by Robyn Donald
‘I’ll bet you say that to all the girls,’ she said sardonically.
His mouth tightened. They drove in simmering silence until they reached the bach. Once they were both out of the car Caid looked at the tank. ‘What happened?’
‘You can see where the guttering is rusted through.’
His brows drew together as he surveyed the results of her great-aunt’s neglect. ‘Get your clothes. You can stay at the house.’
‘Of course I can’t,’ Sanchia snapped. ‘Molly has visitors arriving this afternoon. I’ll manage with the water Pat’s delivering—we used to have problems with water every summer so I know how to be careful with it.’
He looked at her as though she were a madwoman. ‘My house, Sanchia, not Pat and Molly’s.’
How to deal with this? Too swiftly she returned, ‘That’s a very kind offer, but…’ biting back the conventional thanks when he smiled mockingly at her. Sanchia ground her teeth together until she’d regained enough composure to finish, ‘And I doubt whether your mother would be happy to find an uninvited guest in residence when she arrives.’
Broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘Why not? She likes you,’ he said casually, ‘and she’s the most hospitable woman I know. Why don’t you give me the real reason?’
Sheer panic drove her to say blindly, ‘If you already know it why should I bother?’
To the sound of the tractor emerging from the bush he said satirically, ‘You’d be quite safe. You have my word on it.’
Safe? Common sense told her that he was probably using his charm as a weapon to persuade her to sell the Bay—but common sense was no defence against kisses that had the power to steal her heart from her breast.
As though she’d spoken the words out loud he added, ‘As safe as you want to be.’
She breathed deeply. ‘Are you daring me?’
His laugh held more of a taunt than a challenge. ‘I grew out of that when I was about fourteen. Would it take so much courage to spend a few nights in my house?’
‘None at all,’ she said coolly, ‘if it was necessary. But it’s not, because here’s Pat with enough water to keep me going for quite a while. He said he’d deliver some more if I run out. Provided you give your permission,’ she added.
‘Of course he can,’ Caid said curtly.
The tractor drew up with a flourish and Pat leaned down. ‘Where do you want the drum?’ he called above the engine.
‘As close to the house as possible, thank you.’
Pat backed the tractor up to the house and lowered the tray; he leapt down and helped Caid slide the drum onto the ground.
Sanchia tried very hard to keep her eyes on the older man, but once again she couldn’t help noting the play of muscles as Caid used his long arms and strong shoulders to manoeuvre the drum of water off the tray and into position.
When it was in place he turned too quickly, catching her widening gaze. Something flared in his eyes; his mouth set into a fixed humourless smile.
Skin prickling, she dragged her gaze away. He knew—but then he’d known how vulnerable she was to him the moment she’d gone up in flames under his sorcerous, knowledgeable kiss.
He was far too astute not to start asking questions if she kept on responding so—so feverishly to him and then flinched away. And too astute not to come up with something like the truth. The cold emptiness in the centre of her stomach expanded into barely controlled panic.
She couldn’t bear it if he ever found out why she couldn’t stand a man’s hands on her.
Moving into his house would be the most idiotic thing she could do. And not only stupid—very, very dangerous, because she was so aware of him that she sensed the first slippery approach to that terrifying roller-coaster called love.
After satisfying himself that she could easily get water from the drum, Caid left with another of those slashing smiles, all edge and aggression and flagrant male anticipation—the kind of smile sensible women fled from.
Gnawed by a foolish, bitter resentment, Sanchia waved Pat off, then slammed inside and pulled on her bathing suit. Although faded, it would last her out this summer. And it suited her—the soft rose lent some colour to her pale arms and legs.
Swimming did nothing to ease the clutch of foreboding; it tightened as she sat out on the deck with a book she’d been trying to read for several weeks. After a few minutes she made a sharp, disgusted sound and closed the pages on words that had wavered and shifted, forming into meaningless patterns.
She’d expected trouble from Caid when he found she wasn’t going to sell the Bay; what she hadn’t expected was to be ambushed by a charged, sexual rush every time she saw him.
