Sanchia’s Secret

by Robyn Donald

  Crisply, her face still and proud, she added, ‘Not now, not ever.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Sanchia bit off the words hesitating on the tip of her tongue. Summoning her flattest, most uncompromising tone, she said, ‘Because it’s not for sale.’

  His cobalt eyes grew even keener. ‘I’ve made you a fair offer. I don’t plan to raise it.’ His voice stood the hairs across the nape of her neck to attention.

  ‘Whether you raise it or not is irrelevant,’ she stated, snatching back her composure as it took to its heels. A heady sexual attraction warred with prudence; she ignored both to say recklessly, ‘I hate the thought of the Bay being carved up so rich people can build ostentatious beach houses that are only used a couple of weeks each year.’

  ‘My mother and I spend more than two weeks a year here.’

  Heat stung her skin. ‘I know. I didn’t mean you—’

  He interrupted, ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t intend to develop the Bay.’

  ‘You won’t develop it because I’m not selling it.’

  ‘Are you planning to live here?’ He flicked a razor-sharp glance at the cartons in the back of the car.

  Gently, each word clear enough to shatter crystal, Sanchia said, ‘I work in Auckland. I’m up here on holiday.’

  ‘Sanchia, why don’t we forget that three years ago I wanted to make love with you and you ran away as though you’d found yourself wanting to go to bed with a werewolf?’ he said, his deep voice rasping across her nerves with shaming erotic effect. ‘The letter you left made it quite clear that you didn’t want to go down that road. It’s over, and I don’t bear you any ill will. Let’s move on from there.’ He held out a strong, long-fingered hand.

  Even though Sanchia had always known she’d been merely a summer diversion, his acceptance of her abrupt decision to leave had shattered some vulnerable part of her. For a couple of months—oh, why not admit it? For at least a year!—she’d hoped that he might care enough to follow her. But he hadn’t.

  This, however, was different; this was business, and he wanted more than her untried body.

  Great-Aunt Kate had always said that a gentleman waited until a woman indicated she wanted to shake hands. If the slow, heart-shaking smile Caid gave her was any indication, his mother had taught him the same thing, but his hand remained steadily out-thrust until Sanchia reluctantly put hers into it.

  He didn’t mash her bones together as some men did, and neither did his clasp linger, yet the touch of those lean, powerful fingers reached all the way to secret places inside her body, sent a mysterious knowledge shivering through her.

  Damn, she thought frantically. Oh, damn! It was happening again, and even though she knew her response was a pathway to disillusionment, she couldn’t control it.

  When he released the swift, sure pressure, it felt like deliverance and abandonment at the same time.

  Sanchia’s weighted lashes lifted. He wasn’t smiling; his blue gaze was fixed on her mouth. Beads of sweat sprang out at her temples, dampened her palms.

  Lazily, almost noiselessly, he murmured, ‘I have an odd desire to see my name on your lips, to hear your throaty, summery voice say it again.’

  Caid wondered how she’d respond to the open provocation in his tone, his words, even as he wondered what the hell had got into him.

  No, he knew what had got into him. From the moment he’d watched her long, long, superb legs unfold from the car he’d been ridden by a need so brutal he’d barely been able to control his own mind.

  Not that his mind had much to do with this elemental aberration prowling his body with all the deadly determination of a tiger on the hunt. Why didn’t she take off her sunglasses? By hiding those exotic green eyes, the dark lenses concentrated his attention on her luscious mouth.

  What would it taste like now? What would she taste like? Incredulously he realised that his skin was tightening in a primitive warning, his muscles flexing in readiness. Fighting to subdue the hunger that threatened to drown his intelligence in a flood of lust, he waited for her reply.

  It came with an infuriating dignity that should have quenched the heat gathering in his groin. With a return of the baffled frustration only she aroused, he remembered anew the way she’d taken refuge behind a distant, self-contained remoteness.

  ‘Caid,’ she said coolly. ‘Satisfied?’

  ‘No, but I’ll settle for your signature on an option form,’ he said, watching her intently.

