even remembered the caption: ‘Mountaineer “died doing what he wanted”.’ The quote had been from Wendy Storey, the woman who had supported his insane aspirations and borne his children. Like everyone else she had praised his courage. Katrien had admired hers more.
‘Thank heaven,’ she said to Callum as he got into the cab beside her and took her hand in his, ‘you have no desire to conquer mountains.’
‘How do you know?’ he asked her lightly.
Katrien directed him a look of undiluted horror.
Callum laughed, pulling her into his arms. ‘I have other desires,’ he growled in her ear.
She let him kiss her, and kissed him back, trying to banish from behind her closed lids the vivid memory of aroused male curiosity in a pair of deep green eyes.
When the taxi driver let them out at the door of her flat in the inner suburb of Herne Bay, her hair had lost its sleek styling and Callum was breathing less than evenly. He fumbled as he dug in his wallet for money to pay the driver before following Katrien inside.
She made coffee and they sat side by side on the comfortable softness of the two-seater sofa in her sitting room while they drank it, but when he took her in his arms again she laid her head on his shoulder and said, ‘I’m really tired, Callum.’
He stroked her hair. ‘I’m a selfish brute.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re the nicest man I’ve ever known. But I guess you’re right…I haven’t quite got over the flu bug. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘I’ll wait until you’re properly well again.’
He was the nicest man she knew. So why was she suddenly finding it impossible to look at him? Why did she feel that if he didn’t leave soon she’d scream?
She kissed him on the lips, not giving him a chance to reciprocate before she pulled away and turned to rise from the sofa and pick up their cups. ‘Maybe next time…’ she muttered vaguely.
Almost any other man would have swept her into bed the minute he’d got a ring on her finger, if not before. Callum had too much finesse for that. He’d been prepared to wait for the right moment. And when the right moment was delayed by her inconveniently succumbing to the nasty ailment that seemed to have afflicted half the population this winter, he’d sent her flowers and phoned every day, even called in person with offers of nursing and food.
She’d wanted only to be left alone to subsist on packet soups and orange juice, and not to have him see her looking and feeling like a sodden and aching dishrag.
His offers spurned, Callum had phoned her sister, and Miranda had come round regularly with chicken soup and aspirin and bracing sympathy, sometimes bringing the youngest of her three children, with strict instructions to stay out of the sickroom and not disturb Aunty Kat.
Callum phoned for another cab while Katrien took the cups into the kitchen. She fussed around washing and drying them and putting away the sugar bowl she’d taken out for Callum’s coffee, making sure that no grains had spilled on the bench to attract Auckland’s voracious ants. Of course there were none. If there had been Callum would have wiped them up himself.
She was hanging up the tea towel when he came to the kitchen doorway. ‘I’ll be off, then,’ he said. ‘The cab will be here in a few minutes.’
She walked with him to the door, and he kissed her gently and lingeringly, his thumbs stroking her cheeks as he lifted his head and smiled down at her.
She recalled Zachary Ballantine caressing her arms. His skin had been less smooth than Callum’s, the pads of his thumbs faintly rasping.
She closed the door behind Callum and leaned against it, her forehead on the painted wood. What was wrong with her tonight?
She had a warm shower, then climbed into bed wearing a fleecy-lined cotton nightshirt. After switching off the light she lay staring into the darkness for a long time.
When at last her eyes drifted shut and the night enfolded her, he came.
It was the same as always. The man held her in his strong, imprisoning arms, and spoke words she couldn’t hear. And she struggled, frightened and unable to breathe, trapped in silent, murky depths, until the dark voice commanded her stillness, her compliance. And the words came clearly to her—Trust me.
The voice changed to reassurance, soothing her panic away. She felt his mouth on her lips, his breath filling her, the warmth of his body against the utter coldness of hers. And then the warmth flooded her as she clung to him while he lifted her and carried her out of the blackness and into the dazzle of light. And she opened her closed eyes and looked up at him.
She had dreamed of him so often that she knew now how the bright sun behind him shadowed his features, so that she could never see what he looked like.
Only this time it was different. His eyes were the deep green of the sea, and his hair was sleeked back but stubbornly waved; the chest she rested against and his shoulders under her encircling arms were bare and muscled.
He looked at her and smiled, and she felt her lips part under the lambent fire in his gaze.
Then he lowered his head and at the touch of his mouth on hers, her eyes flew open on darkness.
Her heart pounded as if she’d been running, and the bedclothes were disarrayed about her heated body. She pulled at them, then sat up and switched the bedside lamp back on, pushed back tumbled hair from her damp temples and squinted down at the time on her watch.
She’d been asleep for less than an hour.
Slumping back on the pillows, she left the light on and fiercely gazed at the cream-painted wall opposite her bed.
She had never been able to see the man. Sometimes she’d woken crying with frustration because he wouldn’t reveal himself to her, wouldn’t let her find out what he looked like.
Now, for the first time, the man of her dreams—and nightmares—had a face.
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOU know I don’t do swimsuit work.’ Katrien handed back the folder her agent had passed to her.
Hattie Fisher sighed. ‘You’re limiting your options. And this assignment—’
‘Yes, the money’s good.’
‘The advertising agency asked for you specially, you know.’
‘I’m flattered that they want me, but I’ll pass on this one, thanks.’
‘I don’t have anything else for you at the moment, until that shampoo commercial you’re booked for.’
‘That’s okay. I could do with a break.’ Katrien quashed a tremor of anxiety. She’d had to pull out of her last assignment when she got the flu and now here she was with only one confirmed booking in view. Modelling work within New Zealand was limited, and although in the past she’d flown to Australia at the drop of a hat, and sometimes further afield, she’d promised Callum to limit her overseas assignments. But she had her savings, and maybe
