Sanchia’s Secret

by Robyn Donald

  There was something lazily possessive about him this morning; if his mother hadn’t already realised what had happened she soon would, Sanchia thought stringently.

  Not that she resented his attitude; she too was feeling rather like a cat presented with a particularly succulent canary.

  Transferring her attention to her son, Mrs Hunter asked, ‘So what are your plans for today, Caid?’

  This loving inquisition was part of their breakfast routine. A tiny ache of envy made Sanchia wonder what it would be like to belong to a family again.

  Caid shrugged. ‘I have some work to do this morning,’ he said succinctly. ‘After lunch I have a landowners’ meeting in Kerikeri. It usually takes the whole afternoon, but if I can get away early I might take the boat out.’

  ‘That sounds delightful,’ his mother said in her accented English. ‘But not for me. I am going to discuss with Will a new idea I have for the garden.’

  Her son grinned at her. ‘For someone who grew up on a Greek island you’re remarkably resistant to boating,’ he teased.

  His mother laughed. ‘We’re notorious for seasickness. As a child I used to wonder how on earth Jason got as far as the Golden Fleece without losing most of his crew! You’re lucky—you have your father’s constitution. He used to say he had a cast-iron stomach.’ Smiling, she turned to Sanchia. ‘How well does your stomach behave at sea?’

  ‘Superbly. I grew up on a yacht,’ Sanchia told her.

  Mrs Hunter nodded. ‘Of course, I had forgotten. So what are your plans for today?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sanchia said in a surprised voice. Too busy, she realised guiltily, enjoying memories of Caid’s lovemaking to make plans. ‘I should do something about the bach.’

  ‘I’ve already organised for what’s left of it to be demolished and removed,’ Caid said.

  Sanchia protested, ‘Oh, but—’

  Decisive blue eyes met hers, held them. He said, ‘I don’t like the smell of burning.’

  ‘Which doesn’t make you any less high-handed,’ Sanchia shot back.

  He leaned back and surveyed her down an arrogant nose. ‘It’s under way, Sanchia, so there’s nothing you can do about it now.’

  In a troubled voice Mrs Hunter said, ‘When will we know whether or not it was arson?’

  ‘I heard last night.’ Caid ignored Sanchia’s startled glance. ‘It was. Someone lit a fire in the sitting room. The inspector found traces of an accelerant.’

  Sanchia felt sick. ‘Why would anyone want to burn it down?’

  ‘Vandals enjoy destruction,’ he said austerely. ‘At least they chose an empty house.’

  Mrs Hunter set her coffee cup down with a clink. ‘Do you think that the people who burnt it down are the ones Will told us about?’

  ‘What people?’ Sanchia demanded.

  Caid overrode his mother’s explanation pleasantly but firmly. ‘A month ago people began gathering on the beach for parties. After a couple of incidents Will and Pat saw them off and secured the gate. There was no further trouble until the night before last.’

  But if she went ahead with her plans—with Great-Aunt Kate’s plans—the Hunters would have to deal not only with crowds of people on the beach but the possibility of more such incidents. Sanchia’s stomach contracted again and she bit her lower lip for a second. ‘Perhaps they’ll be satisfied now that the bach has gone.’

  ‘Unless they decide to burn down the butterfly tree,’ Caid said coolly.

  Horrified, Sanchia exclaimed, ‘No!’

  ‘Why not?’ he said, watching her from eyes half hidden by his heavy lashes. Unspoken was the implication that if she sold it to him there would be no further danger.

  He was very good at probing weaknesses; it was probably part of his job description, if the owner of Hunter’s wrote himself such a thing. A man who successfully ran a huge company in the volatile world of the Pacific Rim needed ruthlessness as well as powerful self-assurance and dynamic energy. He had them all, along with a formidable intellect and that dynamic power.

  Fixing her gaze on a sunbeam playing along the end of her knife, Sanchia said, ‘I can’t believe that anyone would be so evil.’

  Black brows lifted. ‘A refreshing—if somewhat naïve—trust in mankind’s goodness,’ he said, a cutting note sharpening the words. ‘Do you want to come into Kerikeri with me this afternoon? You could shop while I go to this meeting.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ she said quietly, not meeting his eyes.

