Книга - The Final Proposal

The Final Proposal
Robyn Donald


THE MARRIAGE MAKERAn unlikely match… He's a farmer, she's an image consultant. He despises city women and she hates the country. But when a series of bizarre coincidences make Kear Lannion and Jan Carruthers neighbors, he just can't seem to keep away from her. Has Kear chivalrously decided he ought to watch over this city girl alone in the country?Or has he made up his mind to seduce her out of her new property? Either way, Kear Lannion has finally met his match - in more ways than one!THE MARRIAGE MAKER - Can a picture from the past bring love to the present?







Jan’s heart thumped erratically in her chest. She’d recognize that lithe form anywhere. (#u6bcb0853-3f95-54b4-b21c-9057d64ad7e4)INTRODUCTION TO SERIES (#u011f8cc1-6a29-5867-8cd4-5553143e3e46)Title Page (#ua663b235-ec04-5ab9-b8e8-846634f1d66f)CHAPTER ONE (#u1695e120-7789-57d9-bae0-7ddd6f60dc63)CHAPTER TWO (#u0af1bed8-9610-5bb7-ada5-273843bf985e)CHAPTER THREE (#u813b0dd1-d6b2-5483-a0dd-81ee04fdd054)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Jan’s heart thumped erratically in her chest. She’d recognize that lithe form anywhere.

“This is private property,” he said.

Jan discovered that she disliked him in equal measure to her unbidden, reluctant attraction to him. “My private property,” she told him, not without relish.

“I see. I assume you plan to sell it.... If you do, I’d like first refusal.”

It didn’t seem too much to give him, but something held her back.

He said, “Where do you plan to stay the night?”

“Here.”

There was a glint of irritation in the frigid depths of his eyes. “Do you know how to work the range? The water?”

Tilting her chin, she said, “I’ll be perfectly all right.”

And she enjoyed a fierce satisfaction when his mouth curved into a slow smile that was both sinister and sexy as hell.

“Don’t play games with me,” he said softly.


INTRODUCTION TO SERIES

Olivia Nicholls and the two half sisters Anet and Jan Carruthers are all born survivors—but, so far, unlucky in love. Things change, however, when an eighteenth-century miniature portrait of a beautiful and mysterious young woman passes into each of their hands. It may be coincidence, it may not! The portrait is meant to be a charm to bring love to the lives of those who possess it—but there is one condition:

I found Love as you’ll find yours,

and trust it will be true,

This Portrait is a fated charm

To speed your Love to you.

But if you be not Fortune’s Fool

Once your heart’s Desire is nigh,

Pass on my likeness as Cupid’s Tool

Or your Love will fade and die.

The Final Proposal is Jan’s story and the concluding title in Robyn Donald’s captivating new trilogy THE MARRIAGE MAKER.

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The Final Proposal

Robyn Donald










www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


CHAPTER ONE

‘GERRY, I look completely ridiculous. Nobody in their right mind wears clothes like this to a celebrity polo tournament!’ Jan Carruthers stared at her reflection with appalled fascination as her cousin carefully settled a wide-brimmed hat onto her short, auburn hair. Some milliner, crazed by romanticism, had draped both crown and brim with what looked to be the entire stock of a florist’s shop.

‘That,’ Gerry said smugly, stepping back to gaze at her, ‘is the whole idea. When you do “before and after” shots, you always make the “before” shot as outrageous as you can. You, little coz, are now definitely, extravagantly, magnificently conspicuous—just the way you should look.’

‘I should have told you to find some other midget when you came up with this absurd scheme.’

‘You did, several times. But I’m cunning, and I know all your weak spots. As soon as I mentioned all those poor women who think it’s necessary to spend thousands of dollars to look good, you wavered. Then I pointed out that you could donate the money you’re going to earn to your centre for troubled girls. Being the noble-minded sucker that you are, you couldn’t say no.’

‘It’s not my centre, and I’d have turned you down without a moment’s thought if I’d known you were going to dress me up as a mushroom.’ Jan glowered down at the narrow-skirted silk suit in palest peach. Worn to a fashionable lunch it would have been perfect; it would be totally out of place at the polo ground just south of Auckland.

‘No, you wouldn’t have.’ Secure in her model’s figure, and with her extra eight inches of height, Gerry radiated satisfaction. ‘Stop grumbling—of course you look like a mushroom. Women who are only five foot two can’t wear hats like cartwheels. Just be grateful we didn’t decide on the toadstool look, and make the hat scarlet with big white spots.’

The far too many people needed to set up a photographic shoot for a fashion magazine sniggered. Clearly this rare opportunity to indulge themselves with flagrantly bad taste was giving them all a sneaky forbidden pleasure.

‘Besides,’ Gerry pointed out mercilessly, ‘your centre for disturbed girls needs all the money it can get. Didn’t I see in the newspaper that the government has just cut the grant by fifty per cent?’

‘And fifty per cent of a shoestring is a thread,’ Jan muttered, still feeling the sick dismay the news had caused.

Gerry surveyed her with affectionate resignation. ‘Under that glossily smart, sophisticated, hip exterior you’re the most motherly creature I’ve ever come across. Why don’t you get married and have kids of your own instead of spending most of your spare time worrying about, raising money for and counselling your wayward girls?’

‘They are not my girls, and they are not all wayward!’ ‘Oh, semantics! In need of care and attention, then—and don’t you dare frown!’

Jan froze. It had taken so long for her make-up to be applied that she didn’t dare risk cracking it. More for form’s sake than from conviction, she said, ‘I warn you, I’ll have strong hysterics if anyone so much as smirks.’

The hairdresser, a nervy young man with a shaven head set off by a diamond stud in his ear, said fretfully, ‘I still think she should be wearing a wig. With ringlets.’

‘No,’ Jan said, as forcefully as she could through stiff lips.

Gerry sighed. ‘She’s right. We don’t want to slide over the edge into farce. She has to look as though some poor woman could make the same mistakes.’

‘A madwoman.’ Jan leaned forward to peer at the coating of blue mascara on her black lashes. Flinching, she closed her eyes and backed away from the mirror. ‘I must be crazy! I’m an image consultant—I show people what their most flattering colours and styles are, I teach them how to wear clothes so they look great and I’m moderately famous for my seminars and workshops on self-esteem—I don’t prance through magazine pages as a glaring example of what not to do.’ Ignoring Gerry’s outcry she chewed her lip, carefully and sultrily coloured a shade that clashed subtly with the suit and her ivory skin.

‘The “after” pages will reveal you as your true, impeccably elegant self,’ Gerry reminded her with cheerful callousness. ‘Come on, let Cindy redo your mouth and then put this bracelet on.’

‘Diamonds!’ Recoiling, Jan almost lost her balance as the ankle-wrecking high heels on her Italian shoes sank into the grass. ‘Oh, damn these things! They’re going to kill me before this is over. Gerry, you’ll never get away with this. Talk about a Victorian nightmare!’

‘We don’t want to get away with anything,’ Gerry said, casting her eyes heavenward. ‘The bracelet is absolutely perfect.’

‘I might lose it. Though I’d be doing the world a favour if I did. Or it might be stolen,’ Jan muttered through set lips while the make-up woman reapplied lipstick.

‘You’re too conscientious and sensible to lose anything, and although I know New Zealand seems to be trying to catch up with the rest of the world as far as crime rates go, there’s not likely to be a master jewel thief at a polo match. Anyway, we’ve got a security man. And that bracelet is just the right overdone touch. So shut up and hold your arm out. Think of what you can do with the money at your half-a-shoestring centre.’

It was the only redeeming feature of this whole episode. Closing her eyes again, Jan schooled her features into long-suffering patience and submitted to being fettered by the heavy, ostentatious snake of diamonds and gold.

‘Great,’ Gerry said, gloating. ‘You look awful. Actually, damn you, you don’t—in spite of our best efforts you just about manage to get away with it. Shows what little chicken bones and huge, dark blue eyes set on an exotic slant will do for a woman. To say nothing of that sensual pout. Just think, snooks, if you’d been ten inches taller you’d be a millionaire model.’

Jan snorted. ‘I haven’t the stamina for it. Anyway, I’d be be over the hill by now.’

‘But rich, love, filthy rich—because the camera adores you. And nowadays quite a few models last beyond their thirty-first birthday. You’d be one—there isn’t a wrinkle on that fabulous skin.’

‘Everyone’s got wrinkles,’ Jan said morosely. ‘And I’m not thirty-one until tomorrow.’

