A Reluctant Mistress

‘You have been talking,’ she said with a false brightness.

That aloof, tilted smile scorched through to her toes. ‘And I didn’t even have to initiate it. The tango you did with the boyfriend was blatant enough to catch everyone’s eye. People were only too eager to talk about you.’

Oh, I’ll just bet they were, she thought bitterly. She fought with temptation, but it wasn’t fair to embroil Greg in this. ‘Greg’s a friend—almost a brother—not a boyfriend.’

Dark, straight brows lifted. ‘That wasn’t what I heard. They were close to taking bets on how long it would take him to get you into bed. Apparently he’s been trying for years.’

Grittily, her eyes sparking, she said, ‘I’m sorry that men I’ve known and respected for years should be dirty-minded, lying rumour-mongers.’

Although he laughed, no humour glinted in his eyes. ‘It’s a human prerogative to be envious of those younger and better-looking, and to wish young women a happy marriage. Especially when the two they’re talking about are practically making love on the dance floor.’

‘Greg and I were spoofing that tango—as I’m sure everyone else but you realised. And the next time the subject arises,’ she said between her teeth, ‘you can tell them from me that I have no intention of marrying anyone. If I ever decide to, I’ll send a notice to the local newspaper.’

Beneath her hand his shoulder went taut. She felt heat, and a purely male power, and a threat, but his voice was cool and self-contained as he said, ‘There won’t be a next time. At least not while I’m around.’

‘Why?’

He looked over her head, the arrogant features uncompromising. ‘Because I indicated that I don’t find that sort of speculation interesting.’

‘So they just shut up,’ she said with sweet cynicism. ‘How wonderful to have that sort of authority.’

His smile was formidable. ‘You’ve got an acid tongue. I like that.’

Shrugging, Natalia turned her head away and closed her eyes. Just once—just for a moment—she’d allow herself the illusion that she was safe and protected and in good hands. The green, glittering mask concealed her emotions; no one would know she was listening to the driving beat of Clay’s heart, responding helplessly to the strength of his big body against her, breathing in his faint, purely masculine scent.

Neither spoke until the music stopped.

‘I’ll follow you home,’ Clay said as they made their way across the floor.

Natalia bestowed a glittering smile on her old school fellow and his possessive wife. ‘That’s not necessary, thank you.’

‘Possibly not,’ Clay agreed with an infuriating inflexibility, ‘but I’ll do it nevertheless.’

After saying goodbye and thanking her hosts, after arranging a time to get together before Liz left for Oxford, after defiantly accepting Greg’s kiss goodnight, Natalia drove her small utility truck carefully away in procession with fifty or so other vehicles. Most of them eventually turned towards Bowden, but one stayed behind her all the way to the intersection of the main highway and the corrugated gravel road that led to her patch of land, and ultimately to Pukekahu.

The dipped lights in her mirror made her jittery. When at last the Xanadu gateway came into view, Natalia put on her indicator and ducked down the drive, glad that she’d left the gate open.

Puddles shone ahead, eerily reflecting the headlights back at her like a series of tiny fallen moons. She knew where the potholes were, but the man who followed her didn’t. Hiding a kick of nervousness with a muttered curse, she stopped outside the big shed that acted as a garage.

The car behind stopped; telling herself she was being an idiot, Natalia banged down the lock on the truck door and waited with her hand hovering over the horn, eyes stretched almost painfully as Clay’s tall figure unfolded from the car.

Her breath whooshed through suddenly relaxed lips. Quickly she unlocked the door and opened it. ‘Why did you follow me in?’ she asked, trying to rein in a swift, unusual fury.

‘Because I wanted to,’ he said caustically, and shocked her by lifting her down.

Alarmed at the strength of the hands that bit into her waist, she grabbed his shoulders to steady herself. Beneath the black cashmere of his dinner jacket she felt muscles curl and flex. He suddenly seemed very large and far too strong. ‘Thank you,’ she said in a brittle, tense voice.

He settled her on to her feet and let her go. ‘I’ll go in with you.’

‘Thank you again, but I really don’t need you to see me to my door.’

‘I don’t see how you’re going to stop me.’

