by Julie Mac
At the bottom of the stairs, she turned to say goodnight, and he surprised her by dropping the briefest of kisses on her lips.
‘Sleep well, Miss McPherson,’ he murmured. Then he was gone, heading down the hall to the downstairs guest suite.
***
A few minutes later she stood in front of her bathroom mirror brushing her hair, and all she could think of was what it would be like to run her fingers through Sam’s thick hair, to drag them across the new whiskers on his cheeks— ‘Stop it,’ she muttered, grabbing her toothbrush and reaching for the tube of toothpaste in its cute little container on the bathroom vanity. She shook her head slowly. He’s turning me to mush, she told herself.
Later, as she lay in bed waiting for sleep, she heard the distant rumble of thunder. It came from the direction of the forest where they’d watched the demonstration this afternoon.
She pictured the clear-fell area turning to slush under the sudden atmosphere-cooling summer storm; in her mind’s eye, she saw the felled logs gleaming golden-wet; the standing trees drooping heavy, laden in the rain. And in the midst of it all, she could see the little Swedish logging machine, its new paintwork glistening, its pristine black tyres mud-splashed where shards of rain pulverised the bone-dry earth around them. Oh yes, she could see it sitting there, as large as life, a proud and nifty little machine, an innocent player in the war between Sam Shanahan and Kate McPherson—and perhaps the instrument of her downfall.
She felt again his lips on her mouth, a fleeting caress, and sleepily, she told herself she must not forget, ever, ever, that Sam Shanahan was the enemy. Her last conscious thought before sleep claimed her was that when they’d sat talking on Henry’s jetty tonight, her enemy had seemed more like a friend.
***
Long after the thunder had faded in the distance, Sam lay awake in his bed. He turned restlessly, punched his pillow and turned again. He thought of Kate upstairs, asleep in her bed, and groaned softly. She was driving him crazy.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Coming to New Zealand to check out Kate McPherson from a discreet distance should have been easy and uncomplicated. Oh sure, she was everything he’d been led to believe she was—and more. Good looking. Popular with her employees. But she was smart and good at her job, too, with a better head for business than most of the men he routinely dealt with. He smiled, remembering the way she’d tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes while she considered his submissions in the boardroom yesterday. She was processing, sifting and filing every little bit of information in her head. She’d been right to be cautious; he’d have reacted in exactly the same way if their roles had been reversed. And of course she wanted to be right; wanted to have her own way. He of all people knew the importance of competition and winning.
But it wasn’t Kate’s business acumen or competitiveness that was keeping Sam wide-awake and as agitated as all hell in his bed. He uttered another low groan as, for the thousandth time, his five senses gave him an action replay of the scene back there in the bush, beside the big rock. A tiny puff of wind had stirred her hair. She’d looked up at him with her lips slightly parted and her eyes wide and soft as cool silk and he’d fought an almost overwhelming desire to twine his fingers in the satiny mass of curls and to bury his face in the dark softness. He’d wanted to drink his fill of her subtle scent which teased his nostrils, taste her lips, press her pliant form against every sensitised nerve ending of his own body, hear her gasp of pleasure.
With a muttered oath, Sam turned again in his bed and looked at the bedside clock. It was two in the morning and the urge to hold her, crush her to him, was as intrusive as it had been out there in the bush. Dammit! Out there, Kate had almost allowed instinct to overcome her formidable defences of logic and control. Sam knew that, of course he knew. He was a bloke, goddammit, not an inert, lifeless lump of rock like the one they’d leaned against. She’d been ripe for the plucking—and he’d been more than ready and willing to oblige. But Kate was forbidden fruit, and he had no intention of giving in to the intoxicating temptation to taste her sweetness. Not yet, anyway.
Swiftly, he rose from the bed, hooked his towelling robe from the chair in the corner and shrugged into it as he crossed to the sliding glass door leading to the veranda. Quietly, to avoid wakening the sleepers upstairs, he eased the glass door open and slipped outside, his bare feet soundless on the wooden boards of the deck. Swiftly, he covered the distance between the house and the lake.
