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The husky warmth of his voice shivered across her nerve endings and she had to steel herself not to respond; not to turn into the warmth of his body and beg him to give her a second chance, to love her again. Abruptly she dragged her thoughts to a halt. She didn’t want Rorke to love her. She didn’t need his love. What on earth was the matter with her?
‘I know we’re supposed to be reconciled, but if we stay here much longer, they’ll be sending out a search party.’
Rorke eased himself out of the car as he spoke, coming round to Lisa’s side and helping her out. She thanked him curtly, smoothing the creases out of her skirt, keeping her eyes on the ground so that he wouldn’t see the fresh tears shimmering there.
‘Lisa.’
The touch of his hands on her shoulders brought her head up. He was standing so close to her that she could see the texture of his skin, the scent of his cologne filling her nostrils. His eyelashes were thick and long, just like Robbie’s, and their deceptive vulnerability tugged at her heart. The sun was warm on her back, but not as warm as the lean fingers holding her shoulders. A sensation of déjà vu swept over her, and like someone in a trance Lisa gazed up at him, aware that his hand had left her shoulder to sweep up to her neck, tangling in the softness of her hair, his lips a mere breath away from her own. She only had to close her eyes to be in his arms.
‘Lisa!’
Was it Rorke who murmured her name, or was it simply the palms whispering to the wind? The heat burned into her skin. She touched her tongue to dry lips, a heated turmoil sweeping through her body, reality crashing through the dreamlike state she was in, as she jerked away. But it was too late. Rorke’s fingers slid through her hair, his other hand sliding down over her spine to rest against her waist, holding her against the hard masculinity of his body. He bent his head, and Lisa’s eyes widened, her protest lost beneath the bruising pressure of his mouth. Dimly she heard a sound like the surf pounding on the beach and recognised, in its hypnotic rhythm, Rorke’s heartbeat. Her own sounded more like voodoo drums pounding out their message. Her entire body seemed to be on fire, burning with a fever that left her trembling and weak; too weak to do anything about Rorke’s ravishment of her mouth.
When he released her she felt as helpless as a rag doll. His touch seemed to have dragged all the energy out of her. It was as much as she could do to fix him with a single killing look from eyes that blazed their defiance, before turning tremblingly towards the car and Robbie.
As she reached for the car door he was behind her, his, ‘Welcome home, Lisa,’ shivering over too sensitive flesh. She didn’t know what was happening to her. She didn’t want to know, she thought feverishly, as she helped Robbie from the car. Once down on the ground he said matter-of-factly to Rorke, ‘You were kissing my mummy.’
‘It’s something that mummies and daddies do,’ Rorke agreed with an oblique look at Lisah. ‘You’ve seen your mummy being kissed before haven’t you?’
Lisa’s eyes blazed at him as Robbie shook his head, his little face serious. ‘My mummy doesn’t kiss anyone but me,’ he told Rorke stubbornly, eyeing him for the first time with a hint of doubt, as he added, just in case Rorke had missed the point the first time round, ‘She’s my mummy.’
‘How long do you think you’re going to be able to hide the truth from him?’ Rorke drawled scornfully to her, over Robbie’s head. ‘Okay now he’s young enough to be packed off to bed when you entertain your lovers, but not for much longer, Lisa.’
There was no response she could make without completely losing her temper, and already she could see the anxiety and pain carved deep on Leigh’s sunken features. For Leigh’s sake she wasn’t going to quarrel with Rorke now, but there would come a time of reckoning both for the comment and the insulting way he had kissed her. Kissed her! She bit back a strangled sob; it had been more like rape.
‘Lisa!’
There was no mistaking the emotion colouring Leigh’s voice, nor the tears shimmering in the dark eyes so like his son’s, and grandson’s.
‘Miss Lisa!’ Mama Case echoed, beaming widely. ‘You sure am a sight for these old eyes! And who do this be?’
‘I’m Robbie,’ Robbie supplied importantly, ‘and this is my mummy and my daddy.’
‘Say hello to your grandson,’ Rorke broke in dryly to the emotional silence that followed, adding, ‘You got my cable, then?’
‘It arrived this morning,’ Leigh assured him. He turned to Lisa. ‘Lisa, my darling girl, you’re everything I always thought you would be. Rorke has made me promise not to ask questions—the past is the past, but you can’t know how happy it makes me seeing you both here together, and with your child. I still can’t believe it…’ His voice trailed away, the suspicion of tears moistening his eyes again. Lisa reached out towards him, too full of emotion to speak herself, and it was left to Rorke to supply curtly,
‘If the truth were told, I welcomed the excuse of going to find her because you were asking for her, Dad. And once I found her I was determined I wasn’t going to let her go again.’
‘It must have come as quite a shock to realise you were a father as well,’ Leigh chuckled,
‘You could say that.’ Rorke bent to ruffle Robbie’s hair, his expression concealed from Lisa. ‘We were going to sail back, but Lady had developed engine trouble. Helen met us at St Lucia airport to give us the bad news.’
‘Helen?’ Leigh’s voice and expression sharpened.
‘It’s all right, Leigh,’ Lisa assured him with a smile. ‘Years ago I was jealous of Rorke’s relationship with Helen, I know, but I’ve grown up a lot since then. After all, he married me.’
‘And you have his son,’ Leigh added emotionally. ‘Poor little Lisa, why did you run away like that? It must have been some quarrel the two of you had.’
Lisa frowned. What did Leigh mean? He knew why she had left Rorke—she had written to him.
Mama Case had prepare
d a celebration lunch for them, and Lisa felt tears sting her eyes as she recognised all her old favourites. Robbie, who could sometimes be a little awkward about his food, tucked in with an enthusiasm that surprised her. Ever since their arrival on the island he had stuck close to Rorke.
After lunch, Leigh announced that he had to go and rest.
‘Doctor’s orders, I’m afraid,’ he grimaced to Lisa. ‘Rorke will have told you that they’re trying to persuade me to have some damned operation, but it means flying to Florida, and even then there’s only a fifty-fifty chance.’
