Ginny smiled, going through to the surgery.
As soon as she could Sian tidied up her desk and left for the afternoon, locking the door behind her. The afternoon was hers until four, when she came back for the evening surgery.
At least, it should have been. But she had the shopping for lunch to do, had to get home in time to cook the meal for her father and sister. They always had a hot meal at lunchtime; her own job at the surgery and her sister’s job as a hairdresser meant it wasn’t practical to cook in the evenings, and they just grabbed a snack when they got in.
But today she didn’t shop with her usual speed, finding herself thinking of Jarrett in spite of herself. Could he really be coming back to Swannell? Could he already be back? After three years it didn’t seem very likely, but even so she was wary as she walked around the shops, thinking she was going to walk into him around every street corner.
Swannell was a small rural town, and Sian’s family were known to most people; she acknowledged several people as she bought the meat for lunch. She received curious looks in return to her open smile, and it began to dawn on her that Ginny could actually be right about Jarrett’s return. Most people in this town knew of her association with Jarrett in the past, and they would be curious as to her reaction to his return now. Thank goodness she had been pre-warned by Ginny!
Her smile was bright and assured as she made her way to the Victorian-style house that was the home of her father, her sister and herself, her mother having died several years ago. The yellow Mini in the driveway told her that Bethany was already at home.
There was no sign of her sister in the kitchen, but the radio could be heard playing upstairs. Sian began to unpack her shopping, putting on the grill to cook the steak. Bethany would soon come down when she smelt the food cooking.
Sian’s movements were automatic, her thoughts disturbed. If Jarrett really were coming back, and it looked as if he was, then it was inevitable that they should meet at some time; the town was hardly big enough for them to ignore each other. How was she going to stand that? She was the calm, practical one, and yet about Jarrett she had certainly never been either of those things.
But she was an engaged lady now, with a solitaire diamond ring on her left hand that said her heart and loyalty belonged to Chris. The mad, impetuous feelings she had once felt for Jarrett were a thing of the past, belonged to her childhood. As he would find out if he ever tried to remind her of them.
But she had no reason to suppose Jarrett would even remember her; she was probably one of the women he would rather forget, her stubbornness where he was concerned meaning that for once Jarrett hadn’t had things completely his own way. And three years was a long time, a very long time.
‘Hi,’ her sister came into the kitchen, throwing her apple-core into the bin. ‘I couldn’t wait,’ she grimaced at Sian’s disapproving look, and sat down at the kitchen table, wearing denims and a loose blouse, her usual attire for working in the hairdressing salon. With her baby-blonde curls and placid blue eyes Bethany was the fiery one of the family; their father often teased them about their mixed-up natures.
‘Lay the table,’ Sian instructed her sister, wondering how Bethany ever managed to keep her slender figure with the amount of food she ate.
With a shrug Bethany did as requested. ‘Hey, guess what I heard today?’ Her expression suddenly brightened. ‘Guess who’s coming back to town?’
‘Jarrett King,’ Sian answered easily, more than ever glad Ginny had pre-warned her. Bethany had known all about Jarrett and herself in the past, and she felt relieved to be able to remain unruffled in front of her sister.
Bethany frowned her disappointment. ‘How did you know?’
‘News travels fast in a place this size,’ Sian shrugged.
‘And I thought I had a hot piece of gossip!’
‘Don’t worry,’ she smiled. ‘You probably have. Ginny just got in first.’
‘She always does,’ Bethany said without rancour. ‘Still,’ her expression brightened again, ‘isn’t it exciting about Jarrett coming back?’
Exciting? That was the last thing Sian would have called it! Three years, three years he had been away, and he had to come back now. Not next year or the year after that, when it wouldn’t have mattered, but now.
‘As I remember it, you never liked him,’ she reminded her young sister.
Bethany flushed. ‘I was a child three years ago, only sixteen—’
‘You thought you were very grown up!’
‘Well, I wasn’t,’ she snapped. ‘Otherwise I would have known what a good-looking man Jarrett is.’
‘You’ve seen him!’ Sian’s voice was sharp, although as she was turned towards the cooker Bethany couldn’t possibly have seen the way her face had paled.
‘Not yet. But I’m going to. I’ll make sure of it,’ her sister said determinedly.
‘Bethany!’ Sian turned now, her eyes wide with disapproval.
‘Would you mind?’ Bethany arched blonde brows questioningly.
‘How do you know he’s good-looking?’ Sian didn’t answer the question, trying to assimilate in her mind the picture of Bethany and Jarrett together. She couldn’t see it at all!
‘Easy,’ her sister smiled. ‘I vaguely remember him. And I read this magazine article about him a few months ago.’
Sian frowned. ‘You never mentioned it.’
‘No, well … To tell you the truth, Sian, I wasn’t sure you would want to know. It was only a small article, and mainly about the company. But there was a lovely photograph of Jarrett along with it.’
Sian moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘How—how did he look?’
‘Gorgeous!’ Bethany grinned dreamily. ‘Really – gorgeous,’ she repeated enthusiastically. ‘His hair has been bleached blonder by the sun, and he has a deep, deep tan. It looks marvellous against his luminous green eyes. As for his body … !’
‘Bethany!’ Sian was deeply shocked by the desire in her sister’s face, especially for a man she knew only too intimately herself.
‘Well, he was wearing this pair of dark green swimming trunks—just,’ Bethany added pointedly. ‘And as it was a full-length photograph it didn’t leave much to the imagination.’
Sian remembered that body only too well, knew what magic it could induce when you least expected it. She had known that seduction herself, and she feared for her impressionably young sister. At nineteen Bethany was still very immature in some ways. Sian knew that that was partly her fault, that she had been over-protective of her sister since their mother died, but she knew that Bethany was much too naïve to cope with the complexities of a man like Jarrett. No one woman was experienced or sophisticated enough to cope with that.
‘He’s too old for you, Bethany,’ she said abruptly.
‘Only thirty-six.’ She gave Sian a sideways glance. ‘You’re only three years older than me, and you didn’t think he was too old for you.’
To explain to Bethany that Jarrett had been the reason for her own growing-up would be to reveal too much. ‘Well, I can tell you now that Daddy won’t approve. Especially if he hears the way you’ve been talking about him!’
‘You aren’t going to tell him?’ her sister groaned. ‘I haven’t even met Jarrett yet. At least give me a chance.’
Sian very much doubted that Jarrett would be interested in Bethany; youth and naïveté were something he had sworn to stay away from when he had walked out on nineteen-year-old Sian. In many ways Bethany was even more immature than she had been three years ago, and surely wouldn’t appeal to a man as jaded as Jarrett.
He