“Well, now that you’ve found me, 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 Shahna 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 real feelings because you didn’t want to know about them, of being afraid that you’d find out and 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.”

Dear Reader,

It’s August, and our books are as hot as the weather, so if it’s romantic excitement you crave, look no further. Merline Lovelace is back with the newest CODE NAME: DANGER title, Texas Hero. Reunion romances are always compelling, because emotions run high. Add the spice of danger and you’ve got the perfection of the relationship between Omega agent Jack Carstairs and heroine-in-danger Ellie Alazar.

ROMANCING THE CROWN continues with Carla Cassidy’s Secrets of a Pregnant Princess, a marriage-of-convenience story featuring Tamiri princess Samira Kamal and her mysterious bodyguard bridegroom. Marie Ferrarella brings us another of THE BACHELORS OF BLAIR MEMORIAL in M.D. Most Wanted, giving the phrase “doctor-patient confidentiality” a whole new meaning. Award-winning New Zealander Frances Housden makes her second appearance in the line with Love Under Fire, and her fellow Kiwi Laurey Bright checks in with Shadowing Shahna. Finally, wrap up the month with Jenna Mills and her latest, When Night Falls.

Next month, return to Intimate Moments for more fabulous reading—including the newest from bestselling author Sharon Sala, The Way to Yesterday. Until then…enjoy!

Yours,

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

Shadowing Shahna
Laurey Bright

LAUREY BRIGHT

has held a number of different jobs but has never wanted to be anything but a writer. She lives in New Zealand, where she creates the stories of contemporary people in love that have won her a following all over the world. Visit her at her Web site, http://www.laureybright.com.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 1

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!”

Chapter 2

Shahna unglued her tongue from the top of her mouth. “Yes.”

She could claim she was baby-sitting, fob him off somehow. But Kier, she knew, wouldn’t be fobbed. And what was the point of lying? He’d find out sooner or later if he wanted to.

“Mum-mum!” More peremptory this time. She heard the rattle of the cot side as the baby hoisted himself up and clung, waiting for her to come to him.

“You’d better go,” she told Kier. “I have to pick him up.”

Kier rose from his chair, rocking it back so that it teetered. Automatically he steadied it and shoved it under the table, using both hands. His voice grated. “I’m not going anywhere!”

“Mum-mum…” Forlorn now, followed by a short silence and then a loud wail.

“I have to pick him up,” Shahna repeated distractedly and headed for the bedroom.

A baby. Kier’s hand clutched the back of the wooden chair so hard the edges cut into his palm. He felt as though someone had punched him in the gut.

Shahna had a baby. He couldn’t get his head around the idea. In all the time they’d been together she’d never said anything about wanting children. After they’d both obtained medical certificates, she had relieved him of the responsibility for contraception and he’d been glad of that. He’d trusted her not to slip up on taking her pills, just as she’d trusted him to keep to his word on the exclusive nature of their relationship.

Minutes ago she’d told him she wasn’t living with a man.

That didn’t necessarily mean she was celibate—after all, she had never lived with Kier, either, only slept with him on a regular basis, and kept a few clothes and toiletries at his place, as he did at hers.

A convenient arrangement, she’d reminded him.

And it had suited him, as she’d said. At first.

He wasn’t sure when he’d begun to find it less than satisfactory, when he’d started toying with the idea of asking her to move in with him—and put it off because Shahna seemed quite content as they were. And because he needed to be sure of her before he risked rocking the boat. Risked, perhaps, losing her—a prospect that had roused sensations he hadn’t felt in years, uncomfortably close to fear and a sense of powerlessness; a prospect that made him hesitate to endanger the status quo.

Despite three years of great sex and equally enjoyable companionship, he still felt he’d hardly peeked beneath the smooth, unruffled and intriguingly impenetrable surface she’d presented to him at their first meeting. He hadn’t been sure how she would react to his surprising desire for a greater intimacy.

Somehow Shahna had got under his skin as none of his previous lovers had. There was something different about her, something that had him hankering for more…not just of her beautiful body and her quick mind with its unusual blend of practical and imaginative that made her so good at her job, but the essential Shahna inside, of which she allowed only tantalizing glimpses.

And while he had been considering and strategizing how to persuade her to live with him, she’d left—vanished without warning, without explanation. Nothing but a three-line note thanking him for the good times and wishing him well.

He had never been so angry in his life. No use telling himself she had every right, that he had asked for no more, promised no more. Or that he’d probably had a narrow escape from making perhaps the biggest blunder of his life, allowing a woman to breach the barriers he’d carefully preserved for years. The suddenness of her departure, the lack of any discernible reason, had outraged him.

Today all the anger and outrage had come flooding back.

She looked different, a little more rounded than he remembered, softer. Her hair was shorter, the slight natural curl unconfined, and with no makeup she presented an intriguingly scrubbed look that he’d previously seen only rarely.

But she was as desirable as ever. Without his even touching her, his body responded the same way it always had since the first time he’d taken her hand and looked into her clear, momentarily startled and then wary hazel-green eyes. Responded in a way it had failed to do to any woman since she left.

It wasn’t that she was any more beautiful than numerous other women who entered his orbit. Or even that she was smarter. He knew plenty of highly intelligent, talented, beautiful females. In the last eighteen—no, twenty—months, far too long to brood over losing a lover, he’d deliberately cultivated a few of those other women. Had even vowed that he would take one of them to bed. But before it came to that he had lost interest. None of them were Shahna.

It was Shahna who inconveniently haunted his dreams. Shahna he reached for in the mornings before he was fully awake, only to encounter a cold, untouched pillow beside his own. Shahna whose body fitted so well with his, whose mouth was a miracle of softness and passion, whose lightest touch could bring him to instant responsiveness, whose subtle woman-scent had lingered in his apartment, catching him unawares when he opened his wardrobe long after she’d removed the clothing once stored there, or the drawer from which she’d forgotten to take several lace-and-silk scraps of underwear, or the bathroom cupboard that still held a perfumed body spray. Perhaps she’d left it on purpose because he had given it to her. Just as she’d scrupulously left the several pieces of jewelry that had been his gifts on her birthday or at Christmas, the only times she’d been willing to take anything expensive. Her rejection of the fruits of his wealth had maddened him, but he recognized and respected the integrity behind it.

Removing his hands from the chair back, he studied the red marks on his palms. He could hear the baby cooing, and Shahna murmuring words he couldn’t catch. An unpleasant, peculiar dread churned his stomach.