  ‘I’m going to see Molly Henley,’ Mrs Hunter said, bestowing a smile of warm approval on Sanchia. ‘Will you be happy by yourself?’

  Sanchia blinked. ‘Perfectly,’ she said vaguely.

  They were eating breakfast on the morning terrace, away from the sea, and on the other side of the house from the blackened ruins of the bach. Flowers danced in the garden—shaggy little suns of gazanias, other blooms that glowed like gaudy, fringed stars in shades of scarlet, gold, magenta and copper, all contrasting with the dramatically surreal blue and orange ‘birds’ on the bird of paradise bushes.

  Mrs Hunter had created another setting, backing a brilliant tapestry of colours with the mingled, scented leaves of lavender and rosemary. Behind the Mediterranean shrubs reared the dark, silver-backed domes of the pohutukawas and the tropical exuberance of trees with huge, paddle-shaped leaves, glossy as enamel in the sunlight.

  A transient breeze carried with it an acrid trace of embers. Desolation gripped Sanchia so fiercely that the sunlight dimmed and the riotous colours faded. If she fulfilled the promise she’d made to Great-Aunt Kate, she’d spoil Waiora Bay for both Caid and his mother.

  And if she didn’t, she’d never forgive herself.

  She said, ‘I’ll go down to the bach and see if there’s anything I can salvage.’

  Caid’s frowning gaze searched her face. ‘Nothing could have survived that inferno.’

  ‘I have to make sure.’

  ‘I suppose you do,’ he said reluctantly. ‘All right, let’s go.’

  She’d have preferred to be by herself, but clearly that wasn’t an option. Caid didn’t intrude; silently he stayed beside her as she surveyed the pathetic remnants of the bach. He was right; nothing had been saved.

  Tears clogged her throat, gathered in her eyes. Caid turned her into his arms and murmured soothingly; he didn’t seem to notice the stirring of his body as she wept into his shoulder, and after a few seconds she relaxed, able to concentrate on her sadness.

  She wouldn’t let it last; tears provided relief, but they weren’t a solution. Caid sensed when she recovered her control almost before she did. Keeping an arm lightly around her shoulder, he offered a large handkerchief.

  As she wiped her eyes he said, ‘It made a fantastic funeral pyre. I know it hurts now, but she’d have enjoyed it—rather like a Viking going out with his ship.’

  Kate Tregear had given sanctuary and love to a young girl. The least that Sanchia could do was achieve her great-aunt’s dream.

  ‘She was a fighter,’ Sanchia said in a kind of valediction.

  For the first time in her life Sanchia had a nap after lunch. It was, she decided on waking, a much overrated exercise. Yawning, a slight headache banging behind her temples, she got into her bathing suit, anointed herself with sunscreen and went in search of a beach towel.

  ‘Yes, you look as though you could do with a dip,’ Terry said, handing over a huge bath sheet decorated with a splendid octopus. ‘Be careful, though—it’s hot out there.’

  ‘I’ll take care.’

  Swimming had always been a release, the mindless pleasure of cool water against her skin easing pressures and fears. That day it was even more sensuously hypnotic than usual. Had making love with Caid distilled a keener, more physical pleasure within her?

  If so, it was completely unfair, she thought bitterly as she waded back onto the beach—like dangling a tantalising promise of paradise in front of her, then whipping it away with a sinister laugh.

&n
bsp; The sand was already too hot to be comfortable. After a startled yelp Sanchia raced across the blinding expanse of the beach into the shade of the pohutukawas. She was languidly drying herself down when the hairs on the back of her neck lifted.

  Swinging around, she saw Caid striding along the beach. Something about the set of his broad shoulders, the way he walked, told her he was in a towering fury. Surely not because she’d gone swimming by herself?

  All fingers and thumbs, she knotted the towel around her waist. Her stomach clenched against an imaginary blow and she braced her shoulders, waiting until he was within earshot before saying neutrally, ‘Hello.’

  ‘I’ve just been talking to Nat Blackmore.’ His voice was cold and uncompromising.

  ‘Why did a conversation with the man who owns the cattle station next door make you so angry?’

