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She paused, her square chin lifting a fraction. ‘What’s the going rate for an option?’
A dollar.
Negligently, his tone casual and off-hand, he mentioned a sum of money—enough, he guessed, to give her a considerable jolt.
She took her time to answer, turning her head to survey the beach. A neat profile, but not exactly beautiful, not even pretty, although her features were fine and regular. Caid had always liked cool, restrained women, but what stirred his hormones when he looked at Sanchia Smith was the repressed passion he knew existed beneath that reserve.
With her black hair shimmering around her shoulders, pale, translucent skin and a mouth that had summoned forbidden fantasies, she’d always looked fey, enchanted—like a perilously exotic woman from the ancient fairy stories. Now, in old shorts, and a damp T-shirt moulded to small, high, tantalising breasts, that potent, sensuous bloom had turned into something that caught his breath.
Caid found himself wondering if she was still a virgin. It didn’t seem likely, and why should he care? He’d never demanded virginity from his lovers.
God, what the hell was he thinking? This was business, not sex! Get your mind, he commanded grimly, above your belt.
It was impossible to tell what was going on inside her head until in a crisp, no-nonsense voice, she said, ‘That’s a lot of money for nothing.’
Something in her tone, in her square shoulders and tilted chin, reminded Caid of the teenager who’d looked past him and through him, over him and around him—anywhere but at him. Need burning in his gut, he heard her say, ‘I’ll sign an option if it will make you happy, but I’m still not selling.’
An X-rated fantasy of her making him happy, in full colour and with sound and kinaesthetic effects, blocked Caid’s thought processes. Angry at the effort it took to reimpose control, he said curtly, ‘Think it over before you make a decision.’
‘I don’t need to think anything over because I’ve already made the decision.’
At last she turned towards him, face shuttered against him as she waited for him to go. For a split second he toyed with the idea of helping her unpack, but much more of this and his clamouring body would betray him.
‘I’ll bring the papers down this evening,’ he said.
No doubt, Sanchia thought, you didn’t get to be a big-time tycoon unless you were prepared for everything. ‘You travel with option forms?’ she asked ironically. ‘It’s the holidays, if you remember, and every solicitor in New Zealand is at the beach until at least halfway through January.’
‘I always have options,’ he said. Some underlying note in his voice caught her attention as he finished crisply, ‘So I’ll see you tonight.’
CHAPTER TWO
SANCHIA stood motionless until Caid’s imperious presence had disappeared into the green gloom of the pohutukawa trees. Expelling her breath with a whoosh that spun her brain, she muttered, ‘Oh, hell!’
It had been too much to hope fate would make sure their visits to the Bay didn’t coincide.
With jerky, abrupt movements she bent to haul the nearest carton out of the car, fighting a powerful, irresistible tug at her senses. One look at Caid and it had all come pouring back—the heady, dangerous compound of desire and longing and abject, hidden terror.
As she walked across the grass to the bach and dumped the groceries down on the lid of the gumboot box she thought stoutly that she was better able to deal with it now than three years ago.
She unlocked the door, stepping back as a wave of hot, stale air fell out of the building. Did he still want her? Her mouth twisted sardonically. Why should he, when he could have his pick of the most beautiful, sophisticated, suitable women in the world? He’d certainly taken his time about looking her over, but that meant nothing.
Was he paying me back? she wondered, picking up the carton. I don’t suppose many women have said no to Caid Hunter. Perhaps he was trying for a little revenge?
After setting the box onto the kitchen bench she opened up the bach, turning on the power, switching on the gas so that she’d have hot water, fiercely quelling a fresh surge of grief when she pushed back the bifold doors. A fresh, salt-scented breeze curled up from the beach, brushing away the mustiness.
Her breasts lifted as she breathed in and out several times; she stared straight ahead, but after a few moments realised that her gaze had wandered stealthily to the roof of the Hunter house above its sheltering trees. If she craned her neck she could see the edge of the wide terrace overlooking the sea.
Nothing had changed; she still responded to Caid’s powerful physical presence with all the poise and control of a kid in an ice cream shop. ‘So why stand here mooning over him?’ she asked the unresponsive air before stalking inside.
When the car had been emptied and her bed made up, when she’d revived the bach again with the small domestic sound of the refrigerator, when the last trace of dust had been scoured away and she’d showered herself clean of sweat and grime, she drank two glasses of water and made a salad sandwich, following its green and gold crispness with coffee.
