by Daphne Clair
‘No. Couldn’t.’
Annys finished combing her hair and twisted a band around it before she said, ‘If you can do without the bucket for a minute, I’ll empty it for you.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Xianthe said, trying to get up.
‘Rot.’ Annys took it from her. ‘Back in a tick.’
‘Thanks,’ Xianthe murmured, and when she returned a few minutes later, ‘Sorry, I ought to have—’
‘No problem.’ Annys looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Most people feel better on deck, in the fresh air.’
‘I know. I tried, but I just had to lie down. I feel like death.’
‘I can see. We’ve anchored now. And the rain’s easing. If you want to try again,’ Annys offered, ‘I’ll help you. You’ll need waterproofs; there are still some gusty showers about.’
Xianthe swallowed. ‘I thought it wasn’t jumping about quite so much. OK.’
Annys helped her up the companionway, and over to a narrow seat on the lee side where other unwell voyagers were sitting in various stages of recovery.
‘How do you do it?’ Xianthe asked Annys, sinking thankfully down as they made room for her. ‘You look as healthy as a horse.’
‘I’m lucky,’ Annys said briefly. Several times today her stomach had felt decidedly queasy, but the wind and hard work had dispelled the incipient sickness. That and will-power, because no way was she going to allow herself the slightest weakness when Reid was around.
Think of the devil, she thought in the next instant. He had materialised beside her, and was smiling down at Xianthe. ‘Not feeling too good?’ he enquired sympathetically.
‘That’s the understatement of the year!’ Xianthe told him weakly. But for the first time a faint colour came into her cheeks.
‘I’ll get you some water,’ Annys promised her, moving quickly away. ‘You don’t have to drink it, but it might help.’
She took her time but when she got back Reid was still there, squatting on his haunches beside Xianthe. She was looking better by the minute, Annys thought. As she approached them, the ship gave a sudden shudder and heave, as a swell swept under the hull, and Annys staggered. Reid lunged forward, grabbing the glass of water with one hand and whipping it out of her fingers as he gripped her arm with the other.
‘I’m OK,’ she said briefly, and stepped back from him. ‘I’ll leave Xianthe in your tender care.’ She smiled at the other woman and gave her a casual wave. ‘See you.’ Then she made her way carefully round to the other side and leaned on the rail, staring out at the misty rain and the bobbing, white-laced swells spitting little gobbets of foam.
Darkness was descending early, and on this side the wind was cold and still strong. No one else was in sight on deck.
She didn’t hear Reid approaching until he said, ‘Don’t you think you’re being a bit obvious?’
‘What?’
As she turned her head he came alongside her, standing with his back to the rail so that he could see her face. He wore a yellow parka with no hood. Rain had darkened his hair even further, the short strands blown across his forehead by the wind. ‘I said—’
‘I heard. What exactly are you talking about?’
‘You throwing Xianthe at me,’ he said bluntly. ‘What are you playing at, Annys?’
‘Don’t you like her? I thought—’
‘Of course I like her,’ he said impatiently. ‘She’s a nice girl and she’s a trier. But I’m quite capable of making the running myself when I’m interested in another woman, thanks. I don’t need your help. And I certainly don’t need you to graciously make a gift of me, like a Christmas parcel.’
‘I don’t know what you’re—’
‘I heard you the other day. The wind was blowing from the bow. You women ought to be careful where you have your girlish heart-to-hearts.’
‘I’m not sure what you heard, but—’
‘“Everything was over between Reid and me ages ago,”‘ he quoted. ‘“You’re welcome to him.”‘ He paused, watching her. ‘Is she?’
Annys shrugged. ‘Sorry if we hurt your pride. I thought you’d be grateful.’
‘I’m not,’ he told her shortly. ‘You haven’t answered my question. Is she?’
She recalled vividly that kiss this afternoon, and looked away from him, afraid of what he might find in her eyes. ‘I have no claims on you any more,’ she reminded him distantly. ‘Xianthe asked if I’d mind, and I said no.’ Turning back to him, she added, ‘And if you’re not interested, it isn’t fair to her to let her think that you are.’
