by Susan Napier;Kathryn Ross;Kelly Hunter;Sandra Marton;Katherine Garbera;Margaret Mayo
Regan had only met Hazel Harriman twice, but had recognised her at first sight as a lady of countrified elegance and good breeding. ‘Uh, I think something a little more discreet might be preferable, Sir Frank,’ she advised.
‘I know you insisted it be Sir Frank at head office, but you don’t have to “Sir” me everywhere else, too.’ He tripped off on another tangent. ‘Your mother would turn in her grave to hear you calling me by a silly title…’
Regan swallowed a chuckle ‘My mother’s not dead,’ she pointed out.
She took another well-signposted fork at the top of a hill which gave her a temporary view of both sides of the peninsula. The gentle north-facing slopes were crowded with modern houses, motels and holiday homes leading down to flat, white sandy beaches lapped by a clear blue-green sea, while on the less fashionable southerly side the housing was more old-fashioned and rocky cliffs descended to small, pebbly inlets and the deep natural harbour where fishermen and yachties moored their boats.
‘Might as well be!’ Sir Frank replied with his customary contempt for tact. ‘Buried in that compound with all those religious loonies. Never did hold with cults. Look what they brainwashed Joanne into doing—abandoning her only child and emigrating to the middle of the Australian desert!’
‘It was hardly abandonment; I was eighteen,’ said Regan. If anything, it had been a relief to wave goodbye to her mother at the airport. Joanne Baker had grown ever more narrow-minded and unpleasant to live with in the years following her husband’s death, especially when her daughter had refused to embrace her apocalyptic beliefs.
Her companion hurrumphed. ‘She should have at least made sure you were settled in at university—and kept in touch.’
‘She did write to you about me before she left,’ Regan felt constrained to remind him.
At first she had been horribly embarrassed that her mother had taken advantage of such a tenuous connection. The Harrimans were only very distant cousins of her mother, and Regan had been taken aback when she had received a letter from Sir Frank expressing interest in her plans for a law degree and offering her work in Harriman Developments’ legal department during the holiday breaks in her course. The job would pay for her law school costs, accommodation fees for the university hostel, and allow her to save a little.
‘Good thing she did, too—because you never would have looked us up, would you? You need to be brash to get on in this world. Like that husband of yours! Michael wasn’t slow about approaching me for a job—very up-front about it, he was…telling me that he wanted to be able to afford to make a good home for his wife and family.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Regan couldn’t help the clipped tone of her voice.
She had been careful never to act like an encroaching poor relation, but soon after they’d been married Michael had announced his discontent with his real estate job and had persuaded her that it was selfish to deny him the chance to fast-track his sales career through her family contacts. So she had got him an appointment with Sir Frank and he had talked himself into a job with the marketing team being set up for the Palm Cove condominiums, at that time still in the initial planning stages.
Michael had always been very glib.
‘Now, now—I didn’t meant to bring up unhappy memories.’ Sir Frank patted her arm vigorously, with a dangerous disregard for her steering. ‘I know you’re still finding it difficult to carry on without him. Maybe staying at Palm Cove for a few weeks is just the tonic you need.’
Regan managed a strained smile at his heavy-handed sympathy. His kindness made her feel guiltier than ever about her ulterior motive for agreeing to assist in his timely—for her—family crisis.
‘I’m sure it will,’ she muttered.
‘You could have come to us after he died, you know,’ he added, piling on the coals of fire. ‘Hazel would have known how to look after you. She had a bad time of it herself when m’brother died!’
‘I needed to know that I could make my own way,’ Regan defended herself awkwardly.
‘I know, I know—you’re touchy about your independence. Still, I could have given you some advice about the house. It was a bad time to sell—with the market in a slump.’
Unfortunately, Regan hadn’t had any choice in the matter.
‘It was far too big for one person.’
Sir Frank believed she was comfortably situated financially, and she preferred to leave it that way.
