Dangerous Obsession

by Patricia Wilson

  He was gently teasing, just as he could be at times, the Dan she had adored all her life; a great wave of happiness washed over her. It was impossible to continue being suspicious and cool when he was so good to her. She sighed deeply, a smile on her still pale face.

  'Are you going to enlighten me about that blissful sigh?' he enquired quietly.

  'It's sheer contentment!' she exclaimed, completely unguarded for the moment. 'I was thinking that ....'

  With a small shock she realized how unguarded she was. She had been about to blurt out her thoughts, tell him that she was happy for this little while. Perhaps when they reached Amara Cay there would be another woman there. Perhaps he lived with someone, as he had so readily asked if she lived with Bryan.

  'Yes?'

  'I wonder what they're all doing at home?' she murmured evasively, and Dan's smile became wry.

  'The sigh was a feeling of contentment that whatever they're doing, you aren't?' he asked drily.

  'I never told Bryan that I was leaving!' she said suddenly, the idea striking her guiltily. 'He'll be frantic.'

  'You can send a message when we land,' Dan assured her. 'As he was too busy to notice your slide into illness, he'll probably not even have discovered that you've gone.'

  'You don't understand about Bryan." Anna protested, realizing that she must keep up this pretence of a love-affair. After all, nothing had changed.

  She was simply daydreaming. The strain of the last few months had left her vulnerable, and she didn't want to fight Dan any more.

  His life didn't contain any room for her. Right now he was simply looking after her, feeling it to be a duty. It meant nothing more than that. He was treating her like a sister. If it had been Elaine, he would have done the same thing.

  'Understand? No, I don't!' he said, with a sort of quiet savagery that made her cringe.

  It was the end of their small time of contentment, and Anna stared down at the vision of enchantment on a turquoise sea, but now the happiness had gone, reality had taken its place. He had brought her here to get better. Whatever time there was would be brief. It had to be. She and Dan had nothing in common.

  Nassau was noisy and crowded and hot. The climate was in fact perfect, but after England and in her present state of health it was not long before Anna felt very jaded.

  'We'll get straight out to the island!' Dan said, after one all-encompassing look at her that took in her pale face and tired eyes.

  'I think I'll have to have my hair cut short,' she murmured, lifting it away from her neck fretfully.

  'Not at this moment,' he assured her. 'Give things a few days and you'll get quite used to any heat. You can braid it as you used to do.'

  'It's too heavy!' she complained stubbornly.

  'It's quite beautiful! If you have it cut off, you'll be sorry later, and it will be too late then. Drastic actions have a way of backfiring, and there's no going back.'

  His tone surprised her and she turned to look at him, but he was busy looking for a taxi and not paying any attention to her at all, his face back to the tension he had shown all the time.

  They were dropped at a quayside and the heat was not so bad there, with a breeze blowing off the sea. It was fascinating, too. Behind the quay was an outdoor market and boats were coming in even then from the islands with fruit, vegetables, conches, crab and lobsters. It was so colorful that Anna could have watched all day.

  They knew Dan too, calling out to him, laughing and joking, their dark faces beaming at Dan and turning enquiringly to Anna. Dan didn't enlighten anyone, and she felt guilty. They were probably used to seeing him here with Daphne, because why they were here soon became apparent.

  'Here we go!' Dan motioned her forward, the taxi driver carrying some of their bags, and they were soon stepping into a smart white launch moored at the quayside.

  Dan paid off the taxi driver and then settled Anna in the cabin below deck, sliding back the window and letting in the fresh breeze.

  'Sit here for a minute and recover. I'll not be long.' She watched anxiously, but he was just going to the market, and soon he was back with armfuls of fruit and vegetables, many of which she had never seen before, a laughing, dark-skinned trader walking beside him, carrying more.

  This was how Dan lived, in this warm, exciting place.

  No wonder he never came back. There was everything he needed here and there was nobody to question how he lived or who he lived with. A gloom settled on Anna and she closed her eyes to try and shut out the vista of the future. It would not be shut out. Dan was slipping back into her heart and she was too weary to fight him away.

