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'I want to talk to you.' His face was close enough to kiss. 'Can we go somewhere quiet?'

The temptation was to say yes, but she guessed they would only finish up by shouting at one another again. She pulled away from him and he made no attempt to stop her. Facing him squarely, aware that they were being watched, she said calmly;

'Not at the moment. I've got a lot to do.' She cursed her own cowardice.

'Dani-girl. . .'He took her arm and steered her towards the car, and she felt his fingers tight against her arm through the cloth of her cloak and refused to struggle against him in the presence of others.'. . . I have to talk to you.' His voice held an urgency that she had never heard before. 'We have a lot to straighten out.'

'No, we haven't.' Her foot slipped on an icy cobble and his grip tightened still more. 'Whenever we talk, you always lose your temper. I'm tired of it. All you can see is the wedding ring I used to wear and it's blinding you to everything else. Besides . . .' And this, she thought wretchedly, war the
coup de grace.
'I've applied for a teaching post in Yorkshire. There is nothing
to
straighten out.'

As soon as the fateful words were uttered, Prentice's body straightened as if an electric current had been passed through it. Dani knew the news was a shock and immediately regretted having told him. It would have been easier just to leave the village quietly without this final confrontation. It would have been easier for both of them.

'Get in the car,' he said quietly.

'I'd rather walk.'

'Get in the damn car!' Every word was spoken with ominous clarity and his grip on her arm had all the crushing strength of a vice. He opened the passenger door of the Volvo and she had no choice but to clamber ungraciously into the seat, staring straight ahead of her as he stalked around to the driver's side, stripping off his red cloak and some of his sweaters as he did so, got in and started the engine, throwing the discarded clothes on to the back seat.

In complete silence he negotiated a three-point turn in the yard, treating the vehicle as if it was a dodgem car rather than a heavy saloon, and then they accelerated out of the gates with a recklessness that made Dani reach for her seat belt in alarm.

She wondered what he thought he was doing, and where he was taking them. He was a capable driver, but the way he was throwing the Volvo around bends, the big headlights eating up the road in front of them, suggested an eighteen-year-old in his first sports car.

'Prentice,' she said calmly, 'if you have to kill yourself with your bad temper, that's your decision, but personally I'd like to live to a ripe old age.' The car was flung around a right-hand bend and Dani held her breath as she felt the back of the car slide. 'Prentice!' There was a hint of panic in her voice. 'What are you doing?'

'I'm sorry.' The speed of the car decreased, dropping down to thirty miles an hour, and as she glanced at the speedometer to check the indicator, Dani saw that Prentice's hands on the steering wheel were shaking slightly. 'Damn!' The word was a condemnation of his own behaviour. 'Dani, I'm sorry.'

'Yes.' Slowly she let out her breath in a silent exhalation of relief. 'Well, since you seem determined not to take me home, we'd better find somewhere to park. There's a picnic area about half a mile along this road.'

The distance
was completed in a silence that was thick with confused emotions. Dani turned her head to look out of the passenger window and gradually felt herself begin to relax. Her palms felt sore and she guessed she had dug her nails into them in those few moments of fear.

'Turn here.' She was amazed at the steadiness of her voice. 'Be careful, the ground's rough.'

The big car moved cautiously forward and stopped and then, in a totally unexpected gesture, Prentice wrapped his arms around the steering wheel and rested his forehead on his locked hands.

'Would you mind telling me why you want to leave?' His voice sounded lifeless;, flat and unemotional. He raised his head and looked at her. 'I thought you were happy in the village.'

'I was.' In the darkness of the car, Dani could not see his face clearly, but the tone of his voice worried her. 'I think it's time maybe I had a change. I'm getting too . . . parochial.' It was a word he had used, so he could not deny her statement.

'I like you parochial,' he said. 'I'll miss you.'

'I'm sure you'll find someone else to fight with,' she answered lightly.

'Not easily.' Life was coming back into his voice now. She could hear a creeping warmth sliding into it. 'Dani . . . are you really going just because you want a change?'