  ‘Nat used to be a councillor on the District Council, and still has excellent contacts in it.’ Caid’s deep voice sounded almost indifferent, but there was nothing indifferent about the icy blue fire in his eyes.

  Sanchia braced herself for the inevitable. ‘So?’

  ‘So he says that you’re planning to offer the Bay to the Council as a reserve.’

  Heart twisting, she said calmly, ‘I’ve already offered it.’

  Speaking with a silky directness that made each word a separate and potent threat, he said, ‘You clever, lying, conniving little—’

  ‘I didn’t lie!’

  ‘You lied by omission.’ Hard contempt vibrated through his voice. The sun emphasised his handsome face, picking out the powerful symmetry of bone structure, the dark, dominant character. A black cotton shirt clung to his torso, and black trousers blatantly revealed powerful thighs.

  Sanchia stayed miserably silent, because he was right—she had lied by omission. Her behaviour suddenly seemed cheap and deceitful—and cowardly.

  Caid said in a low, furious voice, ‘That was a very skilful, clever seduction! I fell for the oldest trick in the book—did you really think I’d be bought off with a couple of nights in your bed, Sanchia? You rate yourself too highly. Your body might well fuel a million erotic dreams, but I don’t like women who are greedy, self-serving and debauched enough to prostitute themselves.’

  Oh, God, this was so much worse than she’d anticipated. Shock and cold despair made her flinch. ‘I didn’t seduce you,’ she returned. Her voice cracked on a note of strain, but held steady. ‘I’ll get into some clothes and then we can talk.’

  His lip curled and his eyes drifted down the length of her sleek, wet body. ‘A good idea.’ Insolence purred through his tone, emphasising the taunting male speculation in his gaze.

  Inner heat scorching her skin, Sanchia walked past him. ‘Unless you change your attitude I’ve got nothing to say,’ she tossed over her shoulder.

  ‘I, however, have a great deal to say, and you’re going to listen while I say it.’ His voice hardened into tough, relentless authority. ‘If you go ahead with this crackpot scheme I won’t be the only one to fight you through every court in the country.’

  Pain scarred her with its claws. She pushed her wet hair back from her face and said stoutly, ‘You can’t do anything to stop it.’

  The merciless slash of his smile told her what he thought of that. ‘As soon as the Council finds out it will be buying into a fight—a long, expensive lawsuit, the sort that sets ratepayers howling for blood—it’ll come up with another way to deal with your offer. Then there’s the question of access to the Bay across my land. They’re pragmatic enough to accept the Bay as a reserve, Sanchia, but they’ll sell it to me as soon as you’re out of the picture. I’m sure you need that money more than the Council does.’

  ‘I’ll tie it up so they can’t,’ she said furiously. ‘As for the offer of blood money—no, thank you!’

  He gave her a cool, sardonic look. ‘Local councils can do whatever they like with bequests.’

  It made hideous sense. Sanchia faced him, her eyes glittering green fire in a white face. ‘And you, of course,’ she retorted with poisonous sweetness, ‘will do anything to stop the great unwashed public wandering around near your house.’

  ‘For obvious reasons,’ he said forcefully, nodding towards the gaunt, burnt-out ruins of the bach.

  ‘I promised Great-Aunt Kate I’d deed it to the council.’

  He looked at her as though she were something he’d scraped off the sole of his shoe. ‘You’ve forgotten that I have a claim on the Bay.’

  ‘What claim?’ Ablaze with anger and disillusion, she added intemperately, ‘I’m not going against my great-aunt’s wishes just because you want to get your greedy hands on her home.’

  Between his teeth, he said, ‘I still don’t know who signed that annuity agreement. However, I’ve already paid out a hundred and twenty thousand dollars on the place, and until that’s settled you won’t be able to do anything about the Bay.’

  ‘It’s not my debt—and certainly not Great-Aunt Kate’s.’ Her chin came up as she glared at him. Her debt was to the woman who’d rescued her from hell, the woman who’d trusted her to carry out her final wishes.