Then she appeared in the doorway, carrying the child.

Kier didn’t know much about babies, but this one wasn’t newly born. Its sturdy little legs splayed as Shahna held it firmly on her hip with one arm, the other hand supporting a plump bottom encased in some kind of red-and-white-checked overall worn with a tiny yellow T-shirt.

It struck Kier immediately, with a sense of unreality, how competent she looked, how—motherly. He had never seen Shahna with a child in her arms before.

The baby turned a round head capped with dark, loose curls, stared at him for a second with big deep-blue eyes, and then buried its face in Shahna’s shoulder.

“This is Samuel,” she told Kier. “Commonly known as Scamp.”

Shahna made herself meet Kier’s eyes squarely. There was no getting out of this now.

Kier looked poleaxed. He was still standing where she had left him, and he stared as though he’d never seen a baby before.

Samuel turned his head for another peek. But when she would have put him down he clung to her, nervous of the stranger. She walked across the small living area to the settle and sat with him in her lap, letting him inspect their visitor from a safe distance.

She saw Kier pull air into his lungs, and then he said raggedly, “You should have told me.”

Maybe she should have, instead of hoping he would be long gone before Samuel woke, avoiding any need for explanation. Now Kier was bound to ask questions—questions she didn’t want to answer.

Samuel looked up at her inquiringly and she smiled at him, reassuring him that everything was all right, that she wouldn’t let the big, angry man hurt him.

Because Kier was angry. She could see it in the telltale jut of his jaw, the blue fire burning in his eyes, the tight-drawn contour of his mouth. His voice when he spoke was raw and iron-hard. “You buried yourself in this place because of him? A bit extreme, isn’t it?”

She said, stung to defiance, “I’m not ashamed of him, if that’s what you mean. Lots of people know I’m a solo mother. Everyone around here.”

But no one from her old life. Shahna knew she was begging the question.

Kier seemingly made an effort to calm himself, but his mouth remained tight and his eyes were storm clouds. “I didn’t,” he bit out.

Samuel looked at Shahna again, puzzled. She took his hand. “It’s all right, Scamp. We have a visitor.” She looked up at Kier and the baby followed her gaze.

Apparently deciding there was no danger, Samuel wriggled, indicating he wanted to get down, and Shahna lowered him to the floor. Immediately he turned over on all fours and took off with remarkable speed toward Kier, bent on a closer investigation.

Kier watched his approach with something like trepidation, until Samuel’s head almost butted against his jeans. The baby’s fingers found the laces of the expensive walking boots temptingly in front of his nose, and tugged, freeing one end that promptly went into his mouth as he sat back with a grunt.

“Should he do that?” Kier asked Shahna, but didn’t wait for her answer. Obeying some instinct, he stooped to pick up the child, holding the small body awkwardly between his hands before he hooked out the chair again with a foot and sat down.

Instead of subsiding on his knees, Samuel straightened his legs and waved his arms, making encouraging noises. He wanted to bounce.

Fumbling a little, Kier soon got the idea, and Samuel giggled, enjoying the game.

Kier’s rigid expression gradually relaxed. He looked bemused and almost startled. Shahna very nearly giggled herself.

“He’s strong,” Kier said, surprised, as Samuel pushed off once more against his thighs, waving his arms enthusiastically.

Shahna smiled, proud of her son. There had been a few anxious weeks after his birth, but now he was full of energy and had even begun trying to walk around the furniture, looking terribly pleased every time he hauled himself to his feet. But he still found crawling a more efficient means of locomotion.

Tiring of the game, Samuel plumped down on his bottom and tipped his head back to study Kier’s face, lifted a dimpled hand to pat the man’s cheek, and said something incomprehensible in a satisfied tone. Then he took a fistful of Kier’s T-shirt and began sucking on it.

“Hey!” Kier tried to gently disengage the death grip on his shirt. “That’s not edible.”

“Give him one of those,” Shahna suggested, indicating the coconut cookies on the table.

Kier obliged, and Samuel grabbed the proffered treat, losing interest in the shirt. He bit a piece off the cookie, then offered the remainder to Kier. “Uh?”

“No, thanks.” Kier shook his head. He was staring at Samuel as though the child were an alien species.

“Uh?” Samuel persisted, generously.

Shahna got up. “Here, I’ll take him.” She pulled a wheeled high chair from its corner by the fridge, where it had been hidden from Kier’s view, and popped Samuel into it, fastening the tray.

Kier didn’t seem able to take his eyes off the baby. The grim look had returned and his face was paler than normal.

Shahna picked up Kier’s mug. “Do you want anything more?”

“I could use another coffee.”

There was no point in refusing that now. She poured it and put it in front of him, then fed Samuel a bowl of cereal and some milk in a plastic baby cup.

By the time Samuel had finished and she’d wiped his mouth and hands and lifted him down, Kier was rinsing his coffee mug at the sink. Samuel crawled efficiently to the settle and pulled himself up, banging on the lift-up seat and saying, “Ta, ta.”

“All right.” Shahna moved Kier’s backpack to the floor so that she could open up the storage compartment and extract a basket of toys. “There you are.”

Samuel was easily bored, and after painfully twisting an ankle Shahna had realized the danger of having small objects scattered throughout the cottage’s limited floor space. Now she restricted him to a few toys at a time, but choosing from the lot would keep him occupied.

Attracted by the novelty of the backpack, Samuel had discovered the plastic buckle on the end of a nylon strap and was chewing on it.

“Does he eat everything?” Kier asked, frowning.

“Pretty much. He’s teething.” She’d had to pick him up in the early hours this morning, in the end giving him a spoonful of prescription medicine. He would have been up for breakfast well before eight but the interrupted night had disrupted his sleep pattern.

She handed him a toy tractor from the basket to distract him from the backpack, then made to heave the pack onto the settle again.

“I’ll do that!” Swiftly Kier strode across the room and took it from her. His hand brushed hers and she quickly stepped back, a rush of sheer physical pleasure leaving her shaken and dismayed.

“What have you got in there?” she queried to distract herself. The pack was heavy.

“My laptop, among other things. And a mobile phone.”

“That won’t be much use around here.”

“So I discovered last night. Then Timoti told me they don’t work in the Hokianga.” He directed a searching look at her. “If you’re not hiding, why pick this godforsaken spot?”

Shahna kept her voice steady. “It’s a good place to bring up a child. And I can live cheaply here.”

