Robyn Donald
THE BLACKMAIL BARGAIN

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

PROLOGUE

HARD blue eyes narrowing, Curt McIntosh surveyed his sister. ‘All right, you’ve hedged enough. Tell me straight, is Ian having an affair with this Peta Grey?’

Gillian flushed. ‘Don’t you look down your nose at me like that! You remind me of Dad when anyone dares to contradict him—high-handed, intolerant and dictatorial!’

His voice stripped of everything but the authority that underpinned its deep tone, Curt stated, ‘Nothing you say is convincing in itself. Do you have proof that Ian is sleeping with this woman, or is he just being a good neighbour?’

One glance upwards blocked Gillian’s first impetuous response. Not a muscle had moved in Curt’s formidable face, compelling in its bold, predatory beauty, but she chose her words carefully. ‘I shouldn’t have said that—about Dad.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ He pinned her with a steely gaze. ‘And you’re still avoiding the subject.’

She flounced around to stare at the view outside his office window. In summer Auckland was thick with jacaranda trees, and the one in the Domain over the busy city road was an airy dome of lilac-purple. Its beauty did nothing to relieve the sick turmoil inside her.

With a spurt of defiance she exclaimed, ‘Peta! What a ridiculous name for a girl! I’ll bet her father wanted a son.’ She gnawed on her lip before finally admitting, ‘I know Ian’s not just being a good neighbour. There’s something else between them.’

Her brother’s straight black brow shot up. ‘What?’

‘Awareness,’ she retorted, temper flashing for a second.

‘Is this the intuition women are so famous for,’ he said drily, ‘or is your fear based on something concrete?’

Gillian reined in her anger. It wasn’t fair; she was four years older than Curt’s thirty-two, but the extra years had counted for nothing since he’d turned fifteen and shot up to well over six feet. Those extra inches had given him an edge that his intelligence and tough ruthlessness had honed into a formidable weapon. Although most of the time he was an affectionate brother, when he went into intimidation mode she took notice.

She said unsteadily, ‘You might not know much about love, Curt, but don’t try to convince me you don’t understand sizzle! You were only sixteen when you seduced my best friend, and you haven’t been wasting any time since then—’

Shrugging, he broke in, ‘Is that all you’ve got to go on? An awareness of sizzle?’

She flushed at the satirical note in his words and shook her head.

Dispassionately he said, ‘It happens, Gillian. It’s the way men are; we see a beautiful woman and the hormones begin to stir. An honourable man doesn’t follow it up if he’s already committed. I’ve always believed Ian to be honourable.’

‘Oh, how you testosterone brigade stick together!’ She forced herself to be calm because he distrusted emotional outbursts. Eventually she said in a more temperate voice, ‘Curt, I’m Ian’s wife. I love him, and I know him very well. Trust me, whatever it is that Ian feels for Peta Grey it’s more than a quick, easily forgotten flash of lust. I’d accept that if she was gorgeous, but she’s not. She’s not even pretty.’

‘Then what are you worrying about?’ Curt demanded, adding with cool logic, ‘Ian’s not likely to throw everything away on a plain woman. What does Peta Grey look like?’

‘She’s striking,’ Gillian admitted resentfully, ‘if you like tall, broad-shouldered, strong women. And that’s one of the reasons I’m worried—she’s not Ian’s type at all. The only times I’ve ever seen her in anything smarter than a T-shirt and jeans and gumboots have been when we’ve invited the neighbours around for drinks or a barbecue. She scrubs up pretty well then, but she’s so…so rural. All she can talk about is her stock and the measly few hectares she calls a farm.’

She paused, then added with bleak honesty, ‘Which is more than Ian and I seem to have to talk about now.’

Curt examined her closely. Small and slight, his sister breathed urban sophistication; on her own ground she’d hold all the weapons. ‘So what does Ian see in her?’

Eyes glittering with frustrated tears, Gillian snapped, ‘She’s tall, and I imagine her mouth and green eyes make her sexy in a kind of earthy, land-girl way. Apart from that she’s got lovely skin, brown hair usually dragged off her face and tied with string in a ponytail, and a reasonably good figure.’

Curt inspected his sister from the top of her expertly cut hair to the slim Italian shoes on her narrow feet. ‘She doesn’t sound like competition. Why would Ian fall for her?’

‘Oh, you know Ian—he’s always had a soft spot for people who work hard. Probably because he had to haul himself up by his bootstraps.’ After a short hesitation she said reluctantly, ‘And she’s a battler—she’s only got a few acres besides the land that Ian leased her, but she manages to scrape a living from it.’

Curt had thought nothing of his brother-in-law’s decision to lease a small area to his neighbour. Cut off from the rest of the station by a large gully, the land hadn’t been fully utilised. Now he wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him to suggest it be planted with trees…

He said judicially, ‘You’re sophisticated enough to know that men don’t fall in love with every woman they admire. There must be more than that to it.’

Her desperation showing, she retorted, ‘She’s at least ten years younger than I am—she can’t be much over twenty-three or-four. And a couple of months ago I noticed that whenever he talked about her—which he no longer does, and that’s a bad sign too!—something about his voice set every alarm off.’ She looked her brother full in the face. ‘You’re not the only one in the family with good instincts. I know when my marriage is threatened, and believe me, Peta Grey is a threat.’

