private road indicated by Sir Frank, following it through the thicket of mature native bush which fringed the edge of the new subdivision, completely screening it from sight of the adjoining property. The road wound out of the trees again and a house came into view—a huge, sprawling, double-storeyed white wooden villa, a graceful old lady from a bygone era surrounded by a crinoline of verandahs and set in what seemed like acres of ground—a mixture of formal plantings and rambling natural wilderness. The back of the house had a clear view to the sea, the front was a welcoming smile of curved flowerbeds, bursting with late summer roses.
Regan drew up where directed, around the side of the house, in front of a six-door garage which looked as if it might have been converted from stables.
She stretched the kinks in her legs as she got out of the car, glad she had worn an uncrushable camel skirt with her cool leaf-green summer blouse, but when she tried to get her bags out of the car boot, Sir Frank hustled her away.
‘Beatson will get those and put the car away—Steve’s our caretaker and odd-job man—chauffeur, too, if you need him.’
Regan was staring at something around the back of the house. ‘Is that gazebo on an island?’
Sir Frank chuckled at her astounded expression. ‘Hazel’s idea—thought it would be a romantic place to go for al fresco lunches. Had to have a brute of bulldozers in to dig the lake and divert a stream to feed it.’ His blue eyes twinkled brightly in his plump red face. ‘Why don’t I go and break the good news about your arrival while you take a stroll in the fresh air…?’
Since Regan would sooner not be around when Sir Frank broke his ‘good news’ to his sister-in-law, in case it fell badly flat, she accepted his suggestion with alacrity.
The small oval lake was a marvel of engineering, and she wandered out onto the small wooden jetty where two small rowboats were moored and looked across the narrow divide of water at the latticed gazebo, guessing that the huge spreading oak that dappled the grass on one end of the little island had been there long before the bulldozers had moved it, probably as long as the main house itself.
The hot afternoon sun beat down on her unprotected head and she was drawn across the wide, luxuriant lawn to walk in the cool shade of the wild wood which grew along one side of the house. The undergrowth to the mature canopy of deciduous and evergreen trees was a mingling of native and exotic shrubs and seedlings, and Regan idly plucked a large, glossy leaf as she turned to view the building from this new aspect.
A movement at one of the ground-floor windows caught her eye and she saw the figure of a man talking on the telephone, pacing restlessly back and forth past the open sash. She was at least a hundred metres away, and at first all she registered was that he was dressed in a suit and that he was tall and dark-haired, but then he halted by the window, glancing up from the sheaf of papers in his hand, and she got a good look at him full-face.
A thrill of dumbfounded horror turned her blood to ice.
Adam!
The leaf fluttered to the grass as her hand flew to her mouth.
He noticed her at the very instant of her appalled recognition, and for a moment they were both motionless, staring at each other.
Even at a hundred metres she could read his body language. His back stiffened in surprise and then his torso tilted forward in puzzlement. He moved right up to the open window and she began to edge backwards into the undergrowth, praying that he wouldn’t realise who it was that he was seeing. Surely in her summery skirt, short-sleeved blouse and simple flat shoes she was a far cry from the sophisticated Eve whom he had tumbled in his bed.
The phone still plastered to the side of his head, he suddenly thrust his shoulders out of the window.
‘Hey—you!’
Regan’s body jerked. She took another step back. No—this nightmare couldn’t be happening. Not here—not now!
‘Hey! Don’t go!’ To her horror he dropped the phone from his ear and put one long leg over the windowsill. ‘Eve?’
Oh, God!
‘Eve, is that you?’
He was already out on the verandah, striding along to the wooden steps. Regan whirled around and blindly fled, crashing through the shrubbery in a desperate attempt to put as much space between them as possible before those long, powerful legs hit the grass running. Even in full business-kit, with a one hundred-metre handicap, he could probably still sprint her down on a flat track.
Fortunately she was small enough to scuttle through chinks in the tangled undergrowth that would have snagged larger bodies, but as she got deeper into the trees she could still hear him thrashing somewhere behind her, hoarsely yelling at her to stop, pausing now and then in his pursuit to gauge her direction.
When she almost ran slap-bang into the sturdy trunk of an old macrocarpa pine, top-heavy with needle-like green foliage, she let instinct take hold and shinned up the untrimmed branches until she reached a high fork into which she could safely wedge herself, out of sight of the ground.
None too soon. She clutched at her perch, the rough bark pricking her cheek and bare forearms as she flattened herself against the trunk, holding her breath as dried pine needles crunched under the pounding feet below.
‘Eve? Dammit—answer me—is that you?’
To her dismay he halted almost directly beneath her, breathing heavily. Thank God she wasn’t wearing anything bright that might give her away if he thought to look up. She felt dizzy, and suddenly remembered to breathe. She didn’t want to faint and flatten him with the proof of her presence.
‘What the hell…!’ he muttered to himself. ‘Look—whoever you are, you’re not in trouble for trespassing, if that’s what you’re worried about!’ he called, his voice rasping with controlled impatience. ‘Come on out—I’m not going to hurt you…’
He fell silent until the hush of leaves stirring in the gentle seaward breeze was shattered by the muffled shrill of a cellphone. An angry curse floated up into the boughs as he ripped the phone out of the inside pocket of his buttoned jacket.
‘Yes! What…? No—I put down the phone and got distracted for a moment…No, no, of course it’s not—you’re right; we need to get this settled now…’ Her eyes hunted for the sight of him as he wheeled in a half-circle one last time and then began retracing his steps. ‘Sorry…we’ll pick up at the clause we left off and go through it point by point…just let me put my hands on that contract again—’
Regan remained frozen for a few minutes after she had listened to his retreat. When she was certain that his words weren’t just a cunning ruse to flush her out, she uncramped her limbs and began to climb down with a great deal more care than she had tackled the ascension, thankful that her skirt was cut on an A-line rather than tight around her knees and that she had no pantyhose to snag.
She hit the ground with a groan of relief and bent to brush the bark and twigs off her clothes and legs, and straighten the seams of her skirt. She was retucking her blouse into her waistband when a prickle on the back of her neck made her swing around, her heart pattering like that of a baby bird who’d fallen out of its nest.
A thin, gangly youth, with hair the colour of used rope straggling to his shoulders and round, wire-framed glasses that accentuated the boniness of his face, stood watching her from
