The Nanny Affair

A primal reaction—sharp and dangerous as a lightning spike to the ground—ripped through her. Lucky pressed against her from behind, and she put her hand down to his blunt head, stroking behind the ears while she tried to regain her composure.

Nothing, she thought dazedly, will ever be the same again. In some strange, terrifying way she’d been fundamentally changed—almost as though her basic cellular structure had been twisted and she’d been transformed into a different woman.

Oh, for heaven’s sake!

Had she said the words or just thought them? Whatever, she was behaving like a schoolgirl imprisoned in the agony and exhilaration of her first crush.

It was his size, common sense soothed. He was big enough to be intimidating—bigger than enough, actually.

Then he moved slightly, so that the sun wasn’t behind his head.

Told often enough that she was pretty, Emma had come to despise the word and its implications of softness and sweetness with all her heart, so she was normally unimpressed by outward appearances. Because she had big grey eyes and a soft red mouth, white skin with a delicate pink tinge, and because her black hair and lashes curled and shone, many people expected her to flirt and laugh and be light-hearted and docile and slightly stupid.

So she distrusted those who read character from the random mishmash of genetic inheritance that formed most faces. But this man’s personality as revealed in his countenance hit her with the full-blown impact of an earthquake.

He certainly wasn’t handsome. Beneath hair as black as sorrow the strong framework of his face added authority to his powerful presence, a presence emphasised by blazing, remote, tawny eyes, keen and fierce and impersonal as those of a raptor.

Striking, her stunned mind supplied, trying to be helpful by using words to distance her from that first, mind-blowing shock. Oh, yes, he was striking—and impressive, and disturbing, forceful and dynamic. And a whole lot of other adjectives she couldn’t think of just then because her brain had collapsed into curds.

In his thirties—old enough to set every one of her twenty-three years at naught—the stranger had a face defined by a blade of a nose and a jaw that took no prisoners.

And yet...

And yet, although his mouth was held straight by an uncompromising will, it was beautifully sculpted, and there was a probably deceptive fullness about the bottom lip. The man himself might make her think of a granite peak in a mountain range, bleak and stony and compelling, but in spite of the discipline he exerted on that chiselled mouth it hinted at caged emotions.

Interesting.

But not to her. Emma knew her limitations, and this man was so far beyond them she and he might as well inhabit different worlds.

He said, ‘Those are Mrs Firth’s dogs.’

‘Yes.’ It would serve him right, she thought, if she refused to answer his implied question, but one glance at the arrogant features and the cold fire of those eyes convinced her that discretion was the way to go. She added, ‘I’m looking after them while she’s in Canada.’

Straight dark brows drew together above the blade of his nose. ‘At her daughter’s?’ After Emma’s reluctant nod he pursued, ‘When did she go?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘When will she be back?’

With frigid politeness Emma said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

‘You must have some idea of how long you intend to stay here.’

Definitely not a subtle man. Emma’s tone chilled further as she replied, Three weeks.’

‘And you’re wondering what business it is of mine.’

He might be nosy and unsubtle, but he wasn’t stupid. She contented herself with a slight, dismissive smile.

‘It’s my business,’ he said, in a voice that had dropped to a dangerous, silky quietness, ‘because you can’t control that Rottweiler. I’m Kane Talbot and those are my sheep he was chasing.’

Resisting the urge to wipe suddenly clammy hands down the side seams of her jeans, Emma said, ‘I’m Emma Saunders, and from now on whenever we’re near your sheep I’ll keep Lucky on a leash.’

‘Will you be able to manage him?’ The fierce predator’s gaze assessed her from the top of her curly head to her gumboots. ‘You don’t look strong enough.’

Every hair on her skin pulled tight. Furious at the involuntary reaction, Emma said woodenly, ‘I’m stronger than I look, and Lucky walks well on a leash.’ He didn’t like it, but his sweet temper kept him obedient.

‘I hope so.’ After a taut, humming moment he ordered, ‘And shut both of them up at night.’

‘They are always locked up at night.’

Kane Talbot looked down his arrogant nose. ‘Good.’

Pushing her luck, she said sweetly, ‘Thank you. Come on, Lucky, Babe, we’ll head for home.’

Straight black brows rose as the man’s glance switched to the dogs at her feet. No doubt, she thought sarcastically, he called his sheepdogs names like Dig and Flo and Tip, good, practical names that could be heard over the noise of a flock of sheep and were easy to combine with swear words.

‘I’ll give you a lift,’ he said. He was driving a Land Rover, both dusty and mud-splashed, entirely suitable for dogs.

Formally, although not without a trace of relish in her tone, Emma replied, ‘That’s very kind of you, but the idea of the exercise is—well, exercise. We’ll walk back.’ She turned away, saying, ‘Home, Babe. Home, Lucky.’

As she and the reluctant dogs marched back up the road she could feel the cold burn of his gaze on the back of her neck. Her shoulders stiffened until the sound of the engine told her that he was safely back in his Land Rover.

She knew where he lived. Right opposite Mrs Firth’s house.

Oh, not in anything so ordinary as Mrs Firth’s charming bungalow set in its acre of garden and orchard, with a lazy little stream running over an ancient lava flow at the bottom of the garden. No, Kane Talbot, who owned large chunks of New Zealand’s northernmost peninsula, lived in a splendid house a mile or so from the road.

Kane Talbot, Mrs Firth had informed her, was old money and old influence; as well as holding a position of power on one of the big cooperative enterprises that ran the producer boards in New Zealand, he had varied business interests, moving easily between his life as one of New Zealand’s most efficient and productive station owners and his wider urban and international interests.

Furthermore, he was suspected of being almost engaged to an Australian woman from an impeccable and influential family.

While they’d waited at Auckland airport for the plane to Vancouver Mrs Firth, a cryptic crossword addict who enjoyed searching out the meaning of words, had told Emma that the most probable derivation of his surname was the old French word talebot, meaning bandit.

‘I’m not in the least surprised,’ Emma observed beneath her breath now, waving briefly as the Land Rover went by with a sharp toot.

Once well past, Kane Talbot accelerated up the metal road before turning onto a drive lined with huge magnolia trees, now coming into bloom. Just as no one could deny the pink and white fairytale glory of that avenue, it was impossible to deny the impact of its owner.

Whose first name, according to Mrs Firth, could be derived from the Welsh language. If so, it meant beautiful.

Emma grinned with involuntary enjoyment. Not likely!

On the other hand, if it came from the Manx language that was much more suitable because then it would mean warrior. And she could certainly see Kane Talbot as a warrior bandit. He exuded a no-holds-barred toughness, the hard, dynamic determination of a man who didn’t know when to give up.

Recreating that autocratic face in her mind, she recalled the harsh moulding of chin and jaw and nose, the decisive authority that revealed itself in every line and angle and plane, and in the intelligent, icy fire of his eyes. He’d make a bad enemy.

Yet he had, she acknowledged reluctantly as she called Lucky to heel again, been surprisingly calm about the situation. Most farmers confronted by a dog clearly chasing sheep would have gone ballistic.

Odd, then, that his controlled detachment had set warning bells clashing.