  That enticing mouth compressed as she hesitated.

  Cynically aware that he’d left himself open to an attempt at extortion, he waited. It would be interesting to see what she’d do if he offered her a good lump sum of money right now.

  His eyes skimmed her clothes, read chainstore. Such an exquisite body should be draped in silk. And there had to be something wrong with that elderly car. Was she a woman to be seduced by instant money?

  No; if she was, she’d have slept with him three years previously.

  Even as he wondered about the rush of altruism to his brain, he drawled, ‘I would, of course, pay for that assurance.’

  She paused, her square chin lifting a fraction. ‘What’s the going rate for an option?’

  A dollar.

  Negligently, his tone casual and off-hand, he mentioned a sum of money—enough, he guessed, to give her a considerable jolt.

  She took her time to answer, turning her head to survey the beach. A neat profile, but not exactly beautiful, not even pretty, although her features were fine and regular. Caid had always liked cool, restrained women, but what stirred his hormones when he looked at Sanchia Smith was the repressed passion he knew existed beneath that reserve.

  With her black hair shimmering around her shoulders, pale, translucent skin and a mouth that had summoned forbidden fantasies, she’d always looked fey, enchanted—like a perilously exotic woman from the ancient fairy stories. Now, in old shorts, and a damp T-shirt moulded to small, high, tantalising breasts, that potent, sensuous bloom had turned into something that caught his breath.

  Caid found himself wondering if she was still a virgin. It didn’t seem likely, and why should he care? He’d never demanded virginity from his lovers.

  God, what the hell was he thinking? This was business, not sex! Get your mind, he commanded grimly, above your belt.

  It was impossible to tell what was going on inside her head until in a crisp, no-nonsense voice, she said, ‘That’s a lot of money for nothing.’

  Something in her tone, in her square shoulders and tilted chin, reminded Caid of the teenager who’d looked past him and through him, over him and around him—anywhere but at him. Need burning in his gut, he heard her say, ‘I’ll sign an option if it will make you happy, but I’m still not selling.’

  An X-rated fantasy of her making him happy, in full colour and with sound and kinaesthetic effects, blocked Caid’s thought processes. Angry at the effort it took to reimpose control, he said curtly, ‘Think it over before you make a decision.’

  ‘I don’t need to think anything over because I’ve already made the decision.’

  At last she turned towards him, face shuttered against him as she waited for him to go. For a split second he toyed with the idea of helping her unpack, but much more of this and his clamouring body would betray him.

  ‘I’ll bring the papers down this evening,’ he said.

  No doubt, Sanchia thought, you didn’t get to be a big-time tycoon unless you were prepared for everything. ‘You travel with option forms?’ she asked ironically. ‘It’s the holidays, if you remember, and every solicitor in New Zealand is at the beach until at least halfway through January.’

  ‘I always have options,’ he said. Some underlying note in his voice caught her attention as he finished crisply, ‘So I’ll see you tonight.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  SANCHIA stood motionless until Caid’s imperious presence had disappeared into the green gloom of the pohutukawa trees. Expelling her breath with a whoosh
that spun her brain, she muttered, ‘Oh, hell!’

  It had been too much to hope fate would make sure their visits to the Bay didn’t coincide.

  With jerky, abrupt movements she bent to haul the nearest carton out of the car, fighting a powerful, irresistible tug at her senses. One look at Caid and it had all come pouring back—the heady, dangerous compound of desire and longing and abject, hidden terror.

  As she walked across the grass to the bach and dumped the groceries down on the lid of the gumboot box she thought stoutly that she was better able to deal with it now than three years ago.

  She unlocked the door, stepping back as a wave of hot, stale air fell out of the building. Did he still want her? Her mouth twisted sardonically. Why should he, when he could have his pick of the most beautiful, sophisticated, suitable women in the world? He’d certainly taken his time about looking her over, but that meant nothing.

  Was he paying me back? she wondered, picking up the carton. I don’t suppose many women have said no to Caid Hunter. Perhaps he was trying for a little revenge?