“Are you short of money?” he enquired sharply.

“No, I have some savings and the money from the sale of my apartment. But I want to make it last while I build up my business.”

“Your jewelry. Can you earn a living from that?”

“I hope to.” Her work was becoming known to discerning buyers, and it didn’t sell cheaply. It was intricate and time-consuming, each piece unique, and worth every cent.

“A good place to bring up a child?” Kier sounded skeptical. “The middle of nowhere?”

Shahna smiled inwardly. Naturally the remoteness of the area horrified him. He was totally out of his normal element. “There’s a village a few miles away, with a store that sells milk and bread and groceries, even a daily paper.”

“What happens if he’s sick, or you are?”

“The hospital at Rawene runs a nurses’ clinic over here, and a doctor comes across once a week. Or I can drive to Kaitaia hospital in about an hour.”

“Drive?” Kier looked out the window where, beyond the neat A-frame henhouse, a couple of telephone and power wires ran alongside a barely discernible farm track, overhung by trees. “I don’t see any car.”

“I keep it next door at the farm.”

He pulled his gaze from the crowded trees. Somewhere in the distance a bull roared. “This is a far cry from Sydney.”

“Yes,” Shahna agreed. “I don’t expect you to understand.” Born and bred in Sydney, Kier was a king of the concrete jungle.

His gaze went back to Samuel, who was lifting toys from the basket to discard them on the floor, occasionally pausing to try one for taste. “I don’t understand any of this.” Kier lifted hard eyes to hers. “You didn’t deliberately get pregnant, did you?”

Shahna drew a deep breath. The question bought long-denied emotions to the forefront of her mind. Guilt, grief, shame and a tearing, exquisitely painful regret.

He had asked for the truth. She would give it to him. “Actually…yes.” The bare truth with no excuses or explanations, unvarnished by the complexities surrounding her reckless decision.

In hindsight it hadn’t been the wisest thing to do, but she couldn’t find it in herself to regret giving birth to Samuel.

Again anger smoldered in the blue depths of Kier’s eyes. “And planned to bring him up without a father?”

Planned? How could she reply to that? “Not…exactly,” she hedged.

“Then why didn’t you contact me? Don’t you think I had a right to know?”

Shahna went cold, despite the summer-morning heat creeping into the cottage. Sun-wakened cicadas shrilled in the trees outside.

Her hands clenched, clammy with sudden sweat, and Kier’s face seemed to recede and then swim into focus. She’d never thought she’d have to confront him with this. It was like a bad dream. “No,” she said, looking at him steadily. “He’s not yours, Kier.”

Kier blinked, then seemed to brush her denial aside, making a scornful sound. “What sort of fool do you take me for?” he inquired with forceful sarcasm. “It was certainly no bloody virgin birth!”

Samuel, who had been looking from one to the other of them while clutching a small stuffed rabbit, suddenly burst into loud sobs.

Immediately Shahna’s attention switched to him. “It’s all right, Sam-sam!” She gathered him up into her arms and shushed him, gently swaying her body from side to side to soothe him. “He’s not used to people quarreling,” she told Kier quietly, her hand cradling the baby’s head on her shoulder. “Shh, darling. No one’s going to hurt you.” She kissed a fat tear from a rounded, rose-petal cheek.

Samuel snuffled into gradual silence against her while she murmured comforting words and Kier stood by, black brows drawn together.

Shahna wiped the child’s hot face with her fingers, and Samuel turned his head, stared at Kier and pointed, saying accusingly, “Ma’!”

“Yes.” She had to laugh a little at his baby aggression. “Man. That’s Kier. Mummy used to know him.”

Ominously Kier’s mouth tightened again.

“Kee?” Samuel queried, looking at her for confirmation.

“Kier. He won’t hurt you,” she assured him again. Though Kier’s murderous expression indicated he would have liked to hurt someone, hit someone, she knew he wouldn’t.

“Kee.” Samuel gazed at Kier with solemn suspicion.

“Does he understand you?” Kier asked, the savage look consciously banished, although his face still looked tight and his voice was strained.

“Not every word. He understands tones of voice.”

“I didn’t mean to frighten him.” Kier was looking back at Samuel, keeping his voice low. “I’m sorry.”

“Kee,” Samuel said again, and leaned away from Shahna’s hold, stretching his arms toward the man.

Shahna smiled. “Apology accepted.”

Kier instinctively held out his hands to take the baby reaching out to him. Two chubby arms came about his neck, and incredibly soft curls tickled his chin. He put one arm under the padded little behind while the other held the small, sturdy body close to his chest.

A weird mixture of emotions overtook him. A kind of awe at this tiny human being showing him forgiveness, at the trust being bestowed on him. And a strong urge to preserve that trustfulness, to protect the little guy from hurt.

And a sudden, totally unexpected fierce possessiveness.

Apparently a hug was enough for Samuel. He squirmed, giving a clear signal that he wanted to be put down, and Kier bent and let him go.

Samuel made straight back to the toy basket, and when Kier straightened, his arms felt oddly empty. The warmth of the baby’s body still clung to his T-shirt.

“If you’d told me,” he said, unable to keep a certain righteousness from his tone, “I would have helped. I would have looked after you.”

“I didn’t need anyone’s help.” Shahna seemed almost desperate as their eyes met over Samuel’s head. “And certainly not yours.”

As if he were the last person she would have turned to. Kier’s temper nearly boiled over. He resented her assumption that he’d have reneged on his responsibility.

Her tongue momentarily flicked over pale lips. “I’ve already told you, Kier,” she said with careful clarity, “you’re not Samuel’s father! Another man is.”

Chapter 3

Another man?

Another man had made love to Shahna, had shared the intimate secrets of her body, had made a baby with her?

Inwardly Kier reeled, his mind in turmoil again. The only emotion he should be feeling was relief. Instead he felt cheated, and disappointed, and downright red-rag furious. He had to swallow hard and clamp his jaw firmly shut so as not to frighten the baby again.

“I didn’t expect,” Shahna said defensively, “that you’d jump to conclusions so fast.”

“How old is he?”

Her eyes met his full on, her head held high. “Eleven months.”

There was a short, prickly silence while he rapidly calculated. “You didn’t waste any time.”

He knew he sounded accusing. And that he had no right to accuse her of anything. But his bed must have hardly cooled from her leaving it before she’d been hopping into someone else’s. All ready to have the someone else’s baby.

