Mr. Unforgettable

by Karina Bliss

  MR. UNFORGETTABLE

  Karina Bliss

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  This book is dedicated to my writing family—Abby Gaines, Sandra Hyde and Tessa Radley.

  Not only can you gals spin straw into gold,

  but you also teach me how to live.

  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

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE WAS IN BED with a man who wasn’t her husband.

  In the dark, the realization was slow in coming. Because this loving felt right Liz didn’t question it, until she become aware—slowly—that the man whose mouth she devoured, whose body she explored, whose scent she inhaled, the man inside her, wasn’t Harry but younger, stronger, bigger…and she didn’t want him to stop.

  She woke with a jolt and stumbled out of bed. Hands shaking, she fumbled with the catch on the French doors leading from the bedroom to the deck and shoved them open, needing air.

  Her two-story house clung to Tuttle’s Hill like a barnacle to a rock—which Tuttle’s Hill was—a blustery outcrop hunched at one end of Beacon Bay, offering its clifftop inhabitants extensive vistas of the estuary from one side; the beach from the other. Liz and Harry had opted for estuary views, preferring the calm sweep of tidal river to the unpredictable and often wild Pacific.

  But tonight the view couldn’t soothe her. A hot sea breeze dragged at the sweat-drenched cotton of her nightdress as Liz raised her face to the crescent moon. “I’m sorry, Harry,” she whispered brokenly. “I’m sorry.”

  Her husband had been dead for over two years and moving on was still so hard.

  Oh, my love.

  She wanted to be an old woman living peacefully with her memories, not thirty-five years old and betrayed by her body into needing a man.

  Her nightdress lifted free of her body as it dried and Liz concentrated on her breathing, imagining the salty air dissolving the hard lump of pain inside her.

  When she was calm, she walked back through the large, empty house to her study and flicked on the light. Her mayoral chains glittered from the desk where she’d dumped them, too tired to put them away.

  She did that now, carefully straightening the twenty golden links so they lay flat in the velvet-lined box. Each previous mayor had donated a link and their names were engraved on the back.

  Automatically her fingers traced the outline of link nineteen, the district’s most beloved mayor, tragically killed in a car accident in the middle of his third term. Harry Light.

  Her own mayoral link was shiny and bright. The color of fool’s gold, she thought ruefully, without the patina of age or experience. She shelved the box at the top of the wardrobe and reached for a report. Wastewater-treatment upgrade options.

  Curling up in the big leather chair, Liz opened page one and looked at the chart. Incidence of odor complaints within a one-kilometer radius of pump station over the past twelve months including weather variables.

  For a moment she was tempted to grab a pencil and doodle little creatures holding their noses around the margins. But her council staff and constituents wanted her to be dignified. Like Harry.

  Frowning in concentration, Liz lost herself in the mysteries of pond desludging and trade waste bylaws until she fell asleep over her desk, dreaming about…

  “SHIT.” Fastening the last buttons of his shirt, Luke Carter stared into the empty glove compartment of his 4WD. The tie was in his Audi S8.

  He slammed the glove compartment shut, pulled on his socks and shoes and grabbed his briefcase. Nothing in it, but the town-planning department of Beacon Bay District Council appreciated the trappings.

  The first time he’d visited the council offices he’d made the mistake of arriving in cargo shorts and a T-shirt, thinking he’d left the formalities of the business world behind him in Auckland.

  His cool reception had quickly made Luke realize they expected the millionaire businessman, the former athlete. Hell, they wanted his Olympic-swimming medals dangling around his damn neck.

  Over the following months he’d all but done it, too. Anything to get those po-faced, bureaucratic bastards off his back and signing off on Camp Chance. Actually, if they signed off on the camp, he’d give them the bloody medals.

  Outside the car, the heat hit him like a blow. Still he shrugged on his suit jacket, muttering a curse as he caught sight of the elderly woman marching toward the council’s entrance.

  They met at the top step and exchanged smiles with all the ease of two gunfighters just before a trigger gets pulled.

  “Ms. Jackson.” Though she’d never let a man tell her what to do, Luke knew Delores hated the feminist honorific.

  The faded blue eyes narrowed as she corrected him. “Miss.”

  “Of course, my apologies.” He opened the door for her. “Here to snoop?”

  Her majestic bosom swelled. “If you’re bringing miscreants and delinquents into our community, we need to be assured that all the checks and balances are upheld.”

  “Here to snoop,” he repeated. Dammit, the last thing he needed was the president of the Residents and Ratepayers Association finding a weakness.

  They entered the blessed air-conditioned coolness of the council buildings on a waft of Delores’s eau de lilac, a scent Luke had come to associate with bloody battle.

  In the struggle to set up a holiday camp for underprivileged children on conservative Beacon Bay, this woman and her cohorts had cost the Triton Trust tens of thousands of dollars and months of delays.

  Triton had won in appeals, but unfortunately many of the elderly population still equated the impending opening of Camp Chance with an invasion of the body snatchers.