  After setting the box onto the kitchen bench she opened up the bach, turning on the power, switching on the gas so that she’d have hot water, fiercely quelling a fresh surge of grief when she pushed back the bifold doors. A fresh, salt-scented breeze curled up from the beach, brushing away the mustiness.

  Her breasts lifted as she breathed in and out several times; she stared straight ahead, but after a few moments realised that her gaze had wandered stealthily to the roof of the Hunter house above its sheltering trees. If she craned her neck she could see the edge of the wide terrace overlooking the sea.

  Nothing had changed; she still responded to Caid’s powerful physical presence with all the poise and control of a kid in an ice cream shop. ‘So why stand here mooning over him?’ she asked the unresponsive air before stalking inside.

  When the car had been emptied and her bed made up, when she’d revived the bach again with the small domestic sound of the refrigerator, when the last trace of dust had been scoured away and she’d showered herself clean of sweat and grime, she drank two glasses of water and made a salad sandwich, following its green and gold crispness with coffee.

  Only then did she feel able to walk out onto the wide wooden deck, cross the lawn and stop in the dense shade of the pohutukawa trees.

  Because a late, cool spring had delayed their flowering, crimson bunches of silk floss still burst from furry, silver buds to smother the leathery leaves.

  Caid had kissed her for the first time under this one.

  Pain twisted inside her. Leaning her hot forehead against the rough bark, she imagined that she could feel an old, old life-force slowly, inexorably, sweeping through the wood. How many times had she seen her great-aunt stand like that, drawing strength from a tree?

  There was no comfort for Sanchia; nevertheless she faced the future with a bleak, driven determination. Great-Aunt Kate had trusted her to carry out a mission.

  A heat haze shimmered over the sand, the dancing air lending an oddly eerie atmosphere to the classic New Zealand holiday scene—white beach, a cobalt sea intensifying to brilliant kingfisher-blue on the horizon, and a summer coast of bays and headlands, cliffs and harbours, swathed in carmine and scarlet and crimson.

  Setting her jaw, Sanchia turned and walked across the springy grass towards the steep hill behind the bay, following a hint of a path beneath the trees. To the fading sound of the waves, she stepped lightly, cautiously, like an intruder.

  Another ancient pohutukawa hugged a grassy knoll on the boundary between her aunt’s land and the Hunter property, and each winter thousands of monarch butterflies found their way back to the tree to doze in the Northland sun along its sheltering branches, drinking from the tiny stream in the gully. Drowsy, almost immobile, they dreamed the winter away.

  A few were still there, gorgeous, graceful things in their livery of orange and black. She stood for long moments watching, remembering.

  The year she’d turned sixteen she’d noticed the pitiable flapping of a butterfly drowning in the creek. Still unsure of her suddenly longer legs, she’d raced down the hill to its rescue, landed awkwardly on a stone and wrenched her ankle.

  Caid had found her sitting on the bank with the butterfly drying on her finger. Carefully, gently, he’d coaxed the bold orange and black insect from her hand to his, and transported it to a branch. Once he was sure it was going to be all right, he’d ignored her protests, scooped her up and carried her back to the bach.

  She couldn’t recall breathing or talking until he’d deposited her in a deckchair. Now she wondered whether it had been his complete lack of reaction to her, his lazy amusement and casual friendliness that had persuaded her to trust him five years later.

  Or perhaps it had been the feel of his arms, the steady, amazing strength that had seemed so effortless…

  ‘Interesting how much more wary these butterflies are than the ones that over-winter,’ a voice drawled from the other side of the fence.

  Flinching, Sanchia whirled to face Caid. ‘Next time make a noise,’ she retorted curtly, then bit her tongue, aware of her rudeness—and the susceptibility it didn’t hide.

  His black brows lifted. ‘Certainly,’ he said, a note of mockery underlining his words. Casual shorts and a T-shirt as black as his hair failed to strip him of that cool, powerful authority.