Curt’s brows drew together but he tempered his voice. ‘If you want me to do something about it you’re going to have to give me proof, Gilly. So far, you haven’t.’

She spread her hands in a gesture that held elements of both appeal and despair. Elegant, manicured hands, he noted, with Ian’s engagement and wedding rings making a statement on one long finger.

‘I don’t think they’re lovers yet,’ she admitted, ‘but it’s only a matter of time, and I want us out of Northland before—before it happens. A few months ago Ian was talking about a job in Vanuatu managing your rice plantation there. He seemed intrigued…’

The words trailed away as Curt said quietly, ‘Gilly, be reasonable. I can’t just move him on without some proof that it’s necessary. He’s doing a good job on Tanekaha; he’s hauled the station into profit under budget, and he’s a skilful manager of staff.’

Tears welled in her eyes, but even as he found his handkerchief she fought them back with a flare of anger. ‘Oh, see for yourself! I hate showing you these—I’m ashamed I even looked at them!—but if you want proof, here it is.’

She groped in her bag, hauled out a couple of photographs and hurled one onto the big desk. ‘Now tell me I’ve got nothing to worry about!’

Curt picked up the photograph. His brother-in-law stood facing a woman, a hand lifting to her face.

‘Check out this one too,’ Gillian said savagely, plonking another down on the desk.

If he’d had any doubt at all, the second shot banished it. This time both the people in the picture had turned towards an out-of-focus blur that might have been a bird swooping low, and the guilt stamped on Ian’s face would have convinced anyone.

Frowning, he examined the woman’s features. Certainly no beauty, but deep in his gut something stirred, a primal appetite that hardened his voice. ‘Who took the shots?’

‘Hannah Sillitoe—Mandy’s daughter. She got a digital camera in her Christmas stocking. Mandy dropped in to see us on their way back to Auckland after the holidays, and of course Hannah spent every moment outside taking photos of anything that would stay still long enough.’

Curt dropped the shiny images onto his desk. ‘How did she get these?’

‘She thought she saw a native pigeon fly into the big puriri tree by the stockyards. She’s an adventurous kid so she climbed the tree, but she couldn’t see any sign of the bird. She was on her way down when Ian and Peta came out of the old barn and stopped to talk.’ Her hands clenched by her sides. ‘Hannah was intrigued by the way the sun caught Peta’s hair, so she snapped them. The flash must have startled the pigeon because it swooped from the tree and flew towards them.’

Curt nodded. ‘Go on.’

She indicated the second photograph and finished in a voice brittle with humiliation, ‘They both swivelled around. Hannah tried to get a picture of the bird, but got that instead. When Mandy saw them she thought I should know what was going on.’

Curt asked brusquely, ‘What happened then?’

‘Hannah said they went off in different directions.’

He examined the photographs again, reluctantly admitting they were pretty damning evidence. Everything about the two figures shrieked intimacy—their closeness, the way they inclined subtly towards each other, their unconscious mimicry of stance and posture.

And being a man, he could understand what Ian saw in Peta Grey. The faded T-shirt moulded breasts voluptuous enough to stir a eunuch’s blood, and beneath the faded jeans her legs were long and lithe. Her coolly enigmatic face challenged the camera, and her mouth was sultry enough to tempt a saint; what would it take to shatter that air of control and release the passion beneath?

Of course, you might find nothing but naked self-interest there.

Anger smouldered to life inside him. ‘Does Ian know you’ve got these?’

‘No, and I’m not going to tell him,’ Gillian returned with spirit. ‘I’m not that stupid.’

Curt noted the way the sun shone on Peta Grey’s hair. The elemental fire in the pit of his stomach burned hotter, transmuting into something more complex than anger. When Gillian spoke he had to yank his gaze from the photograph to focus on her.

‘Curt, why don’t you come up and see for yourself? Believe me, if I’m wrong I’d be so relieved and grateful.’

Her voice broke on the final word and the smile she’d summoned wavered, then tightened into a grimace as she fought back tears. ‘I’m sorry to lump you with this, but there’s no one else I trust enough. And no one I can talk to.’

Which was his fault; Gilly had supported him when he needed her, and her love and faith had been punished. Neither of them had spoken to their parents for ten years.

Curt slung an arm around her shoulders and drew her against him. She sniffed valiantly, but eventually surrendered to harsh, difficult sobs, clutching his shirt with desperate hands as she gave up the fight for control. Like him, she’d been conditioned to hide her emotions, so she was terrified at this threat to her marriage.

‘All right,’ he said quietly when her tears began to ease. ‘I can come up next week.’

He’d planned a tryst in Tahiti with his current lover, but this was more important.

Mouth quivering, she reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she said soberly. She stepped back and grimaced at his shirt. ‘I’ve made you all wet—and streaked with lipstick. Have you got a spare shirt here?’

‘It doesn’t matter, but yes, I have.’ He lifted her chin and met her eyes. ‘If I think you’re wrong, what will you do?’

‘Find a counsellor, I suppose,’ she said drearily. ‘I’ll need it, because…oh, because things have been going wrong since before Ian noticed Peta Grey.’

‘What things?’

Gillian paused. ‘Oh, you might as well know everything. Since we found out that the reason I can’t get pregnant is an infection I caught in my wild youth. I never pretended to be a virgin when we met, but as long as I didn’t rub his face in my love affairs Ian didn’t seem to mind. Discovering why I couldn’t conceive is rubbing his face in it with a vengeance, Curt.’