If only she’d been able to hide it.
Ha! She didn’t have a hope in Hades of controlling it, and he was too experienced not to know what happened whenever he touched her, kissed her. Damn him, he knew that her breasts tightened, knew all about the slow, reckless ache of desire in her loins…
Her insides clamped into a delicious knot. Jerkily, she twisted out of the chair and fled inside.
A breeze flirted in through the open doors, tumbling the Christmas cards on the bookshelves into a tinselly crimson and green scatter across the floor. Grateful for the distraction, she picked them up. She’d brought them because she’d hoped they’d make the bach festive, but they were past their season and merely looked tired, so she dropped them in the rubbish bin.
Restlessness prowled through her veins. Perhaps she should go and get the paper from the mailbox.
‘Too hot,’ she said out loud. She’d go in the evening when it was cooler. Setting her jaw, she took some stationery from her bag and sat at the table to write letters.
An hour and some stiff pages later, tension drove her into her aunt’s bedroom. Everything had gone except the furniture and a pile of old magazines on the bookshelf. The echoing emptiness of the small room chilled her; she turned away at the door and went into her own bedroom to pick up the little wooden box of papers she’d promised herself she’d go through. It had travelled down to Auckland with her, lain untouched in her bedroom there, and come back. She couldn’t bear to open it and paw through her great-aunt’s life.
When she looked at the marquetry pattern on the lid tears ached behind her eyes. She put the box away again and went out onto the terrace, collapsing into the chair.
Time had never dragged when Great-Aunt Kate was alive. And it certainly didn’t drag when she was with Caid.
Sanchia forced herself to finish the letters.
In the cool of the evening she walked down to the gate on the coastal road and collected the paper from the mailbox. Back at the bach she read it with a total lack of interest before finally taking herself off to bed.
The next day was even hotter. After lunch Sanchia went for her third swim, but this time when she walked out of the water it was to see Caid striding towards her, a dark, powerful figure in the solemn shade of the pohutukawas. Awareness and a taut, breathless anticipation jolted through her; she’d been waiting for him.
No, she thought, and, even more strongly, No!
This humiliating weakness tore her determination to shreds. She and Caid Hunter were at opposite ends of the scale—he was rich and powerful; she was poor and powerless—and in spite of the attraction that set her aflame when he looked at her she’d never be able to give him the sexual surrender he expected.
For her own peace of mind—for any sort of future—she had to get rid of him. Attack was the best method of defence, and if ever she’d needed to defend herself, now was the time.
Without trying to hide her frown, she reached for the towel she’d hung over a branch and draped it around her shoulders. Aggressively, she demanded, ‘What do you want?’
CHAPTER FOUR
NO MUSCLES moved in Caid’s face, but Sanchia sensed a hardening, an inflexible concentration of attention on her as he replied, ‘I don’t like to see you swimming by yourself—it’s too risky. I know you’re a strong swimmer,
but even strong swimmers can find themselves in trouble.’
She shrugged. ‘I’m very sensible. I don’t go out too far or stay in too long, and I’ve never had cramp in my life.’ With a thin smile she summoned an edge to her voice. ‘If I drowned you’d probably be able to buy the Bay, so I’m rather ambivalent about your charming solicitude. I’ll be all right, Caid. Go back to your big house and accept that for once you can’t make someone do what you want.’
His lashes drooped. Sanchia grabbed a corner of her towel and wiped a trickle of water from the side of her face. He still hadn’t moved; he stood watching her with a faint smile on his handsome face, yet she felt his anger as if it were the pulsing red aura some people claimed to see.
‘But, Sanchia, we both know I can make you do exactly what I want,’ he drawled, his voice low and smooth and deadly.
Hot humiliation engulfed her. Forcing her chin upwards, she met his gaze with defiance. ‘If you think a few kisses are enough to sweeten—’
Caustic, calculating, he cut her off. ‘Waiora Bay is not yours to do with as you wish.’