  Glad she’d replaced her sunglasses, she muttered, ‘I’m sorry, but you gave me a start. It’s uncanny the way you sneak around.’

  ‘Sneak?’ His sculpted mouth twisted in irony. ‘I resent that. If my presence disturbs you so much I’ll whistle whenever I think you might be in the vicinity. You don’t want to hear me sing.’

  ‘Why not?’ He had a marvellous speaking voice, deep and exciting, a voice that reached right inside and…

  Sanchia stifled that train of thought.

  ‘I can’t carry a tune,’ he told her cheerfully.

  ‘Oh.’ Her doubtful glance caught his smile. Because it stirred up emotions she’d tried very hard to forget, she said hastily, ‘I wonder why these butterflies stay here?’

  ‘They’re foolish and frivolous. Any prudent, farsighted monarch is in a garden somewhere, mating, and laying eggs to continue the species; these ones are wasting the summer heat.’

  There was no suggestiveness in his words, yet her spine tingled.

  ‘Perhaps they sense there’s still time,’ she parried. Disturbed by his narrow-eyed focus on the hair around her shoulders, she pushed the dark cloud back, holding it behind her head with one hand.

  Caid said, ‘A wise butterfly takes its chances quickly. You never know when a cyclone might hurtle down from the tropics.’ He spoke lightly, as though the words meant nothing, but his glance settled on her mouth.

  Sanchia felt the resonance of a hidden meaning. A forbidden sensation exploded in the pit of her stomach. Taking three quick steps into the sombre shade of the tree, she said, ‘Cyclones are very occasional events here. The butterflies have plenty of time to enjoy themselves and still fulfil their evolutionary duty. Besides, it might be a ploy on nature’s part to fill a gap. If they do their egg-laying late in the season the eggs mightn’t be eaten by wasps.’

  ‘There are always predators.’

  Sanchia’s skin contracted as though some of the chilling certainty in his tone had been translated into physical existence. They seemed to be conducting another conversation beneath the words, one depending on feelings and a ferocious physical awareness for its subtext.

  Lightly she said, ‘So your advice to the young butterfly is to grab every chance? Could be dangerous.’

  ‘Life’s dangerous. And butterflies could die at any time.’

  Sanchia bit her lip, heard a soft oath and the sudden creak of the boundary fence as Caid swung over it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said abruptly, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder. ‘That was clumsy and obtuse of me.’

  His touch exploded through her like wildfire, dangerous, b
eautiful, filled with a hazardous lure.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she mumbled. ‘It wasn’t you—or what you said. It just comes over in waves.’

  ‘I know.’ Strange that the textures of warmth and harshness were mingled in his voice. He lifted a hand to trace the trickle of a tear just below her sunglasses.

  Sanchia’s jerk was instinctive but the imprint of his long, lean fingers, tanned and graceful, burned into her skin as his hand fell to his side. She looked up and saw his beautiful mouth harden as he stepped back, giving her space to breathe.

  ‘Great-Aunt Kate used to love summer,’ she said, knowing it sounded like a peace offering.

  He nodded. ‘I remember her swimming every day, and striding along the beach in the morning looking like some ancient, vital nature spirit. She had such guts, such zest.’

  ‘She didn’t take any nonsense,’ Sanchia said, her heart clenching, ‘and she was brusque and sensible and plain-spoken, but she was infinitely kind.’

  ‘You’ve never told me how you came to live with her,’ he said neutrally.

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘And one you don’t want to talk about.’ Gleaming blue eyes examined her from beneath thick, straight black lashes.

  His words challenged her into revealing more than she intended. ‘My parents died when I was twelve and I had to live with my mother’s sister. She was younger than my mother, and she didn’t like spoilt kids—’ and oh, was that ever an understatement! ‘—so after—after a while I ran away. Great-Aunt Kate found me and brought me here, and we worked out a system of living together.’

  It had taken a lot of patience and love from a woman already elderly, a lot of effort on both their parts, and almost a year for Sanchia to learn to trust again.