His eyes narrowed as he gave her a penetrating look. ‘And if I am?’
‘Good luck,’ she said crisply, and made to leave him. The wind caught at the hood of her parka and blew it off, leaving her face naked and cold.
Reid stepped in front of her, one hand on the rail barring her path. ‘Good luck?’ he echoed.
Keeping her expression carefully cool, Annys said, ‘What else can I say?’
A calculating look came into his eyes. Equally coolly, he said, ‘If you’re going to wish me luck, you could do it properly.’
When they were married, she had always wished him luck with a kiss. One of the small rituals of married life.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘That’s hardly appropriate now. Besides—you said you didn’t want to touch me again.’
‘I already have, today,’ he said. ‘I find it’s as addictive as ever. What about you?’
Oh, yes! Yes. But she wasn’t about to admit that to him. She swallowed. ‘Stop playing games with me, Reid. Go and talk to Xianthe.’
‘Not until you wish me luck,’ he said softly. ‘Properly.’
She tried to push past him, her hands slipping on the wet, slick fabric of his parka. He hooked an arm about her and trapped her against the rail, looking down into her face. She caught her breath at the determination and naked desire she saw in his.
‘Reid—’
‘Annys,’ he said, his face bending closer. ‘Annys...’
And then they were kissing, mindlessly hungry for each other, as in the old days, his body against hers pinning her to the rail, her arms winding round his neck, clinging as her head tipped back to receive him, his hands retaining their grip on the rail to steady them against the motion of the ship.
Then he took one hand off the rail and placed it behind her head, sliding the loosened band from her damp hair, so that it flowed around them in the wind. He gathered the strands up in his fist and gently pulled, turning her head a little as his tongue dived into her open mouth, shifting his feet on the moving deck in an effort to get closer to her.
It was the frustration of their bulky wet-weather clothing that finally stopped them. He lifted his head and, still holding her hair, muttered, ‘There isn’t anywhere we can go on this damned boat.’
Staring back into his glittering eyes, Annys swallowed and said huskily, ‘There isn’t anywhere in the world for us, Reid. This is mad and you know it. We’re not good for each other.’
She saw the quick flare of anger in his eyes. ‘This was always good for us,’ he reminded her, his hard body crowding her against the rail.
‘There’s more to marriage than this!’ she insisted. ‘And more to love.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ he asked roughly. ‘What sort of callow idiot do you think I am?’
‘I know just what you are,’ she remembered, suddenly going cold. ‘Let me go, Reid. I want to go below.’
He released her abruptly. ‘I never thought you were one to run away, Annys,’ he taunted her.
‘I’m not running away’ She was retreating. There was a difference. ‘Reid, we have to stop this now. We agreed before—it’s the only way to survive this trip. Please.’
He looked at her sombrely. ‘You feel the same way I do,’ he said almost accusingly.
‘All right!’ she admitted, angry that he was pressing the point so insistently. Afraid of being drawn again into that world of delight and despair
that had been her marriage to him. Because it couldn’t last, and it had taken her all of the three years since the final break-up to recover even part of her former emotional independence. She couldn’t face the thought of having to go through that grinding grief again. ‘Old habits die hard,’ she said, meeting his eyes defiantly. ‘But they can be broken.’
‘Is that what I am?’ he asked. ‘An old habit?’
‘As I am with you,’ she told him. ‘That’s all it is.’
He gave a harsh laugh. ‘The hell it is,’ he said. ‘You are a fire in my blood, a flame on the horizon, a damned bleeding wound in my heart. No way are you anything as comfortable as a habit, darling!’
Annys felt her lips part, and quickly closed them. The words, the intensity of the bitter longing in his eyes, silenced her. She knew what he meant. ‘We can’t...’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘You know we can’t make a life together. We tried—’
‘Maybe we didn’t try hard enough.’
‘You mean I didn’t,’ Her head lifted.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘It’s what you meant.’
