by Margaret Way
“Got him?” Ava was rather enjoying acting dumb.
Karen shook her head so vigorously her thick fringe lifted off her smooth forehead. “Okay, you’re having a little joke. Which one of the guest rooms is his?”
“You plan to drop in on him?” Ava lifted a delicate brow.
Karen leaned back on her hands. “No need. Are you sure you know what you’re doing, cousin?”
“Meaning?” Ava’s tone took on a surprising briskness.
“Maybe you should take care?” Karen cautioned. “Luke wouldn’t like to hear you were alone in Kooraki with the sexiest man on earth.”
“Is this a way of threatening me?” Ava held herself very still. “You plan to tell him?” Her years of tolerating Karen appeared abruptly over.
Karen must have grasped that fact—if not in its entirety. “Don’t get me wrong, Ava. I’ve tried to keep a cousinly eye on you all our lives. I’m a real softie that way.”
“What a pity I never realised that,” Ava said, making a decision to leave before Karen upset her further. That was her style. “I’ll leave you to unpack. Lunch at one.”
Karen rose languidly to her feet, her legs as long and thin as a crane’s. “When is he leaving?” she called.
Ava turned about. “Whenever he wants. He’s most welcome to stay. He’s our guest, Karen. He’s come a long way.”
Karen wasn’t finished with her questions. “But after the wedding?” She moved abruptly towards Ava. “After Dev leaves on his honeymoon?”
“Dev won’t be going on his own,” Ava reminded her, not holding back on the sarcasm.
Karen scowled. “Does she know how lucky she is to get him—what with that mother of hers?”
Her cousin was on dangerous ground. “I’m astonished you haven’t got the message, Karen,” Ava said. “Dev is madly in love with Amelia. He’s loved her since childhood. If I were you I wouldn’t bring up the subject of Sarina Norton. In a very short time Amelia will be mistress of Kooraki.”
“Never liked Amelia,” Karen muttered.
“I well remember. She always did get the better of you. So heed my warning. Amelia and her mother are off limits.”
Karen, a confident horsewoman, threw up her hands as though to quieten a fractious horse. “Yo, cousin!” she cried. “Yo! We’re family. Surely we can have a private chat?”
“Certainly. Only you must remember Amelia is family too. I’m absolutely delighted to have her as a sister.”
Karen quickly mustered some common sense. “She’ll make a beautiful bride,” she admitted, trying not to show her long-standing jealousy of the luscious Amelia. “I can see that. I’d let you see my own outfit, only it’s going to be a big surprise. I had thought Amelia would ask me to be one of her bridesmaids. I mean we did go to school together.”
Sometimes the clever Karen could be remarkably obtuse. “Be glad you were invited,” Ava said, waggling her fingers. “See you soon.”
“Can’t wait for the polo match!” Karen called, a lift in her voice. “I have another outfit planned.”
“Bet it cost plenty.” Karen hardly wore the same outfit twice.
“Around a thousand bucks,” she answered casually.
Ava closed the door after her. So Karen was going to spend her time trying to capture Varo’s attention? At least she was a free agent, and she could be charming when she chose to be.
There was no reason to think Varo wouldn’t respond. What she and Varo had shared had been a kind of enchantment—a surrender to an overpowering sexual desire. There were different words for it. Love was a long, long way from that.
* * *
The days flew, with everyone in high good spirits. Karen seemed to be laughing from dawn to dusk, changing several times a day, and all the while skipping around with Dev and Varo, as enthusiastic as a teenager, accompanying them on all their tours of the station. Or as many times as Dev allowed, being well aware where his cousin’s interests lay.
“She’s got it bad!” Amelia breathed softly in Ava’s ear as Karen hurried out through the front door to join the men. “She told me she thinks Varo is as magnificent as a black panther.” Amelia paused a moment. “Actually, he is.” She pulled a comical face. “A paragon of masculinity!”
They both laughed.
“It seems to me that if his eye is anywhere it’s on you, Ava,” Amelia continued shrewdly.
