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'All right?' he asked, a little abruptly.

Gillian nodded. 'Out of condition,' she said, half laughing.

He brushed the fine hair from her wet face with both hands and felt her quiver at his touch. Swift surprise glimmered in his grey eyes. He saw a touching hint of defensiveness in her expression and knew its cause with the sudden insight of experience. His body stirred with its own awareness of a sexual chemistry that defied logic —or liking. His hands moved slowly to cradle her fair head in a kind of caress. Her eyes widened. He drew her towards him with intent.

-They stood very close and his mouth hovered just above her own. Gillian could sense the throb of desire in his taut, lean body. She waited for him to kiss her, heart hammering. She would be angry with him later. Just now, she was melting with a longing that was alarming in its intensity.

Mark let her go, abruptly. It had always been his maxim to avoid any kind of relationship with the nurses he met in the course of his work. It led to complications that a dedicated and ambitious doctor just didn't need. He might be very tempted to make love to this pretty girl who had quickened his senses so unexpectedly, but he had learned at an early age to master his sensuality. He knew the danger of giving way to desire without a thought for the consequences. A kiss or two might seem to be harmless enough, but he realised that it wouldn't stop at that. For their mutual wanting was too fierce a flame, swiftly ignited.

Gillian knew that he had fought temptation—and won. Like herself, he realised that it was just a fleeting physical excitement, without rhyme or reason, that mustn't be allowed a free rein. For her, there was Robin to consider—and for him, there was the beautiful girl that he was planning to marry. It would be much too easy to forget them and everything else in each other's arms, but it could only be a short-lived and much-regretted ecstasy. For they didn't really like each other at all.

Yet, woman-like, she was piqued that he hadn't kissed her when she had been in the mood to respond. She moved away from him, hoping that he wouldn't suspect how much she had wanted that whisked-away kiss.

The big dog launched himself on her with heavy paws, tail wagging with the offer of friendship. Speaking eyes begged for attention and he uttered a short, eager bark.

Gillian was glad of the distraction. She rubbed Henry's silky ears and murmured dog-talk to him, carefully not looking at Mark, thankful that the turmoil of her senses was beginning to quieten. He leaned against the wooden frame of the shelter, staring out to sea.

She wondered what had happened to his plans. He had spoken to Mary Kenny as if he was expecting to spend the evening with the Penistones. Yet he was here with his dog on a deserted beach on a squally evening, some miles from the town. She marvelled at the odd chance that had brought them both to the same place at the same time.

She wished she could feel that the brief encounter had improved their relationship. But that almost-kiss had been humiliating rather than flattering and she was a little angry. Perhaps it was just as well that she had no reason to like him any better. They needed to keep a certain distance between them or they might both be consumed by a dangerous flame .. .

'It's getting late,' she said, straightening and brushing the marks of muddy paws from her jeans.

He held his watch to the fading light. 'Nearly nine o'clock.'

'I want to get back before it's really dark. I'm not too sure of the road. The rain's easing off now, I think.' She gave Henry a last caress and allowed Mark a cool smile that didn't hint at her lingering chagrin because he hadn't kissed her, after all. 'I'll see you in the morning. Complete with gown and mask!'

'Looking forward to it?'

She hesitated. 'I'm a little nervous,' she confessed. 'I shall be working with a temperamental surgeon who doesn't make allowances, I'm told.'

He didn't react to the tentative olive branch. 'Where's your car?'

'Over there.' Gillian gestured in the vague direction of the parked Mini, refusing to admit to disappointment let alone show it. 'By the pub ...'

'So's mine.' He swung into step by her side, matching his long strides to her slower pace, the dog trotting at their heels.

He didn't reach for her hand this time. Gillian wondered if he had decided that it was safer for them to be enemies than try for any degree of friendship.

The Mercedes was parked a short distance from her Mini. It must have been there when she drove up, Gillian realised. But she hadn't noticed. She wouldn't have connected the sleek silver car with the surgeon, anyway. Who would have thought that Mark Barlow shared her liking for evening walks on a sea shore whatever the weather?

