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Katriona stared at him in bewilderment. If Ena said Ross Carmichael was her father, she wanted no further proof. Ena would never tell a lie. Her mind whirled with questions. Why was it a secret? Was her mother married to the man or not? Was that why it was a secret? If she was married to him then she, Katriona, had a real father.

'I'm afraid this must have come as a bit of a shock to you.’ Morgan sounded really concerned. ‘Would you like a brandy?’

Katriona shook her head.

‘Well, here’s the coffee. Drink it up while it’s hot. I’m sorry it never occurred to me that you wouldn’t be in on it.’

Katriona reached for the cup and drank the hot coffee with gratitude ... it seemed to settle her nerves. Then she realised what Morgan had said to her, and her blue eyes flashed with anger. ‘So that’s it! It was your attitude which bothered me. You thought it was a hoax ... the letter, I mean. You thought it was some scheme thought up by Ena and myself. How
dare
you think that? And you have a
colossal nerve coming here checking up on her character and mine. Well, my man, you can go right back to New Zealand and tell Ross Carmichael and anyone else who’s remotely interested in your investigations to stop worrying. I don’t care if he’s my father or not. Why should I need another father? I’ve had my choice of fathers ... four to be exact, and another one coming up. What I don’t need most is another father! ’

‘Calm down,’ Morgan said soothingly. ‘Naturally I had to check her out, and I’m sorry if I gained the wrong impression from the letter. Ross Carmichael is not a poor man.’

‘Charming!'
Katriona was scathing. ‘So his first thought on hearing he has a daughter is to protect his assets. She would naturally only be interested in his money. What else? As if I’d want to be related to a man like that! ’

‘Cut that out!’ Morgan spoke sharply. ‘You’re deliberately putting the wrong interpretation on everything I say. Why don’t you stop and listen before you hit the panic button? The boss asked me to come over here and see if there was any truth in the story …'

‘Huh!’ Katriona interrupted sarcastically. 'He doesn’t even know if he was married to my mother. That makes us even, I don’t know either. He doesn’t even know if he’s met her or slept with her or if she had a child by him. He sounds a pretty poor specimen to me. And if anyone’s story is thin it’s yours.’

‘Of course he knows he was married to Fiona Carmichael. It was the biggest mistake of his life. He was married to her for two years ... well, she lived with him for two years. Then he had a severe accident and the doctors didn’t think he would ever walk again. While he was lying critically ill in hospital your mother cleared out and left him. What do you think that did to him? Now, some twenty years later, he hears from someone he doesn’t know that she had a child six months after she arrived in Scotland and stating that he’s supposed to be the father. Is it any wonder that he thought it was a scheme set up by you and your mother to get money out of him?’

Katriona turned pale, her hands gripped the arms of the chair until her knuckles turned white. How could she defend her mother from such accusations? Worse still, knowing her mother’s character, the story was probably true. Well, she had found out all she wanted to know. In her own mind she knew that she had found her father. She knew who had written the letter ... her own darling Ena McIlroy.

Shading her face with her hand, she avoided Morgan’s searching eyes. Dear Ena, darling Ena. It almost seemed as if she had reached back from the grave to reassure Katriona that she was loved. Ena had been the only stable influence in Katriona’s crazy mixed up life, the only person she could count on to remain exactly the same even though she was parted from her years at a time.

‘Say, are you okay?’ Morgan leaned across and touched Katriona’s shoulder.

She looked across at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears, and her face had a
soft vulnerable expression. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just a
bit much to take in all at once. You see, Ena knew ... she was the only one who knew I was ... a
bit hung-up about having no father. It must have been so very difficult for her, wanting to tell me, yet held by the promise she’d given my mother. She used to tell me so often that it didn’t matter who my parents were, that what I made myself in this world was the important thing, that we’re each responsible for our own actions.’

Katriona was not aware that the tears were sliding down her cheeks, that she looked young and totally defenceless. She only knew that the hurt and humiliation of past years were suddenly wiped away and that Ena had done this for her. ‘I know also there are hundreds of children who never know who their parents are, or never know and meet their father, and who aren’t bothered about it at all. But it bothered me, and that’s the truth.’ Her voice was husky with emotion. ‘It seems that Ena has given me one more wonderful gift to add to all those she gave me through the years.’

