The Passionate Sinner (26 page)

‘Loving someone, Paul, means never having to say thank you with words—just show me you love me and I’ll be so very happy.’

And Paul was there to witness another kind of miracle when his pretty, brown-haired daughter came into the world. But for a few days after the event he seemed on edge, a shadow of anxiety in his eyes ... a shadow that didn’t vanish until the baby suddenly opened her eyes and they were huge, golden-brown like Merlin’s. They dwelt on Paul and a tiny hand reached out to him and he kissed each one of the fragile fingers. ‘We shall call her Indah, for beautiful,’ he smiled at his wife. ‘Indah after an island where a tiger was wooed and tamed to the hand of a most charming young woman.’

‘Are you entirely tamed, my tiger?’ Merlin asked him, smiling.

‘Not when you smile at me,
liefje.
The tiger prowls again in my blood when you speak my name.’

‘Paul ... dearest Paul, I shall speak your name as often as possible.’

His eyes moved lovingly over her face and the baby nestling in her arms. ‘We shall visit our island in the autumn,’ he promised, ‘but soon I go back to being a working man. Regretfully my days as a surgeon are over, but now I can do what has always interested me, research into the rejection of skin and bone grafts. I can be of use again, my Merlin! I can be a protective husband to you and I can look after my daughter and ensure that she never wants for guidance and love. I am a very happy man this day,
mijnvrouw.
I thank God for what I have.’

The sun shone into the room and Merlin watched as Paul half-closed his eyes in sensuous appreciation of it.... able to see its golden wonder ... her tiger in the sun.