Why, if she was the mercenary, calculating woman he’d assumed, hadn’t she sold Tarika Bay to him?

His lips tightened as he watched her sip her wine, red lips lushly inviting. For a while—okay, since the day they’d met!—he’d been fighting a desire to find excuses for her supposed greed.

He put his fork down on his empty plate. Now he found himself wondering whether her wild abandonment in his arms had been a natural generosity, or a calculating attempt to soften him in case she needed a loan. The thought outraged him for reasons he wasn’t prepared to explore right then.

It would be much easier if he could convince himself she was a greedy, amoral sensualist.

Perhaps it was simply that she had enough contradictions in her character to intrigue him. Businesswoman, artist and craftsperson, sensual lover, yet a woman who blushed occasionally and hated it…

She had certainly enjoyed making love with him, but did it mean anything to her?

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Harlequin Presents #2342

Robyn Donald
The Temptress of Tarika Bay

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

DRAGGING her gaze away from the polished hide of the bull pacing past her, Morna Vause eyed the spectators at the local Agricultural and Pastoral Show. Tinny music from the sideshows floated across the showgrounds, mingling with the busy hum of New Zealanders having a good time.

In a brittle voice she murmured, ‘I’d feel safer if there was more than one strand of wire and a few spectators between that animal and me.’

Cathy Harding grinned. ‘I know you’re the consummate city slicker, but can you imagine something that big actually running? I bet I can hop faster than its full speed. With your long legs it wouldn’t have a hope of getting anywhere near you. Are you bored? Would you like to go home?’

‘I’m not in the least bored,’ Morna told her honestly. She squinted from beneath the brim of her hat at the cloudless sky, a richer, more mellow blue than summer’s brassy brilliance. ‘It’s autumn—we’re supposed to be cooling down.’

‘Not in Northland.’

Morna’s idle gaze skimmed the crowd, stopping at an arrogantly held head a few yards away. Registering great height—about six inches over six feet—blue-black hair, olive skin, and an air of cool authority, she felt an odd shimmer of awareness, a kind of alteration to the fabric of her life she’d only experienced once before.

And look what that got you, she told herself sternly. Humiliation and pain and bitter betrayal and a total loss of self-respect…

Physically, this man didn’t even look like Glen. Not only was he much taller, his wide shoulders reminded her of the axemen she’d watched demolish tree trunks a few minutes ago. Glen had cherished his urban worldliness, whereas this man looked thoroughly at home in a very rural situation.

Unexpected heat shivered along her nerves. All she could see of the unknown man was one superb cheekbone, a strong nose and an even stronger chin, yet something about his stance—an indefinable aura of complete self-confidence?—goaded her into instant dislike. Glen had had the same—

Mercilessly slamming the door on unwanted memories, Morna fanned herself more vigorously and forced her eyes back to the show ring, where another gleaming mountain of animal was striding ponderously past, dwarfing its handler.

Face lighting up, Cathy exclaimed, ‘Oh, look, there’s Marty with our bull! Nick’s so pleased it got Champion of Champions.’

Nick Harding was Cathy’s husband and Morna’s foster-brother. Morna patted a damp black lock of hair back into her sleek bob and said respectfully, ‘It’s certainly a splendid beast. Gorgeous.’

Cathy chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t exactly call them gorgeous, more overwhelming. I saw you admiring them like a veteran cattle fancier over at the pens with Nick.’

‘I love those burnished colours.’ Frowning, Morna watched another animal approach. ‘They make me wonder if I could get that effect in a piece of jewellery. I’d have to use enamel…’

‘It intrigues me that you rely on forms and colours from nature so much. Designing and making jewellery seem such sophisticated skills.’

Wrinkling her nose at the sickly perfume of candyfloss that floated over other, more earthy scents, Morna pointed out, ‘The raw materials are very basic. Precious gems and metals are gifts from the earth. And as for sophistication—who could be more sophisticated than Nick? Yet here he is, lord of the manor and thoroughly enjoying it.’

Cathy said cheerfully, ‘You know Nick—he digs really deep into anything that interests him. He’s enjoying learning about genetics, and the right swear words to use with cattle dogs, and how to put a post in.’

‘He never showed any sign of being interested in farming! We were classic city kids—didn’t even know where milk came from. And then he turned into an advertising whizzkid in Auckland’s best agency…’

Cathy filled in the silence. ‘You certainly couldn’t get more urban than that.’

‘Indeed.’ Morna wished she’d kept her mouth shut, but the past that entangled them both had a way of intruding into the present.

From somewhere close behind her, a deep, sensuous rumble of male laughter summoned swift shivers. The big, dark-haired stranger flashed into her mind. She was, she thought angrily, behaving like a hormonal teenager—it probably wasn’t the same man, and if it was, so what?

Tilting her hat so that it shaded her face even further, she said abruptly, ‘I wish we’d known each other—without Glen.’

‘You can’t change the past,’ Cathy said simply. ‘If it hadn’t been for him I probably would never have met Nick, and that would be—well, I’m so glad I did. I hope one day you meet someone you can trust.’

Morna shrugged. ‘I hope so too.’ Not that she expected it to happen. Ruthlessly she dragged the conversation back onto a previous track. ‘I’m impressed at how well Nick fits in. The men at the cattle pens treat him like an equal, yet I believe country people are notoriously hard to please.’

‘Nick would fit in anywhere.’ As always, Cathy’s tone deepened into an enviable combination of love and pride when she spoke of her husband. She sent a quick glance at Morna. ‘When I first met you, I wondered if you loved him.’

‘I do,’ Morna told her equably, ‘though not the way you’re meaning. I’d lay down my life for him, but as far as I’m concerned he’s my brother. He always has been and he always will be.’

Cathy nodded. ‘The Two Musketeers—one for both and both for one.’ She laughed wryly. ‘I was jealous.’

‘You had no need to be. We’re family. He loves you quite differently.’ She met Cathy’s eyes and smiled.

‘I love him too.’ Cathy’s fine-featured face glowed.

Morna wondered what it would be like to be as small and delicately beautiful as the woman beside her.

Not that she’d exchange her extra height and strong-boned face, but occasionally she thought it would be…well, interestingly different to have a man treat her with the intensely protective love that Nick reserved for his wife.

She moved uncomfortably, transfixed by an itch between her shoulderblades. Someone was watching her with more than ordinary interest—she could feel an intentness that set alarm bells jangling in a primitive warning.

With a swift, mischievous grin Cathy nodded behind her. ‘If you want a real lord of the manor, your next-door neighbour Hawke Challenger is the best candidate. He’s just got back from Central Africa.’

Morna turned, oddly unsurprised when she caught the eyes of the dark-haired man. Conspicuously light-coloured in his tanned face, they held her gaze for several tense seconds before releasing it to survey the woman speaking to him.

Furious at the cool assessment in that pale scrutiny, she said thickly, ‘Is that him?’

‘That’s the owner of Somerville’s Reach cattle station,’ Cathy told her, adding, ‘And the staggeringly chic, exclusive resort at Somerville’s Bay, as well as its diabolically difficult golf course.’

To cover the prickle of feverish excitement in her bones, Morna remarked flippantly, ‘How could any couple stare into the face of their newborn child and decide to lumber him with such a totally over-the-top name?’

Hawke Challenger chose that moment to smile at the woman beside him.