‘I’m glad to be the person who brought you some good news,’ Morgan said gently. ‘You have no doubt but that she wrote the truth?’

The glowing look left Katriona’s face and she was instantly on the defensive again, hastily brushing the tears away. ‘I believe it, and I don’t care much whether you believe it or not.’

Morgan laughed, ‘I’ve gathered that my opinions are not important to you. Still, I have yet to complete the job I came to do.’ He reached into the pocket of his well-cut suit and took out his wallet. ‘When I left New Zealand Ross said to contact you, and if I decided that you were the genuine article I was to give you this bank draft. It should cover your return air fare from here to Christchurch and a bit over for expenses.’

He put an envelope on the occasional table.

Katriona glared at him. ‘Genuine article—what a way to describe me! And what happened if I was a phoney? Or if you weren’t too sure either way?’

‘Simple, quite simple. If you were a phoney, I was to sort you out. If I had any reasonable doubt I was to give you the draft anyway and Ross would make the final decision when you got out there.’

‘You sort me out. Huh!’ Katriona snorted. ‘You and who else? Fancy sending a boy on a man’s job! And what makes him so sure that I’d want to go rushing out to New Zealand? As a matter of fact I have no intention whatsoever of going, so you can take his petty cash back to him with my compliments.’ She flipped the envelope towards Morgan.

‘Oh, don’t be so childish and ridiculous. Take it. You just went all dewy-eyed about finding you had a legal father. Don’t try and convince me you’re not wanting to meet him.’

‘I don’t want to meet him,’ Katriona cried fiercely. ‘I prefer not to. I only wanted to know that he really existed. I can just pretend that he’s nice and kind and loving, but if I met him face to face I might find I didn’t like him at all.’ Morgan chuckled. ‘You’ll like him just fine, and that’s a promise.’

‘I don’t want your promises. I just love the way you both think you can turn my life upside down at a moment’s notice, expecting me to drop what I’m doing and rush off thousands of miles to be inspected, accepted or rejected. I have a very responsible job, and I enjoy my work, and the busy tourist season is just about to start. Do you expect me to leave Mr Drummond in the lurch? Well, I won’t!’

‘I’m sure if you explained the situation you’d find him very understanding,’ Morgan suggested encouragingly.

‘What! Tell him all about my private life?’ Katriona’s eyes glittered. ‘Tell him that I have a father after all? That he’s been a bit careless mislaying me for twenty years or so, but he has a little spare time on his hands now and would like to see if I have two heads or one. And I have other commitments ...’

‘Oh, you mean Donald wanting to marry you. He’ll keep,’ Morgan offered with a grin. ‘He’s the faithful kind.’

‘As opposed to your style of love ’em and leave ’em, I presume,’ Katriona snapped angrily. ‘You have no right to order my life and neither has Ross Carmichael, and for what it’s worth neither has any other man.’ She bent forward and snatched up the offending envelope and ripped it in two pieces and threw it under the table.
I
am not going to New Zealand!''

She walked rapidly out of the hotel and was delighted to see a taxi being paid off at the entrance. She got in and gave her address, and was pleased to see Morgan Grant come striding through the doors and down the entrance steps as she drove off. She had one glorious moment of tremendous satisfaction before she realised that she had behaved very badly, very badly indeed. But Morgan Grant was
too much.
Who did he think he was? He gave the impression that he was used to giving orders, used to getting his own way, and it was time he learned that everyone was not going to jump to attention each time he spoke. Katriona gave a small giggle. He did look so mad when he saw the taxi moving off!

All her life she had been taught not to be a nuisance, to be seen and not heard, to know that she was accepted only so long as her behaviour was acceptable. Why, even when her mother had offloaded her on to Ena when she was husband-hunting, she used to caution Katriona about outwearing her welcome. Behave yourself, baby, or Ena won’t keep you and God knows what I’ll do with you. All her life she had been made to fit in with other people’s plans, to conform, to accept she was there on sufferance, and suddenly she was free. It was a heady experience. She felt as if she had thrown off the steel bands which repressed and restricted her. She could be herself. She felt like shouting and dancing in the streets.