‘If you didn’t want to stay at the house we could have put you into one of the show condos—it’s only an hour’s drive from Auckland; you could still have commuted to your job…’
‘I might not have a job when the new boss takes over,’ said Regan lightly, her fingers tightening on the wheel at the thought of the new regime that was poised to send in the auditors before the final purchase agreement was signed.
‘Oh, Wade’s a shrewd judge of character—he’s tough, he’s demanding, but he’s honourable and fair—he’ll look at your record and realise it’s not just nepotism that got you the job!’
Regan had never heard of Carolyn’s fiancé, an Auckland businessman with worldwide connections, but Sir Frank had assured her that Joshua Wade was highly respected in financial circles. ‘Fred tells me you’re one of the best legal aides he’s ever had—meticulous to a fault! He thinks you’ve got big potential—’
He broke off, and Regan’s knuckles whitened further as she guessed what he was thinking. Sir Frank had curbed his disappointment when she had notified him that she was dropping out, assuming that she was suffering from an understandable excess of grief and that when it passed she would regain her enthusiasm for law. In the meantime, he had had Fred Stevenson in the legal office to take her on as a full-time employee.
‘He was very miffed when I said that I was going to steal you away for few weeks for a roving assignment.’ Sir Frank regained his bounce. ‘But I told him it was one of the privileges of rank and since I wouldn’t have the rank for much longer he should cut me some slack.’
‘I did offer to take part of it as my holiday entitlement—’ began Regan.
‘Nonsense—we can’t have you paying for the privilege of helping us out!’ he huffed. ‘Besides, you offered to work in the Palm Cove site office in your spare time, so that’ll square things up with the books.’
It was an unfortunate choice of phrase, but Regan certainly hoped so!
‘Ahh, home James!’
They had reached almost to the nature reserve at the tip of promontory, the road dividing into two—one route leading to the reserve carpark, the other passing between the gates of a massive drystone wall emblazoned with the Palm Cove name and logo in solid brass, glowing in the late-afternoon sun.
‘Impressive, isn’t it? Michael never brought you up here, did he?’
She shook her head. ‘No, although I’ve seen the publicity brochures and newspaper ads.’ Michael had been extremely careful to keep her well away from anything to do with his work at Palm Cove.
On the other side of the wall the rolling green fields of a massive new subdivision stretched before them. The roads which snaked through the pegged-out sites were broad and palm-lined, and the numerous houses already under construction looked hugely palatial. Beyond, marching down towards the glittering sea, were the fully completed parts of the project—the country club with its eighteen-hole golf course and the triple tower of condominiums rising from the banks of the canal that formed the man-made marina. She knew from the photos that when they got closer they would see the multi-level paved terraces that surrounded the cafés, bars and shops at the base of the towers, and, flanking the canal moorings on both sides, blocks of two-storeyed condominiums stretching right down to the sea, so that true boating fanatics could walk straight out of their expensive living rooms onto their expensive yachts.
Regan turned up the narrow private road indicated by Sir Frank, following it through the thicket of mature native bush which fringed the edge of the new subdivision, completely screening it from si
ght of the adjoining property. The road wound out of the trees again and a house came into view—a huge, sprawling, double-storeyed white wooden villa, a graceful old lady from a bygone era surrounded by a crinoline of verandahs and set in what seemed like acres of ground—a mixture of formal plantings and rambling natural wilderness. The back of the house had a clear view to the sea, the front was a welcoming smile of curved flowerbeds, bursting with late summer roses.
Regan drew up where directed, around the side of the house, in front of a six-door garage which looked as if it might have been converted from stables.
She stretched the kinks in her legs as she got out of the car, glad she had worn an uncrushable camel skirt with her cool leaf-green summer blouse, but when she tried to get her bags out of the car boot, Sir Frank hustled her away.
‘Beatson will get those and put the car away—Steve’s our caretaker and odd-job man—chauffeur, too, if you need him.’
Regan was staring at something around the back of the house. ‘Is that gazebo on an island?’
