Forbidden Pleasure

Logical, when you thought it through.

A too-fast swerve around the next corner banished the enigma of her unwilling host of the previous day. From then on she concentrated, driving past the other three lakes and the locked gate that separated the reserve from the fourth lake in its nest of pines, along a road with farms on one side and the sombre green of the plantation on the other, until she made a right-angle turn over a cattlestop onto a very ordinary drive. It didn’t look as though a man of mystery lived at the end of it.

As she drew up under that splendid porte-cochère every cell in Ianthe’s body thrummed with a hidden excitement, heating her skin and sharpening her senses.

She got out and rang the doorbell to the accompaniment of the busy, high-pitched chattering of a fantail fluttering amongst the gold-spotted aurelia leaves. Instead of the rich golden brown of the common variety, this one was sooty, with a breast of dark chocolate, the comical white brow and collar missing. Ianthe wasn’t a bird person, but she knew enough about the small, cheerful birds to be aware that black fantails were unusual in the North Island.

Its complete lack of fear and its sombre colouring shouldn’t have lifted the hair on the back of her neck. Although she was aware of the bird’s Maori reputation as a harbinger of death, she was a scientist, for heaven’s sake. Yet, as she stood before the big wooden door, the fantail seemed like a magic messenger, the emissary from another world who summons the hero to a quest.

How’s that for logical, professional thinking? she mocked. Darwin would be proud of you.

With a shrug she turned to ring the bell again, but before her finger touched it the door opened silently and the man who had haunted her sleep looked at her.

Something flared in the light eyes, a response she couldn’t read; it was instantly replaced by an aloof withdrawal.

Stung, she summoned a glib professional smile. ‘I have some frozen groceries that your—chauffeur asked me to deliver.’

The frown remained, albeit reduced to a pleat of the black brows. His eyes revealed nothing but shimmering silver depths, cold and lucent. ‘Thank you.’

He walked beside her to the car. ‘Which are the frozen goods? I’ll get them.’ Straightening with the plastic bag, he told her, ‘Mark got pushed into the ditch by a truck that was avoiding a dog. Thank you for being a good samaritan.’

So he’d known she was on her way. She said lightly, ‘You can’t compare delivering a parcel of frozen peas to rescuing a man who fell among thieves. I’d better be off. I hope all goes well with the Rover.’

Ianthe couldn’t read any emotion in his expression or his tone. Silence stretched between them, taut, obscurely equivocal.

Evenly, without emphasis, he said, ‘Come and have something to drink. You look hot and tired and thirsty.’

A flicker of movement from the little fantail caught Ianthe’s eye. Perched on the topmost twig of the leafy plant, the bird spread its tail feathers, black plumage a startling contrast to green and gold leaves. Round, bright eyes seemed to fix onto Ianthe, insistent, commanding.

It was stupid to give any significance to such a tiny creature, seen almost every day in New Zealand. It would be even more stupid to accept this invitation.

Yet some impulse, a heartbeat away from refusal, changed her mind. Slowly she said, ‘That sounds wonderful. I am hot and tired and thirsty.’

He smiled, and her heart flipped. ‘But perhaps we should be introduced first,’ he said, and held out his free hand. ‘I’m Alex Considine.’

She knew that name! She just couldn’t place it. On a subtly exhaled breath she said, ‘I’m Ianthe Brown,’ and with a kind of resignation put her hand into his.

The moment it closed over hers a wildfire response stormed through her, drowning out common sense and caution. Dizzily she thought that the handshake was a claiming, a symbolic gesture of possession taken and granted.

Ridiculous, she thought, panicking. Utterly ridiculous!

Possibly she jerked her hand away, but he let it go as though women who shivered when he touched them weren’t uncommon in his life.

It probably happened all the time, she thought, and said inanely, ‘How do you do?’

‘How do you do, Miss Brown?’ he said, amusement deepening his voice. ‘Come in. Is there anything you want to bring with you? Some frozen goods, perhaps, to add to mine in the freezer?’

Damn! She should have dropped her meat off on the way here. But, no, she’d been so excited at the prospect of seeing him again she’d driven mindlessly past the turn-off. ‘Actually, yes, there is,’ she admitted, grateful to be able to stoop and lift her parcel from the car.