‘Ha—more semantics! I’m really looking forward to tonight—you and Aunt Cynthia know how to make a birthday party hum. But first we have to get this over with. OK, let’s go out there—and don’t forget to simper for the camera.’

Jan batted her lashes dramatically. ‘You’ll never see a more perfect simper. Damn, I can barely move in these shoes. I need crutches. Or a large, oiled Nubian slave to carry me around.’

Unimpressed, Gerry grinned. ‘Sorry, slaves are off today. Anyway, an oiled one would mark the suit. You’ll cope. You’ve got that inborn aplomb that makes the rest of us feel inferior. And remember, it’s for a good cause. There are hundreds of thousands of women in New Zealand and Australia who are dying to discover that they can go anywhere, any time, with a good, basic wardrobe that isn’t going to cost them a fortune.’

‘I still think just showing the right gear would have been enough.’

‘It lacks drama. Trust me. Besides, this is good publicity for you.’

‘Good publicity?’ Jan almost choked. ‘I’ll probably never see another client.’

‘Rubbish! Everyone will look at the “after” shots and understand what we’ve done.’

‘And if you believe that,’ Jan said sweetly, picking her way out of the tent and into the blinding sunlight of a late New Zealand summer, ‘I have the latitude and longitude of a shipwreck off Fiji and I know for a fact that all the gold is still on board. I’ll sell you the treasure map for a million dollars.’

Outside, champagne glass in hand, she posed for the camera, keeping her gaze fixed and slightly unfocused, because most of the spectators at the celebrity tournament found the sight of an overdressed woman being photographed every bit as fascinating as the game. People she knew grinned, waved and settled back to stare quite unashamedly, but even complete strangers seemed to feel that the camera gave them licence to watch.

Jan was accustomed to being looked at; it was, to some extent, part of her job. At seminars and workshops she frequently stood in front of large audiences and, without anything more than a few minor bubbles in her stomach, kept them interested.

This, however, was different. She felt as though she’d been dumped into the modern equivalent of medieval stocks.

It didn’t help when the photographer, damn him, entered wholeheartedly into the theatrical ambience of the occasion and began giving a running commentary.

‘Everyone’s an actor,’ Jan hissed after he’d told her to shake her sexy little hips. ‘Shut up!’

‘But this is how photographers are supposed to behave,’ he said, narrowing his eyes lustfully at her. ‘You’ve seen the films and read the books. Come on, darling, give me a slow, come-hither grin—make like a volcano...’

Resisting the impulse to stick out her tongue, she tossed her head, catching as she did so the eyes of a man a few feet away. Until then he’d been intent upon the game, but apparently Sid’s babble had intruded on his concentration. Dark brows compressed, he scrutinised them.

Growing up with a tall, big-framed stepfather and a half-sister who took after him should have taught Jan not to be intimidated by mere stature, but Anet and Stephen Carruthers were gentle people. Once she’d discovered that some men used their height and build to intimidate, Jan had rapidly developed a small woman’s wariness.

And the stranger was tall, with broad shoulders and heavily muscled legs and thighs beneath skin-tight jodhpurs.

Something about him—possibly his relaxed stance, the almost feline grace that held the promise of instant, decisive response—tested the barriers she’d erected over the years.

Trying to reinforce them, she gave him her most aloofly objective gaze and decided that he’d photograph well. Angular bone structure gave strength and a certain striking severity to his features, a hard edge intensified by straight browns and a wide, imperiously moulded mouth. His bronzed, bone-deep tan indicated a life spent outside, as did the long, corded muscles in his arms. And he had a good head of hair, wavy and conventionally cut by an expert, the glossy brown heated by the sun to a rich mahogany.

He had to be a professional polo player, in New Zealand for the celebrity tournament. Perhaps he was playing in the next game.

Beside him stood a girl even taller than Gerry, a girl, Jan noticed automatically, dressed with exactly the right note of casual elegance. As Jan watched she said something, her stance revealing a certain tentativeness. Instantly he switched that intent, oddly remote gaze from Jan to the girl, and answered. His companion blushed, her carefully cultivated poise vanishing like mist in the fierce light of the sun. His smile was a masterpiece, the sort that seduced women without even trying—indolent, confident and compelling.

And you’d better get a hold of yourself, Jan commanded herself sternly. You’re here to do a job, not drool over some wandering sportsman, even if he does have more magnetism in one black eyebrow than most other men have in their whole bodies.

Eventually, thank heavens, Gerry said, ‘OK, that should do it. Let’s get back into the tent and change into the “after” gear.’

‘Just a couple more,’ Sid decided. ‘Jan, stand by the hoardings, will you? I want to get a horse or two in the background.’

Jan cast a swift glance at the field. Most of the game was taking place in the middle of the paddock, well away from the advertisements that separated the playing ground from the spectators, so she’d be safe enough.

Moving as gracefully as she could in the ridiculous heels, she walked across, obeying Sid’s request to watch the horses.

‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Try a smile. OK—a sort of faint, yearning one, as though your lover’s out there and you’re going to see him again tonight.’

What lover? Jan thought sardonically. Still, she did her best, keeping the smile pinned in place even when horses and riders suddenly changed direction and thundered towards her. She stepped back at the moment a breeze whipped the ludicrous hat off her head and sent it cartwheeling out into the paddock, straight into the path of one of the horses.

Rigid, Jan watched as the horse reared and tripped, sending its rider to one side as it came down and slid towards her, a huge, squealing mass of gleaming chestnut.

Even as she tottered backward Jan knew she was doomed. Faintly, she was aware of yells. A woman screamed.

Suddenly she was grasped by steel-strong hands and hauled back and to one side, snatched by the sheer force of her rescuer’s momentum into safety. At the same time the horse splintered through the hoardings, then amazingly got to its feet, sweating, shaking its head as its eyes rolled.

Jan was thrust aside and her rescuer, the man with the deadly smile, moved with slow, steady steps towards the trembling horse, talking to it in a voice that was deep and lazy and gentle. Jan couldn’t hear what he was saying above the hammer of her heart, but like everyone else she watched, spellbound.

‘Are you all right?’ Gerry whispered, grabbing her.

Jan nodded, pulling away from her cousin’s hold and clenching her teeth to hold back the shivers that had come abruptly out of nowhere.

A lean, tanned hand caught the horse’s bridle and held it firmly while the other hand stroked up the dripping neck. The man’s voice, textured with a magic as primal and compelling as the partnership between man and beast, crooned the nervous, panting horse into quiescence while the rider, fortunately unhurt by his tumble, approached.

Time got going again. Jan’s rescuer said something to the polo player that made him laugh, and then relinquished his charge and turned back, heading straight for Jan.

‘Are you all right?’ he demanded.

The same words Gerry had used, but where her tone had been anxious his was accusing.

Although that swift, hard embrace had wrenched every bone in her body, Jan said, ‘I’m fine. Is the horse?’

He had amazing eyes, smouldering silver between thick, curly lashes, and he was in a towering rage. ‘If it is, it’s no thanks to


ou,’ he said, his voice curt as a whiplash. ‘Horses are not props, and that damned hat of yours could have killed both the rider and the horse, as well as you.’

Jan nodded. Her eyes felt huge in her face and she was dry-mouthed, unable to think let alone speak.

‘Get her something to drink,’ he ordered Gerry, without any softening in his manner. ‘Tea, not alcohol, and put plenty of sugar in it.’

Astonishingly Gerry—capable, sensible Gerry—said meekly, ‘Yes, all right,’ and turned away.

‘I’ll go with you,’ Jan croaked.

But her knees shook. When she tried to walk they gave way and she stumbled. To her utter mortification her rescuer picked her up with casual, insulting ease and carried her into the tent, away from the horses and the sun and the whispering crowd.

Her nostrils quivered, sensitised to a particular scent, faint, masculine, so potent that she could feel its effects in every cell in her body. Abnormally conscious of the smooth, coiled power in her rescuer’s strong arms and shoulders, Jan raised her lashes and saw in his bronzed throat the steady pulsing of his heartbeat.

For some reason her eyes filled with tears. Blinking fiercely, she dragged her gaze away and stared straight ahead, more shocked by the exaggerated response of her body than by the danger she had just escaped. Being aware of a man was one thing; this, she thought feverishly, was another and entirely more hazardous reaction. He overloaded her senses.

Inside the tent, he set her on her feet, and the heat of his body was replaced by a chill that struck through to her bones. Shivering, she collapsed into a folding chair that someone pushed towards her, kicking her shoes off. The man who had saved her life looked at her feet, brows climbing.

