CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER ONE

      ETIENNE Hurst stood in the cold wind of a grey winter’s day and was amazed to find himself stirred by a woman.

      A girl, more accurately, he reflected, and one who had little time for him although he hadn’t seen her for over a year. Had that changed, though, he wondered, changed as she had changed? She would be…nineteen now, he estimated. All grown up, but who would have guessed Melinda Ethridge would grow into this willowy creature, this fascinating, haunting figure, as she farewelled her father and stepmother, who’d been killed in a light-plane crash?

      Standing quite still, dressed in black but with her wonderful chestnut hair uncovered, she seemed to be in a world of her own. She wasn’t crying, although there was deep sorrow stamped into the young, pale oval of her face and the pure line of her throat was essentially vulnerable. Nevertheless, her tall, slender figure was erect, even proud, as the wind swirled her long black skirt around her legs and lifted her hair.

      Of course, women had stirred him before, he thought rather grimly. There couldn’t be a stranger time for it, however, than while he was making his own farewells to his older sister, Margot, who had been Melinda’s stepmother. Nor could there be much reason to it. Melinda, universally known as Mel, had never got on with her stepmother and, by implication, had included the other member of the Hurst family under the umbrella of her dislike.

      However, there was even less reason to it from the point of view that she was so young. At thirty himself, he thought he’d grown out of bright, breathless young things who fell madly in love at the drop of a hat. On top of that—he paused a moment to think of his sister, Margot. She had married Mel’s father four years ago and brought glamour, sophistication and an expensive lifestyle to Raspberry Hill, the Ethridge family property, but at what cost? he wondered.

      In other words, if, as he suspected, his beautiful, social-butterfly sister had stretched the family finances to the limit, what lay before Mel Ethridge and her three younger brothers and how much of it was his responsibility?

      All the more reason to ignore this sudden fire in his loins, he reasoned with some well-placed irony.

      Then she looked up and across at him and her eyes were like deep blue velvet. He saw recognition come to them, saw them widen and stay wide and trapped beneath his gaze until she blinked suddenly and accorded him a grave nod. And he knew he’d been unable to take his own advice in regard to this girl, although she turned to her brothers without a word and began to shepherd them to the waiting cars.

      CHAPTER TWO

      THREE weeks later, Mel Ethridge was driving a tractor to the storage shed with a load of pineapples in the trailer. It was a pleasant, sunny morning, spring had sprung, and she was feeling a bit better to be out and about and working on Raspberry Hill.

      It had been a tough three weeks in more ways than one. Not only had she lost a beloved parent but she’d also made the discovery that Raspberry Hill, a mixed property that grew pineapples and ran fat cattle and was the only home she’d known, was in dire financial straits.

      Then she noticed a familiar car, sleek, silver and shining, parked beside the shed—Etienne Hurst’s car.

      She sighed but there was no help for it. Etienne was leaning against the car and it was obvious she’d seen him and been seen. Nor was it the first time she’d seen him since the funeral, although prior to it it had been some time. He’d also been out of the country at the time of the accident and had only just got home in time for the funeral.

      Since then, as his sister’s next of kin, he’d been present at the reading of the wills, and he knew as well as she did how precarious the situation was. Not only that, if you didn’t dislike him, you had to admit he’d gone out of his way to be helpful to the orphaned Ethridge family.

      The problem was, she did dislike him.

      She’d resented his sister, who’d married her widowed father out of the blue four years ago and been the root cause of a lot of her problems, and she resented Etienne accordingly; well, that was more or less the scenario.

      She brought the tractor to a halt and jumped down. ‘Good day!’ She stripped off her gloves. ‘What can I do for you, Etienne?’

      His dark gaze roamed over her dusty jeans, her grease-stained shirt and the bright cotton scarf covering her hair. None of it diminished the slip and flow of a lovely, active figure, the bloom of youth and those amazing eyes.

      ‘Just came to see how it was going. Good crop this year?’ He gestured to the pineapples.

      ‘Not bad; we’ve had better, but not bad. Quality is good but,’ she tipped a hand, ‘quantity is down.’ She hauled a pine complete with spiky crown out of the trailer and presented it to him. ‘Take it home; it should be sweet and juicy.’

      He weighed it in his hand then placed it on the bonnet. ‘Thanks. How are the cattle going?’

      Mel wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m a bit worried about the feed; we didn’t get as much winter rain as we needed but,’ she shrugged, ‘time will tell.’

      He grinned. ‘You know what they say about farmers, Mel?’

      She shook her head.

      ‘They’re always