Читать книгу Shadowing Shahna - Laurey Bright, Laurey Bright - Страница 7

He came out of the mist.

Morning cloud lay softly in the hollows of the blue hills embracing the Hokianga Harbour, and drifted across its glassy waters.

Shahna Reeves, about to enter her cottage, paused at the steady put-putter of an engine. A small basket of fresh, warm brown eggs held between her hands, she watched the white hull of a motor launch emerge from the curling wisps of vapor.

The boat turned and slowed until it was nudged expertly alongside the weathered and worn jetty. There were two men aboard—the boat’s chunky, brown-skinned owner-driver, Timoti Huria, and…

Already on her way down the grassy slope, Shahna abruptly paused, her heart jumping erratically, her breath snagged in her throat.

The taller man leaped onto the jetty and took a backpack from Timoti’s big hands. A gray T-shirt stretched across taut muscles as he swung the pack to the worn, uneven boards, and designer jeans molded a trim male behind and long legs.

Timoti called to Shahna, “Brought you a visitor, Shahna. Okay?”

The newcomer, hoisting the pack onto one shoulder, turned and lifted his dark head, fixing her with a challenging ocean-blue stare.

Shahna swallowed. It wasn’t okay. Far from it. But if Kier Remington had come this far to find her he wasn’t going to go away just on her say-so. And she didn’t want to involve Timoti in a physical confrontation. Jerkily she nodded, then found her voice. “It’s okay. Thanks, Timoti.”

Satisfied, he revved the engine, and the launch backed and proceeded along the harbor, stirring a white-edged trail in the water.

His passenger started up the hill, coming to a halt in front of Shahna, their eyes level because the sloping ground negated the six inches’ difference in their height.

He subjected her to a leisurely inspection, from the dark brown hair curling gently about her ears, the loose T-shirt and unfashionable denim cutoffs, and down lightly tanned bare legs to the disreputable sneakers that she had thrust on her feet to go feed the hens.

Traveling upward again, his scrutiny halted on the basket of eggs.

A slight, disbelieving smile curved the explicitly masculine mouth. Shahna remembered how that mouth had felt on hers, firm and sure, warm and hungry. Shockingly she remembered too her own hunger for him, for his kiss, his touch, his arms around her, his male scent in her nostrils, his skin sliding against hers, hot and slick and exciting.

A familiar, long-denied longing assailed her body and made her legs weak. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

The last thing she had expected was that Kier would come looking for her. Dismay warred with exhilaration at the thought that he might have cared enough to do that.

He lifted his eyes to hers. “More to the point, what are you doing here?”

His gaze went beyond her to the cottage. Despite the white paint she’d lavished on the worn boards, the fresh green trim on the windowsills, and the new corrugated iron roof, she knew the sagging front steps and big up-and-down windows betrayed its colonial-era beginnings.

Shahna said, “The Hokianga is one of the most beautiful places in the world.” Dodging the real question.

He half turned to survey the harbor that thrust deep into New Zealand’s North Island, its myriad inlets and tributaries snaking through bush and farmland.

The sun was slowly bringing it to life, glinting on lazy ripples chasing each other across the surface as the mist melted away and crept up the hillsides, lingering on the bush-covered curves.

“It’s very pretty,” he agreed politely, and turned his attention to the immediate environs.

Around the cottage the grass was kept short by sheep that had fled at the sound of the approaching boat. A stand of dark-leaved trees, relieved by nikau palms and lacy tree-ferns, protectively embraced the small clearing.

His deep-blue gaze came back to her, and a lean, strong hand reached out to touch a tiny curled feather adhering to one of the eggs. “Very earth mother.”

Shahna stiffened, something uncomfortably like fear cooling her heated skin, and he said, “Are you going to invite me in?”

Panic nearly sent her running into the cottage, to slam the door behind her. Childish, and almost certainly futile.

She didn’t really have a choice. “All right. Come on in.”

Reluctantly Shahna led him inside.

Kier dropped the backpack on the old hinged-seat settle near the door and followed her across the polished kauri boards and colorful scatter rugs.

The kitchen, separated from the cosy main room only by cupboards beneath a waist-high wooden counter, was small and narrow. Shahna had placed the round dining table and four wooden chairs on the living room side of the counter after her landlord knocked out the partition between the rooms.

Ignoring the chairs, Kier propped himself against the wall between the two areas and resumed his study of her, his relentless gaze intensifying the jittering of her nerves.

He seemed alien here, out of his normal city environment. Even away from his own country. Shahna could almost believe she was dreaming, had conjured him from her subconscious as she too often did in sleep. Except that he was too real, too solid, too altogether male—dangerously so. There was nothing dreamlike about this.