‘They scarcely look big enough to support an adult,’ he said.

It was not a compliment, but Jan’s bones liquefied.

‘We’re so very grateful for your quick thinking,’ Gerry said, turning her famous, slow smile onto the man.

He responded with a remark and an ironic, knowledgeable smile of his own. A visibly affected Gerry accompanied him from the tent.

‘God,’ the hairdresser said beneath his breath as he handed Jan a mug of tea, ‘I wish I had half his pulling power!’

Jan cupped her hands around the mug, waiting for them to stop trembling. Hearing without understanding the chatter of the crew about her, she sipped the hot liquid, taking exaggerated care not to spill it. She felt bruised and battered, her bones aching. Tomorrow, she thought grimly, she’d have fingermarks imprinted on her skin. Still, if he hadn’t acted with the speed and brute force of a hunting animal she could well have ended up under the horse, and then bruises would have been the least of her worries.

‘How do you feel?’ Gerry asked, approaching her with a frown that didn’t hide the anxiety in her expression.

Jan put the half-empty mug down and got to her feet, wavering slightly but determined. ‘I feel a bit shaky,’ she said, ‘but I’ll be fine. Hadn’t we better get the rest of the shots done?’

‘Are you sure you can manage it?’

‘Positive,’ Jan said. ‘Help me off with this wretched suit, will you?’

It took all of her self-assurance to walk again through the entrance of the tent and into the sun. Even though she’d expected the sudden shift of attention, she was embarrassed by it.

At least the ‘after’ gear suited the occasion perfectly—a honey-coloured shirt and matching skirt in fine cotton. Beneath the shirt was a silk singlet a shade lighter, and instead of the Italian shoes she wore low heels, perfect for picking her way across the grass. The diamond horror was replaced by a thin gold chain wound several times around her small wrist, and she carried a sleek, unadorned parasol.

This time Sid was his normal silent self, and the shoot finished quickly. Posing, looking wistful, smiling, Jan wanted nothing more than to be out of this and safely at home—away from all the eyes, away from the man who had looked at her with such charged antipathy.

Thank heavens he was nowhere in sight.

And she was there as a model, not to search the polo field for a stranger. So she kept her eyes resolutely away from the game and her mind on what she was doing.

However, just before she slipped back into the tent she saw him on a black horse. A primitive, unexpected alertness stirred her senses as she watched the rider reach over and hit the ball, then, with a skilled hand on the reins, gather his steed for a rapid change of direction.

‘Who are you looking at?’ Gerry asked. ‘Oh, him—he’s gorgeous, isn’t he?’ She grinned. ‘Definitely hero material, even though he made me feel like a worm. Too big for you, though—we all know you like smaller men.’

‘I don’t mind big men provided they don’t tread on me,’ Jan said, switching her gaze to a friend who was waving from further along the field. Waving back, she said, ‘I grew up with a big man—and a big sister.’

‘How is Anet? And that utterly glamorous hunk of a husband of hers?’

‘Still besotted with each other. They’re checking out some lost plateau in Venezuela at the moment.’

‘They can have that. Too hot by far for me.’ Gerry blew a curl back from her face. ‘In fact, this is too hot for me. Do you want to stay and watch?’

‘No, thanks. I don’t know the rules.’

‘What you really mean is that country pursuits bore you,’ Gerry accused.

‘Well, I’m a city woman at heart.’ Jan smiled at a woman she’d served on a committee with. ‘Hello, Sue.’

Sue gushed, ‘I nearly died when I saw that horse slide onto you! Trust you to be rescued by some god-like being! You didn’t get hurt at all? And who was he?’

Once Jan had assured her that yes, she’d been scooped clean out of the horse’s way, and no, she didn’t know her rescuer’s name, Sue urged, ‘Join us, both of you.’

‘I’d love to,’ Jan said, ‘but I can’t, I’m sorry.’

It wasn’t the only invitation they turned down. All of Auckland, it seemed, was at the polo tournament, and determined to enjoy it.

As they threaded their way through the crowd Gerry looked around. ‘Between us,’ she said, ‘we probably know everyone here.’

‘If you go back far enough in the family tree we’re probably related to most of them,’ Jan said. ‘New Zealand’s pretty small.’

‘Do you ever want to go and find a bigger pool to swim in?’

Jan shook her head. ‘I thoroughly enjoyed the three years I spent overseas, but this is home.’

‘I know how you feel,’ Gerry said peacefully. ‘Little it might be, but there’s something about the place.’

The sun was only half way to the horizon when Jan drove her small, elderly, much cosseted MG into the garage of her townhouse in Mount Eden, one of three in a new block hidden from the street by a high, lime-washed wall. Once inside, she stripped off her shoes and, wiggling her toes on the cool, smooth tiles, rang her mother.

‘Hello, darling,’ Cynthia said enthusiastically. ‘How did the photo shoot go?’

‘Well...’ Because she’d soon hear it from someone, Jan told her about the incident, soothing her natural maternal alarm by assuring her that she was completely unhurt.

‘At the polo,’ Cynthia lamented, as though somehow it was especially outrageous that such a thing should have happened there.

‘Ah, well, I was rescued by a superb man,’ Jan said.

‘I wish I could thank him!’

Jan recalled the splintering anger in those frigid eyes and shivered. ‘I’m not likely to see him again,’ she said, and changed the subject. ‘I thought I’d have a shower and then come on over.’

‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ her mother said sternly. ‘You’ll arrive at exactly eight o’clock. Everything is under control. The caterers are doing all the hard work. The flowers are done. The house is spotless. I don’t need you dashing around getting in the way, so have a rest. Make a cup of tea. Wallow in the bath. Read a book. Don’t come near this place until we’re all ready for you!’

Laughing, Jan gave in. Her mother much preferred to prepare for her parties in her own way.

She put the receiver down and wandered out onto the terrace. Ahead, in blissful solitude, stretched the afternoon and early evening. The polo stunt had been the last of the photographic shoots, for which Jan was extremely thankful. In a couple of months Gerry’s article and the photos would appear in the magazine.

Her cousin had even promised to slip in a mention of the centre, and that group of dedicated, mostly unpaid women who worked with and worried about the girls and young women brought to them—many in severe trouble, most just trembling on the brink of it.

Money, Jan thought; it all came down to money. Or the lack of it.

A van, which would be enormously useful, was just a pipedream.

Still, she thought drily as she moved a lounger into the shade of the sky-flower vine that rambled over her pergola, Gerry’s project would put some extra money in the coffers.

She must have gone to sleep, because although the telephone bell invaded her dreams like a berserk bee she was unable to wake herself up in time to answer it. Whoever it was hadn’t left a message, so it wasn’t a summons from the centre. However, the imperative call had destroyed her serenity, leaving her to wander restlessly around the house looking for something to do.

Yawning, she wondered how the trip was going. Ten of the girls who’d been recommended to the centre by a social agency were with selected adults at a camp on one of the islands in the Hauraki Gulf. A weekend wasn’t long enough, of course, but it would help.

Unfortunately, they needed more than an occasional weekend if the lessons they learned there about their capabilities, and the self-esteem they gained, were to stick with them. On the centre’s wish-list was a camp of their own, where the girls could stay for several weeks if needed, away from the many temptations of the city and from bad companions.

Another pipedream.

A few weeks ago Jan and her committee had worked out how much they needed. ‘We’re not asking for a lot—just the world,’ one of the women had said, staring glumly at the figures.

Now, as she recalled the enormous set-up costs, Jan’s heart quailed. Over the last few years she’d organised exhaustive and very vigorous fundraising to build up their financial base. They no longer had to worry about the rent, and they could afford the social worker’s salary, but, as costs climbed and more girls turned up on their doorstep, they needed another paid social worker.

Every year they still had to go cap-in-hand to various organisations just to get money to struggle along.

So many organisations, all worthwhile, all seeking a share from the public’s generosity.

‘I must be running out of steam,’ she told the potted bay tree out on the terrace as she watered it.

Thirty-one was not old, but it did seem to mark some sort of milestone. Perhaps it was the siren call of her hormones, warning her that time was frittering away.

For the first time Jan didn’t want the party her mother planned with such care to mark each birthday. It was a family tradition, the end-of-summer, welcome-to-autumn party, and friends and relatives from all over the city and its environs came to wish her luck and enjoy themselves enormously.

Possibly this feeling of slow melancholy was what another of her cousins had warned her about.

‘It’s a crunch year—everyone has one,’ she’d said, smiling wryly. ‘Mine was my thirtieth. I woke up in tears, and wept all day. Everyone thought I was mad, but it’s surprising how many women have one awful birthday—usually in their early thirties.’