Now was the time to finish this once and for all. Trying to sound both patient and composed, she said, ‘Clay, I’m sorry if the very light flirtation we indulged in made you hopeful of going to bed with me tonight, but I don’t do one-night stands—’

‘That “light flirtation”,’ he interrupted with nervetightening self-assurance, ‘was a pleasant, mildly exciting preliminary. As you’re being so frank, let me tell you that when we make love it won’t be a one-night stand. I want you, and I know perfectly well that you want me.’

‘How do you know?’ she blustered, his blunt statement exploding an unbidden, erotic charge in the pit of her stomach.

Pale light from the hidden moon sifted through the thick cloud pall, revealing the forceful angles and planes of his face. Clay’s mouth twisted into a smile; Natalia was already stepping back when he caught her wrist and pulled her against him; still holding her wrist, he bent his head. Unerringly his mouth found hers, shaped it to his own.

Made prisoner by the firmness of his mouth, its warmth, its hunger, Natalia sank into suffocating, humiliating need. Her lips softened, parted slightly in the signal of surrender—and Clay straightened.

‘That’s how,’ he said levelly.

Shame washed the heat and carnality out of her, stiffened her spine, hardened her resolve. ‘Clay, I’m not getting involved with you.’

Against the heavy, turbulent sky she saw his head move. Panic warred with exhilaration. More than anything else in the world she wanted him to kiss her again, and that terrified her. She’d never felt like this before, as though everything she’d built her life on was worth nothing without Clay’s kisses.

Staring up at him like a terrorised rabbit, she shivered.

‘What the hell are we doing sniping at each other in the cold?’ he demanded, exasperation sharpening his tone. ‘Get inside—it’s going to rain any minute.’

Summoning her dignity, Natalia pivoted on her high-heeled sandals and stalked ahead of him through the gate, past the daphne bush her mother had planted and the ghostly heads of the luculia, their scents mingling in a glorious combination of musk and citrus on the damp, cool air.

At the front door she took out the key and turned to say meticulously, ‘Thank you for seeing me home.’

‘I’ll wait here until you’ve checked the place,’ he said inflexibly.

No doubt she should be grateful he didn’t insist on doing it himself! Switching on the light inside the door, she marched stiffly down the short hall.

When she returned a few minutes later he was looking out over her small domain; although she’d walked quietly, he swung around before she got to the door.

Natalia’s eyes widened. He’d taken off his mask, as had she. His potent male mystery and glamour should have departed with it, but Clay Beauchamp’s magnificent bone structure gave him a fierce, elemental beauty that was dramatised dynamic power. Natalia had to keep her hands by her sides to stop them from exploring the thin scar reaching from his jaw to the tip of his right eyebrow.

‘I’d expected to be disappointed,’ he said, his magnetic gaze raking her face.

She forced her dazed eyes to gaze levelly at him, forced her unwilling mouth into a taunting smile. ‘And do you like what you see, now the mask is gone?’

‘You lovely witch,’ he said, his voice deep and smoky. ‘We’ve a long way to go before all the masks are off. But it’s going to happen. Sleep as badly as I’m going to.’

He turned his back on her and walked away. Swallowing to ease an arid throat, Natalie stared after him. He had the ideal male form—triangular torso, long, strong-muscled legs, and that steady pace, lazily menacing as a panther’s predatory prowl. At the gate he turned and lifted his hand in a wave that was probably an exercise in sarcasm.

Nerves jumping, she waited until she heard the car start, then slammed the door and stood with her hands clenched until the sound of the engine had died into a silence unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

Shouting meaty, satisfying oaths at the Hereford steer as it ambled carelessly through the teatree and gorse, Natalia dragged black, sticky strands of hair back from her hot face.

‘And stay off my property, or I’ll kill you for dog tucker,’ she finished with vindictive venom, mopping her forehead on the sleeve of her faded T-shirt.

‘If you kept your fences in better repair it wouldn’t be able to wander.’

The crisp male voice had her whirling around to see Clay Beauchamp dismounting from a horse in one swift, easy movement. Why ride a horse nowadays when farm bikes were a much more efficient way of getting around rural New Zealand? Tall, so big he almost blotted out a couple of tree ferns and a gorse bush, he strode towards her, his angular, autocratic face amused as he looked down his nose at her.