She put the eggs down without looking at him. If she did, she might not be able to prevent herself from staring back, drinking in the sight of him, absorbed in the sheer seductive pleasure of his sudden appearance from the blue.

Trying for normality, she asked in a voice that seemed unreal, “Do you want some tea, or coffee?”

“Coffee would be good.” Watching her fill an electric kettle, he remarked, “You do have electricity, then.”

A wood-burner warmed the cottage in the winter and heated her water, but it was too hot for that now. “All mod cons.” She gave him a straight look, deliberately tamping down her wayward emotions—the fluttery fear, the guilty excitement, the sheer wonder at his presence. “All those I need, anyway.”

His eyes lit on the telephone sitting on the counter. “Your number’s not listed.”

“It’s under the landlord’s name. I lease this place from the farmer next door—it was the original homestead in the days when the main transport was by water.”

“The sheep aren’t yours?”

Shahna laughed. “The McKenzies run a few sheep on their farm along with dairy cattle.”

She took sugar and pottery mugs from a cupboard, busying herself to keep in check a foolish desire to fling herself into his arms and seize the moment that, with a sick dread in her heart, she knew couldn’t possibly last.

Glancing at him while she fixed the coffee, she saw that Kier was looking around now with assessing, perhaps disparaging eyes.

The furniture wasn’t new, not because she couldn’t afford it but because it would have seemed inappropriate in the mellow old building.

She’d chosen mellow colors too for walls and upholstery and the grooved decorative frames around the uncovered windows. Soft blues melded into grays and greens, with touches of old-rose and lavender and an occasional splash of deep crimson.

Colors that echoed the hazy bloom that blurred the distant hills, the ever-changing mirror of the harbor, the dark green leaves of the native trees with their paler undersides, and the starry bursts of pohutukawa flowers at Christmas.

Kier’s coolly critical appraisal helped to steady her unruly emotions.

He had given her no clue that this was anything more than a casual visit. With a bit of luck and a lot of self-control, she’d survive it with her hard-won serenity intact, her self-respect preserved and her secrets safe. “You’re out early,” she said, her hand on the coffee plunger. It was barely eight o’clock.

Kier returned his gaze to her. “Timoti had to catch the tide. He was going to pick up his wife’s sister and I caught a ride.”

“Have you had breakfast?”

“Timoti’s wife gave me bacon, sausages and eggs.” The couple ran a bed-and-breakfast in the waterside village of Rawene and took tourists on fishing or sightseeing trips. “What about you?” he queried.

“I’m okay.” She put a plate of coconut cookies on the table, poured the coffee and sat down. “Help yourself.”

She lifted her mug, using both hands because they were shaking a little and she was afraid of spilling her coffee. The bitter liquid scorched her tongue.

Questions raced through her mind but caution urged her not to ask them.

Kier looked around again at the old kauri dresser holding plates and cups, the pots of herbs on the kitchen windowsill, the sparse furniture. “Doesn’t seem like you, Shahna.”

Shahna shrugged, a good stab at seeming indifference. “Maybe you didn’t know me as well as you thought.”

His voice turned brusque. “What does that mean?”

She lifted her head from her contemplation of the coffee in her mug, making her eyes blank, her face expressionless. “Just what I said.” He had never known how deeply she had allowed her emotions to become engaged in their relationship. Thank heaven.

He had never cared enough to find out, she reminded herself acridly. But, to be fair, she had guarded her secret well.

Kier kept looking at her, as though expecting more. But she certainly wasn’t going to divulge to him here what she had kept hidden for so long and at such cost. Even if he’d had an unlikely change of heart, too much lay between them now. There was no going back.

When she didn’t offer anything further he said, “After three years, I’d have said you owed me more than three lines of farewell.”

Shahna’s hands tightened about the warmed curve of the mug. “I don’t owe you anything, Kier. That was part of our…arrangement. No strings, remember? The way you wanted it.”

A faint flicker of straight black lashes was the only sign that she’d disconcerted him. “What you wanted too, as I recall.”

Oh, she’d fooled herself for a short while that it was enough. She’d gone into their relationship with her eyes wide open, knowing the terms, and agreed to everything, imagining she was getting the best of all worlds. Good worlds. Plenty of people would have said she was mad to give that up. Sometimes she thought so herself. Although in the end the choice had been out of her hands. “That isn’t what I want anymore,” she said.

“And this is?” Kier’s unsparing glance swept again around the confined space. He shook his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said flatly.

She hadn’t cluttered the small rooms with furniture and decorations but she thought the cottage looked fine. “How did you find me?” she asked, deflecting him.

