The Temptress Of Tarika Bay

‘I’m a self-employed businesswoman; I have to work hard.’

Besides, she had an old debt to pay off.

At that moment Hawke Challenger looked deliberately at Cathy and smiled. It felt like a betrayal when Cathy’s face lit up with a warm response. Morna’s lips tightened. Why couldn’t her intelligent friend catch that painfully evocative resemblance to Glen?

Not in looks—although Glen had been a good-looking man, he wasn’t in the same league as Hawke Challenger. But both men wore an air of arrogant confidence, of complete conviction that they could do what they wanted because of who they were.

Cathy seemed quite blind to it. In a tone that could only be called cheerful she said, ‘So now you know you’ve got a truly fanciable man living right next door.’

‘Well, just over the hill,’ Morna agreed. She added tautly, ‘And I’m certain every time he thinks of Tarika Bay, with its three acres and that lovely little beach, he comes over all acquisitive. Before he died Jacob told me that “the Challenger circus” had approached him a couple of times to sell. Jacob turned each offer down, but I’ll bet Hawke Challenger believes he’s going to buy it off the estate.’

Cathy said fairly, ‘I can understand why Hawke wants it. His land surrounds Tarika Bay.’

‘He might want it,’ Morna told her with calm determination, ‘but he’s not going to get it.’

Cathy sighed. ‘You’ve decided to dislike him. I recognise that mulish jut to your jaw!’

‘I haven’t made up my mind,’ Morna said. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think of him. I’m the interloper here, not him. He fits in very well with all these splendid animals: big and well-muscled and seething with testosterone. The colour’s right too—I’ve seen several bulls exactly the same bronze as his hide. And you can take that matchmaking look off your face. He’s years younger than I am!’

Cathy returned, ‘Turning thirty-four yesterday didn’t transform you into a hag overnight. As it happens, he’s two years younger than Nick—’

‘Which makes him two years younger than me,’ Morna interpolated.

Cathy sent a resigned glance skywards. ‘Who’s counting? Who cares?’

The man they were both watching chose that moment to direct a long, speculative stare at Morna. Hawke Challenger’s light eyes duelled with her golden, resentful ones before he lifted one straight black brow in a mocking acknowledgement and turned his attention back to the people with him.

Morna fumed. Over-confident bastard! She’d trained herself not to be intimidated by his type, but it irritated her that while she’d been grateful for the wide brim shadowing her face, he’d held his autocratic head high.

Without expression she commented, ‘He certainly doesn’t look like your average farmer.’

‘He’s not—he’s the New Zealand equivalent of the landed gentry.’

‘I’ve designed jewellery for some of them,’ Morna said thoughtfully. ‘They demand quality and they’re not afraid to go modern.’ She shrugged, adding, ‘But, unlike the fanciable Mr Challenger, most of them are pretty weather-beaten. I can see him cutting a swathe through impressionable tourists at his resort—even showing off on a prancing black stallion to match his hair—but I’d be surprised if he does any of the grunt work, either at the resort or on the station.’

‘He’s really getting to you, isn’t he?’ Cathy surveyed her curiously. ‘He grew up on a family cattle and sheep station on the East Coast, north of Gisborne, so I imagine he’s competent on a farm.’

Another trickle of awareness snaked through Morna. ‘If he doesn’t mind hard work and getting his hands dirty, why did he abandon agriculture to go into tourism?’

‘He didn’t. He owns land all around New Zealand, mostly agricultural land. Overseas too—he does a lot of travelling. This is where he’s settled; his office is in Orewa.’

Interested in spite of herself, Morna nodded. Orewa was a seaside town a few miles away. ‘If he’s got the whole country to choose from, I wonder why he decided to come up here instead of settling on his ancestral acres.’

‘Ask him,’ Cathy said smartly. ‘Somerville’s Reach was practically derelict when he bought it. He poured money into it until he’d whipped it into shape, which provided four new jobs for the district. Then he demolished the old homestead in Somerville’s Bay—’

‘Barbarian!’ Morna interjected on a scornful note.

Cathy returned serenely, ‘It was a ruin, and the district’s gained lots more jobs from the resort. You won’t find anyone here complaining about his development plans. And when Hawke turned the gumlands into a fiendishly tricky golf course, that brought more tourists and yet more employment.’ She glanced up at Morna. ‘As you well know, because you drive through the golf course twice a day from your little shack to Auckland and back.’