‘I don’t imagine he was a virgin either when he married,’ Curt said forcefully.

‘No, but he wasn’t careless enough to let himself be made sterile. Ian wants children, and once we got the results he started pulling away.’ She dragged in a deep breath. ‘He blames me, of course. And like all you men, he’s possessive.’

‘I don’t consider myself possessive,’ Curt said brusquely. ‘I don’t share, but that’s not possessiveness.’

‘You’ve never loved anyone enough to be possessive.’ His sister gave him a trembling smile. ‘Ian might even still love me, but he wants a family, and he—he might be looking for someone who can give him one.’ She pulled away and finished steadily, ‘Someone who isn’t infertile because she slept around.’

Astonished, Curt asked, ‘Are you telling me that this Peta Grey is a virgin? How do you know?’

‘I don’t. There has been gossip, but apparently her father was a very controlling man—he didn’t let her go out with boys. Her mother was delicate so Peta left school the day she turned sixteen, and acted as nurse, housekeeper and farmhand until her parents were killed in a car accident a few years later.’

‘You seem to have been gossiping to a purpose.’ Curt’s distaste sharpened his voice.

Gillian shrugged. ‘I heard you say once, Know your enemy. In a way I feel sorry for the girl. She’s spent her life on that little farm working all hours of the day and night to survive.’ She looked up, entreaty plain in her lovely face. ‘I don’t wish her any ill; I just don’t want her to wreck my marriage.’

‘Has it occurred to you that if Ian wants her, you’ll be better off without him?’ Curt knew it had to be said, even though his bluntness drove the colour from her face. ‘He made vows. If he breaks them, will you ever trust him again?’

Trust Curt to voice her worst fear. Gillian had to stop her hands from twisting together in futile terror. ‘I need time,’ she told him intensely. ‘I love him, and if there’s any chance that he still loves me I’ll fight this—this fling. He’s a sophisticated mature man, and she’s a…well, she’s a nothing!’

‘If he thinks he’s in love with her, any hint of interference might persuade him to leave you.’

‘You always did make me face consequences,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and yes, I accept that. If he does leave, I—I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll deal with it. It’s the wondering and waiting and uncertainty that’s tearing me apart.’

‘I’m not a miracle worker,’ Curt warned her.

‘You’ll fix it,’ she said eagerly. ‘You’ve always done what you set your mind to. I have complete faith in you!’

That, he knew. Her faith had cost her dearly. ‘What exactly did you have in mind?’

Gillian rushed on, ‘Couldn’t you make a play for her? If she’s like ninety-eight per cent of womankind she’ll fall at your feet in worshipful delight.’

‘You grossly overestimate my effect on your sex,’ he said drily. ‘Is that what you want me to do?’

Her anxious eyes searched his face. ‘I—well, probably not. Nobody, especially not Ian, would believe that you’d find a girl like her attractive.’ She gave a twisted smile. ‘Your preference for beautiful women is too well known. But there must be some way out of this, because I’m certain she’s not in love with him.’

‘How do you know?’ Curt asked ironically. ‘And don’t tell me it’s women’s intuition.’

‘Ha! That’s rich coming from you!’ Now that he’d agreed she was confident again, her eyes gleaming and her smile reckless. ‘Everyone believes you dragged Dad’s sinking firm out of the mire and into the stratosphere with brilliance and sheer force of will, but you told me once that most of the time you followed your gut instinct.’

‘And sometimes I ignored it,’ he said sardonically.

‘Well, intuition’s got nothing to do with this. You got to the top because as well as being brutally clever you’re good at reading body language,’ she said crisply. ‘So am I. And her body language tells me Peta Grey is not in love with Ian. She wants out of being stuck away on a little farm miles from the nearest village, with no money, no prospects except hard work, and no chance of meeting a decent man. Except married ones!’ she finished bitterly.

Curt glanced down at the photographs, his gaze caught and held by Peta Grey’s challenging face with its lush, firmly disciplined mouth. His protective affection for Gillian warred with a darker, more subtle instinct that warned him of danger if he didn’t keep out of this.

But looking after his sister was a habit too strong to be broken. He leaned over and wrote something in his desk diary. ‘All right, I’ll see you next week.’

She let out a long sigh. ‘Thank you,’ she said in a voice that quivered. ‘I’ll be eternally grateful.’

‘I’m not promising anything,’ he said abruptly. ‘Can I take you out to lunch?’

‘I’d love to go out to lunch with you, but I’m already booked with a couple of old girlfriends. Besides, I bet you’ve got some high-powered meeting with important people.’

‘Guilty,’ he agreed, with the rare smile that dazzled even his sister. ‘But I’d have cut it short if you needed me.’

She came up to him in a small, scented rush and pulled his head down to kiss his lean cheek, then rested her head on his chest for a second. ‘I knew I could rely on you,’ she said, and gave him a gallant smile and left.

Frowning, Curt watched her go, then called his secretary. ‘Have John Stevens contact me as soon as possible,’ he said, hard eyes missing nothing of the traffic heading towards the magnificently columned Museum. Shining like a white temple in the summer sun, Auckland’s tribute to its war dead crowned a hill that commanded the city and the harbour.

