by Robyn Donald
Suddenly aware that the trousers she wore were five years old and had been cheap to start with, and that her tee-shirt had faded to a washed-out blue that did nothing for her, Jacinta realised she was standing with her jaw dangling. Clamping it shut, she swallowed, and tried to repulse a sudden, insistent warning of fate advancing inexorably, mercilessly on its way, crushing everything in its path.
‘Welcome to Waitapu, Jacinta.’ His deep, flexible voice wove magic, conjured darkly enchanted dreams that had dazzled her nights for months.
Fortunately her numbed brain jolted into action long enough to provide her with the location of their previous meeting.
Fiji.
The lazy, glorious week she and her mother had spent on a tiny, palm-shadowed resort island. One night he’d asked her to dance, and she’d been horrified by her fierce, runaway response to the nearness of his lean, big body. When the music had stopped he’d thanked her gravely and taken her to the room she had shared with her mother before, no doubt, rejoining the seriously glamorous woman he was on holiday with.
And for too many weeks afterwards Jacinta had let herself drift off to sleep on the memory of how it had felt to be held in those strong arms, and the faint, evocative fragrance that had owed nothing to aftershave—the essence of masculinity...
An embarrassing flash of colour stained her high cheekbones.
Damn, she thought helplessly. How unfair that this man was Paul McAlpine, her landlord for the next three months.
Hoping desperately that her weak smile showed nothing of her chagrin, she said, ‘I didn’t know you were Gerard’s cousin.’ She tried to sound mildly amused, but each word emerged tinged with her discomfiture.
‘Whereas I,’ he said, ‘had a pretty good idea that the Jacinta I met in Fiji and Gerard’s Jacinta had to be the same person. He mentioned your height and was rather poetic about your hair. It didn’t seem likely there’d be two of you about.’
He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen in her life, the impact of his strong, regular features emphasised by his startling colouring. Not many men of his age had hair the warm ash blond of childhood, so close to gold, and blue eyes without a trace of green or grey, and those who did were usually afflicted with pale brows and lashes that made them look pallid and juiceless. Paul McAlpine’s were a brown so dark they were almost black.
On that hot, enchanted Fijian atoll he’d smiled—a smile both utterly compelling and completely trustworthy. It had been almost too good to be true, that smile.
No sign of it now. The chiselled mouth was straight and the narrowed eyes aloof.
Jacinta’s face set. Gerard’s Jacinta? He’d merely repeated her sentence construction; of course he wasn’t implying that she and Gerard had some sort of relationship. Nevertheless she felt she should make it very clear that Gerard was simply a good friend.
Before she could do that, Gerard’s cousin said smoothly, ‘Unfortunately there’s been a hitch in plans. You can’t stay in the bach because penguins have moved in.’
Wondering whether she’d heard correctly, she stared at him. ‘Sorry,’ she said inanely, wishing her brain hadn’t fogged up. ‘Penguins?’
‘Little blue penguins are quite common around the coast. Normally they nest in caves, but sometimes they find a convenient building and nest under the floors.’
Surely he couldn’t be serious? One glance at those eyes—so cool they were almost cold, limpid and unshadowed—told her he was.
‘I see,’ she said numbly. Until that moment she hadn’t realised how much she wanted to get away from Auckland. A kind of desperation sharpened her voice. ‘Can’t they be removed?’
‘They have young.’
Something about his glance bothered her, and she stopped chewing her bottom lip.
He added, ‘And they’re protected.’
‘Oh, then I suppose... No, they can’t be disturbed.’
‘They make gruesome noises when they return to their den at night—like a demented donkey being slaughtered. They also smell of decaying fish.’ He met her suspicious glance with unwavering self-possession. ‘Would you like to go and smell them?’ he asked.
Unable to think of a sensible reply, Jacinta shook her head.
‘You’d better come inside,’ Paul McAlpine said.
Within seconds Jacinta found herself walking down a wide hall and into a beautifully decorated sitting room. Windows opening out onto an expansive roofed terrace looked over a lush lawn bordered with flowers and shrubs, with glimpses of the sea through sentinel pohutukawa trees.