Sir Frank chuckled at her astounded expression. ‘Hazel’s idea—thought it would be a romantic place to go for al fresco lunches. Had to have a brute of bulldozers in to dig the lake and divert a stream to feed it.’ His blue eyes twinkled brightly in his plump red face. ‘Why don’t I go and break the good news about your arrival while you take a stroll in the fresh air…?’
Since Regan would sooner not be around when Sir Frank broke his ‘good news’ to his sister-in-law, in case it fell badly flat, she accepted his suggestion with alacrity.
The small oval lake was a marvel of engineering, and she wandered out onto the small wooden jetty where two small rowboats were moored and looked across the narrow divide of water at the latticed gazebo, guessing that the huge spreading oak that dappled the grass on one end of the little island had been there long before the bulldozers had moved it, probably as long as the main house itself.
The hot afternoon sun beat down on her unprotected head and she was drawn across the wide, luxuriant lawn to walk in the cool shade of the wild wood which grew along one side of the house. The undergrowth to the mature canopy of deciduous and evergreen trees was a mingling of native and exotic shrubs and seedlings, and Regan idly plucked a large, glossy leaf as she turned to view the building from this new aspect.
A movement at one of the ground-floor windows caught her eye and she saw the figure of a man talking on the telephone, pacing restlessly back and forth past the open sash. She was at least a hundred metres away, and at first all she registered was that he was dressed in a suit and that he was tall and dark-haired, but then he halted by the window, glancing up from the sheaf of papers in his hand, and she got a good look at him full-face.
A thrill of dumbfounded horror turned her blood to ice.
Adam!
The leaf fluttered to the grass as her hand flew to her mouth.
He noticed her at the very instant of her appalled recognition, and for a moment they were both motionless, staring at each other.
Even at a hundred metres she could read his body language. His back stiffened in surprise and then his torso tilted forward in puzzlement. He moved right up to the open window and she began to edge backwards into the undergrowth, praying that he wouldn’t realise who it was that he was seeing. Surely in her summery skirt, short-sleeved blouse and simple flat shoes she was a far cry from the sophisticated Eve whom he had tumbled in his bed.
The phone still plastered to the side of his head, he suddenly thrust his shoulders out of the window.
‘Hey—you!’
Regan’s body jerked. She took another step back. No—this nightmare couldn’t be happening. Not here—not now!
‘Hey! Don’t go!’ To her horror he dropped the phone from his ear and put one long leg over the windowsill. ‘Eve?’
Oh, God!
‘Eve, is that you?’
He was already out on the verandah, striding along to the wooden steps. Regan whirled around and blindly fled, crashing through the shrubbery in a desperate attempt to put as much space between them as possible before those long, powerful legs hit the grass running. Even in full business-kit, with a one hundred-metre handicap, he could probably still sprint her down on a flat track.
Fortunately she was small enough to scuttle through chinks in the tangled undergrowth that would have snagged larger bodies, but as she got deeper into the trees she could still hear him thrashing somewhere behind her, hoarsely yelling at her to stop, pausing now and then in his pursuit to gauge her direction.
When she almost ran slap-bang into the sturdy trunk of an old macrocarpa pine, top-heavy with needle-like green foliage, she let instinct take hold and shinned up the untrimmed branches until she reached a high fork into which she could safely wedge herself, out of sight of the ground.
None too soon. She clutched at her perch, the rough bark pricking her cheek and bare forearms as she flattened herself against the trunk, holding her breath as dried pine needles crunched under the pounding feet below.
‘Eve? Dammit—answer me—is that you?’
To her dismay he halted almost directly beneath her, breathing heavily. Thank God she wasn’t wearing anything bright that might give her away if he thought to look up. She felt dizzy, and suddenly remembered to breathe. She didn’t want to faint and flatten him with the proof of her presence.
