Runaway Sister Page 9

  Timidly she reached forward and pushed aside the lapels of his evening jacket. “I find you very desirable too,” she whispered. She could hardly believe that it was her speaking or behaving in such a wanton fashion.

  Now here was this man, whom she really hardly knew, capable of making her want to give her body to him, to do with as he pleased. He made her want to touch him too, because she knew from the way he responded that her touch was as pleasing to him as his was to her.

  It was as he deftly threw his jacket aside onto a chair that she saw the negligee. It was a glamorous black diaphanous affair, edged with black swansdown, and it was draped casually over the very chair onto which Adam had just thrown his jacket. It looked as if it too had been thrown there by its owner before going to bed. Samantha went rigid. Sophie had not entered her mind before, not once the whole evening, but now at the sight of that black negligee the thought of what must have happened in Adam’s bedroom before seared through her mind like a physical pain.

  With a gasp she thrust him away from her and began feverishly looking around the room for her wrap.

  “For God’s sake, what’s happening?” protested Adam, pulling her back against him, searching out her mouth with his. But Samantha was suddenly filled with a revulsion for herself. She might have just been jilted, but she was not going to start bed hopping now, not for Adam Shaw or anyone else.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind!” Adam’s voice was incredulous as her persistent efforts at resisting him finally penetrated.

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” muttered Samantha, taking advantage of his complete astonishment to retrieve her wrap. “I want to go now.”

  “Want to go? What the hell for?” he thundered. “It’s a bit late to start getting modest, isn’t it!”

  “I want to go!” Samantha shouted at him, tears of anger and disgust at herself welling up in her eyes.

  He folded his arms with a sudden abrupt movement. “Well, now I’ve seen everything!” His voice was rough and angry. “What brought about this sudden change of heart? It’s not even as if you were a virgin!” The last words were hurled at her like missiles and they reached their mark, striking at her heart like ice-cold blades.

  “It’s no good me trying to explain to you,” she said numbly, “because you just wouldn’t understand.”

  “You’re damn right I wouldn’t!” snapped Adam, standing before her watching her every struggling move as she tried to make herself look respectable and pin her disheveled hair up again. Every fiber of his being emanated fury and frustration, and she could see that he had absolutely no intention of making it easy for her. With trembling hands she flung her wrap around her shoulders.

  Then suddenly, in a single angry stride, he was by her side, his hands clasped either side of her slender waist.

  “I’ve half a mind to…” he stopped in midsentence, his voice husky with suppressed passion. Samantha forced herself to look at him, although her instinct was to run, to run as far away from him as she could possibly get. Don’t kiss me again, she thought dully, I just couldn’t bear it. She wanted to tell him why she held back, but couldn’t; the words stuck in her throat. Anyway, what he did with Sophie was his business, not hers, she thought bitterly. For a moment, although to her it seemed like an eternity, he looked down at her, his eyes dark pools of anger. Then swiftly and violently he pulled his hands away and left her standing alone in the middle of the room.

  “I can’t be bothered with you,” he said dismissively. “An unwilling woman has never held any allure for me.” He shrugged his shoulders bristling with fury back into his evening jacket.

  “You…you needn’t bother to take me home,” said Samantha quietly, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “Perhaps I could ring for a taxi.”

  “I shall take you home,” replied Adam, “so get a move on. I haven’t got all night to waste.”

  Silently they made their way back down in the lift, and on the drive back to her flat, the same ominous silence reigned. Desperately Samantha wished she could explain to him, but explaining would mean admitting that she had begun to fall in love with him. Explaining would mean admitting that she wasn’t willing to share him with Sophie, or any other woman, and somehow she didn’t think Adam would take kindly to having his wings clipped, or even the suggestion that perhaps he should! He was a man of the world, and he had obviously assumed, because of her previous engagement, that she was a woman of the world.

  Too late Samantha had realized that fact, and it was too late now to tell him that she was a very ordinary girl, not the sexually uninhibited woman he had obviously thought she was.

  As she sat miserably in the car beside him, she could almost hear his mocking laughter, because that was what would happen if she attempted to explain. Anyway, she thought bitterly, I can’t even explain it properly to myself.

  Adam brought the car to a halt outside her flat, and leaning across opened the car door for her.

  “I won’t say thank you for a lovely evening,” he said, his voice softly sarcastic, “because it’s been rather marred by the last half hour, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I’m sorry,” whispered Samantha, her voice almost inaudible. “I just wish I could explain.”

  Adam laughed irritably. “Spare me the pathetic details, please,” he said. Then, suddenly before she could get out of the car, his arms locked around her, pulling her towards him. “Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy my kisses,” he said thickly, “because I damn well know you did.” His mouth sought out hers again with an unerring demanding sensuality that sent her senses reeling, and against her will Samantha found herself responding.

  Abruptly Adam drew back, his breathing rough and uneven. “You’ve only postponed the inevitable. You know that, don’t you?” he said softly. “I’ll make love to you, Samantha, because you’ll beg me to eventually.”

  Angrily she pushed him back. “I’ll never do that,” she replied, her voice trembling. She was as angry with herself as with him, because she seemed unable to resist him when he had his arms around her.

