The Secret Father. Kim Lawrence

don’t go expecting miracles. I never make promises I can’t keep,’ he interrupted, holding up his hands to stem the flow. ‘I have unplumbed shallows. Shall we just say I won’t call you babe? It’ll be hard, but I’m a very amenable guy deep down.’

      ‘That’s a weight off my mind,’ she assured him solemnly, with an answering glimmer in her eyes. She’d seen Sam Rourke do humour, but that had been scripted. This dry, caustic wit was obviously the natural variety and she found it much more attractive than the slick, predictable banter.

      It was gradually becoming obvious that, whilst the characters this man portrayed might arguably be two-dimensional, he was much more complex in the flesh. And distressingly perfect flesh it was too, she thought, pulling her glance from the sinewed strength of his forearms meshed with a fine covering of dark hair.

      ‘Better, Doctor, much better,’ he approved caustically. ‘You know, you’ve got to learn to relax around us glittering, famous types if you’re going to be part of the team.’

      ‘I suppose I will,’ she agreed doubtfully.

      The offer of a job as medical advisor on the set of the film her sister was starring in had seemed like a heavensent opportunity. The doctor they’d had lined up had broken his leg and was in traction. They hadn’t begun shooting any of the scenes with medical content yet, Hope had assured her. It would be a breeze! Lindy had just resigned from her job as a senior house officer at a prestigious London hospital and had needed time to sort out where she was going from there. Now she was here, Lindy was beginning to regret the impulsiveness of her actions.

      ‘Won’t people resent the fact I got the job because I’m Hope’s sister?’ What am I doing here? she wondered, feeling suddenly very homesick.

      ‘Nepotism is one of the more savoury ways people get jobs in this business,’ Sam observed drily.

      ‘You’re not telling me the casting couch still exists, are you?’ she laughed.

      ‘Such sweet innocence,’ he mocked lightly. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of murder, extortion, blackmail; but the old-fashioned ways are still the best, or so I’m told.’

      Looking doubtfully into his cynical blue eyes, she wasn’t sure whether he was joking. ‘It all seems very casual,’ she admitted.

      Getting a job to her had entailed gruelling interviews and hard-won references, but here she was being offered a salary that made her blink, to do something which didn’t sound very strenuous.

      ‘I just got a phone call and a first-class ticket for Boston,’ she said.

      ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he advised with an amused smile. ‘I’ll make you work for your money. I’d assumed you were star-struck. Don’t explode!’ He raised a pacific hand. ‘But, that obviously not being the case, it must be a man that made you up sticks.’

      ‘A man?’ she enquired with discouraging hauteur. It occurred somewhat belatedly to her that Sam Rourke was her new boss and it might have been politic to take that into account before she’d started sniping at him. She might just regret her honesty in the near future.

      ‘Broken heart, love affair, that sort of thing. Though you don’t look the type to…’ Sam paused, weighing his words. Telling a woman, even one as self-contained as this one, that she didn’t look as if she had enough fire in her veins might not go down too well.

      ‘Make a fool of myself over a man?’

      ‘My thought exactly,’ he agreed with some relief.

      ‘I’m not,’ she said flatly. She had no intention of going over her reasons for leaving a job she’d loved. A man had certainly been involved—and love, too, if Simon Morgan was to be believed.

      From the moment he’d taken over as consultant orthopaedic surgeon, he’d made his personal interest in his house officer obvious. He hadn’t got encouragement, but he hadn’t needed it. He was one of that breed of men to whom things had always come easily, and he hadn’t thought Rosalind Lacey was any different from anything else he’d wanted.

      At first he’d taken her rejection to be part of a game—a game he was happy to play. When he’d discovered he’d been playing alone, things had got ugly and he’d made it quite obvious that the hospital wasn’t big enough for both of them. She could have fought—should have fought—but Lindy hadn’t had the stomach for a messy sexual harassment suit, which could have damaged her professional reputation even if she had won. America had been her way out of a classic catch-22 situation.

      ‘I admire confidence,’ Sam said softly.

      The sceptical note in his voice, of a man who believed no woman was as invulnerable as she professed to be, irritated Lindy.

      ‘Shouldn’t we be making a move?’ she said, looking around the now half-empty room.

      ‘See you in the morning, Sam.’ Rick, who was a thin, gangling youth with a shock of carrot-red hair, chose that moment to make his exit via their table. He eyed Lindy curiously.

      ‘The new medico, Rick,’ Sam said in answer to the silent enquiry.

      ‘Pleased to meet you.’ A friendly smile beamed out as he sketched a bow and saluted her flamboyantly. ‘Don’t keep Sam up too late,’ he added over his shoulder. ‘Early start tomorrow, chief.’

      ‘An actor?’ Lindy asked.

      ‘Crew.’

      ‘He didn’t think we…you and I were together?’ she asked uncomfortably.

      ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Sam said, signing the cheque as he rose from the table. ‘You’re not my type.’

      ‘How cruel of you to dash my girlish fantasies,’ she responded, taking a bracing breath to weather this casual insult and following him towards the door. He could certainly give as good as he got.

      ‘You should have locked the trunk,’ Sam remonstrated a few minutes later as he lifted her cases from the rental car in which she’d driven to Maine.

      ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she asked sharply as he proceeded to place her luggage in the four-wheel drive parked next to her own car.

      ‘The studio’s arranged a car for you; it’s at the house. The hire firm are picking this one up.’ He got into his car and glanced pointedly at his watch.

      Lindy swallowed this information and climbed up into the passenger seat beside him. After they’d been driving for a few minutes she asked, ‘Is it far?’

      ‘About twenty minutes.’ He turned off the highway onto a narrow, uneven dirt road. ‘Hope’s found a gem of a place.’

      ‘She said it’s right by the sea.’ Lindy tried to resurrect the optimism and anticipation she’d initially felt when she’d embarked on this adventure.

      ‘Owl Cove,’ Sam said.

      ‘Will she be working late?’

      Sam flicked her a sideways glance. ‘There is no shooting today.’

      ‘But I thought you said…’

      ‘I said she couldn’t make it. I didn’t say why.’

      There was some indefinable note in his voice that bothered Lindy. ‘Well, say why now, or is it some secret?’

      ‘Not the best kept secret in the world.’

      ‘Meaning?’ she said, with an edge in her voice reserved for people who bad-mouthed either of her sisters.

      ‘Forget it,’ Sam advised, shrugging his shoulders.

      ‘It’s a bit late for that. Has something happened to Hope…?’

      Her hands—well kept, rather lovely hands, he noticed—fluttered as the note of anxiety crept into her voice. He noticed the gesture because all her movements