A Summer Storm Page 10

  But when she had left, what was she going to do? She would have to start looking around for another job, trying to rebuild a life Blaize had shattered -with one touch of his practised hands, one experienced kiss.

  At least Simon had blundered upon them in time. What else might she have done in the turmoil of her first experience of overwhelming passion? Begged him to take her? She writhed in shame, because she might just have done that

  Never again! she thought in horror. If that was what desire did to you she was never going to allow it into her life. Better to die without experiencing fulfilment if to achieve it she had to surrender to that mindless need.

  She had never realised how important it was for her to remain in command of her life, and the heady, wild excitement she felt with Blaize was far too volatile for control. In his arms she became witless, a slave to sensation and the hunger for an unknowable more, and she could not, dared not be captured again by that dark enchantment.

  Sane again, with the bitter taste of humiliation in her month, she realised how close she had come to throwing away all her self-respect on a man who couldn’t have made it more obvious that the only thing he felt for her was lust. Not that she could blame him for that. It was all she felt for him. She wasn’t in love with him. Just nature’s little joke, she thought bleakly. A joke on her.

  At least there would be no repetition. The self-contempt she had heard in his voice, seen in his face, would ensure that.

  Towards dawn she fell asleep, to wake with a throbbing head and heavy eyes to a day where the sun shone serenely in a calm sky. Perversely, the resumption of fine weather intensified her misery. For long moments she stood in the window, watching the sheep move quietly across the green hillsides, listening to the persistent shrill call of hundreds of cicadas in the trees.

  From somewhere below Kathy called out something, then laughed. Today was the day of the party, the social event of the year at Pukekaroro.

  Today was the first day of purgatory for Oriel Radford, who was a fool.

  Blaize was in the morning-room, the sun striking a warm amber halo from his head as he drank coffee and teased his niece. Simon and James Weatherall were deep in conversation; cricket, no doubt. They all stood as she limped into the room. Antiquated manners, she thought, smiling with determined impartiality around the room, but for these men, it was second nature. As was Blaize’s automatic service of holding her chair for her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she murmured as she flicked out her napkin.

  Unconscious of any undercurrents, Sarah told her exuberantly, ‘Oriel, Uncle Blaize says we have to stay out of Kathy’s way today, so he’s taking us out in the boat. He and Mr Weatherall have done so much work when it was raining they can have today off! But Mr Weatherall isn’t coming with us, he’s going to walk up to the dam and paint a picture. And he bought a new thing for my tummy, it’s just a band that you put round your arm, and then you’re not sick at all. So I don’t have to take a pill!’

  ‘Lovely.’ Oriel gave her an uncomplicated smile. With an effort she transferred it to Blaize, meeting his eyes for a fraction of a second. ‘You won’t be needing me, so I’ll help Kathy.’

  ‘Of course I need you,’ he returned, his smile sharp and ironic. ‘I can’t look after Sarah by myself. She wears me out.’

  While Sarah giggled and made a face, Oriel’s precarious equilibrium tilted. ‘I’ll be of more use-’ she began, but was interrupted with smooth finality.

  ‘You’ll be of most use with us,’ Blaize said. ‘Eat your breakfast, and then you can check the lunch with Kathy. She may have forgotten just how much Simon can eat.’

  Simon hotly denied the imputation of greed, but had to subside at the mention of the roast chicken he had poached from the refrigerator.

  An hour later they were all on board, with Simon and Sarah insisting on showing Oriel the controls; she was interested to learn that Sarah knew as much about their function as her brother, and pleased, because it reinforced her belief that the child was extremely intelligent.

  Simon said importantly, ‘This is the helm indicator. It’s necessary because with an outdrive and hydraulic steering you have to know which way the propeller is pointing when you put her in gear.’

  Oriel didn’t ask why. She stared at the multitude of dials, composing her face into an expression of great interest while Sarah showed her the depth-finder and the radar.

  From behind came Blaize’s ironic voice. ‘You’re dazzling her with your brilliance, you two. Simon, would you like to take the boat out?’