At any other time he’d look forward to a week on Tanekaha, but even apart from the loss of time with Anna he didn’t expect to enjoy this stay. He swivelled and picked up the photographs again, gazing not at his brother-in-law but at the woman so nearly in Ian’s arms. The sun shimmered in lazy golden fire across her head; at her feet he could see a hat, as though an ungentle hand had pushed it off.

To make it easier to kiss that sensuous mouth?

Probably; there had been no kiss, but that didn’t mean one hadn’t been planned.

His mouth compressing, he dropped the photographs as though they burned his fingertips. Think possible gold-digger, he advised himself, and find out everything you can about her so you know which strings to pull.

If he had to he’d even buy her off, although it would go against the grain. Still, he’d part with anything if it would save Gillian’s marriage; apart from his natural affection for his sister, he owed her more than he could ever repay.

CHAPTER ONE

PETA’S head came up sharply. Hoof-beats coming up the hill? Who the hell could it be? Not Ian, who’d be driving his ute. Her mouth tightened into a straight line. So it had to be Curt Blackwell McIntosh—the owner of Tanekaha Station, hunk, tycoon, and adored brother of Gillian Matheson.

A convulsive jerk beneath her hands switched her attention back to the calf.

‘Just stay still,’ she told it in her most soothing tone while she eased a rope around it, ‘and we’ll have you out of this mud in no time—oh, damn!’ as the dog let out a ferocious fusillade of barks.

‘Shut up, Laddie,’ she roared, but it was too late; thoroughly spooked, the calf found enough energy to thrash around wildly, spattering her with more smelly mud and water and embedding itself even further in the swamp.

Muttering an oath, she lifted its head so that it could breathe, then snapped a curt order to ‘Get in behind’ at the chastened dog.

If Curt McIntosh was as big as he looked in photographs, he was just the man to help her drag this calf out!

Her mouth relaxed into a scornful smile. ‘Not likely,’ she told the calf, now quiescent although its eyes were rolling wildly. ‘Far too messy for an international magnate. Still, he might send a minion to help.’

And that would be fine too, provided the minion wasn’t Ian.

She squinted against the sun. Like a storm out of the north, Curt McIntosh and his mount crested the hill and thundered towards her, a single, powerful entity both beautiful and menacing.

An odd chill of apprehension hollowed out her stomach. To quell it, she sniffed, ‘Take a good look, Laddie. That’s what’s known as being born to the saddle!’

But Curt McIntosh hadn’t been. He was an Aucklander, and the money that financed his pastoral empire came from the mysterious and inscrutable area of information technology; his firm was a world leader in its field. He might ride like a desert warrior, but his agricultural and pastoral interests were a mere hobby.

Horse and rider changed direction, slowing as they came towards the small patch of swamp. A primitive chill of foreboding shivered across Peta’s nerve ends; as well as being a brilliant rider, Curt McIntosh was big. Quelling a crazy urge to abandon the calf and get the hell out of there, she watched the horse ease back into a walk. At least Curt Etc McIntosh and his horse weren’t pounding up with a grand flourish that would scare the calf into further suicidal endeavours.

‘Of course it’s black,’ she murmured to the dog bristling with curiosity at her heels. ‘Raiders always choose black horses—good for intimidation. Not that he’s going to find any loot here, but I bet you an extra dog-biscuit tonight that horse is a stallion.’

She’d heard enough about Curt McIntosh to be very wary; his reputation for ruthlessness had grown along with his fortune, but he’d been ruthless right from the start. Barely out of university, he’d manoeuvred his father out of the family firm in a bitterly fought takeover, dragged the company into profitability, then used its resources to conquer the world.

‘The dominant male personified,’ she stated beneath her breath. It hurt her pride to remain kneeling in the mud as though waiting for a big strong man to come and rescue her and the calf, but she didn’t dare loosen her grip on its slippery hide to grab the rope.

‘Hang on, I’ll just tie the horse.’ A deep voice, cool, authoritative, completely lord-of-the-manor.

It should have set Peta’s teeth on edge; instead, it reached inside her and tied knots in her system. Without looking up she called, ‘OK.’

Cool; that’s all she had to do—act cool. She had no need to feel guilty; for all McIntosh’s toughness and brilliance he couldn’t know that his brother-in-law had touched her cheek and looked at her with eyes made hot by unwanted desire and need.

Thank heavens for that pigeon in the puriri tree! Its typically tempestuous interruption had stopped him from doing anything they’d both regret.

Until then she’d had no idea that Ian had crossed the invisible line between friendship and attachment. Shocked and alarmed, since then she’d made darned sure that he hadn’t caught her alone.

As though her turbulent thoughts had got through to the calf, it suddenly bawled and tried to lever itself further into the sticky clutches of the mud.

Clutching it, she said, ‘Calm down, calm down, I’m trying to help you. And Laddie, if you bark again there’ll be no snacks for a month!’

Laddie, barely adult and still not fully trained, tried to restrain himself as Peta struggled with the demented calf. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the tall rider come towards her; Laddie gave up on silence and obedience and let rip with another salvo of defiance. The calf thrashed around, and a lump of smelly goo flew up and hit Peta on the jawbone.

Furious with everyone and everything—most of all with herself—she shouted, ‘Quiet!’ at the dog, wiped the worst of the mud off onto her shoulder, and bent again to the calf.

