Kitabı oku: «Summer Seduction»

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS the music that first told Blythe the other house in the gully was occupied again.

When she opened her side door just after sunrise, haunting organ notes reached into the fresh saltiness of the morning, drawing her gaze down and along the gully to the old house, its empty windows burnished to flax-flower orange by the morning sun.

A classic of New Zealand architectural style, the house was a no-nonsense weather-board square, the wide front veranda sheltered by a curve of corrugated iron in need of a coat of paint. The builders had placed it at the narrow end of the pear-shaped gully near the foot of a gentle rise, facing the scrubby hills along the shoreline where they dipped to frame a tiny corner of the limitless Pacific Ocean.

The melody swelled and soared above the windbent manuka bushes and tall, broadleaved flax, set the creamy plumes of the toe-toe shivering, and rose to Blythe’s white-painted cottage, stubbornly perched on a slope overlooking the gully to one side, the sea to the other.

She was tending seedlings in the plastic-shrouded tunnel house when the music stopped. Its sudden cessation in the middle of a bar made her pause and lift her head, curbing a loose corkscrew of soft russet hair that had escaped from her carelessly fastened ponytail. When the lovely sounds didn’t resume, she felt vaguely, irrationally troubled.

Silly. Whoever had been listening to the recording was tired of it and had switched it off.

But in the afternoon she made a batch of biscuits, wrapped a small bunch of dried strawflowers and grasses in a square of dark burgundy tissue and tied it with a bow of yellow-dyed flax fibre. Then she walked to the old house, along the sparse, tough grass growing between the wheel ruts that formed a rough road along the gully and beyond.

The silvery wood of the veranda steps was smooth under her sneakers. The uncurtained up-and-down windows were freshly cleaned and shining. Blythe kept her eyes from them despite her curiosity about the new occupants, and tapped on the door.

No response, even when she knocked again, and yet she sensed that the house was occupied.

She waited a little longer, then laid the bouquet and the plastic ice-cream container full of biscuits on the doorstep.

She was straightening when the door opened.

Flustered, she pushed back the stubborn curl falling across her eyes. ‘I didn’t hear you coming!’

The man who faced her was tall enough to make her feel even smaller than her slightly-below-average height, and he hadn’t shaved that morning. His hair, dark but not quite black, looked as if he’d been running his fingers through it. Under emphatic brows his eyes were an intriguing deep, deep green with amber flecks about the irises, and an imperious nose jutted above a firm, masculine mouth and inflexible chin. His loose T-shirt echoed the green of his eyes.

‘You were listening at the keyhole?’ he asked with cool enquiry.

‘No, of course not!’ Blythe denied, blinking at him. ‘I brought you some biscuits and…’

Flowers seemed somehow inappropriate. She dropped her gaze to the pathetic offerings on the step. The reason she hadn’t heard his approach on the uncarpeted boards of the wide hallway was that he was wearing socks but no shoes with the jeans that encased his long legs.

He looked down but didn’t move to pick the things up. His head lifted slowly, his eyes taking in her wellworn sneakers, the bare legs emerging from crumpled khaki shorts, and the checked cotton shirt that skimmed her breasts and lay open at her throat.

When he returned his attention to her face he didn’t look impressed.

Blythe hurried again into speech. ‘I live over there—’ she gestured in the direction of the cottage. ‘I just wanted to welcome you…your family…’

His expression totally closed down. ‘I don’t have a family.’

Blythe nodded jerkily. ‘I must have been away when you arrived.’ Yesterday she’d delivered some of her dried flowers to retailers in Auckland, visited her parents and then caught up with friends over dinner in a city café. ‘But I heard the music this morning—’

‘If it disturbed you—’

‘Oh, no!’ she assured him. ‘I rather liked it. Really. Anyway…welcome to Tahawai Gully.’ She smiled at him. Her mouth, she’d been told, was made for smiling, its generous contours subtly tucked upward at the ends. ‘You’ll like it here.’ Catching a lift of his eyebrow as if he doubted her capacity to foretell his feelings, she changed tack. ‘Um…are you on holiday?’ Maybe he wouldn’t stay long. She wasn’t sure she wanted him for a neighbour.

He said grudgingly, ‘I’ve leased the place for six months.’

‘Oh, that’s nice. I’m glad it’s being used again.’ She remembered it as a family home—noisy, untidy but clean and welcoming. She held out her hand. ‘My name’s Blythe. Blythe Summerfield.’

