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But the woman was not to be deterred. “She didn’t even look after Rafe—he had a nanny from the time he was born. His stepmother—the second Mrs Peveril—was very nice, but she couldn’t have children, so Rafe is an only child. Such a shame …”
Her voice trailed away when another customer entered the shop. Intensely relieved, Marisa grabbed the opportunity. “I’m pretty certain your granddaughter will love this, but if she doesn’t, come back with her and we’ll find something she does like.”
“That’s very kind of you,” the woman fluttered. “Thank you very much, my dear.”
The rest of the day was too busy for Marisa to think about what she’d heard, and once she’d closed the shop she walked along the street to the local after-school centre. She’d chosen Tewaka to settle in for various reasons, but that excellent care centre had been the clincher.
Her heart swelled at the grin from her son. “Hello, darling. How’s your day been?”
“Good,” he told her, beaming as he always did. To five-year-old Keir every day was good. How had Rafe Peveril’s days been after his mother had left?
Keir asked, “Did you have a good day too?”
She nodded. “Yes, a cruise ship—a really big one—came into the Bay of Islands, so I had plenty of customers.” And most had bought something.
Fishing around in his bag, Keir asked, “Can I go to Andy’s birthday party? Please,” he added conscientiously. “He gave me this today.” He handed over a somewhat crumpled envelope.
Taking it, she thought wryly that in a way it was a pity he’d settled so well. A sunny, confident boy, he’d made friends instantly and he was going to miss them when they left. “I’ll read it when we get home, but I don’t see any reason why not.”
He beamed again, chattering almost nonstop while they shopped in the supermarket. Marisa’s heart swelled, then contracted into a hard ball in her chest. Keir was her reason for living, the pivot of her life. His welfare was behind every decision she’d made since the day she’d realised she was pregnant.
No matter what it took, she’d make sure he had everything he needed to make him happy.
And that, she thought later after a tussle of wills had seen him into bed, included discipline.
Whatever else he missed out on, he had a mother who loved him. Which, if local gossip was anything to go by, was more than Rafe Peveril had had. He’d only been a year older than Keir when his mother had left.
She felt a huge compassion for the child he’d been. Had that first great desertion made him the tough, ruthless man he was now?
More than likely. But although the sad story gave her a whole new perspective on him, she’d be wise to remember she was dealing with the man he was now, not the small deserted boy he’d once been.
That night memories of his hard, speculative survey kept her awake. She hated to think of the way she’d been when she’d first met him—ground down into a grey shadow of a woman—and she’d been hugely relieved when he didn’t recognise her.
Images sharpened by a primitive fear flooded back, clear and savagely painful. Two years of marriage to David had almost crushed her.
If it hadn’t been for Rafe Peveril she’d probably still be on that lonely estancia in Mariposa, unable to summon the strength—or the courage, she thought with an involuntary tightening of her stomach muscles—to get away.
It had taken several years and a lot of effort to emerge from that dark world of depression and insecurity. Now she had the responsibility of her son, she’d never again trust herself to a man with an urge to dominate.
Twisting in her bed, she knew she wasn’t going to sleep. She had no camomile tea, but a cup of the peppermint variety might soothe her enough.
Even as she stood in the darkened kitchen of the little, elderly cottage she rented, a mug of peppermint tea in hand, she knew it wasn’t going to work. She grimaced as she gazed out into the summer night—one made for lovers, an evocation of all that was romantic, the moon’s silver glamour spreading a shimmering veil of magic over the countryside.
Bewildered by an inchoate longing for something unknown, something more—something primal and consuming and intense—she was almost relieved when hot liquid sloshed on to her fingers, jerking her back into real life.
Hastily she set the mug on the bench and ran cold water over her hand until the mild stinging stopped.
“That’s what you get for staring at the moon,” she muttered and, picking up her mug again, turned away from the window.
Seeing Rafe Peveril again had set off a reckless energy, as though her body had sprung to life after a long sleep.
She should have expected it.
