The Temptress Of Tarika Bay

Cathy turned swiftly, her face lighting up. ‘We were talking about Hawke,’ she told her husband.

A stab of painful, undiluted envy alarmed Morna. Cathy glowed with a radiance that increased almost to incandescence when Nick tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. Perhaps one day she’d look at a man with the same naked love that lit Cathy’s face now.

But probably not, she thought cynically.

Nick asked, ‘What did you think of him?’

Morna watched Hawke Challenger present a large silver cup to a slim woman on a shimmering chestnut horse, her excellent legs revealed by skin-tight jodhpurs. Blonde hair flowed as she removed her helmet and bent to kiss him. The crowd applauded, and when Hawke stepped back he said something that made the woman laugh.

‘He’s probably gay,’ Morna said outrageously.

‘If he is, no one’s told the actress from that TV show The Watchers,’ Cathy returned. ‘They’ve just broken up and apparently she’s shattered, poor woman.’

Morna didn’t want to ask, but the words escaped before she could pen them up. ‘How long had they been together?’

‘I don’t know that they ever lived together, but they must have been an item for six months or so.’ Cathy smiled at her husband. ‘What do you know about him, darling?’

Nick shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Good family, money for generations, rigorous ethical standards. Hawke’s no self-absorbed lightweight—he’s tough all the way through, and he’s got a brilliant business brain. He might have started out with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he’s going to end up with the keys to the kingdom. Don’t be fooled by the handsome face. If you cross him you can expect to suffer for it.’

Morna dangled her sunglasses from her forefinger and said lightly, ‘Thanks for the warning, but I wasn’t thinking about crossing him. I wasn’t even thinking about having a fling with him, although your wife seems to feel I should at least be considering it.’

Nick glanced at Cathy, who said indignantly, ‘All I said was that you work too hard and that it’s time you started a social life!’ She laughed at Morna’s wicked, unrepentant grin and said, ‘Oh, all right—I want everyone to be as happy as I am. But I don’t think Hawke is the sort of man you have a fling with. He’s dangerous.’

Morna slid her sunglasses back onto her nose. ‘Dangerous? Surely not. Anyway, I don’t play with toy boys; I like maturity in my men.’

‘What men?’ Cathy shot back. ‘In the years I’ve known you, you haven’t gone out with one.’ She indicated Hawke Challenger, who’d moved on from the woman with the perfect legs and was now presenting a smaller cup to an immaculately turned out child on a stubby chestnut pony. ‘I certainly wouldn’t call him immature, or a toy boy. I doubt very much whether he’d be so easy to manage.’

Something torrid and primitive stirred inside Morna. ‘All the better reason to stay away from him,’ she said casually. ‘I don’t go looking for trouble.’

The elderly car struggled a bit on the hills, complaining with a couple of coughs as it crested the last one and swung around the worst of an endless series of tight corners.

‘There, I knew you could do it,’ Morna encouraged it, turning onto a drive that dived steeply down through feathery kanuka trees.

The ancient cattlestop rattled energetically beneath the wheels, its noise transmuting to the crunch of gravel as the car headed towards the slightly seedy, comfortable little house that always made Morna think of a badly cut gem in a perfect setting.

She’d spent until mid-afternoon in the well-equipped workroom behind her shop in Auckland, finishing a commission—transforming a clumsy, inherited diamond necklace into something her client could wear with pride.

Morna had enjoyed both designing and making the piece. Now, with fingers still blackened by the jeweller’s rouge she’d used in the final polishing, she was ready to relax in her rented portion of paradise, where ancient trees hung over sand the colour of champagne.

After a hurried trip to the supermarket she’d called in to see the Hardings, drinking coffee with them but refusing Cathy’s offer of dinner.

Morna skirted several daunting potholes, wondering if Cathy’s delicacy extended to more than her looks. Nick had certainly kept a close eye on his wife at the show yesterday. Morna frowned into the sunlight as the vehicle emerged from the bush, and all thought of her friends vanished.

There, right in front of the bach, lounged a thumping great Range Rover, a sturdy vehicle that proclaimed its ability to deal with anything a country road could throw at it.

