didn’t seem likely, but then what did she know of the very rich? Or the very beautiful? If the camera liked his face as much as her eyes had, he might well be a film star. As it was, his face had seemed vaguely familiar, like a half-remembered image from a stranger’s photograph album.
From now on she was going to have to confine herself to the shore of this lake, which meant curious looks and often audible comments about her leg. She looked down at the scar. Purple-red, jagged and uneven, it stretched from her thigh to her ankle. She’d damned near died from shock and loss of blood. Sometimes she even wished she had.
Her capacity for self-pity sickened her. It was new to her, this enormous waste of sullen desperation that so often lay in wait like quicksand.
Determinedly cheerful, she said out loud into the stifling air, ‘Well, Ianthe Brown, you’ve had an experience. Whoever he is, he’s not your common or garden tourist.’
Lifting heavy waves of hair from her hot scalp, she headed for the bathroom.
Tricia Upham, the friend whose parents owned the bach and had lent it to Ianthe for as long as she needed it, had said as she handed over the key, ‘Now that your hair’s grown past your shoulders, for heaven’s sake leave it alone. Chopping it off and hiding it behind goggles and flippers was just wicked ingratitude.’
‘Long hair’s a nuisance when you spend a lot of time underwater in a wetsuit,’ Ianthe had replied.
Now it didn’t seem as though she’d ever get back into a wetsuit.
In fact, she’d be glad if she could just get into the water. Setting her jaw, she washed her face and towelled it dry. ‘Self-pity is a refuge for wimps,’ she told her reflection, challenging the weakness inside her.
Soon she’d be able to swim again.
Surely.
She only needed determination.
The man behind the desk called out, ‘Come in.’
Mark appeared. ‘Before you tell me how big a fool I am,’ he said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry.’
The frown that had been gathering behind Alex Considine’s eyes vanished. He smiled with irony. ‘Just don’t let your enthusiasm override your common sense again.’
‘I won’t.’
‘If you see anything suspicious, report to me.’ His smile broadened. ‘I gather my mother got to you.’
Mark grinned and relaxed. ‘Several times,’ he said, adding, ‘She said you were in danger and emphasised that I should treat everyone with suspicion.’
So why bring a trespasser into the house? Alex wondered drily. Still, his mother was very persuasive, and Mark was a caretaker, not a bodyguard. ‘She’s spent her life worrying about me. I’m not in danger, especially not from slight young women of about twenty-five with a limp. Don’t take any notice of my mother.’
He hadn’t been able to convince her that, although there were people who’d rejoice at the news of his death, nothing was likely to happen to him in New Zealand. It had its problems, this little South Pacific country, and was fighting the worldwide increase in crime like every other country, but a man was probably as safe here as he would be anywhere.
He looked down at the pile of faxes on his desk and asked, ‘Who is the trespasser?’
Mark gave him a startled look. ‘How did you know I recognised her?’
‘If she’d been the usual tourist you’d have escorted her to the gate and sent her on her way.’
‘Yeah, well, I knew I’d seen her somewhere, and I knew it was on television, so I thought she was a reporter. That’s why I brought her back here. I thought you might want to interrogate her.’
Alex Considine nodded. ‘But?’
‘When I came in with the tea-tray I remembered who she was. She fronted a series of wildlife documentaries a year or so ago, until she got bitten by a shark somewhere up in the Pacific.’
So that was what had given her the limp and that hideous scar. Alex’s blood chilled. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Ianthe Brown. For a while she turned up on all the covers of the women’s magazines. She lost her job after she got bitten, of course.’ He shrugged. ‘The girl they got to replace her looks just as good in a bikini, but she’s not as good in her job. You could tell Ianthe Brown really liked what she was doing.’
Alex nodded, and Mark said, ‘By the way, I didn’t mean to hurt her wrist. She almost fell into the water and then she just lost it—started to shake and went as white as a sheet. Scared the hell out of me, so I hauled her out a bit too roughly. But I didn’t mean to hurt her,’ he repeated bluntly.
‘She’s probably nervous in the water,’ Alex said. ‘After an attack like that, anyone would be.’
‘Well, yeah, she might be, although we don’t have any sharks in the lakes.’
Alex laughed. ‘It’s not quite so easy as that,’ he said drily. ‘All right, on your way.’
‘What time do you want dinner?’
‘Eight.’ He was already looking at the first paper, and barely heard the door close behind the other man.
An hour later he lifted his head and got up, walking out onto the deck. The lake danced before him, ripely blue as the sheen on a kingfisher’s wings, and he summoned the face of the woman.
Intriguing, he thought.
But he’d known women who were more than intriguing, who exuded sexual promise with every smile, every movement of their bodies. This one wasn’t like that. Oh, she had a good figure and skin, and her golden eyes were miraculous, but she limped badly, and although she had regular, neat features she wasn’t beautiful in the modern sense.
He frowned. At first those hot amber eyes had glittered with anger, the long dark lashes almost hiding the wariness. And that hair! Hair to tangle around a man’s heart, he thought sardonically, knowing his was safe. This was a more primitive reaction; he wanted to see her hair spread out on his pillow, that delicately sensuous mouth blurred by his kisses, those eyes heavy and slumbrous with passion.
When their eyes had met, his stomach had contracted as though he’d been punched in the solar plexus. A savage, unmanageable physical desire had bypassed defences set up and reinforced since early adolescence.
Using the cold, analytical brain that served him so well, he recalled her face, her defiant stance, the square chin, the gentle, womanly curves—and watched his hands clench in front of him as his body responded helplessly.
What quality in her summoned such a response? She’d had no tricks, no artifice. The soft mouth had been naked of lipstick, and the glinting eyes hadn’t been emphasised by mascara and eyeshadow. Yet beneath her delicate, slightly old-fashioned prettiness he’d sensed a smouldering intensity, a primitive carnal power that threatened while it beckoned.
What had those amazing eyes seen when she’d looked at him the first time?
Grimacing,