Only then did she feel able to walk out onto the wide wooden deck, cross the lawn and stop in the dense shade of the pohutukawa trees.
Because a late, cool spring had delayed their flowering, crimson bunches of silk floss still burst from furry, silver buds to smother the leathery leaves.
Caid had kissed her for the first time under this one.
Pain twisted inside her. Leaning her hot forehead against the rough bark, she imagined that she could feel an old, old life-force slowly, inexorably, sweeping through the wood. How many times had she seen her great-aunt stand like that, drawing strength from a tree?
There was no comfort for Sanchia; nevertheless she faced the future with a bleak, driven determination. Great-Aunt Kate had trusted her to carry out a mission.
A heat haze shimmered over the sand, the dancing air lending an oddly eerie atmosphere to the classic New Zealand holiday scene—white beach, a cobalt sea intensifying to brilliant kingfisher-blue on the horizon, and a summer coast of bays and headlands, cliffs and harbours, swathed in carmine and scarlet and crimson.
Setting her jaw, Sanchia turned and walked across the springy grass towards the steep hill behind the bay, following a hint of a path beneath the trees. To the fading sound of the waves, she stepped lightly, cautiously, like an intruder.
Another ancient pohutukawa hugged a grassy knoll on the boundary between her aunt’s land and the Hunter property, and each winter thousands of monarch butterflies found their way back to the tree to doze in the Northland sun along its sheltering branches, drinking from the tiny stream in the gully. Drowsy, almost immobile, they dreamed the winter away.
A few were still there, gorgeous, graceful things in their livery of orange and black. She stood for long moments watching, remembering.
The year she’d turned sixteen she’d noticed the pitiable flapping of a butterfly drowning in the creek. Still unsure of her suddenly longer legs, she’d raced down the hill to its rescue, landed awkwardly on a stone and wrenched her ankle.
Caid had found her sitting on the bank with the butterfly drying on her finger. Carefully, gently, he’d coaxed the bold orange and black insect from her hand to his, and transported it to a branch. Once he was sure it was going to be all right, he’d ignored her protests, scooped her up and carried her back to the bach.
She couldn’t recall breathing or talking until he’d deposited her in a deckchair. Now she wondered whether it had been his complete lack of reaction to her, his lazy amusement and casual friendliness that had persuaded her to trust him five years later.
Or perhaps it had been the feel of his arms, the steady, amazing strength that had seemed so effortless…
‘Interesting how much more wary these butterflies are than the ones that over-winter,’ a voice drawled from the other side of the fence.
Flinching, Sanchia whirled to face Caid. ‘Next time make a noise,’ she retorted curtly, then bit her tongue, aware of her rudeness—and the susceptibility it didn’t hide.
His black brows lifted. ‘Certainly,’ he said, a note of mockery underlining his words. Casual shorts and a T-shirt as black as his hair failed to strip him of that cool, powerful authority.
Glad she’d replaced her sunglasses, she muttered, ‘I’m sorry, but you gave me a start. It’s uncanny the way you sneak around.’
‘Sneak?’ His sculpted mouth twisted in irony. ‘I resent that. If my presence disturbs you so much I’ll whistle whenever I think you might be in the vicinity. You don’t want to hear me sing.’
‘Why not?’ He had a marvellous speaking voice, deep and exciting, a voice that reached right inside and…
Sanchia stifled that train of thought.
‘I can’t carry a tune,’ he told her cheerfully.
‘Oh.’ Her doubtful glance caught his smile. Because it stirred up emotions she’d tried very hard to forget, she said hastily, ‘I wonder why these butterflies stay here?’
‘They’re foolish and frivolous. Any prudent, farsighted monarch is in a garden somewhere, mating, and laying eggs to continue the species; these ones are wasting the summer heat.’
There was no suggestiveness in his words, yet her spine tingled.
‘Perhaps they sense there’s still time,’ she parried. Disturbed by his narrow-eyed focus on the hair around her shoulders, she pushed the dark cloud back, holding it behind her head with one hand.
Caid said, ‘A wise butterfly takes its chances quickly. You never know when a cyclone might hurtle down from the tropics.’ He spoke lightly, as though the words meant nothing, but his glance settled on her mouth.