His mouth twitched at one corner. ‘Of course.’

‘What?’

Not answering that, he lifted his right hand and engulfed hers in a hard clasp. ‘Jas Tratherne.’

‘Jazz?’ She could hardly imagine a less likely name for this taciturn, held-in man.

‘Jas.’ He confirmed the pronunciation she’d given it. ‘J-a-s.’

‘Oh—short for something?’

‘My parents saddled me with Jasper,’ he said after a pause. ‘I didn’t care for it.’

Yes, she thought as he released her hand, leaving it tingling from his hold. He wasn’t a man who would put up with anything he didn’t care for. Including importunate neighbours. He stood in the doorway as if guarding the house from invasion, the hand he’d withdrawn from hers now gripping the jamb, broad shoulders and tapered body giving the impression of filling the space although he wasn’t at all overweight—if anything he was probably a bit under the ideal for the size of his frame, which was large but angular.

‘The place has been empty so long,’ she said. ‘If you’d like some help to clean it—’

‘I’ve done it.’

‘Oh—good. Um…I suppose you knew there was no phone connection here, but if you need—’

‘I have everything I need.’

Go away. He might as well have shouted it.

‘Right,’ Blythe said with a stirring of indignation. ‘Nice to have met you.’ Idiotic remark, and a lie too. Meeting him had been distinctly uncomfortable. Turning, she felt his gaze on her back as she went down the steps.

She was walking away when his voice stopped her. ‘Thanks,’ he said, making her turn again to face him. He had the flowers and the container of biscuits in his hands. ‘It was a nice thought.’

But he’d rather she hadn’t done it all the same, she guessed. ‘That’s okay,’ she told him, nervously flashing another smile. ‘Enjoy them.’

She didn’t look back again until she was halfway to her own place. Then her swift glance showed her he’d retreated and shut the door.

An unsettling man. He might be a dangerous man, perhaps even a criminal squatting unauthorised in the house. Quickly she dismissed the thought. If he’d been using the place illegally he would hardly have played his music so loudly, drawing attention to himself. And he hadn’t seemed furtive or threatening— just unwelcoming and somehow withdrawn.

And good-looking, she supposed—in a moody, Heathcliffish sort of way. She could imagine him striding across an English moor with a huge black dog at his heels. Wearing boots, she thought, grinning to herself as she passed the gardens and tunnel house sheltered by the lee of the hill. And breeches. Glowering at everyone in sight.

She climbed the rough, sandy steps to her little side porch, paused at the door to take off her sneakers, and padded inside barefoot. The old kauri dresser that served to divide the kitchen from the dining area had a mirror back. Her hair was as usual trying to fall in curls about her face—the dampness of the sea air made it perpetually unmanageable—and her cheeks were faintly flushed. Her dark eyes, framed by long, curved lashes, looked large and lustrous, and her soft mouth was still touched by a smile, the dimple she despised just discernible in her cheek.

She ought to be grateful for her looks. A heart-shaped face and natural curls, big brown eyes and an air of youthful innocence were just what many women craved. Sometimes, she knew, she’d got something she wanted or even been favoured unasked over others because she was conventionally pretty.

She hated the word. Being ‘pretty’ made people jump to conclusions—that she was a brainless bimbo, or that she’d welcome the advances of any halfway presentable male who wanted another notch in his belt.

Jas Tratherne wasn’t one of those, anyway. He’d looked at her and dismissed her as of no account. ‘Of course,’ he’d said when she introduced herself.

Of course, Blythe…

Her name meant carefree, happy. Well, so what? Didn’t Jas—she emphasised the hard final sound in her mind—Tratherne approve of happiness?

Or didn’t he believe in it?

She lifted her cellphone from where she’d left it on the kitchen bench and called her mother.

‘There’s someone in the old Delaney place at last,’ she said after the usual greetings. ‘A man.’

‘Oh—is he nice?’

‘He’s…polite.’

‘Is that all?’ Rose Summerfield laughed. ‘Well, at least you won’t be on your own there any more. Maybe we should come over this weekend and vet him.’

‘No!’ Blythe said instantly. ‘He’s very…private.’

‘A recluse? How old?’

‘Mm, maybe mid-thirties. He looks…’

‘What?’

Blythe struggled to explain. ‘He isn’t happy. And I don’t think he eats properly.’

