The Reluctant Groom. Emma Richmond

she queried dazedly.

      ‘Yes! Where’s your ring?’

      Glancing at her left hand as though she didn’t know what her mother was talking about, she murmured, ‘I took it off. Sam and I—’

      ‘No,’ he broke in. Lifting his hands, breaking all contact, he stepped back. ‘No,’ he repeated.

      ‘Sam?’ Confused, bewildered, she held out one hand to him.

      He ignored it. Snatching his document case off the desk, he walked out.

      ‘Sam!’ She would have run after him, but her mother caught her arm, held her back.

      ‘I knew he was trouble. I just knew it! I shouldn’t have left you. Abby! You can’t go after him!’

      ‘Yes, I have to...’ Trailing off, barely aware of her mother’s grip on her arm, she stared at the closed front door, then back to her mother. ‘Why was he so angry?’ she whispered.

      ‘You were kissing him,’ her mother exclaimed, as though she had never encountered such a thing before.

      ‘Yes.’ And he would be back, she reassured herself. Of course he would.

      ‘He isn’t what I want for you,’ her mother wailed despairingly. ‘Peter...’

      ‘Not now, Mum,’ Abby interrupted distractedly. ‘I’ll take your case up.’

      Grabbing her mother’s case, she hurried upstairs. Dumping it on the bed, she just stood there, eyes almost blank. Why? she wondered. Why had he been so angry?

      Needing a few minutes on her own, unable to face her mother just yet, she walked to the window, stared blindly down. Why? But he would be back. Of course he would. Unconsciously rubbing her fingers over her mouth, eyes still blank with shock and disbelief, she closed her eyes to recapture the moment he’d kissed her. She could feel it still, the urgency, the need... And if her mother hadn’t come home just then, would he still have left?

      She didn’t understand. Had he left because he thought she was engaged? Well, she could tell him tomorrow, explain...

      ‘Abby?’ her mother called tentatively up the stairs.

      ‘Coming,’ she answered automatically.

      Walking away from the window as though in a dream, she went downstairs, found her mother in the kitchen.

      ‘I’ve made some tea...’

      ‘Yes, thank you.’

      ‘Abby . . .’

      ‘How was your trip?’ she asked quickly, to forestall any questions about Sam.

      ‘Eventful,’ she sighed. Eyes worried, she watched her daughter. She’d never seen her like this. ‘Don’t get involved with him, Abby,’ she pleaded. ‘He isn’t safe.’

      ‘Safe?’ she echoed.

      ‘Yes. I knew someone like him once. All energy and excitement. But it doesn’t last, Abby. Peter’s the right one for you.’

      ‘No,’ she denied gently. ‘He isn’t.’

      ‘But you don’t know this man!’

      ‘No, but I want to,’ she admitted quietly. ‘How was Lena?’

      ‘Fine.’ Carrying the teas over to the table, she sat, waited until Abby had sat opposite. ‘She thinks I should sell the house.’

      Attention finally captured, she stared at her mother, tried not to hope too hard. ‘And?’

      ‘And I think so too. Oh, Abby,’ she exclaimed tiredly, ‘I thought your future was secured. I was so pleased when you got engaged.’

      ‘I don’t love him,’ Abby said quietly.

      ‘Well, you can’t love Sam! You barely know him!’

      ‘No. What happened to the man you were in love with?’

      Her mother flushed, fiddled with her spoon. ‘He went off with someone else. It was a long time ago.’

      ‘But you still remember the hurt?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Didn’t you love Daddy?’

      ‘Of course I loved him!’

      ‘But it wasn’t the same, was it?’ she asked silently. Because you never forgot your first love. Perhaps that was all it was with her. Sam could have been, could still be, her first love. If he came back. ‘Do you really feel you can sell the house?’ she asked gently.

      ‘Yes. It’s too big for one, and we need to pay the debts, don’t we? The loan companies won’t wait for ever, and the interest is crippling.’

      ‘Yes, but...’ Reaching for her mother’s hand, she gently squeezed it. ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Yes.’ Taking a deep breath, she continued bravely, ‘I’ve seen a bungalow, and it’s near to Lena... Best to make a new start. And it will solve all our problems, won’t it?’

      ‘Yes.’ Some of them. And Sam would be back. Of course he would.

      They sat up talking long into the night, making plans, and in the morning, when Sam didn’t come, Abby tried to be philosophical about it, and failed. She went to the estate agents, put the house up for sale, went with her mother to look at the bungalow she liked, prayed that Sam wouldn’t turn up in her absence. She never knew whether he did or not. Certainly he didn’t come the next day, or the one after that.

      There had been no note, no explanation; he’d just left as he had arrived. Abby didn’t know his address, didn’t know how to contact him. Professor Wayne didn’t know where he lived, barely even knew him, and the Vehicle Licensing Authority, who had presumably issued his driving licence, wouldn’t tell her.

      A man from nowhere. A man she couldn’t get out of her mind. One kiss wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

      CHAPTER TWO

      MONTHS passed, the house was sold, her mother ensconced in her new bungalow, and slowly, slowly, Abby came to terms with the fact that Sam wasn’t coming back. That she would never see him again. Apathy turned to anger, and then acceptance, a determination not to let him change her life. But she didn’t forget him.

      Touring the house for the last time, her footsteps echoing, his image was clear in the kitchen, where he had leaned against the work surface mocking her. In the study, the hall, and she wanted to cry. Not only for him, but because she suddenly realised how much this house meant to her. She’d grown up here. Arrived here as a small child, presumably bewildered, upset, and then happy, laughing, getting into mischief... Until the age of fourteen.

      With a deep sigh, she crossed the empty lounge and hall, and walked into the study. All the furniture was gone, the smaller pieces to her mother’s bungalow, the large either sold, or to her sisters. All Abby had wanted was her father’s desk and chair. The chair he had sat on to write his last instructions. In pain, already in the throes of the heart attack that would kill him, he’d rung the ambulance, and then taken time to write to his youngest daughter, asking her to deliver a letter to a Nathan Tabiner. In Gibraltar. Personally. He hadn’t said it was urgent, or imperative, which was probably just as well, seeing as she hadn’t done anything about it yet. Or not much. She had found out who he was—the head of a fund management company—which had given her no comfort at all. Fund management sounded like ‘debt’ to her. Although, she’d tried to reassure herself, if it had been a debt, surely they would have written by now, sent an invoice or something. Well, she would soon know; as soon as she’d finished here she was intending to go out and see him. She was a free agent, she assured herself. No job to worry about, no need to rush back. She could take a little holiday after she’d seen Tabiner.

      Turning her head, she stared at the empty bookcase. The contents