Yesterday's Sins

by Wine, Shirley

  And Jace reacted.

  If Santos caught her she would die, horribly.

  As she came abreast, he caught her around the waist and plastered a hand over her mouth to silence the scream he could feel bubbling in her throat. She bucked and came alive in his arms in a demented frenzy. Arms, legs, elbows, every body part of hers became a weapon. It took all his strength to immobilize her limbs, protect his family jewels and maintain the pressure on her mouth.

  "Quiet," he breathed in her ear. "You want to get us both killed?"

  He held her so close he could smell her fear, some sort of light floral scent and a warm, womanly musk.

  Her struggles eased as she shook her head.

  "I'm with Ace Security. I won't hurt you, okay? If I move my hand will you be quiet?"

  She nodded, but the way she trembled left him far from reassured.

  Working with police, his firm was staking out the Katherine Bay Gallery trying to nab a gang of artefact thieves. Intel pointed to an imminent raid on the current exhibition. The one person Jace never expected to catch was the acting curator. Had she tipped off the raiders?

  Muffled thuds and harsh whispers suggested she had. A hasty footstep, the scrape of metal on stone and a startled yelp were far too close.

  Jace pushed her face into the cove of his neck. Blood thundered in his ears. His heart pounded a kettle-drum beat against his ribs. He yanked off his black beanie, dragged it over her head and scooped up the fall of hair shimmering like a beacon in the dark.

  The footsteps were now distinct.

  "See her?"

  The sandpaper rough voice was so close Jace daren't risk using his two-way radio to alert his team. His grip on the woman tightened when she shuddered.

  Would she betray them both?

  "Nah. Let's split."

  The second man's cool, precise tones made Jace even more aware of their danger. Was this Santos's head honcho, a man whose ruthless reputation preceded him?

  "You shoulda cut her off."

  "The broad decked 'arry. She can't get far. Carl's at the other end. You go up the lane, I'll go down here." Torch light flickered again. "Turn it off you fool."

  "No need to get snotty. Santos will be mad if she gets away."

  "He gets right nasty missin' his fun you mean?"

  Jace's captive shuddered and moved closer as she tried to crawl inside his skin.

  Still bickering in low voices, the two men moved away.

  Jace loosened his hold, opened a door leading to a courtyard. As he pushed her through the opening, he hurled the empty can down the alley. It hit trash cans, the clatter echoed by a shout as their pursuers headed in that direction.

  "Quick." Jace caught her wrist, hauled her at breakneck speed across the courtyard through a second door and down another alley. He knew these alleys blindfold. In the past they were among his favourite places to hang out and tonight that knowledge came in handy. "We've given them the slip, but we have to move."

  "Let me go," she panted, trying to wrench her hand free.

  "Lady, Santos's victims don't die easy. You want to be next?

  If smooth voice caught them—the thought increased Jace's speed even as he cursed the laws preventing them carrying firearms. What he wouldn't give for the security of a pistol right about now.

  She shuddered and stopped struggling, catching his urgency.

  He hauled her behind the dumpster where he'd stashed his motorbike earlier that day. The sound of running footsteps sounded behind them, far too close.

  Without breaking stride he boosted her as she jumped astride the bike and he leaped on in front of her. "Hang on lady. We need to get out of here. Fast."

  He kicked up the stand as the roar of the powerful engine split the silence. The beam from the headlight picked out two men in stark relief. Jace reacted with well-honed skill, gunned the engine and aimed the bike at their pursers. They dived, one to each side of the alley, cursing obscenities.

  Once past them, he weaved from side to side. Infuriated shouts faded amid the whine of bullets, his passenger clinging to him like a limpet to a rock.

  Return to Totara Park

  © Shirley Wine 2012 http://amzn.com/B0076I1HGA

  Winsome Grainger left Totara Park with a terrible secret in her heart and a darker secret in her past vowing never to return. A vow shattered when she and her estranged husband, Jared each inherit a half share in Totara Park, the Grainger Dynasty’s Estate.

  Under the terms of Jared’s father’s Will, he and Winsome must live on Totara Park together for two years or the Estate will be sold. Unable to live with the knowledge that, through her, Jared stands to lose his heritage, Winsome reluctantly returns with their four year old daughter Lacey.

  Unsure of her husband’s support, she suffers the guilt of the damned. Never possessing the courage to confide these dark secrets in Jared, Winsome has time to regret never telling him why she walked out on their marriage, why she left him, or why she left Totara Park.

  Now these secrets threaten not only her shaky marriage and her love for Jared, they threaten her precious child’s life, her own life…Filled with foreboding, she discovers she’s a mere pawn in a dark and deadly game. A game whose rules she doesn’t know…

  Review by Love Romance

  Rating: 4.5 Hearts

  This book was deftly written. The story has it all - mystery, intrigue, betrayal and romance. It has well developed characters…who leave an indelible impression on the reader. This was a very enjoyable read and I look forward to the next book by the author. © Love Romances, 2001-2003. All Rights Reserved.