  He started to pull her towards him again. “If I…” His words were brought to an abrupt halt as Samantha reached out and slapped his face hard, a stinging blow that startled him and left her hand tingling.

  “Don’t ever touch me again!” she spat at him. Then almost leaping out of the car before he had time to recover, she slammed the door shut behind her and ran up the path towards the safety of her flat, her trembling limbs scarcely able to carry her. Glancing over her shoulder as she fumbled to get the keys out of her handbag, she saw Adam still sitting in the car, rubbing his cheek in a bemused fashion as he watched her retreating figure. I hope I hurt you! she thought bitterly as she opened the door and went in, slamming it violently behind her.

  Chapter Five

  Sleep evaded Samantha that night. She tossed and turned in her empty bed, tears flooding unheeded down her cheeks. Tears that she had not shed when Steven had announced that he was marrying someone else, but tears just because she had refused a man who wanted nothing more from her than her body. Tears because she had wanted to give herself so much, and yet couldn’t because she cared too much.

  “I love him,” she whispered out loud to herself, at last admitting it. It was ironic, that she at last felt that all-conquering passion Adam had almost jokingly mentioned when they had met on the day after Steven had jilted her, and that she should feel it for a man who obviously wanted nothing more than sexual gratification.

  The night dragged by interminably, although in fact there were only a few hours of it left, and when Samantha went into the bathroom to shower before going on duty, she was confronted by a reflection from which it would be quite obvious for anyone to deduce that she had been crying for some hours.

  It needed all her skill with makeup and several minutes of dousing with ice-cold water on her eyes to cover the ravages of the night befo
re. She cursed the fact that she had agreed to work that Saturday after the Ball. Normally she didn’t do Saturday duties, because as she was a Sister it wasn’t part of her contract, but this week they had been short-staffed through illness and she had agreed to go in on the Saturday.

  As she made her way to her office in the Maternity Unit she kept her fingers crossed that Adam would not be in that morning, or at least if he was, then their paths should not cross.

  Luckily for her there was an older primip about to be delivered, so that took her mind off Adam Shaw temporarily at least. The woman was thirty-eight and not in the best of health, having had a troublesome pregnancy. Samantha took over from the night midwife and noted that she was well on the way to the second stage. The woman was very anxious to have natural childbirth and to do without the aid of any drugs.

  Samantha had the help of a staff nurse that day—just as well, she thought, as the labor was long and not easy for the woman. She tried to persuade her to have an epidural, but the woman was adamant that she wanted natural childbirth and as long as everything was all right with the baby she didn’t care how much it hurt her.

  Samantha stayed with her, and never left her side throughout the entire day. She sent the staff nurse off to have lunch and coffee and had a cup brought in for her. By the time the baby had at last been safely delivered Samantha had developed a great admiration for the woman’s guts and courage—even more so when she learned that the woman was a widow, her husband having been tragically killed in a road crash two months before her baby was due.

  Somehow it put her own misery into perspective, and made it seem unimportant, when she considered the other woman’s suffering. It was a tired Samantha who left the delivery suite eventually in the late afternoon and walked down the long corridor towards her office. Immersed in her own thoughts, she failed to notice that Adam Shaw was coming down the corridor straight towards her until they were almost face-to-face.

  “Good afternoon, Sister.” His voice was low so that the nurses at the other end of the corridor couldn’t hear. “Did you have a good night’s sleep?” The expression in his eyes was murderous.

  Dully Samantha looked at him. “No, I didn’t,” she replied, and went to walk past him, but he caught her wrist in a viselike grip and brought her to a standstill.

  “Do you expect me to say I’m sorry?” he demanded sarcastically.

  “I don’t expect you to say anything,” retorted Samantha angrily, snatching her wrist from his grasp. “I expect you to leave me alone!”

  “I think I shall find that difficult, as we shall see each other every day.” His eyes looked a cold slate grey in the afternoon sunlight flooding the corridor, they had no warmth in them at all. “Every time I look at you, I shall think of you standing in my bedroom,” he said slowly, deliberately letting his eyes rest on the swell of her bosom beneath her uniform.

  Samantha felt a hot flush enveloping her. He had deliberately set out to embarrass her and he had succeeded. Angrily she raised her blue eyes to his grey ones. “In that case, I think I know a remedy,” she said shortly.

  “Oh, what’s that?” he enquired, an amused note creeping into his voice. “Shall I wear a permanent blindfold?”

  “Don’t worry, it requires nothing as drastic as that,” said Samantha coldly, walking quickly away from him down the corridor.

  Now she knew what she must do; she must leave. She had thought about it the night before, but it had seemed a rather drastic course of action. Now she knew that it was the only thing she could do, and there certainly wouldn’t be any difficulty in getting another job with her experience and qualifications.

  When she reached the quietness of her office she sat down slowly at her desk, and reached for a piece of paper. Under the terms of her contract she was obliged to give one month’s notice. That month would be purgatory, she knew, but it would have to be fulfilled. Anyway, that would give her a month in which to find another post somewhere, anywhere as far away as possible from Adam Shaw, and the painful emotions he brought flooding into her heart.