“I saw some of your jewelry at the airport when I flew into Auckland for a business meeting, and…when that was over I had some time to spare.” His face, his voice, were studied, and lowered lids almost hid his eyes as he ran a thumb over the rim of his cup.

So it had been a fluke, a casual happenstance followed up on a whim.

Kier hadn’t been searching for her all this time. A small, futile spark of wild hope died, leaving the taste of ashes in her mouth.

“They surely didn’t give you my address?” The airport’s high-priced souvenir shops were a logical target market for her handmade jewelry, ticketed with her name and logo. She hadn’t thought of Kier flying in from Sydney someday and seeing it for sale.

“It wasn’t as easy as that. But it gave me a starting point.”

Whatever had led him to do it—curiosity? a sense of unfinished business?—he wouldn’t have given up once he’d decided to explore the chance discovery. Determination and acuity, plus an instinct for sound investment, had brought Kier Remington success, respect, wealth. And a lot more besides. “Well, now you’ve found me,” Shahna said. “What do you want?”

“To find out how you are,” he said, “and what made you leave.”

“I’m fine. And I left because I wanted to.”

If she hadn’t known him so well she might have missed the flexing of a muscle in his cheek as he clenched his teeth. Kier had a formidable temper that he usually kept rigidly in check. “That’s no answer,” he rasped. “Why don’t you tell me the truth?”

The truth? Where would she start? “The truth is,” she said, “I’d had enough, of everything. Sydney, the rat race.” Of living life on the surface, of a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere, of hiding my feelings because you didn’t want to know about them, of being afraid that you’d find out and end it, cut me from your life as ruthlessly as you had every other woman who shared it for a brief time. “I needed…wanted something different.” She wouldn’t go into detail about how the realization had been forced upon her.

“You’ve certainly got that.”

She had, by removing herself not only from Kier’s byronic spell, but from the world of corporate images and office politics, and a social life that involved too many overcrowded occasions where the wine flowed freely and the object was not so much enjoyment as the all-important exercise of networking, everyone with an eye to the next useful contact.

Creating nature-inspired jewelry in a rural backwater was about as far from that world as one could get.

“How long,” Kier asked, “will it last?”

His cynicism raised the fine hairs on her arms in hostile reaction. “As long as I want it to,” she answered, deliberately calm. “I love this place.”

His eyes lingered a moment on a wall-hanging she’d made just for fun, driftwood and shells knotted into faded green twine hung from a discarded, moss-covered fence-post. “You live here alone?”

Shahna’s heart gave a brief lurch. Timoti and Meri hadn’t told him…?

Silently she blessed their discretion. The locals were protective of one another’s privacy. They wouldn’t have volunteered any information he hadn’t specifically asked for. “You mean, do I share it with a man?” Of course that was what he meant. “I don’t need to.”

“Taking the feminist high ground? The sisters would be proud of you,” he commented. “You never did need a man, did you, Shahna? You only let me share your bed on occasion because it was convenient.”

Her fingers closed hard around her cup as she curbed the temptation to throw it. How dare he accuse her, in that stinging tone? When he’d made it plain from the start just how he viewed their relationship.

To be fair, at that stage she had been relieved that he didn’t want to delve into her inner self, seeming content with the outer shell that was all she exposed to the world, especially to the male half of it. It was only later that she’d become greedy—needy. A dangerous state to be in, inviting heartbreak.

“Calling the kettle black?” she taunted, allowing her anger a brief release. “You didn’t need me, either. Any personable woman would have…fulfilled your needs quite adequately.”

His hand was lying on the table by his cup. She saw it curl into a fist, then relax before he answered her. “You underrate yourself,” he drawled. “You were much better than adequate.”

To her chagrin, Shahna’s cheeks burned. “Thank you,” she said, her voice brittle.

Perhaps he had actually missed her for a time. Missed the passion she’d given him, the delight he’d found in her body. As she had fiercely, dismayingly, missed his lovemaking—sometimes tender, sometimes playful, more often colored by the same driving intensity he gave to his work and to his other recreational pursuits—tennis, squash, rock climbing.

Kier had never been a team player. Even in bed his competitive spirit had surfaced, along with his desire for perfection. He had always seen to her needs before his own, and if he thought he’d failed to satisfy her completely he would make sure of it before he left her bed, or sleep overtook them both. When she took the initiative and gifted him with pleasure he would reciprocate with interest, guiding her to greater heights of physical sensation than she’d ever believed possible and leaving her sated, exhausted into a dreamy, euphoric lethargy.

Memories set her skin on fire. Hastily she lifted her cup and buried her nose in it.