'That's what I said,' she agreed, but she found that her fists were clenched again. She did not want to lie to him more than she had to.

'I'd hate to think it was because of anything I'd said or done.' He spoke diffidently, as if afraid she might accuse him of arrogance again. 'Please don't think that I want you to go. I don't.'

Dani sighed. There was no hint of pleading in the quiet tones a few feet from her, but she thought she detected a hint of wistfulness under the formal words.

'I need a change,' she said again, and after that there was silence as she stared through the windscreen of the car and felt the bleakness of the view match the way she felt inside.

There was a small movement next to her, and then his hand reached over and took her chilled fingers within the warmth of his clasp. She accepted the gesture and even squeezed the powerful hand comfortingly, but the silence stretched on.

Dani wanted to break it, to say something, anything, that would dispel the tension that was building up in the car. It made her heart thump uncomfortably, made her breath come quickly, and drove her mind into a frantic struggle to guess what his next words might be.

'Tell me about your husband.'

She had not expected questions about Keith. Dani shut her eyes for a moment and leaned her head against the restraint behind her while she wondered what to say.

'Ex-husband,' she corrected Prentice quietly. 'We were divorced several years ago and now he's married again and has a daughter.'

'I didn't know that.'

'Of course you didn't... I didn't tell you.' Dani spoke more sharply than she meant to. 'My divorce has always made you angry.'

'I won't be angry now, I promise. Just tell me.'

Was she imagining an urgency in the body that turned towards her, or in the hand that held hers more tightly? Dani trembled and cleared her throat, wondering where she should start and how much she should tell him.

'We were too young.' She had to make that clear. 'It wasn't his fault any more than it was mine. We met between leaving school and starting college. It seemed like a gift from the gods that we should both be going to colleges in the same town. It was like a holiday romance. We'd both finished our exams and we were as free as birds.' Wonderfully carefree days. She could still remember them clearly. 'We fell in love and got married. His parents didn't like it and neither did mine, but we talked them all round.'

'And then?' His voice was unsteady. 'What then, Dani-girl?'

'We did half a term at college before we were married, and then we went back together to a small flat. I suppose, looking back, we had a lot to prove.' Dani wished she could put her arms around him while she spoke. He was such a lonely man and at that moment she knew how he felt. She had never known such a sense of isolation in all her life. 'We had to show them that being married didn't make any difference to our work,' she said simply, 'and for Keith, it didn't. He was brilliant. I wasn't. I struggled but he didn't seem to have to try at all. I think he soon realised that the girl who had been happy to spend all her time with him during the holidays wasn't quite the same girl who had to spend hours and hours working to keep up with the lectures. I think . . .' She flushed painfully in the darkness.'. . . I think I bored him. There was the cooking and the laundry and the housework to do as well, you see. I think he fell in love with the face and not with the girl behind the face. Maybe.'

'Come here.' His voice was rough but she went gladly into his arms, hiding her heated face in his chest. 'I'd call you many things,' he said above her head, 'but boring wouldn't be one of them. Didn't he help you with the chores?'

'No.' Dani pressed her head more closely against him. 'I was only eighteen,' she said unclearly. 'Maybe I was boring . . . then. I've grown up a lot.' The divorce had done that for her. 'We were both just too young.'

'But you did love him?' His arms tightened as if willing her to deny the question.

'I loved the idea of being in love,' Dani said slowly. 'At the time, yes, I thought I loved him. Looking back, the answer would have to be no.' How could it be anything else when she compared her relationship with Keith to the way she felt about this man?

'Dani . . .' Crushed against him, she could hear the heavy slam of his heart.'. . . you've told me how you feel, and now I want to tell you what's on my mind. Do you want to hear?'

'Yes.' Of course she did! This was what she had waited for, hoped for, for so long. 'You must know I do.'