‘Men don’t when they’re on their own,’ her mother said sweepingly. ‘Do you want to feed him up?’

‘He wouldn’t thank me for it.’ He had barely managed to say thank you for the biscuits. Maybe biscuits were another thing he didn’t care for.

‘He is all right, I suppose?’ Rose worried.

‘I don’t think he’s an axe murderer, Mum.’

‘Well, maybe we’ll come over anyway,’ Rose decided. ‘Just to let him know you’re not alone in the world.’

‘I’d love to see you, but really there’s no need—’

‘Sunday,’ Rose said firmly. ‘We’ll bring lunch.’

Early next morning Blythe caught a glimpse of her new neighbour loping at a steady pace past the cottage. He wore lightweight track pants and a navy T-shirt with running shoes, and looked like a serious jogger.

In the afternoon she went down to the beach to scavenge for pieces of driftwood and beach grasses.

Only four kilometres along the shoreline from Tahawai, although more than ten via the winding, unsealed and boneshaking road, was the popular holiday settlement, Apiata Beach. At low tide it was possible to walk—and clamber—from one to the other, but few people braved the several rock outcrops and stony little bays between the resort and Tahawai, even in the height of summer.

At this time of year, with winter barely giving way to a cool spring, Blythe rarely saw anyone but the occasional lone fisherman or family party of locals on the beach. Sometimes surfers turned up to try the waves, but most of them preferred Apiata.

Jas Tratherne was wearing white sneakers or maybe his running shoes—not boots anyway, she noted—and he didn’t have a dog at his heels. But he strode along the sand with a look of preoccupation, his head bent and one hand swinging a crooked driftwood stick, the other tucked into the pocket of a light parka.

He was walking near the water’s edge, skirting the white-flecked waves thumping onto the sand in a flurry of foam. As Blythe descended the sandy slope he looked up.

Blythe raised a hand in a half-hearted wave.

He returned the gesture, then resumed his walk.

Okay, she thought. He didn’t want company and that was fine. She headed off in the other direction.

That night music drifted in through her barely open bedroom window with the night breeze. As she hovered on the edge of sleep the poignant notes entered into her dreams, and the next morning she had the feeling that the music had gone on for a long time. Hours.

When she drove past the house to the store at Apiata, the detached wooden garage was open, what looked like a station wagon parked inside.

On her return she parked the van in her garage next to the tunnel house and took her paper, mail and milk up the steps and inside.

Sitting with a sandwich and coffee at the long table under the corner windows, she opened the newspaper. It wasn’t warm enough today to use the lounger on the high, enclosed deck outside.

After two cups of coffee she folded the paper and fetched her kete. She had woven the traditional-style Maori carrier bag herself. Mrs Delaney, matriarch of the large, boisterous family who had grown up in the house now occupied by the solitary and anti-social Jas Tratherne, had taught Blythe along with her own daughters the ancient art of flax-weaving.

She pulled on a hooded red sweatshirt as she left the porch, awkwardly transferring the plaited handles of the kete from one hand to the other and starting down the steps before she had fully donned the sweatshirt.

When she looked up she saw Jas Tratherne approaching, his hair stirred by the wind. He wore lightcoloured cotton trousers, sneakers and the nylon parka.

Fixing a smile on her face, Blythe paused as she reached the foot of the steps. ‘Hi.’

He didn’t smile, but nodded. ‘Good afternoon—’ and with a glance at the kete ‘—Red Riding Hood.’

‘Hardly.’ She parted the handles. ‘No goodies, see?’ She saw he’d shaved today, and the planes of his face were more sharply defined, adding to the impression that he’d recently lost weight.

He seemed to be debating whether to continue the conversation. After a moment he said, ‘So why are you carrying an empty basket?’

‘I’m gathering stuff from the beach.’

‘Stuff?’

As they were obviously headed in the same direction they really had no choice but to walk together. ‘Leaves, stalks, seedheads, driftwood—’

‘Shells?’

‘Mm, maybe. It’s not a great beach for shells. The surf’s too rough, and most of them get pounded to bits. Sometimes I pick up a nice piece of beach glass or some interesting stones.’

They walked on a few steps before he asked, ‘So what are you going to do with all this stuff?’

She suspected he wasn’t really interested but that he felt obliged to be polite. ‘I make notions.’

‘Notions?’

‘Arrangements of driftwood or flotsam and my own dried flowers. For some of them I weave flax containers or wall hangers.’