‘It’s not a shack, it’s a bach,’ Morna said automatically, turning a fraction to sweep Hawke Challenger’s uncompromising features with another rapid glance.

As though he felt it, he lifted his head and once more their eyes met and clashed. His wide sexy mouth—classically chiselled into perfection—lifted at the corners in a smile that held no warmth, nothing but potent sensuality.

A flash of foreboding darkened the day. Lowering her lashes as a shield, Morna scrambled to remember what they were talking about.

Cathy said, ‘In your case, bach and shack are synonyms.’

‘Baches are New Zealand icons!’ Ignoring Cathy’s sniff, Morna stressed, ‘OK, it’s shabby and old, but it’s clean and it’s comfortable. Although until Jacob’s will is probated it’s not mine. I’m paying rent to the estate for it.’ Her voice turned tart. ‘I don’t imagine I’ll see much of Hawke Challenger—rich, well-connected resort owners might buy jewellery, but they don’t socialise with the people who make it.’

She sneaked another glance, only to have Hawke Challenger catch her again. This time he deliberately examined her face, his own coolly judgmental.

Startled colour flamed across her ivory skin and burned through every cell. Bewildered, she tore her eyes free, swallowing as the music and chatter drummed around her.

Cathy’s voice broke the spell. ‘Minimal rent, I hope.’

‘Pretty minimal.’ In fact, very minimal. The bach was sturdy, but basic.

‘It’s great to have you living so close. Nick worries about you.’

‘Nick still thinks of me as the kid he used to protect and bully for my own good.’ Morna’s smile was wry, almost wistful. ‘I know I relied shamelessly on him, but I’m over that now.’

‘He thinks you’re mad to insist on donating Glen’s legacy to a charity,’ Nick’s wife said honestly. ‘And so do I. Glen knew he’d treated you badly.’

At twenty-one Morna had fallen head over heels, fathoms deep in love with Glen Spencer, Nick’s mentor and the owner of the advertising agency where he’d worked.

Glen had been her first—her only—lover, and she’d been—well, sinfully naïve. Certainly stupid! When he’d asked her to live with him she’d ignored Nick’s warnings and moved into his opulent apartment. And she’d been lyrically happy, smugly convinced that Glen loved her and that her fierce loyalty was returned.

And then he’d met Cathy, young and beautiful and vulnerable.

Five years of loyal love turned out to mean less than nothing; brutally pragmatic, Glen dismissed Morna from his bed and his life by dangling the offer of a fully paid course at a prestigious design institution half the world away.

She had swallowed her bitter pride to accept his conscience money, and as soon as she’d been out of the way he’d married Cathy with as much pomp and ceremony as he could command. But Morna had attacked his ego when she’d stubbornly treated the fees as a loan and repaid them, month by month.

Cathy had known none of this, nor that Glen’s ruthless rejection of Nick’s foster-sister had persuaded Nick to leave his fast-track career at the agency and strike out on his own in the crazy, dangerous, high-octane world of information technology. Glen had been the only person surprised when Nick’s cutting intelligence and business skills had catapulted him into huge wealth and international power.

Although Cathy had been married to Glen for four years before his untimely death in an accident, she still didn’t understand the way Glen’s mind had worked. In his will he’d left Morna the exact amount of the tuition fees, down to the last cent, throwing the money back at her in a final sneering insult.

With these thoughts churning through her head, Morna said to Cathy, ‘How did you know about the course fees? I suppose Nick told you.’

‘He told me you wouldn’t let him repay Glen, or lend you the money to do it. Instead you worked as a waitress in nightclubs to get it,’ Cathy said, distressed but determined.

‘Excellent tips in nightclubs,’ Morna said succinctly. ‘It wasn’t Nick’s problem. And I refuse to stay beholden to Glen.’

‘At least you used his legacy to set up your shop! But he’s dead, Morna—he has been for years. Why repay a dead man by donating most of your income to a charity?’

‘I only ever considered it to be a loan.’ Morna’s voice was cold and sharp, brittle as an icicle.

‘You’re too stiff-necked and principled for your own good,’ Cathy returned doggedly. ‘Nick would have been proud to stake you—’