They paused when they reached her car.

Gillian fingered the car keys in her anorak pocket, feeling she ought to wish him a casual goodnight and drive away, but finding it oddly difficult to bring a chance encounter to an end. She wasn't at ease with him but she didn't want to part with him. Her thoughts and emotions were foolishly muddled, in fact.

'I'm not surprised you were so ill if you take such little care of yourself,' he said abruptly, flicking her damp hair with ah impatient hand. 'You're running the risk of another bout of pneumonia. You look quite chilled. Come over to the pub and I'll get you a brandy. I could use one myself.'

He took her arm and swept her across the road before she could protest that she didn't like brandy and she didn't want to linger in a pub with a man she didn't really want to know. So she said nothing and he took her silence for consent.

The pub was almost empty. It was the kind of evening when few people had ventured out. A fire burned cheerfully in the hearth and Mark steered her towards it. He settled her on a padded bench and went to the bar for drinks. Henry flumped to the floor and put his head on her foot and sighed happily, his wet coat already steaming in the warmth from the fire.

Mark wrinkled his nose when he came back with the brandies. 'You're smelling like a dog, Henry,' he scolded, stirring the labrador with his foot. Henry grunted, shifted his position slightly and went back to sleep.

Gillian hid her smile in her brandy glass. Not liking him, not feeling kindly disposed to him at that particular moment, she didn't see why she should admit to being amused by the conversation between a man and his dog.

Mark leaned towards her, elbows resting on his knees, brandy glass rotating slowly in his muscular, long-fingered, surgeon's hands. 'Henry's taken a fancy to you,' he drawled.

'He's very discerning,' she retorted. She smiled sweetly. 'Which is more than I can say for his owner!' She couldn't resist the barb.

He shrugged. 'You don't need me to fancy you,' he said bluntly. 'You've had Steve running round in circles ever since you arrived at Greenvale—and I gather that McAllister's had a thing about you for years. He couldn't talk of anything else but you this morning. I eventually had to remind him that we'd met to discuss a patient and not the love of his life.'

Gillian felt the heat steal into her face at the slightly sardonic words. 'We haven't met in a long time,' she said defensively.

'I believe he's hoping to make up for lost time. So I was rather surprised to find you out on your own this evening. Couldn't you choose between the pair of them?'

She didn't answer. She sipped her brandy carefully, disliking the taste but welcoming the warming glow. She realised that she
had
been chilled by the wind and the rain.

She could sense his gaze, the considering grey eyes intent on her face. She could sense the hint of mockery in the smile that probably hovered about his sensual mouth. She wondered if he thought that she meant to play one man off against the other. He must have formed a very poor opinion of her, she thought, needled.

For some moments, she wouldn't .look at him. She wondered how she came to be in a pub with him at all. She wondered why she had stopped to speak to him on the beach. She wondered why she couldn't stop wondering about him.

She raised her eyes reluctantly and found that he was regarding her, unsmiling. She looked back at him with dislike, all her hackles rising. How could she warm to a man who gave nothing of himself to anyone and seemed to expect too much from everyone else, particularly women!

He was a detestable man arid she marvelled that she had been so weak with wanting at his touch. Well, he wouldn't get the chance to touch her again—ever.

She leaped to her feet, impatient. Henry yelped mournfully as she trod on a paw. She looked down at the dog, swiftly contrite.

Mark smiled slightly. 'Tread softly for you tread on poor Henry's dreams,' he drawled, misquoting Yeats.

Gillian met his eyes and found them warm with unexpected laughter. She hesitated, uncertain. He was laughing at her again but for once it wasn't unkind, she decided. She smiled reluctantly and stooped to apologise to Henry with a pat. He thumped his tail to show that she was forgiven and yawned widely.

'Where were you going, anyway?' Mark asked carelessly. 'You haven't finished your drink.'

'I
am
going home,', she said firmly and left him, making resolutely for the door.