At the end of the jetty he dropped first one shoulder then the other, allowing the navy robe to spill in a dark pool at his feet, so he was wearing just a pair of cotton boxers. For a few seconds he stood, poised, the ghostly moonlight caressing the long naked muscles of his thighs and back. Then, in a perfect arc, he dived into the welcoming numbness of the chilly lake.
***
‘He wants you.’
‘What did you say?’ Kate looked up from her laptop. She was sending an email to Christina.
‘Sam. He wants you.’ Sandy put a mug of coffee down on the kitchen’s polished timber bench for Kate. They’d all breakfasted together, then Henry had taken Sam to the jetty for a tour of his new launch.
‘Do you mean …?’
‘I mean wants you, as in wants your body. I can see it in the way his eyes follow you. You’ve noticed, surely?’
‘Don’t be silly, Sandy. You’re an incorrigible romantic,’ Kate laughed, but her stomach turned a flip. ‘He’s simply a business colleague. You’re imagining things.’ She was glad her hair was loose and fell forward, screening her face as she bent over the laptop.
‘Huh! I’ve been around long enough to know these things. And it doesn’t matter what you say to me, Kate McPherson, I think you want him just as much as he wants you. Not that I blame you. God! If I was twenty years younger …’
‘Just because you fancy him, Sandy, doesn’t mean I do.’
‘I’m not joking, darling. There’s some pretty serious chemistry going on between you two. Even Henry noticed.’
‘Sandy—’
‘No, listen to me. You haven’t got a mum and your dad’s out of the country, so I feel it’s my duty to say this. Be careful, darling. He’s a sexy, attractive man, no doubt about it. He’s obviously successful in his work. But he could be as poor as a church mouse as far as we know. Certainly there’s no money in his background. You, on the other hand, are a very wealthy woman, and a beautiful one at that—a very desirable catch for any man looking for money and power.’
‘You think he’s a gold-digger?’ Kate turned laughing eyes on her friend. Somehow, she couldn’t picture proud, self-contained Sam Shanahan as a fortune hunter, preying on women.
‘No. I didn’t say I thought he was. I just said be careful.’ Sandy ran her hand through her spiky blonde hair and sighed. ‘Let’s be realistic. Physical attraction and sex are a natural part of life. You’re nearly thirty, Kate. It’s entirely normal to have … urges. Have an affair with him by all means. I dare say it would be fantastically delicious. But marriage …?’
Kate choked on her coffee. ‘Hey, whoa, Sandy. How did we suddenly get to marriage? I don’t even particularly like the guy. Although I have to admit there’s something about him, his eyes, I think … they’re … it’s strange, but sometimes they seem familiar to me.’
‘Look in the mirror, darling.’
Chapter 7
He was watching the road intently as he drove down the rough forest track; she glanced across at him, thinking again of Sandy’s words. It was true; her eyes were similar to Sam’s. Though his were a slightly less intense shade of blue, and there were more little fine lines radiating from the corners. And he had dark eyelashes and thick, dark hair, just like hers.
His eyes, his hair. And some ninny had decreed that opposites attract.
They were in the forest, driving down a roughly metalled road leading to an experimental eucalyptus plantation. Henry had accompanied them on a morning visit to the Forest Research Institute�
�s tissue culture laboratory in Rotorua, where they had seen the latest developments in the cloning of superior pines. After lunch Henry left to join Sandy at a literary function, having first arranged for Sam and Kate to visit several of the institute’s experimental sites within the Kaingaroa Forest.
Sam stopped the Range Rover at the signposted entrance to the eucalyptus plantation, and Kate opened her door and jumped down. The tall, white-trunked gums rose like stately ghosts before her, and she breathed in the sharp, pepperminty scent their leaves exuded in the hot, heavy stillness. She loved the forest, with its solitude and blanketing quietness. She loved its smells and its essential sense of aliveness.