And standing beside the passenger’s door as though he had every right to be on her land was Hawke Challenger, tall and formidably confident in the warmth of the late autumn afternoon, hair gleaming blue-black in the sunlight, his stance relaxed yet alert—almost territorial.

Morna’s mouth dried. She blinked several times before realising she’d almost driven off the track. Oh, great, she thought bitterly, white-knuckled hands clutching the wheel as she steered the car to a halt beside his, switched off the engine and wound down the window.

‘Hello,’ she said in her most remote tone, resenting that bland green scrutiny.

Morna Vause was ready for war, Hawke saw.

Not that most people would have noticed; a very cool lady, she kept herself under strict control. But, in spite of her steady eyes and aloof expression, he sensed tension vibrating through her like the throbbing of distant drums. Some feral part of him responded with aggressive anticipation.

It took iron will-power to discipline it. This erotic awareness was a weakness.

‘You didn’t come to the dinner last night,’ he said.

A flare of emotion turned her eyes to molten gold. ‘You didn’t think I would, surely?’

‘It might have been a late invitation, but I meant it.’

A fast pulse throbbed at the base of her throat, but although she couldn’t hide her involuntary response the only change in her expression was a swift, disbelieving lift of her brows. ‘You didn’t wait for an acceptance.’

‘Because you unsettle me.’

Hawke could tell his frankness startled her. Colour burned her skin and she looked away, lashes flickering in an oddly ingenuous response for a woman who’d had at least one long-term lover. Was she playing coy?

With more than a hint of acid in her tone, she said, ‘It’s called attraction—a nice little joke played on us by Mother Nature to make sure the species doesn’t die out. It doesn’t mean anything and you don’t have to do anything about it. If you just ignore it, it will eventually fade away.’

That sounded more like a woman of experience.

He took the two steps across to her door and opened it, standing back to let her get out. She gave him a baffled, glittering glance, but obeyed his unspoken suggestion. Swinging out long, elegant legs clad in black designer jeans, she straightened, her cold defiance at odds with the curvy body revealed by a fitting black top that clung too closely to be a T-shirt. She’d covered it with a black and white striped shirt that hung open so that he could see the firm thrust of her breasts beneath. The shirt-sleeves were pushed up her arms, giving her a jaunty, sporting look.

An interesting set of mixed messages, Hawke decided cynically. He clamped down on an elemental male response and surveyed her composed face with its strongly marked features.

Twenty-four hours hadn’t changed his first reaction. He still wanted her, and her stubborn, silent resistance intrigued him as much as it frustrated him. From the time he’d reached six feet and grown into his shoulders, Hawke had been a target.

And although he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t enjoyed his lovers, he was fastidious. He’d never made love to anyone he didn’t like and respect. Now, confronted by a woman who’d turned obstinate wariness into an art form, he wondered if it was the novelty of her antagonism that hooked him.

Driven by a primitive male imperative, he took a step forward, standing close enough to make it difficult for her to move away from the car, but not so close that she’d feel trapped. He didn’t think for a moment that she’d be intimidated.

Nevertheless, the colour faded from her warm ivory skin and her eyes darkened, although they didn’t waver.

She wasn’t afraid of him, he decided objectively, just very, very cautious. Why? He said, ‘Am I forgiven for delivering such a cursory invitation yesterday?’

‘Of course,’ she said neutrally.

‘Then shall we shake to a new beginning?’

For a charged moment she didn’t speak, and her hand stayed firmly by her side. When it became obvious that she wasn’t going to do any more than deliver a small, dismissive smile he extended his hand, driven to bad manners by an overwhelming urge to force her to acknowledge him.

After a reluctant pause she took it, her strong fingers quivering in his light clasp.

At her touch all Hawke’s control disappeared, consumed by sensation. Stunned, he cursed noiselessly as fire hammered him in his most vulnerable places, burning away the shackles his coldly intelligent brain had forged around his sexual appetite.

With painfully sharpened senses he heard the ragged intake of her breath, and watched her breasts tighten against the black top.