  'Anna?' He was in the cabin and she hadn't even known. His hands were tight on her upper arms as he crouched down and looked into her face. 'Are you feeling ill?'

  'No. No, I'm fine!' She smiled wanly, but he still looked worried.

  'Come up on deck and we'll get under way. The breeze will do you good. When we get home, Josie will put you straight to bed!'

  'I don't want to go to bed!' she protested as she followed him out on to the gleaming deck and stood beside him as he cast off and started the powerful, growling engines.

  'It's "do as you're told" time!' he said lightly, but she could tell from his face that he was worried.

  She felt even more guilty. She didn't even ask who Josie was. Time to mind her own business and hold her tongue. She would be exactly what Dan wanted her to be, and then she would go home and forget all about him. The thought that she now had no home came rushing into her mind, but she pushed it firmly out. She would not be a burden to Dan or anyone else!

  Once out in the open sea the launch leapt forward like a greyhound, and Anna felt a wave of exhilaration as she clutched the rail and stood beside Dan. He was enjoying it, a sort of wild, free look on his face, and she knew exactly how he felt.

  They simply flew over the radiant waters, past the sandy beaches of other islands, some palm-fringed almost to the shoreline, others bright with blossoming trees. It was a wonderland, a place of dreams, and Anna gripped· the rail tightly, her black hair blowing behind her. She could almost feel health returning.

  'Enjoying it?' Dan cast her a flashing sideways look, and a shock of feeling hit her deep inside, in no way controllable. It stunned her and she turned away rapidly.

  'Oh, yes!'

  She said nothing more, but when she glanced at him secretly there was a small smile back on his lips and her gloomy heart lifted again. For now, she was here with Dan and, even if it was only for this wild ride over the shimmering sea, it was worth every moment of misery that had gone. It was useless to deny it, there had always been a magic about being with Dan.

  At home, in Langford Hall, the memories had been too mixed up, the misery of his going still real after four years, but now they were beginning to fade. Everything was new and Dan was golden, looking after her, right beside her.

  'Look!' He pointed down below the waves as he slackened off speed and the boat began to cruise in more shallow waters.

  She looked down over the side and gasped. It was like a fairyland, a world of coral and tiny fish. It was so clear that she could see the white sandy bottom, the coral white and faintly pink, shaped like castles and caverns, where the fish played and darted.

  'It's beautiful!'

  'I'll take you scuba diving,' he promised. 'As soon as you're a little stronger.'

  'Aren't there sharks?' she asked fearfully, her eyes still glued to the fascinating underwater scene.

  'Not inside the reef. There's a lovely bay at the other side of the island. I dive there.'

  She was so mesmerized, so enchanted, that she had never noticed that the boat was slowing even more, and when she looked up they were nosing in towards a sandy beach, palms and flowering bushes skirting the water edge, white rocks standing above the beach, and set back behind a small landing-stage a low white house surrounded by bright gardens. Dan's island, Amara Cay!

  She stared at it with wide eyes, her hand holding back he
r blowing black hair, and Dan edged the boat to the landing-stage and cut the motors, leaping out to tie up and then reaching forward to take her hand. She was still staring around dazedly as he spanned her narrow waist and lifted her from the deck and out on to the steady footing of the small quay.

  'I can hardly believe it!' she breathed. 'I often wondered what your island was like. I-I'm actually here!'

  'At last!' he finished in an odd voice, and when she looked up he was watching her intently, the tawny eyes moving over her face with a look she could not at all understand.

  'What do you think of Amara Cay?' he asked softly, but he was thinking of something else, she could tell that.

  'It looks as if it might be heaven,' she said with a trembling little laugh.

  'Pretty close to it, sometimes,' he said quietly.

  He looked away and turned her to the house, and she knew he was glad to be back, glad to be away from England, Langford Hall and the depressing times. After all, he never came back now; he only wanted to be here. He had told Elaine that as soon as he had finished any work at the studios he was back to his island like a shot. If it had not been for his father's death and Elaine's wedding, she would never have seen him again, in all probability.