His stomach plunged. “Were you sleeping with his father before you left me?” he asked.

Her eyes went glass-green with temper and color flared in her cheeks. “You know me better than that. At least, I thought you did.”

“I thought I did too,” he said. “But as you mentioned before, maybe I didn’t know you so well after all. Are you sure you know who the father is?” If she was lying to him that should force the truth from her.

“Of course I’m sure! It wasn’t you,” she said. “There is no way it’s possible.”

She sounded quite definite, and he supposed she’d know. Assuming she was telling the truth. “So where is this guy?” he shot at her, still not wholly convinced. “In Sydney?”

He thought at first she wasn’t going to answer. She looked away, then back at him. “Actually, in New Zealand.”

“You came straight here when you left me?” No wonder his inquiries hadn’t found her.

“Yes, I did. I mean, I was working in Auckland for a while before coming north.”

“You met him there? How? When? How long had you known him?”

She blinked as if he’d shocked her, then said steadily, “None of that is any of your business.”

She couldn’t have known the man long. It had certainly taken him a hell of a lot less time to find his way to her bed than it had Kier.

Yet earlier she’d told him she meant to get pregnant! “If your biological clock was sending off alarm signals,” he asked, “why didn’t you talk to me about it?”

“You were very clear that babies didn’t figure in your plans.”

He’d never thought they figured in hers, either. She’d given him no reason to think it. “I don’t recall that we ever discussed the possibility,” he said. “Except in the context of making sure it didn’t happen by accident.”

He’d been just as much concerned for her and her career as for his own freedom. It was all very well for women to think they could have it all, and for men to promise they’d do their share, but he’d seen female colleagues and employees juggling work and family, seen them drive themselves to exhaustion and turn down promotions, miss out on the top jobs because their energies were divided.

Some of them maintained it was worth it, but dammit, Shahna had never said she wanted a baby.

Had she?

He couldn’t recall the details of every conversation they’d ever had, but he was pretty sure he would have remembered that. “Why didn’t you say you felt differently?” he said, trying not to sound affronted. “That isn’t why you left?” Without even mentioning any desire for a child?

Shahna hesitated. “In a way…I suppose it was.”

What the hell did that mean? She hadn’t wanted his baby, but she’d been perfectly willing—eager—to have someone else’s? “So what did you do?” he demanded, his anger spilling over. “Sleep with the first man who came along? Use a sperm donor?” It had never occurred to him before that she might be one of those women who wanted a child to fulfill their womanhood, without the bother of having to share its parenting with a man. But then it had never occurred, either, that she’d walk out of his life without a backward glance.

To his considerable surprise she looked stricken. “I…it wasn’t like that,” she said, leaving him none the wiser. “And anyway, it’s not your business.”

About to hotly dispute that, Kier clamped his teeth together. She was perfectly correct, of course. If Samuel wasn’t his—he looked at the oblivious little boy, who had found a colored metal xylophone and was inexpertly banging on it with his hands—then he had no rights. And no obligations.

For some reason the thought didn’t please him.

Shahna went down on her knees and fished in the basket, coming up with a wooden baton for the xylophone. She put it into Samuel’s hand, and after gently removing it from his mouth, encouraged him to use it. Samuel grinned at her, attacked the keys with gusto, then looked back to his mother for approval.

Staring at her bent head as she folded her fingers around the pudgy baby hand and picked out the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” Kier felt excluded. Restlessly, he shoved his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans, shuffled his feet.

Shahna got up from the floor. “Well,” she said, obviously waiting for him to leave, “I’m sure you can get a ride to the ferry if you want to go back to Rawene the quickest way. Or on to another town if you intend to explore the Far North. The locals are good about picking up hitchhikers.”

He’d promised himself that seeing her one more time would complete the sense of something unfinished that had haunted him since she left; rationalized that the occasional nightmares about Shahna caught in some terrible, dangerous situation and his futile efforts to rescue her would stop once he knew she was alive and well and didn’t need him. That once he’d tied up the loose ends and found out the reason for her abrupt departure, he’d be able to heal the aching, gaping wound inside him that she’d inexplicably left, get on with his life and be happy.

So now that she’d made it clear she was alive and well and didn’t need him, now that he knew she’d walked out on him apparently because of some biological imperative that, not being a woman, he didn’t understand and probably never would, why couldn’t he walk away as easily as she had? Why this feeling of massive reluctance at the thought of it?

Maybe because he’d found more questions than answers.

When Shahna looked up Kier was still standing stubbornly unmoving, looking down at her and Samuel. A new sound penetrated above the tinny tinkle of the xylophone. An engine sound—not from the water, but coming closer and then cutting off, outside of the house. A truck? “Sounds like you have another visitor,” Kier said.

“My landlord is going to put up a fence for me today.”

Morrie McKenzie had promised to build her a childproof fence. The small lawn at the back between the vegetable patch and her studio was already enclosed, but with the river so near the house, and sheep droppings dotting the grass, she had to keep the front door closed or put a wooden barrier across it in case Samuel escaped.

A brisk tap on the door sent her to open it to a burly, tanned young man, wearing only khaki shorts and sturdy boots.

He ran a hand over thick, blond-streaked hair and grinned at her. “Hi, Shahna. I’ve got your fencing here. The old man was gonna come too, but he’s got a splinter in his hand and it’s infected or something. Mum had to help out with milking this morning.” He looked beyond her, curiosity in his bright blue eyes. “Hi, there.”

Kier was standing at her shoulder. Shahna sensed him without looking around.

She had no choice but to introduce them. “Kier’s a friend of mine from Australia,” she explained. “Kier, this is Ace McKenzie, my landlord’s son.”

Kier leaned past her to offer his hand. “I can help with the fence.”

Ace looked at him appraisingly as he accepted the handshake.

Shahna objected, “You don’t have any experience.”

Kier shot her a look, his eyes glinting wickedly, then turned a bland one to the other man. “I’m sure Ace can clue me in.”

“Sure thing,” Ace agreed happily. “Be glad of a hand.”

“You don’t need to—” Shahna began, but Kier was already moving her firmly aside and going down the steps to join Ace. “Let’s do it.”

They did it.

Kier helped Ace unload corner posts and supports and a posthole digger from the truck he’d parked near the house, and together they worked at digging in and leveling the posts.

Samuel, perched on Shahna’s knee while she sat on the top step, watched the activity with total absorption at first, but when he showed signs of wanting to join the men she took him inside despite his noisy protest.

