Sanchia's Secret

Something in her tone, in her square shoulders and tilted chin, reminded Caid of the teenager who’d looked past him and through him, over him and around him—anywhere but at him. Need burning in his gut, he heard her say, ‘I’ll sign an option if it will make you happy, but I’m still not selling.’

An X-rated fantasy of her making him happy, in full colour and with sound and kinaesthetic effects, blocked Caid’s thought processes. Angry at the effort it took to reimpose control, he said curtly, ‘Think it over before you make a decision.’

‘I don’t need to think anything over because I’ve already made the decision.’

At last she turned towards him, face shuttered against him as she waited for him to go. For a split second he toyed with the idea of helping her unpack, but much more of this and his clamouring body would betray him.

‘I’ll bring the papers down this evening,’ he said.

No doubt, Sanchia thought, you didn’t get to be a big-time tycoon unless you were prepared for everything. ‘You travel with option forms?’ she asked ironically. ‘It’s the holidays, if you remember, and every solicitor in New Zealand is at the beach until at least halfway through January.’

‘I always have options,’ he said. Some underlying note in his voice caught her attention as he finished crisply, ‘So I’ll see you tonight.’

CHAPTER TWO

SANCHIA stood motionless until Caid’s imperious presence had disappeared into the green gloom of the pohutukawa trees. Expelling her breath with a whoosh that spun her brain, she muttered, ‘Oh, hell!’

It had been too much to hope fate would make sure their visits to the Bay didn’t coincide.

With jerky, abrupt movements she bent to haul the nearest carton out of the car, fighting a powerful, irresistible tug at her senses. One look at Caid and it had all come pouring back—the heady, dangerous compound of desire and longing and abject, hidden terror.

As she walked across the grass to the bach and dumped the groceries down on the lid of the gumboot box she thought stoutly that she was better able to deal with it now than three years ago.

She unlocked the door, stepping back as a wave of hot, stale air fell out of the building. Did he still want her? Her mouth twisted sardonically. Why should he, when he could have his pick of the most beautiful, sophisticated, suitable women in the world? He’d certainly taken his time about looking her over, but that meant nothing.

Was he paying me back? she wondered, picking up the carton. I don’t suppose many women have said no to Caid Hunter. Perhaps he was trying for a little revenge?

After setting the box onto the kitchen bench she opened up the bach, turning on the power, switching on the gas so that she’d have hot water, fiercely quelling a fresh surge of grief when she pushed back the bifold doors. A fresh, salt-scented breeze curled up from the beach, brushing away the mustiness.

Her breasts lifted as she breathed in and out several times; she stared straight ahead, but after a few moments realised that her gaze had wandered stealthily to the roof of the Hunter house above its sheltering trees. If she craned her neck she could see the edge of the wide terrace overlooking the sea.

Nothing had changed; she still responded to Caid’s powerful physical presence with all the poise and control of a kid in an ice cream shop. ‘So why stand here mooning over him?’ she asked the unresponsive air before stalking inside.

When the car had been emptied and her bed made up, when she’d revived the bach again with the small domestic sound of the refrigerator, when the last trace of dust had been scoured away and she’d showered herself clean of sweat and grime, she drank two glasses of water and made a salad sandwich, following its green and gold crispness with coffee.

Only then did she feel able to walk out onto the wide wooden deck, cross the lawn and stop in the dense shade of the pohutukawa trees.

Because a late, cool spring had delayed their flowering, crimson bunches of silk floss still burst from furry, silver buds to smother the leathery leaves.

Caid had kissed her for the first time under this one.

Pain twisted inside her. Leaning her hot forehead against the rough bark, she imagined that she could feel an old, old life-force slowly, inexorably, sweeping through the wood. How many times had she seen her great-aunt stand like that, drawing strength from a tree?

There was no comfort for Sanchia; nevertheless she faced the future with a bleak, driven determination. Great-Aunt Kate had trusted her to carry out a mission.

A heat haze shimmered over the sand, the dancing air lending an oddly eerie atmosphere to the classic New Zealand holiday scene—white beach, a cobalt sea intensifying to brilliant kingfisher-blue on the horizon, and a summer coast of bays and headlands, cliffs and harbours, swathed in carmine and scarlet and crimson.