'I'm not used to explaining how I feel.' He stumbled over the words a little. 'It doesn't come easily. All I know is that whatever I'm doing, wherever I go, I see your face. Last thing at night and first thing in the morning, you're on my mind. When I went back home after the fire— remember?—I couldn't settle because you were inside my head all the time. So then I came back to talk to you and I didn't know what to say.'

Dear God, Dani thought helplessly, what do I say to that? What does he expect from me?

'I'm jealous of Keith.' The words were said so quietly that Dani barely heard them.

'But why?' She tipped her head back and tried to see his face in the darkness. 'It's all over. Has been for years.'

'He was your husband.' Prentice seemed to be forcing the words out between clenched teeth. 'He slept with you . . . and made love to you. You've got memories of him that I'd want you to forget.'

His mouth was so close. She would only have to reach up a little and she could kiss him. Dani hesitated, then relaxed, knowing that the words had to be said.

'I can't forget about being married,' she said softly, 'but it's in the past. I don't think
about
it much.' And that was the best she could offer him. She would not make wild promises that she could not keep.

The inside of the car was getting cold, matching the chill inside Dani's heart. He was sitting so still, as if he was deep in thought and had forgotten about her, and she stirred restlessly in his arms, wanting to bring him back to the Dani that he knew now, rather than the Dani he was seeing inside his head.

'I'm sorry,' he said at last. 'I don't have the right to question you like this.' He shrugged. 'I'm jealous and prejudiced and I've got an appalling temper. They aren't very pretty faults, love.'

Love. He had called her 'love'. Dani's heart skipped and then lurched into a new and exciting beat.

'We've all got faults,' she said mildly. 'Nobody's perfect.'

'Ah yes, but yours are so damn attractive.' He stretched out his arm to switch on the courtesy light and Dani saw a crooked grin, eyes that reflected the brilliance of a precious stone, and a face that softened dramatically into gentle lines. All this she looked at in bewilderment as he tipped her head up, hands cupping her face and pushing her hair back a little. 'I can't resist you!' he breathed, and then he was touching her mouth with his own in a close, lightly clinging kiss that turned her body to flame.

'My love—my beautiful Dani.' He said the words against her lips and his fingers combed through her hair before one hand settled purposefully at the back of her head and the other curled more tightly around her shoulders.

Passionately, unreservedly, Dani gave herself up to his seeking, hungry mouth, wanting to match his ardour, wanting to give him all that he was asking for and more, instinctively stretching up her hand to his neck to hold him more closely against her. This was where she wanted to be; in his arms, pressed against him, showing him that she loved him, drowning in the sensation of those moving lips and the knowledge that she was wanted, perhaps even needed, by this man.

The kiss melded them together, turning them from two people with differing ideas and views into one silent, desiring entity where all that was important was the giving and receiving of love. Dani wanted to cry with the sweetness of it.

It was Prentice who broke the kiss and who, breathing erratically, leaned his head back against the headrest of the car. The jade eyes were hidden from Dani's blurred vision, but he could not conceal his mouth and she knew he was deeply shaken by the mutual flare of their passion.

'Do you know what I'm thinking now?' His voice slurred slightly.

'No. Tell me.' Dani rubbed her cheek contentedly against his chest.

'I'm wondering how many times you kissed Keith like that. If you . . .'

'Don't!'

The brief, idyllic dream that at last they might have found a measure of happiness in the embrace of their bodies vanished with the sharp, jarring crack of shattered glass. Dani pulled herself away from him and sat and stared through the windscreen, horrified by the anger that raged through her, and fighting to prevent the bitter, scalding words of condemnation from tumbling from her lips.

'I think you should take me home.' The words came out flatly and sounded loud in the sudden hush inside the car. Wildly Dani wondered why he had this obsession about her ex-husband. Was she the first woman he had ever kissed or the first woman he had ever made love to? No, of course she wasn't! His mouth and his hands spoke of experience and knowledge . If she was not worried about all the women who had been in his bed, why was he so concerned about the one man who had been in hers? Keith had been her husband, not just a casual affair. Why hadn't he asked if there had been other men in her life?