Morna’s heart jumped. Shocked and disturbed, she noted how a brief flash of white teeth and the relaxation of a few muscles around a strong, masculine mouth could turn an impressive mask of force and power into an outrageously handsome face.

A hot flicker of sensation twisted inside her. She was not, she realised, the only woman watching him from behind sunglasses. Such potent male charisma summoned a focused high alert from every woman within range.

Stunned by her reaction, and bleakly resisting, she concentrated on what Cathy was saying.

‘I think Hawke Challenger suits him. Anyway, he’s not the sort to be swamped by a name, however extravagant. He’s got far too much presence.’

‘You’re completely right,’ Morna said, squelching a latent huskiness in her tone. ‘Too much—too, too macho. He’s not in the least what I expected.’

The Challenger man laughed again. Instead of softening that hard buccaneer’s face, his amusement seemed sardonic—a match for his slashing profile. He was truly gorgeous, his hard-edged features underpinned by a formidable self-possession that echoed his surname.

Morna made a habit of refusing challenges, except purely business ones, and this one she wasn’t going to touch. Chills scudded down her spine, because something in that cool, impervious regard, something in the way he smiled at the woman beside him, reinforced that initial reminder of Glen.

Did Cathy not notice it?

Cathy’s eyebrows rose. ‘You haven’t even met the man, yet you’ve made up your mind not to like him.’

Clearly she liked him. ‘He’s beautiful,’ Morna drawled.

Cathy chuckled. ‘Oh, absolutely. So?’

‘Beautiful men—apart from Nick, of course—are usually self-absorbed and conceited.’ Deliberately she turned away. ‘Bet you anything you like that Handsome Challenger is checking out the best-looking women here.’

‘You do jaded and worldly so well! I do admire that curl of the lip and the bored tone.’ Cathy grinned at her. ‘And if he’s assessing the best-looking women you’ve just been elected to that group, because he’s keeping an eye on you. Without being obvious, of course—Hawke is never obvious.’

The twining heat in the pit of Morna’s stomach tightened into a knot. ‘He’s probably eyeing you up and envying Nick,’ she said uncomfortably, keeping her gaze fixed onto the slow-moving procession of animals filing past.

The younger woman snorted. ‘Not Hawke—married women aren’t his style. And why shouldn’t he be interested in you? You’ve got spirit and character written all over your face, and a body to die for. As well as that fabulous skin.’

‘Well, thank you—’

Cathy ploughed on, ‘Hawke isn’t conceited. Dominant, yes, and completely confident—’

Smiling, Morna agreed, ‘OK, OK, he’s certainly nothing like the agricultural tycoon I’d imagined.’

‘What did you think he’d be like?’

‘A testy middle-aged man with a weather-beaten face and an unhealthy interest in sheep,’ Morna drawled.

Cathy choked back laughter. ‘I don’t believe that! You must have heard about him.’

‘The only locals I’ve talked to since I moved to Tarika Bay are you and Nick, and the Gorgeous Challenger hasn’t come up in the conversation.’

‘It’s time you started meeting people.’ Cathy looked at her with determination. ‘We gave you a month to settle in, but from now on I’m going to invite you whenever we entertain, and I expect you to come. You work too hard—you need to play a bit too.’

‘I’m a self-employed businesswoman; I have to work hard.’

Besides, she had an old debt to pay off.

At that moment Hawke Challenger looked deliberately at Cathy and smiled. It felt like a betrayal when Cathy’s face lit up with a warm response. Morna’s lips tightened. Why couldn’t her intelligent friend catch that painfully evocative resemblance to Glen?

Not in looks—although Glen had been a good-looking man, he wasn’t in the same league as Hawke Challenger. But both men wore an air of arrogant confidence, of complete conviction that they could do what they wanted because of who they were.

Cathy seemed quite blind to it. In a tone that could only be called cheerful she said, ‘So now you know you’ve got a truly fanciable man living right next door.’

‘Well, just over the hill,’ Morna agreed. She added tautly, ‘And I’m certain every time he thinks of Tarika Bay, with its three acres and that lovely little beach, he comes over all acquisitive. Before he died Jacob told me that “the Challenger circus” had approached him a couple of times to sell. Jacob turned each offer down, but I’ll bet Hawke Challenger believes he’s going to buy it off the estate.’

Cathy said fairly, ‘I can understand why Hawke wants it. His land surrounds Tarika Bay.’

‘He might want it,’ Morna told her with calm determination, ‘but he’s not going to get it.’

Cathy sighed. ‘You’ve decided to dislike him. I recognise that mulish jut to your jaw!’

‘I haven’t made up my mind,’ Morna said. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think of him. I’m the interloper here, not him. He fits in very well with all these splendid animals: big and well-muscled and seething with testosterone. The colour’s right too—I’ve seen several bulls exactly the same bronze as his hide. And you can take that matchmaking look off your face. He’s years younger than I am!’

Cathy returned, ‘Turning thirty-four yesterday didn’t transform you into a hag overnight. As it happens, he’s two years younger than Nick—’

‘Which makes him two years younger than me,’ Morna interpolated.

Cathy sent a resigned glance skywards. ‘Who’s counting? Who cares?’

The man they were both watching chose that moment to direct a long, speculative stare at Morna. Hawke Challenger’s light eyes duelled with her golden, resentful ones before he lifted one straight black brow in a mocking acknowledgement and turned his attention back to the people with him.

Morna fumed. Over-confident bastard! She’d trained herself not to be intimidated by his type, but it irritated her that while she’d been grateful for the wide brim shadowing her face, he’d held his autocratic head high.

Without expression she commented, ‘He certainly doesn’t look like your average farmer.’

‘He’s not—he’s the New Zealand equivalent of the landed gentry.’

‘I’ve designed jewellery for some of them,’ Morna said thoughtfully. ‘They demand quality and they’re not afraid to go modern.’ She shrugged, adding, ‘But, unlike the fanciable Mr Challenger, most of them are pretty weather-beaten. I can see him cutting a swathe through impressionable tourists at his resort—even showing off on a prancing black stallion to match his hair—but I’d be surprised if he does any of the grunt work, either at the resort or on the station.’

‘He’s really getting to you, isn’t he?’ Cathy surveyed her curiously. ‘He grew up on a family cattle and sheep station on the East Coast, north of Gisborne, so I imagine he’s competent on a farm.’

Another trickle of awareness snaked through Morna. ‘If he doesn’t mind hard work and getting his hands dirty, why did he abandon agriculture to go into tourism?’

‘He didn’t. He owns land all around New Zealand, mostly agricultural land. Overseas too—he does a lot of travelling. This is where he’s settled; his office is in Orewa.’

Interested in spite of herself, Morna nodded. Orewa was a seaside town a few miles away. ‘If he’s got the whole country to choose from, I wonder why he decided to come up here instead of settling on his ancestral acres.’

‘Ask him,’ Cathy said smartly. ‘Somerville’s Reach was practically derelict when he bought it. He poured money into it until he’d whipped it into shape, which provided four new jobs for the district. Then he demolished the old homestead in Somerville’s Bay—’

‘Barbarian!’ Morna interjected on a scornful note.

Cathy returned serenely, ‘It was a ruin, and the district’s gained lots more jobs from the resort. You won’t find anyone here complaining about his development plans. And when Hawke turned the gumlands into a fiendishly tricky golf course, that brought more tourists and yet more employment.’ She glanced up at Morna. ‘As you well know, because you drive through the golf course twice a day from your little shack to Auckland and back.’