His amusement set tinder to her already explosive temper. Unwisely, she returned, ‘Why should I look after your fence? My livestock don’t wander.’ Fairness compelled her to add, ‘And neither do yours, except for this blasted wretch. It keeps breaking in and eating the capsicums. It’s smashed through my electric fences more times than I can count.’

The aristocratic amusement vanished; Clay said abruptly, ‘A new fence will be up shortly.’

‘Good. Until then, keep that damn steer off my land or I’ll shoot it,’ Natalia snapped.

Furious with herself for losing control, she turned to make her way across the small swamp that marked the boundary between Xanadu and Pukekahu. Sweat blinded her, sweat and anger and frustration. The steer had pushed its way into a tunnel-house and that long pink tongue had ruined too many plants.

But, however angry she’d been, she shouldn’t have shouted at Clay. It wasn’t his fault that one steer had damaged the tunnel-house—and she certainly couldn’t blame him for the state of the boundary fence, because it was Dean Jamieson who’d systematically stripped Pukekahu of every asset and refused to spend a cent on the station.

She’d made an idiot of herself.

An insect came barrelling at her, a tiny, threatening missile in the sunshine. Dread kicked in her stomach; she leaped sideways, landed in muddy water with one ankle twisted beneath her, and fell on to her knees with a yelp as pain pierced the skin of her bare arm.

‘What the hell is the matter with you?’ Hands wrenched her to her feet, jerked her out of the water and hauled her across to dry land. Setting her on her feet, Clay demanded harshly, ‘What is it?’

‘Only a bee-sting,’ she gasped, looking at the poison sac left in her arm. He moved, she thought dazedly, very fast for such a big man.

‘You’re allergic to them?’

‘No.’ She dragged in a deep breath and squared her shoulders, forced herself to meet frowning tawny-gold eyes. ‘I’m allergic to wasps,’ she said succinctly. ‘That’s what I thought the bee was—and when it stung me I realised I’d come without my pills.’

Before she’d finished speaking Clay had taken a pocket knife from his hip pocket and opened it. She barely had time to register the cold steel sliding along her heated skin before he’d flicked the poison sac free. Another movement, and she watched, shivering, as the blade was folded back, the knife returned to its place.

‘Careless of you, wasn’t it?’ Clay said pleasantly, black brows lifting.

Natalia had as little liking as anyone for being called foolish, but he was right. In early winter most wasps were slow and easily seen, but the newly mated queens could be aggressive. She’d been lucky this time; normally she wouldn’t have set foot outside the house without her pills.

‘Very,’ she said coolly. ‘But I was too busy getting rid of the steer trashing the tunnel-house to think about wasps.’

Eyes the golden-brown of topaz examined her, travelling from her tangle of curls to her wide, green eyes, and then on to her mouth. His smile acknowledged ivory skin and soft red lips, the female desirability of a body honed by hard work.

It was a purely sexual appraisal, and it was done with every intention to intimidate. Natalia’s skin tightened as more adrenaline surged through her bloodstream, quickening her breath. I don’t need this, she thought savagely, stepping away.

‘Thank you for picking me up,’ she said in aloof dismissal. ‘I’ll be all right now.’

‘You don’t want a ride home?’

Natalia glanced at the patiently waiting horse. Mellow sunlight washed over its black hide. Had Clay chosen the horse to go with his hair?

‘No, thank you,’ she said, and turned her back on man and horse. Stiff-spined, she walked up the hill, bristling under that golden predatory scrutiny until she reached sanctuary in the native bush cloaking the hillside.

Only then did she relax, her breath whistling out between dry lips. If he’d slept as badly as she had, he’d have been sluggish too. Instead, he’d shown her up as a clumsy, forgetful idiot. Why did he have to buy the place next door? It infuriated her that she was totally unable to deal with a man who exuded sex and authority from every pore of that big, lithe, graceful body.

OK, so she’d responded to it. And, yes, her nostrils still quivered at the faint male scent she’d registered when he’d carried her across the swamp, and her skin felt oddly tender where he’d grabbed her.

However, she knew how little it meant. A mixture of attractive packaging and pheromones—abetted by some elemental treachery in the female psyche—had stirred her hormones, but she wasn’t going to surrender to them again. Dean Jamieson had taught her a lesson she wouldn’t forget—she was no more immune to masculine charisma than any other woman of twenty-three.

