The Blackmail Bargain

Instead of working in the garden that evening she’d poke around the motor and see what she could find. And if it wasn’t something she could fix it would have to wait, because she couldn’t afford any repairs this month.

But during the careful trip down to the calf-shed, she wasn’t working out what she could do if the knock in the engine was too much for her basic mechanical skills. Her mind dwelt obsessively on Curt McIntosh, whose touch had sent her hormones on a dizzying circuit of every nerve in her body.

And whose relentless authority and aggressive, arrogant masculinity reminded her so much of her father she had to unclench her jaw and rein in a storm of automatic resentment and anger.

He controlled her future.

If he refused to renew the lease she’d have to get rid of her own stock, the ones she was rearing for sale in two years’ time to finance a new tractor. Because Ian’s calves—Tanekaha’s calves, she corrected hastily—were covered by contract, their needs were paramount. Without the leased acreage she had barely enough land to finish them off and send them back in good condition.

But she desperately needed a new tractor. Hers had to be coaxed along, and six months ago the mechanic told her it wasn’t going to last much more than a couple of years—if she was lucky.

She braked and got out to open a gate. Without the income from her stock she’d be in real trouble; extra hours pumping petrol at the local service station wouldn’t cover the cost of a new tractor.

Swallowing to ease her dry throat, she got back into the ute and took it through the gate. And there was little chance of more casual work at Kowhai Bay; the little holiday resort sank back into lethargy once the hot Northland sun headed for the equator.

After she’d closed the gate behind the ute, she leaned against the top bar and looked out over countryside that swept from the boundary to the coast.

Her smallholding was insignificant in that glorious panorama, yet the land she could see was only a small part of Tanekaha Station. Blue hills inland formed the western boundary, and the land stretched far along the coastline of beaches and stark headlands, shimmering golden-green in the bright heat.

Lovely in a wild, rugged fashion, serene under the midsummer sun, it represented power and wealth. If it came to swords at sunrise, Curt McIntosh had every advantage.

Perhaps she should give up the struggle, sell her land for what she could get, and go and find herself a life.

She bit her lip. All she knew was farming.

‘And that’s what I like doing,’ she said belligerently, swinging back into the vehicle and slamming the door behind her.

Once she’d settled the calf undercover in a temporary pen made of hay bales, she glanced at her watch and went inside.

After a shower and a change of clothes, she went across to the bookshelves that bordered the fireplace, taking down her father’s Maori dictionary.

‘“Tanekaha”,’ she read out loud, and laughed ironically as a bubbling noise told her the kettle was boiling. ‘How very apt!’

Tane was the Maori word for man, kaha for strong. Ian Matheson was a strong man, but his brother-in-law was out on his own.

‘And whoever chose his first name must have known what sort of baby they were dealing with,’ she decided, pouring the water into the pot. ‘Curt by name and curt by nature.’

Grimly amused, she returned to the bookshelves and found another elderly volume. “‘English and Scottish Surnames”,’ she murmured as she flipped through it. “‘McIntosh—son of the chieftain”! Somehow I’m not in the least surprised!’

In the chilly bedroom she’d converted into an office, she pulled out a file and sank down at the desk, poring over the lease agreement in search of loopholes.

Curt glanced around his room. The old homestead, now the head shepherd’s house, had been transported to another site on the station. In its place Gillian had spent the last two years—and a lot of money—supervising the building of the new house, and then decorating it. Her innate artistry meant that each exquisite room breathed good taste, but she’d paid only lip-service to the homestead’s main function as the administrative head of a substantial pastoral concern.

At least she’d kept the integrity of its rural setting and hadn’t gone for stark minimalism, he thought drily.

He scanned the photograph on the chest of drawers, taken on the day Gillian married Ian. His sister glowed, so radiantly happy she seemed incandescent with it, and Ian was smiling down at her, his expression a betraying mixture of tenderness and desire.

Almost the same expression with which he’d looked at Peta Grey in those damned photographs.

What the hell had gone wrong?

It was a rhetorical question. Several things had gone wrong; an urbanite born and bred and a talented artist, Gillian had found it difficult to adjust to life in the country as Ian had worked his way up to managing the biggest station in what Gillian referred to as ‘Curt’s collection’. She’d stopped painting a couple of years previously, about the time she’d discovered she couldn’t have children.

A disappointment Ian clearly shared, Curt thought sternly.

Gillian’s suspicions were probably right. In the woman next door, Ian had seen the things his wife lacked—the promise of children and an affinity for the land.

As well, he’d seen something Gillian had missed entirely—a tempting sensuality. Curt swore beneath his breath. Ian’s wandering eyes were no longer so startling. Barely concealed beneath the layer of mud and her suspicious antagonism, Peta Grey radiated a vibrant, vital heat that had stirred a dangerous hunger into uncomfortable and reckless life.

It still prowled his body. Not that she was beautiful; striking described her exactly. Her skin, fine-grained as the sleekest silk, glowed in the sunlight, its golden tinge echoed by an astonishing golden tracery across her green eyes. Tall and strong, when she walked her lean-limbed, supple grace was like watching music materialise.

Perhaps it was simply her colouring that had got to him; all that gold, he thought with a mocking twist to his smile. Skin, eyes—even the tips of her lashes were gold. Not to forget the golden-brown hair, thick and glossy as a stream of dark honey.

His brain, not normally given to flights of fancy, summoned from some hidden recess a picture of that hair falling across his chest in silken disorder, and his breath quickened.

Hell! He strode across the room to the desk, stopping to flick up the screen of his laptop. While the state-of-the-art equipment purred into life, he sat down and prepared to concentrate on the task ahead.

But work, which usually took precedence over everything else, didn’t do the trick today. When he found himself doodling a pair of sultry eyes and remembering the exact texture of her skin beneath his knuckles as he’d hauled her back from the swamp, and the tantalising pressure of her full breasts against his forearm, he swore again, more luridly this time. After putting down the pen with more than normal care, he crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball and lobbed it into the waste-paper basket with barely concealed violence.

Other women had made an impact on him, but none of them had taken up residence in his mind. He resented that sort of power being wielded by a simple country hick on the make, someone he neither knew nor trusted.

He got to his feet. He was, he realised contemptuously, aroused and unable to control it.

The word ‘jealousy’ floated across his consciousness, only to be instantly dismissed. There had to be some sort of connection for jealousy to happen.

‘Accept it,’ he said with cool distaste. ‘You want Peta Grey—reluctantly—but you’re not going to take up Gillian’s suggestion and make a play for her.’ His main concern was to get her out of his sister’s life, and that process had already begun.

Relieved by the summons of his mobile telephone, he caught it up. His frown wasn’t reflected in his voice when he answered the query on the other end. ‘Working, but you knew that.’

His lover said something teasing, and he laughed. As Anna spoke he noted the long line of dark trees on the northern horizon. They hid, he knew, the small cottage where Peta Grey lived.

Anna’s seductive voice seemed to fade; he had to force himself to concentrate on her conversation, and found it difficult to look away from that row of trees.

‘…so I’ll see you next Friday night?’ Anna asked.

‘Yes.’

She knew better than to keep him talking; he hung up with a frown.

Time to put an end to their affair. Anna was trying subtly to work her way into his life, and although their relationship was based on more than sex it would be cruel to let her cherish any false illusions. She wasn’t in love with him, but in him she probably saw an excellent chance to establish herself.

As Peta no doubt saw Ian.

His expression hardened. It was time Peta Grey learned that actions always had repercussions.

A knock brought his head up. ‘Come in.’

Gillian peered around the door, a gallant smile hiding her tension. ‘Lunch in fifteen minutes.’