Jan had enjoyed her thirtieth, which made it ridiculous to feel so ambivalent about her thirty-first. ‘Stop right there,’ she told herself aloud, wandering into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of feijoa and grapefruit juice.

Her gaze fell on the gaily wrapped present her half-sister had given her the day she and her husband left for their South American trip, with instructions to open it just before the party.

Where were they now, Anet and her husband of almost a year? Slashing their way through some tropical jungle, probably. For the first time, Jan allowed herself to admit that she envied Anet and Lucas the unmeasured, consuming love they shared.

Because she’d never fallen in love.

Not once.

Oh, there’d been a lover when she was twenty—she shivered, recalling the painful, humiliating end to that affair, if affair it could be called—and since then several men had asked her to marry them. A couple of them she’d liked and been attracted to, but she hadn’t ever felt that complete confidence, the essential trust that allowed normally sensible and wary people to confide their life and their happiness to another person.

She just wanted everything, she thought sardonically: the electric, passionate involvement, the eager companionship and the complete faith in each other. And if she couldn’t have it all, she wouldn’t settle for less.

Relishing the tangy flavour of her drink, she sipped slowly while into her mind came an image of the man who had wrenched her out of the way of the horse.

A disturbing heat expanded through her. He had presence. However, that wasn’t why she remembered him. She was accustomed to men with presence; her stepfather had it, so did Lucas. And so did Drake Arundell, the husband of a great friend of hers.

The stranger had more than presence; he possessed a disciplined, formidable authority that sent out warning signals. And he moved with the dangerous, predatory swiftness of a hunter.

Finishing the juice, she eyed the dishwasher, then with a half-laugh washed the glass and put it away.

‘He’s probably just your ordinary, average polo player,’ she said firmly as she walked across the passage to her office. ‘Overpaid, oversexed and over here.’

Weaving fantasies about a man she didn’t know and wasn’t likely to see again was stupid and futile. Life was not slipping by; she helped people as best she could, she was good at what she did and she earned good money doing it—and she had a warm, appreciative family. If she never married she’d be a superb aunt to Anet and Lucas’s children when they had some.

Perhaps she should see about getting a cat.

Dressed in a smooth-fitting ivory dress, its neat lines conforming discreetly to her body, Jan walked with her mother across the big sitting room and out onto the wide terrace. A group of her friends were already there, and as she came through the French windows-they began clapping, and called out birthday wishes.

‘You look great,’ Gerry said exuberantly when they had a moment to talk. She, as befitted an entirely more dramatic personality, wore a floating outfit of purples and blues and plum.

‘Thanks,’ Jan said lightly.

Gerry eyed the demure dress. ‘You’re well covered up. Bruises?’

‘A few,’ Jan admitted. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

‘I should have anchored that damned hat,’ Gerry sighed.

‘Yes, well, I’m just glad that no one got hurt. And that the horse and the rider were OK.’

‘The hero was gorgeous,’ her cousin said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder who he was.’

‘One of the polo players.’

‘Perhaps we should have suggested your mother invite a few.’ She leered unconvincingly. ‘They’d give your party a certain je ne sais quoi. All those splendid muscles rippling beneath their shirts. Not to forget the equally splendid ones beneath—’ Stopped by Jan’s raised brows, she broke into a gurgle of laughter and finished, ‘In their legs.’

‘Most of them probably can’t string more than ten words together,’ Jan said, knowing she was being unfair.

‘Who cares? They look like gods.’

‘Centaurs.’

Gerry laughed. ‘OK, although they’re not exactly joined at the waist to their horses. And even if they can’t speak in words of more than two syllables, we could just sip a little champagne and admire their form. Speaking of which—Oh, good Lord—’

Jan turned to follow her entranced gaze. There, standing beside Sally Porter, a friend from schooldays, and directing that killer smile at her mother, stood the man who had saved Jan from being squashed a few hours ago—all six feet two or three of him.

‘Sally’s latest?’ Gerry muttered. ‘I didn’t see her at the polo, but of course she could have been there.’

Jan barely heard her. A hateful, febrile anticipation prickled through her.

‘I’d better go and greet them,’ she said with enormous reluctance when she saw her mother look across to her.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Gerry offered, trying to sound heroic.

Together, they threaded their way across the terrace and inside. Sally, redheaded and vivacious, waved cheerfully. Not a muscle moving in his face, the man beside her watched them walk across the room.

‘Darling,’ Cynthia said warmly, ‘I forgot to tell you that Sally was bringing her cousin with her.’

His name was Kear Lannion, and for some reason the fact that he was Sally’s cousin was important.

Jan’s wary gaze met pale, crystalline eyes and a cool, unsettling smile. Suddenly, violently, awakened to awareness, she rescued her own smile from the oblivion to which shock had consigned it. ‘But we’ve met,’ she said woodenly, holding out her hand. To her mother she explained, ‘Kear was the man who probably saved my life this afternoon.’

He took her hand gently, tempering his strength to her slender bones. ‘Jan,’ he said, in a voice that was deep and rough enough to send a sensual shiver down her spine. ‘It suits you.’

Pierced by swift, sharp antagonism, she smiled. ‘Short and snappy?’

His glance mocked her. ‘Well, no, that’s not exactly what I had in mind. Have you fully recovered?’

‘Yes, thank you’

She wasn’t going to mention her bruises. Neither, although she had to bite back the words, was she going to explain what she’d been doing in that stupid outfit. And she was not going to tell him that he’d only seen the ‘before’ picture. Especially not that, because if she did he’d realise she’d noticed his absence during the ‘after’ session.

But oh, how she wanted to! She even found herself hoping that Gerry would make the explanations. Unfortunately, smiling and fluttering her lashes in a manner Jan found vaguely annoying, Gerry confined her conversation to social pleasantries.

Her mother thanked him fervently, ending with, ‘What a coincidence that you should be Sally’s cousin.’

‘The handsomest of my cousins,’ Sally informed them with relish. If she’d hoped to embarrass him she failed; he gave her that slow smile and, close relative though she was, she lost her place before summoning the poise to continue, ‘The most athletic too. I think the New Zealand team is going to lose half its fans now that Kear’s stopped playing.’

Interestedly, Gerry said, ‘Oh, have you retired?’

‘I can’t give it the time I need to pull my weight. So, yes, today was my last game for New Zealand.’

Another group of people came in through the door. By the time Jan had done her duty by them and found someone for them to talk to, Sally and Kear were deep in discussion with Gerry and another woman on the terrace.

Jan kept well away, but an hour or so later his deep, distinctive voice said from behind her, ‘You look as though you could do with a refill. What would you like?’

‘Orange juice, but I can get it.’

‘It’s no trouble,’ he said. Together they walked across to the temporary bar.

‘Are you a teetotaller?’ he asked when the barman had served her.

‘No, but when you’re my size half a glass is enough to make you uncomfortably hot,’ she said, wondering why her skin felt too tight for her.

‘Wise woman.’

Shrugging, she returned, ‘One learns.’ She covertly searched for someone she could leave him with in a little while, when it wouldn’t be too obvious that she was running away.

Just as the silence between them began to stretch uncomfortably he commented, ‘Did I bruise you when I hurled you out of the way?’ His gaze rested a moment on the sleeves and neckline of her dress.


CHAPTER TWO

JAN’S skin warmed under that deliberate survey. Hoping he hadn’t noticed her hesitation, she said, ‘It’s nothing. And I don’t think I thanked you for saving me.’

‘I’m sorry about the bruising,’ he said. ‘As for your thanks, you didn’t get a chance. I was too busy berating you.’

Startled, she looked up into eyes that shimmered like moonlight on water, a surface silver and translucent yet impossible to see beneath.

‘You had a point,’ she said, wondering why her mouth was so dry. ‘The hat should have been pinned on. Is the horse really all right?’

‘Yes, apart from a few bruises.’ He didn’t attempt to hide the surprise in his tone.

Defensively, she said, ‘I was worried about it. Life is bad enough for a polo pony without—’

His brows rose. ‘Polo ponies are fed like kings and cared for with the utmost devotion. They seem to enjoy the whole experience.’

‘I hope so.’ It had sounded ungracious, so she added, ‘Lots of people think animals are like machines-disposable.’

‘I earn my living from animals. Only a fool doesn’t care for them.’

Sally had told them he was a farmer. Before Jan could stop herself she said shortly, ‘Exploiting them.’