“Varo enjoys women,” Ava said, glad her long hair was partially obscuring her expression. “Anyway I can’t look at anyone—even someone who puts Karen in mind of a black panther—until my divorce is final.”
“I wouldn’t be too scrupulous,” Amelia advised. “Luke doesn’t deserve it.”
“I know. He wants me back.”
“Of course he does!” Amelia exclaimed, no admirer of Ava’s weak, excessively vain husband. “You’re a prize. He’s stupid enough to think once he has you back again he can continue to control you.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Ava sounded very firm. “It’s just taking a while for it to sink in.”
“He contacted me, you know,” Amelia confessed after a considered moment.
“What? Just recently?” Ava struggled not to show her anger.
“Before we came away. He’s a desperate man. We spotted him at a reception. He says he loves you. He adores you. If this divorce goes through it will destroy him.”
“What did you say?”
“Exactly what you’d expect. I told him it was over. Dev and I think he was one lousy husband. Not worthy of you. It’s his colossal pride that’s hurt, Ava.”
“No one knows that better than I,” Ava murmured, checking a pang of regret for what might have been. “Let’s go for a swim,” she suggested.
“Good idea!” Amelia swiftly agreed. She stood up, glowing with health and energy. A woman on the eve of marrying her one true love. “Half-Moon?”
Karen usually spent time in the homestead’s swimming pool, doing endless laps up and down. No matter how thin she was Karen thought she could be thinner. It was impossible to change her mindset.
“Half-Moon it is.”
* * *
In the heat they took one of the station vehicles to the lagoon, where the silvery-blue heatwaves were throwing up their fascinating illusions. They might have been lost in the mirage.
Amelia parked at the top of the slope leading down to their favourite lagoon. She was wearing a black nylon-Spandex one-piece that fitted her beautiful body with its hourglass curves like a glove. Ava had chosen one of the four bikinis she kept in her closet. Spandex top and bottom, its colours were a mix of ocean hues—cobalt, emerald and aquamarine.
They raced across the sand, leaving their things in a heap and moving to the water’s edge. As always the perimeter was decorated with exquisite blue lotus lilies.
Amelia turned with a smile. “All right, let’s get it over!” she challenged.
Both knew the water would offer a shock of cold in the golden heat of the day. With a cheer Amelia waded into the shallows that quickly fell away to the deep, but Ava, always fleet of foot, beat her into a dive. It sent up glittering arcs of spray that fell back into the lagoon. Ava was actually the better swimmer of the two, but built for speed not stamina.
After their invigorating swim they padded back up onto the pale ochre sand, patting themselves dry before spreading out their towels. They had moved back so all their faces and bodies received of the sunshine was a dappled light through the overhang of trees. Amelia, with her olive skin, tanned easily, but she wasn’t after a tan for her wedding day. And Ava had always had to protect her “lily-white” skin. As Amelia’s chief bridesmaid she wanted to look her best.
As they lay there, eyes closed, they discussed all aspects of the big day. Dev and
Amelia were to honeymoon in some of the great cities of the world—London, Paris, Rome—before jetting off to the U.S.A. New York first, then San Francisco, before returning home. Two months in all. It wasn’t either one’s first time in any of those cities, but this time they would be together as man and wife.
“It will be so exciting!” Amelia breathed, suddenly pulling herself up to lean on one elbow and looking back over her shoulder. “Looks like we’re having visitors.”
Her beautiful face was vivid with delight. Amelia and Dev were every inch and for all time passionate about each other.
Ava sat up very quickly her heart giving a rhythmic jolt as she turned her head in the same direction.
“Look—it’s Dev and Varo.” Amelia sprang, laughing, to her feet. She looked gloriously happy. “Karen too.” A dryness entered her tone.
