The Blackmail Bargain

He nodded. ‘I’ll be there.’

Once she’d closed the door he glanced at his watch before dialling his lawyers in Auckland.

Peta scanned the cloudless sky, then walked back inside. It was going to be a hot, dry summer and autumn; she could feel it in her bones. Each morning she woke to heat and walked across dewless grass that was slowly fading from green to gold. The springs were already failing, the creeks dwindling. The wind stayed serenely in the north-west, pushing humid air from the tropics over the narrow peninsula that was Northland. In the afternoons taunting clouds built in the sky, huge masses of purple-black and grey, only to disappear over the horizon without following through on their promise.

If no rain came she’d need money for supplemental feed for the calves—money she didn’t have, and wouldn’t get from the bank.

Moving mechanically, she picked up her lunch dishes and washed them. She just had time to shift the older calves into another paddock, then she’d drive to Kowhai Bay for her stint at the petrol station. Once there she’d ask Sandy if she could work longer hours.

That morning the mail had brought a letter from an Auckland firm of solicitors telling her that it was possible the lease would not be renewed. However the contract to raise calves for Tanekaha Station’s dairy herds would remain in effect, although if she decided to sell her farm some agreement could be made in which she wouldn’t come out the loser.

The cold, impersonal prose removed any lingering hope that Curt Blackwell McIntosh might change his autocratic mind.

Last night she’d sat over the figures until too late, juggling them as she tried—and failed—to find ways of increasing her income.

And when she’d finally gone to bed she couldn’t sleep; instead she lay in bed listening to the familiar night sounds and wondered how much her land would be worth if she put it on the market.

In Kowhai Bay’s only petrol station, Sandy shook his head when she asked about more work. ‘Sorry, Peta, but it’s just not there,’ he said, dark eyes sympathetic. ‘If I give you extra hours, I’ll have to sack someone else.’

‘It’s OK,’ she said quickly. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ But her stomach dropped and the flick of fear beneath her heart strengthened into something perilously like panic.

Her shift over, she called into the only real-estate agency in Kowhai Bay, and asked about the value of her land.

‘Not much, I’m afraid—although I’d need to come out and check the house and buildings over.’ A year or so older than she was, the agent smiled sympathetically at her as she picked up a volume of district maps, flipping the pages until she found the page she wanted.

Pride stung, Peta held her head high.

‘It’s a difficult one,’ the agent said simply. ‘No access, that’s the biggie—really, you depend on Tanekaha Station’s goodwill to get in and out. I wonder what on earth they were thinking of when they let the previous owners cut that block off the station and sell it to your father.’

‘There’s an access agreement,’ Peta told her.

She didn’t look convinced. ‘Yes, well, there are other problems too—livestock isn’t sexy at the moment, and with last month’s trade talks failing, beef prices won’t rise for at least a couple of years. Anyway, you don’t have enough land to make an income from farming. If you planted olives on it, or avocados, you might attract the lifestyle crowd, but it’s too far out of town for most of them. They usually prefer to live close to a beach or on the outskirts. And let’s face it, Kowhai Bay hasn’t yet reached fashionable status.’

‘I hope it never does,’ Peta said staunchly.

The agent grinned. ‘Come on now, Peta, admit that the place could do with a bit of livening up! For a while after Curt McIntosh bought Tanekaha I thought it might happen, but I suppose it’s just too far from Auckland—OK if you’re rich enough to fly in and out, but not for anyone else.’ She looked up. ‘If you’re thinking of moving, the logical thing to do is ask McIntosh to buy your block.’

CHAPTER TWO

LOOKED at objectively, the land agent’s advice was practical—more or less exactly what Peta had been expecting. But how much would Curt pay for her few hectares? As little as possible, she thought, rubbing the back of her neck in frustration; after all, he held all the cards.

‘How much do you think it’s worth?’ she asked, and sucked in her breath as the woman shrugged.

‘You’d need to get it valued properly, but off the top of my head and without prejudice, no more than government valuation.’

‘I see.’ If it sold for government valuation she’d be able to pay off the mortgage she’d inherited from her father. Nothing more; she’d be adrift with no education, and no skills beyond farming.

Peta left the real-estate office so deep in thought that she almost bumped into someone examining the window of Kowhai Bay’s sole boutique.