‘Perhaps. But as long as humans eat meat there’ll be farmers. I make sure my animals are looked after and not treated cruelly, and that their death is quick and painless. Which is more than could be said for most animals in the wild.’

‘At least in the wild they’re free,’ she said, more to provoke than because she believed what she was saying.

His smile was ironic. ‘Freedom is a human concept. And, even for Homo sapiens, a full belly and security are more important than any illusory freedom.’

She said, ‘Goodness, you’re a cynic.’

‘I’m a realist.’ His tone was dry as Chardonnay. ‘Most people who live in the country are. When your livelihood is at the mercy of the elements you very soon learn that nature doesn’t value any one thing above the other. Humanity is no more important than animals, and no less.’

She said pertly, ‘So rural life teaches one lessons. I must remember that next time I stay with friends in the country.’

‘I gather you don’t go often.’

‘How did you guess?’ She widened her eyes like those women who believed rapt, slightly glazed stares were a good substitute for conversation. ‘I get twitchy if I’m too far from a bookshop or café. However, if the air didn’t smell so peculiar I might be tempted to go more often.’

She’d caught his attention well and truly. “The air?’

‘Well, there’s no body to it. It hardly seems natural, somehow.’

His mouth twitched. ‘No exhaust fumes.’

He was watching her, not with the interest of a man for a woman he was attracted to, but measuringly, as though he’d like to know what made her tick. A nameless sensation clutched her stomach, tangling her thoughts into incoherence.

‘Exactly,’ she said, smiling, but thinking, I have to get away from here! Failing that, she needed a neutral subject; the usual rules didn’t seem to apply to this man. Teasing him, however mildly, was too much like walking along the edge of a cliff. ‘Sally said you live by the sea. In the Bay of Islands?’

‘No, further north,’ he said. ‘On an estuary where two small rivers join to form a harbour. A little peninsula shelters it from Doubtless Bay and my house is on the peninsula.’

‘Set in pohutukawa trees,’ she said, her voice dulcet and guileless.

‘All the clichés,’ he agreed blandly.

‘It sounds idyllic. How far from the nearest café?’

The glacial depths of his eyes were lit by a spark of humour. ‘Twenty minutes.’

‘Too far for me, alas.’

Smiling, she turned with—she hoped—well-hidden relief as Marcus Fielding came up. Marcus was a bit of a pain, but easy to deal with. Kear Lannion’s penetrating gaze made her feel as though she had to screen every word, every nuance.

‘Janny, darling, how are you?’ Marcus kissed her soundly, keeping one arm looped around her shoulders as he held out his other hand to Kear. ‘How are you, Kear? Haven’t seen you for months. Have you been overseas?’

‘I’ve been busy,’ Kear said, shaking the hand he was offered. He smiled, his striking face confident and compelling. ‘I see you won the Bremner Prize. Congratulations.’

Marcus grinned like a schoolboy. ‘I’d like to say, oh, it was nothing, but as I struggled and bled and anguished for months to get the sculpture ready I don’t feel inclined to,’ he said. ‘At least it gives me a year when I don’t have to worry about money.’

They discussed the award for a few minutes longer before Kear was carried off by Sally to meet some newcomer.

Frowning after the tall figure, Marcus said, ‘God, if I could get him to buy something of mine I’d be made.’

‘I thought he was a farmer.’

‘Darling,’ Marcus said with affectionate malice, ‘of course he is. He’s also something of a Renaissance man, is Kear Lannion. Actually, the farm is a thumping great station, but I doubt very much whether it’s his sole source of income. I’ve heard that he owns quite large chunks of various business and enterprises. I know for certain he’s a director of several companies. Rumour has it he’s got a lot of disposable cash. And he likes to spend some of it on art.’

Jan thought she hid her surprise rather well, but Marcus crowed, ‘Ah, you thought he was a philistine, didn’t you? Shame on you, darling, all your little prejudices are found out. When he buys, the cognoscenti start sniffing around.’

Jan said brightly, ‘Well, in that case let’s hope he likes your stuff’

She had allowed herself to fall into a fairly obvious trap. Kear Lannion was not a man you could slot into a comfortable niche and expect to stay there. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

With a swift, sideways look, Marcus purred, ‘He has a reputation in other things too.’

Jan stared at him. It was unlike him to be coy; shocking people for the sheer wicked fun of it was more his style.

‘Don’t we all?’ she said neutrally.

‘Ladies love him,’ Marcus said. ‘He likes them too, if they’re tall and willowy and beautiful.’

Only four inches shorter than Kear Lannion, not unhandsome, very smartly dressed and with his full mouth set in a modish sneer, he was no match for Kear’s effortless male magnetism. And he knew it.

Jan said cheerfully, ‘Perhaps you should produce some tall, willowy, beautiful pieces of sculpture for him.’

Laughing, he surprised her by kissing her on the mouth. ‘Jan, you’re incurably nice. Ah, he’s coming back. If I leave you alone, will you sing my praises to him?’

She began to tell him he’d got things wrong, but he grinned and headed off, leaving her caught, as defenceless as a possum on the road at night, in Kear’s dispassionate gaze.

‘Is he your lover?’ Kear asked coolly.

Startled by his unexpected crudeness, she snapped, ‘No, he is not.’

Although discretion warned her to be careful, her pulses raced with a keener, more eager beat. Her reaction, half excitement, half antipathy, bewildered her, because she’d never responded to a man like this before. It wasn’t as though she had anything to base her dislike on either. Kear was interesting to talk to, with a presence that made him an asset at any social occasion; apparently he was also a worthy member of society and an honest businessman.

She was being absurdly sensitive. Clutching precariously at her temper, she said, ‘Now, is there anyone I can introduce you to?’

He didn’t even glance around the room. ‘I think I know most people,’ he said. ‘Sally tells me you’re an image consultant. What exactly does that mean?’

There was no sign of emotion in his voice, none revealed in the arrogant contours of his face, but she sensed a note of irony that further irritated already raw nerves. ‘Basically, I give people confidence,’ she said sweetly.

He raised his brows. ‘And how do you train for that?’

‘I worked in fashion for a while, and then I became intrigued because some people seemed to know instinctively what suited them, whereas others didn’t have a clue. I started to read up about it, but there wasn’t much to be learnt here, so I had to go to America to find someone who knew what he was doing in the field. When I came back to New Zealand three years ago I decided to set up for myself.’

‘You’d be the perfect person,’ he said.

It should have been a compliment. However, some primitive sense picked up the meaning of words he wasn’t saying, of expressions he controlled, and she said without knowing why, ‘I hear you have an excellent collection of art.’

He made no modest disclaimer. ‘I think so,’ he said.

‘Marcus was very enthusiastic.’

His mouth curved in a smile that conveyed amusement without softening its naturally hard line. ‘I buy what I like,’ he said. ‘He has talent, but he still feels that emotion and desire are all-important. When he develops discipline I might buy from him.’

She said firmly, ‘I think he has a great future.’

‘It will be interesting to see,’ he said.

She caught Gerry’s eye. Muscles she hadn’t known were tense relaxed as her cousin moved in with her attendant group of dazzled males, saying cheerfully, ‘You look as though you’re having a terribly earnest discussion.’

Jan shook her head. ‘Not earnest—but definitely interesting.’

Her cousin beamed up at Kear, who returned her smile with his overwhelming one.

He was too astute not to know how potent a weapon that smile was, Jan decided, watching her cousin almost buckle under its impact. However, Gerry had potent weapons too. She’d made the phrase ‘divinely fair’ her own.

She was tall and willowy as well.

Provoked on some basic level, Jan summoned her best hostess’s smile, made an excuse and left them talking. Ten minutes later a swift, unnoticed glance revealed that the men Gerry always collected had drifted off, leaving Kear Lannion. in sole possession.

‘You shouldn’t let her get away with it,’ Great-Aunt Kit said abruptly. She was Jan’s only surviving relative on her father’s side of the family, the sister of her father’s mother. They were seated in armchairs under the pepper tree, enjoying the warm, rose-scented air.

Jan grinned. ‘Gerry’s been getting away with it all her life,’ she said cheerfully. ‘She can’t help it. As well as being gorgeous she’s nice. Anyway, he’s not mine.’

‘Time you thought of getting married.’

‘I’ve decided to follow your example,’ Jan said, smiling at her aunt, who’d never made any secret of her satisfaction with her single state.

‘Well, I’ve enjoyed my life, I don’t deny it, but I think you were made for marriage.’

‘I haven’t met the right man,’ Jan said, stifling a little sigh.