Still murmuring in her softest, most reassuring tone, Peta ignored the icy emptiness beneath her ribs. It was, she thought bitterly, utterly typical that the landlord she’d never met should find her spattered in mud and dealing with something no respectable farmer would have allowed happen.

It had to be a McIntosh thing. For all her charm, his sister always managed to make her feel at a total disadvantage too.

Silence echoed around her, while the skin on the back of her neck and between her shoulder blades tightened in a primitive warning. Laddie made a soft growling noise in his throat.

‘I’ll do that,’ a deep voice said.

Although she fiercely resented that uncompromising tone, a bolt of awareness streaked down Peta’s spine, setting off alarms through her body. As well as that peremptory command, his voice was textured by power and sexual confidence. It set every prejudice she had buzzing in outrage.

Slowly, deliberately, she turned her head and took in the man behind her with one calm, dismissive survey.

At least that was what it was meant to be. Maddeningly, cold blue eyes snared hers before she’d got any further than his face—handsome, superb bone structure—a face where danger rode shotgun on authority.

Damn, she thought helplessly, he is gorgeous! Her throat closed. And up close he was even bigger than she’d suspected, long-legged and lithe, with shoulders that would be a credit to a rugby player. Clear and hard and ruthless, his gaze summoned an instant, protective antagonism.

Curt McIntosh’s formidable toughness hammered home her acute vulnerability. Oh, what she’d have given to be able to get to her feet and look him in the eye!

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I almost had her out, and then the dog barked—’ Shocked, she stopped the excuse before it had time to shame her.

‘Just keep her head above the mud.’ He picked up the rope she’d been trying to get under the calf’s stomach.

Heart contracting in her chest, Peta ran a swift glance over his clothes. Well-worn the checked shirt and faded jeans might be, but they’d been made for his lean body and long, strongly muscled legs. Of course, his sister patronised the best designers.

It was probably this thought that loosened the links of her self-control. ‘You’ll get covered in mud,’ she pointed out.

His smile narrowed into a thin line. Another shiver—icy this time—scudded down Peta’s backbone.

‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ he said. ‘I’m not afraid of a bit of dirt, and you’re not strong enough to haul it out by yourself.’

True, and why shouldn’t he experience first-hand what rural life could be like? ‘It needs know-how, not just brute strength.’ She summoned a too-sweet smile, inwardly flinching when his eyes turned into ice crystals. ‘Although the brute strength will be very useful.’

The calf chose that moment to kick out in a desperate surge forward. Peta made a swift lunge at it, lost her balance and pitched towards the smelly mud. Just before the point of no return, a hard hand grabbed the waistband of her shorts, another scooped beneath her outstretched arms, and with a strength that overwhelmed her Curt McIntosh yanked her back onto firm land.

Gasping, she struggled to control her legs. For one stark second she felt the imprint of every muscle in his hard torso on her back, and the strength of his arm across her breasts. Although the heat storming her body robbed her of breath, strength and wits, instinct kicked in. Move! it snapped.

‘I—thanks,’ she muttered. But when he let her go she stumbled, and he caught her again, this time by the shoulders.

‘Are you all right?’

The level detachment of his voice humiliated her. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, striving for her usual crispness.

He loosened his grip and she stepped away. With the imprint of his knuckles burning the skin at her waist, she blurted, ‘You’ve got fast reactions for such a big man.’

Oh, God! How was that for truly sophisticated repartee?

His brows rising, he squatted to reach for the calf. Holding its head above the mud he said, ‘I hope this isn’t one of my calves.’

A spasm of apprehension tightened her nerves another notch. More mildly she said, ‘Yes, it’s one of yours. If you can lift her enough to get her belly free of the mud, I’ll slide the rope under her.’

Be careful, she told herself as he crouched down beside her. Clamp your mouth on any more gauche remarks, and remember to be suitably impressed by his strength and kindness once the calf’s out of the swamp.

This man could make her life extremely difficult. Not only did she lease ten vital hectares from him, but her only income this year was the money she’d earn from that contract. As well, sole access to her land was over one of his farm roads.

With two rescuers, one of them impressively powerful and surprisingly deft, freeing the calf turned out to be ridiculously simple. Curt McIntosh moved well, Peta thought reluctantly as they stood up, and he was in full control of those seriously useful muscles. She was no lightweight, and he’d saved her from falling flat on her face in the mud with an ease that seemed effortless, then hauled the calf free without even breathing hard. Clearly he spent hours in the gym—no, he probably paid a personal trainer megabucks to keep him fit.

Ignoring the odd, tugging sensation in the pit of her stomach, she bent to examine the calf, collapsed now on the ground but trying to get to its feet.

‘Where do you want her?’ Curt asked, astonishing her by picking up the small animal, apparently not concerned at the liberal coating of mud he’d acquired during the rescue.

Infuriatingly, the calf lay still, as though tamed by the overwhelming force of the man’s personality.

And if I believe that, Peta thought ironically, I’m an idiot; the poor thing’s too exhausted to wriggle even the tip of its tail.

She’d been silent too long; his brows lifted and to her irritation and disgust her heart quickened in involuntary response. The midsummer sun beat down on them, and she wished fervently she’d worn her old jeans instead of the ragged shorts that displayed altogether too much of her long legs.

‘On the back of the ute.’ She led the way to the elderly, battered vehicle.