‘It’s not a shack, it’s a bach,’ Morna said automatically, turning a fraction to sweep Hawke Challenger’s uncompromising features with another rapid glance.

As though he felt it, he lifted his head and once more their eyes met and clashed. His wide sexy mouth—classically chiselled into perfection—lifted at the corners in a smile that held no warmth, nothing but potent sensuality.

A flash of foreboding darkened the day. Lowering her lashes as a shield, Morna scrambled to remember what they were talking about.

Cathy said, ‘In your case, bach and shack are synonyms.’

‘Baches are New Zealand icons!’ Ignoring Cathy’s sniff, Morna stressed, ‘OK, it’s shabby and old, but it’s clean and it’s comfortable. Although until Jacob’s will is probated it’s not mine. I’m paying rent to the estate for it.’ Her voice turned tart. ‘I don’t imagine I’ll see much of Hawke Challenger—rich, well-connected resort owners might buy jewellery, but they don’t socialise with the people who make it.’

She sneaked another glance, only to have Hawke Challenger catch her again. This time he deliberately examined her face, his own coolly judgmental.

Startled colour flamed across her ivory skin and burned through every cell. Bewildered, she tore her eyes free, swallowing as the music and chatter drummed around her.

Cathy’s voice broke the spell. ‘Minimal rent, I hope.’

‘Pretty minimal.’ In fact, very minimal. The bach was sturdy, but basic.

‘It’s great to have you living so close. Nick worries about you.’

‘Nick still thinks of me as the kid he used to protect and bully for my own good.’ Morna’s smile was wry, almost wistful. ‘I know I relied shamelessly on him, but I’m over that now.’

‘He thinks you’re mad to insist on donating Glen’s legacy to a charity,’ Nick’s wife said honestly. ‘And so do I. Glen knew he’d treated you badly.’

At twenty-one Morna had fallen head over heels, fathoms deep in love with Glen Spencer, Nick’s mentor and the owner of the advertising agency where he’d worked.

Glen had been her first—her only—lover, and she’d been—well, sinfully naïve. Certainly stupid! When he’d asked her to live with him she’d ignored Nick’s warnings and moved into his opulent apartment. And she’d been lyrically happy, smugly convinced that Glen loved her and that her fierce loyalty was returned.

And then he’d met Cathy, young and beautiful and vulnerable.

Five years of loyal love turned out to mean less than nothing; brutally pragmatic, Glen dismissed Morna from his bed and his life by dangling the offer of a fully paid course at a prestigious design institution half the world away.

She had swallowed her bitter pride to accept his conscience money, and as soon as she’d been out of the way he’d married Cathy with as much pomp and ceremony as he could command. But Morna had attacked his ego when she’d stubbornly treated the fees as a loan and repaid them, month by month.

Cathy had known none of this, nor that Glen’s ruthless rejection of Nick’s foster-sister had persuaded Nick to leave his fast-track career at the agency and strike out on his own in the crazy, dangerous, high-octane world of information technology. Glen had been the only person surprised when Nick’s cutting intelligence and business skills had catapulted him into huge wealth and international power.

Although Cathy had been married to Glen for four years before his untimely death in an accident, she still didn’t understand the way Glen’s mind had worked. In his will he’d left Morna the exact amount of the tuition fees, down to the last cent, throwing the money back at her in a final sneering insult.

With these thoughts churning through her head, Morna said to Cathy, ‘How did you know about the course fees? I suppose Nick told you.’

‘He told me you wouldn’t let him repay Glen, or lend you the money to do it. Instead you worked as a waitress in nightclubs to get it,’ Cathy said, distressed but determined.

‘Excellent tips in nightclubs,’ Morna said succinctly. ‘It wasn’t Nick’s problem. And I refuse to stay beholden to Glen.’

‘At least you used his legacy to set up your shop! But he’s dead, Morna—he has been for years. Why repay a dead man by donating most of your income to a charity?’

‘I only ever considered it to be a loan.’ Morna’s voice was cold and sharp, brittle as an icicle.

‘You’re too stiff-necked and principled for your own good,’ Cathy returned doggedly. ‘Nick would have been proud to stake you—’

‘I know.’ Morna’s voice gentled. ‘Cathy, I’m not going to sacrifice my independence to another man ever again—not even Nick. Using Glen’s legacy got the shop off the ground, but if I didn’t treat it as a loan I’d always feel—I’d feel that the five years I lived with him were a sort of prostitution. It wasn’t like that—not for me.’

Cathy’s face softened. ‘Of course it wasn’t,’ she agreed. ‘I do understand. It’s just—well, it seems such a waste—to scrimp and save when you don’t have to.’

‘What happened to his bequest to you?’

Cathy flushed. ‘I use it to support the hospital in Romit,’ she admitted.

‘So you use it for a hospital in the Coral Sea, and I use it for deprived children here.’ Morna’s voice gentled. ‘Don’t worry, and don’t let Nick worry. I’m managing.’

‘Oh, yes—buying your clothes from second-hand shops, driving around in a car that gives Nick a heart attack whenever he thinks about it, ploughing everything back into the shop—!’ Dismayed, Cathy caught herself up. ‘I’m sorry. I admire your determination to do what you think is right, but you can overdo independence.’

‘Don’t be sorry. I know you’d do anything to save Nick a moment’s worry.’

‘Of course I would,’ Cathy said briskly, ‘but I’m concerned for your sake too!’

‘At least admit I buy my clothes from exclusive charity shops,’ Morna said lightly.

Cathy smiled, but her blue eyes revealed a lingering anxiety. ‘OK, I’ll admit that. Not that it matters—you’d look good in a flour sack.’

‘I doubt it.’ A grin widened Morna’s mouth, but she sobered quickly. ‘It’s time we all forgot the past and concentrated on the present.’

‘That,’ Cathy murmured thoughtfully, looking past her, ‘would involve concentrating on Hawke Challenger. He’s headed this way.’

Morna swung around. He stopped beside her and smiled down, translucent jade-green eyes scanning Morna’s face.

Thank heavens for sunglasses!

‘Good to see you here, Cathy,’ he said, with a smile that sent zings of lightning through Morna’s body. Deep, controlled, his intriguing voice was textured by a lazy, untamed note.

Anticipation punched her in the solar plexus and bolted down her spine. It took every shred of will-power to summon a guarded smile as Cathy introduced them. Only good manners drove her to take off her sunglasses and smile briefly at him before retiring behind them again. And no way was she going to shake his hand.

CHAPTER TWO

MORNA VAUSE wasn’t traditionally beautiful.

Hawke decided that it didn’t matter—skin like warm ivory, eyes the colour of malt whisky and a silky black bob highlighted in dangerous red glints by the sun did enough for her.

And that didn’t include her lush, sulky mouth—a sensual incitement he’d watched transform from repose to gamine wickedness in a heady flash.

An interesting situation, Hawke thought; although these women appeared the best of friends, Cathy had once supplanted Morna in Glen Spencer’s affections. Hawke didn’t gossip, but he’d have had to live in a Trappist monastery to miss knowing that Spencer had flaunted his young trophy mistress until he’d dumped her for an even younger trophy wife.

And he hadn’t been close-lipped about the amount that exchange had cost him; Morna Vause had been handsomely rewarded for her years in his bed by the best tuition the world could offer in her chosen field, and a considerable legacy.

