Tomorrow...Come Soon

  Tomorrow. . . Come Soon by JESSICA STEELE

  For six years Devon had been a cripple — and when she at last found a surgeon who was able to cure her, her joy knew no bounds. She didn't in the least care that her father's boss, the formidable Grant Harrington, had managed to get entirely the wrong idea about her, seeing her as a lazy, spoiled young woman who was content to live off her father. Then, to her horror, Devon discovered how her miracle had been achieved — that her father had embezzled the money from Grant. And she learned what Grant's price was .

  Made and printed in Great Britain

  Books you will enjoy by JESSICA STEELE

  RELUCTANT RELATIVE

  Alandra Todd was honouring her mother's deathbed wish by going to visit her estranged family's home. She was all set to dislike her relations on sight, and the atmosphere on her arrival was less than welcoming. But slowly her first opinion of them began to change—all except the dislike she felt for the objectionable Matt Carstairs, who made it obvious that he didn't trust her or her motives . . .

  TETHERED LIBERTY

  It wasn't Cally's fault that she had been stranded in Mexico with no money and no return ticket home; it wasn't her fault that her brother Rolfe had jilted the girl he had been going to marry. So why did the lordly Javier Zarazua Guerrero act as if it was? Did he expect Cally to pay for her brother's sins?

  NO QUIET REFUGE

  Mercy was a nice, quiet girl expecting to make a pleasant, decorous marriage. So it was a horrible shock to her to wake up one morning in bed with a man she'd met only the previous day—and to be found in that situation by her fiance. How was she to cope with such a predicament?

  DISTRUST HER SHADOW

  What Darcy had at first thought of as just another innocuous temp job had turned into a kind of nightmare when she found herself kidnapped by a perfect strangerjust call me Neve'— who made it clear he thought she was the worst kind of criminal. He eventually let her go, but that was by no means the end of the story!

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even

  distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form

  of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  First published 1983

  Australian copyright 1983

  Philippine copyright 1984

  This edition 1984

  © Jessica Steele 1983 ISBN 0 263 74723 9

  CHAPTER ONE

  DEVON closed the lid on the last of her packing, wishing at the same time that she could as easily pull the lid down on the excitement that was building up in her. She had been bitterly disappointed before.

  But nothing was going to go wrong this time. She had to be convinced of that she thought, as her beautiful blue eyes went slowly round her bedroom which after tomorrow she would not be seeing for another two months—if all went well. And it had to go well.

  She had been aware for some time now that she was going more and more into herself, hating the times she had to leave the walls of the small detached house she shared with her only relative, her father.

  Her thoughts stayed on her father as she considered that never would she be able to repay him for his love and caring this past six years, nor for the understanding he had shown for her every mood more recently.

  She owed him so much, not least for his patience and tact on those black days when to so much as leave the house to go as far as the corner shop for some small item was beyond her. Her father worked in a top-position in the finance department of Harrington Enterprises, the largest employer in the sizeable town of Marchworth where they lived. He was well respected in his job, and because of his trusted position in the firm, was well paid for the work he did. And if he had taken it on himself to collect the major supplies for the house, saying, I can get the shopping on my way home, if you like,' when he knew that though not being able to carry anything heavy she could have man-

  aged with the shopping trolley he had bought her, then that was one more indication of his tact. Because although she had never said, he had understood that she just hated going into the centre of town where it seemed that all eyes were watching her.

  Devon crossed the floor of her room, her mind still on her father and how she was going to try and make it up to him when she came back from Sweden and everything was all right again. Excitement and hope burned in her. Everything was going to be all right; it had got to be. She just would not be able to bear it if at the end ofit all she was just the same as she was now.

  One shoulder dipping to one side, she limped ponderously down the stairs, her imagination going wild as she pictured herself months from now running down those same stairs; with no need to hang grimly on to the bannister rail for fear with each step that her right hip might let her down and that she would go crashing to the bottom.

  Charles Johnston, a man of fifty-two with a shock of prematurely white hair, put down his paper as she limped into the sitting-room, the brilliant blue of his eyes noting the light of anticipation in those same brilliant blue eyes his daughter had inherited. -

  `All packed?' he enquired, his mouth showing his ever present smile of encouragement for her.

  Devon nodded. 'Oh, Dad, I can't believe it! It—it seems like a dream that not only have you found this Dr Henekssen in Sweden who says he can correct . . .' she faltered, . my—my hip—but that you've found the money so that I can have the operation.' Tears shone in her eyes as she told him, 'I shall never be out of your debt.'

