added with bleak honesty, ‘Which is more than Ian and I seem to have to talk about now.’
Curt examined her closely. Small and slight, his sister breathed urban sophistication; on her own ground she’d hold all the weapons. ‘So what does Ian see in her?’
Eyes glittering with frustrated tears, Gillian snapped, ‘She’s tall, and I imagine her mouth and green eyes make her sexy in a kind of earthy, land-girl way. Apart from that she’s got lovely skin, brown hair usually dragged off her face and tied with string in a ponytail, and a reasonably good figure.’
Curt inspected his sister from the top of her expertly cut hair to the slim Italian shoes on her narrow feet. ‘She doesn’t sound like competition. Why would Ian fall for her?’
‘Oh, you know Ian—he’s always had a soft spot for people who work hard. Probably because he had to haul himself up by his bootstraps.’ After a short hesitation she said reluctantly, ‘And she’s a battler—she’s only got a few acres besides the land that Ian leased her, but she manages to scrape a living from it.’
Curt had thought nothing of his brother-in-law’s decision to lease a small area to his neighbour. Cut off from the rest of the station by a large gully, the land hadn’t been fully utilised. Now he wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him to suggest it be planted with trees…
He said judicially, ‘You’re sophisticated enough to know that men don’t fall in love with every woman they admire. There must be more than that to it.’
Her desperation showing, she retorted, ‘She’s at least ten years younger than I am—she can’t be much over twenty- three or -four. And a couple of months ago I noticed that whenever he talked about her—which he no longer does, and that’s a bad sign too!—something about his voice set every alarm off.’ She looked her brother full in the face. ‘You’re not the only one in the family with good instincts. I know when my marriage is threatened, and believe me, Peta Grey is a threat.’
Curt’s brows drew together but he tempered his voice. ‘If you want me to do something about it you’re going to have to give me proof, Gilly. So far, you haven’t.’
She spread her hands in a gesture that held elements of both appeal and despair. Elegant, manicured hands, he noted, with Ian’s engagement and wedding rings making a statement on one long finger.
‘I don’t think they’re lovers yet,’ she admitted, ‘but it’s only a matter of time, and I want us out of Northland before— before it happens. A few months ago Ian was talking about a job in Vanuatu managing your rice plantation there. He seemed intrigued…’
The words trailed away as Curt said quietly, ‘Gilly, be reasonable. I can’t just move him on without some proof that it’s necessary. He’s doing a good job on Tanekaha; he’s hauled the station into profit under budget, and he’s a skilful manager of staff.’
Tears welled in her eyes, but even as he found his handkerchief she fought them back with a flare of anger. ‘Oh, see for yourself! I hate showing you these—I’m ashamed I even looked at them!—but if you want proof, here it is.’
She groped in her bag, hauled out a couple of photographs and hurled one onto the big desk. ‘Now tell me I’ve got nothing to worry about!’
Curt picked up the photograph. His brother-in-law stood facing a woman, a hand lifting to her face.
‘Check out this one too,’ Gillian said savagely, plonking another down on the desk.
If he’d had any doubt at all, the second shot banished it. This time both the people in the picture had turned towards an out-of-focus blur that might have been a bird swooping low, and the guilt stamped on Ian’s face would have convinced anyone.
Frowning, he examined the woman’s features. Certainly no beauty, but deep in his gut something stirred, a primal appetite that hardened his voice. ‘Who took the shots?’
‘Hannah Sillitoe—Mandy’s daughter. She got a digital camera in her Christmas stocking. Mandy dropped in to see us on their way back to Auckland after the holidays, and of course Hannah spent every moment outside taking photos of anything that would stay still long enough.’
Curt dropped the shiny images onto his desk. ‘How did she get these?’
‘She thought she saw a native pigeon fly into the big puriri tree by the stockyards. She’s an adventurous kid so she climbed the tree, but she couldn’t see any sign of the bird. She was on her way down when Ian and Peta came out of the old barn and stopped to talk.’ Her hands clenched by her sides. ‘Hannah was intrigued by the way the sun caught Peta’s hair, so she snapped them. The flash must have startled the pigeon because it swooped from the tree and flew towards them.’
Curt nodded. ‘Go on.’
She indicated the second photograph and finished in a voice brittle with humiliation, ‘They both swivelled around. Hannah tried to get a picture of the bird, but got that instead. When Mandy saw them she thought I should know what was going on.’
Curt asked brusquely, ‘What happened then?’
‘Hannah said they went off in different directions.’
He examined the photographs again, reluctantly admitting they were pretty damning evidence. Everything about the two figures shrieked intimacy—their closeness, the way they inclined subtly towards each other, their unconscious mimicry of stance and posture.
And being a man, he could understand what Ian saw in Peta Grey. The faded T-shirt moulded breasts voluptuous enough to stir a eunuch’s blood, and beneath the faded jeans her legs were long and lithe. Her coolly enigmatic face challenged the camera, and her mouth was sultry enough to tempt a saint; what would it take to shatter that air of control and release the passion beneath?
Of course, you might find nothing but naked self-interest there.
Anger smouldered to life inside him. ‘Does Ian know you’ve got these?’
‘No, and I’m not going to tell him,’ Gillian returned with spirit. ‘I’m not that stupid.’
Curt noted the way the sun shone on Peta Grey’s hair. The elemental fire in the pit of his stomach burned hotter, transmuting into something more complex than anger. When Gillian spoke he had to yank his gaze from the photograph to focus on her.
‘Curt, why don’t you come up and see for yourself? Believe me, if I’m wrong I’d be so relieved and grateful.’
Her voice broke on the final word and the smile she’d summoned wavered, then tightened into a grimace as she fought back tears. ‘I’m sorry to lump you with this, but there’s no one else I trust enough. And no one I can talk to.’
Which was his fault; Gilly had supported him when he needed her, and her love and faith had been punished. Neither of them had spoken to their parents for ten years.
Curt slung an arm around her shoulders and drew her against him. She sniffed valiantly, but eventually surrendered to harsh, difficult sobs, clutching his shirt with desperate hands as she gave up the fight for control. Like him, she’d been conditioned to hide her emotions, so she was terrified at this threat to her marriage.
‘All right,’ he said quietly when her tears began to ease. ‘I can come up next week.’