The rain suddenly increased, hitting at them in great curtains, and the ship gave a lurch that sent them crashing into each other, coming up against the bulkhead.
‘We can’t talk here,’ Reid said in her ear.
‘What would be the use?’ Annys cried despairingly. ‘We’ve done all the talking, Reid. We have to put it behind us now, and get on with our separate lives. We can’t call back the past.’
A hurrying wave splashed over the rail, and he staggered, then righted himself, staring down at her with his back to the elements, sheltering her from them. ‘I won’t plead with you,’ he said. ‘But I haven’t finished with you yet, Annys.’
She blinked rain from her eyes. ‘You’re not threatening me, are you?’
‘I’m telling you. If you want to regard it as a threat, that’s your privilege.’ But he looked dangerous, standing there with the storm clouds behind him, his mouth stubborn, and a frown on his brow.
From the companionway the brassy note of the dinner bell pealed. An ironic cheer from the hardy mingled with a few theatrical groans from the seasick.
The faint grin that Reid mustered at that eased the tension. ‘Shall we go and eat?’ he suggested.
The morning dawned limpidly with a pale sunrise. The rain had gone, and the ship rocked on a glassy sea broken only by the gentlest ripples.
Captain Walsh, taking pity on his lubberly crew of amateurs, decreed a day ashore.
Last night Annys had lain on her bunk renewing her original plans to leave the ship and cut short her voyage. But it would make her very conspicuous, Reid would know perfectly well why she was leaving, and she hadn’t even had the forethought to pretend seasickness as an excuse. Besides, she was hooked now on tall-ship sailing, enjoying the sea, the wind in the sails and in her hair, and getting a great deal of pleasure out of learning to work the ship. Why should she allow Reid’s presence to spoil it for her? And wouldn’t he regard her departure as some kind of victory, as though she had turned tail and run from him?
Xianthe and one or two of the others who had been among the worst sufferers preferred to recuperate by lying about on the shore, but for the adventurous there was a hike into the hills through heavy bush to the site of an old kauri dam.
The dam, once used to store cut timber before being opened to wash the logs downstream to the harbour, was still partly intact. After admiring the early bushmen’s workmanship, the trampers launched inflatable canoes, which they had hauled along with them, on the stream below, and had a hilarious and somewhat damp time negotiating the rocks and narrows. Racing, Annys and Jane tipped their craft and got dunked, but righted it in time to finish neck and neck with Reid and one of the other men, who had got theirs jammed between two smooth boulders.
On their return they were told that the captain proposed a night’s sailing down to the Coromandel Peninsula. Even Xianthe, having had the day to recover, greeted the idea with enthusiasm. They left the rugged island when sunset was overlaying the water with a wash of gold, and accomplished the short voyage by moonlight. Nearly everyone was on deck for at least part of the night, entranced by the ghostly white sails carrying them almost silently on a black, glinting sea.
By dawn they were anchored off Hot Water Beach, and after the usual cold morning dip in the sea some of them swam to shore to make themselves holes in the sand and luxuriate in the warm water that bubbled up from hot springs deep in the earth. ‘If you dig down very far,’ Tony warned them, ‘the water will be too hot. Make your bath shallow, or dig it where the waves can wash in and cool it.’
‘Ah, bliss!’ Tancred said, easing himself into a long hollow next to Annys. ‘After that disgusting overactivity yesterday, this is just what I need.’
‘Why did you come yesterday?’ she asked him. She’d half expected him to spend the day resting.
He gave her a deliberately lecherous leer. ‘Why, the better to be near you, my dear!’ he purred, wolf-like.
Annys laughed. ‘You’re impossible, Tancred!’
‘You don’t believe me?’ He levered himself up and leaned his elbows on the strip of sand between them, smiling as his eyes travelled over her scantily covered body from neck to toes. ‘Have you any idea how delectable you look right now?’
Annys scooped up some warm water and threw it at him. ‘Behave yourself, Tancred!’ she admonished him.
Tancred grinned, then leaned over and audaciously planted a kiss on her lips. ‘Never refuse a dare,’ he said smugly, settling back into his own private pool.