‘I’d have thought it would be too sandy here for flower-growing.’

‘The gully’s sheltered from the sea wind, and the soil on the bottom is quite peaty. And,’ she added, ‘there’s plenty of seaweed for mulch and fertiliser. The right flowers do very well.’

‘Like…?’

‘Strawflowers, statice, lavender—I use some and the rest go directly to florists.’

They went up the little rise between the hills, and the breeze blew strands of hair across Blythe’s eyes.

‘You’re running a business—on your own?’

‘Yes.’ Half closing her eyes against the wind, she shook back her hair. ‘It’s all mine.’

‘Yours?’

‘Why not?’

He studied her smooth skin and wide, questioning eyes. ‘You’re far too young!’

Blythe laughed and started down the slope. ‘I’m twenty-one,’ she said. Her lack of height, and the winsome prettiness that nothing she did with her hair or clothes or even make-up could efface, was deceptive.

He frowned, and a tinge of colour entered his cheeks. ‘You live alone up there?’ He glanced at the cottage behind them.

‘Since my grandmother died last year.’ A shadow crossed her face. ‘I moved in with her after Grandad’s death, because she was getting a bit frail and we didn’t like her being on her own. I’d been working at a nursery and taking night classes in horticulture, so it was an ideal opportunity to try setting up for myself, and at the same time it helped Gran.’ She lifted a hand to peel wind-blown hair away from her mouth. ‘Everyone thought I was crazy, trying to grow things here.’

‘Really.’ He was looking down at the uneven ground, his hands thrust into the pockets of his parka.

‘Too far from the city, they said, and too close to the sea. But it’s just over an hour from Auckland, and it’s turned out to be ideal. Only…the market for dried flowers is being taken over by the artificial sort. So I’m trying a new crop this year—sunflowers.’

‘Sunflowers.’ He looked at her and laughed. It was a brief laugh and sounded unpractised.

‘Is there something funny about sunflowers?’ she demanded, angling her head so that the wind pulled her hair away from her forehead.

‘No.’ His eyes looked suddenly glazed. ‘No—they’re very…interesting.’

She’d been going on about her family history and her work, and he was either being gently sarcastic or trying hard to pretend he wasn’t bored. ‘Well,’ she said awkwardly, backing from him, ‘I’ll…um…see you later.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Uh…good hunting.’ And he swung away and strode off along the sand.

Scavenging the tide-line, Blythe kept her eyes on the sea-wrack delivered by the bountiful waves, refusing to allow herself to peek at her unsettling new neighbour.

When she made her way back to the cottage the wind had grown wilder and carried fine, stinging rain with it, and Jas Tratherne had gone.

The rain intensified, thrown against the windows. Blythe lit a fire in the wood stove in a corner of the kitchen-cum-living room, and sat down to sort her new treasures, and wire some of the flowers that she had drying in nets strung from the ceilings of every room.

When the light started to fade she got up from the table. Through the rain-blurred window a glimmer at the other end of the gully drew her eye. She could make out a distant square of light, and a shadow that flickered across it, then returned and stayed.

She lifted a hand, but could discern no answering gesture from the still, obscure figure.

She turned to put on a light and make herself something to eat. While a slice of ham steak and a round of pineapple were grilling she washed a few leaves of lettuce, added fresh herbs and a squeeze of lemon juice, and wondered what her neighbour was having for dinner.

Maybe she should invite him for a meal. It would be a neighbourly thing to do; her grandmother would have done it, first thing.

But he wasn’t interested in socialising. No doubt he’d chosen to lease the house because of its relative isolation. He liked his own company, did Jas Tratherne.

That probably wasn’t quite true. He didn’t relish the company of other people, but he didn’t seem particularly comfortable with himself either.

The store at Apiata doubled as service station and postal centre. On Friday, as well as groceries Blythe bought diesel for the generator that provided her electricity. The storekeeper handed over her mail and said, ‘There’s a parcel here for Mr Tratherne. In the old Delaney place, isn’t he? Came in and said he might be getting mail here.’

‘Yes, he is.’

‘Doesn’t seem to have a phone. I don’t s’pose you’d like to deliver it to him? It’s sat here a couple of days already, and the weekend’s coming up.’

Blythe hesitated, although if it had been for anyone else along her route home she’d have agreed instantly. ‘Yes, all right.’