  If the place was ever bloody finished. “As always, Delores, a pleasure.” Without waiting for a reply, Luke headed for the counter.

  The council receptionist glanced at the clock. “The meeting’s already started.”

  “My planner’s there?”

  “Ms. Newton arrived early.”

  Luke relaxed slightly. “Find me a tie, Mary, please. I’m desperate.”

  She folded her massive forearms. “What do you think I am, a magician?”

  “Don’t worry about the bunny.”

  Lips twitching, she waddled out back and returned with a luridly striped yellow-and-black tie. Luke’s sartorial soul recoiled but he gave her a big smile as he put it on.

  “You’re a lifesaver.”

  A faint blush stained her cheeks. “Get in there,” she growled. “You know they don’t want to see your planning adviser. They want you.”

  They always wanted him. The elevator doors were closing as Luke reached them. He jammed his briefcase in the gap, and with a squeak of protest they reopened.

  The mayor was the sole occupant. “I wondered why we were having trouble with these doors,” she said dryly.

  Luke stepped in. “Good morning, Your Worship.”

  “Ah! So, you’re here as a supplicant.” The doors closed. In the confined space he detected a faint vanilla in her perfume, like everything else about the mayor, subtle and understated. As always, s
he looked cool and composed. Her long, ash-blond hair was pinned up, she wore a plain white shirt under a gray-blue silk suit, simply styled, but Luke knew good tailoring.

  Both jacket and trousers followed her slim curves without accentuating them. Blue eyes would have completed the ice-maiden look, but hers were dark brown, the irises almost indistinguishable from the pupils. It made her very difficult to read.

  He jabbed the button for the third floor. “I didn’t see you at the site visit.”

  Though the lift was already moving, the mayor pushed the button again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Something came up. How did it go?”

  The tour was intended to get former adversaries onside by being transparent and inclusive in the building process. “We didn’t quite end up linking hands and singing ‘We Are the World,’” said Luke, “but I’m starting to shake the image of big bad developer.”

  She smiled, and he added, “Any chance you’re on the Resource Consents Hearing Panel?” Mayor Light was one of the few people he respected on this council.

  She was also oblivious to him as a male. Old or young, married or single, women had been flirting with Luke since his teens. The mayor was friendly, approachable and, for a beautiful woman in her mid-thirties, completely indifferent to the opposite sex. Still getting over the loss of her husband, Mary had confided when Luke mentioned it.

  “Not my area,” Liz said. “Councillors Bray and Maxwell are supporting the planning officer today.” She ignored his snort, but he thought he detected a flicker of sympathy behind her fashionable black-rimmed glasses. “Why are you looking for consents when Camp Chance is near completion?”

  Scowling, Luke punched the lift button to try to hurry it up. The council elevator moved as slowly as its officers did. “Your ecological adviser saw one skink during an inspection visit last month and slammed a moratorium on construction until we consulted an expert in herpetofauna.”

  She started to smile then realized he wasn’t joking and adjusted her glasses. “Go on.”

  “The expert concluded the skink was probably passing through…they live in bush, not clearings, you see, something I tried to tell your so-called eco expert at the time.” He paused, struggling to rein in his sarcasm. “So we’re presenting his very expensive report and seeking permission to resume building.”

  “I see.” Her serenity goaded him.

  “Do you? If we’re unsuccessful, the camp’s opening will be delayed while we hunt nonexistent skinks and we’ll be disappointing a lot of underprivileged kids.”

  Her expression didn’t change. “I’m sure that will be taken into account in the decision.” He couldn’t imagine Elizabeth Light ever losing her composure. Even in bed.

  Where the hell had that thought come from?

  Luke loosened his tie. He was tired or he wouldn’t be snapping at her. Up at six and at the building site, it was days like this he yearned for his old corporate life.

  “Sorry…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t sleep much last night.” He noticed she had faint smudges of exhaustion under her eyes, not quite covered by her expertly applied makeup. “Heat been keeping you awake, too?”

  The mayor stared at him then a blush swept up her face until even the tips of her ears were red. She mumbled a reply then stared fixedly at the lights flicking between floors.

  What the hell had he said?

  She had a patrician nose, very straight, and he liked how her mouth tilted up at the corners…inherently optimistic. He hated defeated mouths, but the best his own could manage these days was a straight line.

  The lift doors opened and, with a nod, she stepped out quickly. Three steps along the corridor she hesitated. “If things get sticky, remind them of Blue Heron Rise.”

  “That’s it, just Blue Heron Rise?”

  “No. Nice tie.”

  Luke looked down at the bumblebee stripes, then glanced up sharply, but the mayor was already walking briskly away. For the first time he noticed how high her heels were under the trouser hem.

  Given that her council was predominantly made up of men, and bombastic ones at that, looking them in the eye had to be an advantage. The hint of vulnerability made her more human.

  But what really intrigued him was that, for a moment in the lift, she’d been a woman looking at a man.

