The Far Side of Paradise

Nothing, she thought sturdily, but heat scorched her cheeks and she hastily bent to pick up the bag containing her togs.

‘So that’s agreed,’ he said calmly.

Taryn had never met another man with his uncompromising aura of authority and controlled, potent sensuality. She preferred her male companions to be interesting and unthreatening.

Like Peter.

That memory drove the colour from her skin. She produced a meaningless smile and said, ‘Actually, it isn’t, but it’s very kind of you to offer, and I’ll probably take you up on it.’

She got into the car, frowned as the engine took a sluggish couple of moments to power, waved with one hand and drove off.

Cade watched the elderly vehicle, its persistent rattle deepening his frown. It certainly didn’t look as though she had all Peter’s money; if she did, she’d have been able to buy a brand-new car. The amount he knew for certain she’d received wasn’t enough for that.

Perhaps she was canny enough to save it.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know enough about her to make any reasonable judgement.

But that, he decided, could be dealt with. If she needed a job, he could provide her with one for long enough to find out whether she was a money-grubbing opportunist …

Taryn stopped at the top of the hill to look down into the next desolate bay. One fire engine remained there and a couple of the firemen were checking the perimeters of the burn but, although wisps of smoke still drifted up, the fire had clearly been controlled.

No little red car, either, she noted. Her frown deepened. Jason was becoming rather too pressing, a nuisance.

But not dangerous.

Unlike the man she’d just left.

Dangerous? She gave a snort and muttered, ‘He’s a businessman, for heaven’s sake.’

Tycoons Taryn had seen on television or in the news were sleek, well dressed and well manicured. The thought of them being dangerous anywhere but in the boardroom was laughable.

So what made her foolish mind fix on that word to describe Cade Peredur?

Instinct, she guessed,

And Cade had certainly looked dangerous when he was scotching those greedy tongues of flame. He’d used her wet towel like a weapon, flailing it with an economy of movement that showed great strength as well as determination.

Also, there had been something in his manner when he approached Jason that had indicated a formidable male threat—one Jason had recognised.

OK, Cade was dangerous, as any strong man could be. But he was in complete control of all that strength. And none of it was directed at her.

So she didn’t have to worry or feel intimidated.

Images of his powerful body filled her mind. Water-slicked and gleaming, every long muscle lovingly delineated, he’d stolen her breath away.

Yes, her decision to see no more of him had been the right one. She glanced down, frowning at the sight of the tight fist pressed against her heart, and let her hand drop, spreading out the fingers before shaking them so they relaxed.

Plenty of women must have felt the same surging chemistry when they set eyes on Cade Peredur. Some of them would have ended up in his bed.

‘Lots, probably,’ she said aloud to a fantail flirting its tail from a nearby bush as it kept its beady black eyes fixed on her.

Smiling, she confided, ‘Men like Cade Peredur—men who positively seethe with masculine confidence—al-ways know they’ve got what it takes to make a woman happy in bed.’

Unless she was inherently cold …

But not one of his lovers had managed to make their liaison permanent.

And when—if—she ever fell in love properly, with a man who’d understand her fear of sex and help her overcome it—she wanted permanence, a lifelong alliance like that between her parents. She wanted trust and equality and a family, laughter and commitment and security.

None of which immediately brought Cade to mind.

‘So forget about this love business,’ she told the fan-tail. ‘Because I don’t think the sort of man I want exists in this world.’

And she’d keep away from any more chance meetings with Cade Peredur. Next time she was struck by the urge to go to the beach she’d slake it with a shower. She wouldn’t have to keep it up for long; he had to have things to do and places to go—empires to run, worlds to conquer, women to overwhelm—so he’d soon leave New Zealand.

And, once he was gone, her life would return to normal. No chills, no cheap thrills when those hard blue eyes met hers, no shivering awareness of his sheer physical impact …

For several moments more she stood looking down at the blackened landscape, frowning at the ugly stain across the grass and the rank smell of incinerated vegetation.

Then she stiffened her spine and got into the car and drove back to the sleepout she rented in an orchard a few kilometres from the village. Basic but comfortable, it boasted a miniature kitchen and a slightly larger bathroom, and the wide terrace outside made up for the lack of space within.

Clean once more, and in fresh clothes, she picked up an apple from the bowl on the bench and dropped into the lounger to demolish the fruit, carefully not thinking of Cade Peredur.

She needed to find work. She’d quite enjoyed selling souvenirs to tourists, but the summer wave of visitors through the village had receded, leaving her behind.

Jobless and drifting …

Ever since Peter had killed himself, an aching emptiness made her question the value of her existence.

‘Time to stop it,’ she said out loud, and made a sudden resolution.

Drifting was for slackers, for losers.

It was more than time to find some direction to her life. Before she’d gone to the United Kingdom, she’d enjoyed her work in one of Auckland’s largest libraries. In London she’d worked in a coffee shop run by a New Zealand friend until she met Peter. They’d clicked straight away and he’d introduced her to his friends—a very earnest, intense artistic circle who’d treated her as a kind of mascot.

Peter had even found her a new job; she’d been in her element cataloguing the immense library collected over fifty years by the deceased uncle of one of his acquaintances.

Although she and Peter had become close, there had been no sexual spark between them, so his proposal had come as a shock. She’d thought he was joking and burst out laughing.

Only he hadn’t been. And then she’d had to refuse him as gently as she could.

His death had horrified her. She should, she thought wearily, have realised it wasn’t artistic temperament that caused his bouts of depression, always followed by tearing high spirits. She had wondered if something was wrong, but it had never occurred to her that she might be the cause.

Assailed by questions for which she’d never know the answers, and bitter remorse at not handling the situation better, she’d come back to Aramuhu, the only place she’d ever really called home.

But there was nothing here for her, no answers. So now what? The future stretched before her, featureless and uninviting.

‘I need to make a plan,’ she said aloud, resisting an impulse to give up. Unlike her parents, she was not a born rover. Yes, she wanted some purpose in her life, and she’d like to settle somewhere like Aramuhu, with a steady job in a nice library.