  Not an outwardly emotional man, he cleared his throat. Devoted to his daughter, he knew more than anyone what this operation meant to her. He, more than anyone, had

  seen the effect the motor accident had had on the lively fifteen-and-a-half-year-old she had been. His wife had died in the accident, and part of Devon becoming more and more withdrawn had been attributed at the time to her losing her mother at such an important time in her growing up. But she had undergone two operations that had left her still with that ungainly limp she so hated, and he had watched as she reached the age of twenty-one and had seen that, suffering the loss of her mother as she undoubtedly had, there was still no sign of her returning to the happy-go-lucky girl she had been before the accident.

  `The money is yours, not mine,' he reminded her, adding gruffly, 'All I want from you is to see you happy.'

  He refrained from saying what was in his mind, that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to see her mixing with other young people of her own age. For, not caring to know anyone of her own age group, preferring as she did not to let anyone see what to her over the years had become a hideous deformity, Devon had no friends.

  I'll go and get your cases down,' he said, leaving his

  seat. 'It will save time in the morning. You have an early start, remember.'

  She beamed one of her-rare smiles at him, the hope in her heart again that tomorrow would be the last time she would limp out of the house.

  Her father left the room, and as she heard him on his way upstairs, she was hating that any other twenty-on
e and-a-half-year-old would have been able to carry her own suitcases down the stairs, and would not have had to leave it to her parent. Not that he was ancient. He was quite spritely on his feet, even though she sometimes thought he deliberately slowed down his steps when she was around because of the wide contrast in their movements.

  She had tried so hard not to let him see how down she often felt, for he too had scars from the accident. Not that he had been injured, but he had loved her mother dearly, and it had been he who had been driving at the time. He hadn't been responsible for the accident, but she knew he tortured himself still with the 'if' s' of could he possibly have avoided the collision when an inebriated driver had come from nowhere and crashed into them.

  With both of them nursing scars, it had been by unspoken mutual consent that neither of them spoke of the accident to outsiders. The money received from the insurance company had soon been swallowed up by specialists' bills and treatment, and they had moved to a smaller house. And so far as any of their present neighbours knew, though they had little to do with any of them, the way Devon walked was the result of something she had been born with.

  Devon heard her father come down and put her cases in the hail. She was too churned up to want to eat, but she eased herself up from the settee where she was sitting, and waited the necessary seconds until she was sure she had her balance. Then she limped out, calling as she passed him, 'I'm making you a special dinner tonight, since you'll be eating your own ghastly cooking from tomorrow.'

  Her good humour remained with her throughout the meal, her mind full of all she had to look forward to; not to mention pray God, that in a couple of months she would be able to carry her own suitcases.

  `I'll make it up to you, Dad,' she said suddenly, chokily, making his eyes lift quickly from his favourite chocolate soufflé which she had laboured over.

  `Make what up, child?' he enquired quietly, his eyes on her flushed face, sensing she was on the verge of talking about a subject she was more prone to want to leave in some dark corner.

  `All the time and money you've spent on me,' she said, awash with gratitude. 'I—know it hasn't been easy and— and I must have kept you permanently broke in getting the best specialists as you have. You must have spent no end in trying to find someone prepared to have another try.'

  `Rubbish,' he said stoutly. 'You had to finish growing before another attempt could be made on you anyway. And anyhow, we had a new car last year, didn't we?'

  `A new second-hand one,' she replied, cloud coming to her eyes as she remembered that the car that had been written off in the accident had been a new model that year. `You could have used some of that money from that endowment policy to buy a new one,' she, reminded him.

  Tut we already had a car by then,' he in turn reminded her. 'And anyway, the money from that policy is yours by right. I explained all that to you when out of the blue we heard that the policy had matured.'

  Devon was silent as her mind went back to some six months ago. She had been particularly down just then, she recalled. Her twenty-first birthday had come and gone and her thoughts had dwelt on the fact that surely by now she had finished growing, but that even if there was someone in the world who could perform the miracle of surgery to make her whole, the appearance of a second hand car decreed that her father would just not be able to afford it.

  As she had at eighteen, at twenty-one she had refused to have , a birthday party. Who would she. invite anyway? They knew no one.

  Yes, she had been lower then than at any time, Devon remembered. And the thing was, although she was aware of her father's worried glances in her direction, she had just seemed incapable of shaking herself out of it. Those had been really bad days, days when she had led a

  hermit-like existence simply because she couldn't face going out.

  And then one day, about three weeks after her twenty-first birthday, her father had come home with two pieces of truly unbelievable news. The first, that he had been making enquiries for some time now about the possibility of a third operation for her, and how he had heard of a man in Sweden who had performed several similar operations before--all with a successful outcome.

