The Blackmail Bargain. Robyn Donald

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.’

      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 СКАЧАТЬ