From the edge of the terrace there came a muted peal of laughter from Cynthia. Great-Aunt Kit said, ‘There’s no such thing. Look at your mother. She adored your father but she couldn’t be more happy than she is with Stephen.’

‘I wish I’d known my father.’

‘Hugo was a charming scamp,’ her aunt said acidly. ‘He broke his father’s heart and then he did the same to your mother’s. He might have grown up if he hadn’t died on that racetrack, but I doubt it.’

‘I remember him—just isolated incidents,’ Jan said wistfully. ‘And I know my grandfather used to sing nursery rhymes with me. It would have been nice if he’d stayed in New Zealand.’

Her aunt snorted. ‘He couldn’t bear to see Hugo’s eyes in your face. A fine excuse for running away to Australia!’

‘I’d like to know more about your side of the family.’

‘There wasn’t much to know about Hugo beyond the fact that he had more charm than was good for him, and the only family he had was a doting father who couldn’t endure his grief. Fergus even blamed your mother for letting Hugo race, when he knew perfectly well it was impossible to stop him from doing whatever he wanted to!’

Jan hadn’t known this. She said indignantly, ‘What a nerve!’

‘He has that, does Fergus Morrison. Ah, well, he adored your father—I suppose it was understandable. He was middle-aged when he married Betsy, and they only ever had Hugo.’ Her voice softened as it always did when she mentioned her only sister, who’d died in childbirth.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t her father but the restrained figure of her grandfather that Jan had missed the most. She used to wonder why they had both gone, leaving her alone with a mother who had wept for months. Perhaps, she thought now, it had been her memories of the family they’d been that had led her to long so desperately for another. Curiously, she asked, ‘Was there no one else? No aunts or uncles or cousins?’

‘Not a one. We had no relatives in New Zealand, and I think Fergus had lost touch with his too.’

Carefully avoiding the part of the room where Kear Lannion stood, Jan looked around. ‘Family’s important,’ she said softly.

‘You’re a nice girl,’ her great-aunt said with unexpected force.

Jan kissed her cheek. ‘Thank you.’

‘You look like Cynthia, but you’ve got Betsy’s eyes. Set on the merest slant, and that bright, intense blue. Now, go on; you don’t want to sit here talking to me all night. Here comes Cynthia—you go and enjoy yourself. I want to hear all the gossip, and your mother won’t tell me any if you’re here.’

Laughing, Jan left them. It was a good party. She looked around in case someone was in trouble, but everyone in the noisy, laughing, chattering crowd appeared to be enjoying themselves without any help from her.

Then Kear Lannion walked down the steps and came across the lawn. She felt her smile tremble, and before it died forced herself to produce another.

‘Hello,’ she said, wondering if she’d overemphasised her bright tone. ‘Can I get you something?’

The thick dark lashes that curled around his pale eyes screened his thoughts too well. She couldn’t read him at all, and this made her uneasy because normally she was good at body language.

‘You can talk to me,’ he said, a hint of irony in his words. ‘You’ve done your duty.’

‘What shall we talk about?’

His mouth tightened, then eased into a lazy, almost insolent smile. ‘Your innermost secrets,’ he said gravely.

Jan’s brows shot up. ‘Not after such a short acquaintanceship,’ she said, just as seriously, wishing that she could hide behind curtains of long hair like some of her young cousins. Smiling, she parried his bard, intent gaze and said, ‘Tell me about your farm.’

Yes, that sounded fine—interested but not prying, and social rather than personal. But when she looked up at him, she noticed with a faint quiver in her stomach the speculative gleam in his glance.

‘I breed and run beef cattle on Doubtless Bay. Have you ever been up there?’

‘It’s quite close to Kaitaia, isn’t it? I’ve flown there several times to take seminars and workshops,’ she said, trying not to sound indignant. ‘And I’ve sailed around the Bay of Islands.’

His mouth tilted. ‘Let me guess. You went on a gin palace and saw all the sights from the deck.’

Ruffled by the amusement in his voice, she bent down to snap off the suede-soft bloom of a gardenia and held it to her nose. Erotic, disturbing, the scent of the flower floated like an offering to unknown gods on the humid air.

She lowered it and said, ‘It was definitely a gin palace, but I did go ashore a couple of times.’ She didn’t care what he thought of her—after all, he was nobody, a mere passer-by in her life.

Kear glanced across to her mother, now walking with Great-Aunt Kit down her favourite border, pointing out flowering treasures. Lights in the garden illuminated them—the tall old woman, the smaller, younger one unobtrusively lending a supporting hand. ‘After meeting your mother, I can see where you got your features from. You don’t have her eyes, though.’

‘Apparently I inherited mine from my father’s mother,’ she said evenly, thinking it odd for this conversation to turn up twice on the same evening.

‘So intense a blue they make me think of the sheen on steel,’ he said, and held out his hand for the gardenia.

Startled, she gave it to him and watched as he smelled it, his dark features etched arrogantly against the lights.

The compliment unnerved her totally, melting the bones at the base of her spine. ‘Really?’ she said in a quiet, startled voice.

‘Yes.’ His brief smile sent her heart thudding. ‘My cousin said that you’re Anet Carruthers’ sister. I saw her win gold at the Olympics. You’re not in the least alike.’

‘We’re half-sisters. Anet gets her javelin-throwing expertise from my stepfather.’ Jan sent a swift, winged smile across to Stephen Carruthers. Obeying a distress signal she hadn’t realised she’d sent, he said a few smiling words to the couple he was with and came down to join her.

After that it was easy. Listening to them as they talked, Jan was surprised to find out that Stephen liked Kear; her stepfather was clever and an excellent judge of character, yet he responded to the other man’s magnetism without any sign of resistance. But what set her stupid heart galloping in an uneven rhythm was the sight of that gardenia tucked negligently into Kear’s buttonhole.

‘Interesting chap, Lannion—I’ve always liked him,’ Stephen said hours later, when all the guests had gone.

‘I didn’t realise you knew him,’ Jan murmured.

‘He’s on a couple of boards with me. Not an easy chap to know, and no one pushes him around, but he’s a good man to have beside you in a fight.’

Cynthia nodded. ‘As well as being a very desirable piece of real estate.’

‘Mother!’ Jan pretended to be shocked.

Laughing, her mother defended her choice of words. ‘That’s what Gerry called him. I think she might be smitten.’

Jan subdued something that came ominously close to being jealousy, and kissed her parents. ‘Well, I’m heading off. Goodnight, and thank you. I had a lovely party.’

‘You’re sure you don’t want to stay the night?’ her mother asked automatically.

‘No, I’ll go home, thanks.’ Jan hid a yawn. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning, though. And don’t have the place cleaned up by the time I get here like you did last year!’

‘There’s not a lot to do, darling. The caterers have already tidied up, so all that’s necessary is a bit of vacuuming.’

‘Don’t do it.’ Jan looked at her stepfather. ‘Dad, keep her in bed.’

His answering grin was transformed into laughter as Cynthia blushed and bridled and shook her finger at him.

She was very lucky, Jan thought as she drove through Auckland’s darkened streets. She had a super family.

Back at home, she took off her make-up before sitting on the side of the bed with Anet’s present in her lap. She had been astounded when she’d opened it, because the tiny painting on ivory had been given to Anet by mutual friends barely a year before.

Even the note hadn’t allayed her surprise. Anet had written:

Dearest Jan

I hope you have a wonderful birthday. I’m sorry we won’t be there—I always hate missing your party, the best of the year! This is our present. Yes, I know Olivia and Drake gave the portrait to me, but it was always with the proviso that I had to hand her on sooner or later. She’s ready to leave now, and I want you to have her. Don’t worry about her; she has the ability to keep herself out of trouble. Jan, be happy.

Jan tilted the severe wooden frame so that the light illuminated the pretty face. It was exquisite work, done by a master. Fresh as though she were not at least two hundred years old, the woman gazed serenely out at the world, her delicately fine features set in an expression of confident assurance.

‘I wonder just what she means when she says you’re ready to leave now,’ Jan murmured. ‘I wish you could tell me. I’ll look after you carefully, and when Anet comes back I’ll ask her why she was so cryptic.’ Carefully, she steadied the wooden frame and put it on her dressing table.

Two weeks later Jan was ushered into a solicitor’s office in the city. Holding out her hand, she said, ‘Mr Gates? I’m Jan Carruthers.’

He was a well-tailored, middle-aged man, with shrewd dark eyes and a mouth clamped shut on secrets. ‘How do you do, Ms Carruthers,’ he said neutrally. ‘Actually, I think that legally your surname is Morrison, is it not?’

