothes in sight. She was on her way to Clint's cabin when Brian stopped her with a question. She was walking further when Virginia appeared with an order. Alison answered politely, concealing her impatience.
And then Clint himself came out of his cabin, only to be waylaid by a group of campers. Alison pushed a hand through her hair and smiled wryly.
Things were going to be hectic today, for the campers were leaving. By tonight, only the counsellors would be left. They were going to the hotel to dine and dance and have a farewell party. By tomorrow, most of them would be gone. Alison would have to wait until after the party for her chance to be alone with Clint.
The day got off to a hectic start. With seventy children packing their things and getting ready to go, the counsellors were kept busy. The older campers were able to do their own packing, the younger children had to be helped. Inevitably, possessions were missing and had to be found. New arrangements had to be made. Even with Virginia's expert organisation, there was a lot to do.
There was a flurry of goodbyes. Addresses were being exchanged. Arrangements were being made for reunions. Some of the campers were going home by train, many were being fetched by their parents.
Towards midday, a car carrying Timmy's parents, and C driven by Timmy's uncle, Joe Roscoe, arrived. Timmy had no idea that they were coming, for until the last minute it had not been certain whether his father would be out of hospital in time, and everyone had agreed that it would be a terrible thing for the little boy to be disappointed.
Clint stood talking to the Roscoes while Alison went to call Timmy.
Timmy saw his uncle's car and was going towards it, when suddenly he stopped still. His body went quite rigid, only to begin shuddering a few moments later. Beneath his tan his little face went deathly pale. Watching him, Alison tensed, ready to catch him if he fainted.
/> Instead he let out a great whooping shout, and then he was running headlong towards his parents, hurtling into their bodies as their arms went around him.
As Timmy started his dash, Alison and Clint moved away from the emotional little group, allowing them to be alone in their reunion.
But a while later Timmy came to Alison. 'Come meet my mum and dad,' he beamed proudly.
'I'd like that very much,' she smiled at him. She was going to miss Timmy.
'So you're Alison. We've heard so much about you in Timmy's letters,' his mother said. She was a slender, pretty woman, with Timmy's smile and eyes.
'Timmy looks wonderful,' said his father, and Alison glimpsed tears in his eyes. Mr Roscoe had been out of hospital only three days, and evidently the reunion with his son had been very emotional for him.
'We were so worried about our son,' Mrs Roscoe told her. 'Timmy really didn't want to go to camp. He was nervous about leaving home to begin with, and then came the accident, and he was so badly shaken by that. And now here he is—so strong and happy. I can't believe it. It's like a miracle!'
'A miracle that Alison must take complete credit for.' Clint, who was back on the scene and had heard the conversation, put a casual arm around her shoulders. 'Timmy's recovery is entirely due to Alison, Mrs Roscoe. We all did our best with him, but Alison was the one who knew what was right for him all along.'
A warm glow spread through Alison's body at Clint's words of praise. It was one thing for her to know that she'd made Timmy happy, another for Clint to acknowledge it publicly.
'I even went on a trail-ride,' Timmy babbled excitedly. 'Can I go to camp again next year, Mom? Dad? And can I go on another trail-ride then, Alison?'
'Timmy, darling, you haven't even asked Alison'if she'll be here next year,' his mother protested.
The hand around Alison's shoulder tightened as Clint said, 'She'll be here.'
Alison's eyes flew to his. She would have liked to ask him how he could so confidently predict where she would be a year from now, when she didn't know the answer to that one herself. But there was the strangest look in his eyes, so that she did not ask the question. In front of the Roscoes, it was not the time for it anyway.
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