At the other experimental sites they had discussed the form and vigour of the trees they saw, and debated at length the different species’ suitability to New Zealand growing conditions. Kate recognised in Sam a passion for trees which matched her own, and she’d enjoyed their lively discussions.
Now, as they walked along the track between the silvery trunks, she was forced to admit his depth of knowledge was impressive—more than impressive. He had been able to fill gaps in her own considerable knowledge of the trees.
A species native to Australia, eucalypts nevertheless showed exceptional ability to grow quickly in New Zealand’s more temperate climate. Kate, regarded in the industry as an innovator among commercial foresters, was an enthusiastic advocate for planting eucalypts and other Australian species as alternatives to the ubiquitous pine, and she had expanded the experimental programme started by Henry many years before.
Some of McPherson’s eucalypt plantations were old enough for felling, some still in their infancy; but results had been mixed, mainly because foresters were tested by the many pests and diseases that flourished on the species in New Zealand’s accommodating climate.
Sam, with his Aussie background, had some answers. That much was clear. And they weren’t the kind of answers she was ever going to find trawling through the literature produced by the fiercely competitive Australian forest industry—or by talking to her Australian counterparts.
Sam could be very useful to McPherson Enterprises. He was not an employee of one of the Australian forestry companies and therefore not ethically obliged to keep his mouth shut. He was a consultant, a free agent who made his living by sharing his knowledge.
She thought quickly as they moved deeper into the plantation, the sun beating hot on her bare head. She thought of the report she was preparing for the board on alternative species for the next half-century. After months of work, it sat in her computer, almost finished but not quite. She wasn’t happy with it—somehow it lacked depth. But with Sam to help her … She shoved her hands deep in the pockets of her jeans, tossing the idea around in her head.
Commissioning him to work on the report would give him another foot in the door at McPherson’s. Was that such a bad thing? Tricky for her, maybe, given the feelings he stirred within her. But the benefits for the company were obvious, and Kate was a business professional—or so she told herself now. She’d made herself a rule, years ago, on the day she’d been appointed head of the company’s forestry division, that she’d never let personal feelings stand in the way of McPherson Enterprises’ best interests.
She took a deep breath.
‘Sam, I’d like to commission you to do some work on alternative species for our company. Would you be interested?’
He turned, his blue eyes speculative. ‘I’d be interested, yes. What’s your time frame?’
She made a swift calculation. Her father was away for another month. And he would step down as CEO in two months time. It would be great to table a report before then, so he could have some input in any new direction the forestry division might take. A swan song, so to speak.
‘I already have a lot of material prepared. It needs another pair of eyes to go over it, to fill in some missing detail. Would you be available to give it some time, say in the next month?’
It was a long shot, she knew.
He blew out a long breath and stared into the distance. She imagined he was mentally juggling his workload.
‘I’m flying back to Australia tomorrow, and I’ll be tied up until Monday of next week, but after that I’ve got a loose couple of weeks. Yes, I can do it.’
‘Done!’ she said, delighted, and stuck out her hand to shake on the deal. His hand around hers was cool and hard. Momentarily, it trapped her own much smaller hand. The physical contact was brief—but its impact had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer in the pit of her stomach. She drew a sharp breath.
‘Are you sure this is what you want, Kate?’ The cat’s eyes were narrowed against the afternoon sun, their blueness intensified to a deep indigo.
‘Of course.’ She managed to inject a suitable degree of challenge into her voice. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ She saw his eyes flicker downwards in almost involuntary appraisal of her body. Was he a bloody mind reader?
‘No reason at all. I just thought that perhaps with us both being …’ he spread his hands wide, ‘… contenders for the same job … well, you might feel a bit compromised.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Good.’
***
I lied, she told herself twenty minutes later. There are a thousand reasons why I shouldn’t be working any more closely with this man than I absolutely have to.
Starting with the clean, grassy scent of his skin and the tantalising definition of muscle and sinew beneath the tanned skin of his arms. And the memory of his mouth on hers, and of his hands, hard, sure, possessive hands, moulding her body to his own with a primitive urgency.