‘Peta!’

‘Oh—Nadine!’ Laughing, they embraced. Peta stepped back and said admiringly, ‘Aren’t you the fine up-and-coming city lawyer! I guessed you’d be home for Granny Wai’s ninetieth birthday.’

‘Absolutely. She’s so looking forward to it, you can’t imagine!’

That night Peta saw for herself. The big hall at the local marae was crowded with people, many of them the matriarch’s descendants, mingling with neighbours, local dignitaries, and visitors from points around the world.

Surrounded by flowers and streamers and balloons, relishing the laughter and the gossip and the reunions, Granny held court in an elegant black dress, heirloom greenstone hei-tiki pendant gleaming on her breast.

Nadine pushed politely past a couple of elderly men to say with envy, ‘That honey-gold colour suits you superbly. Did you make your top?’

‘Yes.’ Peta enjoyed sewing, and the silky, sleeveless garment had only taken a couple of hours to finish.

‘Thought so.’ She turned and waved to her great-grandmother. ‘Isn’t she amazing? You watch—as soon as the band strikes up she’ll be on the floor. Pino’s threatened to jive with her, and Mum’s terrified she’ll break her hip, but if Granny wants to jive, Granny will! She’s as tough as old boots, bless her.’

A subdued stir by the door caught their attention.

‘Uh-oh,’ Nadine said beneath her breath. ‘Speaking of tough, the Tanekaha Station clan has just arrived.’

Peta opened her mouth then closed it again. Of course the Mathesons and Curt would have been invited.

Her friend sighed elaborately. ‘You know, Curt McIntosh is a magnificent, gorgeous man. Pity he’s got the soul of a shark.’

‘A shark?’ Jolted, Peta glanced across the room, in time to see Curt lift Granny’s hand to his mouth and kiss it.

The gesture should have looked stagy and incongruous, but he carried it off with a panache that sent heat shafting down her spine. Dragging her gaze back to Nadine’s face, she asked, ‘A shark as in being dishonest and sleazy?’

‘Oh, no, never that! He’s got a reputation for absolute fairness; deal well with him, and he’ll deal well with you. Just don’t expect any loving kindness,’ her friend said drily. ‘Of course, sharks can’t help being the most lethal predators in the sea. It’s inborn in them, like being cold-blooded and dangerous.’ She peered across the intervening crowd. ‘I thought he might bring along the latest very good friend, Anna Lee, but clearly no. This wouldn’t be her scene, anyway.’

‘Hmm, I deduce that you know her and don’t like her.’ Peta refused to wonder why discovering that Curt had a lover seared into her composure as painfully as an acid burn.

Her friend rolled her eyes. ‘I saw them together a couple of nights ago at her art exhibition. She is very chic. She is very artistic. She does installations. And she thinks lawyers—especially those who haven’t yet clawed their way off the bottom rung—are Philistine scum.’

Laughing, Peta shot another glance across the hall, something inside her twisting as her eyes were captured by an enigmatic grey-blue gaze. Curt McIntosh’s dark head inclined in a nod that had something regal to it.

Not to be outdone, she responded with an aloof smile before turning back to Nadine. ‘Don’t tell me you told her you didn’t like her installations?’

‘Of course not!’ Nadine primmed her mouth. ‘I have much better manners than that. My expression must have given me away. But when I buy an installation it will be more substantial than a collection of found objects depicting the primordial rhythm of creation.’

Peta grinned. ‘Urk!’

‘Just so,’ Nadine said smugly. ‘But she’s very beautiful, so I don’t blame the fabulous Curt for falling for her, even though I’d have expected more from him. He’s completely brilliant.’ She sighed and added with a smirk, ‘It’s a pity men are such superficial beings. Yet they’ve got the gall to claim that we’re driven by hormones!’

It was almost impossible to imagine Curt at the mercy of his hormones, Peta decided. He might behave like a shark, but he was fully in control.

On the other hand what did she know about the other sex? Nothing much, just enough to be certain that she was never going to marry a dominant man. Her father’s rigid insistence on being head of the family had been enough for her; when—if—she married, she’d choose a kind, decent man who understood that women had needs and brains and the right to have an opinion.

‘Evolution has a lot to answer for,’ she said brightly, and for the next half-hour or so managed to ignore Curt and the Mathesons.