Her first sight of him at the estancia, climbing down from the old Jeep, had awakened a determination she’d thought she’d lost. His raw male vitality—forceful yet disciplined—had broken through her grey apathy.
From somewhere she’d summoned the initiative to tell him of her mother’s illness and that she wasn’t expected to live.
Then, when David had refused Rafe’s offer to take her home, she’d gathered every ounce of courage and defied him.
She shivered. Thank heavens she was no longer that frail, damaged woman. Now, it seemed incredible she’d let herself get into such a state.
Instead of standing in the dark recalling the crash, she should be exulting, joyously relieved because the meeting she’d been dreading for the past two months had happened without disaster.
Oh, Rafe had noticed her, all right—but only with masculine interest.
So she’d passed the first big hurdle. If only she could get rid of the nagging instinct that told her to run. Now—while she still could.
What if he eventually worked out that she and Mary Brown were the same woman?
What if David was still working for him, and he told her ex-husband where she and Keir were?
What if he found out about the lie she’d told David—the lie that had finally and for ever freed her and her son?
Marisa took another deep breath and drained the mug of lukewarm tea. That wasn’t going to happen because her ex-husband didn’t care about Keir.
Anyway, worrying was a waste of time and nervous energy. All she had to do was avoid Rafe Peveril, which shouldn’t be difficult, even in a place as small as Tewaka—his vast empire kept him away for much of the time.
Closing the curtains on the sultry enchantment of the moon, she tried to feel reassured. While she kept out of his way she’d make plans for a future a long way from Tewaka.
Somewhere safe—where she could start again.
Start again …
She’d believed—hoped—she’d done that for the last time when she’d arrived in Tewaka. A soul-deep loneliness ached through her. Her life had been nothing but new starts.
Sternly she ordered herself not to wallow in self-pity. Before she decided to put down roots again, she’d check out the locals carefully.
Also, she thought ruefully, if she could manage it she’d buy some dull-brown contact lenses.
CHAPTER TWO
TO SAVE money, Keir stayed at the shop after school two days each week. He enjoyed chatting to customers and playing with toys in the tiny office at the back.
Which was where he was when Marisa heard a deep, hard voice. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest.
Rafe Peveril. It had been almost a week since he’d bought the gift for his sister, and she’d just started to relax. Please, let him buy another one and then go away and never come back, she begged the universe.
In vain. Without preamble he asked, “Do you, by any chance, have a relative named Mary Brown?”
Panic froze her breath. Desperately she said the first thing that wasn’t a lie, hoping he didn’t recognise it for an evasion. “As far as I know I have no female relatives. Certainly not one called Mary Brown. Why?”
And allowed her gaze to drift enquiringly upwards from the stock she was checking. Something very close to terror hollowed out her stomach. He was watching her far too closely, the striking framework of his face very prominent, his gaze narrowed and unreadable.
From the corner of her eye she saw the office door slide open. Her heart stopped in her chest.
Keir, stay there, she begged silently.
But her son wandered out, his expression alert yet a little wary as he stared up at the man beside his mother. “Mummy …” he began, not quite tentatively.
“Not now, darling.” Marisa struggled to keep her voice steady and serene. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
He sent her a resigned look, but turned to go back, stopping only when Rafe Peveril said in a voice edged by some emotion she couldn’t discern, “I can wait.” He looked down at Keir. “Hello, I’m Rafe Peveril. What’s your name?”
“Keir,” her son told him, always ready to talk to adults.
“Keir who?”
Keir’s face crinkled into laughter. “Not Keir Who—I’m Keir Somerville—”
Abruptly, Marisa broke in. “Off you go, Keir.”
But Rafe said, “He’s all right. How old are you, Keir?”
“I’m five,” Keir told him importantly. “I go to school now.”
“Who is your teacher?”
“Mrs Harcourt,” Keir said. “She’s got a dog and a kitten, and yesterday she brought the kitty to school.” He shot a glance at Marisa before fixing his gaze back on the compellingly handsome face of the man who watched him. “I want a puppy but Mum says not yet ‘cause we’d have to leave him by himself and he’d be lonely all day, but another lady has a shop too, and she’s got a little dog and her dog sleeps on a cushion in the shop with her and it’s happy all day.”
