by Amy Redwood
Katherine nodded, nonplussed, and shot a quick look over the contract. There was no reason why she shouldn’t sign. “Okay, sounds good. Keep me updated on your progress.” Katherine looked for a pen and Susan conjured one out of thin air. Both signed, and Susan gave her a copy.
“Great, you’ll see. We’ll sell this baby in a flash.” Susan winked, snatched up the signed contract and stuffed it into her purse. She pulled out her cell phone and was already talking a mile a minute by the time she left.
Katherine worked relentlessly for the next hour, removing the grime from the countertops until they gleamed, and was surprised how quickly she achieved a noticeable difference to the room.
“Not too bad,” she muttered, looking at the now-clean countertops when she heard another knock, this time from the front door. Busy day, she thought, and called, “I’m in the back.”
Seconds later, a lanky man walked into the kitchen. “Miss Miles?” She nodded, wondering who he was and observed the ill-fitting gray suit he wore. “I’m Jason Ricks, you left me a message.” He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. She shook his hand, glad she wore the gloves—she didn’t like his oily smile or his limp handshake. She shot a glance at the signed copy of the contract, which lay on the sparkling kitchen counter.
“Hi, Jason, I remember. I called once back, but obviously you were busy—”
He lifted his hand, stopping her in mid-sentence. “I’m always busy, that’s why I’m so successful.” She found his grin, which was more a like a presentation of his teeth, more and more off-putting. He wasted her time, and she wished she hadn’t called him in.
“Well, thanks again for dropping the keys off by the neighbor. I understand your company was responsible for maintaining the property. However, I’m selling now and signed up someone else.” She gave him an apologetic smile.
Jason’s teeth had vanished during her speech until his mouth was a hard line. “You signed with someone else?” he asked, too loud for her comfort. “But I told you not to. I have buyers for this villa. We had a verbal agreement.”
She straightened. “Listen, your company maintained the property and you received monthly payments. But I have to add, you didn’t do it well. You neglected this property, and you should be happy I’m not taking legal action against you,” she said in a clear and loud voice, not wanting to leave a trace of doubt that the conversation was over and hoped it would be enough to drive him away.
He stepped closer, and the smile plastered on his face increased her uneasiness. She didn’t like his leering look, and he bared his teeth at her in a grotesque smile like an aggressive pit bull. “Maybe we could discuss this matter more privately.” He looked her up and down, and his gaze didn’t return to her face but stayed on her breasts.
“What?” She stared at him, thinking that she would need a shower to wash the look from her body. His mouth twisted in a wider smile, and a chill crept up her back.
“I suggest you leave.” She turned, but he grabbed her on the shoulder. Her heart stopped for a second, but now cold fury rushed through her blood. “Get your hands off me.”
“What is going on here?” Trent stood on the doorstep and stared with clear dislike at Jason. “You all right, Katherine?”
“Yes, Mr. Ricks was about to leave.”
Without another word, Jason walked to the door and stopped because Trent still stood in the doorframe. She suddenly feared Trent would hit him, but after a few seconds, he stepped aside and let Jason hurry away.
“What was that all about?” Trent asked, finally looking at her.
She let out a deep breath. “This house attracts rats,” she said, thinking of Jason as an overlarge pest scurrying through the rooms. “He became creepy when I told him I signed up another real estate agent, with Susan.”
“I guess he disliked missing out on the commission,” Trent said.
She didn’t know what else to say, didn’t know how to break the tension that suddenly hung heavy in the air. “How come you’re here?”
“Ada asked me to stop by her house, and, well, I saw him walking through your garden, didn’t like the look of him, so…”
“So…” He wouldn’t have paid her a visit otherwise. “Well, thanks for saving me,” she said, attempting a grin but ending up with a sort of wobbly half smile, which he didn’t return.
“No problem,” he said, turning away.
“Trent,” she said quietly, stopping him in his tracks. “Don’t just leave, please.”