He lowered the calf into the calf-cage on the tray of the ute. ‘Will she be all right there?’

‘I’ll drive carefully,’ she said. The manners her mother had been so fussy about compelled her to finish with stiff politeness, ‘Thank you. If you hadn’t helped I’d have taken much longer to get her out.’

He straightened and stepped back, unsparing eyes searching her face with a cool assessment that abraded her already raw composure. ‘So we meet at last, Peta Grey,’ he said levelly.

Pulses jumping, she could only say, ‘Yes. How do you do?’ Mortification burned across the long, lovely sweep of her cheekbones. Bullseye, she thought raggedly; yet another supremely sophisticated bit of repartee!

He smiled, and she almost reeled back in shock. Oh, hell, she thought furiously, he could probably soothe rattlesnakes with that smile—female ones, anyway! ‘How do you do?’ he replied courteously.

Just stop this idiocy now! she ordered herself. Your heart is not really thudding so loud he can hear it.

But perhaps it was, because when she looked up she saw his eyes rest a second on the soft hollow at the base of her throat. Thoughts and emotions jangling around in turbulent disarray, she went on painstakingly, ‘And I believe we’ll be seeing each other tomorrow night at your sister’s barbecue.’

‘I’m looking forward to it,’ Curt McIntosh said, somehow managing to turn the conventional response into a threat. He looked around at the paddocks that belonged to him. ‘Your lease is up for renewal, I believe.’

It wasn’t a question; of course he knew it was due for renegotiation. Foreboding brushed her skin like a cold feather. Seriously unnerved, she evaded his gaze and looked past him to his mount. With lowered head, the big black animal was cautiously inspecting Laddie. ‘In a month’s time.’

‘I’ll give you fair warning,’ he said, still in that pleasant tone, although now she recognised the steel beneath each word.

Defiantly, she lifted her head to meet his eyes. Cold blue had swallowed up the grey rims, and they were too keen.

The hollowness beneath her ribs expanding into a cold vacuum, Peta braced herself. ‘Warning of what?’

Instead of answering Curt McIntosh whistled; Laddie frisked across to his frozen owner while the horse—a gelding, Peta noted tensely, not a stallion—paced with measured strides towards the man who’d summoned it.

He swung up into the saddle and gathered the reins in one lean, mud-stained hand, examining her with an unsparing gaze. She took an involuntary step backwards. Horse and rider seemed to blot out the sun.

All trace of emotion gone from his face, from his voice, Curt said, ‘I’m in two minds about renewing it.’

Panic kicked her brutally in the stomach. Peta looked him full in his starkly powerful face and tried to hide the thin note of desperation in her voice. ‘Why? It would cost you a lot of money to build a bridge across the gully and link it to the rest of the station.’

He didn’t tell her that money was the last thing tycoons lacked, but she saw the glint of mockery in the depths of his eyes when he said negligently, ‘That’s my worry.’

One glance at that formidable face told her that pleas wouldn’t work. Swallowing, she said, ‘I was informed that it would be all right…’

Her voice tailed away when she realised that he was once more looking at the long line of her throat. Her breath blocked her airways. Then he raised his eyes and she had to stop herself from flinching because dark fire flared for a second in the blue depths.

‘Then whoever told you that made promises he knew he might not be able to keep. I have plans for this land.’

Without waiting for an answer, he made a soft, chirruping noise. Obediently the gelding picked up its hooves and turned away.

Motionless, her mind darting after thoughts like a terrier after rabbits, Peta watched them go. Of course the children of rich parents had advantages, and learning to ride as well as you could walk was just one of them. She’d never learned; her father hadn’t seen the necessity.

But then, he hadn’t seen the necessity of a lot of things. After he’d died she’d relied on her neighbours’ offers of lifts into Kowhai Bay until she’d learned to drive.

And Curt McIntosh was another dominant male who thought he had a God-given right to make decisions and control people.

Slowly, stiffly, she got into the ute, but once in its stuffy interior she sat with hands gripping the wheel while she stared unseeingly ahead.

On the rare occasions they’d met, Gillian Matheson had spoken of her brother—so strong, so clever, so drop-dead stunning that women fell at his feet! But Gillian was a restless, dissatisfied woman, and often her words had seemed to be aimed at her husband; although Peta had listened politely, she hadn’t believed in this paragon. After all, extremely powerful magnates were by definition attractive to women—some women, anyway.

She believed Gillian now.

‘Up, Laddie!’ she called, patting the seat beside her, and waited while the delighted dog jumped in. ‘Yes, this is a real treat for you, isn’t it? Just don’t get used to it; the only reason you get to ride in front is because on the tray you’ll spook that calf even more.’

Slotting the key into the ute, she turned it, but something about the engine’s note brought her brows together. It was missing again. ‘Not now,’ she breathed, putting the vehicle into gear.

Instead of working in the garden that evening she’d poke around the motor and see what she could find. And if it wasn’t something she could fix it would have to wait, because she couldn’t afford any repairs this month.

But during the careful trip down to the calf-shed, she wasn’t working out what she could do if the knock in the engine was too much for her basic mechanical skills. Her mind dwelt obsessively on Curt McIntosh, whose touch had sent her hormones on a dizzying circuit of every nerve in her body.

And whose relentless authority and aggressive, arrogant masculinity reminded her so much of her father she had to unclench her jaw and rein in a storm of automatic resentment and anger.

