Yancie was of the view that the journey to the hotel would be completed without him saying another word to her. She was mistaken. She had just driven into a semi-rural area near to the hotel when the car phone rang-she left it to her employer to pick it up. Quite obviously, since he used the vehicle as an extension of his office, the call was for him. Besides which, no one of her acquaintance knew this telephone number.

Or so she thought. She heard him answer the phone-then nearly jumped in surprise when he said shortly, `For you.'

She half turned in her seat. `For me?' she asked half-wittedly, one hand leaving the steering wheel as if to take the phone from him.

'Pull over!' he ordered.

Yancie pulled over onto a grass verge, her mind going from stunned to racing. It had to be Kevin Veasey; he was working all day today. It had gone six, but he often worked late. Perhaps some urgent job for tomorrow had come up and he wanted her to go somewhere once she'd dropped off her present passenger.

With the car halted, she turned and took the phone from her employer. `Hello?' she said and just couldn't believe the voice she heard it was not Kevin Veasey.

'Who was that?' her mother demanded of the man who had answered the phone.

'What's wrong?' Yancie asked quickly, stunned but realising her mother would only have traced her to this number in an emergency.

She should, she almost at once acknowledged, have known her mother better than that. `Nothing's wrong!' her mother retorted tartly. `Everything couldn't be more right. Who was that who answered the phone?' she repeated.

'Er-nobody you know,' Yancie managed, getting herself a little together; though heartily glad she had her back to Thomson Wakefield, she had an idea she was a pretty shade of scarlet.

'Are you going steady with someone?' Ursula Proctor demanded. `Mother!'

'I don't know what's the matter with you! When I was your age I had men cutting a path to my door. You're pretty. If I do say it myself, you're quite beautiful sometimes. Why…'