Kier looked up as she shut the door behind them, muffling Samuel’s indignant wails. The sun was hot on his back, and his T-shirt clung sweatily to his body. He debated following Ace’s example and dispensing with the shirt, but at this time of day he’d probably burn rather than brown, and risk future skin cancer to boot.

“Hold this?” Ace asked, and Kier turned to steadying a metal standard while Ace rammed it into the earth.

Despite the heat, he was enjoying the unaccustomed physical work. He didn’t have the muscular bulk of Ace, but he’d always kept trim with his chosen sports and an occasional gym workout. Which wasn’t the same as using his muscles to actually build something. It was a long time since he’d got his hands dirty.

After a while Shahna came out of the house, carrying an opened beer bottle and two glass lager handles.

Ace straightened, wiping the back of a large hand over his forehead, and grinned at her. “Good one, Shahna. Just what we need.”

Not usually a beer drinker, Kier too was grateful for the cool, bitter draught. He drained his glass while Shahna stood by, and then handed it back to her. Somehow they fumbled the exchange and the glass dropped to the ground, which was fortunately soft enough not to break it. “Sorry,” he said.

Shahna was already scooping it up. “My fault,” she acknowledged, taking Ace’s glass, too.

“Where’s Samuel?” Kier asked.

“Playing in his room.” She surveyed the work they had done and said, “Lunch in about an hour? I’ll feed the Scamp first and put him down.”

Ace said, “I can go home for lunch.”

“No!” She paused. “It’s no trouble, and seeing you’re here you might as well eat with…us.”

When the supports were in Ace surveyed them with an experienced eye and turned to Kier. “How about a dip before lunch?” He jerked his head toward water—gleaming and invitingly cool.

Kier looked down at the grubby jeans that clung to his legs. “I’m not dressed for swimming.”

Ace grinned at him. “You don’t get dressed for it,” he said with exaggerated patience. “Just drop the jeans, mate.” As Kier glanced toward the house, Ace added, “You’ve got something on under them, haven’t you?” He bent and began unlacing his boots.

What the hell, Kier thought. Shahna had seen him often enough in less than the black briefs he wore under the jeans. He snapped open the fastener at his waist and lowered the zip, and within seconds he was following Ace and taking a shallow dive off the jetty.

When ten minutes later they pulled themselves onto the jetty again Shahna was there with two folded towels in her arms.

Ace’s shorts were dripping and clinging to him. He shook his streaming head, and Shahna gave a startled exclamation as water sprayed, spotting her shirt in large, spreading blotches.

“Oops, sorry!” Ace reached for a towel. “Thanks.” He began vigorously rubbing at his hair.

Shahna handed the other towel to Kier.

A silvery droplet ran from the curve of her jaw down into the neckline of her cotton shirt. Involuntarily following its progress, he saw that water had already darkened her shirt over one breast. He watched the center intriguingly peak beneath the fabric, and when his gaze jerked back to hers, saw the chagrin in her face, and recognized the helpless desire in her eyes.

The surge of his answering desire had him hastily allowing the towel to unfold while one fist held it loosely against his body. Triumph seemed to expand his chest, and blood drummed in his ears.

Shahna had inexplicably left him, but she still wanted him.

In that instant he made up his mind he wasn’t going to tamely go away and leave her here in the weird, closed little world she’d made for herself. They had always had terrific, incredible sexual rapport, and more besides that he couldn’t put into words. And there was that nagging, unsettling conviction that if only she would open up to him, he’d find something wonderful and precious, something he couldn’t afford to miss.

She might have been able to walk away from it all, but he couldn’t. And now he had found her again, he wouldn’t.

Shahna turned away, almost suffocating with the effect Kier had on her. She knew he’d seen and responded to it, and a treacherous part of her reveled in that knowledge.

But she had Samuel to think of. No longer a free, single woman whose mistakes would rebound on her head alone, she had knowingly taken on the enormous responsibility of bringing a child into the world. And now all her actions had to be weighed against that.

Kier might have been willing to “do the right thing” when he believed she’d given birth to his baby. But she’d told him he wasn’t Samuel’s father, absolving him of any moral duty, so couldn’t expect him to take into much account the needs of a child who wasn’t his. Looking after Samuel’s welfare was up to her.

Just as it had always been.

Kier changed in her bathroom. Ace, refusing to sit at the table in his wet shorts, parked himself in the doorway with a plate on which Shahna had piled cold meat, cheese and salad accompanied by wedges of crusty bread.

“Homemade?” Kier helped himself to a thick slice and looked at Shahna quizzically.

Shahna nodded. Although ready-sliced loaves were available at the garage-cum-mini-market a few miles away, she liked watching the yeast swell the dough, liked taking fresh new loaves from the oven and cutting off a few slices to eat while they were still warm.

“Delicious,” Kier decided after taking a bite. “There’s no end to your talents, is there?”

She glanced at him sharply, but there was no sarcasm in his expression.

From the doorway, Ace said, “She makes great chocolate nut cake.”

“Cake?” Kier queried.

She had sometimes whipped up a meal for the two of them, or made dinner for friends. But he didn’t recall her ever baking cakes.

“Ace has a sweet tooth,” Shahna said casually.

So she made cake for him? Regularly? Kier looked at the other man. His brawny, tanned shoulders and deep chest shone in the outdoor light, and surely the mop of sun-streaked hair, the candid blue eyes and the white-toothed, slightly cheeky grin would be attractive to women.

To Shahna? She’d sat watching the fence-building this morning, and whenever Kier looked up she certainly hadn’t been concentrating on him. Had her gaze been drawn to Ace, shirtless and muscular, and working with a practiced competence that Kier was unable to match?

Kier wondered how often Ace came to the cottage. And what else he did besides erecting fences.

Samuel had obviously recognized Ace, pointing and calling “A’e…A’e!” as if pleased to see him, which Ace had acknowledged with a cheery wave and “Hi there, Scamp!”

Samuel’s eyes were blue, too. Was it possible that Ace…?

He looked from the young man to Shahna.

She’d said she hadn’t—exactly—intended to bring up Samuel without a father, but also that she wasn’t living with a man. So how did those contradictory statements fit?

As Kier turned to stare at Ace with an oddly strained look on his face, Shahna studied him across the table. He was even better-looking than she remembered, and a little ache caught at her heart.

Leaving him was the hardest thing she’d ever done. And now, just when she thought she was finally getting over that and all the pain and anguish that had followed, he had to come sailing back into her life.