Jacinta thought fiercely, I am not going back to town.
It would be like returning to prison.
And where had that thought come from?
‘Sit down and I’ll get you some tea,’ Paul McAlpine said with remote courtesy, and went through another door.
Reluctantly Jacinta lowered herself into a very comfortable armchair and contemplated her legs, almost as ungraceful as her too-thin arms. Why on earth had she chosen to wear trousers of such a depressing shade of brown?
Because they were the best she had and she couldn’t afford new ones. What did it matter? She didn’t care what he or anybody else thought, she told herself sturdily, and knew that she lied.
‘Tea’ll be ready soon,’ Paul McAlpine said, startling her with his swift reappearance.
Averting her eyes from his broad shoulders, and the way his well-cut trousers hugged muscular thighs, Jacinta swallowed. She even thought she could smell the elusive male fragrance that still infiltrated the occasional dream.
With a shock strong enough to be physical, she braved the icy brilliance of his eyes.
‘Don’t look so tragic, Jacinta. I have a suggestion to make.’ There was a faint, barely discernible undertone to the words, a hint of cynical amusement that startled her.
Especially as she hadn’t realised she was looking tragic. Taken aback, certainly, but ‘tragic’ was altogether overstating the case. Her hackles rose as he sat in the chair opposite her, so completely, uncompromisingly self-sufficient that her spine stiffened and she angled her chin in mute resistance.
Jacinta had no illusions about her looks; she knew that her height and thinness and the clearly defined, high-bridged nose that dominated her face were not redeemed by thick, violently ginger hair, or green eyes hazed with gold and set beneath straight, dark copper brows. Accustomed to feeling out of place amongst the chic women she saw everywhere, she was nevertheless outraged that Paul McAlpine should make her feel the same.
‘Yes?’ she said, aware that she sounded curt but unable to alter the tone to her usual confidence.
‘I have several spare bedrooms,’ Paul McAlpine told her. ‘You’re more than welcome to use one. My housekeeper lives in a flat at the back, so you won’t be alone in the house with me.’
No sarcasm sharpened that beautiful voice, nothing even obliquely hostile glimmered in those blue eyes, but the skin pulled tight on the nape of Jacinta’s neck as a shiver of cold foreboding slithered the length of her spine.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said warily, ‘but I don’t think—’
He smiled. It was a smile that had probably stunned more women than she’d had showers. Silenced by its impact, she had to swallow when her words dried on her tongue.
Calmly, almost blandly, he said, ‘If you feel awkward about living here with me I’ll stay in a flat I own in Auckland.’
‘I can’t drive you out of your house,’ she said, feeling both irritated and awkward.
His dark brows inched inwards. ‘I believe that you had to move out of your flat, and as Gerard’s sold his apartment you can’t go there. I spend quite a lot of time either travelling or in my flat in Auckland; a few extra nights there won’t be much of a hardship.’
What would it be like to own several houses?
After one swift, circumspect glance Jacinta realised she didn’t have a chance of changing his mind. Thoughts churned around her mind, to be promptly discarded. S
he didn’t have enough money to stay in a motel or rent another flat; the main advantage of Paul McAlpine’s bach had been that it was free of charge.
He watched her with eyes half hidden by his lashes, waiting with a sort of vigilant patience—the remorseless tenacity of a hunter—that intimidated her in a way she didn’t understand.
For heaven’s sake! She was letting the aftermath of one dance ten months ago scramble her brain entirely.
With enormous reluctance she finally said, ‘Then—thank you. I’ll try not to get in your way.’
‘Gerard said you’re starting on your thesis.’
‘Did he?’ she said non-committally. ‘What about Christmas?’ she asked. ‘Will the penguins be out from under the bach by then?’
‘It’s unlikely.’ An enquiring eyebrow lifted. ‘Were you planning to stay in the bach over Christmas?’
