When Two Paths Meet. Betty Neels

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      “I’ll take you to meet a few people.”

      Katherine cringed inwardly, knowing just how plain her bargain dress must look.

      “I do like that dress.” The doctor smiled down at her, his eyes twinkling. “I thought you might have doubts about coming tonight, but there has to be a beginning—a first step, as it were.”

      She stared at him in his elegant dinner jacket. His face was pleasantly calm but obviously tired. “Toward what?” she wanted to know.

      “Why, love, marriage, children—a lifetime of happiness.”

      “You really believe that?” Katherine asked. When he nodded, she said gravely, “I do, too, but sometimes it’s best not to take the step.”

      Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of Betty Neels in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Betty’s first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit and genuine talent will live on in all her stories.

      When Two Paths Meet

      Betty Neels

      MILLS & BOON

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      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER ONE

      KATHERINE rolled over in bed and pulled the blankets over her ears; it wasn’t time to get up, she was sure of that, and she resented whatever it was that had awakened her. She tucked her cold feet into her nightie and closed her eyes, only to open them immediately at the steady thumping on the front door below her window. The milkman? Unreasonably early. A tramp? A would-be thief? But he wouldn’t want to draw attention to himself.

      She got out of bed, thrust her feet into slippers and dragged on her dressing-gown. By the light of her bedside lamp the alarm clock showed well past five in the morning. The thump came again, and she went softly along the landing and down the stairs; her brother and his wife, who slept at the back of the house, and very soundly too, wouldn’t have heard it—nor, with luck, would the two children in the room next to her own.

      It took a few moments to open the door, and she left it prudently on the chain, to peer through the narrow opening at the man on the doorstep. It was the tail end of October, and only just beginning to get light, but she could make out what appeared to be a giant.

      He spoke from somewhere above her head. ‘Good girl. Let me in quickly.’

      He had a deep, unhurried voice which reassured her, nevertheless she asked, ‘Why?’

      ‘I have a new-born baby here, likely to die of exposure unless it gets warmed up pretty quickly.’

      She undid the chain without wasting words, and he went past her. ‘Where’s the kitchen, or somewhere warm?’

      ‘The end door.’ She waved a hand, and applied herself to locking and bolting the door once more. All at once, she reflected that she could have bolted herself in with an escaped convict, a thief, even a murderer. And it was too late to do anything about it; she hurried him along and opened the kitchen door on to the lingering warmth of the old-fashioned Rayburn. He brushed past her, laid the bundle he was carrying on the kitchen table and unfolded it carefully and, from the depths of his car coat, exposed a very small, very quiet baby. Katherine took one look and went to poke up the fire, quietly, so as not to arouse the household.

      When the man said, ‘Blankets? Something warm?’ she went like a small shadow back upstairs to her room and took the sheet and a blanket off her bed. The linen cupboard was on the landing outside her brother’s room, and he or Joyce might hear the door squeaking.

      She handed them to the man, who took them without looking at her, only muttering, ‘Sensible girl,’ and then, ‘Warm water?’

      There was always a large kettle keeping warm on the Rayburn; she filled a small basin and put it on the table. ‘Now, just stay here for a moment, will you? I’ll go to the car and get my bag.’

      ‘I’ve locked the door, and my brother might hear if you go through the back door, it creaks. I’ll have to go and unlock…’

      He was looking around him; the house was old-fashioned, and the kitchen windows were large and sashed. He crossed the room and silently slid one open, climbed through soundlessly and disappeared, to reappear just as silently very shortly after. He was a very large man indeed, which made his performance all the more impressive. Katherine, who had picked up the blanketed baby and was holding it close, stared at him over the woolly folds.

      ‘You are indeed a sensible girl,’ observed the man, and put his bag down on the table. ‘This little fellow needs a bit of tidying up…’

      It was a relief to Katherine to see a little colour stealing through the scrap on the table. She handed the things he asked for from his bag and whispered, ‘Will he be all right?’

      ‘I think so, babies are extremely tough; it rather depends on how long he’s been lying on the side of the road.’

      ‘How could anyone…?’ She stared across the table at him, seeing him properly for the first time. He was a handsome man, with fair hair and sleepy blue eyes under straight brows, and above a wide, firm mouth his nose was pure aquiline. Katherine was aware of a strange sensation somewhere under her ribs, a kind of delightful breathlessness, a splendid warmth and a tingling. She stayed quite still, a small, rather thin girl, with an ordinary face which was redeemed from plainness by a pair of beautiful grey eyes, heavily fringed with black lashes. Her hair, alas, was a pale, soft brown, straight and long. Wrapped as she was in the useful, dark red dressing-gown Joyce, her sister-in-law, had given her the previous Christmas, she presented a picture of complete mediocrity. Which made it entirely unsuitable that she should have fallen in love with a man who was looking at her kindly enough, but with no hint of interest in her person.

      She said in her quiet voice, ‘Would you like a cup of tea? And where will you take the baby?’

      ‘To hospital, as quickly as possible…’ He paused, looking over her shoulder, and she turned round. Joyce was in the doorway.

      She was a handsome young woman, but now her good looks were spoilt by the look of amazed rage on her face.