This morning she’d made the excuse that it wasn’t fair to shut Samuel out of the excitement of watching the men work, but the truth was she hadn’t been able to resist it herself.

Despite Ace’s minimal clothing and well-developed muscles, it was Kier’s lithe body and masculine grace that sent pleasurable goose bumps chasing over her skin when the close-fitting T-shirt stretched across his shoulders as he easily lifted a post, that made her heart pound as his jeans molded themselves to his haunches when he bent to drop the post into the ground. She’d watched him in covert fascination, plagued by memories that clogged her throat and made her blood run faster, only switching her attention whenever he glanced in her direction.

The men returned to the fencing while Shahna washed up, then she worked for half an hour in her studio before lifting a grouchy Samuel from his cot and placing the barrier across the doorway so he could see the men while she baked a cake.

By midafternoon a sturdy mesh fence, sporting barbed wire strung on angles at the farm side to discourage cattle from leaning on it, enclosed the front of the cottage.

“That’ll keep the little fella out of mischief,” Ace declared with satisfaction, “and the stock away from him.”

A gate with a childproof catch was the finishing touch, and then they celebrated with more beer and slices of fresh chocolate nut cake before Ace threw his tools and the unused fencing materials onto the tray of his truck, called, “See ya!” and roared off along a rough roadway through the trees.

“Thank you for your help,” Shahna said to Kier as she gathered up glasses. “Um…would you like a shower before you go?” His sweat-stained T-shirt and jeans would probably never be quite the same again.

“If you toss your clothes out the bathroom door,” she said, “I’ll wash them with a load I’m putting through.” It would mean he’d have to stay a couple of hours at least while his things dried but that would hardly matter now and, as she said when Kier hesitated, “I owe you that much.”

“You don’t,” he contradicted her, “but thanks.”

By the time he came out of the bathroom wearing clean clothes she had the washing machine going in the enclosed porch off the kitchen. Samuel was walking around the living room furniture, making his precarious way from the settle to a chair, to the sofa, and then complaining that the nearest dining chair was just out of his reach.

When Kier entered, the little boy twisted to look at him, lost his balance and fell on his rear end, breaking into a roar.

“Is he hurt?” Kier asked as Shahna picked him up.

“No, he’s just a bit niggly because his tooth’s bothering him.”

“Is that why he looks so flushed?” The rounded cheek that Kier could see was bright red.

“Mmm.” Shahna patted Samuel’s back and spoke to him. “You’re not going to let me get any more work done today, are you, Scamp?”

“I’ll watch him for you,” Kier offered.

She looked surprised and suspicious. “I can’t take advantage…”

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to.”

Shahna couldn’t recall when Kier ever had done anything he didn’t want to. But why would he want to do this? “You’re not used to babies,” she reminded him, torn between a stupid desire to make the most of the short time he’d be here, and a fear that he might find out more than she wanted him to know about her feelings for him.

“You’ll be here,” he reminded her, “if we have any problems. Right, Sam?”

He held out his hands invitingly to Samuel, who regarded him with suspicion for a moment, then said in a tone of pleased discovery, “Kee!” And reached for him.

Doubtfully, Shahna relinquished the child into Kier’s waiting arms. “I don’t know…”

“He’ll be fine. And if he’s not I’ll call you,” Kier promised.

He wouldn’t need to. She’d hear if Samuel were upset. “Your washing,” she said. “I was going to hang it on the line outside.”

“I’ll do it.”

Shahna hovered uncertainly, but Samuel was absorbed in a renewed inspection of Kier’s face, his scrutiny just as fascinated and far less covert than her own earlier, and Kier seemed to be returning the compliment.

Samuel grunted, then pointed an imperious finger to the toy basket, now tidied and placed on top of the settle.

“You want to play?” Kier asked. “Okay.”

Neither of them was taking the slightest notice of Shahna, so with faint trepidation she left them to it.

It was difficult to concentrate as she gently shaped lengths of delicate silver wire, to be set with pieces of polished amber-gold kauri gum.

Gradually she became absorbed in the work, clearing her mind of everything else. Hearing Kier’s voice, she looked out of the open doorway and saw him dump a basket of washing on the ground, where Samuel sat under the single wire that had been strung between the trees and the house and was held up by an old-fashioned manuka-branch clothes prop. Kier had found the container of plastic clothes-pegs that had a hook for hanging it on the line, but when Samuel stretched out a hand he placed it in front of the baby.

“Mistake,” Shahna murmured, and couldn’t help smiling as Samuel promptly upended the pegs all over the ground.

Kier laughed, and laughed again when Samuel laboriously picked one up and offered it to him. She heard him say, “Thanks, pal,” as he took the peg and fished a towel out of the basket of washing.

Shahna watched as he inexpertly hung up the towel and picked out another, before she turned back to what she was doing, smothering a nagging sadness that had settled around her heart and that mingled, confusingly, with an undeniable pleasure at just having him in sight.

Accustomed to keeping an ear cocked for the sound of Samuel waking from a nap in the room just a few yards from the studio, she heard him when he began to fuss, and was getting up from her workbench when Kier appeared in the doorway, holding the baby.

“I think he needs changing,” he told her, and thankfully handed the wriggling, indignant little bundle over to her.

As she took Samuel from him, Kier looked beyond her and said, “Mind if I look around?”

“Go ahead,” she invited after an infinitesimal hesitation, and bore her son off to the house.

Kier walked around the small room, where the long-nosed pliers Shahna had been using lay on a sturdy workbench under the single window. Tools hung on the walls, and a high padlocked cupboard occupied one corner.

A collection of photographs almost covered a large corkboard. Landscapes, pictures of rippling water and of wave patterns on sand, mixed with close-ups of ferns and moss, leaves and flowers. And display shots of necklaces, pendants, brooches and bangles, echoing the nature photos so closely he could clearly see where the inspiration for the jewelry came from.

He recognized the necklace that had caught his eye at the airport, rippled titanium and uneven pieces of green and white beach glass etched with abstract designs, distinctive in its unique, almost rugged beauty.

When he’d seen Shahna’s label it felt as if fate had struck him a blow in the heart. For months he’d been trying to convince himself he didn’t give a damn, that except for the worrying dreams and the residual baffled anger that occasionally attacked him, he was over her.

Until her name on a cardboard tag, catching his eye, squeezing a tight fist about his heart, had proved to him that he wasn’t.