Sanchia felt the resonance of a hidden meaning. A forbidden sensation exploded in the pit of her stomach. Taking three quick steps into the sombre shade of the tree, she said, ‘Cyclones are very occasional events here. The butterflies have plenty of time to enjoy themselves and still fulfil their evolutionary duty. Besides, it might be a ploy on nature’s part to fill a gap. If they do their egg-laying late in the season the eggs mightn’t be eaten by wasps.’
‘There are always predators.’
Sanchia’s skin contracted as though some of the chilling certainty in his tone had been translated into physical existence. They seemed to be conducting another conversation beneath the words, one depending on feelings and a ferocious physical awareness for its subtext.
Lightly she said, ‘So your advice to the young butterfly is to grab every chance? Could be dangerous.’
‘Life’s dangerous. And butterflies could die at any time.’
Sanchia bit her lip, heard a soft oath and the sudden creak of the boundary fence as Caid swung over it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said abruptly, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder. ‘That was clumsy and obtuse of me.’
His touch exploded through her like wildfire, dangerous, beautiful, filled with a hazardous lure.
‘It’s all right,’ she mumbled. ‘It wasn’t you—or what you said. It just comes over in waves.’
‘I know.’ Strange that the textures of warmth and harshness were mingled in his voice. He lifted a hand to trace the trickle of a tear just below her sunglasses.
Sanchia’s jerk was instinctive but the imprint of his long, lean fingers, tanned and graceful, burned into her skin as his hand fell to his side. She looked up and saw his beautiful mouth harden as he stepped back, giving her space to breathe.
‘Great-Aunt Kate used to love summer,’ she said, knowing it sounded like a peace offering.
He nodded. ‘I remember her swimming every day, and striding along the beach in the morning looking like some ancient, vital nature spirit. She had such guts, such zest.’
‘She didn’t take any nonsense,’ Sanchia said, her heart clenching, ‘and she was brusque and sensible and plain-spoken, but she was infinitely kind.’
‘You’ve never told me how you came to live with her,’ he said neutrally.
‘It’s a long story.’
‘And one you don’t want to talk about.’ Gleaming blue eyes examined her from beneath thick, straight black lashes.
His words challenged her into revealing more than she intended. ‘My parents died when I was twelve and I had to live with my mother’s sister. She was younger than my mother, and she didn’t like spoilt kids—’ and oh, was that ever an understatement! ‘—so after—after a while I ran away. Great-Aunt Kate found me and brought me here, and we worked out a system of living together.’
It had taken a lot of patience and love from a woman already elderly, a lot of effort on both their parts, and almost a year for Sanchia to learn to trust again.
‘I remember when she brought you here,’ Caid said unexpectedly. ‘You were a tall, skinny kid, all arms and legs with hair that floated like spun silk behind you when you ran. That first summer I don’t think I heard you speak, let alone laugh. My mother worried about you.’
Startled, Sanchia said, ‘Did she? That was kind of her.’
‘Mmm. She’s a very kind woman.’ He ran a forefinger down Sanchia’s arm. Fire followed the light, swift touch.
He knew it too. In a voice that hovered on the border of amusement, he said, ‘You’re hot. I’ll walk you home.’
She didn’t want him back at the bach; struck by inspiration, she countered, ‘Why don’t we go via your place and I’ll sign that option? Then you won’t have to bring it down tonight.’
His mouth curved. ‘Why not? Can I help you over the fence?’
She flashed him a look. ‘No, thanks. I haven’t forgotten how to climb a fence.’
Although under his eye she fumbled it, landing too heavily on the other side.
‘My mother worried about you,’ Caid explained, swinging over with a sure male grace, ‘because she has a strong maternal streak. It’s wasted with only me to lavish it on—she should have had ten kids. You reassured her the following summer when you’d grown a few inches, and we heard you laughing and saw that you were very fond of your great-aunt.’
‘I didn’t think you noticed us much,’ Sanchia said, starting jerkily down the mown track.
Black brows shot up. ‘I noticed you.’ Watchful eyes beneath lowered lashes should have given him a sleepy air. They did nothing of the sort; the half-closed lids intensified both the colour and the speculation in his gaze.
Sanchia lifted her brows in return. With a composed, polite smile she replied, ‘You were busy with your friends, and we hardly ever saw you except when you were sailing or water-skiing or windsurfing, or having a party on the beach.’