‘No,’ she said a little stiffly. ‘My stepfather adopted me.’

‘I see.’

‘But my birth father was Hugo Morrison.’

He nodded. ‘Do sit down, Ms Carruthers,’ he said, and gestured to a chair. He waited until she was seated before saying smoothly, ‘Thank you for responding so promptly to my letter. You have your birth certificate?’

‘I have my shortened adoption one,’ she said, handing it over. ‘I can write away and get a copy of the one with my father’s name on it if you want it.’

‘It might be a good idea, but this will do for the moment.’ He looked at the document, then passed it back to her, saying, ‘Ms Carruthers, are you aware that you had a paternal grandfather—your birth father’s father?’

‘Yes,’ she said, feeling something chilly take up residence in the pit of her stomach. ‘Fergus Morrison. He went to Australia after my father’s death.’

‘He returned to New Zealand about fifteen years ago,’ he said.

Astonishment raised her voice. ‘Did he?’

‘Yes.’ He shuffled the papers on his desk a moment before saying, ‘He saw you at some function a few years ago.’

She felt the colour leach from her face. ‘Why didn’t he speak to me?’ she asked numbly.

‘I gather he thought he might not be welcome,’ he said, watching her with keen interest.

‘He might have tried to find out.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know what his reasons were for keeping his distance. However, he made this will after he’d seen you.’

He paused, but she’d already guessed what he was going to say. She’d never have thought that it could hurt so much.

‘Ms Carruthers, your grandfather died a year ago. He wanted his estate wound up before you were contacted. That has now been done, leaving money and a hundred acres of land some hundred or so miles north of Whangarei, in Northland. As you are your grandfather’s sole beneficiary, it is yours.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want it,’ she said. Her voice sounded odd, as though she had a severe cold.

‘There is no one else.’ He was firm. ‘If you don’t accept it, it will be sold and everything will go into the Consolidated Fund. There is, however, a condition.’

‘What?’ she asked warily.

He picked out a piece of paper. ‘There is a house on the property. He wanted you to stay there for a month before you decide what to do.’

‘That’s impossible. I have a business to run.’

‘You have a year’s grace. After you’ve fulfilled his wish you can do what you like with the property.’ He looked at her with something like compassion in those cautious eyes. ‘There is quite a lot of money involved, Ms Carruthers,’ he said.

‘Exactly how much?’

‘Well, the place itself is on the coast. I believe there are several beaches. People are prepared to pay a considerable amount of money for coastal property nowadays,’ he said calmly.

Slowly she asked, ‘And if I don’t stay there everything goes to the government?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

Jan thought of the centre. She could sell this unexpected inheritance and use the money to buy land closer to Auckland for a camp. Or perhaps, she thought, excitement quickening inside her, it would be suitable in itself for such an enterprise. At the very least, its sale would give the centre money to buy a van and add to the trust fund.

Compared to that, a month out of her life wasn’t much sacrifice. She’d allowed herself a fortnight’s holiday in May, and with a little shuffling she could probably take a whole month.

Instantly making up her mind, she said, ‘All right. If I decide I want this land, do I have to stay there the whole time? I mean, can I make dashes to Auckland overnight?’

‘Certainly,’ he said gravely.

She nodded. ‘And exactly where is this place?’ ‘Reasonably close to Mangonui,’ he said. ‘It’s a very scenic area. The property has frontage on Doubtless Bay.’

‘Good heavens,’ she said blankly.

‘Does that make a difference?’

‘No. No—no difference at all. You don’t happen to know who the neighbours are, do you?’

He shuffled more papers. ‘There’s only one—a Mr Kear Lannion. Well-known in the north—an excellent farmer—and, I understand, prominent in business circles both here and in Australia.’

As she went away Jan thought it was very strange that she should meet a man one week and within the next fortnight find herself committed to a month’s stay next door to him.

And she would not, she told herself, firmly squelching something that could have been an eager, forbidden anticipation, consider that it might be some sort of omen—that it might be meant.

Six weeks later she drove the MG carefully down a narrow road beside a harbour formed by the estuaries of two small rivers. Black tarmac wound ahead of her. Across an expanse of glinting water the main north road bypassed the little village of Mangonui to head for Kaitaia. She could see what was probably the peninsula where Kear lived, a hilly appendage separating the harbour from the huge, open Doubtless Bay beyond. Within the protective embrace of pohutukawa trees were tantalising glimpses of a double-storeyed house.

On the neck of the peninsula the land crouched to reveal a glimpse of kingfisher-blue sea. Somewhere on a beach below that dip stood her grandfather’s house. Inland, a vast area of hilly green farmland crumpled eventually into the foothills of a high bush-covered peak.

By some quirk of settlement the only access to her grandfather’s land was across Kear Lannion’s property.

‘That’s odd, surely?’ she’d said to her stepfather, before he and Cynthia had left for a holiday in Fiji.

‘Very,’ he’d answered drily. ‘I imagine there’s some form of easement across Lannion’s land.’

The road finished at what was obviously the entrance to Kear’s farm. A notice proclaimed that it was called Papanui, and five letter-boxes indicated a surprisingly large workforce. Jan stopped and examined them in case one had her grandfather’s name on it. None did.

She stood looking around, breathing in the sharp, sea-scented air, smiling a little as she recalled the swift glint in Kear’s eyes when she’d teased him about the quality of rural air. A cattlestop kept animals within while allowing vehicles through without the bother of opening and closing a gate. On the edge of the road an old rosebush scrambled in an untidy heap over a bank that revealed the shells of cockles, washed bone-white by rain and sun. An ancient Maori midden, probably.

Jan drew an unsteady breath and got back into the car. After some careful driving through what even to her city eyes were obviously fertile paddocks, she came to a place where the road divided; obeying her instructions, she took the right-hand fork. Immediately the surface of the road deteriorated into a series of ruts as it plunged down through a thick forest of feathery kanuka trees.

‘It’s all right,’ she comforted the MG. ‘Not much longer now.’

But it seemed to go on for ever, gouged into deeper and deeper furrows by the same rains that had produced the lush green grass on Kear Lannion’s station. Jan changed gear so cautiously that she felt she was on tiptoe, and finally, after creeping down a last steep grade, emerged onto a swathe of what had once been grass but was now reverting rapidly to coastal teatree scrub.

‘Oh, my God,’ she said as she saw the house.

She stopped on a final flourish of white road metal and, half-horrified, half-delighted, got out of the car.

The flat area, about three acres of it, was cradled by hills and bordered by a beach of white sand. To one side of the bay a little stream debouched into the sea. So far, so good. However, on the other side of the stream mangroves crouched, olive-green and sinister, their gnarled roots anchoring them into mud that seemed to have a life of its own, if the furtive movements she could see from the corners of her eyes were any indication.

‘Oh, hell,’ she said aloud, repressing a shiver. It looked the sort of place that should have crocodiles lying in wait.

Worse even than that was the house, an old weatherboard bach left over from the days when families used to camp out all summer in such affairs, with a large brick chimney supporting the end wall. Further back from the beach, and on higher ground, stood a floorless, three-sided shed clad in sheets of rusting corrugated iron. The two buildings looked forlorn and dingy and lonely, a jarring note in the serenity of sea and sky.

‘Why,’ Jan asked herself aloud, ‘don’t you listen when people tell you you’re too impetuous for your own good? And why on earth did he want me to spend a whole month here?’

Tears sprang to her eyes. No man should have to live in conditions like this when he was old and death not far away. The fact that her grandfather had chosen it didn’t help.

She fished out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes before heading determinedly across the coarse, springy grass towards the bach, the key to the door in her hand.

‘It’s highly unlikely,’ the solicitor had told her as he’d handed it over, ‘that it needs locking. However, your grandfather was a careful man.’

Careful? Jan nearly laughed. Anyone who lived in this shack had to be positively reckless! It looked ready to collapse at any minute.

It should have been impossible, but the inside was even worse than the exterior. Dust lay squalidly on the few items of old furniture and coated every other surface. Mixed with salt and rain-stains on the windows, it was so thick that she could only just see through the panes.

Jan was standing in the middle of the main room, looking helplessly around, when she heard the sound of an engine. It startled her so much that she scanned the room desperately, searching for a place to hide.

‘Don’t be an idiot!’ she commanded stoutly. But she stood out of sight as a Land Rover came down the hill, considerably faster than she had, and pulled to a stop beside her car, so incongruously sporty and chic.

Jan’s heart thumped erratically in her chest. She’d recognise that lithe form anywhere.

