Catier's strike Read Online Free

preferred to adopt a deplorable ploy to cover his meanness.
    Totally honest herself, Sarah had no time for such dishonesty, particularly when it affected the welfare of children, and she had it out with Don that very evening. He did not deny the charge. It would not have been any good if he had, but he did try to excuse himself on the grounds of being very young when he had met the girl; he had got
    caught up in a situation he abhorred but could do nothing about, which might have worked had Sarah not actually seen the woman and the conditions she was living in, or more to the point, known that Don was still in the habit of visiting her.
    The meeting had ended with Sarah throwing his ring back at him and telling him in no uncertain terms that she wanted nothing more to do with him.
    A day later, Don's car was found on the rocks below a point where they had once used to sit in the evenings discussing their future. He had been killed outright, and although the verdict was accidental death, most of Sarah's acquaintances had been sure that he had committed suicide.
    At first, the devastated Sarah had thought the same, but as time went on she accepted the original verdict. Don had been drinking heavily and had taken a bend too fast. There was also the salient fact that he had enjoyed life too much to let a broken engagement alter his outlook, for he had cockily predicted that she would be back within a week, begging his forgiveness, which he might or might not give.
    It was as well for Sarah that she did have some good friends around her at this time. Friends who had sounded a warning note on her engagement to Don. 'Once a womaniser, always a womaniser,' one blunt friend had commented, and although deep down Sarah had known this, she had preferred to stick her head in the sand until the thunderbolt had struck and made her face up to reality.
    Sarah's thoughts roamed on, and turned to other matters, such as what her editor was cooking up at his end, in fact, anything to take her mind off the past. That was over and done with, or had been, until she had come up against Sean Cartier. She forced this thought away. She simply couldn't see Eddie Lyall accepting Cartier's dictates, he would be already detailing someone else to get out there fast. If they lost out on this one, and it certainly looked as if this was a distinct possibility, Eddie would never forgive her, and she wouldn't blame him.

CHAPTER TWO
    A SHARP knock on the door brought Sarah out of her musings, and before she could get up to answer the summons the door was flung open and Sean Cartier stood looking down at her half reclining on her bed. 'Surprising what a little hard work can do for you, isn't it?' he said sarcastically. 'Still, by the time the week's up, you'll be hardened. I'm having you moved to the domestic quarters. Mrs Pullman will show you your room when you're through this evening,' he announced, and walked to the door. 'Oh, by the way,' he added conversationally, 'I've had the Press Council on the line. Your editor doesn't let the grass grow under his feet, does he? Unfortunately, owing to the nature of the work, he got nowhere. Just thought you'd like to know,' and he was gone before Sarah could make any kind of response.
    `What's up now?' asked Martha, as she entered the room. 'He might have got it in for you, but I don't see why we should all be tarred. He totally ignored me as I passed him,' she complained.
    Sarah got up off the bed. `I'm being shifted to the domestic quarters,' she said, as she started to gather her belongings and stuff them into her overnight case.
    `Wow, has he got it in for you!' Martha commented gleefully. 'Well, cheer up. From what
    was said at the conference, we won't be kept hanging around much longer,' she added, trying to make amends for her earlier remark.
    Sarah shrugged lightly, and got on with her packing. She was not going to beg Martha to pass on what news she had been given, and she knew she was just teasing her with