‘Oh, shit,’ she muttered.
‘What’s the problem?’ He straightened up from examining the soil at the base of a particularly vigorous group of gum trees they’d stopped to study, eyes curious, one dark brow raised.
‘Nearly dropped my notebook, that’s all,’ she improvised, plastering a grin on her face.
‘Here, let me help.’ He took the notebook and pen from her, freeing up her hands for the task of measuring the chest-height diameter of the nearest tree trunk with the compact little tape measure she’d pulled from the leather pouch on her belt.
He bent close to read the measurement as she held the tape around the tree. She felt the feathery stroking of his breath on her neck; when she sent a covert glance his way as he recorded the results in the notebook, she could see the delicate throb of a pulse at the base of his throat.
Dear God! She must be mad to have suggested a working relationship of any shape or form.
***
‘Give me anything you can find—anything at all—on Sam Shanahan.’ She was back in her office in Auckland.
‘Sure will.’ On the other side of her desk, Christina jotted a note on her pad and looked up. ‘Everything? Social as well as business?’
‘Everything,’ said Kate, picking up her phone to make a call.
***
An email with the subject line S. Shanahan was in her inbox by lunchtime the next day. Christina, Facebook and Google have been busy, Kate thought when she opened the email and saw a long list of internet links.
She buzzed Christina and asked her to hold all calls for half an hour, then poured herself a fresh cup of coffee at the rosewood sideboard and returned to her desk. She picked up the ham and salad sandwich she’d ordered from the lunch trolley and settled down to peruse the life and times of Sam Shanahan.
‘Did I expect anything different?’ she murmured, as she clicked and revealed page after page recording Shanahan’s successes: Sam the teenage equestrian star, Sam the prize-winning scholar at university, Sam the smart young vice-president of Australia’s huge forestry corporation, Continental—at age thirty, the youngest ever. She flicked through, skimming the pages, knowing the likely contents of each page by the time she’d read the first two or three lines. His had been an illustrious career in the forest industry.
Near the bottom of the list were links to photos published online and in newsp
apers and magazines. Kate sucked in her breath at the image of Sam at twenty, sitting astride an impressive horse as one of the trialists for Australia’s international equestrian team. His wore a large helmet and a lopsided grin. Tears stung her eyes when she recognised his mount. She touched her fingers to the image of the horse and traced the proudly pricked ears. ‘Trojan,’ she whispered. ‘Why was I so dumb that day?’
On an impulse she clicked save, filed the image in her iPhoto album, and continued her search. There was a photo of Shanahan chatting animatedly with Australia’s then prime minister at the opening Continental’s new state-of-the-art timber processing plant in South Australia. It was, she realised, a shot she’d seen before, as were several others in the file.
She regularly scanned online industry news from overseas, but the name Shanahan would have held no great significance in the past.
She clicked another link and gasped. It showed a shot she’d never seen before: a group of industry players socialising at a cocktail party to mark the opening of the Continental plant. Sam was there, partly obscured, his face in profile as he turned to speak to another man in the group—her father!
She remembered her father attending the opening as an invited guest, remembered him telling her afterwards of Continental’s advances in technology. Her blood seemed to slow in her veins, as thick and turbid as treacle, and she felt an absurd rush of jealousy at the image of her father’s handsome, greying head tilted towards Sam, a warm smile lighting his features. Kate stared at the photo for a long time before hitting the close button.
She rose, poured herself a glass of water and walked to the window, where she gazed unseeing at the harbour in the distance. Sam and her father. Her father and Sam. Smiling together, chatting, sharing industry confidences. Like allies. Respected senior member of the industry meets smart young buck on the block. She closed her eyes. Why did it hurt so much? Why should it hurt so much?
She returned to her desk. There were a dozen or so more photos, mostly taken at official functions. Sam shaking hands with industry captains. Sam smiling in a line-up of men in suits. Sam presenting prizes at his local high school.