She wondered whose bed Kier shared now, and suppressed a pang of jealousy. It was none of her business. And jealousy wasn’t appropriate. It never had been. They had agreed to be faithful to each other for as long their affair lasted, but she had ended it and Kier was now free to sleep with whomever he wished.

So was she, of course. And had been since she’d left him a brief note along with the key he’d given her to his Sydney apartment, and hours later boarded a flight to New Zealand.

Even if the opportunity arose again she couldn’t imagine wanting another man for a long, long time, no matter what logic told her about the normal physiology of a healthy twenty-eight-year-old woman.

Kier had carved a place in her heart despite never wanting or intending to. She had to face the fact that she’d made no such lasting mark on his. “I’m sure there was no shortage of candidates to take my place,” she said, putting down the mug.

Kier’s eyelids flickered, then shuttered his eyes so that she couldn’t read his emotions. “I’m choosy,” he told her shortly.

And cautious. After they’d met it was weeks before he asked Shahna out, months before their first night together in her apartment.

Kier Remington, self-made millionaire, head of his own private company and key player in Australia’s business and financial world, was known for quick decision-making, his keen brain working lightning-fast to weigh the possible consequences of a potential move. But he was equally capable of a ruthless patience. Less alert companies had been caught napping by a takeover bid from Remington Finance and Industries, the groundwork having been laid months before.

In his private life, Shahna had discovered, he was equally astute and equally focused. They had been sleeping together for almost a year before he told her he had decided at their first meeting that he was going to make her his lover. He’d taken the time to get to know her because he wasn’t interested in a short-term affair and had soon deduced that she wasn’t, either.

But he had also ensured that she knew he wasn’t offering permanence. The only promise he was willing to give, or that he wanted from her, was that as long as they were lovers there would be no one else. When either of them wanted out they would say so without fear of recrimination.

She couldn’t help a bitter surprise now at the subtle signs that he’d been annoyed when three years later she took him at his word and walked away.

Maybe it was because the decision had been hers. He had never taken kindly to having control removed from his own hands.

Shahna had been forced to take that action, but he could have no notion of how she had agonized over it before, after and since. And what unexpected complications had followed, although for those she could blame no one but herself.

And the last thing she wanted was to involve him in them, now or ever. She glanced anxiously at the clock on the kitchen wall.

“Going somewhere?” Kier asked. The clear implication of the slight sneer in his voice was, where was there to go around here?

“I have things to do.” She hoped he’d take the hint. “Timoti should be back this way with Meri’s sister in about fifteen minutes. If you wait on the jetty he’ll pick you up.”

“Keen to get rid of me, are you?” She knew that stubborn look—the determined thrust of his jaw, the swift drawing together of his brows.

“We have nothing more to say to each other, do we?” Shahna tried to sound indifferent, growing increasingly anxious. “It was good of you to drop by, Kier, but as you see you’ve no need to be concerned about me.”

“I have a lot more to say,” he said forcefully. “And I still want to know what went so wrong that you had to hide away in another country.”

“I’m not hiding away. I just wanted to come home.”

“You told me you had no people in New Zealand anymore, no ties. You haven’t lived here since…when? You were twenty or so?”

“Eighteen.” She didn’t recall ever telling him exactly, perhaps a measure of how superficial their knowledge of each other had really been. Not entirely his fault, she acknowledged. Reticence about her family had become a habit long before she met him. “It’s not a matter of family ties. There are other things I missed. Things I didn’t realize I was missing until…”

Kier leaned forward. “Until what?” he pressed. “Was it something I did?”

Shahna smiled thinly, mustering some kind of defense. “Everything doesn’t revolve around you,” she said. “I just decided I didn’t like the life I was living. So I changed it.”

He stared at her, patently unable to comprehend her decision. “What was wrong with it?” he demanded. “You had a successful, interesting career, your own home, friends—and, I thought, a satisfying love life.”

All true. Shahna had been earning a very good salary in a large PR and advertising firm. She had started in their art department and discovered she had a gift for both imaginative innovation and organization that led to a move sideways and then her rapid promotion through the system.

She had bought her own apartment, close to the firm’s city offices and with an expensive glimpse of Sydney Harbour.

Her friends were dedicated high-flyers who worked hard and played equally hard when they got the chance, and it had been fun, stimulating—living in a heady, fast-moving world that left little time for introspection or deep reflection.

Kier Remington had been part of that world.

Her boss at the agency had called her to his office to introduce her as one of their brightest young stars, to whom he proposed handing the Remington publicity portfolio.