Adding it to his, he motioned her to go ahead. Chin tilted, she obeyed, saying with a casual smile, ‘Miss Brown sounds incredibly formal. I answer better to Ianthe.’

His lashes drooped for a micro-second. ‘Then you must call me Alex,’ he said, and showed her into the sitting room with its wonderful view of the beach and the lake. ‘If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll put these in the freezer.’

He was not, Ianthe thought as she walked across to the open doors and squinted at the violent contrast of white sand against the bold blue of the water, the sort of man you offered to help.

Cicadas played their tiny penetrating zithers in the branches of the trees behind the house. The familiar noise set Ianthe’s nerves jumping; trying to centre herself, she took a few deep breaths, but her skin tightened. She turned a little clumsily, and there was Alex coming in through the door with a tray that held bottles of various sorts.

‘I can make tea or coffee if you’d prefer either,’ he said when she glanced at the tray.

Ianthe shook her head. ‘No, something cold would be wonderful,’ she said gratefully.

‘Come outside; it’s marginally cooler.’

A terrace stretched along the front of the house, and there, shaded by the roof, was a sitting-out area—comfortable white squabs and cushions on long benches. Above, a pergola draped with vines shaded eyes from the vibrating intensity of the sun. It was completely private. You could, Ianthe thought enviously, lie naked on those squabs and let the sun soak bone deep.

Unfortunately she couldn’t risk it with skin as pale as hers. Not so Alex Considine, whose darker skin would only deepen in colour under the sun’s caress. However, his aura of leashed energy made it difficult to imagine him lying around with no aim but to polish up his tan.

Her stomach contracting at the images that flashed across her far too co-operative brain, she asked swiftly, ‘Why did you decide to come here for your holidays, Alex?’

He answered readily enough. ‘I wanted somewhere peaceful where I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. What would you like—orange juice, lime, or something else?’

His explanation was, Ianthe thought shrewdly, the truth, but not the whole truth. ‘Lime, thank you.’

Accepting the glass he handed her, she observed, ‘I bet before you go home you’ll have tripped over someone you know. New Zealand’s notorious for coincidences.’

Long black lashes hid his eyes for a second. ‘I hope not,’ he said neutrally. ‘But if it’s inevitable, I certainly hope I see them before they see me. Have you come here for peace and solitude too?’

Ianthe turned her head to stare at the lake. Even through the thin cotton of her trousers she could feel the canvas squabs radiate the heat they’d trapped from the sun.

‘Yes,’ she said simply, for some reason no longer unwilling to talk about it. ‘I got bitten by a shark, and when the whole media circus ended and I came out of hospital for the third time I just wanted to crawl away to heal by myself.’

If he’d shown any sign of pity she’d have set her glass down and made some excuse and left, but he said in a judicial voice, ‘That must be the most terrifying thing that can happen to anyone.’

‘Oddly enough, I don’t think it was. I was half out of the water when it happened, climbing the ladder into the boat. I can’t remember much, but I do recall thinking that I was in the shark’s hunting grounds. And being surprised that there was no pain, although when it grabbed my leg I was shocked enough to punch it on the nose! I was lucky. It wasn’t a big one, and apparently it didn’t like being hit fair and square on its most sensitive spot.’

‘What sort of shark?’ he asked.

Surprised into laughter, because that was what her professor at university had asked when he’d come to see her in hospital, she told him, ‘A Tiger Shark.’

‘And did they catch it?’

She shook her head. ‘No, they didn’t try. Why kill something that’s only doing what it was born to do? As far as we know—and in spite of Jaws—sharks don’t turn into man-eaters, the way leopards or lions can. They just eat whatever comes to hand, and that day I was it.’

‘You’re remarkably tolerant,’ he said, his tone oblique, almost cryptic. ‘I’d be inclined to kill something that tried to eat me.’

After flicking him a glance, she became absorbed in the pattern of leaves on the ground. She believed him.

‘They’re an endangered species,’ she said. ‘I was in its element, and whenever you swim you risk bumping into something large and carnivorous or small and poisonous.’