Gypsy. Carole Mortimer

gave a haughty inclination of her head, as coolly composed as when they had faced each other in Los Angeles all those hours ago, ignoring the hand he put out to guide her down the steps to the waiting airport cars, one for them, the other for the coffin containing Ricky’s lifeless body, the law deeming the funeral director with the car should take over now.

      She bore the tedium of Lyon’s dealing with the passport officials with a bored look on her face, secretly wondering how much longer she could keep up this cool façade as the man seemed to linger over clearing them. It was true that the shock of losing Ricky had numbed her, that her independent career from the Falconer empire had given her a confidence she had hitherto lacked, but this act of cool emotionalism was causing more of a strain than she felt able to cope with. But not for anything would she admit to Lyon how all this was affecting her.

      ‘Could we hurry this up, please?’ Lyon suddenly pressed as the man continued to linger over checking their passports. ‘As I’m sure you can imagine, my sister-in-law is under severe strain.’

      The man glanced sympathetically at Shay, receiving a wan smile in return, miraculously seeming to find no further delay with their documents.

      Once out in the general flow of people at the airport, Shay felt her panic rising, flinching from the cameras as they clicked practically in her face as each newspaper representative tried to get the best picture of Richard Falconer’s widow, questions coming at them from all directions, the hand that grasped her arm making her pull away.

      ‘It’s me, you little fool,’ Lyon rasped, pushing his way through the reporters, pulling her along with him. ‘Where the hell is the damned car?’ he swore roughly as they emerged out into the English summer sunshine.

      ‘Mr Falconer—’

      ‘Thank God.’ He turned to the chauffeur gratefully, guiding Shay to the waiting limousine, the windows discreetly darkened for privacy.

      ‘I’m sorry about this, Mr Falconer.’ The man preceded them. ‘But there’s been a bomb scare, and the police are—’

      ‘Yes, yes,’ Lyon dismissed tersely, still running the gauntlet of the press. ‘Let’s just get out of here.’

      ‘Thank you, Jeffrey.’ Shay smiled at the man as he opened the back door for her, sliding inside and across the seat as Lyon climbed in next to her, cameras still clicking, the questions still coming until Jeffrey firmly closed the door, enclosing them in cool, silent peace.

      ‘I’d like to know how they found out when we were arriving,’ Lyon scowled heavily.

      Shay had a more resigned view, knew that the press were always able to find out what they wanted to know. She had been badgered by the worldwide media as soon as Ricky’s plane went down, the last weeks a nightmare of trying to escape them, finally having to move from the apartment she had shared with Ricky the last three years and move into a hotel, security guards placed outside her room to protect her privacy and grief.

      ‘Does it matter?’ she sighed, the incident just another horror in the nightmare her life had become since Ricky’s crash.

      ‘Yes, it—No,’ Lyon amended with controlled violence as he saw the unconscious vulnerability in deep purple eyes, the pale skin beneath those fathomless depths looking bruised and translucent. ‘No,’ he sighed heavily. ‘I don’t suppose it does.’

      Shay didn’t even question the way Lyon had stepped down from his undoubted anger at their arrangements being known by the press, shut him out of her mind completely as they began the drive to the house, grateful for the self-discipline she had learnt from her writing, needing mental as well as physical control to maintain the daily schedule of work she set for herself in order to meet her deadlines. It would have been so easy to have sat back and lived on Ricky’s wealth, to have treated her writing as a mere hobby to keep herself amused. But she hadn’t wanted that, had made it into a career. She felt an inner peace now that she had.

      God, why was she wandering in this way! They would be at Falconer House soon, the scene of her greatest happiness, greatest humiliation, and finally her greatest pain.

      It was a huge house, big enough for several families to live in comfortably, but she still didn’t know how she had managed to live there for two years after her marriage to Ricky, didn’t know how she was going to visit there now. Because visiting was all she intended doing. She couldn’t stay on there, not even if Lyon asked her to do so. And she knew that he was going to ask her to do just that, that it probably wouldn’t even be a request but an order. It was one she would enjoy disobeying!

       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘GOOD GRIEF, Matthew!’ Shay’s exclamation was instantaneous on seeing him. ‘What have you been doing to yourself?’ She looked askance at the sling supporting his immobile arm.

      The awkwardness she had envisaged upon entering the Falconer house again was forgotten in her concern for Matthew. His wheelchair had moved silently across the hall carpet as he came to meet them in the entrance hall, Shay shocked to see how pale he was, almost as white as the bandage on his arm beneath the sling.

      Matthew Falconer had been in a wheelchair when she had first been introduced to him six years before, an explanation for his incapacity never offered by any of his family, although she had heard from the office grapevine when she still worked for Lyon that Matthew had been injured in a skiing accident at the age of nineteen, his legs severely damaged, and had been in a wheelchair ever since.

      She had also learnt, from experience, that Matthew’s inability to walk in no way detracted from his masculinity, or his ability to put a person in their place with a few well-directed words! After a few minutes of being in Matthew’s dynamic presence people tended to forget he was in a wheelchair, the electronically-operated machine having so many gadgets on it he could perform practically anything an able-bodied man could do—except, of course, walk.

      ‘Can’t you think of a better greeting than that after all this time, Gypsy?’ he drawled wryly, pain having etched lines into his handsome face over the years that shouldn’t really have been there on a man of only thirty-five.

      Gypsy. It was a long time since she had heard that particular nickname, two long heart-breaking months! The three younger Falconer men had taken the space of one afternoon to come up with the name Gypsy for her; Lyon had instantly hated it, refusing to call her it. But Ricky had continued to use the name after they were married, and hearing it now brought tears to her eyes.

      ‘Matthew.’ She bent and kissed him warmly on one rigidly hard cheek.

      He managed a tight-lipped smile. ‘You always were an affectionate little thing,’ he muttered. ‘Too affectionate on occasion.’ He shot a sly glance at the stone-faced Lyon.

      She had forgotten Matthew’s cryptic, sometimes cruel, sense of humour, holding back her own smile with effort; one thing the Falconer men could never be attributed with was tact!

      Matthew turned fully to his older brother. ‘The two of you came back alone?’

      Shay turned in time to see Lyon’s warning look, instantly feeling a ripple of apprehension down the straightness of her spine. Lyon was displeased with his brother for asking the question, and she had a feeling she was the reason for his annoyance with Matthew.

      ‘Yes,’ he replied tersely, dismissively. ‘What happened to your arm, Matthew?’

      The younger man shrugged. ‘The controls of this stupid machine went haywire for a while and I hit the ground,’ he told them with self-derision. ‘It’s nothing serious, just a sprain.’

      ‘You didn’t mention it when I telephoned yesterday,’ Lyon scowled.

      ‘I said it’s only a sprain,’ Matthew bit out tautly. ‘I’m in a wheelchair, Lyon, not senile! I don’t need you fussing over me like an old woman every time