And then, thank heavens, another customer came in and Marisa said evenly, “Off you go, Keir.”
With obvious reluctance Keir headed away, but not before giving Rafe a swift smile and saying, “Goodbye, Mr Pev’ril.”
Rafe watched until he was out of hearing before transferring his gaze to Marisa’s face. “A pleasant child.”
“Thank you,” she said automatically, still spooked by the speculation in his hard scrutiny. “Can I help you at all?”
“No, I just came in to tell you I’m now very high in my sister’s favour. When I told her you had painted the picture she was surprised and wondered why you hadn’t signed it. We could only make out your initials.”
She couldn’t tell him the last thing she wanted was her name where someone who knew her—or David—might see it. So she smiled and shrugged. “I don’t really know—I just never have.”
He appeared to take that at face value. “She asked me to tell you that she loves it and is over the moon.”
Marisa relaxed a little. “That’s great,” she said.
“Thank your sister from me, please.”
“She’ll probably come in and enthuse about it herself when she’s next up, so I’ll leave that to you.” His matter-of-fact tone dismissed her, reinforced by his rapid glance at the clock at the back of the shop. “I have to go, but we’ll meet again.”
Not if I see you first, Marisa thought uneasily, but managed to say, “I’m sure we will.”
Parrying another hard glance with her most limpid smile, she tried to ignore her jumping nerve-ends as she moved away to deal with another customer, who’d decided to begin Christmas shopping.
Surprisingly for an afternoon, a steady stream of shoppers kept her so busy she had no time to mull over Rafe’s unexpected visit or the even more unexpected attention he’d paid to her son.
Or her reckless—and most unusual—response to him. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she’d slept entwined in his arms, heart to heart, her legs tangled in his, her skin warming him …
Get out of my head, she ordered the intrusive memories.
Later, after they’d got home, she hung out a load of washing, trying to convince herself that her apprehension was without foundation. A wistful pain jagged through her as she watched Keir tear around on the bicycle that had been her father’s final gift to him.
It was foolish to be so alarmed by Rafe Peveril. He was no threat to her or—more important—to Keir.
Because even if her ex-husband was still working for the Peveril organisation, she no longer needed to fear David. Not for herself, anyway … She was a different woman from the green girl who’d married him. She’d suffered and been lost, and eventually realised that the only way she’d survive was to rescue herself.
And she’d done it. Now she had a life and the future she’d crafted for herself and her son. She’d let no one—certainly not Rafe Peveril—take that from her.
Yet for the rest of the day darkness clouded her thoughts, dragging with it old fear, old pain and memories of will-sapping despair at being trapped in a situation she’d been unable to escape.
Because there was the ugly matter of the lie—the one that had won her freedom and Keir’s safety.
Unseeingly, Rafe frowned at the glorious view from his office window, remembering black-lashed eyes and silky skin—skin that had paled that afternoon when Marisa Somerville had looked up and seen him. Her hands, elegant, capable and undecorated by rings had stiffened for a few seconds, and then trembled slightly.
A nagging sense of familiarity taunted him, refusing to be dismissed. Yet it had to be just the random coincidence of eye colour and shape. Apart from those eyes, nothing connected Marisa Somerville to the drab nonentity who had been married to David Brown.
Marisa was everything poor Mary Brown wasn’t.
He let his memory range from glossy hair the colour of dark honey to satiny skin with a subtle sheen, and a mouth that beckoned with generous sensuality.
A sleeping hunger stirred, one so fiercely male and sharply focused it refused to be dismissed.
So, Marisa Somerville was very attractive.
Hell, how inadequate was that? he thought with a cynical smile. His recollection of a body that even her restrained clothes hadn’t been able to subdue prompted him to add sexy to attractive.
It hadn’t been simple recognition that had shadowed that tilted, siren’s gaze. His frown deepened. He considered himself an astute judge of reactions and in any other situation he’d have guessed Marisa’s had come very close to fear …
Only for a second. She’d recovered fast, although a hint of tension had reappeared when her son had entered the shop.