Ava, however, was pierced by embarrassment. Always comfortable in a swimsuit—she was very slender without being bone-thin like Karen—she suddenly felt a strange panic that Varo’s eyes would be on her. She didn’t want that. She wanted to keep calm. She knew she was being foolish, but there it was. She could hardly reach for the sarong she had draped around her hips. That would be too obvious a cover-up. Instead she waved a hand as Amelia moved to greet the new arrivals.
She stood up, paused a moment, then headed back into the water as if wanting to cool off on this steamy hot day. Maybe they would be gone before she emerged? She knew she was acting like an overly shy and modest schoolgirl, but she felt incredibly self-aware around Varo. She was actually shivering a little in reaction. She had so little experience of the powerfully sexual. Luke had never been a turn-on, she fully realised.
When she came up, blinking the lagoon water out of her eyes and off her lashes, she saw with a kind of dismay the party of riders were stripping off, obviously intent on cooling off in the crystal-clear water.
“Oh, my God!” Her breath whistled between her teeth. They were coming in.
Dev and Varo had stripped to dark-coloured swimming briefs. Karen had exposed her ultra-thin body in a postbox-red one-piece with a halter neck. She stood at the water’s edge, squealing at the cold as she put a toe in. She didn’t even bend to splash her face. No preliminaries to accustom herself to the cold water. Both men charged past her like young gods, diving in unison into the water. Amelia was still at the water’s edge, perhaps saying a few coaxing words to Karen, who now had her long arms criss-crossed over her body. Ava began to wonder if her cousin would come in at all.
There was a flat rock platform on the other side of the lagoon. It overhung the emerald-green waters by two or three feet. As children they had often used it as a diving board. She, Dev and Amelia had often sat there to sunbake and be alone. Now she struck out for the platform, proposing to sit there for a short time while the others took their refreshing dip. Dev always had pressing things to do. She would wait it out.
Amelia had joined Dev now, continuing the little rituals of childhood, diving under the water and chasing after each other like a pair of dolphins. Karen had evidently decided the water was too cold for her liking. She had retreated to the shade of the trees, keeping a keen eye on them all. Especially Varo.
He was a born athlete. Ava knew he was going to swim over to her. She knew for sure.
He did, his teeth flashing white in his handsome dark face, his skin pearled with drops of water.
“So, I always suspected you were half-mermaid,” he mocked. “All you need is a circlet of sparkling crystals and emeralds around your blonde head. You need nothing else. Not even the covering of a swimsuit, however brief.” With one lithe movement he hauled himself onto the platform. A trained gymnast couldn’t have done it better. “You took one look at me and swam away,” he accused her. “You should have been swimming towards me, don’t you think?”
Now his lustrous dark eyes settled on her, touching every part of her body: Her long wet hair, drying out in the warm air, over one shoulder and down her back, her face, her throat, her breasts, taut midriff, slender legs. All was exposed to his eyes.
“Ava,” he said, very gently.
She managed a soft reply. “Yes?”
“Nothing. I’m just saying your name.”
She loved the way he said it. Unlike anyone else. There was that tension again. The high, humming thrum of sexual energy. He had a superb body, evenly tanned, no betraying untanned skin below his waist above the line of his black swimming trunks. The sun had hit everywhere. He was bronze all over. Totally unselfconscious. Unlike her.
“It is very clear to me, Ava, that you are avoiding me.” There was a glinting sardonic look in the depths of his dark eyes.
He shocked her by leaning over to brush her bare shoulder with his mouth, licking up the few remaining sparkling droplets and taking them into his mouth.
“Varo!” She tried to move, her little cry blending with the call of a bird.
“You fear someone is watching?” he asked. “Dev and his beautiful Amelia are totally engrossed in each other, as it should be. It is only your cousin who has the binoculars trained on us.”
“Surely not?”
“A joke,” he teased. “Though I am quite sure if she had a pair handy we would be in her sights.” His voice took on an amused note. “She is very jealous of you, is she not?”
Ava turned her head all the way to him, her expression one of actual disbelief. “Of course she isn’t.”
