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Mark had been right in one respect, she recalled, a little wryly. Sounding Robin on the subject of working wives, as casually as she could, she had learned that he would expect his wife to stay at home and busy herself with looking after him and the house and the eventual children. Quite obviously, he felt that marriage ought to contain quite enough interest and excitement for any woman.

Gillian instinctively rebelled. She just couldn't imagine herself relegated to the role of housewife and mother, however worthy, when she was a trained nurse who not only loved her job but knew she was good at it.

If she married Robin, he would simply have to accept that she meant to continue with her nursing career until she had children and return to it as soon as they reached school age. She didn't intend to waste the years of hard work and dedication that had resulted in the proud possession of her Kit's badge, she thought, a little defiantly.

Thinking of it, she instinctively lifted a hand to finger the small, silver and very distinctive badge that she always wore pinned to the breast of her uniform frock.

It was missing:

Gillian was utterly dismayed and very distressed. She turned the flat upside down, looking for it. She searched the interior of the Mini, in vain. She racked her brain to remember when and where it might have fallen from her frock and her heart grew heavier as she realised that it had possibly gone for ever.

Robin was sympathetic when he arrived to find that the hunt for her badge had delayed her in getting ready for the evening with him. But he didn't seem to realise just how much it meant to her. It stood for five years of her life, after all ...

Gillian
had never been a girl to cry over spilled milk. So she made light of her loss and wouldn't allow it to spoil the evening for herself and Robin.

Abandoning the obviously futile search for the precious badge, she hurried away to change into a black velvet evening skirt, appliquéd with bright flowers, and a filmy black chiffon blouse with scooped neckline and puffed sleeves. Black accentuated the fairness of hair and skin, the delicate purity of her features, the vivid blue of her eyes. She wore her hair loose, curling lightly on her shoulders, knowing that was the way Robin liked it.

Seeing the look in his eyes when she came back to join him, ready for the evening, she knew that she was pretty for him and she was glad. Impulsively, she leaned over to kiss him, heart very full with the lingering affection that she felt for him that could never be loving, after all. Robin had played an important part in her youthful hopes and dreams of happiness. It was no one's fault that the man in her dreams had unexpectedly taken on someone else's face and hair and tall frame.

They had been invited to a party and Gillian was introduced to several of Robin's friends. He was attentive, very affectionate, openly proud of his pretty companion. She had already discovered that he was a popular personality and his gentle hints at a wedding in the not too distant future seemed to meet with general approval. Gillian tried not to feel that he was committing her to an engagement before she was ready.

It was an enjoyable evening until she saw Mark, talking to a very pretty girl in pink. He was haunting her, she thought ruefully. She couldn't seem to escape him. In such a small community with its limited social circles, she supposed it was inevitable that they should meet often at parties, at clubs, at organised functions in the district. It was going to be hard on her emotions but excellent for her self-control, she told herself wryly.

She had just left a group of people to go in search of Robin who had wandered off for fresh drinks some time previously and obviously been side-tracked. She hesitated at the sight of Mark, instantly recognising the tall, dark-haired and much too attractive man in the casual blue jeans and sweater.

As though he had sensed her gaze and her hesitation, he glanced towards her. Gillian's heart jumped as she saw the quickening of interest in his grey eyes. Almost immediately, he said something to the girl by his side and then left her to thread his way through the crowded mass of people. It was too late for Gillian to pretend that she hadn't seen him.

'I didn't expect to see you here,' he said without preliminary.

It was impossible to know if he was pleased or not. If she hadn't glimpsed that brief warmth in his eyes, she might have been chilled and dismayed by the impersonal tone and manner.

'It's a small world,' she said tritely. She smiled at him rather more warmly than she had intended. Then, anxious to assure him that she didn't need or want him to dance attendance on her because of a chance meeting, feeling that her smile might have been too warm, too encouraging, she said hastily: 'I'm with Robin.'