Setting her jaw, Sanchia turned and walked across the springy grass towards the steep hill behind the bay, following a hint of a path beneath the trees. To the fading sound of the waves, she stepped lightly, cautiously, like an intruder.

Another ancient pohutukawa hugged a grassy knoll on the boundary between her aunt’s land and the Hunter property, and each winter thousands of monarch butterflies found their way back to the tree to doze in the Northland sun along its sheltering branches, drinking from the tiny stream in the gully. Drowsy, almost immobile, they dreamed the winter away.

A few were still there, gorgeous, graceful things in their livery of orange and black. She stood for long moments watching, remembering.

The year she’d turned sixteen she’d noticed the pitiable flapping of a butterfly drowning in the creek. Still unsure of her suddenly longer legs, she’d raced down the hill to its rescue, landed awkwardly on a stone and wrenched her ankle.

Caid had found her sitting on the bank with the butterfly drying on her finger. Carefully, gently, he’d coaxed the bold orange and black insect from her hand to his, and transported it to a branch. Once he was sure it was going to be all right, he’d ignored her protests, scooped her up and carried her back to the bach.

She couldn’t recall breathing or talking until he’d deposited her in a deckchair. Now she wondered whether it had been his complete lack of reaction to her, his lazy amusement and casual friendliness that had persuaded her to trust him five years later.

Or perhaps it had been the feel of his arms, the steady, amazing strength that had seemed so effortless…

‘Interesting how much more wary these butterflies are than the ones that over-winter,’ a voice drawled from the other side of the fence.

Flinching, Sanchia whirled to face Caid. ‘Next time make a noise,’ she retorted curtly, then bit her tongue, aware of her rudeness—and the susceptibility it didn’t hide.

His black brows lifted. ‘Certainly,’ he said, a note of mockery underlining his words. Casual shorts and a T-shirt as black as his hair failed to strip him of that cool, powerful authority.

Glad she’d replaced her sunglasses, she muttered, ‘I’m sorry, but you gave me a start. It’s uncanny the way you sneak around.’

‘Sneak?’ His sculpted mouth twisted in irony. ‘I resent that. If my presence disturbs you so much I’ll whistle whenever I think you might be in the vicinity. You don’t want to hear me sing.’

‘Why not?’ He had a marvellous speaking voice, deep and exciting, a voice that reached right inside and…

Sanchia stifled that train of thought.

‘I can’t carry a tune,’ he told her cheerfully.

‘Oh.’ Her doubtful glance caught his smile. Because it stirred up emotions she’d tried very hard to forget, she said hastily, ‘I wonder why these butterflies stay here?’

‘They’re foolish and frivolous. Any prudent, farsighted monarch is in a garden somewhere, mating, and laying eggs to continue the species; these ones are wasting the summer heat.’

There was no suggestiveness in his words, yet her spine tingled.

‘Perhaps they sense there’s still time,’ she parried. Disturbed by his narrow-eyed focus on the hair around her shoulders, she pushed the dark cloud back, holding it behind her head with one hand.

Caid said, ‘A wise butterfly takes its chances quickly. You never know when a cyclone might hurtle down from the tropics.’ He spoke lightly, as though the words meant nothing, but his glance settled on her mouth.

Sanchia felt the resonance of a hidden meaning. A forbidden sensation exploded in the pit of her stomach. Taking three quick steps into the sombre shade of the tree, she said, ‘Cyclones are very occasional events here. The butterflies have plenty of time to enjoy themselves and still fulfil their evolutionary duty. Besides, it might be a ploy on nature’s part to fill a gap. If they do their egg-laying late in the season the eggs mightn’t be eaten by wasps.’

‘There are always predators.’

Sanchia’s skin contracted as though some of the chilling certainty in his tone had been translated into physical existence. They seemed to be conducting another conversation beneath the words, one depending on feelings and a ferocious physical awareness for its subtext.

Lightly she said, ‘So your advice to the young butterfly is to grab every chance? Could be dangerous.’

‘Life’s dangerous. And butterflies could die at any time.’

Sanchia bit her lip, heard a soft oath and the sudden creak of the boundary fence as Caid swung over it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said abruptly, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder. ‘That was clumsy and obtuse of me.’