She’d seen him enough to fuel some heated fantasies, however! Innocent daydreams—a kid’s crush without the heavy, hard beat of dangerous sexuality that pulsed through her now. That had come later.
The path dived in under the trees, releasing them into welcome shade. Apart from an early cicada strumming his strident little guitar, the foliage muffled and deadened sounds, cocooning them in a heavy, pressing silence.
Caid’s lashes drooped even further. His mouth, an intoxicating combination of power and classical lines, curved. ‘So you ignored us. How unflattering—especially as I was very aware of you,’ he said softly. ‘The first thing I used to do each summer was to impress on my friends that you were absolutely, totally out of bounds, and that if anybody made even a token gesture towards you I’d personally dismember him.’
Sanchia’s mouth dropped open; his tone rearranged the cells in her spine, turning them into jelly.
‘How kind,’ she said, resisting the desire to lick suddenly dry lips. Humiliatingly, the thought of Caid warning off his friends appalled her yet sent shivery, sneaky frissons of excitement through her.
Rallying, she went on, ‘The best sort of big brother—an unknown one.’
‘Yes,’ Caid said easily. ‘It wasn’t so bad until you turned sixteen and developed a figure like a supermodel—the year you hurt your ankle rescuing a butterfly, if you remember. Then I had to get very heavy. So did my mother.’
‘I’m so grateful,’ Sanchia said, striving for a brisk, matter-of-fact tone. Unfortunately she couldn’t stop herself from continuing with the faintest snap, ‘It sounds as though you kept a close eye on me.’
From the corners of her eyes she caught the flash of white teeth in a satirical smile. Infuriated, she stared stonily ahead.
‘Only at the beginning of each summer,’ he said, and added outrageously, ‘To check up on progress, you understand.’
Sanchia snorted.
With infuriating amusement he went on, ‘And then, three years ago, when you came back after university, I discovered you’d more than fulfilled all that coltish promise.’
He was using his voice as an instrument of seduction; its deep timbre and intriguing hint of an accent stroked along her nerves with the sensuous nap of velvet, at once caressing and stimulating.
How many women had lost their heads when he spoke to them like that? Dozens!
‘I—remember,’ she said foolishly, unnerved enough to miss seeing a large spider-web hanging from a manuka branch until it clung to her face, its panicked occupant racing towards the branch in a tangle of black legs.
Sanchia hurled herself sideways, her foot twisting over a root as she cannoned into the man beside her. ‘Sorry!’ she gasped, clutching instinctively at solid muscle.
Caid moved with lethal speed, his strong hands clamping onto her arms, wrenching her away from him as he hauled her upright. When he saw she wasn’t going to fall, he wiped the remnants of the web from her cheek with a sure, gentle touch.
Her breath turned into lead in her chest; her gaze clung to the prominent framework of his face, the potent mouth. Although her hands were empty she could still feel his hot, fine-grained skin searing her palms.
‘Is the spider all right?’ she asked breathlessly.
His hand stilled; she looked up to meet incredulous eyes. Some small part of her brain realised dimly that they were standing a few centimetres apart, his blue gaze fencing with hers through the protective mask of her sunglasses. Pinned by those molten eyes, by his grip, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and her body sang an irrational song of feverish, primal need.
‘The spider?’ he asked harshly.
When she nodded he gave a hard, humourless laugh. ‘Why don’t you look for yourself?’
Sanchia froze as he whipped off her sunglasses, stepped back and released her, his face impassive.
She forced her glance past him and said, ‘Oh, the spider’s fine. P-probably cursing clumsy p-passers-by.’
With any luck Caid would think it was the close encounter with the spider that pitched her voice too high and caused that betraying hesitation.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked curtly.
She made herself breathe. ‘Yes. Sorry. I hate spider-webs on my face.’ It was all she could trust herself to say because her voice sounded as though it was going to descend into an incoherent, humiliating babble.
‘You’ve experienced them often?’
‘When I ran away in Auckland, before Great-Aunt Kate found me, I slept in a park and one morning I woke with a web over my face.’ She shuddered. ‘I’d dreamed I was dead, and for some reason the web convinced me that it had really happened.’
He took his time about scanning her face. Dazed, she thought she could feel his survey like a laser across her skin.