He nodded indifferently. 'Warn me if I'm likely to tread on him,' he said in his lazy drawl.

Gillian stared. 'Sorry ... ?'

'I take it he's invisible this evening. Most doctors would envy him the gift,' he declared, very dry.

She laughed. 'He
is
here. Getting drinks. Don't be absurd!'

He was delighted with that little gurgle of laughter. He wondered if the way to this girl's heart was through her sense of humour, so quickly sparked by his own. He reached for the wallet that he carried in the back pocket of his trousers, took something out of it. 'I believe this belongs to you.'

Gillian held out her hand instinctively. He dropped the small silver badge into her palm and her fingers tightened over it thankfully.

'Oh, I am grateful to you!' she said warmly. 'Where did you find it? I've been hunting high and low all evening. I was so sure that I'd never see it again!'

He smiled at her fervour. 'It was in the car park. I happened to spot it just after you drove away. At first, I thought it was a coin of sorts and almost didn't bother to pick it up.'

'I'm so glad you did! You don't know what it means to me, Mark!' she exclaimed.

He looked down at her, thoughtful. 'You don't know what it means to
me
to hear my name on your lips at last,' he drawled, gently teasing her insistence on formality, her persistent refusal to admit him to her friendship with that small concession.

Gillian blushed. 'Oh, I don't believe that!' she declared defensively, taken by surprise.

'You should.' He turned to look around the room. 'McAllister's getting you a drink, is he? With any luck, he'll be called out to an emergency. Then the evening won't be entirely wasted for either of us,' he said lightly.

Gillian looked at him, quickly indignant. About to blast him with a scathing put-down, the words died on her lips as she met the warmth in his eyes. 'I don't know where I am with you,' she said instead, helplessly, melting before the man's magnetism.

'
I
don't know where you are, either,' he retorted, very dry. 'Sometimes you're a thorn in my side. Sometimes you're simply on my mind. But you certainly seem to be under my skin in one way or another since you came here. I could have done without you in my life at this particular time, Gillian.'

She knew that the blunt words referred to the engagement to Louise Penistone that was hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles.

'I'm not in your life,' she said coolly, trying to keep resentment out of her tone. 'We aren't even friends . .

He put his hand to the nape of her neck and his touch sent a tingling down her spine. He looked down at her with a glow in his eyes that made her pulses quicken. 'What tire hell has friendship to do with the way we feel about each other?' he asked, very soft.

Gillian was shocked into silence. He was too direct— and he ought not to know that her body leaped at his touch. But he did know and she couldn't deny it for all her pride. She stood very still, fighting the dangerous desire that he evoked, yielding at last to the truth about her feeling for this man that she had been resisting for days.

'Gillian ... ?'

Her name was a velvet caress. She met his eyes and was lost. Her body melted and her heart tumbled in her breast. She knew that she loved him.
He
was her destiny, her love. Suddenly it didn't seem to matter that he didn't love her and that he would soon be celebrating his engagement to the lovely Louise.

He bent his dark head. His lips brushed the wing of pale hair, the delicate shell of her ear. 'We've wasted too much time already,' he murmured, warm and persuasive. 'Ditch McAllister and let's get out of here.'

Gillian wanted to go with him. She wanted to be in his arms, to know his kisses and caresses, to drown in the deep waters of their mutual desire. She wanted the ecstasy that he promised with the look in his eyes and the urgency in his deep voice. She was all kinds of a fool but she loved him and she longed for the little he was offering. It might be all she would ever know of happiness with this infuriating, irresistible man ...

She saw Robin, drinks in hand, pausing to speak to a friend as he made his way back to her. He looked so happy that her heart smote her. He was totally unaware of the emotional tensions that had vibrated between herself and Mark for days. She was suddenly flooded with guilt because she didn't love Robin and would never marry him. She couldn't humiliate him before his friends into the bargain! She had come to this party with a man who made no secret of his hope of marrying her. It was quite impossible for her to leave with a man who cherished hopes of a very different kind.

