by Julie Mac
Her ears told her he was gone. Willing herself to be calm for Trojan’s sake, she knelt by his head and let her fingertips touch his neck. The clammy skin still sickened her but this time she didn’t recoil. She moved her hand along the chestnut coat, ignoring the congealing blood smearing her skin.
‘I’m sorry, Trojan,’ she murmured. The horse gave a little whicker. She moved her other hand down to softly touch the velvet nose, and he whickered again, pressing his nose against her hand.
‘Believe me, I’d do anything to have saved you all this pain.’ Her voice caught. She looked around, up the slope, and saw that the man had disappeared—into the shed or the house, she guessed. She could make a run for it, now, before he came back; jump in the Cessna, execute a quick turn at the top of the airstrip and be down the slope and into the air before he returned.
But she felt the warmth of Trojan’s breath against her hand and knew she couldn’t abandon him. She took two deep gulping breaths and spoke again. ‘I had a friend when I was little and she had a pony called Goldie. He had a beautiful chestnut coat just like yours and we used to feed him apples.’
Trojan kept pressing his nose into her hand. Since he seemed to like her words, she continued, not thinking or caring about what she said, aware only that she must keep talking.
After a while, Trojan exhaled a long, quavering breath, then was still. For gut-tearing seconds Kate thought he was dead, but after what seemed like ages, he breathed in and his lashes blinked down, momentarily shuttering the moist, trusting eye that had watched her all the time the man was away.
Gently, she wrapped her arm around his neck and laid her cheek against his, breathing in the warm, horsey smell.
‘I’m really, really sorry, Trojan.’
The horse pushed his nose into her palm in an effort so weak she winced.
‘Hey, it’s okay,’ she crooned softly. She stopped speaking, aware of a change in the animal. Warm little puffs of air on the hand that stroked his nose told her he was breathing, but when she lifted her head she saw that his body had gone slack, as if all the fear and pain had drained out with his breath. She put her cheek back against his. Despite the wind that gusted across the ridge, the summer sun beat hot on her head. Her legs were cramping under her and perspiration trickled between her shoulderblades, but she didn’t dare move.
Then she heard the metallic snick of a safety catch being released on a rifle behind her.
Reluctantly she stood, sick at heart, knowing there was no alternative. The man held the gun across his chest, his face grim, his bleakness frightening.
He waited until she moved back and out to one side, then he stepped up close to Trojan’s head. The horse gave a feeble whinny of recognition, even as the man was lifting his gun.
Here it comes, thought Kate, mentally and physically bracing herself. Then he lowered the gun slightly and turned towards her.
‘It’s time for you to go,’ he said, his voice low. ‘You’ve got an appointment to keep, remember?’
She shook her head; she’d caused this predicament, but she was no coward. She’d be there at the end. She stood her ground, watching Trojan, waiting, and was startled when the man spoke again.
‘Just get the hell out of here. Okay?’
Now Kate understood. He wanted to be alone. She turned and walked towards the Cessna with leaden legs, and stopped when she heard him talking, so quietly she had to strain to hear his words.
‘Goodbye, my good old mate.’
She held her breath, waiting for the crack of the rifle, and when it came she jumped. It was much louder than she expected and she wanted to clap her hands over her ears as the sound reverberated around the hills.
In the unnatural silence that followed, she stood perfectly still, then a shrill whinny made her jerk around. From under the canopy of trees near the bottom of the paddock, a grey horse cantered and moved restlessly along the fence line. Its head and tail were hoisted high with nervousness—though thank goodness it appeared unharmed.
Killing Trojan was bad enough, but to have hurt two horses … Kate shook her head to banish the horrible thought. She shaded her eyes against the sun and watched as the horse trotted up to where the man squatted beside Trojan, his arm outstretched on the still body. The grey stopped abruptly, tossing its head and snorting, then seemed to calm down when the man stood and patted its neck. She could hear him talking quietly, and she turned, feeling devastatingly sad.