Clearly she knew how to manipulate the men in her life to her best advantage.

‘How do you do, Mr Challenger?’ Each word rang like silver, crisp and impersonal.

‘Hawke.’

Morna hesitated before repeating in a flat tone that didn’t hide the husky note beneath it, ‘Hawke.’

Whisky-coloured eyes, and a voice as rich and complex as the best single malt. ‘Morna,’ he said laconically. ‘A pretty name—Celtic, isn’t it? What does it mean?’

Morna forced her lips into a stiff, unnatural smile. Still in that level, unemotional tone, she said, ‘Beloved, or so my mother always told me. But then, she got a lot of things wrong.’

Stop behaving like a shrinking violet, she commanded. She was no sweet, shy virgin—in fact she’d never been sweet or shy in her life! Fighting for survival soon demolished any softness in a child.

‘Yours is unusual too,’ she said. ‘Were you born in Hawke’s Bay?’ She’d only visited that sun-baked province once, but she’d fallen in love with its Art Deco cities and superb vineyards.

Green eyes mocked her. ‘No, and although my mother was a Hawke she didn’t belong to the family Hawke’s Bay was named after,’ he told her calmly. ‘However, she’s the last of her line, and she wanted the name to continue.’

The confident reference to breeding and background scraped across Morna’s already sensitised nerves. She’d grown up in poverty and hopelessness without knowing the name of her father.

Hawke watched her. She might think she’d camouflaged her emotions behind those sunglasses, but her square chin, angled with a hint of defiance, told him more than she realised.

As did that tantalising mouth. His hormones growled softly in unexpected need. She had the mouth of a born sensualist—and that was a total contradiction of the little he knew about her.

A second glance revealed the discipline that tucked in the corners of her lips, keeping them under control. Sensualist, certainly, but he suspected her appetites were firmly leashed, an asset to be used rather than a tendency to be indulged.

He wanted her.

So? He’d wanted other women. But not, he thought with the cold logic he used even on his own reactions, with this fierce intensity. And none of them had ever looked at him with such aloof indifference. He smiled, ruthlessly summoning the charm he knew gave him an advantage over most other men.

Her sultry mouth parted for a second before colour swept along her high cheekbones and she compressed her lips into a straight line.

Yes, she too felt that elemental, fiery tug of the senses; controlled she might be, but she was giving off signals like a sunstorm.

In a judicial way he admired her composure when Cathy Harding bridged the tense atmosphere with conversation. Instinctively courteous, he followed Cathy’s lead, realising with an elemental satisfaction that Morna Vause wasn’t normally as quiet as she was now.

A few minutes later the sound of his name thrust its way through the air.

‘Hawke Challenger,’ the loudspeaker asked, ‘can you come up here and present the prizes now, please? Come on, Hawke, I can see you—’

‘I have to go,’ he said abruptly. Ignoring the silent woman beside her, he smiled at Cathy. ‘I hope we’ll be seeing you and your husband at the dinner after the show?’

‘Yes, we’re going.’

He transferred his gaze to Morna, imprinting the lines of her half-shadowed face on his memory. ‘And of course you must come too,’ he said politely.

Without waiting for an answer he swung off through the crowd—a crowd, Morna noted, that separated in front of him like the sea before Moses.

‘Well!’ Cathy laughed. ‘That was more or less the equivalent of a royal invitation.’

‘Ha! If he thinks I’m impressed—’

‘Get off your high horse,’ Cathy interrupted. ‘He’s going to be your neighbour, so it might be a good way to get to know him.’

‘Get to know whom?’ Nick asked from behind them.

Cathy turned swiftly, her face lighting up. ‘We were talking about Hawke,’ she told her husband.

A stab of painful, undiluted envy alarmed Morna. Cathy glowed with a radiance that increased almost to incandescence when Nick tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. Perhaps one day she’d look at a man with the same naked love that lit Cathy’s face now.

But probably not, she thought cynically.

Nick asked, ‘What did you think of him?’

Morna watched Hawke Challenger present a large silver cup to a slim woman on a shimmering chestnut horse, her excellent legs revealed by skin-tight jodhpurs. Blonde hair flowed as she removed her helmet and bent to kiss him. The crowd applauded, and when Hawke stepped back he said something that made the woman laugh.

‘He’s probably gay,’ Morna said outrageously.

‘If he is, no one’s told the actress from that TV show The Watchers,’ Cathy returned. ‘They’ve just broken up and apparently she’s shattered, poor woman.’

Morna didn’t want to ask, but the words escaped before she could pen them up. ‘How long had they been together?’

‘I don’t know that they ever lived together, but they must have been an item for six months or so.’ Cathy smiled at her husband. ‘What do you know about him, darling?’

Nick shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Good family, money for generations, rigorous ethical standards. Hawke’s no self-absorbed lightweight—he’s tough all the way through, and he’s got a brilliant business brain. He might have started out with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he’s going to end up with the keys to the kingdom. Don’t be fooled by the handsome face. If you cross him you can expect to suffer for it.’

Morna dangled her sunglasses from her forefinger and said lightly, ‘Thanks for the warning, but I wasn’t thinking about crossing him. I wasn’t even thinking about having a fling with him, although your wife seems to feel I should at least be considering it.’

Nick glanced at Cathy, who said indignantly, ‘All I said was that you work too hard and that it’s time you started a social life!’ She laughed at Morna’s wicked, unrepentant grin and said, ‘Oh, all right—I want everyone to be as happy as I am. But I don’t think Hawke is the sort of man you have a fling with. He’s dangerous.’

Morna slid her sunglasses back onto her nose. ‘Dangerous? Surely not. Anyway, I don’t play with toy boys; I like maturity in my men.’

‘What men?’ Cathy shot back. ‘In the years I’ve known you, you haven’t gone out with one.’ She indicated Hawke Challenger, who’d moved on from the woman with the perfect legs and was now presenting a smaller cup to an immaculately turned out child on a stubby chestnut pony. ‘I certainly wouldn’t call him immature, or a toy boy. I doubt very much whether he’d be so easy to manage.’

Something torrid and primitive stirred inside Morna. ‘All the better reason to stay away from him,’ she said casually. ‘I don’t go looking for trouble.’

The elderly car struggled a bit on the hills, complaining with a couple of coughs as it crested the last one and swung around the worst of an endless series of tight corners.

‘There, I knew you could do it,’ Morna encouraged it, turning onto a drive that dived steeply down through feathery kanuka trees.

The ancient cattlestop rattled energetically beneath the wheels, its noise transmuting to the crunch of gravel as the car headed towards the slightly seedy, comfortable little house that always made Morna think of a badly cut gem in a perfect setting.

She’d spent until mid-afternoon in the well-equipped workroom behind her shop in Auckland, finishing a commission—transforming a clumsy, inherited diamond necklace into something her client could wear with pride.

Morna had enjoyed both designing and making the piece. Now, with fingers still blackened by the jeweller’s rouge she’d used in the final polishing, she was ready to relax in her rented portion of paradise, where ancient trees hung over sand the colour of champagne.

After a hurried trip to the supermarket she’d called in to see the Hardings, drinking coffee with them but refusing Cathy’s offer of dinner.

Morna skirted several daunting potholes, wondering if Cathy’s delicacy extended to more than her looks. Nick had certainly kept a close eye on his wife at the show yesterday. Morna frowned into the sunlight as the vehicle emerged from the bush, and all thought of her friends vanished.