  Excerpt

  Winsome Grainger struggled to remain calm.

  One glance at her estranged husband made that almost impossible. Although no longer the shy, insecure girl who'd come to Totara Park as Jared's bride, she feared the impending meeting. It hung over her head like the sword of Damocles.

  Up ahead was Gaelen's house nestled in its grove of oaks.

  The last leaves of autumn clung to the trees. Fallen leaves lay in mouldering heaps against the railings and beneath the sod, bulbs waited for spring.

  As did the malevolent secrets of Totara Park.

  Winsome shivered, suddenly very afraid.

  Suffocating tension tortured every cell of her body as Jared parked in the driveway behind Gaelen's car and switched off the engine. Between them, unspoken, lay the past, with all its grief and anger. Jared's parting ultimatum a tangible barrier.

  If you leave, I will never come after you.

  "Dad stipulated his Will was to be read today after his funeral." Jared was first to break the silence. He made a low, disgusted sound in the back of his throat. "I thought the family reading of a Will was a discontinued, archaic relic."

  Her heart slammed against her ribs. Harvey's Will? Was that behind the command she and Lacey attend his funeral today? And afterwards visit Totara Park?

  "God knows what he's done." He slammed a hand against the steering wheel in frustration, amber eyes glittering.

  She glanced at him, horrified.

  Five years ago she'd left Totara Park vowing she would never again to set foot on Grainger land. Now, at Harvey's insistence, she was returning.

  Gaelen and Paige would hate it.

  Gaelen can only hurt you if you allow it. Dr. Cartwright's gruff words seeped into her troubled mind, bringing immense comfort. She took a deep breath and then another, willing herself to relax.

  As he turned to face her, the sunlight turned his tawny hair gold, every unruly strand slicked down and in its place. "Later, when afternoon tea is over, Max Harpur will read Dad's Will. I'm as apprehensive as you obviously are."

  Jared? Jared admitting to human frailties?

  Winsome shook her head. She was obviously not the only one who had changed. "I didn't think you possessed fallible, human emotions."

  He gave her a scorching look. It was a wonder she didn't melt into the seat. "This meeting isn't my idea. Raking over the past is po
intless. It can't be changed. Let's keep this as civilized as we can."

  What could she say? The burden of guilt grew heavier.

  "This is just as difficult for my mother as it is for you." His clipped tone was unfriendly, his amber eyes dark with grief. "Try not to cause friction."

  "I have never caused friction." Chin high with proud defiance, Winsome opened the door and escaped the claustrophobic confines of the car. She opened the rear door and unbuckled Lacey, lifting her from her booster seat.

  "I don't like this place, Mummy," she whispered, her arms snaking around her mother's neck.

  That makes two of us, kiddo.

  Lacey was unnaturally quiet, and had been ever since they left Cambridge. At Harvey's wish, his farewell had taken place there, in the small Waikato town in New Zealand's rural hinterland, at the church where he'd worshipped all his life. His cremation was private, between him and his God.

  How was she going to survive without the one person who never judged or accused? Grief wrenched at Winsome with the force of a physical pain.

  "You'll be okay, sweetheart," she murmured, desperate to reassure herself as much the little girl.

  Lacey gave Jared a scared, wary look that threatened to break Winsome's heart. In cutting her from his life, he'd also cut contact with his daughter. As he looked at Lacey, Winsome caught his anguished regret and her resolve firmed. Their separation was not of her making and he must know his own choices had denied him knowing his daughter.

  "Are you my father?" Lacey's question caught them both off guard.

  Jared stopped, and then crouched to her level. "Yes, I'm your father."

  "Why don't you live with us like other fathers do?"

  He can answer. I've fielded Lacey's questions ever since I explained we were coming to visit her father.

  Winsome took a ragged breath. This close, tawny heads almost touching no one could mistake them for anything other than father and daughter. And seeing them together now, hurt her heart.

  "Sometimes there are reasons little girls don't understand."

  She flinched on a swift stab of anguish. How did you explain to a little girl that her father didn't even want to know she existed?

  "Susie's father doesn't live with her but she stays with him. Why don't I ever see you, if you're my father?" Lacey asked with unassailable four-year-old logic, her grey eyes shadowed with doubt.

  "Susie?" Jared looked up at Winsome, amber eyes questioning.

  "Her friend from kindergarten."

  "I'm seeing you now. Perhaps you can come and stay with me sometime soon."

  Over my dead body. Winsome clenched her hands. If he thought this visit gave him any rights, he was in for one very rude shock.

  "Can I really?" Lacey's voice rose with excitement. "Come and stay with you?"

  Under the same roof as Gaelen? Never.

