Sarah Morgan Summer Collection. Sarah Morgan

      

      CHAPTER TEN

      ‘CAN you imagine that? Being given the chance to patch up your relationship with your sister and then realising that you’re too late. How awful. Fancy having to live with that. And fancy Catherine never even mentioning that she had a brother. It was obviously such a thorny subject.’ Evanna carefully turned the chicken on the barbecue. ‘Poor Ethan. No wonder he always seemed so tense, poor thing.’

      ‘Poor thing?’ Kyla stared at her friend. ‘Aren’t you at all angry? Don’t you think he should have told us?’

      ‘I think it’s lovely that Kirsty has more family to love her. We don’t all live life by the same rules, Kyla,’ Evanna said mildly, reaching down and scooping Kirsty into her arms. ‘We don’t all behave according to one rule book. We’re all different people, looking for different things. None of us is perfect.’

      Kyla scowled at her. ‘Stop being so reasonable. He took advantage of our hospitality.’

      ‘Over the centuries Glenmore was often a place of sanctuary for strangers,’ Evanna reminded her softly. ‘We’ve always taken a pride in our hospitality.’

      ‘But if we’d known who he was—’

      ‘Then the welcome would have been warmer still,’ Evanna said firmly, hitching Kirsty onto her hip and letting her play with a wooden spoon. ‘I think it’s very exciting for Kirsty to have someone in her life who knew her mother as a child.’

      ‘I can assure you that the memories aren’t good ones.’

      Evanna seemed unconcerned. ‘People are all a mixture of good and bad. Perfection would be pretty hard to live with.’

      ‘Kirsty will get attached to him and then he’ll leave,’ Kyla predicted, and Evanna looked at her.

      ‘And does that matter?’

      No.

      Yes.

      She didn’t want it to matter.

      Oh, she was being so stupid. ‘No, of course not. Well, yes, it’s just that—I—’

      ‘This isn’t about Kirsty, it’s about you. You’re in love with him and you don’t want him to leave. Have you told him?’

      Kyla stared at her friend, wanting to deny it. But her mouth wouldn’t form the necessary lie. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. This is a man who doesn’t exactly communicate his feelings, remember?’

      ‘That’s him. But you do communicate yours, usually pretty loudly.’ Evanna gave a grin ‘.so you should be telling him, just so that there is no doubt.’

      Kyla raised an eyebrow. ‘The way you’re telling my brother that you’re in love with him?’

      Evanna blushed gently. ‘That’s different. Logan doesn’t notice me and he certainly doesn’t love me. Me telling him my feelings would just embarrass both of us. But Ethan definitely has powerful feelings for you. I suspect he loves you, too, but you might need to nudge him into telling you. I’m willing to bet that he has no idea how you feel about him. At the moment all he sees is your anger.’

      Kyla thought about the frantic sex they’d shared in the ruins of the castle. It had been primitive, desperate and. ‘If he’d loved me, wouldn’t he have trusted me enough to tell me the truth?’

      Evanna removed the chicken from the barbecue and put it on the plate. ‘This is a man who isn’t used to sharing and trusting so, no, probably not.’

      ‘So perhaps he’s wrong for me.’

      Evanna smiled and handed her a plate. ‘Perhaps. But isn’t it worth finding out?’

      ‘He isn’t like us.’

      ‘And isn’t that a good thing? The planet would certainly be boring if we were all the same.’ Evanna poured dressing on the salad. ‘Eat. You’re always cranky when you’re hungry. Logan will be home soon. He’s up at the surgery with Ethan.’

      In the end, Kyla didn’t wait for her brother to return home. She felt restless and confused and she needed to be by herself, so she drove back to her cottage.

      And then she sat for ten minutes in her kitchen, looking out at the sea. And she still felt restless and confused so she slipped her feet out of her shoes and went for a walk on the beach.

      It was only when she felt a hand on her shoulder that she realised that Ethan was standing behind her.

      ‘I’ve come to apologise.’ His voice was deep and she turned, feeling her heart leap into her throat at the sight of him. Would she ever be able to look at him and not react like this?

      ‘For what?’

      ‘For making love to you before I told you about Catherine. I certainly intended to tell you. But this thing between us is strong—’ He broke off and she felt a twinge of disappointment.

      He was talking about the sex, she reminded herself. ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you this morning but I was angry with you.’

      ‘I know. Justifiably so.’ He didn’t smile. ‘And now, Kyla? Are you still angry?’

      ‘I’m not sure. I keep going over our conversations and wondering how many of them were just about detective work for you.’

      His hand dropped to his side. ‘Is that what you think? That my relationship with you was just a means to finding out about Catherine?’

      ‘You asked me about her in the pub that night.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘She was your sister and yet you were asking me about her and I answered without knowing who you were or why you were asking. And I can’t help wondering if I said something that I shouldn’t have said.’

      ‘She was my stepsister and I wanted to find out who she was,’ he said quietly. ‘I didn’t know her. The woman I knew would never have settled in a place like this. The Catherine I knew was selfish and didn’t think of anyone but herself. I wanted to hear you talk about her. And I wanted to hear you talk without knowing who I was because I didn’t want my relationship with Catherine to influence your answer. I was trying to understand.’

      ‘In that case, you should speak to Logan because obviously he knew her the best.’

      ‘But different people see different things in a person.’

      It was very much like something that Evanna would have said, and suddenly she wondered whether she’d been too hard on him. ‘You want me to tell you more about Catherine?’ She thought for a moment, trying to crystallise thoughts and images into something that would paint the picture he was looking for. ‘She was—a bit wild, I suppose. She liked doing mad, crazy things. She flirted with every man she met. She was impossible to pin down and unreliable at social engagements. She wore pink shoes and high heels to the pub when it was pouring with rain and she never remembered to take a coat with her. But she was excited by life and enthusiastic about the island. She loved the beaches and Logan taught her to sail.’

      ‘Was she pleased to be pregnant?’

      ‘Oh, yes. She kept talking about family.’ Kyla swallowed as she remembered. ‘She kept saying that she was going to do it right this time, but when I asked her what she meant by that, she’d never tell me. I suppose I know now. Her death was a tragedy. It affected Logan very badly.’

      ‘I can imagine.’

      ‘She suddenly became ill but the weather on the island was so bad we couldn’t transfer her for a few hours and the delay was critical. The hospital didn’t think that the outcome would have been any different but Logan has always blamed himself.’ She gave a sad smile. ‘He hates obstetrics now and he always refuses to do home births.’

      ‘You