***
She reached into the cockpit for the bag of spare clothes and shoes she always carried in the plane when she visited the forests.
There were grass stains as well as blood on her jeans, and her top was a candidate for the rubbish bin. Her hands were filthy too. And trembling, and strands of her unruly mop of hair had slipped out of the high ponytail she’d dragged it into this morning.
She headed for the lean-to at the side of fertiliser shed where there was space to get changed, and a basin to wash her face and hands. As she walked, she pulled the tie from her ponytail and shook out her hair, then checked her watch; Ralph would be arriving soon to pick her up.
Concentrate on the job ahead, she told herself. There was important work to be done in the next hour or so. She took a deep breath, and another, but when she reached the lean-to, she felt slightly light-headed—reaction, she guessed—and she stopped in the cooling shade of the old puriri tree that spread its canopy over part of the shed.
Hidden in the branches, a tui sang its clear, haunting song, and Kate closed her eyes, willing the elusive bird’s sweet notes to erase the tortured image of the wounded horse. She opened her eyes, experienced another wave of light-headedness, then moved a couple of steps forward to lean her back against the comforting solidness of the broad tree trunk.
‘Get yourself together,’ she whispered, putting her bag down beside her feet. When she met the forestry employees in a short while she needed to be in top form. The men wanted reassurance, and she was their boss, she was the one to give it. But right now she felt weakened, as if all her protective layers had been peeled back to expose a painful core.
She shook her head slowly at the bitter sting of tears behind her closed eyelids. What’s wrong with me?
Crying got you nowhere, even when you were burning up with pain and your insides had turned to mush. She’d found that out at a very early age.
Her eyes flew open at the crunch of heels on leaves. She hadn’t heard the man approach, and now he was standing right in front of her, the gun in his hand.
Chapter 2
‘I’m sorry you had to shoot Trojan.’ To her relief her voice was steady, because she sure as hell didn’t feel steady. He was watching her, eyes bleak, face betraying no emotion.
‘Don’t be.’
She could see the faint rhythmical indentation of his nostrils as he breathed.
‘It was an accident.’ He stepped forward half a pace. ‘He had a few minutes’ pain, but the end was peaceful. Okay?’
‘Breaking your leg, being tangled in wire and then shot through the head is peaceful?’ Saying the words out loud made her feel physically sick.
He didn’t answer.
She shook her head slowly from side to side, registering the awful tightening of her throat. Above her, she heard a rustle in the leaves and the soft wuff-wuff of wings which signalled the tui’s departure, and in the distance she could hear a big gust of wind roaring up through the trees in the valley like a locomotive. She closed her eyes. If only the wind would pick me up and carry me away from here, someplace where I didn’t have to think or remember.
‘Look, maybe it’d make you feel better if I said I would rather have shot you, but we’re grown-ups and I’m not going to say that.’ As if to emphasise the point, he bent and carefully placed the gun on the ground beside her bag.
His voice still had an edge of harshness, but the raw anger was gone.
She opened her eyes and saw that his were intent on hers.
‘Just be thankful you la
nded safely and that he’s safe.’ He turned his head towards the grey horse, which was approaching the Cessna with curiosity. As the man moved to face her again, she saw wetness on his black lashes.
For a moment she stared uncomprehendingly, and then tears welled in her own eyes and spilled down her cheeks.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘Sorry, I never cry about things.’ She rubbed her hand across one cheek. ‘It’s just that … I … I guess it’s shock, and … and also, being with Trojan when he was dying reminded me of—’
She dragged her eyes from his and looked down the valley to the inert brown lump that lay by the fence.
‘What?’ he asked softly.
‘My mother dying.’ She hadn’t meant to say it, but the words were out before she had time to think, time to consider.
He swore then, under his breath, and stepped forward to brush tears from her face with his fingertips. She gulped and sniffed loudly, and then he gathered her to him, his arms encircling her.
