Czytaj książkę: «Honeymoon Baby»

CHAPTER ONE

JENNIFER was filling a vase at the kitchen sink when the sleek, low-slung dark green car came gunning around the tree-lined curve of the driveway, almost fish-tailing into a bank of ferns as the driver belatedly realised the bend was a lot sharper than it looked. She frowned out of the window as she watched the unfamiliar car recover from its near-skid and continue at a more cautious pace up the narrow, rutted gravel drive to park in front of the low dry-stone wall which enclosed the cottage garden in front of the house. With the heavy dust coating the tinted windscreen she couldn’t make out the driver, but the lone pair of skis strapped to the moulded black roof-rack suggested a stray single hoping for a bed.

Whoever it was would be out of luck. Jennifer disliked having to turn custom away, but all her rooms were currently occupied and—she unconsciously crossed her fingers—apart from a few odd days, booking was fairly solid for the rest of the month...providing the mountain minded its manners.

She glanced out of the corner window at the billowing, dirty grey mushroom-cloud of steam and ash which boiled up from the snowy summit of Mount Ruapehu, blotting out the formerly blue sky. The scenery was spectacular but living on the borders of a National Park, within twenty kilometres of an active volcano, had its drawbacks. Although there had been no major eruption here for thousands of years, the 2797-metre-high mountain itself was a powerful reminder of man’s vulnerability to the forces of nature, and lately a series of minor eruptions had put a serious crimp in the local economy of one of New Zealand’s premier ski resorts.

Jennifer’s wide mouth turned down at the corners at the thought of another disappointing winter. Vulcanologists and government scientists had been closely monitoring the mountain since it had exploded back into life just over a year ago, coating the ski fields with successive layers of brown ash for months, causing the closure of the mountain to skiers, sightseers and climbers, and creating great financial hardship for the local businesses who were heavily reliant on a good ski season for the greater portion of their annual income. There had been no loss of life or property, but the damage in terms of adverse publicity had been considerable.

Now, just as the public alert level had finally been dropped and early snowfalls presaged a long ski season that would enable the local tourist industry to recoup some of the previous year’s losses, Mount Ruapehu was rumbling again, sending steam and sediment from its crater lake streaming into the atmosphere. Although the scientists claimed there was no indication that the new eruption would be any bigger than last year’s, casual skiers were already cancelling their holidays in droves. Only the hard-core snow-junkies seemed willing to gamble on parts of the ski fields remaining open for the duration of their stay.

Fortunately a small, quiet bed and breakfast establishment like Beech House appealed more to mature tourist couples and lone travellers than to groups of avid skiers, so Jennifer hoped to weather the crisis better than some of the other, larger moteliers and resort operators, whose advertising was focused on pre-packaged ski deals. Some of her guests were even booked in because, rather than in spite of the possibility of a more fiery eruption.

Jennifer’s mouth curved up again, tawny brown eyes glowing in a secret smile of contentment behind her tortoiseshell spectacles. At least this year she didn’t have to suffer the black panic of wondering whether she was going to be able to meet the next mortgage payment...

The sound of a car door opening switched her attention back to the new arrival as a slight figure glided into the kitchen to place some garden produce and a bunch of brilliant yellow chrysanthemums on the bench.

‘Snazzy car. Who is it?’ asked Susie Tang, going on tiptoe to peer out of the window.

Even so, her glossy black head barely came up to Jennifer’s collarbone. Although five feet ten wasn’t much over average height for a woman, she always felt like a veritable Amazon next to her diminutive part-time employee. ‘My guess is foreign, lost or illiterate...or maybe just someone who doesn’t believe “No Vacancy” signs.’

‘Uh-oh!’ Susie clapped her hand over her mouth, her almond-shaped eyes widening under her jet-black fringe. ‘I said I’d hang it out for you when I left yesterday, didn’t I? Sorry, Jen, I forgot...’ The mournful mobility of her expression banished any illusion of oriental inscrutability. Susie’s every thought and mood registered on her face.

