Family or Love?

Chapter 1

The forecast on the car radio was for snow and seeing the heaviness of the Drakensberg skies Jacintha believed it, though it was still in the middle of the afternoon, it was already dark that she needed her headlights on but even the thread of bad weather which would make her journey back across the mountain road hazardous if not impossible didn't lessen or stop her from reaching her destination.

She took in the dramatic grandeur of the landscape around her with new appreciation remembering that though it has been there before she went to France,it was just that she had always taken it for granted

Jacintha drove on,her large thick-lashed brown eyes fixed in concentration on the road ahead,her slender hands gripping the wheel rather too tight and her head tilted spilling her shining strands of long Chestnut hair over the shoulders of her duffle coat.

Although she was only ten miles or so from the cottage she had lived in most of her life,this was the first time she had been to the Montero's family home, turning off the main road and bumping over a level crossing which she knew as a landmark she realized she must be nearing her destination and sure enough a mile further she saw the carved wooden plaque announcing: "MONTERO'S PROPERTY " she groaned inwardly ; ' do they have to rub it all on our faces we all know that they own almost every property here in Natal' she inhaled deeply trying to calm her nerves