He controlled her future.

If he refused to renew the lease she’d have to get rid of her own stock, the ones she was rearing for sale in two years’ time to finance a new tractor. Because Ian’s calves—Tanekaha’s calves, she corrected hastily—were covered by contract, their needs were paramount. Without the leased acreage she had barely enough land to finish them off and send them back in good condition.

But she desperately needed a new tractor. Hers had to be coaxed along, and six months ago the mechanic told her it wasn’t going to last much more than a couple of years—if she was lucky.

She braked and got out to open a gate. Without the income from her stock she’d be in real trouble; extra hours pumping petrol at the local service station wouldn’t cover the cost of a new tractor.

Swallowing to ease her dry throat, she got back into the ute and took it through the gate. And there was little chance of more casual work at Kowhai Bay; the little holiday resort sank back into lethargy once the hot Northland sun headed for the equator.

After she’d closed the gate behind the ute, she leaned against the top bar and looked out over countryside that swept from the boundary to the coast.

Her smallholding was insignificant in that glorious panorama, yet the land she could see was only a small part of Tanekaha Station. Blue hills inland formed the western boundary, and the land stretched far along the coastline of beaches and stark headlands, shimmering golden-green in the bright heat.

Lovely in a wild, rugged fashion, serene under the midsummer sun, it represented power and wealth. If it came to swords at sunrise, Curt McIntosh had every advantage.

Perhaps she should give up the struggle, sell her land for what she could get, and go and find herself a life.

She bit her lip. All she knew was farming.

‘And that’s what I like doing,’ she said belligerently, swinging back into the vehicle and slamming the door behind her.

Once she’d settled the calf undercover in a temporary pen made of hay bales, she glanced at her watch and went inside.

After a shower and a change of clothes, she went across to the bookshelves that bordered the fireplace, taking down her father’s Maori dictionary.

‘“Tanekaha”,’ she read out loud, and laughed ironically as a bubbling noise told her the kettle was boiling. ‘How very apt!’

Tane was the Maori word for man, kaha for strong. Ian Matheson was a strong man, but his brother-in-law was out on his own.

‘And whoever chose his first name must have known what sort of baby they were dealing with,’ she decided, pouring the water into the pot. ‘Curt by name and curt by nature.’

Grimly amused, she returned to the bookshelves and found another elderly volume. “‘English and Scottish Surnames”,’ she murmured as she flipped through it. “‘McIntosh—son of the chieftain”! Somehow I’m not in the least surprised!’

In the chilly bedroom she’d converted into an office, she pulled out a file and sank down at the desk, poring over the lease agreement in search of loopholes.

Curt glanced around his room. The old homestead, now the head shepherd’s house, had been transported to another site on the station. In its place Gillian had spent the last two years—and a lot of money—supervising the building of the new house, and then decorating it. Her innate artistry meant that each exquisite room breathed good taste, but she’d paid only lip-service to the homestead’s main function as the administrative head of a substantial pastoral concern.

At least she’d kept the integrity of its rural setting and hadn’t gone for stark minimalism, he thought drily.

He scanned the photograph on the chest of drawers, taken on the day Gillian married Ian. His sister glowed, so radiantly happy she seemed incandescent with it, and Ian was smiling down at her, his expression a betraying mixture of tenderness and desire.

Almost the same expression with which he’d looked at Peta Grey in those damned photographs.

What the hell had gone wrong?

It was a rhetorical question. Several things had gone wrong; an urbanite born and bred and a talented artist, Gillian had found it difficult to adjust to life in the country as Ian had worked his way up to managing the biggest station in what Gillian referred to as ‘Curt’s collection’. She’d stopped painting a couple of years previously, about the time she’d discovered she couldn’t have children.

A disappointment Ian clearly shared, Curt thought sternly.

Gillian’s suspicions were probably right. In the woman next door, Ian had seen the things his wife lacked—the promise of children and an affinity for the land.

As well, he’d seen something Gillian had missed entirely—a tempting sensuality. Curt swore beneath his breath. Ian’s wandering eyes were no longer so startling. Barely concealed beneath the layer of mud and her suspicious antagonism, Peta Grey radiated a vibrant, vital heat that had stirred a dangerous hunger into uncomfortable and reckless life.

It still prowled his body. Not that she was beautiful; striking described her exactly. Her skin, fine-grained as the sleekest silk, glowed in the sunlight, its golden tinge echoed by an astonishing golden tracery across her green eyes. Tall and strong, when she walked her lean-limbed, supple grace was like watching music materialise.

Perhaps it was simply her colouring that had got to him; all that gold, he thought with a mocking twist to his smile. Skin, eyes—even the tips of her lashes were gold. Not to forget the golden-brown hair, thick and glossy as a stream of dark honey.

His brain, not normally given to flights of fancy, summoned from some hidden recess a picture of that hair falling across his chest in silken disorder, and his breath quickened.

Hell! He strode across the room to the desk, stopping to flick up the screen of his laptop. While the state-of-the-art equipment purred into life, he sat down and prepared to concentrate on the task ahead.

But work, which usually took precedence over everything else, didn’t do the trick today. When he found himself doodling a pair of sultry eyes and remembering the exact texture of her skin beneath his knuckles as he’d hauled her back from the swamp, and the tantalising pressure of her full breasts against his forearm, he swore again, more luridly this time. After putting down the pen with more than normal care, he crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball and lobbed it into the waste-paper basket with barely concealed violence.