When the storekeeper lugged it out for her and slid it into the back of the van she saw why he was anxious to get rid of the parcel. It was a large carton and obviously not light.

She drove back to Tahawai and stopped in front of the Delaney house. Long ago there had been a fence, but now only a couple of weathered grey corner posts indicated the boundary of the section, and another bearing a single rusted hinge was all that was left of the gateway.

Through the bare window on the left of the door, she saw a big table with a row of books and a neat stack of papers on it, and what looked like a portable computer. The office-type chair behind it was empty.

The front door was ajar, and music poured out of the narrow space, surrounding her as she lifted her hand to knock.

She paused and dropped her hand, hypnotised by the rich, mellow sounds.

But if Jas Tratherne found her loitering on his doorstep he’d have cause to wonder if he’d been right about her listening at keyholes.

She rapped quite hard with her knuckles, and the door swung open onto the broad passageway. To her left the room with the desk looked otherwise empty except for a shelving unit along one wall, filled with folders and more books, and to her right, through another open door, she saw Jas Tratherne seated with his back to her at an electronic keyboard.

He lifted his hands from the keys and twisted round, his eyes meeting hers before he stood up, his face darkly flushing—with anger? she wondered. Or embarrassment?

He strode towards her across the bare floorboards into the passageway.

Blythe said the first thing that came into her head. ‘It wasn’t a recording.’

‘No.’ He stood facing her, his hand on the door as if he contemplated shutting it in her face.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, not sure what she was apologising for. ‘You play wonderfully,’ she told him, driven by her surprise and genuine admiration. ‘I don’t mean to interrupt.’

He didn’t bother to deny it. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘It’s what I can do for you,’ she said, stung by this unfriendly reception. ‘I have a parcel for you.’

His brows drew together. ‘More biscuits?’

‘I brought you a postal parcel from Apiata.’

‘Do you moonlight as a postal employee?’

‘I happened to be collecting my mail and Doug asked if I’d drop it off on my way home.’

‘Surely that’s against regulations.’

‘Very likely, but the locals have a habit of ignoring city-made regulations that don’t fit country circumstances. If you don’t want it, of course I could always take it back, but I’m probably not going there again until some time next week.’

Her voice had a decided edge, and her eyes no doubt were sparkling with a rare flash of temper. She was doing the man a favour, for heaven’s sake, and he wasn’t showing much appreciation.

He must have realised it too. ‘I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. I guess I’m not used to “country circumstances”. Where is the parcel?’

‘In the van. I’ll help you get it out.’

He looked down at her, making her conscious that her head was barely level with his shoulder. A faint twitch urged the corner of his mouth upward. ‘It’s that big?’

‘That heavy.’

She led the way and opened the back of the van. But when she put a hand on the box he said, ‘Leave it to me,’ and lifted it into his arms.

She closed the door, and by the time she’d gone to the driver’s side he had reached the steps and bent to put the box on the veranda, giving it a shove across the boards before turning to her. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll be glad to have them.’

‘Them?’

‘Books.’ A movement of his head indicated the box.

‘Oh…books!’ Blythe knew how heavy books could be. She put a hand on the open door of the van.

‘I never thanked you properly for the biscuits,’ he said. Maybe he felt the need to proffer an olive branch after his suspicious reception. ‘Home-made.’

It wasn’t a question really, but she said, ‘Yes. I hope you liked them.’

‘They were delicious.’

Signs of a thaw, Blythe noted with relief. ‘My parents are coming for lunch on Sunday,’ she said impulsively. ‘You could join us if you like.’

As she’d expected, he shook his head. ‘Thanks, I won’t intrude on a family lunch…’

She couldn’t help a small grin. ‘Actually you’re the reason they decided to come—or my mother did.’

‘I am?’

‘I mentioned you’d moved in and…well, you know, it’s pretty isolated here. They worry about me.’

‘Understandably.’

He flicked another glance over her and she fought an urge to draw herself up to her full but hardly substantial height. ‘I told them there’s no need.’

‘But they want to inspect your new neighbour?’

‘It’s all right,’ Blythe said. ‘I’ll say you’re too busy to make lunch, and if they suggest a friendly welcoming visit I promise to head them off at the pass.’

He seemed to be thinking that over. ‘If they’re concerned about their daughter’s safety I’d better meet them,’ he said astonishingly, ‘and put their minds at rest. I’ll come to lunch.’