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hung down over his face in long curls. He reminded her of somebody. Who? The thought escaped her. She bent over the bed to get him properly placed. ‘What a waste,’ she whispered.
    ‘How so?’
    ‘Look at him. All those curls and eyelashes wasted. He should have been a girl!’ She pushed herself back up to standing position, and felt a sudden tension, a touch of fear. Harry King was standing as close to her as a stamp is to the envelope. She tried to back away, but found that her knees were pressed against the side of the bed, and would not answer her command.
    ‘He needs to—to sleep, Mr King,’ she stammered. His presence was upsetting her, and she could not tell why. It should have been a pleasure standing beside him. In all Katie’s life she had had a fear of standing beside boys. They were always shorter than she, so much so that she had adopted a defensive crouch in the presence of men. But this man towered over her. She had to bend her head back to see his face!
    ‘The name is Harry,’ he said quietly. ‘Call me Harry. Mr King was my father. You’re a cute little rascal, Katie.’
    Her head snapped back in astonishment. No one had ever called her that. Well, not since her tenth birthday. Cute little rascal? Did he need glasses? Those blue eyes were close to her—close and staring. It seemed to Katie as if he never blinked. There was a tremor running up and down her legs, something she had never experienced before. He noticed.
    ‘What’s disturbing you?’ he asked. His deep voice was like a caress, almost as if he were stroking her, hypnotising her. It took a conscious feat of will-power for her to snap out of it.
    ‘I must be tired,’ she said. ‘I was driving all night. All night.’ Her teeth were chattering, and she knew it had nothing to do with missing a night’s sleep.
    ‘You know what I like about you?’ he asked. And then didn’t wait for an answer, just like his aunt. ‘I get the feeling that I could kiss you without having to bend over like a pretzel, or break my back doing it. Like this.’
    He proceeded to demonstrate. His head moved slowly towards her, trapping her in the pools of his eyes. For a second he hesitated, as a flash of alarm crossed her face, but only for a second. She closed her eyes, trying to wall out the sight of him, and stiffened her will; brought all her defences to bear. And was totally out-manoeuvred.
    In the course of her years Katie had been kissed before, on occasion by experts. But with him, something went wrong. His lips feather-touched hers, for just a brief moment of contact, and in that moment some sort of static spark leaped between them, stinging both into the realisation that something extraordinary had happened.
    He pulled back from her, leaving her in a puzzled daze, one hand raised to her cheek as if to assure herself that everything was all right. Her eyes opened slowly. He was poised above her, searching her face, a wide grin on his. She tried to move away from him, but again her knees refused the order. He lowered his head again, applying a steadily increasing pressure against her lips until she sighed and opened them to his probing, seeking tongue. Much against her will, her hands encircled his neck, burying themselves in the thick hair at the back of his head. His arms were both around her, pressing her closer against his steel frame. For some reason her leg muscles buckled, throwing her entire weight on to his arms.
    He freed one of his hands and it roamed up and down her backbone. She gasped at the fiery touch, and moaned as his hand circled to her breast and hesitated there. Deep in her mind there was an insistent nagging need to get closer to him, but her limp body was beyond her control. She gasped again as the pressure on her mouth increased. The noise disturbed the baby, who whimpered in his sleep, and brought them both back to reality. He lifted his lips from hers, touched the tip of her nose gently, then released her.
    With his