Her hand stilled. Clutching the damp fold of towel so that it hid the lower part of her face, she stared at him with widening eyes. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
Hard, intimidating, his gaze held hers. ‘Obviously you don’t know that for the past six years I’ve been paying your great-aunt an annuity on the understanding that when she died I had the right to buy the property.’
Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this. Shaking her head, Sanchia said numbly, ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I don’t lie,’ he told her, each word brutal with decision.
The towel dropped from her limp fingers; she made an odd pushing gesture with her hands, repudiating his monstrous statement. Words stumbled out, slowly at first, and then faster and more intemperate, slashing through the warm, heavy air like rapiers. ‘Why would she have done that? She didn’t need your money.’
She was going to blurt out her great-aunt’s plans for the Bay: she could feel the words building on her tongue and had to swallow them, whip up anger to stop them bursting forth. ‘Is that how you’ve got where you are—with dirty tricks and dishonesty?’
‘I have proof.’ He spoke with uncompromising authority, his reasonable tone at variance with his eyes, cold and compelling beneath their thick lashes.
Another vehement shake of Sanchia’s head sent wet snakes of hair flying around her face. She fought a bitter anger and an even more bitter disillusionment. ‘Great-Aunt Kate would sooner have cut off her hand than sell the Bay.’
Anger prowled behind his controlled façade. ‘Your great-aunt wrote to me and suggested the annuity. I have the documents, signed by her. She had no right to leave this place to you without telling you about this.’
‘That’s a lie.’ Dismissing him with contempt, she turned away.
‘If you were a man,’ he said in a voice that froze her witless, ‘you’d learn not to toss accusations like that at me.’
Dry-mouthed, she counter-attacked, ‘But it’s perfectly all right for you to accuse Great-Aunt Kate of cheating! When you offered to buy the Bay from me there was no talk of any annuity. Why didn’t you mention it then?’
Why indeed? It was a question Caid had no intention of answering—mainly because he didn’t have a logical reason. In fact, since Sanchia had arrived at the Bay he’d carefully avoided facing the implications of his unusual behaviour.
He said evenly, ‘I offered you a conservative price for the Bay, a price that took in the amount of money I’d already paid Miss Tregear. The annuity was an agreement between your great-aunt and me, and I respected her privacy.’
Of course she wouldn’t leave it there; he hadn’t expected her to. For a fleeting moment he wondered what it would be like to claim all her infuriating, inconvenient loyalty, to know that whatever happened she’d be there for him, as his mother had been for his father. He’d never expected such loyalty from any of the women he’d liked and wooed and bedded; he’d treated them with consideration and respect, but he’d steered well clear of commitment.
So it probably served him right that he still wanted the woman who’d fled from him like a deer chased by wolves.
Great green eyes smouldering with suspicion, her luscious mouth thin, Sanchia demanded, ‘What about the option?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You were testing me! You thought I’d jump at the offer of a few thousand. Is it just me you despise, or do you think all women are greedy cheats?’
He made a noise that could have been scorn or frustration, or a mixture of both. ‘Go and get dressed,’ he commanded. ‘Then perhaps we can discuss this like adults instead of shouting at each other.’
Taut, determined to make him see the truth, she said, ‘The day before Great-Aunt Kate died she talked for over an hour about her hopes for the Bay. She wanted to safeguard the bush and the pohutukawas—the butterfly tree especially—make sure no developers could ever spoil the Bay. Caid, these trees have names!’ She pointed to each one, giving their names in the melodious Maori language. ‘No one alive knows what they refer to, but these trees played their parts in battles and love affairs, in feuds and trysts and peace-making marriages. They’re living history. I promised Great-Aunt Kate I wouldn’t ever sell the Bay, and I simply can’t believe that she’d make an agreement with you.’
His hard-honed features remained impassive. ‘And I can’t believe she demanded such a promise from you when she had no right. Unless she was—’
‘She wasn’t crazy! She was as sharp on the day she died as she’d ever been!’