‘That must have been an appalling experience,’ he said evenly, and smoothed the sweep of one cheekbone with a tantalising thumb.
Fire and ice combined in that touch—at once smooth and abrasive, light yet sinking down into the very centre of her bones.
Summoning every ounce of will, Sanchia stepped back and muttered, ‘As you saw, I still get a bit spooked by them,’ and turned to blunder down the path.
From behind he asked, ‘Don’t you want your sunglasses?’
‘Oh.’ She stopped and held out her hand. ‘Thank you.’
His smile as he handed them over told her that he expected her to stuff them back on. It was exactly what she wanted to do, hide behind them. Why on earth had she blurted out that grisly little experience in the park?
Gritting her teeth, she clutched the sunglasses in hand as she set off again. She was going to have to watch her disconcerting tendency to confide in him.
Caid rejoined her silently, a little too closely because the path was narrow. His bare arm brushed hers, and a bolt of electricity sizzled through her.
‘What have you been doing these past few years?’ he asked. He spoke in a calm, unhurried voice, as though nothing had happened.
Because nothing had. ‘I’ve got a job at one of the technical colleges in Auckland—in a faculty office.’
He frowned. ‘Why didn’t you use your degree? I know you didn’t want to teach, but people with Asian languages are in high demand all around the Pacific Rim.’
He’d taken two degrees at the same time, a high-powered commerce one and law. Sanchia shrugged. ‘I discovered I had nothing much to offer an employer so I took a computer skills course and was lucky enough to find a clerk’s job.’
‘And is that what you are now?’
‘No,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ve advanced a couple of steps.’ And planned on advancing a lot more.
His keen look indicated that he’d picked up the ambition that fired her. ‘Are you enjoying it?’
‘Very much. Students from all over Asia study there so I’m picking up a good grounding in several other languages. And as I get free tuition I’m working my way through management qualifications.’
The path led to a small gate behind the Hunter house. The thinning trees allowed light to blaze down in golden medallions through the leaves. Caid reached past her and opened the gate, standing back to let her go through first.
Relieved, Sanchia donned her sunglasses as they walked out into the sun’s full power and crossed the closely mown lawn. It looked, she thought, trying hard to be dispassionate, like a picture in an expensive magazine. Shaved green lawn, gardens in full summer array, the house shaded by pergolas, and on two sides the glamour of the sea.
And the man beside her, as handsome as any model she’d ever seen in a magazine and infinitely more formidable. She said clumsily, ‘I should have worn a hat.’
‘You should. That milky skin must burn like tinder.’ Intolerable as the heat from a furnace, his glance touched her bare arms, her face.
‘Everybody burns in this sun,’ she returned swiftly.
Although he probably didn’t—he had his mother’s built-in golden tan along with her black, black hair. Sometimes when he spoke Sanchia could hear Mrs Hunter in a certain intonation, an un-English arrangement of words.
Quickly, before he could give her another of those intimidating looks, Sanchia added, ‘I slather myself with sunscreen every time I go out.’
‘Good. Skin like yours should be cherished.’ Again that cynical, caressing note in his voice mocked the compliment.
Irritated by her heated, mindless response, she said shortly, ‘All skin should be cherished.’
‘No doubt, but yours is a work of art.’
‘Thank you,’ Sanchia replied tautly.
Did he hope that a meaningless flirtation would persuade her to sell Waiora Bay? No, that instant physical response was real enough, and she wasn’t the only one feeling it.
But he could well intend to use it as a weapon.
Side by side they walked into the welcome coolness of a creeper-shaded terrace. Sanchia’s sandals clicked on the ceramic tiles as she followed him between loungers and chairs towards a wall of pushed-back glass doors.
‘Come in,’ Caid told her, standing back so she could go before him into the big sitting room beyond.
Sanchia had never forgotten the atmosphere of casual elegance, of European glamour and comfort that permeated Caid’s house. Reluctantly, feeling she was yielding an advantage, she removed the sunglasses and, without giving herself time to harness the clutch of bumblebees in her stomach, said, ‘I’m not open to persuasion on the future of the Bay.’ Fixing her gaze on a blur of flowers in a magnificent vase, she underlined her statement as delicately as she could. ‘It will probably save a lot of time and useless manoeuvring if I tell you that you won’t coax Great-Aunt Kate’s estate from me.’