He sighed and cast a glance over his shoulder, a pained look on his face as if someone were slowly pulling out his fingernails.
She bit on her lip, aware of her disheveled looks and folded her rubber-gloved hands behind her back.
“Look,” he finally said, “if you promise to behave you can come along. But please get rid of the rubber gloves first.”
The tight fist around her heart loosened and she felt herself unable to stop grinning. She didn’t even care where he was headed. “Sounds acceptable.”
“I’ll meet you at my truck.”
———
Katherine climbed into the passenger seat of the old four-wheel truck. Trent was already behind the wheel, staring straight ahead.
She’d quickly swapped the dirty clothes she had worn for cleaning in favor for a long, loose-fitting dress, thinking that it had become a habit running around without shoes. She curled her legs up on the seat and saw Ada dashing out of her house, Lucky hot on her heels.
“Would you two mind taking the dog along?”
Only she heard Trent’s groan when Ada opened the door and the dog bounced onto the backseat of the truck.
“No, it’s fine,” he said, kicked the vehicle into gear.
As he sped up, she watched his profile. Still not looking too happy, he obviously hadn’t planned on taking her or the dog along on this trip.
Somehow glad he didn’t feel the need to talk, she relaxed into the seat. Despite her fear that the long drive would be awkward, she found the silence between them soothing, leaving her to the leisure of gazing out the window. The landscape quickly changed from densely populated suburbs to soft, rolling hills with grazing sheep, lush, green vegetation and the occasional glimpse of the sparkling, azure ocean.
Lucky was in the back with his head out the window, tongue lolling.
They left the main road and circled down a narrow serpentine street. As soon as they stopped and opened the car door, the dog ran off into a shallow stream next to the graveled parking place.
“We have to cross.” He nodded to the stream and walked on.
She stepped into the water, the cold stream licking her ankles, and waded over the slippery stones underneath. There was no sign of a beach yet, but she could hear a distant roaring as they walked along a narrow path. The stream next to her grew wider and deeper and she fell behind to watch dragonflies zigzagging across the gushing water. Breathing in, she could taste sea salt on her tongue and saw birds soaring high overhead. She kept on walking until the path opened up. She stopped, staring open-mouthed.
Black sand for miles and miles. The beach ran on for eternity to her left and right. Massive rocky hills and a lush forest fenced off the land behind this wilderness. Far away, over a huge stretch of sand was the wild, crashing surf of the Tasman Sea.
She turned and looked back. The small path behind her was the only way to escape this force of nature.
“I knew you’d like it.” Trent had walked back and stood before her, the wind tugging at his shirt, pressing it to his chest. The impulse to reach out to him overwhelmed, but Lucky came barking to urge them on and the moment passed. They walked together toward the surf, and the sun burned down from an impeccable sky. She welcomed the strong winds blowing through her hair, blowing over her skin to take away the heat.
“Do you ever get used to this place?” she asked, noticing his amused smile. She continued to look around in awe. Never in her life had she felt so insignificant, so tiny against this surrounding va
stness. Sand glittered in the sun like billions of crushed black diamonds.
“Why is the sand black?” She couldn’t remember ever having been at a black beach in her childhood. “Volcanic?”
He nodded, and they walked next to the tamed waves along the surf, but a high swell rolled out at sea, crashing against rocks rising out of the water.
“I’ve never been at a more beautiful place, or more terrifying. I feel like the sea could wash me away and no one would ever know,” she said, and laughed to soften her serious tone. It was easy here to forget worldly troubles, to breathe in new energy. The beach stretched on and on, and as far as she could tell, they were completely alone.
She stopped, drawing in a deep breath. “Can we talk,” she asked quietly, “about last night?”
He harrumphed. “Please watch the dog for me.” He pulled his shirt over his head, kicked off his shoes. He rolled his shoulders. He was only wearing a pair of jeans and she wanted to reach out and run her hands along his broad chest.