  "We'll see." Winsome blistered him with a furious glare. How dare he raise the child's hopes like this? "This is just a visit, Lacey. Remember we talked about it."

  "Okay." She gave a resigned put-upon sigh designed to make her mother feel guilty.

  Jared glanced at her, his icy glare chilling her to the bone as he held out a hand to Lacey. After a moment's hesitation, she slipped her small hand in his. He put his other hand under Winsome's elbow; it was a protective gesture she remembered well. Her arm burned at his touch and it took every ounce of self-control not to flinch or pull away.

  As they walked up the wide front steps, she almost succumbed to panic.

  What am I doing here? She stopped in mid-step, wanting nothing more than to turn tail and run.

  Jared noticed her hesitation and compassion softened his hard expression. In that moment Winsome caught a fleeting glimpse of the man she'd met and married so precipitously.

  "Don't be scared," he murmured, the soothing tone meant to allay her fears. "Mother's looking forward to seeing you both. Come and meet your Grandmother, Lacey."

  Biting hard on her lower lip, Winsome struggled to subdue a burst of hysterical laughter. Jared had expressed similar sentiments the day he'd brought her home to this house as his bride. And how tragically farcical that had proved to be.

  Seven For A Secret

  © Shirley Wine 2012

  Why had she never known her life was one colossal lie?

  After her father's sudden death Anna Belmonte is stunned to discover she's her father's love child with the family au pair.

  Shocked, betrayed, her sense of self in tatters, Anna seeks her birthmother, determined to unravel the dark secrets surrounding her birth.

  When she meets Megan's stepson Slade Haultain, she accepts his invitation to stay on Puriri Downs, his beef and sheep station and very quickly they forge strong emotional bonds.

  Anna, a gifted artist, long ago decided art and marriage were incompatible, but with Slade, she glimpses a tantalizing vision. Art, marriage and children, for the first time she thinks that perhaps she can have it all.

  Anna's meeting with Megan turns into a disaster.

  Too late, Anna learns this was one secret that was never meant to be told…

  The dead hand of Anna's manipulative father reaches from beyond the grave to destroy the young lovers' hopes and dreams.

  How can Anna ask Slade to choose between her and his family? How can she ever prove she wasn't a party to her father's diabolical schemes? And how can she ask Slade take her word on trust…

  This book was a finalist in the 2010 Clendon Award Run in conjunction with the Romance Writers of New Zealand.

  Excerpt

  Why had she never guessed her whole life was one colossal lie? Or had she at some subliminal level, always known?

  Anna Belmonte hated this nightmare situation, hated her father's manipulation, hated him breaking the silence of a life time, and hated that he'd waited until after his death to do so.

  But most of all, she hated that she cared.

  Not that this was anything new. Paolo Belmonte was a controlling, manipulative man. She'd grown up knowing this about her father. Her decision to turn her art into a career had infuriated him and he'd done his level best to undermine her at every opportunity.

  Now, she despised him. Paolo was a liar, a cheat, but worst of all, he was a hypocrite.

  But at least he knew who he was.

  The though was like a hand reaching inside her and tearing out her heart. Gripped by soul-deep despair, her hand shook as she replaced the tea cup in its saucer.

  The clash of china on china made her wince.

  A few patrons in the breakfast room of the Lansbury Inn not engrossed in eating or the morning papers looked her way, and then just as swiftly averted their eyes.

  Embarrassed heat flooded Anna's face. Head bent, she buttered a piece of half cold toast. She was deliberately dawdling, at a loss as to know what she should do next. The dining room with its sleek glass and chrome furniture offered little inspiration and certainly held no answers.

  In a mood as dark as the brooding sky, she looked through the plate glass windows of the dining room that overlooked the main Ocean Beach.

  Huge waves crashed ashore. An offshore tropical cyclone was creating wild and turbulent seas. Great spumes of water crashed over a rocky outcrop. Sea birds wheeled and screamed as they ducked and dived above the boiling surf. The unbridled fury thrilled the artist in her soul; the violence fed the emotions tearing her apart.

  A month ago, Anna had possessed the same certainty about her identity as her father. And while they'd never been close, she loved him, after a fashion, despite his overbearing and dictatorial manner.

  Now the security of her identity had been ripped out from beneath her feet like a shoddy carpet.

  What Anna wanted was an explanation.

  And now, Megan Anderson was the only person alive and able to give her the explanation she craved.

  But the woman was elusive.

  Anna frowned, crumbling the uneaten toast onto her plate. She had yet to find anyone in Mt Maunganu
i, on New Zealand's east coast, willing to talk to her. Either no one knew Megan, or they weren't talking.

  And Anna feared it was the latter.

  Fresh out of leads, she had no idea what to do next.

  One thing was certain; she needed to find Megan before a lack of funds and a looming deadline forced her return home. How could she return home without answers to the questions that were driving her crazy?