There, right in front of the bach, lounged a thumping great Range Rover, a sturdy vehicle that proclaimed its ability to deal with anything a country road could throw at it.

And standing beside the passenger’s door as though he had every right to be on her land was Hawke Challenger, tall and formidably confident in the warmth of the late autumn afternoon, hair gleaming blue-black in the sunlight, his stance relaxed yet alert—almost territorial.

Morna’s mouth dried. She blinked several times before realising she’d almost driven off the track. Oh, great, she thought bitterly, white-knuckled hands clutching the wheel as she steered the car to a halt beside his, switched off the engine and wound down the window.

‘Hello,’ she said in her most remote tone, resenting that bland green scrutiny.

Morna Vause was ready for war, Hawke saw.

Not that most people would have noticed; a very cool lady, she kept herself under strict control. But, in spite of her steady eyes and aloof expression, he sensed tension vibrating through her like the throbbing of distant drums. Some feral part of him responded with aggressive anticipation.

It took iron will-power to discipline it. This erotic awareness was a weakness.

‘You didn’t come to the dinner last night,’ he said.

A flare of emotion turned her eyes to molten gold. ‘You didn’t think I would, surely?’

‘It might have been a late invitation, but I meant it.’

A fast pulse throbbed at the base of her throat, but although she couldn’t hide her involuntary response the only change in her expression was a swift, disbelieving lift of her brows. ‘You didn’t wait for an acceptance.’

‘Because you unsettle me.’

Hawke could tell his frankness startled her. Colour burned her skin and she looked away, lashes flickering in an oddly ingenuous response for a woman who’d had at least one long-term lover. Was she playing coy?

With more than a hint of acid in her tone, she said, ‘It’s called attraction—a nice little joke played on us by Mother Nature to make sure the species doesn’t die out. It doesn’t mean anything and you don’t have to do anything about it. If you just ignore it, it will eventually fade away.’

That sounded more like a woman of experience.

He took the two steps across to her door and opened it, standing back to let her get out. She gave him a baffled, glittering glance, but obeyed his unspoken suggestion. Swinging out long, elegant legs clad in black designer jeans, she straightened, her cold defiance at odds with the curvy body revealed by a fitting black top that clung too closely to be a T-shirt. She’d covered it with a black and white striped shirt that hung open so that he could see the firm thrust of her breasts beneath. The shirt-sleeves were pushed up her arms, giving her a jaunty, sporting look.

An interesting set of mixed messages, Hawke decided cynically. He clamped down on an elemental male response and surveyed her composed face with its strongly marked features.

Twenty-four hours hadn’t changed his first reaction. He still wanted her, and her stubborn, silent resistance intrigued him as much as it frustrated him. From the time he’d reached six feet and grown into his shoulders, Hawke had been a target.

And although he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t enjoyed his lovers, he was fastidious. He’d never made love to anyone he didn’t like and respect. Now, confronted by a woman who’d turned obstinate wariness into an art form, he wondered if it was the novelty of her antagonism that hooked him.

Driven by a primitive male imperative, he took a step forward, standing close enough to make it difficult for her to move away from the car, but not so close that she’d feel trapped. He didn’t think for a moment that she’d be intimidated.

Nevertheless, the colour faded from her warm ivory skin and her eyes darkened, although they didn’t waver.

She wasn’t afraid of him, he decided objectively, just very, very cautious. Why? He said, ‘Am I forgiven for delivering such a cursory invitation yesterday?’

‘Of course,’ she said neutrally.

‘Then shall we shake to a new beginning?’

For a charged moment she didn’t speak, and her hand stayed firmly by her side. When it became obvious that she wasn’t going to do any more than deliver a small, dismissive smile he extended his hand, driven to bad manners by an overwhelming urge to force her to acknowledge him.

After a reluctant pause she took it, her strong fingers quivering in his light clasp.

At her touch all Hawke’s control disappeared, consumed by sensation. Stunned, he cursed noiselessly as fire hammered him in his most vulnerable places, burning away the shackles his coldly intelligent brain had forged around his sexual appetite.

With painfully sharpened senses he heard the ragged intake of her breath, and watched her breasts tighten against the black top.

No, she wasn’t intimidated—she wanted him. Exultant fire burned in his gut and for the first time in his life he understood how a man could lose his head over a woman.

Without thinking he let his other hand come up, lifted hers, and kissed the fragile skin at the wrist, a primal instinct relishing the rapid thunder of her pulse against his mouth. He felt her fingers splay out in rigid rejection, before miraculously curving along his jaw in a caress that set his body surging.

But she said in a tight, hoarse voice, ‘No.’

Hawke’s fingers slid along her hand, holding it against his face. He watched the heat drain from her skin and then flood back across her wide cheekbones, softening her mouth into ripeness and provocation.

Through the fog clouding his brain he knew he had to stop this right now. It was far too early—besides, he’d spent the weekend doing informal research on her, and he didn’t like what he’d discovered.

Yet it appalled and infuriated him to find out how much will-power it took to release her and step back.

Robbed of strength, Morna staggered, flinching away when his hands shot out to catch her. ‘Just leave me alone, all right?’ Anger and an odd, creeping dread lent her enough backbone to continue with brittle determination, ‘I don’t want an affair with you, much less a one-night stand.’

Cruelly he said, ‘The feeling is entirely mutual.’

‘Good,’ she snapped, her head coming up in unspoken challenge.

He went on as though she hadn’t spoken, ‘What have you got on your hands? Have you been gardening?’

Pierced by an image of a huge bed, of Hawke’s burnished bronze skin contrasting erotically with her own, of surrendering to his strength and that wildly sexual charge between them, Morna didn’t understand his question at first. She forced her brain to go back and snatch the words rattling around inside it, then sort them into some kind of order. Finally she dragged air into empty lungs and glanced down at the faint stains her scrubbing hadn’t removed.

‘Jeweller’s rouge,’ she said gruffly. ‘I’ve been working. Don’t worry—it’s not transferable, so it won’t have stained your hands. Goodbye.’

She swivelled around, leaned into the car and pulled out her bag and the two plastic ones that held her groceries.

Automatically Hawke took the heaviest from her. Because struggling with him would be stupid and undignified she let it go, but positioned the other bag and her handbag in front of her like a shield as she turned towards the house.

Halfway there he said levelly, ‘How long do you plan to live here?’

‘Until I’m ready to leave,’ she said distantly, antagonised all over again. Hawke had no right to ask her what she was doing and when.

Taut silence linked them, humming with unspoken thoughts, forbidden hungers. Warned by an instinct as old as time that this man was incredibly dangerous to her, Morna waited tensely for his next words.

They came at the door to the bach. ‘Or until it’s sold?’

‘Perhaps.’ She’d tried for aloofness, but her response came out guarded and cagey.

Of course he noticed. His eyes narrowed, slashing her with knives of pale jade. ‘Is it true that Jacob Ward died here only a couple of weeks after you moved in?’

Morna fixed him with a cold stare. Jacob had been an old man with a weak heart, still mourning his only child—a son who’d been killed a couple of years previously. With no other family he’d been ready to go, but his collapse as they’d been drinking coffee had been a shock, and his death a grief.

‘Yes,’ she said evenly, schooling her face into immobility. ‘When he had to go into a nursing home he let me rent the place provided I brought him home once a week.’

Although Hawke said nothing, and she couldn’t read any expression in his handsome face, she knew what he was thinking as clearly as if he’d said it.