Possibly what he’d seen in Marisa Somerville’s face was nothing more than a feminine resistance to the basic, sexual pull between a fertile woman and a virile man—a matter of genes recognising a possible mate—a pull he’d also felt.
Still did, he realised, drily amused by his hardening body.
That certainly hadn’t happened in Mariposa, when he’d met Mary Brown. She’d looked at him with no expression, shaken his hand as though forced to and immediately faded into the background. What had lodged in his mind had been the dislocating contrast between fascinating eyes and the rest of her—thin, listless, her dragging voice, sallow skin and the lank hair of pure mouse scraped back from her face into a ponytail.
Rafe looked around his office, letting the warmth and practicality of the room soak into him.
This room represented the essence of his life; five generations of Peveril men and women had sat behind the huge kauri desk and worked to create the superbly productive empire that had expanded from a wilderness to encompass the world.
He hoped one day a son or daughter of his would occupy the same chair behind the same desk, with the same aim—to feed as many people as he could.
His father had set up an organisation to help the Mariposan government introduce modern farming practices, but after his death Rafe had discovered a chaotic state of affairs. That first, fact-finding trip to Mariposa had been the impetus to impose a proper chain of control, a process that involved total restructuring as well as hiring a workforce he could trust.
He made an impatient gesture and turned to the computer. He had more important things to think about than a possible—if unlikely—link between Marisa Somerville and the wife of one of his farm managers.
Yet he couldn’t dislodge the memory of that flash of recognition and the fleeting, almost haunted expression in Marisa’s eyes.
Although Rafe rarely had hunches, preferring to follow his logical brain, when they did occur he’d learned to stick with them. A self-derisive smile curving his mouth, he checked the time in Mariposa, then picked up the telephone.
His agent there was surprised at his question, but answered readily enough, “I was not part of this organisation then, you remember, but of course I do recall the circumstances. It was in the newspapers. Señor Brown burned down the machinery shed on that estancia. One of the farmhands almost died in the fire. I understand he was given the chance to leave or be handed over to the police. He left.”
Brows drawing even closer together, Rafe demanded, “Why was I not told of this?”
“I do not know.”
In fact, it was just another example of the previous agent’s inefficiency. Mouth compressing into a thin line, Rafe said, “Of course you don’t. Sorry. When did this sabotage happen?”
There was a pause, then the manager said a little stiffly, “I will need to check the exact date, you understand, but it was a few weeks after you and Mrs Brown left for New Zealand.”
Rafe’s gaze narrowed. The phrase probably indicated only that English wasn’t his agent’s first language. Technically true, but not in the way it seemed to indicate.
But if David Brown had thought …?
With a sardonic smile Rafe dismissed the idea.
However, it kept recurring during the following week as he hosted an overseas delegation, wining and dining them before intensive discussions that ended very satisfactorily.
He celebrated by taking an old flame out to dinner, tactfully declining her oblique suggestion they spend the night together. Although he was fond of her and they’d enjoyed a satisfying affair some years previously, he was no longer interested. And was irritated when a roving photographer snapped them together as they left the reception. New Zealand had nothing like the paparazzi overseas, but the photograph appeared in the social news of one of the Sunday papers the next day.
Back at Manuwai he found himself reaching for the telephone, only to realise that it was the weekend and he didn’t know Marisa Somerville’s number. It wasn’t in the telephone book either.
And why did he want to ring her? Because she reminded him of another woman?
Grimly, he recalled what he could of the day he and Mary Brown had left the estancia, little more than irritating flashes and fragments—more sensation than sight—of the storm that had brought the plane down. Even after he’d woken in the hospital bed, fully aware once more, he’d remembered nothing of the aftermath.
He’d been told that Mary Brown had brought him to the hut, that she’d probably saved his life …
And without warning a flash of memory returned—a quiet voice, his gratitude at the warmth of arms around him …
That was all. Rafe swore and got to his feet, pacing across the room to stand at the window. He took a few deliberate breaths, willing his racing thoughts to slow. Why hadn’t he remembered that before?
