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noticed her very beautiful grey eyes and the lovely bone structure that you realized why she had once been considered beautiful.
    Sitting on the ground in the shade of one of the trees, leaning against its rough bark, she ate her lunch, consisting of a handful of fresh dates, a carob bar and a glass of wine, while reluctantly bringing her mind to the problem of what she must do. She was in an impossible situation and knowing that she'd brought it on herself made it no better. She didn't waste time in self-recrimination ... she was too used to bringing trouble to her own door by now to blame herself when it happened.
    All the same, it wouldn't have happened if she hadn't come back to England, or at least to this part of it. Why had she, when she could have gone anywhere? In retrospect, it was easy to see that it was bound to cause complications. But she'd always been fond of the place, and when her mother had died and left her the house at a time when she was homeless and nearly penniless it had seemed crass stupidity to refuse to return and live in it. After all, they were all civilized people. She couldn't see that it would matter to Jake now. And she'd wanted to see Matthew. She had a right to see him. He was, let's face it, she thought, her own flesh and blood, her son – conveniently forgetting that she'd never sent him so much as a birthday card in eighteen years.
    She should have approached Jake before this. But she hadn't, and now ... What was she going to do about Matthew and Cassie? Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Who could have imagined that happening?
    How serious was it, with Cassie and Matthew? How did you find out if your daughter was sleeping with her boyfriend? Well, just ask! That was easy, it was what she'd always done before, anyway, though she'd been too stunned when Cassie had produced Matthew last night to probe too deeply. Suddenly, out of the blue, 'This is Matthew, Matthew Wilding.' Besides, they'd had that owl-eyed girl, Lindsay, with them.
    But supposing she asked and got the answer yes; how could she then tell Cassie that her boyfriend was also her half-brother?
    She was going to have to do something – instantly – to prevent catastrophe – if it wasn't already too late. Panic almost overcame the sense of enormous ennui engendered by the thought of having to act. She was very good at putting things off, even better at doing nothing at all. The lotus-eating life she'd led since leaving Jake had suited her temperament down to the ground, a temperament she certainly hadn't passed on. She couldn't imagine how she'd come to have three children so energetic and decisive.
    Despite his dark hair, Matthew was so like Jake, with the immediately recognizable family nose, that she had known and recognized him as her son instantly, almost before Cassie had introduced him last night, and she'd been shocked at the uprush of emotion. She was very sorry indeed, at that moment, that she'd ever left him and vowed she must do something to compensate.
    The thought of facing Jake after all this time didn't alarm her – Naomi was alarmed by very little – but for a moment, as she thought of the consequences which might possibly follow, her resolution did falter. But it would surely be all right if she did what she had to immediately, without thinking too long about it. She was a creature of impulse. That was how the decision to leave Jake had come about: she'd suddenly become fed up with being a wife, and for Naomi there was nothing so dead as something which no longer caught her interest.
    She'd always hated being tied down and had lived in a joyously free and what some might have called unprincipled way until she'd met Jake again and decided to marry him. Handsome Jake, who had only needed to smile and she was done for. It had been possible to make herself believe she could become the nice, obedient, responsible wife he wanted. And it had worked for a while, until she began to feel stifled with too many