Her chin came up. She hated the insinuations; they were disrespectful to Jacob, who’d hunted gems around the world before arthritis and a longing for his homeland had driven him back to New Zealand. He’d been lonely—at least until he’d wandered into her shop one day and fascinated Annie, her assistant, into calling Morna out from the workroom.

Like Morna, he’d loved the glittering romance of gems, and he’d had a fund of stories about prospecting; he’d admired her skill with them, and often sat in the workroom watching as she worked. Over time their acquaintance had ripened into friendship, and because he’d had no one else he’d left her Tarika Bay.

So the rumours his legacy had caused—rumours it was obvious Hawke had heard—were hugely distasteful.

Yet he surprised her again. ‘If I invite the Hardings, will you come to dinner at the resort tomorrow night?’

Morna met the disturbing challenge in his green eyes. Her stomach contracted as though someone had hit her, but the agitated sensations rioting through her were piercingly carnal. His mouth curved into a smile so loaded with charm she almost buckled; he knew that when he’d kissed her wrist she’d wanted him to kiss her properly…

She saved herself from the snowballing temptation to agree by saying, ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

‘Why not? As it happens, I’ve already asked the Hardings, and they’re coming.’

‘They’ve agreed to go to dinner with you two nights in a row? Why?’ she asked, swift anger almost quenching her reckless excitement. She already knew why—Cathy’s decision that she needed a social life! One made with the best of intentions, but Morna felt like prey being remorselessly hunted down.

‘Last night was hardly a private dinner,’ he drawled. ‘Saturday night and Monday night aren’t consecutive either. As for why the Hardings agreed—I don’t know them all that well, but I can only assume that they don’t see an invitation to dinner as an insult.’

Morna had to swallow, because his amused, potent smile sliced through her defences with insulting speed. Glen, she thought desperately, but his memory was fading, dwindling, the lessons she’d learned from him overlaid by the powerful impact of this man’s personality.

‘Or a threat,’ Hawke added mockingly.

‘I don’t consider you a threat,’ she retorted, knowing she’d given him that opportunity.

His eyes glinted beneath their heavy lids. ‘I’m not going to ignore the mutual interest we have in each other, but as we’re neighbours I’d like to get to know you socially.’

Morna dithered. It was only a dinner…

If she agreed he might be bored with her, and that would be an end to it.

‘I’m sure Cathy and Nick will be more than adequate chaperons,’ he murmured, the gravelly note in his voice very pronounced as he smiled again.

It was a killer, that smile, and he knew what effect it had. Her heart skidded to a stop and then began to beat again, swift and uneven. ‘All right, I’ll be there,’ she said, regretting her surrender the moment the words left her lips.

Suckered by a million-dollar smile—and a crazy fascination that had smashed across her life, roaring in like a comet from outer space, bent on destruction.

So when she went to dinner tomorrow night, she decided after he’d left, she’d keep in mind the last time she’d felt like this—shooting stars in her stomach, feet not touching the ground, unbearable anticipation.

When she’d first met Glen.

Morna eyed her glass of New Zealand Riesling and took another tentative sip. Although they’d finished a superb dinner, she was still on her first drink because she needed to keep her head.

Even now she wasn’t going to admit that part of the reason she’d accepted Hawke’s invitation was sheer, blatant curiosity—some of which had been satisfied. Over dinner she’d discovered that he actually lived at his small, exclusive and very luxurious resort.

Excellent pickings for a good-looking man here, she thought, trying hard to be cynical. Quite a few eager unattached women were strolling about, not to mention jaded trophy wives. Scattered around the dining room, several of each watched the men at her table with the secret, starving intensity of a dieter tantalised by forbidden food.

Not that she blamed them. Tall, dark and handsome might be a cliché, but men who matched the description were rare—and to see two of them at the same table was probably unique outside Hollywood.

Stick to Hawke, she advised the avid watchers silently. Nick has given his heart.

Yet the thought of Hawke with anyone else summoned a hollow outrage that scared her. Her first instinct had been right—she should have refused to come. If he asked her again she’d turn him down.

Not that she could fault him tonight; he’d been a superb host. She slid a glance sideways to scan his striking profile with unwilling appreciation.

Music drifted into the dining room through double doors, slow and smokily suggestive above the low hum of conversation. Morna’s heart began to beat in time to the tune; hastily she put the glass down and got to her feet.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, and retreated to the cloakroom.

She renewed her lipstick and ran cold water over her wrists before straightening her animal print top, its dramatic contrast of black and white somehow suiting her mood. The black wrap skirt that revealed her legs needed adjustment too, but eventually she had to leave her refuge and set off back to the dining room.

Halfway there she was waylaid by an elderly man Nick had introduced to her at the show.

‘Nice to see you again,’ he said, seizing her hand and pumping it up and down. ‘How did you enjoy your day in the country?’

‘I had a great time,’ she said, smiling. ‘I loved those magnificent cattle of yours—even though I can’t remember what breed they are!’

Just outside her field of vision she sensed the approach of another person. She knew who it was; every cell in her body thrummed with a mixture of apprehension and a steamy, elemental excitement.

The voice of the old man as he informed her what esoteric type of cow she’d admired buzzed in her ears.

Her companion broke off to say cheerfully, ‘Hello, young Hawke. Didn’t take you long to find the best-looking woman in the place, did it?’

CHAPTER THREE

HAWKE grinned, a smile that altered in a thousand subtle ways as he transferred it to Morna. Moving on from respect and comradeship, it somehow transmuted into a molten, masculine appreciation of her femininity that sizzled along her nerves and stopped the breath in her throat.

‘I have excellent instincts,’ he said modestly. ‘I note, however, that it didn’t take you long to find her either.’

Through the clamour of fierce awareness Morna heard the other man’s snorting laugh. ‘I yield my place,’ he said.

‘Oh, no,’ she objected quickly.

But although the older man looked pleased, he said with a knowing twinkle, ‘Morna, I’ve got a good opinion of myself, but I’m certain you’d rather spend time with Hawke than an old codger like me. I’m going to collect a brandy and discuss cattle with Brian over there.’

He smiled at them both and walked away.

Composing her expression, Morna turned to face Hawke. ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ she observed, her voice so bland it was a subtle insult.

Hawke’s measuring, dangerous smile disappeared, replaced by cool assessment. ‘Thank you.’

The band struck up a new tune, and he offered his arm. ‘Cathy and Nick have gone next door to dance. Would you like to?’

The challenge in his voice wasn’t blatant, but she heard it. He expected her to refuse.

So she would. ‘Not tonight, thank you,’ she said politely.

‘Then come and have coffee while we wait for them.’

She nodded, and they went together into a room with tables and upholstered chairs arranged around the edges of a small dance floor. While Hawke ordered, Morna kept her eyes on Cathy and Nick; although neither carried their hearts in their faces, they moved in an aura of utter happiness.

Blinking, she looked away. ‘What made you decide to build a resort and golf course here?’ she queried, scanning the skilfully crafted decor. Casual and comfortable, like the dining room it showcased pale timber, natural fabrics and a palette of neutral colours that combined restraint with a muted luxury to appeal to ultra-sophisticated tastes.

‘It’s the perfect place,’ Hawke told her with the calm confidence that set her teeth on edge. ‘Close to Auckland, yet with complete privacy and superb scenery. And the land is almost useless for agriculture—old worked-over kauri swamplands, drained fifty years ago but still only growing scrub.’