He drained the last of his own brandy then rose and followed her leisurely from the pub, calling Henry to heel.

Gillian was in the process of opening her car door when he walked towards her and said her name so peremptorily that she turned, bridling. 'What is it?'

He reached her.

She looked up at him, suddenly wary.

'I do fancy you,' he said quietly. Then he bent his dark head and kissed her in the rain.

She had been kissed before, many times, and had found it enjoyable if not as exciting as she had been led to expect. Being kissed by Mark Barlow was an entirely new experience.

She hadn't known that her heart would stop, that the world would spin and there would be so much intoxication in a mere kiss. She hadn't known that his lips would be sweet as well as warm, touched with a magic that tugged at her senses and invited her to drown in the enchantment of his arms. She hadn't known that she would feel as if she was suddenly and gloriously alive for the first time in her life, athrob in every fibre of her being and eager to know more of a promised paradise.

Her lips clung, reluctant for the magic to end. It was suddenly the most important thing in the world that he should be caught up in that same magic. She wanted the moment to be as memorable for him as it certainly would be for her. She wanted it to be a new beginning. She didn't even dare to think how it might end ...

Mark was shaken. For him, it had been an impulsive yielding to sudden temptation, that vein of dark mischief in his make-up. She was a pretty girl and he had wondered if she would react with her usual rebellious spirit if he kissed her. He hadn't expected the melting sweetness of her response. He hadn't expected the fire to leap in his loins with such compelling urgency. He hadn't expected to feel that there was only one way to end an evening that had begun without even the thought of her.

She drew away, trembling.

Mark didn't doubt that she was consumed by the same flame as himself. He didn't doubt that she knew what she was doing when she welcomed and returned his kiss and leaned her body against him. He didn't doubt that she was as sexually experienced as most of the women in his life.

'Where do we go from here?' he asked abruptly. 'Your place or mine?'

The directness of his approach shocked Gillian back to reality. Did he think he had only to kiss her and she would be ready to leap into bed with him? She was suddenly angry... and all the more indignant because it was so nearly true!

'I know where I'm going,' she said coldly, thrusting past him. 'You can go to hell!' She scrambled into the driving seat and slotted in the ignition key and the little Mini's tyres almost scorched the road as it took off for home, leaving him looking after her with a wry expression.

All the way home, Gillian chided herself for allowing him to get close enough to kiss her—and for allowing him to realise her response to that kiss. She had kissed him back like any naive schoolgirl on her first date. She had encouraged him to think that she was an easy conquest. She was a fool!

She ought to have passed him on the beach without a word, she scolded herself. She didn't even like him. after all. She hadn't wanted to be involved in any way with a man like Mark Barlow.

She shouldn't have allowed him to walk along with her, to talk to her, to take her hand in that familiar fashion. Anyone observing them might have believed they were lovers out for an evening stroll, too much in love to care for the inclement weather, she thought bitterly.

She shouldn't have allowed him to buy her a drink and disarm her with a smattering of the charm that apparently endeared him to too many women. A few humorous remarks, a caressing touch of his hand, a mere glimpse of the warmth that it seemed he was glad to bestow on everyone but herself—and she was ready to tumble into his arms! Gillian was furious with her weakness for a near-stranger.

Heaven knew how she was going to meet him the next morning! She might pretend that she had regarded it as a meaningless kiss, a nothing, a try-on by a sensual man who was also an opportunist. But she knew—and she had the awful feeling that Mark Barlow knew—that it had been the kind of a kiss that could change a girl's whole life.

She didn't like him.

But she felt a strong physical attraction that weakened her resolve to keep him firmly at a distance.

Most alarming of all, Gillian wondered if she was just a little in love with him ...

The
moment that Gillian had been dreading came and went almost unnoticed. She was busy in the larger of the two theatres, scrubbed-up and green-gowned, checking the instrument trolley and mentally revising the procedure for the hernioplasty that was the first operation on the list, when Mark entered and nodded to her so impersonally that it was hard to believe that kiss had ever happened.