Why had she been so pathetically emotionally crippled by the fact that she thought she had been illegitimate? How stupid she had been. Not that she had wanted to misbehave or be rude and impolite to everyone ... only some people. She laughed out loud and the taxi driver glanced over his shoulder and grinned at her. Really, she must control herself!

She paid the taxi off and gave him a brilliant smile and a handsome tip.

‘Wish all my fares were like you, lady. It makes a nice change to carry someone cheerful. You meet a
lot of moaners and groaners in this trade.’

Katriona went lightly up the stairs to her small apartment. She was busy searching her bag for her door key when she heard someone taking the stairs two at a time. Desperately she grabbed the key and thrust it into the lock.

‘You could have waited for me. We could have shared a taxi.’ Morgan Grant held the door open for her. He wasn’t even out of breath.

'Blood and sand!’
Katriona knew that as long as she lived she would never meet a more provoking man than this. She tried to hold in her sense of outrage and said coolly, ‘Goodnight. I must thank you for the very nice dinner. Give my regards to my father when you see him.’ She tried to close the door.

Morgan gently but firmly moved her inside and followed her in and closed the door behind him. ‘Okay, the fun’s over for tonight. When can I tell Ross to expect you?’

‘You must have looked stupid launching yourself into a taxi and shouting “Follow that car”.’

‘I didn’t do anything so dramatic. I had your home address from Donald, so I gave that to the cab driver. Sorry to disappoint you. I suppose you realise that this is the third time I’ve come running after you, and it will be the last. In the future if you want to see me you’ll come running after me.’

Katriona gave him a venomous glance. ‘I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. You’ll be waiting a long time ... say a lifetime or more.’

He leaned back against the closed door, his well defined lips parting in a smile which showed his teeth wonderfully white against his tanned face. ‘The psychologist blokes reckon the harder a girl runs away from a man the more she fancies him.’

Katriona gasped as if she had been stung. ‘Me fancy you? You conceited idiot! I ... I ... You’re ...’ She looked again and saw that he was grinning broadly. ‘You’re teasing me.’

‘I am indeed,’ he replied unrepentantly. ‘You deserve it for your behaviour.’

Katriona stared at him; lean, tall, immaculately dressed ... so out of place in her rather shabby wee apartment. He appeared so much larger here than at the hotel. She would have rather kept him in ignorance of her pathetic accommodation. She was not ashamed of it. It was clean and it did not cost her very much, but she was sure he was not used to this style of living; she could tell that by the cut of his clothes and the expensive hotel he was staying at.

‘How dare you follow me home? How dare you push your way into my apartment? If you don’t leave immediately I’ll ring the police and ask them to remove you. There’s no need for you to stay here pestering me. You’ve had my answer—I’m not going to see my father. Anyway,
you
have no proof that he is my father.’

Morgan gave a great shout of laughter. 'Proof! I’ve got all the proof I need. You’re the living image of him, and you’re just as cantankerous as he is. Talk about a chip off the old block! I must be out of my skull trying to talk you into going to Evangeline. Sixty-three thousand acres wouldn’t be big enough to hold you two comfortably!’

Katriona sat down abruptly. ‘Sixty-three thousand acres! My father owns sixty-three thousand acres?’

Morgan took a careful survey of the room, then chose to sit on her bed which was not very well disguised as a settee. ‘Yes. About a hundred square miles roughly. So you see it would be advisable for you to come and make his acquaintance.'

Colour flared in Katriona’s cheeks. 'You’re contemptible! Talking as if the fact that he was a wealthy man would make me reconsider my decision! ’

Morgan waved his arm to include the apartment and its furnishings. ‘You could hardly say you’re living in the lap of luxury. Ross Carmichael provides better accommodation for his shearers than you’ve got here. And, Donald being the thrifty Scot that he is, I’m sure he would find you much more attractive with a well-heeled father.’

Katriona was so angry she could not speak. She burned to retaliate, to hurt as he had hurt her. Drawing herself to her full height, she said coldly, ‘You may leave now. I’ll never forgive you. You’re cruel, insulting, ignorant and arrogant. When you get back to my father you can tell him you made an appalling error in tactics and because of your behaviour he’ll never see me. I hope he’ll dismiss you. It’s what you deserve.’