  It appeared that above all things Simon would like to. His face lit up with delight and he stammered, ‘Would I ever! I can do it.’

  Blaize turned to Oriel, pinning her with his cool, questioning glance. ‘Welcome aboard. How do you like her?’

  ‘Very much.’ Resentment iced her words. ‘No expense has been spared to make her wonderful, so of course I like her. Is she only used when you’re here?’

  Simon said cheerfully, ‘No, people who come to stay ‘Of course.’ He was all taut charm, meeting the challenge she had been unaware of making with mockery and malice. ‘I’m a businessman, remember? Which reminds me, Oriel, I looked over the contract this morning.’

  Tantalisingly he waited for her to answer. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Quite watertight,’ he said without emphasis, only the quick, splintering glance from his half-closed eyes revealing the taunt.

  Devil! He must have known that she had spent a good portion of the night wondering whether he had any right to tie her down to a contract like that. He was making it obvious where she fitted into his life. An employee, bound by contracts. Oh, no doubt he would take her if she offered herself, accept all that she had to give, and tell himself that she had no right to complain at the little he was willing to give her back, because he had warned her how he felt.

  It did not seem possible that less than twenty-four hours before she had lain against him, made temporarily insane by the urgent demands of her body for release, a slave to his tenderness and passion and her own.

  Pride held her head high. ‘I hadn’t thought it might be anything other than watertight,’ she said, smiling resolutely up at him. ‘I’m under no illusions as to your expertise in all things, including the drafting of contracts.’

  Her voice lingered delicately over the word expertise, investing it with unmistakable meaning.

  But if her shot went home he did not reveal it. Looking bored, he murmured, ‘Thank you. Simon, are you ready to go?’

  It seemed to Oriel that the fewer people watching him the more composed Simon might be, so she made her way down the short companionway to the main cabin and spent the next five minutes stowing into the refrigerator the enormous amount of food that Kathy had thought necessary. After a quick glance had reassured her that they were safely ‘out in the bay she went back on deck, to discover that Simon and Sarah were up on the flying bridge with Blaize.

  One glance at the ladder and she realised that she wasn’t going to be able to get up there without putting quite a bit of strain on her foot. Blaize looked down, Saw her worried look, and came lithely down, his lean, heavily muscled legs dark against the pristine paintwork of the boat.

  Something primitive and anticipatory moved in the pit of Oriel’s stomach. She stood with closed face, willing herself not to betray the fact that she wanted him.

  ‘Don’t attempt those steps,’ he commanded as he came up to her. ‘I’ll look after Sarah while she’s up there.’

  She nodded and turned away, but almost immediately her name whipped her head around. He was looking at her with something of the same hunger that gnawed at her, his face oddly bleak, the stark bone structure revealed in the uncompromising strength of the sun. In that moment she realised that he could wound her for life, that what she felt was so much more than simple lust.

  She was perilously close to falling in love with him. If he knew, would he send her away-or would he take advantage of the fact? Was he brutal enough
to use her hopeless attraction to keep her as Sarah’s substitute mother until Sarah no longer needed her?

  Most desperately she wanted to believe that he was too honourable, but cold logic forced her to accept that he was a complex man, one she didn’t really understand. What she did know was that he loved his niece. And he was hard enough to hold her to a contract when he knew that she wanted to go.

  She would have to strive to overcome her infatuation before she fell so fathoms deep that she became addicted to him, the sight and sound of him, pathetically grateful for any little crumbs of attention he might give her.

  Fixing a bright, meaningless smile on her face, she said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t look so tragic,’ he said, watching her with eyes as opaque as burnished metal. ‘Things will work out. They always do.’

  Nodding, she turned away; she knew when he left her by the way the hairs on the back of her neck eased down.

  The wind tugged at her, teasing her locks into tendrils of tightly wound black silk around her face. She licked lips suddenly dry, tasting the faint film of salt. Out here on the water it was cooler, a little less humid than on shore, and she was grateful for the refuge from the prickly, enervating weather of the past few days.