‘I didn’t say anything about her being crazy.’ He reined in his impatience.
Sanchia set off for the bach, pausing just long enough to fling at him, ‘I consider her wishes for the Bay to be a sacred trust.’
‘An expensive sacred trust,’ Caid observed, the comment an indolent taunt.
Although he walked behind her, she felt him with an awareness that was like sight and touch together, a primitive consciousness rooted in the genes.
Ignoring it, Sanchia strode through the clinging grass towards the bach. Steadily, icily, she said, ‘Your implication that she asked for money is outrageous.’
‘I’m not implying that she asked for it,’ he shot back, ‘I’m telling you.’
He had to be lying.
And that, Sanchia thought, hit by an inchoate sense of loss, was unexpectedly painful. Why should she care that Caid Hunter was unscrupulous? Or even be surprised?
Cold disdain stiffened her spine, braced her resolve. ‘There is no reason for her to do that.’
‘She wrote to me about it the year you went to university. Look out!’
Too late. Sanchia cannoned into the pillar that supported the verandah over the deck. Although she managed to jerk sideways, and so avoid hitting it fair and square, the blow sent her staggering and drove all the breath from her body.
Caid grabbed her. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked, his voice thick and fast and angry. A lean finger pushed her chin up and he scanned her face intently for bruises.
‘My pride is,’ she muttered. She wrenched out of his grasp, clutching the sun-warmed post while she tried to regain some composure.
He asked, ‘Do you make a habit of walking into things?’
‘Not normally.’ Only when she was with him. His gaze dropped, then flicked up again, and she realised that the strap of her bathing suit had slipped down her arm, revealing the white curve of one small breast. Yanking it up, she said, ‘I’m all right.’
‘Get dressed,’ he said brusquely.
Her aunt’s stringent training in hospitality persuaded her to say with equal brevity, ‘Be careful how you sit down—some of the chairs have perished,’ before she walked into the bach.
Seething, she headed for the bathroom. Once she got there, however, she glowered at the bucket of water beside the handbasin; it seemed significant—an omen, even—hinting at how easily things could go wrong.
Not, she thought fiercely, this time. Whatever threats Caid came up with, she’d make sure she carried out her last promise to her great-aunt.
After she’d wriggled free of her wet bathing suit she checked herself in the mirror, tentatively touching a welt along one cheekbone. It could have been worse.
Thank Mother Nature or evolution for quick reflexes, she thought sardonically, as she sponged herself with a couple of inches of lukewarm water in the bottom of the basin. Trying not to recall just how rapidly Caid had grabbed her, she dried off as much as she could of the salt and sunscreen clinging to her skin.
Had Great-Aunt Kate approached Caid about an annuity because Sanchia had needed the money to go to university? There had never been any discussion about it; it had always been a given.
No. If she’d done that she would have told Sanchia. He had to be lying.
The quick wash cooled her down, helped her feel a little more able to deal with the man waiting for her. Her face setting into determined severity, she slipped on a loose shift in clear silvery green, combed her hair straight back and walked outside.
Motionless, patient, Caid was staring out to sea, radiating a coiled intensity that was a warning. He couldn’t have heard the soft whisper of her bare feet, but he turned as she came towards the doors, dark face aloof and watchful.
He had the instincts, the keen awareness of every predator. Before he could speak she demanded, ‘What proof do you have of this supposed deal?’
His smile revealed too many white teeth. ‘Letters. The agreement. Signed by both of us.’
‘Where’s the agreement?’
Caid looked at her with eyes half-concealed by his heavy lids. ‘In my Auckland office.’
Sanchia lifted her brows. ‘Of course,’ she murmured with cutting politeness. ‘What a pity it’s the holidays. I don’t suppose there’s anyone in your office now who can post it up.’
‘It’s being faxed through now,’ he said negligently. ‘And why don’t you look in your great-aunt’s papers? If the agreement didn’t go to the solicitor dealing with her estate, you must find her copy of it here. Provided nothing’s happened to it.’