Child Bride by Suzanne Forster Page A

up inside her. “This place isn’t at all what I expected. And neither is he.”
    Shadow whimpered sympathetically and nuzzled her face.
    “Thanks,” she told the dog, smiling sadly as she accepted his condolences. “It’s sweet of you to want to help, but the problem is bigger than both of us, I’m afraid. Your master doesn’t seem to remember me. Or maybe he doesn’t want to.”
    She drew the dog close again, warding off the panic that was stirring inside her. What would she do if Chase refused to help her? She couldn’t throw herself on the mercy of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. She’d heard all the horror stories about illegal aliens being held in compounds for months, then shipped like cattle back to wherever they’d come from. And even if the stories weren’t true, she almost certainly wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the country if she couldn’t prove her citizenship.
    A chill washed over her like an icy bath of water. Sent back to Costa Brava? After the nightmares of the last five years? She released the dog and pushed to her feet, fighting a wave of dizziness that crested so suddenly it threatened to drag her under. “I can’t let that happen, Shadow. No one’s going to send me back there.”
    Chilled through to the marrow, she made it over to the cot and pulled the quilt coverlet around her. How long had it been since she’d eaten? Hours? Days, maybe? She was losing track of time again. Everything was blurring together. A seductive kind of lethargy was seeping through her muscles and bones, dragging her down into the sweet oblivion of sleep. The sheer weight of it had overwhelmed her before. She’d slept in parks and bus terminals, drugged by exhaustion. She supposed it was a variation on the fainting spells, but she couldn’t let herself give in to the heaviness now. She had to stay awake, stay focused. She had to find a solution to her problem.
    “What am I going to do?” she said, as the dog came over to sit before her. He looked up at her eagerly, but his huge brown eyes were so sad and sympathetic, they filled her with despair. Finally he rested his muzzle in her lap, and it seemed as if the two of them sat that way for a long time.
    Consummation? The word came to her in a burst as she huddled in the threadbare quilt material. It created such a shimmering explosion of awareness inside her that she felt as if the reference must have been sent to her through some kind of divine intervention.
    “Consummation,” she murmured aloud, testing the word’s susurration on her tongue, and getting a sense of its deeper significance as she let the awareness take on meaning and shape. Suddenly she knew what had to be done. She knew!
    With a quick smile she glanced up. “Thank you.”
    Shadow’s tail was wagging so hard by that time, it shook his whole body. Annie scratched his ruff, excitement growing inside her, reviving her. “You know it, too, don’t you, Shadow? You understand that I’m going to have to seduce your master. There’s no other way.”
    Her heart began to pound recklessly as she considered the possibilities. Seduce Chase Beaudine? Could it be done? Was there a woman alive who could bend that iron man’s will and make him want her enough to succumb? Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but something inside her needed to believe that making love would help Chase to remember their bond. He couldn’t pretend she meant nothing to him once he’d made love to her, could he? He couldn’t pretend she didn’t exist.
    Shadow began to whimper eagerly, and Annie realized she’d stopped stroking him in her preoccupation. “This isn’t going to be easy,” she said. “How do you seduce a man who refuses to be in the same room with you?”
    Beyond Chase’s obvious reluctance, she herself had a major handicap when it came to undertakings like seduction and consummation. She had no experience with men. None! At a time when most girls were learning to flirt, she had been