Read Online Kissed by Moonlight by Dorothy Vernon - Free Book Online

it,” she said gratefully.
    â€œThanks, so would I,” Bob admitted. “So, as I was saying, Pet –”
    Once again David cut him off. This time the rebuke was not gentle – it was sharp, with a skimming of unkind amusement. “Not Pet. You can take your choice between Petrina or Trina. She’s nobody’s Pet but mine.”
    Petrina’s fingers curled furiously into the palms of her hands. His meaning couldn’t have been clearer or more insulting if he’d come right out and said “nobody’s plaything but mine.” It would have been more honest to say that because that’s what he had meant to imply.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Bob said, a gentle frown on his face. “I meant no offense; I thought Pet was a general nickname. Which alternative are you happiest with?” he asked directly of Petrina.
    â€œTrina,” she replied quite definitely.
    That lunch was not an easy meal. Petrina was smoldering. She wondered how long David was going to punish her for last night, and how long she could stand it before she rounded back on him. Ginny came to join them, but even her talkative presence couldn’t totally iron out the taut silences. Ginny didn’t make any gauche inquiries, and beyond throwing Bob a confused look, which he answered with a slight shrug of his huge shoulders, she rattled on gamely as if nothing was amiss. The only reassuring thing, thought Petrina, was that David seemed no more interested in Ginny than he was in Bob. Perhaps, she hoped, she had been mistaken in that after all.
    Later in the day, Petrina was just leaving the reception counter, having changed her English money into the local currency, when Bob ambled up. It was just a thought, but it seemed to her that he’d been waiting for the opportunity to have a word, although he made it seem as if he’d stumbled upon her by chance.
    â€œYou want to watch the sun. I’m sure your nose has caught it.”
    She didn’t say that she feared it was more than her nose that had caught it. Instead she nodded sagely. “I’m on my way to the shops now. I’m going to buy myself the largest sun hat I can find.”
    â€œSensible girl. The hotel shopping facilities are quite good, although you’ll probably get a larger selection if you wander farther afield to the shopping precinct.” He bit on his lip. “Trina?”
    â€œYes, Bob?” she said, meeting his eyes.
    â€œI’m probably out of line saying this, but that husband of yours isn’t the bear he made himself out to be at lunchtime.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œNo. All this –” he gestured at the hotel around them – “hasn’t just come about. It’s been hard work, and he’s the only one of us who hasn’t taken a holiday for the full three-year stint. Apart from sneaking a couple of days off to fetch you, that is. And then he had to make the time up, although I’m not sure whether that wasn’t dedication to idiocy rather than to duty. I’m not just speaking like this about him behind his back; I told him to his face last night. I said I couldn’t see the sense of us working ourselves bleary-eyed into the small hours, no matter how snowed under we were. I don’t think either of us quite realized what the time was or we’d have quit. And then it was so late that he didn’t want to disturb you, so he sacked out on the spare bed in my room.”
    â€œThank you, Bob. Thank you for putting me in the picture.”
    â€œDon’t mention it.”
    She had no intention of mentioning it. The last thing she intended to do was let David know that she knew where he’d spent last night.

Chapter Four
    It was always good to have a friend. No matter how many friends a person has, there’s always room for one more, Petrina thought. In her position, uprooted from all the links of childhood, vulnerable in her new surroundings, it