Annys shook her head in warning, but her lips curved wryly. He was irrepressible. Turning away from him, still smiling, she intercepted a grim look from Reid, a few yards off.
Defiantly, she held his contemptuous gaze for a moment or two, then let her head fall back on the sand, her eyes closing. She wouldn’t think about Reid. She wouldn’t think about anything.
The insistent boom and whisper of the waves, the burgeoning sun on her face, the warmth of the water on her limbs lulled her almost to sleep. Distantly she heard voices now and then, but she shut them out of her consciousness, until the one that still had the power to rouse her said, ‘Are you intending to stay here all day?’
Reluctantly opening her eyes, she found Reid staring down at her. His long legs and his chest gleamed with droplets of water, and the wind ruffled his hair.
‘The others went back long ago,’ he told her. ‘We’ve missed breakfast, and the tide’s coming in.’
Even as he said it, a wave came racing up the beach and swamped her warm bath with a shock of unwelcome cold.
Annys yelped and sat up.
Laughing, Reid extended his hand to her and she instinctively grasped at it, hauling herself up.
The wave receded about their feet, and she staggered. Reid let go her hand and grasped her shoulder to steady her. It brought her very close to him, and she felt his grip tighten, then his other hand came up to hold her there.
She raised her eyes to his and saw the heavy-lidded look of desire on his face, and whispered, scarcely breathing, ‘No.’
Anger lit his eyes now. ‘You let that middle-aged roué kiss you, and apparently you enjoyed it—why not me?’
Her own anger rose to match his. He had no right to question her actions, no right to his evident, and neediess, jealousy. Rashly, she said, ‘Perhaps because I know I wouldn’t enjoy it!’
‘You liar!’ he said softly, and inevitably his mouth came down on hers, even as she tried to turn her head away.
Her hands slipped on his bare, wet skin, and he wrapped an arm about her, trapping hers and reminding her of how little she was wearing, unlike the last time when the heavy waterproofs had impeded them. A slow heat unravelled inside her as his mouth insistently explored hers in a knowing kiss, forcing her lips to part for him, tracing the outline of them with his tongue, then gently nipping them with his teeth, nudging her mouth w
ide under his, so that her head fell back against his cradling hand and her body arched into the curve of his. Her breathing quickened and the blood sang in her veins.
A wave slapping around her ankles brought her back to some semblance of sanity. She doubled her fists and pushed against him, tried to kick at him with her bare feet, and with an effort tore her mouth away from his.
He still held her, his eyes glittery as he looked down at her flushed face. ‘Tell me you didn’t enjoy that!’ he muttered, his voice thick.
She longed to hit him. It would have given her the greatest satisfaction to rock him clean off his feet. And it probably would give him a good deal of satisfaction to know that he had rattled her that much. She swallowed and said grittily, ‘You must be losing your touch, Reid, if you have to resort to force to make a woman kiss you!’
Surprisingly, a tide of colour darkened his tanned skin. ‘Only with you,’ he taunted. ‘But it wasn’t always like that, was it, Annys?’
She wished he would stop reminding her of the past. That was something she didn’t want to think about. She would never have thought, in those days when the slightest invitation would send her flying willingly into his arms, that they could ever come to this bitter confrontation. She swung away from him and went striding down the beach, running the last few yards, afraid that he would catch up and see the tears foolishly chasing each other down her cheeks before she reached the concealing safety of the water.
CHAPTER SIX
Reid had said to her once, as they had lain on a bed on the third day of their Hawaiian honeymoon, their bodies damp with afternoon heat and the aftermath of their lovemaking, ‘I want you all the time. You will tell me if I’m asking too much of you? Don’t let me tire you out.’
‘I want you too,’ she had said, drowsily tracing patterns with a fingernail on his bare chest, then laying her cheek against it, listening to his heartbeat. ‘I’ll tire you out first,’ she promised, peeking up at him with teasing eyes.
His chest shook with silent laughter. ‘Is that a challenge?’