Innocent Virgin, Wild Surrender. Anne Mather

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      About the Author

      ANNE MATHER says: ‘I’ve always wanted to write—which is not to say I’ve always wanted to be a professional writer. On the contrary, for years I wrote only for my own pleasure, and it wasn’t until my husband suggested that I ought to send one of my stories to a publisher that we put several publishers’ names into a hat and pulled one out. The rest, as they say, is history. And now, more than 150 books later, I’m literally—excuse the pun—staggered by what happened.

      ‘I had written all through my infant and junior years, and on into my teens. The trouble was, I never used to finish any of the stories, and CAROLINE, my first published book, was the first book I’d actually completed. I was newly married then, my daughter was just a baby, and it was quite a job juggling my household chores and scribbling away in exercise books every chance I got. Not very professional, as you can see, but that’s the way it was.

      ‘I now have two grown-up children, a son and daughter, and two adorable grandchildren, Abigail and Ben. My e-mail address is: [email protected], and I’d be happy to hear from any of my readers.’

      Chapter One

      ‘THIS yo’ first trip to St Antoine?’

      Rachel dragged her eyes away from the exotic sight of hibiscus growing wild beside the airport buildings to give the taxi driver a slightly dazed look.

      ‘What? Oh—oh, yes. It’s my first visit to the Caribbean,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘I can hardly believe I’m here.’

      And wasn’t that the truth? she conceded silently. A week ago she’d had no intention of taking an unplanned break in these semi-tropical surroundings. But that had been before her father broke the news that her mother had left him. Sara Claiborne had apparently abandoned her home and her husband to fly out to the small island of St Antoine to visit a man she’d known many years ago.

      ‘Did she say when she was coming back?’

      Rachel’s first thought had been a practical one, but her father had been uncharacteristically morose.

      ‘Don’t you mean if she’s coming back?’ he’d mumbled bitterly. ‘And if she doesn’t I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

      Rachel had felt out of her depth. Although she’d always believed her parents’ marriage was rock-solid, occasionally she’d sensed a certain ambivalence in their treatment of each other. On top of which, her mother’s attitude towards her had generally made her feel that it wasn’t her problem. And if that was a little hard to take at times, she’d assumed it was simply a case of their different attitudes towards life.

      Still, she had believed that Sara and Ralph Claiborne loved one another, and that, unlike lots of their friends and neighbours, their marriage was unlikely to be torn apart by rows or infidelity.

      But what did she know, really? At age thirty she was still unmarried and a virgin, so any judgements she made were hardly the result of experience.

      ‘So who is this man?’ she’d asked, but her father had been carefully reticent on that point.

      ‘His name’s Matthew Brody,’ had been all he’d say in response. ‘He’s someone she knew—years ago, as I say.’ He’d paused, before exploding his next bombshell. ‘I want you to go after her, Rachel. I want you to bring her home.’

      Rachel had stared at him disbelievingly. ‘Me?’ she’d exclaimed ungrammatically. ‘Why can’t you go after her yourself?’

      ‘Because I can’t.’ Ralph Claiborne had regarded her from beneath lowered lids. ‘I just can’t do it. Surely you can understand that, Rachel? What would I do if she turned me away?’

      The same as me, I suppose, thought Rachel unhappily, but she could see where this was going. Whoever this man was, her father saw him as a threat to their relationship—and how could she refuse to help him when there was evidently so much at stake?

      It troubled her that her mother had chosen to meet this man on an island in the Caribbean. But when she’d asked her father about this, he’d explained that Matthew Brody lived on St Antoine. It troubled her, too, that she’d never sensed the distance that must have been growing between her parents for such a potentially devastating situation to develop.

      But then, she’d never been particularly close to her mother. They didn’t share the same interests or like the same things. It was different with her father, but perhaps she hadn’t expected as much from him.

      Rachel sighed as she remembered the rest of the conversation. Her own pleas that she couldn’t just walk out on her job at the local newspaper had fallen on stony ground.

      ‘I’ll have a word with Don,’ said her father at once. ‘I’ll explain that Sara needs a break and, as I can’t leave the office right now, I’ve asked you to take my place. He can’t object to you taking a couple of weeks’ unpaid holiday. Not after you’ve kept going when half his staff have been down with flu.’

      ‘I’ve been lucky,’ Rachel had protested, but it had been no use.

      She knew that because Don Graham, the editor at the paper, and her father had gone to school together. Ralph Claiborne considered he was responsible for her getting a job there in the first place. And perhaps he was, although Rachel preferred not to believe it. She had been straight out of college, it was true, but with a good degree in English, and computer skills, she liked to think she’d got the job on her own merits.

      Needless to say her father had been as good as his word. The following morning Don Graham had called her into his office and told her that another girl would be taking over her duties in the advertising department from now on.

      ‘Your father says your mother hasn’t been well all winter,’ he’d said, and Rachel had felt her face burning. ‘I’m giving you a couple of weeks’ compassionate leave. Just don’t make a habit of it, you hear?’

      So here she was, over three thousand miles from home, without the faintest notion of how she was going to handle the situation. She was still sure her mother loved her father, but she didn’t know how that love would fare in the face of another