  Stumbling, she said, ‘I’m sorry the value of your property will go down—’

  ‘I don’t give a toss about the property value,’ he grated. Turning, he gestured at the house on the cliff. ‘My mother loves this house because my father built it for her; she comes back here to remember him and restore her spirit.’ He swung back and fixed Sanchia with a metallic stare. ‘That’s why your great-aunt bought the bach and this land—to restore her spirit. She didn’t want the land to be a reserve while she was still alive to enjoy it. Forgive me if I see an element of selfishness in her bequest.’

  ‘She wasn’t selfish!’

  ‘She certainly wasn’t perfect. Where the hell are you going?’

  ‘Up to the house,’ Sanchia said, stone-faced. ‘I’ll collect my clothes and leave.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  CAID said between his teeth, ‘Running away, Sanchia?’

  Each contemptuous word flicked across her raw nerves. ‘I’ve got nothing more to say to you,’ she retorted stiffly.

  His lashes drooped to half cover his eyes; he scanned her face then dropped his gaze to her breasts for a searing moment. To her furious embarrassment the centres peaked, thrusting through the thin material of her bathing suit.

  At least he didn’t say anything beyond, ‘You’re starting to burn. Come up to the house.’

  In taut silence they walked up the cliff path. On the terrace he said, ‘Come down to the office with me, please.’ A flinty undernote revealed it to be an order, not the request he’d couched it as.

  ‘Certainly,’ she said with stoic calmness.

  The office was immaculate. An organised man, she thought ironically; she tended to be a piles-on-the-floor sort of person. In the corner a computer hummed, and as Caid closed the door after her the fax grumbled to indicate a message coming through.

  He didn’t even look at the paper feeding out of the machine. Stopping her with a hand on her arm, he tipped her chin up with a ruthless hand, his eyes scanning her face. ‘Why didn’t you tell me what you planned to do with the Bay?’

  She froze. How could she say that she hadn’t wanted to spoil their fragile relationship? He’d laugh, because what sort of relationship did they have? She loved him while he merely wanted her—hardly anything to build dreams on.

  ‘I knew how you’d feel,’ she said curtly. ‘I didn’t need the aggravation.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘I suppose you hoped to organise the whole thing behind my back.’

  Shame burned her skin.

  ‘You wouldn’t have got away with it,’ he said coolly, ‘because Pat would have told me what you were up to. As for hoping that sleeping with me would stop me from objecting—you don’t know me very well, Sanchia, if you really believed that.’

  Long fingers wrapped gently around her throat. Angry and ashamed, she looked up into hooded, dangerous eyes.


  ‘I didn’t believe it,’ she said through clenched teeth.

  ‘You resented it when you thought I was trying to bribe you. I don’t bribe either,’ he said, and claimed her mouth in a simple, straightforward, lustful kiss, possessive and territorial, that smashed all Sanchia’s carefully built defences.

  This would be their last kiss and, by heaven, she’d make sure he never forgot it! Leaning into him until they were pressed hip to hip, thigh to thigh, she surrendered a mouth as hungry as his. A wild, reckless joy rocketed through her. Kissing Caid was like the promise of water in the desert, like the cloud on the horizon that whispers of an island after unbearable days at sea…

  Although she wanted nothing more than to yield entirely, eventually she twisted her head away to break the contact, forcing the hands that had clamped across his broad back down to her sides.

  When his arms tightened she looked at him with a blank stare and a cold, composed face. ‘I’m not going to prostitute myself again,’ she said bleakly. Let him think what he liked!

  Such anger darkened his eyes that her heart compressed into a dense ball. She heard a low curse in Greek, and tore her gaze from a face as hard as granite.

  Watching her through his lashes with dangerous intentness, vivid eyes glittering with a palpable aura of menace, he said, ‘I’ll tell my mother that you’ve decided to go home.’

  Straightening her spine, reinforcing bones that had melted, she said proudly, ‘I’ll pack now.’

  How ironic that she could only fulfil her promise to her aunt by ruining her relationship with Caid!

  An hour later, driving south along the hot, holiday-clogged roads in her small, hot car, Sanchia smiled bitterly. What relationship? ‘Sex,’ she said out loud, taking evasive action as some halfwit cut in front of her.

  At least Caid had been honest—he’d never hinted at anything more.

  And for her it had begun as an obsession born of overheated adolescent dreams, then somehow been transformed into love—simple, straightforward, so wonderful that it broke her heart. Hopeless…