Robyn had turned slowly to look at the man who had called to her across the garden fence that separated the two cottages, knowing it was this movement that had changed his mind about her being a little girl. From the back her height and slender figure might give that impression, but as soon as she turned that impression was as quickly dispelled. Slender and slightly boyish before the twins were born five years ago her breasts had never returned to their flat-chested state, the clinging blue T-shirt she wore at the moment emphasising that fact.

The man with the wickedly twinkling blue eyes grinned at her devilishly. ‘The Colonel told me my new neighbour was a Mrs Warner and her two children, but I had no idea the children would be quite so—grown-up,’ his husky voice had lowered appreciatively.

Robyn turned completely now, giving up any idea of hanging up the rest of her washing for the moment, giving him her full attention. ‘You're Sinclair Thornton?’ her own voice was slightly throaty, almost sensual, not quite in keeping with the fresh-scrubbed look of her face and her long bright red hair secured at her nape.

He leant over the top of the fence, the light summer breeze ruffling his overlong blond hair, his arms deeply tanned below the turned back sleeves of his shirt. ‘The Colonel told you about me?’ he prompted lightly, giving away nothing of his thoughts on the subject by his bland expression.

She shrugged narrow shoulders. ‘There isn't much that's secret in a small community like this one, Mr Thornton,’ she answered noncommitally, not willing to admit that she knew his reason for being here, or the fact that she despised that reason utterly.

‘My friends call me Sin,’ he encouraged softly, his gaze still appreciative.

‘So I've heard,’ she acknowledged dryly.

Interest flickered in the bright blue eyes. ‘What else have you heard?’

‘Everyone knows of your books.’ Again her manner was slightly reserved. ‘They're always on the bestseller list.”

He frowned as he picked up the edge of disapproval in her voice. ‘You don't like them?’

‘I've never read one,’ she told him truthfully. ‘I don't have a lot of spare time,’ she added by way of softening what could be taken as an insult.

‘Of course you don't,’ he straightened. ‘I'm probably delaying your getting to school right now. I just thought I would introduce myself to your mother.’

Once again he had made the mistake of thinking she was the child instead of the Mrs Warner she actually was, and an imp of devilment stopped her refuting his error. ‘I'm the only one at home at the moment,’ she said with complete honesty. ‘Why don't you come over for dinner this evening?’ she invited mischievously. ‘I'm sure the rest of the family would love to meet you.’ She could well imagine the twins’ wide-eyed interest in their new neighbour, and she felt sure this man was going to be more than surprised by who the ‘rest of the family’ consisted of. It would serve him right for flirting with the impressionable teenager he thought her to be when he was obviously an experienced man in his thirties.

‘Are you sure your mother won't mind your making the invitation on her behalf?’ he hesitated, obviously not willing to upset his new neighbour on his first day here.

‘None of the family will mind,’ she told him with certainty, knowing the twins met all too few new people, living on the Masters estate as they did. ‘But we eat quite early, about six?’ she raised auburn brows enquiringly.

‘Anytime suits me,’ he accepted. ‘I'll look forward to it.’

So would she. It was a long time since she had felt such a mischievous state of anticipation. She hadn't been looking forward to the arrival of her temporary neighbour in the adjoining cottage, knew from his reputation and the life he had led that he would be too much like Brad for comfort. In looks the two men were opposite, Brad as dark as Sinclair Thornton was blond, Brad's eyes a cold calculating grey whereas the other man's were a bright twinkling blue. But Sinclair Thornton had once been a reporter, as Brad still was, and although the other man appeared to have had the sense to get out while he was still in one piece, both emotionally and physically, Brad still went to all the trouble spots of the world, throwing himself into the task with a relish that sickened her. Although she and her ex-husband had been divorced for almost two years he still popped up from time to time, showered gifts on Kim and Andy when they would much rather have had more of his time and love, before disappearing off to God knows where again.

It had been the constant uncertainty as to Brad's welfare, the days, weeks sometimes, of waiting to see if he would get out of his latest assignment alive, that had completed the erosion of their marriage. And she knew, as did most other people, that the bestselling books that Sinclair Thornton specialised in were for the main part based on his own experiences during his time as a reporter, that ‘only the names and places had been changed to protect the innocent'! And from the reviews she had read of those books there didn't appear to be many of the latter between the covers!

When the Colonel had told her of the author's proposed visit here she had been less than enthusiastic, despised the glorifying of war when it was the innocent who suffered. And as Sinclair Thornton had made it known that he intended basing his next book, in part, on the Colonel's war-time experiences she couldn't say she had relished the thought of meeting him.

But he had turned out to be slightly different from what she had imagined, although she didn't doubt that the same hardness that had ruled all Brad's decisions in life lurked somewhere beneath the easygoing charm of the other man; no man could see and experience some of the things those two had without becoming hardened to the softer

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A No Risk Affair

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

A No Risk
Affair