This would be her first Christmas alone. Through the lump in her throat she said raggedly, ‘Yes. My mother died only a week after we came back from Fiji.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘That was hard for you.’
Looking away, she nodded, swallowed and went on, ‘I never had the chance to thank you for your kindness to her in Fiji. You left the day before us, and I—’
‘I wasn’t kind,’ he interrupted. ‘I liked her very much, and admired her gallantry.’
‘She liked you, too.’ Jacinta paused to steady her wobbly voice. ‘She really enjoyed talking to you. It made her holiday. She was so determined I shouldn’t miss anything...’
Cynthia Lyttelton had insisted Jacinta use the facilities at the resort, pleading with her to swim, to sail, to go snorkelling. ‘Then you can tell me all about it,’ she’d said.
Because the resort staff had been kind and attentive to her mother, Jacinta had given in. When she’d returned, salt-slicked and excited, after her first snorkelling expedition, Cynthia had told her about this man who had joined her beneath her sun-umbrella—handsome as Adonis, she’d said, and funny, with a good, sharp brain.
Gently, he said now, ‘She told me she didn’t have long to live. I gather she’d been ill for a long time, yet she was completely without self-pity.’
‘She had arthritis, but she died of cancer.’ I will not cry, she averred silently, clenching her jaw against the onset of gnef.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he repeated, and she knew he was.
So many people—considerate, well-meaning people—had told her that her mother’s death must have been a blessed relief to them both She’d understood that they were giving her what sympathy they could, but although often in great pain Cynthia had enjoyed life, and she hadn’t wanted to die.
And Jacinta still mourned her loss.
She nodded, and they sat without speaking for some moments while she regained control of her emotions.
Eventually she looked up, to meet a gaze that rested on her face with unsettling penetration. Instantly his lashes covered his eyes, and when they swept up again there was nothing but that vivid, unrevealing intensity of colour, hiding all emotion, all speculation. His sculptured mouth had thinned to a straight, forceful line.
A firebrand plummeted to the pit of her stomach. Instinct, so deeply buried in her unconscious she’d never known of its existence, stirred, flexed, and muttered a warning.
What am I getting into? she thought.
Common sense, brisk and practical, told her she wasn’t getting into anything, because she wouldn’t allow herself to. Paul McAlpine might look like every woman’s idea of a dream hero, with his golden hair and athlete’s body and disturbing mouth, but she didn’t have to worship at his shrine if she didn’t want to.
‘I usually have a quiet Christmas,’ he told her. ‘Anyway, it’s almost two months before we have to think of that. Our tea’s probably ready, but if you’d like to come with me now I’ll show you where the bedrooms are and you can choose one.’
Stiffly she got to her feet and went with him in and out of five superbly furnished bedrooms, all with both double-hung and French windows leading onto the encircling verandah. Just like something from a glossy magazine.
Jacinta refused to be impressed. In the end she chose one with a view of the sea solely because it had a long, businesslike desk on one wall.
‘This one doesn’t have its own bathroom,’ Paul told her, ‘but there’s one right next door.’
‘It’ll be super, thank you.’ Outside, the verandah had been furnished with a lounger and several chairs. Below the wooden balustrade flowers frothed and rioted. The room was pleasantly cool, with a daybed in one corner and an elegant Victorian dressing table, less ornamented than most of its kind. ‘It looks lovely,’ Jacinta finished sincerely. ‘Thank you.’
‘It’s nothing.’
The negligent disclaimer was delivered in a deep voice, its obscurely equivocal intonation setting her teeth on edge.
She was being paranoid.
Well, it was probably normal. Although earlier that year she’d endured an unpleasant experience with a man, eventually her suspicions regarding masculine intentions must fade. Unfortunately it wasn’t going to be a speedy process. Even with Gerard, who couldn’t have been nicer, she’d found herself searching for sinister motives.
And now she was doing it again. Possibly because Paul McAlpine was so—so—well, so gorgeous. Her nervousness didn’t mean she sensed anything ulterior; it arose from her physical awareness of him, which was her problem, not his. Behind Paul McAlpine’s air of calm, confident good humour was simply that—calm, confident good humour.