Her quick burst of laughter eased the tension. ‘There speaketh the farmer,’ she said mockingly, glancing up from beneath her lashes. ‘If land doesn’t produce grass it’s a desert.’

Their eyes met, fenced, and clung. Anticipation fizzed through her, glinting in her eyes, softening her mouth.

‘I am a farmer,’ he agreed, leaning back into his chair and watching her with an intentness that sent kamikaze bumblebees dive-bombing through her bloodstream. ‘You’ve got something against agriculture?’

‘Of course not!’ Calm down, she commanded. He’s just flirting—I’ll bet he was born knowing how to do this to susceptible women. ‘I like to eat as much as the next person, and without farmers we wouldn’t have food.’

Hawke’s green eyes darkened, and for some reason every cell in her body stood to attention.

He said evenly, ‘Some land should never have been cleared of bush; I have a programme for replanting native trees in appropriate places on all my properties.’

So in his own way he was a conservationist, which irritated her because she didn’t want to believe anything good about him.

Before she had time to comment he changed the subject with smooth obliqueness. ‘Do you ever wear anything but black and white?’

‘No,’ she said baldly. If you stuck to basics it made buying in charity shops much simpler. ‘Most women in business and the professions choose from a limited range of basic colours. Black and white both suit me so I wear them a lot.’

His brows lifted. ‘It’s certainly striking.’ The intriguing roughness in his voice had been transformed into a taunting purr. ‘And I like the animal print—does it indicate a strain of wildness hidden beneath that very controlled exterior?’

Morna resisted the impulse to check that her skirt hadn’t fallen away to reveal her legs. ‘It indicates that animal prints have been recently fashionable,’ she said pleasantly. ‘My work satisfies my taste for colour and drama.’

‘According to an article I read recently you’re making quite a splash with innovative ways of using your raw materials.’

‘I like to think so.’ Her shoulders squared and she kept her gaze steady.

Hawke said lazily, ‘The little I’ve seen of your work was exquisite.’

Flooded by alarming pleasure, she wondered if he’d bought a piece—for whom? The actress?

He spoilt it by finishing, ‘You’ve come a long way in a very short time.’

Morna stiffened. ‘Thank you,’ she said with cold formality.

A recent article in the business press had insinuated that her business had been staked by two rich men—Glen and Nick.

Her angry rebuttal of the lie—and, more probably, Nick’s cold fury and power—had won a somewhat snide apology, but she had no illusions. Most people who’d read the original article wouldn’t have read the apology, so they’d believe the insinuation that she was—to use an old-fashioned term—a gold-digger.

Probably Hawke did too, with his hard green eyes and uncompromising mouth. And for some obscure reason that hurt. Which was a danger signal; she was too susceptible to him.

Taking refuge behind her coffee cup, she watched the dancers with determination until the music stopped and Cathy and Nick came off the floor, still wrapped in that sleek, enviable contentment. Morna eased her long legs sideways to let them past, and gratefully relaxed as the conversation became general.

When Hawke asked Cathy to dance Morna leaned back into her chair, pretending not to notice as they walked out onto the floor.

Hawke and Cathy looked magnificent together—he so tall and protective, she slender and graceful in his arms.

‘You can take that look off your face. He’s not interested in her,’ Nick said calmly.

‘I don’t care who he’s interested in,’ Morna said gruffly.

Nick got to his feet and held out his hand. ‘Come on.’

As she had so often before, Morna went with him, only realising when she met Hawke’s hooded, glinting eyes that she now had no excuse not to dance with him. She said a short, explicit, unladylike word.

‘I thought you gave up swearing ten years ago,’ Nick remarked.

‘I did.’ She asked sombrely, ‘How did you dare let yourself fall in love?’

‘I didn’t have any choice.’

Their steps matched perfectly; he and she had learned to dance together. Morna said, ‘God, that’s scary.’

‘At first. What’s with you and Hawke?’

‘Nothing!’

‘But he’s hunting?’

Morna shivered. ‘That’s so un-PC! Even if he is, it doesn’t mean anything. I’m not good victim material.’

‘Is that how you see relationships?’ Nick asked quietly.

She shrugged. ‘Not all. Not you and Cathy—you make me believe that dreams can come true.’

‘They can,’ he said with complete conviction. ‘You just have to learn to trust.’

‘Ah, that’s the problem. I don’t think I want to.’

‘Wanting to is a danger signal,’ he said, ‘but sometimes you have to take the challenge, no matter how risky it might be.’

They danced in silence for a while, and as the music was winding down Nick glanced across the room again. Dark brows drawing together, he said, ‘It’s time I took her home.’

Indeed, Cathy’s smile was more gallant than eager as Hawke delivered her to her chair. He said something that made her laugh, then straightened when his attention was discreetly attracted by a man who wore effacement like a cloak.

Hawke appeared to ask a quick question. As Morna and Nick came up he nodded and said, ‘I’m afraid there’s a minor problem. I shouldn’t be long.’

When he’d left, Nick asked in a voice Morna had never heard him use before, ‘All right?’

‘Fine.’ Cathy smiled, her lips curving softly, tenderly.

‘Nevertheless, we’ll go home.’

The look they exchanged ambushed Morna in some unsuspected part of her heart. Small things slotted into place—the orange juice Cathy had drunk all evening, that inner radiance, Nick’s enhanced protectiveness…

They were expecting a baby.

Cathy said firmly, ‘We can’t go home until Hawke comes back.’ She directed a laughing look at Morna. ‘What do you think of him now?’

‘He’s still too much,’ Morna said succinctly, relieved when Cathy stopped teasing her to discuss the holiday she and Nick were planning in Hawaii.

After ten minutes or so Hawke reappeared, striding across the room with the lithe, expectant grace of a predator. He gave Cathy a keen glance, accepting her thanks for the evening with a smile that tangled Morna’s thoughts and drove her to her feet.

‘It’s time I left too,’ she said, skimming the lower half of his handsome face without meeting his eyes. Desperately wrenching her attention away from his sexy mouth, she said, ‘It’s been a pleasant evening, thank you.’

His eyes narrowed and that beautiful mouth compressed, but the charm was still there when he said, ‘I’ll walk you to the car park.’

‘Oh, you don’t need to—’

He slipped a hand beneath her elbow, and to her fury she found herself following the other two to the doors. Pride insisted she say lightly, ‘Nick will protect me from anything nasty in the dark—and I’m certain it’s perfectly safe here.’

‘Nick has his wife to look after. As for safety—you never know,’ Hawke said courteously. ‘You could be attacked by a passing seagull.’

She gave a crack of laughter. ‘Or a carnivorous crab?’

‘Exactly.’ He nodded to the doorman and escorted her out into the warm, humid night.

Although stars danced dizzily in the fragrant sky, the darkness pressed against them, stroking across Morna’s hot face. She clenched her teeth against the siren song winding through her body, emphasising an anticipation that made her both bold and vulnerable.

She hadn’t felt like this when she’d met Glen. This was different—wilder, more tempting, a slow, mesmerising beat of awareness based on starlight and the salty perfume of the sea, and the cloying scent of some flower too close by, and the heady touch of Hawke’s hand burning through the thin material of her sleeve.

Gritting her teeth, Morna fought against a seductive, reckless temptation.

Remember what falling in love got you, she reminded herself trenchantly. Five years of what you thought was happiness, followed by betrayal.