However, she had more pressing things to do than worry about Clay Beauchamp. Fixing the gap in the electric fence, for one.

It turned out to be one of those days. While the steer had been satisfying its appetite for capsicums it had smashed a vital piece of the hydroponic watering system. Not only that—until she could afford to replace the broken piece, Natalia would have to get up every two hours during the night to check the tunnel-house.

She toyed with the idea of billing Clay Beauchamp; the only thing that stopped her was that he would be entirely within his rights to demand that she pay half the cost of fixing the boundary fence.

Her afternoon was cheered by a phone call from the local supermarket, asking for a couple of boxes of peppers. Whistling, she went out to pick and pack them, then headed off down the road in the truck.

Before she’d got off the gravel road an explosion like a rifle-shot and a sudden vicious yank on the steering wheel sent adrenaline pumping through her. Battling with the wheel, she managed to wrestle the runaway vehicle on to the grass verge and kill the engine.

‘What else?’ she muttered as she got out, hiding her desperation with a ferocious frown.

Everything had been going so well until—until Clay Beauchamp arrived on the scene. He was turning out to be a bad luck charm. It figured, she thought sourly. Clay—what a ridiculous name! It was probably short for Clayton, only he didn’t look like a Clayton. He fitted Clay—or it fitted him; in spite of that worldly gloss he was elemental, earthy, primally male.

She knelt by the offending tyre, wincing at the strips of rubber shredded from it. Beyond prayer. Gravel bit into her knee; she got to her feet and brushed down her threadbare jeans.

Of course the spare wheel didn’t want to come out, and it was filthy. Pressing her lips together, Natalia tugged it free, coughing in the cloud of clinging road dust that accompanied it.

The sound of an engine coming fast made her start; infuriatingly, because normally she wasn’t clumsy, the wheel escaped through her hands and bounced on to the road too close to her feet. After an involuntary leap backwards she snatched at it, but had to watch helplessly as it rolled across the road towards the big burgundy car swinging around the corner.

CHAPTER THREE

CLAY applied the brakes, skilfully controlled the subsequent skid as the car fishtailed, then brought the vehicle to a halt just as the spare wheel hurtled into the driver’s door with jarring, bone-chilling noise. Watching it bounce off, Natalia felt sick.

The burgundy door opened and Clay emerged in a lethal, silent rush. As the wheel spun across the road and eventually fell, he demanded in a deep, raw voice, ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘I’m sorry—I dropped my spare wheel,’ Natalia told him crisply. Or as crisply as she could when her stomach was jumping like a just-caught marlin.

Clay’s mouth curved. ‘Really? Or did you throw it?’ he asked, his slow drawl a contrast to the swift assessment in his glance.

Stung, she said, ‘No. I don’t destroy things.’

He turned back to eye the dented and scratched paintwork of his indecently opulent BMW. Its value would probably wipe off her mortgage and leave some left over, she thought with a hard, rebellious defiance.

Envy was a lousy emotion, especially when it was mixed with self-pity, so she banished it.

‘My door doesn’t exactly look whole,’ he observed.

Natalia bit her lip. ‘It was an accident. I really am sorry. As you can see, I had a blow-out.’

‘I heard it, and thought some fool was shooting.’ He looked past her. ‘We’d better see whether your spare wheel came off better than my door.’

It hadn’t. Natalia stared down at what had been a reasonably good—if filthy—wheel, and the panic that had been building inside her surged to full, shattering fruition.

Clay indicated several dents and a split in the tyre. ‘You need a new one.’

She couldn’t afford a new one. Angling her chin, she lifted her eyes, only to feel something unnerving slither the length of her spine. He was looking at her with coolly acquisitive pleasure. Although his eyes were the same colour as topaz, they lacked the glitter of gems; instead the gleaming gold was speculative, almost lazy with the knowledge of strength and mastery. As her skin tightened, Natalia thought of lions, relaxed, indolent, deadly.

He said, ‘I’ll move my car off the road.’

A breeze swooped down from the hills, tossing a curl on to Natalia’s cheek. Her skin burned as she pushed the hair back with a shaking hand and watched him stride across the road.

Clay Beauchamp was just too much. The way he moved, the compelling aura around him, his very size—all reinforced the autocratic, controlled authority of his handsome face. How could she dislike him, yet be held captive by such a blind, unwilling fascination?

