Merlyn's Magic by Carole Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page A

reaction
when you find a man crying in front of you like a child!'
    'Rand—'
    'Go back to your room—please,' he encouraged
with a harshness that brooked no argument.
    She hadn't been able to help him at all. All she had been
able to do was give him a few moments of forgetfulness in her arms and
then more pain. He felt as if he had betrayed his wife; he didn't need
to tell her that, she just knew.
    Merlyn's bedroom looked just as she had left it, the
bedside lamp still on, the bedclothes thrown back where she had hurried
to see what was happening. But she had changed. Since her
disillusionment with Mark she had avoided any real closeness to men.
She went out with them, she had a good time, but at the end of the day
she always went home alone. God knows she had had her chances for it
not to be that way, Christopher Drake only the last in a long line of
men who wanted her to share their bed. But she had never found any
difficulty in resisting those physical entanglements that in the end
brought nothing but heartache.
    Until Rand Carmichael. But she had felt no hesitation as
she went to him, had felt that it was meant to be, as if she had known
that from the moment she first saw him. Could it be that she had been
so deeply involved with her research of Suzie Forrester these past
months that for a brief time she had thought she
was
her? But that was ridiculous. Wasn't it…?

    Merlyn was already in the lounge when Rand came downstairs
the next morning. She had found the broken glass gone from the hearth,
the room looking innocent of the stormy lovemaking it had witnessed the
evening before.
    Merlyn wished she felt as innocent! Her body ached, the
slight soreness she was experiencing not alleviated by the lengthy soak
in the bath she had indulged in earlier. Her bottom lip was swollen and
painful, and she felt altogether irritable. The only good thing about
the day seemed to be that the rain had stopped falling some time in the
night and with luck the water level on the ford would have gone down
enough for her to get out of here. She was going to
walk
to the hotel if she still couldn't drive there; she certainly couldn't
stay on here when she and Rand were so embarrassed about last night.
    It was after nine when she heard him coming down the
stairs, standing up to move nervously in front of one of the tall
windows, the bright daylight behind her giving a golden halo to the red
flame of her hair, her slender body warmed by fitting black denims and
a royal-blue coloured jumper.
    She looked warily at Rand as he hesitated just inside the
doorway before fully entering the room, completing the task of tucking
the black shirt he wore into the waistband of fitted grey trousers as
he did so. Now that the confrontation had come, Merlyn didn't know what
to say to him. What does a woman say to the complete stranger she made
love with the night before! Although he hadn't seemed so much of a stranger then.
    Rand was eyeing her just as warily. 'Has Mrs Sutton
arrived yet?' he asked abruptly.
    'No one's arrived.' She shook her head. She had been going
to say they were still completely alone, but in the circumstances that
didn't sound right at all.
    He frowned. 'I wonder—'
    Both of them were startled when the telephone began to
ring, Rand striding across the room to answer it. Merlyn watched him
beneath lowered lashes, still finding it incredible that she knew his
body more intimately than she knew her own. Any magic that had taken
place last night had to have been instigated by Rand!
    'Yes,' he was speaking to the caller now. 'Okay, we'll see
you soon.' He rang off, shrugging slightly as he met Merlyn's
questioning gaze. 'Anne,' he provided abruptly. 'She's driving over.'
    Oh God, Merlyn thought shakily, how was she supposed to
face Suzie's sister after what had happened in this very room the night
before! Rand seemed to guess at her dismay.
    'About last night—'
    'Do we have to talk about it?' she cut in raggedly.
    'Not if you don't want