Had the sight of a pair of black-lashed green eyes prodded this elusive fragment from his reluctant brain?
After he’d been released from hospital both he and Mary Brown had travelled to New Zealand in a private jet with a nurse in attendance—a flight he barely remembered, though obviously it had set the gossips in Mariposa buzzing.
Well, let them think what they liked. He never pursued committed women, no matter how alluring.
Ignoring the flame of anticipation that licked through him, Rafe shrugged. He’d find out whether Marisa Somerville was in a relationship soon enough. Tewaka also had gossips, and information inevitably found its way to him.
Keir said fretfully, “Mummy, I don’t want you to go out.” He thought a moment before adding, “I might feel sick if you do.”
At his mother’s look he grinned. “Well, I might.”
“You won’t, my darling. I’ll be here when you wake up tomorrow morning and you’ll be fine with Tracey. And tomorrow is Saturday, so you can come into the shop with me.”
Keir knew when persistence could—occasionally—be rewarded and also when to give up. The sigh he heaved was heartfelt, but the prospect of an ice cream muted its full force. “I like Tracey.”
“I know. And here she comes now.”
But Marisa couldn’t repress a few motherly qualms as she drove away. Although her landlord’s daughter—a seventeen-year-old with two younger brothers—was both competent and practical, with her mother available only a couple of hundred metres along the road, Marisa had never before gone out and left Keir to be put to bed.
However, taking part in this weekly get-together of local business people was something she’d been promising herself. If nothing else it would expand her circle of contacts and she needed to take every opportunity to make her shop a success.
Nevertheless, she felt a little tense when she walked into the room, and even more so when the bustling, middle-aged convener confided, “We’re honoured tonight—normally we don’t have speakers, but this afternoon I talked Rafe Peveril into giving us his ideas about how he sees the future of Northland and Tewaka.”
“Oh, that should be interesting,” Marisa said with a bright, false smile that hid, she hoped, her sudden urge to get out of there.
Ten days should have given her time to get over the impact of meeting him again, but it hadn’t. Five minutes later she was producing that same smile as the convener began to introduce Rafe to her.
Smoothly he cut in, “Ms Somerville and I have already met.”
“Oh, good,” the convener said, not without an interested note in her voice.
Somehow Marisa found herself beside Rafe with her hard-won poise rapidly leaking away.
“I believe you’re living in the Tanners’ farm cottage,” he said.
Of course anyone who was interested—and quite a few who weren’t—would know. Marisa said briskly, “Yes, it’s very convenient.” And cheap.
“So who’s looking after your son tonight?”
Slightly startled, she looked up, brows raised. “That’s part of the convenience. Tracey—the Tanners’ daughter—is more than happy to babysit. She and Keir get on well together.”
He nodded, dark head inclining slightly towards her, grey eyes cool and assessing. A rebel response—heady and heated in the pit of her stomach—caught her by surprise.
“I hadn’t realised this is the first time you’ve come to one of these meetings,” he said.
“I’ve been intending to, but …” Shrugging, she let the words trail away.
“Point out the people you don’t know.”
Surprised again, she did so, wondering if he was using this method to politely move away. However, although he introduced her to everyone she indicated, he stayed beside her until it was time for him to speak.
Good manners, she thought stoutly, nothing more. Dragging her mind back to what he was saying, she realised that the quality of Rafe Peveril’s mind shone through his incisive words and she liked the flashes of humour that added to both his talk and his answers to questions afterwards.
Reluctantly, she was impressed. Although his family had an assured position in the district, it was a long climb from New Zealand to Rafe’s rarefied heights—a climb into the world arena that would have taken more than intelligence and a sense of humour to achieve. To get as far as he had he’d need uncompromising determination and a formidable ruthlessness.
In short, someone to be respected—and to avoid. Only too well did she understand the havoc a dominating man could cause.
The media lately had been full of him, from headlines about the signing of an important takeover to a photograph of him with a very beautiful woman in the gossip pages, but he’d soon be leaving Tewaka.