Chapter 4

He’d wanted to ditch his meetings and find Shahna. Instead he’d persuaded himself to be coolheaded, concluded his business in Auckland as speedily as possible and then hunted her down.

He picked up a glass jar full of small seashells—some white patterned with brown, others purple or brilliant orange.

There were more jars holding weathered bits of glass, lumps of golden kauri gum, colored stones, even fragments of old china. A magpie collection.

Kier smiled, remembering her fascination with junk shops and markets where she’d buy bits and pieces he could see no use for.

She’d turned old, ugly and broken costume jewelry into quirky earrings and bracelets, or decor accents, like the drift of colored glass cabuchons spilling from a conch shell on her bathroom windowsill, catching the sun in the mornings.

Once she’d fallen in love with a faded fringed silk shawl and hidden the tears in the delicate fabric by draping it in folds on the wall over her bed.

He wondered if she still had it, if it hung over her bed now.

Hearing her voice, he looked through the open window, directly into another a few yards off, glimpsing a corner of a child’s cot. Shahna bent over it, and although Kier couldn’t see Samuel, he heard the little boy chuckle as Shahna laughed.

Her head lifted and her eyes met Kier’s. Feeling almost voyeuristic, he raised a hand to her. She lowered her eyes and turned away.

Minutes later she was back in the studio, Samuel in her arms. “Thanks for looking after him,” she said, “but it’s getting close to his tea time now. There’s no need for you to stay any longer.”

“It must be difficult,” Kier said, “working around a baby.”

“I do a lot while he’s asleep. And as long as I’m not using acid or soldering, he can play here quite happily while I’m busy.”

Kier looked about. “You’ve turned a hobby into an art.”

“I took a six-month course with a good tutor,” she said. “And I’ve had help from local artists here. They’ve been wonderfully supportive.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to find markets in the city?”

“I made some contacts in Auckland before I left. Enough to start me off.”

He indicated the corkboard. “Those are your work?”

“Yes. I photograph everything before it’s sold. There’s an album in the drawer, there.”

He opened the drawer of a battered chest that supported one end of the solid workbench, and took out a tooled leather volume. “This?”

She nodded.

“I’ll leave you to it while I fix something for Samuel to eat.”

“He can stay with me while you do that if you like.”

She gave him a strange look, and shook her head. “We’ve imposed on you enough.”

He felt as though she’d slapped him. As she went back to the house he had a strong urge to follow her and force some kind of confrontation. Instead he bent his attention to the pictures in front of him.

Shahna almost wished she hadn’t invited Kier to look at the album, although she was proud of her work and wanted him to know it. Seeing him prowling ’round her studio, his keen gaze taking in everything before he looked back at her, had unsettled her.

When he rejoined them she was placing a peeled banana half in Samuel’s outstretched hand and removing the empty bowl in front of him.

“I’m impressed,” Kier said, making her feel ridiculously pleased and proud. She already knew she was good—people with much more knowledge than he had said so. Yet Kier’s praise gave her greater pleasure than anyone’s.

“Thank you.” She tried to sound nonchalant.

“If you don’t mind I’ll leave my things to dry here and pick them up tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? I thought you’d be moving on today.”

“No,” he said. “I won’t be.” He was regarding her narrowly as though watching for her reaction. “I’m staying.”

“Staying?” Shahna stared blankly at him, her heart doing a flip. “You can’t! Not here.”

Perhaps annoyed at her obvious dismay, he said shortly, “Ace offered me a bed at the farm. Hokianga hospitality, he said.”

It was famous, but Shahna hadn’t bargained on Ace being quite so ready to volunteer it, although she knew his parents would happily give Kier one of their spare rooms for the night.

“He said they’d expect me for dinner,” Kier said. Unless he was intending to stay in the cottage, Ace had said, adding with a sidelong glance, “But Shahna’s only got the two bedrooms, and there’s plenty of room at our place.”

Kier had wondered if the invitation was a means of discovering just how close he and Shahna were. Or even of ensuring that he didn’t spend the night with her.

But Ace had quite cheerfully gone off and left Kier to find his own way later to the farmhouse. He didn’t act like a jealous lover.

Shahna watched Kier walk away until he was out of sight among the trees. In the morning she would hand over his washing and make it clear she had no claim or interest in him before sending him on his way forever.

Never mind that the thought made her heart turn to lead and brought a lump into her throat that threatened to choke her.

And never mind that she dreamed of him all night—disturbingly erotic dreams that left her lethargic and yet dissatisfied.

In the morning Samuel was eager to explore his newly fenced domain.

First, though, Shahna wanted to get rid of the sheep droppings. She was busy with a bamboo rake while Samuel watched her from behind the barrier across the doorway, occasionally complaining at his imprisonment, when Kier arrived.

She turned from her task to see him striding across the space between them, stunning in fresh jeans and a shirt a shade darker than his eyes. Before she’d had time to catch her breath and say good morning, he’d taken the rake from her. “Let me do that.”

“I can manage.”

But he was already getting on with the not-too-pleasant task, and Samuel chose that moment to protest in earnest about being left out of all the fun.

“Look after Sam,” Kier said, as if she wasn’t doing that, Shahna thought with mild annoyance as she went to quiet the baby, then carried him over to say hello.

“What do you want me to do with this stuff?” Kier asked.

“Bag it and add it to my compost. Now that we have a fence I plan to put in a flower garden along the front of the house.”

“The ground’s pretty hard,” Kier said.

He would know, after digging holes for the fence yesterday. “It’s fertile,” she told him. “There’s plenty of manure from the sheep and my hens, and Morrie promised to get me a load of untreated sawdust.”

“Do you have a spade?”

She fetched it for him and held a bag while he emptied the sheep manure into it, then he hauled it around the back and forked it into her compost heap. After that the least she could do was offer him a cup of tea.

While Samuel chewed on a piece of toast in his high chair, she asked, “Do you know how Morrie’s hand is?”

“It looks bad. Alison insisted on taking him to get it looked at this morning.”

Shahna was fairly sure that Morrie wouldn’t have let his wife persuade him if he hadn’t been in considerable pain and probably more than a little worried. “Poor Morrie. I must phone Alison later.”

“You’re quite close to…the family?” Kier inquired.

“They’ve been good to me, and I try to repay them any way I can.”

“You can’t have many friends, out in the country like this.”

“I know most of the locals, at least to say hello to. And there’s a playgroup that I take Samuel to twice a week. All the mothers get a chance for some adult company.”