  It must be Saturday, she thought tiredly, watching a fleet of yachts racing, their jujube-coloured sails graceful and fragile on the brilliant blue water. Odd how she had lost count of the days and the weeks, content to live in a timeless enchantment. At least, that was how it had seemed until yesterday. Wincing, she dragged her mind away from the one subject it seemed unable to avoid, like a tongue exploring a broken tooth.

  Rain had worked its familiar magic on the summer coast. Hills, usually toast-coloured by now, were a dozen shades of green blending into the elusive blue-violet of the bush-covered range in the distance. Towards Kerikeri a sombre forest of pine trees, living expression of faith in the future, marched over the last tiny volcano to erupt and wheeled above the boat, glittering silver in a moment of glory in the sun's rays. Faster and sleeker, flocks of graceful terns dived to capture the smaller fish driven by fleet, wandering shoals of kahawai.

  The deep throb of the engines altered, slowed. Footsteps on the companionway brought Oriel’ s head around. Blaize was swinging down the steps, Sarah trailing behind him with the expression of one who was acting under strong sufferance.

  His hair ruffled by the wind, Blaize looked, Oriel thought painfully, young and devil-may-care, almost recklessly handsome. It couldn’t be more obvious that he was not suffering any of the anguish that racked her.

  Once down he got busy with lines and lures, telling her, ‘We’re going to troll for kahawai. Simon can’t resist catching fish.’

  ‘It’s not very good eating, is it?’ How calm her voice sounded, level, almost dispassionate!

  ‘Spoken like all true New Zealanders, who consider snapper the only fish worth eating.’

  ‘Oh, come on, now,’ she protested, catching Sarah as she jumped into her arms. ‘I like hapuka and gurnard, mullet and flounder-even eel!’

  He looked across at her, laughter dancing in his eyes. ‘Very well, then, I acquit you of being a true New Zealander. Kahawai is a delicious eating-fish. If we catch any I’ll get Kathy to show you how to cook it.’

  ‘I like it,’ Sarah armounced. ‘Can I help, Uncle Blaize?’

  ‘Certainly, treasure, I could do with a little help.’

  Oriel watched. He was patient with the child’s occasional clumsiness, and his affection softened and gentled his voice and manner. He was an excellent uncle; he would be just as good a father.

  The thought of bearing a child for him made her bones go to water.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT WAS then that Oriel realised that, far from being on the verge of falling in love, she had already passed over the invisible boundary and was fathoms deep.

  ‘You fool!’ she half whispered. ‘Oh, you fool!’

  How many other women had gazed at Blaize with exactly the same lovesick regard, trying to imprint on their minds and hearts the physical reality of him, the dominant angles of face and jaw, the stark, masculine lines of shoulder and arm, the lithe frame, the hidden excitement of lean hips and strong thighs, the potent, blazing maleness that sent out an overt message of fulfilment to every female in sight?

  And how many had taken that further terrifying step into love? How had it happened? She could not pin- point a time or a place. Perhaps it had been his gentleness with his little niece that had triggered it; perhaps it had been inevitable from the beginning, when she had been hurt and exhausted and unable to cope, and he had been so kind, so protective.

  What was love, after all? Surely not the cosmic joke he thought it, the genetic urge to perpetuate the species?

  If it were that, she would feel the same about any kind, sexually attractive man. Mentally she reviewed those she knew, frowning as she realised that she was mentally and emotionally repulsed by the thought of making love to any of them.

  But oh, what a fool she was to let down her guard and fall in love with a man who was a complete and total cynic!

  Perhaps it was calf-love, an adolescent crush that was fierce and painful but soon over. Never forgotten, but recalled with sympathetic amusement as well as affection.

  She had had crushes in her adolescence, hormone-based, unfulfilled, for none of the boys she had been attracted to had been in the least interested in the tall, skinny teenager she had been then.

  And no one, least of all Blaize Stephenson, who could have any woman he wanted, would be interested in the tall, thin woman she had become, small-breasted and snake-hipped, with the ballet lessons her mother had insisted she take the only thing between her and that adolescent awkwardness.