“You don’t want to go swimming, do you?”
“No, I don’t. But I generally come here to…think and be alone. Walk wherever you want to, I’ll be back within an hour or so.”
“How will you find me?”
He laughed quietly. “Oh, I’ll find you easily, don’t worry.”
Stunned that he just left her, she watched him march away. The muscles on his back moved as he headed toward the dense forest that grew right to the edge of the beach, but that wasn’t what had her slap her hand over her mouth. A chill ran down her spine, the thought that sprang to mind so outlandish she immediately dismissed it. But with every step he made, the black tattoo of a wolf on his shoulder blade looked even more alive.
As if feeling her gaze on his back, he looked over his shoulder. She took a step back when he gave her a grin that she could only describe as…wolfish.
Chapter Eight
Katherine lost track of time. She wasn’t sure if she’d spent an hour at the beach already, but she’d stopped caring. She loved every step over the soft, yielding sand, watching how seconds later the sea swallowed her footprints.
She picked up another shell and strolled to a smooth stretch of sand in the middle of scattered rocks. Overshadowed by a towering cliff where rubble occasionally tumbled down, she sat down to spread out her shell collection. She lined the shells up, from the smallest to the one as broad as her palm. She picked the smallest shell up and held it against the light. The shell was like a translucent coin.
Looking up, she saw Lucky with his nose buried in the sand, digging out a hole.
In the distance, someone walked toward her.
Something crunched. The fragile shell lay broken in her hand and she exhaled harshly. Maybe she wasn’t so relaxed after all.
Trent walked in a straight line toward her, and she was somewhat glad to see he wore his shirt again. The tattoo had taken her aback. How alive it had looked on his shoulder—seriously sleep deprived, that was what she was to imagine such a thing.
He had soon closed the distance between them and sat down next to her, so close their legs touched. She focused on the shells in front of her and to keep her hands busy, sorted them from light to dark-colored.
“Color coordinating? Looks like you’re having fun.” His voice was rough, and the pressure against her leg tugged at her brain, suggesting a different kind of fun.
She turned away, afraid he would hear her heartbeat speeding up.
“What about you?” She kept her voice light, forcing her shoulders to relax. “What exactly were you doing in that forest?” He only had to sit next to her and she was aware of every breath she took.
“Running.” He leaned back on his elbows. “Thinking.”
His gaze prickled on her shoulders, lifting small hairs at her neck. She stopped sorting through the shells and had nothing else to do than to feel him sitting next to her. Say something. Something to break the silence that had settled over them.
“Thanks for taking me along today.” Shut up, Katherine. She rambled and couldn’t stop herself.
“Believe me, the pleasure is all mine.”
She swallowed. “Don’t do that,” she said quietly. His presence next to her was like bungee jumping, without knowing if she had a rope around her legs.
“Do what?” he said, his voice amused. “I’m not doing anything, Yankee. I’m just giving you the opportunity to have a look at New Zealand’s beautiful west coast before you return home. Once you’re back, you won’t find another place like this. Go ahead and collect some more shells, something to remember. I know you’d like to.”
She laughed, forcing his suggestion out of her mind and turned toward him. “It’s not your achievement that I like it here.” She threw a shell at his chest, where it bounced off into the sand. “And stop calling me a Yankee, because I’m not,” she said, and ducked when he threw the shell back. “I was born here.”
“What exactly do you mean with here?”
She sighed. “Okay, long story short. I lived with my single mom in Auckland until I was three or four or something. Then she met Jack and they married. Jack’s a New Yorker and we moved.”
“What about your dad?” he asked.
“My real father was a good-for-nothing lowlife who got my mom pregnant at sixteen,” she said, repeating what Jack had told her once in no uncertain terms. “Jack told me he died in a car crash. I choose to believe him.”
A strange expression crossed his face. “So you were born here?”
“Slow, are you?” She threw another shell, but he caught it before it hit him. “Good news. Your reflexes still work.”