Kate stiffened and tried to step back. But she was caught between the unyielding tree trunk at her back and the man in front. For a moment, she tensed her muscles and thought about pushing him away, but another thought came to her immediately—and perhaps it wasn’t really a thought, but an emotion dredged up from a long way away—and she knew the desire to have the comfort of arms around her at this moment was greater than the need to be alone, away from him.
His arms tightened around her, as if in reassurance, and she felt herself relax into the solidness of his embrace. As the tension flowed from her body, the remnants of her control seemed to shatter, because from deep down a sob rose up and escaped in a loud cry like that of a tormented animal’s.
Shocked by the intensity and the foreignness of the sound, she wrapped her arms around the stranger and pulled herself even closer into his very human warmth.
She felt small in the engulfing hug.
He smelt of horse and sunshine, and beneath her cheek, a strong, steady pulse beat in his throat. When one of his hands reached up to caress her hair, the hard muscles ridging his spine realigned under her fingertips and she was reminded again of a snake, coiling, shifting, smooth and rippling—only this time, she wasn’t afraid.
‘Okay, okay, sweetheart,’ he murmured.
He stroked her hair, tangling his fingers in the springy dark curls, as her body shook with another sob and another. He held her tight, rocking her gently with each sob, and when he bent his head to brush his lips against her wet cheek, it seemed to Kate perfectly natural to tilt her head so that her lips met his.
Through her tears, she could see his eyes, unguarded and surprised, the pupils big and black so his eyes seemed a darker blue here in the shade than they’d been out in the sun.
For three heartbeats he was still, but he made no move to pull his mouth away, and at that moment, Kate knew only one certainty—that his mouth on hers felt right, so she opened her lips and began kissing him, slowly, tentatively at first, tasting his tangy sweetness.
At first he did nothing, but then, with a low groan, he allowed her to deepen the kiss, and his mouth was charged with a heat that burned hot and hard. Deprived of all rational thought, she was aware only of sensation, of the abrasive scratch of his unshaved face, of salt on her tongue—whether from her tears or his, she didn’t know—of the hot smooth slide of his mouth against hers.
One of his hands cupped her face while the other slid down her spine to settle in the small of her back, pressing her even closer along the solid length of his body.
Kate adjusted her balance slightly, bringing one of her hands around to rest against his chest. Through the thin fabric of his T-shirt, the flat pads of her fingertips felt the strong beat of his heart, and a tender longing filled first her mind and then her body.
Her mouth moved with his, instinctively: the stranger’s mouth was obliterating the grief and guilt of the last fifteen minutes, leaving her powerless to break the kiss, even when he brought his hand first to her waist and then upwards, to rest on her ribs.
Kate became aware of an engine in the distance and, simultaneously, they jerked their heads apart.
‘Sounds like your pick up’s almost here,’ he said.
‘I shouldn’t have done that!’ Kate’s voice was husky with passion and recent crying.
‘What? Stopped? I can soon rectify that.’ His smile was lazy, his breath as shallow and rapid as her own and his eyes held a look of shock. Beneath her fingers, his heart beat a fast rhythm. He bent his head towards her again.
‘No! I mean, I shouldn’t have kissed you.’ Kate put two hands on his chest and held herself back as far as his encircling arm would allow. ‘And you shouldn’t have kissed me.’
His smile widened. ‘I seem to remember a fair degree of willingness on the lady’s part—in fact, I could have sworn that what just happened was your idea.’
He tried to lighten the moment for both their sakes, she knew it, but Kate, humiliated by her impulsive and totally inexplicable behaviour, was determined to hold on to the tattered leftovers of her dignity.
She pushed harder until he let go. The smile gone now, he turned in the direction of the engine, then back to examine her face. ‘Your man’s only a couple of minutes away. Here—’ he bent, picked up her bag and handed it to her, ‘—you’d better go tidy up in there—’ with a jerk of his head he indicated the shed, ‘—while I meet him and explain what’s happened here.’