‘What the hell…!’ he muttered to himself. ‘Look—whoever you are, you’re not in trouble for trespassing, if that’s what you’re worried about!’ he called, his voice rasping with controlled impatience. ‘Come on out—I’m not going to hurt you…’
He fell silent until the hush of leaves stirring in the gentle seaward breeze was shattered by the muffled shrill of a cellphone. An angry curse floated up into the boughs as he ripped the phone out of the inside pocket of his buttoned jacket.
‘Yes! What…? No—I put down the phone and got distracted for a moment…No, no, of course it’s not—you’re right; we need to get this settled now…’ Her eyes hunted for the sight of him as he wheeled in a half-circle one last time and then began retracing his steps. ‘Sorry…we’ll pick up at the clause we left off and go through it point by point…just let me put my hands on that contract again—’
Regan remained frozen for a few minutes after she had listened to his retreat. When she was certain that his words weren’t just a cunning ruse to flush her out, she uncramped her limbs and began to climb down with a great deal more care than she had tackled the ascension, thankful that her skirt was cut on an A-line rather than tight around her knees and that she had no pantyhose to snag.
She hit the ground with a groan of relief and bent to brush the bark and twigs off her clothes and legs, and straighten the seams of her skirt. She was retucking her blouse into her waistband when a prickle on the back of her neck made her swing around, her heart pattering like that of a baby bird who’d fallen out of its nest.
A thin, gangly youth, with hair the colour of used rope straggling to his shoulders and round, wire-framed glasses that accentuated the boniness of his face, stood watching her from the bushes.
Regan nervously flicked her hair behind her ears and pinned on a reassuring smile. ‘Hello. Where did you come from?’
And more importantly—how long had he been there? She bit her lip. Had Adam grabbed a handy accomplice for the chase?
He didn’t smile back at her, his brown eyes unnervingly intense. ‘Hi.’
‘Do you live here?’ she asked brightly, scraping at the sticky residue of pine-sap on her reddened palms.
He pushed his hands into the pockets of his baggy khaki shorts, hunching his thin shoulders under the plain white T-shirt. ‘Nah.’
He looked at the scratches on her legs. ‘What were you doing up that tree?’
Her mind went blank. ‘I…thought I saw an interesting bird,’ she improvised. Heavens, how low she had sunk—now she was even lying to children! Although judging from the squeak and scrape of his breaking voice he wasn�
�t really a child any more. In his early teens, she estimated.
‘What kind of bird?’
‘Uh, I don’t know…that’s why I wanted to get a closer look.’ She tried another smile.
‘Didn’t you know someone was calling for you?’
‘No—were they?’ She rounded her eyes innocently. ‘I must be hard of hearing. Who was it—do you know?’ she asked, hoping she might find out enough to plan herself a disaster strategy.
His light brown eyes looked innocently back. ‘Big or small?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The bird you saw, was it big or small?’ he wanted to know.
‘Big,’ she said firmly.
‘What colour was it?’
‘Well…brown, I suppose.’
‘Light brown or dark brown?’
‘Both,’ she said desperately. ‘Sort of speckled.’
‘Flying or perching?’
‘It flew and landed in the tree, then it perched,’ she said through clenched teeth.
‘What colour legs did it have?’
She looked at him incredulously. ‘Who do you think you are, James Bond?’ she joked.
‘Are you talking about the ornithologist or the spy named after him?’ he responded, and suddenly she knew that the weedy adolescent look was extremely deceptive.
She had tossed him a condescending comment, expecting its subtlety to be totally over his head, and he had fielded it with precocious dexterity. He knew very well she had been stringing him a line because he had been the one spinning it into a noose!
She folded her arms defensively across her chest. ‘I’m surprised anyone of your generation knows where Ian Fleming got the idea for his character’s name.’
He shifted his weight, sifting his battered sneakers amongst the fallen leaves. ‘I read a lot.’
‘So did I at your age, except I wasn’t allowed to read Ian Fleming,’ she said wryly.
‘How old do you think I am?’
‘Is this another guessing game?’ She sighed at his steady stare. ‘Fourteen,’ she said, adding a year to her best estimate for the sake of his young male ego.