Seething at whatever malignant fate had tossed this series of disasters her way, she walked back to her truck and glowered at the burst tyre while Clay moved his car on to the grass. She didn’t turn as he came up behind her, and he made no noise, but she felt his presence like a shadow on her soul.

‘We’d better put those peppers into my boot,’ he said, ‘and I’ll take you wherever you want to deliver them.’

How she wished she could say loftily, Don’t bother, I can cope. But she couldn’t. The supermarket sourced most of its fruit and vegetables from the markets in Auckland; they used her because she was absolutely reliable and cheap. Glancing at her watch, she said unevenly, ‘I’m going to the supermarket, thank you.’

‘Do you want to take the wheel off the truck? The garage might have a tyre that will fit it.’

‘No, I’ll do that later—the supermarket wants the peppers now.’

‘All right. Lock up if you think it’s necessary. I’ll take the peppers across.’

She was behaving badly. It wasn’t Clay’s fault her tyre had burst, and he had offered her a lift. He had every right to be angry about the ding on his door, yet he hadn’t said anything.

Only what to him was a nuisance was for her a major setback. Not only did she have to buy an irrigation valve, but two new tyres and replace the buckled spare wheel. And the rates were due soon, not to mention the power and the phone bill…

And always—always her father’s debt.

At least her vegetable garden was flourishing, she thought mordantly, watching Clay put the boxes into the car boot. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt; when she saw how easily he picked up the spare wheel and put it in beside the capsicums something coiled within her, coiled lazily and slowly, and stretched, and flexed its claws…

Enough of that, she told herself sternly, and locked the truck before walking reluctantly across to his car.

‘Get in, Red Riding Hood,’ Clay Beauchamp commanded mockingly.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why Red Riding Hood?’

His rakish, too perceptive grin told her he’d seen her looking at him. ‘Because you’re accepting a ride with the wolf?’ he said, enough of a taunt in his tone to lift the hairs on her skin.

Natalia had no answer to that, so she took refuge in a shrug. ‘I’m more like the Wicked Witch of the West,’ she muttered, sliding into the front seat, glad of the mud clinging to the soles of her boots, glad that her jeans showed signs of contact with the road and the spare wheel. Let his expensive car learn what honest dirt was.

‘Where’s the supermarket?’ he asked as he turned the engine on.

It purred, and so, Natalia thought wearily, would any woman who felt his hands on her. Lean, competent, they looked vastly experienced, as though no place on a woman’s tender body would be safe from them—or immune. As she gave him directions that hidden hunger inside her stirred again, a repressed sweetness, slow as run honey, powerful and smooth as the best brandy, aching through her.

Why was she so susceptible to handsome men? Her high school boyfriend had been the best-looking boy in the district, and her physical response to Dean Jamieson had lured her close enough to be intrigued by his charm.

But her luck had held—just. Her heart had still been intact when she’d found out about his wife, and she’d turned her back on what could have turned into a messy, sordid affair. She’d emerged with her pride and her independence tarnished, but still intact.

So it was doubly ironic that the only other man who’d made an impression on her since then had also made a large dent in her pride—and was now threatening her independence.

Clay drew into the car park at the supermarket, and insisted on carrying the boxes of peppers inside.

‘I can do it,’ Natalia said, trying not to sound unappreciative. ‘They’re not heavy.’

‘It’s all right; I’m stronger than I look.’

Stressed, she walked beside him into the shop. ‘Thanks, Nat,’ the woman who ran the produce department said. She cast an appraising glance at Clay and smiled with genuine, startled admiration. ‘Just put them here, will you? The usual payment?’

‘Yes, that’s fine.’

Back at the car, Clay said, ‘I hope you get market prices. That’s good stuff you have there.’

Natalia said politely, ‘We have an arrangement that works well for both of us.’

The wide, arrogant mouth compressed a moment, then relaxed into a smile that almost seduced her into an answering one. Oh, he knew exactly what effect he had on a woman!

And why shouldn’t he? Clay Beauchamp probably had to chase glamorous women out of his wardrobe.

He said, ‘Where’s the garage?’

When they arrived he reached for the ruined spare wheel.

‘It’s dirty,’ Natalia said.

‘So?’ His voice had an edge to it. ‘I know what dirt is.’