When she entered, Kier had stood up to shake her hand, folding his strong fingers around it, and his eyes, the fathomless, intense blue of summer seas, found hers and sent an astonishing spiral of heat down her spine.

All she’d heard about Kier Remington had led her to expect a cold, emotionless man with a ruthless streak. He hadn’t got where he was at the age of twenty-nine by being softhearted.

A recent shake-up in one of his high-profile companies had made headlines. Top managers had abruptly lost their jobs among rumors that they had engaged in murky insider trading. Financial commentators were having a field day and a tight-lipped Kier Remington was shown on the TV news, brushing off reporters’ questions with a curt “No comment.”

It was understandable that he wanted a vibrant new PR campaign to repair the damage to his firm’s reputation. Shahna knew she was up to the job and would enjoy it, but had given very little thought to actually working with Kier Remington.

She hadn’t expected his smile to make her heart flutter like a schoolgirl’s, so that she had to assume a brisk efficiency to hide the effect he had on her.

Nor had she expected the glint of humor mixed with sexual challenge that lit his eyes, as if he knew exactly how she was feeling and was giving her fair warning. He didn’t bother to hide his attraction to her, and at the end of the meeting, with another brief handclasp he’d left her fighting a dangerous excitement that tightened her chest and made her entire body seem to consist of melting marshmallow.

As the door closed behind him she had been torn between relief and a sudden feeling of letdown.

Of course it was flattering that a man as good-looking and spectacularly successful as Kier Remington was interested in her, but she mustn’t get carried away.

Bracing herself for an aggressive pursuit, she had made a decision to resist. The Remington campaign was a giant step upward in her career and she didn’t want to jeopardize her future prospects by mixing sex with business. Too many people had crashed and burned trying to achieve that impossible balance.

But there had been no next-day phone call, no contact at all until she had studied the portfolio as she’d promised, and then phoned him with a list of suggestions.

He listened, then said briskly, “We need to discuss these ideas of yours. Lunch? How are you placed tomorrow?”

So businesslike that she had no excuse to refuse.

On her arrival at the restaurant he’d skimmed her with a look and accepted her handshake and deliberately cool smile with knowing amusement in his eyes, making her straighten her shoulders and tighten her hold on her leather briefcase as she returned him a blank, frosty stare. He’d given her a longer look then, a keenly observant look, as if sizing her up, coming to some conclusion.

But from then on his manner had matched hers, and she’d been impressed by his quick mind, his consideration of another viewpoint before putting forth his own, and not least by his willingness to accept that she knew her job.

He had made no suggestion of seeing Shahna socially, sticking strictly to business and making her feel foolish about the stern reminder she’d given herself to be thoroughly professional.

When she walked away from him after thanking him for the lunch, she wondered if it was her own imagination persuading her that she could feel his gaze as a prickling sensation between her shoulder blades.

Oh, Kier had been clever. Clever and calculating. When she discovered just how carefully he had played her, with a campaign as subtle as it was dead on target, she had been faintly chilled. But by then it was too late.

Sitting across the scrubbed wooden table from him, she felt an echo of that chill. Once Kier made up his mind to do something, nothing would deter him. Any setback to his plans was merely a goad to achieve his object another way, coming at it from some unexpected direction.

Her mug in her hand, she stood up, hoping this time he’d take the hint. But although his own cup was empty he kept it cradled in one hand. “So what do you do all day?” he asked.

Shahna couldn’t stop herself from casting a hunted glance at the clock. “I have a studio outside.” She indicated the visible corner of a small building just a few feet away. “A converted washhouse, actually where I work.”

“Nine-to-five?” Kier queried. He too glanced at the clock.

“Not exactly. Whenever I…well, whatever hours I please.” Shahna placed her mug in the sink. She was not going to offer him a refill. “If you want to catch Timoti…” she started to say in desperation.

“I told him I wasn’t going back to Rawene today.”

“Oh?” She looked at the backpack on the settle. “You’re taking a holiday?” Not his usual kind for sure, although she remembered him telling her he’d backpacked through Asia when he was nineteen. “What are your plans?”

It was a moment before he answered. “I haven’t made any definite plans.” Another pause. “Except to see you, talk with you, catch up on what you’ve been doing. Why are you so anxious for me to leave?”

As if he’d given the cue, from the next room came a tiny whimper, another louder one, and then a series of babbling sounds and a childish call of “Mum-mum!”

Kier went very still, his body immobile and his face a study in stone. Shahna too felt momentarily paralyzed. A sickening sensation made her stomach drop, and her temples throbbed.

Then Kier spoke, hoarsely, his knuckles going white as his hold on the cup in his hand tightened. “That’s a baby!”