'I can't,' she said slowly. 'You know that I can't ...'

Mark didn't hear the regret behind the words. He only heard the slight defiance in her tone and felt that he had been rebuffed yet again. Too proud to show hurt or dismay, he shrugged and dropped his hand from her neck.

Gillian felt that he took away much more than the touch of his hand and her heart sank. The barrier had come down between them with a kind of finality that made her despair. He might not give her another chance to show that she cared—and she couldn't run after him. Every girl had her pride and Gillian had rather more than most.

He moved away with a nod for Robin who was associate rather than friend. Robin assumed that he had merely been exchanging pleasantries with Gillian. He didn't regard the surgeon as a threat. She so obviously didn't like the man. He was much more anxious about her relationship with Steve Palmer who was something of a Casanova and seemed to be spending too much time in her company. She encouraged him because she liked him.

Robin wasn't as confident as he seemed about the future. Gillian wasn't exactly keeping him at a distance, but he was conscious of a slight reserve that warned him not to rush his fences. It took time to bridge the gap of a three-year separation. Their lives had followed separate paths in that time. Gillian had become even more independent and even more dedicated to her work. But after three years of hopeless loving, he felt he could wait a little longer for the happiness that they would eventually have together. He was prepared to give her the year at Greenvale if that was what she wanted. Then she might be ready to settle down to being a doctor's wife. .

Talking to Robin, Gillian was conscious that Mark had returned to the side of the pretty girl in pink. She tried not to watch the obvious progress that led to his eventual departure from the party with her. His going didn't ruin her evening. It had been ruined when he walked away from her so dismissively ...

He continued to be a regular visitor to the floor where she was working. When it was remarked upon by another nurse, Gillian realised that it wasn't his usual practice. It seemed that Beverley Jakes must be the magnet that drew him. Passing the girl's room as she went about the day's work, she often heard his deep drawl and Beverley's light voice in reply, followed by a ripple of shared laughter.

He spent a lot of time talking to the girl, teasing her, encouraging her and indulging her, in rather indiscreet flirtation. He didn't behave at all like a man on the verge of committing himself to marriage with another woman, Gillian thought dryly and with a foolish little flicker of hope in her heart.

Beverley always looked like a cat that had been at the cream after his visits—and he came out of her room with a smile in his grey eyes that didn't always fade instantly at sight of Gillian if they chanced to meet in the corridor. That smile, evoked by another girl's attraction for him, was cold comfort but she found herself looking for it with a lift of her heavy heart.

Somehow they ran into each other quite often. Gillian wouldn't accept that she contrived some of those brief encounters. It
was
chance that she had chosen just that moment to make her way to a patient's room with a prepared injection or a milk feed or a change of linen, she told herself firmly. She
wasn't
hovering in the hope of seeing and speaking to him!

They were unsatisfactory encounters, anyway. Sometimes he smiled and greeted her coolly before walking on. Sometimes he paused for a few words, casual and . quite unimportant and often only concerned with the progress of his patients. But usually Gillian just glanced at him and hurried on her way, unsmiling, incensed by his readiness to encourage a patient in most unethical flirtation, anxious that he shouldn't suspect how her heart lurched with longing for just one more chance of happiness, however fleeting. He didn't mean to offer it, it seemed. Perhaps the pretty girl in pink had compensated him for any disappointment he might have felt. Perhaps Beverley Jakes was more amusing, more attractive, after all. Perhaps he had simply decided against getting involved in any way with a nurse—and particularly a Greenvale nurse.

However it was. time was running out. Hugh Penistone's birthday with its special celebration party was fast approaching and it seemed that everyone knew that his daughter's engagement was to be announced on that occasion. Greenvale, like Kit's, revelled in gossip about members of its staff and Mark Barlow's ambitions were obviously no secret.