  The thought sobered her and she bit her lip, suddenly feeling shaky and altogether let down after the exhilaration of the ride here. All at once the house seemed far away, the walk to it too much. She was unexpectedly swept off her feet, and she gave a startled gasp as Dan swung her up into his arms.

  'You're flagging, madam!' he insisted when she begged to be allowed to walk. 'A few more yards and you'll be a lot closer to Josie and bed!'

  He was laughing again, the queer mood gone, and she put her arm around his neck to steady herself.

  'Who is Josie? And what will she think if we arrive like this?' she protested.

  'Josie runs the house for me, her husband Abe does the garden and everything else, and she'll take one look at you and assume that I've caught a black-haired mermaid! Tuck your legs out of sight, I'll not disillusion her!'

  She felt like laughing happily, but the thought of the house worried her.

  'Is-is there anyone else there?'

  'No. I don't keep open house for all my wards. One responsibility at a time is all I can handle!'

  He pulled her closer to him, his smiling eyes looking into hers.

  'Relax!' he ordered softly. 'Nobody is going to eat you. I want you right back to normal, seven years ago normal.'

  'It was a long time ago,' she murmured, the smile dying. 'There's a lot of difference between fourteen and nearly twenty-two.'

  'I noticed,' he assured her laconically and she was back to being aware of him again and it was not in any big brotherly manner. Being in Dan's arms was part of her dreams. The strong brown arms that held her close were sending painful shafts of excitement through her that brought color to her face and a deep feeling of fright.

  There was now nowhere to hide from him, and the thought alarmed her. What had she been doing at Langford Hall but hiding from him? She was no more capable of dismissing him from her life than she had been four years ago. He was almost part of her.

  Impulsively she turned her face into his strong, warm neck, as if she were a small animal hiding its head, but he said nothing at all. Soon she was lowered to the ground as she heard his feet step from the softness of a lawn to the hard wood of a veranda.

  She opened her eyes to find herself being watched curiously by a woman with the roundest face she had ever seen-the darkest face, too-and she knew at once that this was Josie. The smile that came winging out to Anna, though, as the rather worried look of curiosity left Josie's face when she realized that Anna was not after all in a dead faint, brought a wholesome beauty to the dark face that warmed Anna instantly.

  'Josie,' Dan introduced laconically. 'The very person who's about to tuck you up in bed!'

  Anna wasn't really listening enough to protest, though; her eyes were skimming around the house as they walked inside, a happy-looking Josie bustling in front of them. It was a fabulous place, and there was no doubt at all that Dan was really rich, after all. Why she should have doubted it she could not fathom. Everyone of his books had been a best seller and most of them were filmed.

  'It could hardly be called a small bungalow,' she said ironically, and he laughed.

  'No, but it's single-storied, no fuss or bother, no stairs to climb-simplicity.'

  'Simplicity?' It looked as if he had been collecting art treasures for years: antiques, pictures, porcelain. It was beautiful!

  'My goodness, what will you say, I wonder, if I break any of these ornaments?'

  'Some punishment will be found,' Dan murmured darkly.

  A man came into the house with some of their luggage, and this was Abe, Dan informed her. He was surprisingly tall and lanky after her view of his wife, and Anna just stood there, not at all recovered from a succession of surprises.

  'Can I wander round and stare?' she asked.

  'As soon as you've had a nice drink,' Dan promised, taking her arm firmly and leading her back out to the cool veranda, sitting her in a white cane chair with comfortable bright cushions. 'You're looking a bit dehydrated.'

  'You mean shriveled?' She had a mischievous look and he smiled slowly.

  'Ah! A sign of the old Anna surfacing. A few days rest and you'll be back to normal.'

  'Whatever that is,' Anna said thoughtlessly, leaning back and looking out over the colorful gardens to the clear green sea.

  'Normal is when I look at you and say to myself, "That's Anna!" Irritating, beautiful and burning bright,' Dan said quietly. 'Until then you're just a little waif that I somehow managed to pick up and bring home.'