Kier glanced at her shrewdly. “Do you miss that? Adult company?”

“Not much. But it’s nice to talk to people with similar interests now and then.”

“Similar interests?” Kier looked incredulous.

“We all have young children, for one thing,” she reminded him rather tartly. “But we talk about a lot of other things too. Books, art, the education system, what’s in the news, farming, TV—I don’t have one, but the McKenzies ask me over sometimes when there’s something special on… It isn’t all knitting and cooking.”

“I’m sure it’s very stimulating.”

She flashed him a look. “It may sound boring to you—”

“It just doesn’t sound like you,” he commented. “Unless you’ve changed a lot.”

“A baby gives you a new perspective on life.”

Kier scowled at her, perplexed. “It doesn’t lead many people to alter their life so radically.”

“I suppose not,” Shahna acknowledged. “But it was the right thing for me…and the Scamp.”

Hearing his nickname, Samuel began to bang on the tray of the high chair, making little crowing noises. Shahna offered him another piece of toast that he declined decisively by throwing it on the floor. Chiding him, she picked it up and popped it into the scrap bucket she kept for the hens before releasing him from the chair.

Kier stood up too. “I’ll dig that garden for you.”

“There’s no need…”

But he didn’t listen, merely casting her a withering look and going right ahead anyway.

He certainly got it done faster than she would have and with less effort. Shahna discouraged Samuel from helping and took him inside to distract him with toys, before returning alone to see Kier chopping up the last of the turned sods. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “I’m very grateful.”

He plunged the spade upright in the soil. “No sweat.” A lie; his face was glistening, but it only added to his attraction.

He swiped an arm across his forehead and grinned, as if realizing he’d used the wrong words. Shahna caught her breath, her heart tumbling. It was rare, that grin of pure enjoyment. Kier had always been sparing with his smiles, and often they hid less innocent emotions.

She couldn’t help an answering smile, looking up at him as the sun lit his eyes, making them bluer than ever, and picked out glints in his dark hair.

“Of course, if you really want to thank me…” he said softly, and stepped toward her.

She should have protested, or at least turned away, made it clear his kiss was unwelcome. Instead she waited with a sense of expectation as he took her shoulders gently and bent his head until his mouth met hers.

She closed her eyes, and involuntarily her lips parted under his warm persuasion. She could feel the sun beating on her hair, and hear the water rippling along its bank, Samuel babbling a wordless little song in the background.

Everything faded as Kier’s mouth worked a familiar magic, making her breath come unevenly and her skin tingle with anticipation when his hands slid down her arms and fastened on her waist to draw her closer.

She lifted her hands, momentarily resting them on his chest, fighting the urge to fling her arms around his neck. Instead, with a supreme effort, she pushed against him, and wrenched her mouth from its erotic enthrallment.

His hands tightened for a second on her waist, and then he let her go. They stared at each other, her cheeks hot, his eyes glittering with a fierce satisfaction.

Shahna swallowed hard, unable to tear her gaze away. Dumbly she shook her head in futile denial.

Kier smiled. Quite differently from before. This smile was knowing and confident and very, very male. It spelled trouble.

I must be crazy, Shahna thought. Why had she allowed him to do that?

“You’ll want your clothes,” she said, trying to appear unaffected by the kiss. “They’re dry now.”

“If there’s anything else you need done…”

“You’ve done enough,” she answered huskily. “And had your payment.”

Immediately she wanted to bite her tongue. A stolen kiss that she hadn’t made the least effort to avoid was hardly compensation for the amount of work he’d put in both yesterday and this morning.

Kier smiled again, tipping his head to one side as he regarded her with lurking amusement. “And very nice too,” he said.

Anger dispelled the warm afterglow of the kiss. Was it a game to him? Coming here, upsetting her hard-won equilibrium, intruding on the life she’d made for herself and Samuel, simply for some sort of whim.

“I’ll get your things,” she told him, and marched back to the house. As she climbed over the barrier keeping Samuel inside, Kier was right behind, entering after her.

Samuel was absorbed in poking wooden shapes into matching holes in a colored plastic bucket. He stopped to watch the two adults pass, then returned to his task.

Shahna picked up the neatly folded garments from the top of the washing machine and turned to present them to Kier. But as he held his hands out to take them she gasped, staring at his upturned palms.

He looked down too, at the reddened skin and broken blisters. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, letting his hands drop.

“It’s bad enough!” Shahna felt quite sick. “Have you put anything on them?”

“Disinfectant, last night when I broke the blisters I collected yesterday. And Alison gave me some salve.”

But he’d been digging her garden this morning! Unaccountably angry, she said, “What the hell are you trying to prove?”

“Apart from the fact that I’m not accustomed to using my hands for physical labor,” he said wryly, “nothing. But I’d hate to see this happen to you.”

So he’d taken over the job when he realized she meant to dig the soil herself. “I wouldn’t have gone on working if it had,” she retorted.

He reached out again and took the clothes she held. “Thanks for this,” he said, not moving away, and she found herself crowded against the washing machine. The laughter had left his eyes and they were searching, intent. “I’ll be back,” he said.

“What?” Her own eyes widened.

Kier frowned. “Why are you scared?”

“I’m not!” Shahna floundered, torn between a useless hope and the prospect of future heartbreak. “I just don’t know why you’d bother.”

“What is it with you?” He sounded exasperated. “I’d never thought you lacking in self-esteem.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my self-esteem, thank you! I told you, I’ve changed.”

“Some things don’t change.” His gaze lingered on her mouth, then he lifted his eyes to hers in challenge and added softly, “Do they?”

What was the point of arguing? He was leaving anyway, and once back in his own milieu, absorbed in the world he knew and loved being a part of, he would forget her again.

After all, he hadn’t chased her up until the sight of her name on her jewelry had reminded him of her existence. “It was nice seeing you,” she said, striving for a pleasant indifference, “but I won’t be holding my breath for another visit. Enjoy your life, Kier.” She had to look away in case he saw sadness in her eyes, guessed at the tug of grief inside her.

“I intend to.” A grittiness had entered his voice. “What about you?”

“My life is just fine. I have everything I need.”

“Including a lover?”

She glared at him. “Like I said before, I don’t need a man.”

“You’re a passionate woman, Shahna. How long do you think you can do without sex?”

“Just as long as I want to,” she returned, meeting his eyes defiantly. “There are plenty of other pleasures in life.”

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