  SNOWY PATTERSON was sitting in Liz’s office, short legs planted in front of him, hands folded over a belly that testified to years of public-service functions.

  “Did you know Resource Consents still has issues with Camp Chance?” Liz dumped her heavy briefcase on her mahogany desk with relief. “I just saw Luke Carter in the elevator.” He’d inadvertently triggered a memory of her dream and she’d blushed like a teenager. Stupid.

  “Yeah, poor bastard ticks off one condition of consent and another one jumps up to bite him in the bum.” Snowy’s farming background made for colorful colloquialisms, which he shared freely.

  The deputy mayor’s nickname sprang from the color of his hair, still impressively thick, even in his late fifties. His eyebrows jutted like tufts of snow-covered tussock over piercing blue eyes and a weathered complexion. “Political correctness gone mad if you ask me.”

  After nearly nine years in local government Snowy was also free to air his opinions of the bureaucratic process, a luxury Liz couldn’t afford. “What is it now?” he asked. “Bush protection, items of historical significance on the site, breaching the earthworks allocation…the poor bugger’s had them all.”

  “Skink capture and relocation,” Liz explained and Snowy laughed until he cried.

  “Anyone else would have given up,” he said, “but all credit to them, these Triton blokes have hung in there. Not that you can walk away from million-dollar real estate, and God knows, with its history, it would be difficult to sell.”

  Luke Carter was one of three partners in one of New Zealand’s leading tourism companies and Triton Holdings had bought the lot five years earlier with the intention of building a hotel.

  Public outcry sunk the project and the land had sat idle, a convenient shortcut to the beach for locals, until the partners had sought approval to build a holiday camp for disadvantaged kids.

  Despite opposition, this project had eventually won approval, largely thanks to Harry.

  It was the only time Liz secretly opposed her husband’s decision and it was the hardest of his causes to champion now. But she did it. “I told him to mention Blue Heron if he found himself stymied.”

  Snowy raised one brow. “It’s not like you to be stirring the pot, you’re usually taking it off the boil.”

  “The guy needs a break.”

  “He’s not the only one, is he, Liz?” She glanced up from unpacking her briefcase to see him watching her. This man knew her too well.

  Snowy pushed the Beacon Bay Chronicle across the desk. “Delores Jackson threw her hat into the ring this morning.” Local government elections were two and a half months away and nominations had only opened yesterday.

  Looking at Delores’s iron-gray curls and Special Forces smile, Liz’s heart sank. Sure enough, the article was full of the geriatric militant’s buzzwords—institutionalized corruption, conspiracy, vested interests—and what Delores intended doing about them.

  Liz covered the newspaper with her sewage report. “I’d better officially register, then.” She needed another term, not just to see Harry’s projects to fruition, but to pursue her own.

  “You’ve done a damn fine job, Liz. Harry would have been proud.”

  The rare compliment brought a lump to her throat. Snowy hadn’t always liked her. Along with most of the district, he’d been aghast when his best mate and new mayor had fallen in love with a council clerk fifteen years his junior.

  Harry hadn’t cared but Liz did. She knew Harry was public property with his boundless energy, his dedication to the public good…and she was nobody, a migrant from the city.

  She’d spent the five years of their marriage trying to deserve Harry, winni
ng over the doubters with her exemplary behavior. But she’d also built up a reserve between herself and other people.

  Now she said awkwardly, “I couldn’t have done it without your help.”

  He nodded. “You’re ambivalent about standing again.”

  “Not ambivalent,” she protested. “Tired. I’ve put in long hours this month, but I’m taking the afternoon off to babysit Harriet, so—”

  “Before you make a final decision,” he interrupted, “you should know I’m running against you.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE AIR WHOOSHED OUT of her leather chair as Liz sat down. “Oh.”

  “Only my bloody prostate prevented me from standing last time.” Snowy waited for a response but, still reeling at the news, she could only stare at him. “Dammit, I’m fond of you, Liz, but the mayoralty is a duty to you, whereas politics is my passion.”

  “Snowy, you have every right to run for mayor,” she said quietly. “But so do I, that’s the nature of democracy. And also speaking fondly, are you sure your health is up to this?”

  “Yes,” he said shortly, “so don’t play the infirm card.”

  His mistrust stung but she wouldn’t show it. “You know me better than that.”

  “You misunderstood me,” he said gruffly. It was the closest Snowy ever came to an apology.

  Liz struggled to be positive. “Well, at least two friends can agree to a clean campaign, one that’s issue driven with no personal attacks.”

  His laugh was a bellow. “Good God, nearly two years in the job and you still have illusions.”

  From under his bushy white eyebrows, Snowy regarded her with a mix of exasperation and affection. “I’m not going to attack you, Elizabeth, but I’m standing because I have attributes better suited to the job…experience, charisma—” she winced “—vision. And I’ll be pointing that out. But I won’t deny that you’ve done a great job as a caretaker.”