‘Not—’
‘Not that.’ He let his fingers trail briefly down the side of her face. The urge to sink back into his arms to finish what she’d started was almost overwhelming, but instead, she straightened her spine and batted his hand away.
He laughed softly. ‘Your secret’s safe with me, Kate McPherson.’ He turned his head again towards the sound of the engine. ‘What I was trying to say is that I’ll explain to him about the accident. He’s going to wonder why you’ve been crying. And why there’s a dead horse lying down the paddock.’
As she turned to go, she saw the shadow of grief in his eyes.
***
Ralph, project manager for McPherson’s northern forests, was a kind man and an old friend of her father’s. As he drove Kate out to the clear-fell area in the vast pine forest which adjoined the farm, he steered the conversation away from the accident, except to say he’d told the horse’s owner that he would bring a man over from the forest with a machine to dig the hole for the dead animal’s burial.
He tried to distract her by talking about the forthcoming meeting with the forestry gangs.
‘The men have seen the advertisements for the new CEO position and they’re worried about their jobs, Kate. Some of them worked for your grandfather when the company was still small, and then your father.’
Ralph cleared his throat noisily. ‘And they’re behind you one hundred and ten per cent. Fact is, the ad’s got them really worked up, especially the older ones. They don’t want some outsider taking over the company.’
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ said Kate. ‘But it might.’ She paused, wound down the window of the ute and breathed in the sharp scent of pine as they drove along the gravel road lined on each side by tall, dark trees.
‘Don’t get me wrong, Ralph, I want to be chief executive of McPherson’s. Badly. For Grandad’s memory, for my father, for you and the men, and all the other people who work for us.
‘And my mother,’ she added softly, touching the gold chain around her neck. ‘I want the job for me, too, but more than anything, I want what’s best, especially what’s best for the employees, and if there’s someone out there who can do a better job than me, then … then I have to accept that.’
Ralph nodded. ‘Understood, Kate, understood. And don’t make any mistake, if your mum was alive, she’d have been as proud of punch of her daughter, chief executive or no chief executive.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘But to be perfectly frank, the men are scared they might be down the road with nothing coming in to fee
d the kids if the company is controlled by some high-flying corporate slash-and-burn man.’
‘I won’t let that happen, Ralph. I simply won’t let that happen. Not while there’s blood flowing in my veins.’
***
‘There are just two serious contenders for the job,’ said the human resources manager. ‘One, of course, is our own Kate McPherson.’ The manager sent a smile down the boardroom table in Kate’s direction. ‘And the other is a man, born in New Zealand, but an Australian citizen, with wide industry experience.’
The decision-making process wouldn’t start until Robert McPherson, Kate’s father, returned from his honeymoon in Europe in a month’s time.
Kate kept her hands firmly under the big kauri table so no one could see how tightly she clutched them into white-knuckled fists. And she was glad they couldn’t hear the pound of her heart.
She’d had trouble concentrating through the seemingly endless board meeting. Her head was filled with memories of blood and the horse’s distress, and of a tall, dark-haired stranger with icy blue eyes and a hot, passionate mouth.
But the chairman’s announcement of an extra item on the agenda, a report on progress with applications for the CEO’s job, had snapped her mind back to sharp focus.
An Australian, thought Kate. That gives me the home advantage. On the other hand, he’s probably had wider experience than me.
She squeezed her hands even tighter as the HR manager outlined that considerable experience: several years as a successful investment banker in Sydney, more years as a high-flying troubleshooter for Continental, Australia’s forestry giant. And recently, his independent consultancy work had taken him around the world.
‘He’s on a consultancy job in New Zealand at the moment,’ the manager added.
***
In her sixth floor office in McPherson’s downtown Auckland headquarters, Kate stood by the window and pressed her hands to her temples. Behind her eyes an ache was hovering.
Normally she loved the view out across the busy inner harbour, past North Head to the dark twin humps of Rangitoto Island. But today, the charms of the harbour may as well have been invisible.