Any ordinary woman would be jittery and a bit overwhelmed when confronted by one of the favoured few, a golden man with everything, including a presence that automatically made him a man to be noticed.
Exhausted, and therefore easily influenced, she simply needed time and peace to catch up with herself again. And here, in this beautiful, peaceful place, she’d get them.
Especially if her host was going to be away a lot.
They were halfway down the hall on the way to the kitchen when he said, ‘Gerard tells me he’s doing research for another book. I thought he’d just finished one.’
‘Yes, but he found out that an old rival of his is intending to move in on his territory so he thought he’d better get going on this one and pre-empt him. Even in the academic world things can get rough when it comes to ego and staking claims.’
‘I see. Is he planning to spend all his leave in the archives?’
‘I think so. It was organised in such a rush that I’m not too sure of his plans.’
One eyebrow arched in a manner that showed only too clearly what Paul McAlpine thought of that, but he said nothing more. As she accompanied him Jacinta thought acidly that it was impossible to imagine this man ever doing anything on impulse.
In the spacious, very modern kitchen he introduced her to his housekeeper, a large-boned, blue-jeaned woman in her late thirties called Fran Borthwick, who smiled at her and said, ‘Welcome to Waitapu. The tea’s ready. Where do you want it?’
‘I’ll take it into the conservatory,’ Paul said serenely, lifting the tray.
Jacinta returned the housekeeper’s smile and went with him.
The conservatory, a delicious Victorian folly, was equipped with rattan furniture upholstered in muted stripes. Jungly tropical growth sprouted from splendid pots; in one a huge frangipani held up white and gold flowers, their sweet scent reminding Jacinta forcibly of the week she’d spent in Fiji.
‘Would you like to pour?’ Paul McAlpine invited, setting the tray on a table.
Jacinta’s gaze lingered too long on his elegant, long-fingered hands—hands that promised great strength as well as sureness. Resenting the mindless response that shivered across her nerve-ends, she said, ‘Yes, of course,’ sat down and lifted the teapot.
He liked his tea without milk and unsugared. Spartan tastes, Jacinta thought as she poured, then set down his cup and saucer.
It was an oddly intimate little rite, one t
hat seemed right for the old-fashioned house and teaset. Ruthlessly ignoring the niggling edge of tension that sawed at her composure, she drank her tea and made polite conversation, wondering as she listened to his even, regulated voice whether authority and imperturbable good humour was all there was to Paul McAlpine.
No, he wouldn’t have reached the top of his profession without intelligence and, she suspected, ruthlessness.
No doubt with women, too. The lover Gerard had pointed out that day in Ponsonby was a woman so beautiful she’d dazzled. However she was not the woman who had been with Paul in Fiji.
Perhaps he was promiscuous. Was that what Gerard had been hinting at with his reference to broken hearts?
Her quick revulsion at the idea was a warning, as was her conviction that he was too fastidious for crude promiscuity. All she knew about him was that he’d been kind to her mother, he’d been jilted—and he’d had two lovers in ten months.
And he danced well.
When his cool voice broke into her memories she jumped guiltily, and had to pull herself together to answer his question about her degree.
‘I majored in history,’ she said.
‘Yes, of course. Gerard’s speciality. That’s where you met him, I suppose?’
It was impossible to accuse him of prying. He must, she thought—surely irrelevantly—be hell in a courtroom. Any witness would be lulled into a sense of security by that lazy, calm voice that expressed nothing more than interest.
But he must have heard the reservation in her voice when she replied, ‘I—yes.’
Dark lashes almost hid his eyes. ‘I believe he offered you bed and board in his apartment. That must have been very convenient.’
Tautly she responded, ‘He realised that things were—difficult—where I was living, and very kindly told me about a flat a friend of his wanted looked after while she took up a scholarship in England.’
For a moment the classically shaped mouth straightened, but when she looked again it was relaxed, even curved in a slight smile. ‘Flatmates can be trying, can’t they.’