No one could accuse her of being a slow learner, so she’d resist with everything she had.

When the red rear lights of the Hardings’ car drew away Hawke said, ‘Come back inside and dance with me.’

His voice was deep and steady, even slightly amused, but Morna’s skin prickled at the sensual heat smouldering through the words.

In spite of the warnings of her common sense, she wanted more than anything to dance in his arms while music curled around them in lazily erotic expectancy. She wanted it so much she had to force herself to speak, and didn’t dare say any more than, ‘No.’

‘Coward.’ Two syllables said with a taunting flick, but they almost demolished her wariness.

‘Absolutely,’ she said, with such fervour that he laughed, and for a moment she liked him.

Only for a moment, though. Although in the past few hours she’d relished his quick incisive wit, and agreed with much he’d said, he was still a man to be wary of. And she wasn’t going to change her mind because he’d listened to her and discussed her point of view when she’d disagreed with him, without losing his temper.

Unlike Glen.

‘Where’s your car?’ Hawke asked.

As she indicated its whereabouts Morna appreciated the fact that he didn’t try to persuade her. Of course, it might mean that he didn’t really care whether she stayed or not, or that he was sure he’d eventually get what he wanted from her. Whatever that was.

She sent a swift glance his way, her eyes resting for a fraction of a second on that buccaneer’s profile. Sex, probably, she thought cynically. That seemed to be what most men wanted, and they weren’t too subtle about manipulating the situation to get it.

Hawke opened her car door for her, and once she got behind the wheel he said evenly, ‘Sleep well, Morna.’

After a moment’s hesitation she replied, ‘You too.’

‘Goodnight.’

He closed her in with smooth strength, judging the impact to a nicety so that the door didn’t slam.

Biting her lip, Morna set the car in motion. ‘Goodnight,’ she murmured, easing out of the hotel car park. ‘And goodbye.’

Of all the words in the English language, goodbye had to be the one most laden with emotion.

Back at the bach, she parked and got out, gripped by a strange yearning that had absolutely nothing to do with the man she’d left behind her. ‘Nothing at all,’ she asserted vigorously to the silent universe.

And if she told herself that often enough she might even come to believe it.

Instead of going inside she walked across the springy grass, halting in the darkness beneath the branches of the massive Norfolk Island pine. Tiny waves made no sound as they eased in and out, and no moreporks called to break the silence, no wind rustled the leaves above her.

She slipped off her shoes and walked down the beach, stopping when her feet reached firm, wet sand. Above her the stars burned tiny erratic signals into the black vault of the sky, diamonds in ebony, unimaginably far away.

The charmed circle Cathy and Nick had constructed would soon be complete. Morna’s mouth curved tenderly. A baby! Like a renewal, a gift to the future.

She was delighted for them both, yet even as she fixed her eyes on the small cluster of lights on the other side of the wide estuary and listened to the silence, she shivered with a harsh, wrenching loneliness.

‘So?’ she stated briskly, heading for the bach. ‘Apart from Nick, you’ve always been alone.’

Even during the years she’d spent with Glen she’d been on her own, although she hadn’t realised it; besotted with love, she’d let down her guard and surrendered everything, even her career, until his cruel dismissal shattered every foolish illusion.

In the narrow bathroom off the bedroom she creamed the cosmetics from her skin, examining herself in the mirror with clinical dispassion. Everything about her face was too strongly marked—nose, eyes, full mouth, square jawline. Pride demanded that she dress with chic sophistication, but it was brains and talent and gritty determination that had propelled her from life as a fatherless child in a poverty-stricken suburb of Auckland.

Sometimes though, when she looked in the mirror she saw that child looking back at her.

‘Wallowing in self-pity is not your style, so forget it,’ she said aloud, turning away to undress.

Hawke seemed to like what he saw…

Halfway through stripping off her silk shirt she stopped, remembering the heat of his lips against her wrist the previous day. And the way her hand had curled against the silken abrasion of his jaw, testing its contours, her fingertips so absurdly sensitive she thought she could feel that slight roughness even now, right down to her toes.

That was why she’d refused to dance with him. In conversation she could use words to keep the distance between them; dancing was too intimate, and she’d be unable to hide the tiny treacheries of body language that would tell him far too much. And perceptive as he was, he’d seen though her—she was a coward, afraid of revealing more than she already had.

When he’d kissed her wrist she’d lost control; she couldn’t afford to let that happen again, so the forbidden pleasure of dancing in his arms would remain on the ‘stupidly dangerous’ list.

Suddenly taken over by a yawn, she climbed into the bed she’d placed so that every morning she could pull back the curtains and start each day with the exquisite vista. She’d grown up in squalor, surrounded by the grey tragedy of crumbling dreams; now she lived with a view of beach and water backed by the smooth blue contours of the hills on the far side of the estuary.

She had a career and a future no one could take away from her. She had friends. And she was going to be an aunt! She had all she’d ever wanted.

One emotional entrapment was enough; never again would she follow her mother’s example and look for security in a man.

After a restless night she opened the curtains onto the blue and gold freshness of sun and sea and dew-wet grass, of champagne-coloured sand cooled by an overnight tide. A slight autumnal haze silvered the far end of the beach.

Her smile fading, Morna detected the sound of thudding hoof-beats; with a frown she watched a man and a horse coalesce out of the radiant mist. They came down from the hill like some image from the barbaric past, sand spurting from the animal’s hooves as the wind of its movement sent tail and mane streaming.

Morna shrank back. The horse was huge, its bronzed hide gleaming like satin. And the man was a brilliant rider, blending seamlessly with the animal so that together they seemed some composite being.

‘He can’t be…’ she breathed, squinting into the brightness outside as her mouth dried and her heart bolted out of control.

No, the rider wasn’t naked, although his black shorts barely qualified as clothing. Sunlight poured over him like a blessing, burnishing him bronze. Acutely responsive to the primal beauty of man and beast silhouetted against the dawn sky, Morna watched as they galloped towards the bach.

Just short of it the animal checked, began to ease off its headlong gallop into a more sedate gait. As they came level its rider looked towards the building, and Morna knew he’d seen her. Feverish anticipation shortened her breath.

‘Get a hold on yourself!’ she muttered.

Once horse and rider had disappeared she hurled back the bedclothes and scrambled into her jeans, adding a sleeveless funnel-necked top and low flat shoes. When the horse appeared again, this time walking sedately along the sand, she was as ready as she could be—hair severely pulled back, face washed, teeth cleaned, and a black enamelled cuff pushed up almost to the elbow of one arm.

In complete armour, she acknowledged with a tight smile, whereas Hawke was only in swimming shorts.

Nerves buzzing, she walked out onto the wide deck and watched as he brought the horse to a halt on the sand a few metres away.

He didn’t get down, or say anything, just surveyed her with unreadable eyes. Morna bristled. Talk about a cliché—the landowner out exercising his favourite stallion, looking from a position of dominance down on the trembling peasant girl…

But she was not a peasant girl, and neither was she trembling, although her pulse was erratic.

Angry, because all the cynicism in the world wasn’t going to divert the chaotic tide singing through her body, she said with ridiculous formality, ‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning.’ His voice was disturbingly objective. ‘How did you sleep?’

‘Very well,’ she lied. She’d dreamed long, languorous dreams of a silent, invisible man kissing her in the darkness—and the kisses hadn’t stopped at her wrists…

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