  The depression that had encased her had started to crack. But that was before she realised that the Swedish surgeon might as well have his clinic on the moon for all the chance she had of getting to him.

  `I m—glad for those other people he's operated on,' she had managed, forcing a smile in the face of her father's look of expecting her to be overjoyed.

  `Be glad for yourself, Devon,' he had said. 'You're going to have that operation too, child.'

  Her heart had lifted, joy wanting to surge, part of her wanting her father to make any sacrifice for her—but then she discovered that she couldn't let him; she must keep her joy in check.

  `You've sacrificed enough . .

  But he had cut in, explaining that he didn't have to sacrifice a thing. Telling her that for years he had been paying premiums on an endowment in her name that was due for payment when she reached twenty-one, and that because the premiums were paid by standing order, he had forgotten all about it until that day he had received some correspondence from the insurance company concerned.

  `An endowment?' Devon had cried her astonishment. `In my name?'

  `Paying in for years by the same method, I forgot all about it,' he repeated, going on, I've e made some en-

  queries and it will be just enough for you to go to Sweden.'

  `On my own?' she had enquired, never having been far from her parent's side, then that fact was getting mixed up with the growing wonder, the daring to believe what it was he was saying!

  `I'd only be able to visit you for limited periods if I came with -you,' he said practically. And there was a coaxing note in his voice she didn't really need as the fantastic chance that was within her grasp began to sink in. 'I'll take you to the airport, of course, and meet you when you come back.'

  Slow tears began to trickle down her face. `Oh—Dad!' It was all she was capable of saying.

  Her trip to Sweden, they discovered, was not to be immediate. But after five and a half years of having a hip which often never quite knew how to behave itself, Devon was to find the months that followed, while her medical consultant, Mr McAllen, exchanged letters and forwarded X-rays to Sweden, the most trying and frustrating of all. But hope was in her heart too. And if during those waiting months she occasionally paused to wonder how, with her father daily working with figures as he kept a watchful eye on the incomings and outgoings of Grant Harrington' s company finances, he should then be so mindless of his own incomings and outgoings to forget the periodic outgoings from his own account in the shape or payments on her endowment—hefty payments they must have been too, to yield the amount they had—then these thoughts did not settle for long enough to worry her. Her mind would soon spin on to her future post-operative days, to the freedom of movement that could be hers, to the time, dare she believe it, when she would be going to her first dance!

  Charles Johnston had a second helping of chocolate souffle, then pushed back his chair from the table to start

  stacking a tray ready to carry their used dishes back to the kitchen.

  `You've got a long day in front of you tomorrow,' he told Devon. 'I'll wash up. I should have an early night if I were you.'

  `I'm going to fuss over you when I come home,' she teased, too fearful of the dark despair that would be hers to think about coming home with no improvement. 'But since you'll be doing your own washing up for a while, I'll do it tonight.'

  The washing up completed, Devon knew she was far too excited to sleep. Besides which, having been in hospital before she knew she was going to be heartily sick and tired of lying in bed before she was through.

  She guessed her father had read her thoughts when instead of heading for the stairs after leaving the kitchen, she went into the sitting room. He followed her in, his step slow, used as he was not to give her the impression that her slow progress hindered his
own smarter pace.

  Automatically she made for the settee. It was where she always sat, or, if her hip was nagging, lay with her feet up. Her father took his usual chair, but made no move to switch on the television. They both knew, full of hope, that after tonight the tenor of their lives would be different.

  Many times during the past months, Devon had been near to discussing her career prospects with her parent. If everything went well, and she just couldn't think about failure, then it was more than time she did something to repay the colossal sums he had paid out on her behalf: But just when she was about to make her first positive statement about her working, suddenly there was a ring at the front door, and her positive thinking hurriedly departed.

  Who could be calling? Seldom was it that anyone came to the door! She hated meeting strangers, hated anyone to see her the way she was.

  `I'll go,' said Charles Johnston, an unnecessary statement since she hadn't moved. Their eyes met and as he went to the sitting room door, he gave her a reassuring smile that she read as telling her not to worry, that whoever it was, he would not be inviting them in.

  For a minute or so as she heard voices at the door, she was reassured. She was half sitting, half lying with her feel up on the settee, her shoes on the floor beside her, security wrapped around her. Soon, she knew, she would hear the door close on whoever it was out there.

  But her feeling of security was doomed not to last. For the front door had closed—yet she could still hear voices! Whoever it was had been invited in! And not only that— her father was bringing whoever it was into the sitting room!!

  The door handle to the room turned, and there just wasn't time for her to make the laborious adjustment needed to bring her feet over the side of the settee. Which left her, when the door swung inwards, looking like a languidly perfectly healthy young woman who was lounging