“Careful, Kat,” he said, smiling, and she had the irresistible urge to kiss him. “Well, you certainly grew a Yankee accent,” he said. “Weren’t you homesick when you moved? Must have been tough.”
“My mom got sick soon after we moved to the States. It wasn’t…it wasn’t a good time for me. When she—” She swallowed, started over. “I was twelve when she died, and Jack sent me away to grow up in private boarding schools. The villa was my mother’s house. Now it’s mine, and the only thing I truly own that has nothing to do with my stepfather. I didn’t know what to do with it all these years. Until now.”
She waited for him to say something, anything. Stupid, stupid me. Why was she telling him all this? He didn’t care about her feelings. He was just her lover, she thought. And even that had somehow taken a turn for the worse.
When he spoke, his voice was flat, distant. “You grew up in that house.”
“Well, yes, my first three or so years.”
“And you want to sell it?”
Anger started brewing in her stomach. “Some people can’t afford to be sentimental about something they do not even remember. I wish I could, but I don’t. The earliest memories I have are that of my mom and me in the States. I won’t leave Auckland before I’ve sold this house.”
“Are you broke?”
“Yes,” she said, and then winced. “No. But you wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“I want to use the money for a startup.” She rushed it out a little too fast. When she had told Simon about her idea, he only laughed and patted her head as if she were a kid declaring she wanted to become an astronaut.
“Hmm,” he said slowly. “Well, certainly not a bad motivation.”
She looked over her shoulder and met his gaze. He didn’t sound as if he found her idea ridiculous, but neither did he ask what kind of startup she was talking about, reminding her once more that he wasn’t interested in getting to know her better.
The wind kept blowing her hair into her face, into her eyes, but she didn’t mind. The moment stretched and she knew she should say something, break the silence or look away from his face.
“Enjoying the view?” He stretched his arm out, reaching. Her breath caught in her throat and she turned her head away. He touched her neck, his hand settling around her hair, gathering loose strands until he he
ld all her curls. Never opening his hand, he moved closer and stretched out his long legs to both sides of her, trapping her in front of him. He tilted her head to one side, slowly exposing her neckline.
With the wind warm on her skin and his even greater warmth behind her, she gave a sigh.
He closed his other arm around her, pulling her into him until she leaned against his chest. She pressed closer to him, and goose bumps erupted at her neck, running down to her arms. His lips brushed her ear, and her breath quickened. He nipped her neck, and she couldn’t help herself, a small moan escaped her.
“You taste like salt and sunshine.” His lips turned into a smile and his tongue flicked over her skin. “Do you taste like that all over?” He rubbed down her arm where all the hairs stood up before he settled his hand on her leg and moved her dress up. The fabric slid along her shins and farther up, exposing her thighs. “Maybe that’s why I can’t keep my hands off you. You’re homegrown.”
“Nah, that can’t be it,” she said, and her mouth parted when he placed his hand on her bare thigh. “I think you just like a challenge.”
He snorted, his palm circling up her thigh and his fingers tracing along the edges of her panties. “I like a challenge all right, and maybe you were one the first time, but…” He shrugged and found the zipper of her dress. A second later, the wind blew over her chest before his warm hand covered her left breast.
“But?” she asked, and groaned as he tangled his hand in her hair and tugged her head back. The gentle pull did nothing but excite her more. Her breathing too fast, a low tremble spread in intervals through her body. He kissed her lower neck, nibbled at her flesh until she moaned in pleasure.
“You’re not much of a challenge now, Yankee.” His hand moved between her legs, slipped past the elastic of her panties and he pushed one finger inside her pussy. “See,” he said quietly. “You don’t even make me work for it to get you so dripping wet.” He spread her slick juices over her clit and rubbed his finger over it in slow circles. “Your pussy is begging for it.”
“So,” she said, closing her eyes because his touch was so exquisitely sensual. “You calling me easy?”