A book in the Pages & Privileges series, 1994

Davina Hastings breathed a sigh of relief and unclenched her hands. She didn't feel at home in small planes and the one she was in that had just landed was very small indeed. An eight-seater, it had seemed extraordinarily fragile to her to be flying across three hundred miles of the South Pacific from the Australian mainland to the island of Lord Howe. Fragile and cramped, so that she'd had to battle with claustrophobia as well as her other fears. Then, to compound matters, they'd had to descend through a storm to the airstrip-that was when she'd closed her eyes.

But, as the little plane zipped towards the terminal, she looked eagerly out of her window to gain some impression of Lord Howe, reputedly a gem of an island and a photographer's paradise, only to see a mist-wreathed mountainside and driving rain.

'Sorry about this, folks,' the pilot said cheerfully. 'The weather, I mean, but I can tell you this is an isolated front on its way to New Zealand and it should be fine as soon as it passes through, and it should do that quite quickly. Thank you for flying with our airline and I hope you all have wonderful holidays!'

Davina grimaced. From their conversation it had been apparent she was the only passenger not coming to this paradise on holiday, and for a moment she ardently wished that were not so. But a job was a job, and she squared her shoulders and took herself in hand as she prepared to disembark.

The terminal was tiny, she saw, as she ran through the rain. Then she was through the glass doors, brushing raindrops from her hair and shaking them from her jacket and blouse and she looked up, straight into the eyes of a tall man lounging beside the counter. And it was not hard to read, as their gazes caught and clashed, that he was looking her over in the way men did when they were mentally undressing a woman, and, although in a curiously sardonic way, giving her the benefit of his unasked for approval.