His look seemed to say he knew more about her than she would ever know herself. “I think she is. Why are you so nervous of me? It’s perfectly natural for a man and a woman to sit and talk like this.”
“I talk a lot easier when I’m wearing clothes,” she confessed on a wry note.
He kept looking at her. “I want to touch you.” His voice was low, so emotive he might have been exulting in his own desires. “I want to make love to you. I want to press kisses all over your body. I want to kiss you where you have never been kissed before.” His hand moved so that his fingers closed over hers.
She felt a sharp, knife-like thrust deep in her womb, leaving a dull ache. “Why are we going with this, Varo?” she whispered, even with no one to hear.
“Isn’t it obvious to you?” His fingers tightened. Very firm. He wasn’t going to let her get away. “You have enchanted me.”
She could barely answer. “I have made it clear I’m still married.”
“You will soon have your freedom. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” He didn’t tell her that her cousin, Karen, had sought to convince him Ava could have been the inspiration for La Belle Dame sans Merci. The memory of her words flooded back without prompt.
“Ava might look like vanilla ice cream, but I assure you she has another side,” Karen had told him. “We call it the Langdon syndrome. They’re tough people, the Langdons. Her husband, Luke, is a lovely man. He idolises her. Puts her on a pedestal. Such a terrible shame, but Ava didn’t care to inhabit the role of wife. At least not for long.”
Ava now turned to him, her eyes huge. “I shouldn’t stay here.”
“No,” he murmured, his eyes lingering on her. “Your beautiful skin might get burned.”
“I haven’t your olive skin,” she said defensively.
He lifted a hand to stroke the side of her neck. “Yours is as lustrous as a pearl. ‘Full beautiful’ you are, Ava.” He began to quote softly, dark and honey-tongued, “‘Her hair was long, her foot was light, and her eyes were wild.’”
In truth he was the one doing the seducing, Ava thought. “I love Keats,” she said on a surprised note. “Fancy your knowing that poem.”
He shrugged. “A famous English poet, a famous poem. La Belle Dame sans Merci.”
“And I brought it to mind?” Was that how he saw her? Cool to cold? A little cruel?
He didn’t
answer. He fell back into the water and held up his arms. “Come here to me.”
Little thrills of excitement were travelling the length of her spine. Yet she hesitated, aware Karen could see them. She was a cautious person, not at all adventurous, but it seemed her whole life was changing.
“Come,” he repeated.
Her breath shook, but there nothing else she could do but allow herself to fall blindly into his outstretched arms.
They went under together. Down…down…into shimmering crystal depths shot through with rays from the sun. Varo held her body locked to his, as though she would never get away. His mouth pressed down with great ardour over hers. Surely this only happened in dreams? It was simply…magic.
But he was in need of more…a man held in captivity by an enchanting woman.
His hand had a life of its own. It plunged into her tiny bikini top, taking the weight of her delicate breast, the pleasure boundless. They were locked together so long Ava thought they might drown. She couldn’t seem to care. Somehow this was not real. The moment was timeless. Locked together in the cool silvery-green depths yet burning with passion. This was a secret place of great beauty, the waters like silk against the skin. Best of all, they were far, far away from prying eyes.
They were moving to another stage. It was like a dreaming. They were weighted under water but not conscious of it. Only Varo, his strong arm locked around her, broke the idyll. They shot to the surface, faces turned up to the sky, both gasping for air. Dev and Amelia were lazily stroking their way back to them. Karen was standing right at the shoreline, one arm waving frantically, as though signalling to Ava and Varo to get out.
Ava knew she was in for a good talking-to. Karen hadn’t been jealous of her before now. Her cousin had always acted like someone of elevated status—far superior to the younger Ava. She realised Karen had spent a lot of time trying to put her down, deflating any tendency towards a burgeoning self-confidence. Karen would be full of admonitions and she might even talk to Luke. Get in touch with him. Ava wouldn’t put it past her. Karen was on Luke’s side. She had no loyalty to Ava. She had to remember that. Karen could cause trouble.