Other women had made an impact on him, but none of them had taken up residence in his mind. He resented that sort of power being wielded by a simple country hick on the make, someone he neither knew nor trusted.

He got to his feet. He was, he realised contemptuously, aroused and unable to control it.

The word ‘jealousy’ floated across his consciousness, only to be instantly dismissed. There had to be some sort of connection for jealousy to happen.

‘Accept it,’ he said with cool distaste. ‘You want Peta Grey—reluctantly—but you’re not going to take up Gillian’s suggestion and make a play for her.’ His main concern was to get her out of his sister’s life, and that process had already begun.

Relieved by the summons of his mobile telephone, he caught it up. His frown wasn’t reflected in his voice when he answered the query on the other end. ‘Working, but you knew that.’

His lover said something teasing, and he laughed. As Anna spoke he noted the long line of dark trees on the northern horizon. They hid, he knew, the small cottage where Peta Grey lived.

Anna’s seductive voice seemed to fade; he had to force himself to concentrate on her conversation, and found it difficult to look away from that row of trees.

‘…so I’ll see you next Friday night?’ Anna asked.

‘Yes.’

She knew better than to keep him talking; he hung up with a frown.

Time to put an end to their affair. Anna was trying subtly to work her way into his life, and although their relationship was based on more than sex it would be cruel to let her cherish any false illusions. She wasn’t in love with him, but in him she probably saw an excellent chance to establish herself.

As Peta no doubt saw Ian.

His expression hardened. It was time Peta Grey learned that actions always had repercussions.

A knock brought his head up. ‘Come in.’

Gillian peered around the door, a gallant smile hiding her tension. ‘Lunch in fifteen minutes.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll be there.’

Once she’d closed the door he glanced at his watch before dialling his lawyers in Auckland.

Peta scanned the cloudless sky, then walked back inside. It was going to be a hot, dry summer and autumn; she could feel it in her bones. Each morning she woke to heat and walked across dewless grass that was slowly fading from green to gold. The springs were already failing, the creeks dwindling. The wind stayed serenely in the north-west, pushing humid air from the tropics over the narrow peninsula that was Northland. In the afternoons taunting clouds built in the sky, huge masses of purple-black and grey, only to disappear over the horizon without following through on their promise.

If no rain came she’d need money for supplemental feed for the calves—money she didn’t have, and wouldn’t get from the bank.

Moving mechanically, she picked up her lunch dishes and washed them. She just had time to shift the older calves into another paddock, then she’d drive to Kowhai Bay for her stint at the petrol station. Once there she’d ask Sandy if she could work longer hours.

That morning the mail had brought a letter from an Auckland firm of solicitors telling her that it was possible the lease would not be renewed. However the contract to raise calves for Tanekaha Station’s dairy herds would remain in effect, although if she decided to sell her farm some agreement could be made in which she wouldn’t come out the loser.

The cold, impersonal prose removed any lingering hope that Curt Blackwell McIntosh might change his autocratic mind.

Last night she’d sat over the figures until too late, juggling them as she tried—and failed—to find ways of increasing her income.

And when she’d finally gone to bed she couldn’t sleep; instead she lay in bed listening to the familiar night sounds and wondered how much her land would be worth if she put it on the market.

In Kowhai Bay’s only petrol station, Sandy shook his head when she asked about more work. ‘Sorry, Peta, but it’s just not there,’ he said, dark eyes sympathetic. ‘If I give you extra hours, I’ll have to sack someone else.’

‘It’s OK,’ she said quickly. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ But her stomach dropped and the flick of fear beneath her heart strengthened into something perilously like panic.

Her shift over, she called into the only real-estate agency in Kowhai Bay, and asked about the value of her land.

‘Not much, I’m afraid—although I’d need to come out and check the house and buildings over.’ A year or so older than she was, the agent smiled sympathetically at her as she picked up a volume of district maps, flipping the pages until she found the page she wanted.

Pride stung, Peta held her head high.

‘It’s a difficult one,’ the agent said simply. ‘No access, that’s the biggie—really, you depend on Tanekaha Station’s goodwill to get in and out. I wonder what on earth they were thinking of when they let the previous owners cut that block off the station and sell it to your father.’

‘There’s an access agreement,’ Peta told her.

She didn’t look convinced. ‘Yes, well, there are other problems too—livestock isn’t sexy at the moment, and with last month’s trade talks failing, beef prices won’t rise for at least a couple of years. Anyway, you don’t have enough land to make an income from farming. If you planted olives on it, or avocados, you might attract the lifestyle crowd, but it’s too far out of town for most of them. They usually prefer to live close to a beach or on the outskirts. And let’s face it, Kowhai Bay hasn’t yet reached fashionable status.’

‘I hope it never does,’ Peta said staunchly.

The agent grinned. ‘Come on now, Peta, admit that the place could do with a bit of livening up! For a while after Curt McIntosh bought Tanekaha I thought it might happen, but I suppose it’s just too far from Auckland—OK if you’re rich enough to fly in and out, but not for anyone else.’ She looked up. ‘If you’re thinking of moving, the logical thing to do is ask McIntosh to buy your block.’

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