  Not for the first time Oriel thought of her small, dainty mother, and the men she seemed to attract without even trying. What was it that gave some women that power?

  Or some men, she thought, her eyes moving with delicate greed over the downbent bronze head and the lean fingers fixing lures to the line. The subliminal message that a man would be excellent in bed? An excellent provider? If he was right, and love was merely a fiction to make the propagation of genes pleasurable, then a man who had that air of security, of calm, strong competence, would certainly be attractive to women. After all, the fate of children rested upon those qualities.

  But even as the thoughts raced through her brain, she knew it was not that alone which made Blaize so attractive. She had not fallen in love with him for his competence, or the masculine charisma he wore so effortlessly. Simply, inevitably, fatally, she had recognised him as her other half, the one man she needed.

  Colour burned across her cheeks as she dragged her eyes away. She had to go; she was not built to cope with pain on this scale, and if she stayed pain would be the inevitable result. How would she feel when he began to see one of the beautiful women his name had been connected with? Bloody furious, she thought, hating the ferocious surge of jealousy that tightened every muscle in her body.

  Trying to banish the thoughts that roiled murkily around in her mind, she asked, ‘Do you need any help?’

  ‘No, Sarah and I are the experts. All we require of you is that you appreciate the ones we catch and confirm the size of the ones that got away.’ Blaize got to his feet and called out to Simon, ‘OK, let her go!’

  The engines deepened, the boat surged up and forward, ploughing a straight furrow through the sea, stern.

  A few seconds later a triumphant yell from Sarah revealed a strike; almost immediately Blaize called out, and Simon cut the engines. He leaned over the flying bridge and called down, ‘Let’s have another go!’

  ‘No, we don’t need any more.’

  ‘Oh, Uncle Blaize!’

  He looked up, laughing but uncompromising. ‘Blood-thirsty young larrikin! Any more would be a waste, and you know it.’

  Watched with ghoulish interest by Sarah, he cleaned and scaled the fish on the neat little platform at the stern provi
ded for just that task, then handed them over to Oriel, asking blandly, ‘Put them in the fridge, will you?’

  When she came back he had washed his hands and was smiling down at a well-satisfied Sarah. Oriel’s heart jumped, rather, she thought hollowly, like the leap of a doomed fish when it struck the lure, and when he transferred the smile to her she went under without any hope of recovery.

  ‘What better life could there be?’ he asked. ‘A day on a summer coast, the sea, food we've caught ourselves, and a family to share it all with?’

  Hugging his hand to her cheek, Sarah smiled, her small face incandescent with delight. Oriel envied her, and at the same time realised that he was deadly serious. Something impelled her to say shrewdly, ‘Lovely, but not as a regular thing.’

  ‘Why?’

  A prickle of some unknown emotion ran between her shoulders, but she said brightly, ‘You need a challenge.’

  He lifted his brows. ‘Go on,’ he invited softly.

  She was speaking out of turn, but she went on just the same. ‘This is serenity. It’s wonderful, but not for a regular thing. I’m sure there’s enough in the kitty to make every day like this for you if you wanted it to be, but you choose to work. Why?’

  ‘Upbringing? My parents believed firmly that everyone owed the world something for being born.’

  ‘And you agree with them. Besides, you like a challenge. You didn’t really enjoy catching those fish, did you?’

  Sarah looked up at him. He glanced down at her worshipful face before saying briskly, ‘I’ll agree that I prefer a battle. Trolling for kahawai is not as much fun as catching them on a light line. They’re one of the best fighting fish in the sea. Once you've caught one like that you know you've won a battle.’

  Oriel nodded, and he added, ‘Stop looking so smug! I’ll admit I_enjoy a challenge. And that,’ he said softly, ‘should make you wary, Miss Psychologist.’

  Her astonishment showed in her face. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  That familiar and hateful mockery was back in the polished eyes. ‘Think about it,’ he advised.