  Carefully she worded the letter to the Senior Nursing Officer. It was difficult wording it so that she didn’t give any indication as to the true reason she was leaving. The usual thing was to go to another post, or to retire to marriage. As neither of these reasons was applicable, Samantha put that she was intending to work abroad. It sounded quite sensible, she thought, looking at the letter. After all, she had been working in the same place for quite a long time, and she was still young; it was only natural that she should want to see a little more of the world.

  Once she had finished the letter she sealed it in an envelope, then took it along to the Reception desk and laid it slowly and carefully in the internal post tray. It was a momentous step for her, she knew, to hand in her notice without the security of another job to go to. For a moment she hesitated and was nearly on the point of retrieving the letter when Adam Shaw came by.

  “Handing in your resignation, Sister?” he enquired as he saw her standing there with her hand poised above the envelope. All she had needed was a slight impetus to spur her on, and that was it. With her back ramrod stiff she proudly swung abruptly on her heel and walked back to her office without a backward glance, leaving Adam looking curiously at the envelope lying in the post tray addressed in Samantha’s handwriting.

  Of course, when Sunday arrived she had got terribly cold feet about her decision, and it was as much as she could do to stop herself from going to the post room to retrieve the letter from the post porters. Determinedly she went out to the newsagent and bought all the best Sunday newspapers, then spent the rest of Sunday scouring the pages looking for a suitable opening abroad. There were plenty in Saudi Arabia, but somehow that didn’t hold much fascination for her. It was late evening before she had finished looking through all the papers, and she was beginning to feel despondent. Oh well, she sighed, I haven’t looked in the Nursing Mirror, I’ll start on that tomorrow.

  Monday was pouring with rain, which was depressing, for a start, and unfortunately the morning wasn’t busy. She had hoped it would be, there was nothing like work for taking her mind off of her troubles, but it was not to be. It was with a sinking heart that on picking up the telephone she heard the Senior Nursing Officer’s voice on the other end of the line asking her to come and see her, and when would be convenient.

  There seemed no point in delaying the inevitable, so Samantha said, “Now, if that’s convenient for you.”

  “I’ll expect you in five minutes,” came the crisp voice down the line.

  Samantha went along towards the office of the Senior Nursing Officer busily rehearsing a prepared speech, giving her reasons for leaving, but the minute she stepped inside the door the words flew straight out of her head.

  Miss MacKenzie looked up from her desk and smiled kindly at Samantha, motioning her to sit in the chair opposite her. Rather apprehensively Samantha perched herself on the edge of the chair.

  “I can’t say I was entirely surprised to receive your letter of resignation,” said Miss MacKenzie, studying the letter in front of her. “I had heard, of course, about your broken engagement, and I can understand that you feel you want to move on and put the past behind you.”

  Samantha looked at her in amazement. Miss MacKenzie had jumped to the wrong conclusion about Steve, but for Samantha it was a very convenient mistake; it meant she didn’t have to manufacture a story herself.

  “In fact, I was expecting it before, but I suppose you’ve been right to take your time and think about it.”

  “Well, yes,” replied Samantha, then she confessed. “There is one problem, and that is that I haven’t yet got a position to go to, so if there’s any advice you can give me I should be grateful.”

  Miss MacKenzie had always been kind, and there seemed no harm in asking her advice, or indeed confessing to her that at that moment in time she had no firm plans.
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br />   Miss MacKenzie looked pleased; she was a kindly soul and had really preferred it when she had been a Sister and had been able to have much closer contact with her “girls”, as she called them. Nowadays, with the new system and as a Nursing Officer, she was more remote and sometimes felt almost lonely, away from the hustle and bustle of nursing.

  “I’ve got many friends in the nursing world, especially in the field of midwifery,” she said, “and I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to give you a reference. I notice in your letter that you say you’re thinking about working abroad. Have you anywhere in particular in mind?”

  “No,” said Samantha slowly and truthfully, looking out of the office window at the raindrops sliding down the pane, “except that it would be nice to work in a country where the sun shone every day.”

  Miss MacKenzie’s gaze followed Samantha’s out into the rain-darkened morning and she sighed. “Yes, I know what you mean,” she said. “I can’t wait to go on my Greek holiday, I can tell you.” Suddenly she looked at Samantha. “That gives me an idea,” she said. “Would you consider working privately for a few months?”

  “I’ll consider anything,” said Samantha quite truthfully.

  “Right,” replied Miss MacKenzie. “Just give me a few days, I think I might know of just the thing for you.”

  Heartened, Samantha left the office, the interview hadn’t been nearly as bad as she had expected, and there now seemed to be the chance of a job as well. She could hardly believe her good luck.

  She met Jennie for lunch that day in the canteen and told her she had given in her notice. Jennie was flabbergasted and horrified.

  “But, Samantha, you can’t!” she wailed. “You’re my best friend!”

  “I have,” replied Samantha, “and I’ll still be your best friend, silly. Anyway, you’re going to get married, you’ll be too busy setting up house and raising a family to worry about me.”