  She didn't look at him, for there was a real danger that she would cry, but he ignored any sign of that, if he noticed. Josie was there almost at once with a long, cool, frosted drink that was like nectar.

  'You now have about five minutes to wander around staring and breaking things,' Dan said briskly, pulling her to her feet when the drinks were finished. 'After that, a few hours sleep.'

  She didn't argue. She was feeling tired and strained, and this ridiculous urge to burst into tears was becoming much too strong. She shot him a grateful look and wandered off alone, leaving him to go into his study and sort out the mountainous quantity of writing he seemed to have done at Langford Hall. There was an air of almost burning satisfaction about him, and she knew he was thankful to be home. She would have to try and keep out of his way and let him go on as he normally did on his island.

  She was just wandering back to the long, cool drawing room when the telephone rang and she heard Dan answer it.

  'Daphne, honey!' He sounded so delighted that Anna stopped in her tracks, an unwitting eavesdropper, her heart feeling like lead. 'I just got back not half an hour ago! What? Oh, he does, does he? Put him on, then!' She heard Dan's low laughter, and then words that she would rather not have heard at all. 'Hello, Trevor! How's my boy?'

  She turned and fled blindly the way she had come, almost crashing into Josie, who took one look at her and led her straight to a cool, tranquil room where the sheets of the bed were already turned back.

  'Mr. Dan says you gotta sleep, and I should just think so!' she said in a quietly outraged voice, clucking away as she maneuvered Anna to the bed. 'Now you just slip out of that dress, Miss Mazzini, and into bed with you!'

  'I'm Anna,' she said tiredly, the tears too hot and dry to fall.

  'Right then, Miss Anna, let's get you into this bed!'

  It was nice to be mothered, and Anna only wanted to sleep; anything to forget the joy in Dan's voice on the telephone. He hadn't married Daphne, but it made little difference, for she was still there in his life, and his words at Langford Hall took on a new meaning-'In the end, we didn't fancy it.'

  Perhaps not. Many people in Dan's sphere simply lived together. The joy in his voice had told her all she needed to know. She was here, trapped, and he was beginnin
g to move back into her life.

  He come quietly in as she was lying beneath the sheets, her eyes still not closed.

  'Anna? Josie said she found you staggering about looking ready to collapse. Are you all right?'

  'Just tired,' she whispered faintly, willing him out of the door. 'I'll be all right when I've had a sleep.'

  'Josie will wake you up later,' he told her softly, coming to the bed and looking down at her. 'Just drift off to sleep and try not to worry about anything.'

  'I never got in touch with Bryan!' she said anxiously; clinging to her own little lie when everything had been dashed from her again.

  'You can phone when you get up,' he said rather tersely, and she thought he was angry at her forgetfulness.

  'It's too expensive!'

  'Give me the number and I'll phone for you,' he offered coolly, but she couldn't let him do that. He might find out that it was not the great love-affair of the century.

  'He-Bryan might be asleep. He works so hard that. . .'

  'So we'll wake him up! If you phoned me when I was asleep....' He suddenly turned and walked to the door. 'You can do it later. Maybe he'll be on night shift then,' he finished sarcastically, and as he closed the door behind him the dry, hot tears spilled on to her cheeks.

  What was she doing here, living in Dan's house, beginning to dream impossible dreams? It was all so hopeless. It always had been.

  She awoke to find a dark face close to hers, as Josie shook her gently and peered down at her.

  'Time for dinner, Miss Anna,' she said quietly. 'Mr. Dan thought you'd better wake up in case you couldn't sleep tonight.'

  Sleep! It was the safest state to be in, but she nodded and smiled, swinging her legs out of bed and realizing that she didn't feel so bad. The dreary feeling of lethargy that had dogged her for so long was gradually fading and, if in its place an actual pain had grown when she thought of Dan, at least she felt more alive. She showered and looked in the wardrobe, where Josie had put her clothes.

  One after another they looked far too big now, and after a while she chose a wrap-over dress of lemon that at least could be belted tightly and would not actually drop off. When she walked into the drawing-room, now softly lit, Dan turned from the drink he was pouring and his eyes moved over her slowly.