At Kear Lannion’s curt command the black and white dog on the back of his vehicle stopped its eager suggestions that it get down and explore and settled back quietly, its eyes fixed on him as he came towards the house.

He could be an axe murderer, but at that moment he represented safety. The oppressive weight of her grandfather’s fate lifted slightly as Jan walked across the cracked linoleum floor-covering to stand in the doorway.

‘Hello,’ he said, looking, she saw with a spurt of anger, unsurprised, although the narrowed grey eyes were enigmatic. ‘This is a long way from Auckland.’

‘Isn’t it just? Another universe.’ The flippancy of her reply sounded crudely out of place, but it was all she could manage.

He smiled, not very nicely. That comprehensive survey had taken in her narrow linen trousers and elegant boots, the fine weave of her cotton shirt and the thin gold chain around her neck.

‘This is private property,’ he said.

Jan discovered that she disliked him in equal measure to her unbidden, reluctant attraction to him. ‘My private property,’ she told him, not without relish.

He didn’t move but she detected a waiting kind of stillness in him, an unexpressed astonishment. Aha, she thought maliciously, you didn’t know that.

Not even trying to hide the dismissive note in his words, he said, ‘How did this happen?’

‘Fergus Morrison was my grandfather.’

His brows came together. For a moment she sensed a cold, deliberate patience that sent an icy chill down her back.

Then he said, ‘I see. I assume you plan to sell it.’

Later, she would understand that that was when she’d made up her mind to keep the place, but at the time she was too busy trying to ignore his effect on her to realise anything. ‘Possibly,’ she said.

It was just his size; short, thin people tended to be a bit wary of big people, especially when those big people walked with head erect and a rangy, almost arrogant self-assurance that sent out all sorts of messages—most of them tinged with intimidating overtones.

Kear went on conversationally, ‘If you do, I’d like first refusal.’

It didn’t seem too much to give him, but something held her back. She said, ‘I’ll have to talk to my solicitor about that.’

‘Of course,’ be said laconically. Nothing altered in his expression, no emotion darkened the pale gaze, but every nerve in her body suddenly screamed a warning.

He said, ‘Where do you plan to stay the night?’

As wary as a deer in tiger-haunted jungle, she swallowed. ‘Here.’

There was an alarming silence. Or perhaps it was stunned. No, a swift upward glance revealed that the first word had been the right one. Kear Lannion kept tight rein on his emotions, but his mouth had compressed and there was a glint of irritation in the frigid depths of his eyes.

‘Do you know how to work the range? The water?’

‘No,’ she said.

With brusque impatience he demanded, ‘Don’t you think it would have been a good idea to find out what the conditions were before you came up to gloat over your inheritance?’

Jan raised her brows, delicately questioning his right to make such comments. ‘I’ll manage.’

His icy gaze slid across her face, cold enough to burn the ivory skin. She thought she actually felt the welts as he said, ‘So, even though you never came near Fergus Morrison, he left what he had to you when he died?’

‘He did.’ It angered her that this man somehow managed to strip off the comfortingly opaque social mask she took for granted. She never lost her temper—never—and yet she wanted to stamp her feet and scream with childish, uncontrolled rage. In a voice that could have congealed lava she told him, ‘I’m his only descendant, apparently. I thought he was dead—we all did. He left for Australia after my father died, and didn’t contact us when he came back.’

‘I wonder why?’

‘My mother told me he adored my father and went a little mad when he was killed.’

‘He certainly turned into a hermit,’ he said. ‘Jan, you can’t stay here. You’d better come back and spend the night at my place.’


CHAPTER THREE

‘THAT’S very kind of you,’ Jan said formally, ‘but I’ll be perfectly all right.’

Sleeping with rats—and oh, how she prayed there weren’t any around!—would be less stressful than accepting his hospitality.

His dark brows drew together above hard eyes. ‘I’ve seen you in your native habitat,’ he said, ‘and you are not going to like it here, believe me.’

She didn’t have to prove herself—she wasn’t in the least worried about what he thought of her—and she wasn’t going to cave in like a wimp under the relentless assault of his masculine dominance.

Tilting her chin, she said, ‘I’ll be perfectly all right.’ Wickedly, she added, ‘I have been camping several times.’

And she enjoyed a fierce satisfaction when his mouth curved into a slow smile that was both sinister and sexy as hell.

‘Don’t play games with me,’ he said softly. ‘There’s a difference between camping with the latest equipment and this. You’ll find the homestead much more comfortable.’

It would be perilously easy to give in to that deep, assured voice, to his smooth assumption of mastery—especially as that smile sent a hot pulse of sensation washing through her. Ignoring the quick, uneven flurry of her heartbeats, Jan said crisply, ‘I’m sure I would, but I’m quite capable of looking after myself.’

He gave her another intent, measuring glance, then said, ‘If you’re determined to stay here I’ll leave you my mobile phone.’

Lightly, wishing he’d go, Jan told him, ‘I have one in the car. Look, if it worries you, give me your number and I’ll call each night to let you know I’m all right.’

He didn’t like being crossed. Not that he showed it—she was beginning to think that his control over his expression was almost unnatural—but she could feel the irritation coming off him in waves. His disapproval stiffened her backbone—not ousting the intense awareness that played havoc with her heartbeat, but making it easier to ignore.

He seemed to realise that she meant it, because he said indifferently, ‘Very well, if that’s what you want.’ And he gave her his number, waiting while she wrote it down in her Filofax.

‘Ring tonight at seven,’ he said. ‘Have you got food?’

‘Yes, plenty, thanks.’

‘I’ll see you around.’ And he turned and went back to the Land Rover, the warm autumn sun striking fire from his head.

She watched him turn the vehicle with an economy of movement she envied; a hand waved, the dog braced itself and the Land Rover took the rutted track easily and without fuss to disappear beneath the kanuka trees.

Perhaps she should have asked him how to get the range going. Ah, well, it was too late now, and she was intelligent enough to work it out on her own. Waiting until the sound of the engine had died away, she drove the scarlet MG into the shed, where it would be sheltered from any rain. Looking around at the logs neatly stacked against the walls, she decided that the range had to be fuelled by wood.

Somehow, from there the bach looked even more suspicious and surly. ‘It’s only because you could have gone to stay with the local laird,’ she said out loud, forcing herself to walk back across the coarse grass.

Once inside she explored properly. There was no kitchen, just a rickety set of cupboards—empty, she was thankful to discover. An old enamel bowl, probably used for washing-up as there was no sink, rested upside down on a bench, hiding three dead spiders and the faded pattern of a vinyl covering. A small window revealed a galvanised tank on a dilapidated wooden stand just a few feet away; from it one pipe led to a tap, another to the lean-to bathroom at the back of the bach.

In which, she was grateful to see, there was a proper toilet. No chilly morning trips to an outdoor privy.

First things first. She tried the tap over the bath and only realised how tense she’d been when water spurted into the bottom and she felt overwhelming relief. Even then, she didn’t draw a breath until the year’s accumulation of debris in the pipe drained away and the water ran clear. Although it looked as though the only method of heating it was the range, at least she wasn’t going to have to carry water to the bach in buckets.

She turned the tap off and went to check out the bedroom.

It was lined with matchboarding, and an old double bed with wirewove and kapok mattress that smelt sourly of dampness took up most of the room. Gingerly, Jan opened the door of a kauri wardrobe to find that someone had cleared everything away there too.

Wondering just what Fergus Morrison had hoped to achieve with the conditional clause in his will, she went back to the main room. A rocking chair in front of the range and an unpainted wooden table and chair pushed against the wall beneath the window were its sole items of furniture.

But the view from the window stopped the breath in her throat. Long, mellow rays from the afternoon sun illuminated the panorama with an artist’s skilful hand, glinted across the beach, turned the still waters to a sheet of softly glowing pearl-blue. In the light’s fugitive glamour even the mangroves looked a little less sinister.

‘Yes,’ she said aloud, imagining buildings on the flat land and the voices of children and adolescents—young lives given hope and confidence, ‘it could be perfect.’

She’d brought detergents and rags, and after changing into jeans and T-shirt she wasted a good half-hour fiddling around with kindling and paper in the firebox of the range, juggling levers and knobs only to have each promising fire die down into raw-smelling ashes. Eventually she gave up in disgust, and, thanking the twentieth century for detergents, scrubbed the porcelain bath with cold water before tackling the other fittings. They were not as old as the bath or the building, so presumably her grandfather had had them installed fifteen years ago, when he’d come to live here.





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