A masculine hand splayed on the roof of the car as the driver hauled himself out of his bucket seat. ‘Never mind—if he gets a look inside and likes what he sees, maybe he’ll come back and stay another time,’ said Jennifer, reaching for the flowers. A lot of her custom came from repeat business or via word-of-mouth recommendation.

‘Wow!’ Susie was nearly falling out of the window. ‘He’s even snazzier than his car! Since there’s no room at the inn do you think I could interest him in bed and breakfast?’

Jennifer’s laughing reply died in her throat as the man lifted his head in a quick, predatory motion to stare up at the house. The sun flared off hair the colour of old gold and the black wrap-around sunglasses couldn’t disguise the distinctive jut of his high cheekbones and the hollow cheeks bracketing the unshaven chin. A wave of nauseating disbelief washed over her, making her knees sag against the kitchen cupboards.

Surely fate couldn’t be so cruel!

She clutched the vase to her stomach, slopping water onto the tiled surface of the bench, praying that her eyes were deceiving her.

Gravel crunched under his feet as he strode around to the back of the car and opened the boot. Faded jeans moulded long legs and lean hips, and a cream woollen jumper under the black hip-length leather jacket studded with snaps and zips completed the image of threatening masculinity. He hefted a suitcase out of the boot, moving with the easy confidence of a man in the prime of his life, at the peak of his virility...

And definitely no wild illusion.

‘Oh, God—!’

‘Jen, what’s the matter? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost?’

Worse than a ghost. Much, much worse! She was staring into the face of grim reality. A nightmare complication to an already convoluted existence. A living, breathing reproach to her unquiet conscience.

She had thought him safely ensconced in London. What hellish coincidence had landed him here, in her own private little corner of the world?

Oh, God!

‘Jen, you’re not going to pass out on me, are you? Jen?’

Susie’s sharp anxiety penetrated her ringing skull, beating back the icy chills of disbelief which had frozen her brain. She shook her head violently, self-preservation screaming to the fore as she jerked back from the window.

‘No, I’m fine,’ she lied, grabbing the bunch of chrysanthemums and haphazardly stuffing them into the pottery vase.

‘Is it him? That man? Do you know him?’ Susie angled herself against the glass to watch him vanish around the corner of the sprawling bungalow, in the direction of the front porch. ‘If he’s bringing in his bag perhaps he’s not just cold-calling. Maybe there’s been a mix-up in the bookings. If he spoke to Paula on the phone—you know she’s not big on writing things down...’

At the mention of her mother Jennifer’s heart leapt in her chest. Thank goodness she wasn’t here! She and Aunty Dot had driven over to The Grand Chateau for a Gourmet Club luncheon at the hotel restaurant; they should be away for at least another hour.

There was a welcoming bark and the loud scrabble of claws on the wooden porch, and seconds later the harsh grind of the old-fashioned doorbell reverberated in the entranceway. To Jennifer it sounded uncannily like the knell of doom.

‘Uh, shouldn’t you go and see what he wants?’ suggested Susie when the bell rang a second time.

If the newcomer got impatient and tried the door, he would find that it wasn’t locked. He could just walk in, and then, and then...

Oh, God!

‘You do it,’ she blurted.

‘Me?’

Guests and potential guests were always dealt with by either Paula or Jennifer at their own insistence—the personal touch was a hallmark of Beech House. Susie’s job was only peripheral to the bed and breakfast business—helping run Paula’s afternoon cooking classes and delivering the jams, pickles and jars of edible and decorative preserved fruit, which she sold to stores as far away as Taupo.

‘I have to put these flowers in the Carters’ room. Mrs Carter complained that the vase of daphne that Mum put in there was too highly perfumed,’ babbled Jennifer, conscious of the feebleness of her excuse.

She couldn’t blame Susie for looking bewildered at her urgency over the floral arrangements. Mr and Mrs Carter had gone on a cruise on Lake Taupo for the day and wouldn’t be back until late evening.

‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’

The doorbell rang again and Jennifer flinched, splashing water from the crammed vase down the leg of her fawn trousers.

‘I do feel a bit sick,’ she admitted bluntly, grabbing at the straw. ‘Look, all you have to do is say that we don’t have any vacancies for the foreseeable future, and direct him to another B&B or one of the hotels. Don’t go into details. And don’t give him one of our new advertising leaflets; I haven’t decided how to use them yet,’ she tacked on hastily, remembering the glossy reprints that her mother had ordered as a surprise, with ‘Jenny Jordan and Paula Scott, proprietors’ in flowing bold type on the front.

‘But, how—?’

‘For goodness’ sake, Susie, I’m only asking you to answer the door, not perform brain surgery!’ she snapped.

Susie blinked, more surprised than offended by the implied insult. In the three months that she had worked at Beech House she had never known Jennifer be anything but kind, considerate and polite, if a little wicked in her sense of humour. Perhaps, though, a little moodiness was only to be expected from now on...

‘OK, OK—don’t get your hormones in a bunch.’ She grinned. ‘I’ll go...but, uh, what if he asks—?’

‘Just get rid of him!’

Jennifer bit her lip as Susie shot out of the kitchen, propelled by the low-voiced shriek. She was going to have to apologise, but later—when the immediate danger had passed and she had control of herself again.

Not wanting to compound her sins by being caught out in another lie, she forced her shaky legs into action, slipping through the dining and living rooms and sneaking out along the sweeping back verandah, leaving a faint trail in the thin mantle of volcanic ash. She let herself into the large double bedroom which was considered the best in the house for its unobscured view of Ruapehu. Closing the French doors on the icy southerly wind, she picked up the crystal vase with its artfully arranged sprays of daphne and replaced it with the flung together chrysanthemums.

She looked blankly around the room that she had tidied earlier. Should she wait in here until she heard his car leave? She eyed the door to the passage, which was slightly ajar. She longed to creep up to the sanctuary of her bedroom and bolt the door, but the narrow staircase to the converted attic was in full view of the front door.

She turned away, catching sight of her glazed expression in the old-fashioned mirror atop the dressing table. No wonder Susie had looked at her with such concern! She had never considered herself a beauty, but right now the too-square face with its too-sharp nose and slightly asymmetrical mouth was starkly plain—her dark brown hair, tumbling in careless waves to her shoulders, contrasting with a complexion as pale and waxy as the daphne blooms that she held in her hand. The bright red jumper that her mother had knitted the previous winter further accentuated her pallor, and snugly defined full breasts which trembled as if she had just run a marathon. With her left eyebrow twitching above the thin amber curve of her round spectacle frame, she looked like a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Which was exactly how she felt.

The cloying sweetness of daphne clogged her nostrils as she paced. Why on earth was Susie taking so long to get rid of him?

A vivid picture of golden male confidence sketched itself in her head and she halted on a silent moan. What if Susie couldn’t handle it?

What if he chose to flex his insufferable arrogance and argue?

What if he exercised his brutal charm and insinuated himself over the threshold?

And what if his being here wasn’t simply a rotten piece of malignant bad luck?

She stared out at the smouldering mountain, so busy agonising over the possibilities that she didn’t notice the door to the hall swinging open until a squeak of the hinges made her stiffen.

‘Playing hard to get, Mrs Jordan?’

Jennifer’s quickened breathing hitched to an uneven stop as she slowly turned around, to be impaled by green-gold eyes which were every bit as cruelly condemning as she remembered. But now their contemptuous coldness was super-heated to a vaporous fury that made her wish he hadn’t taken off his sunglasses.

Her face was on fire while her hands and feet felt like lumps of ice. Black dots prickled across her vision and her tongue suddenly felt too big for her dry mouth.

‘R-Raphael. What a surprise. Wh-what are you doing here?’ she managed threadily.

Raphael Jordan advanced into the spacious room, shrinking it to the size of a jail cell, his cynical smile oozing pure menace.

‘What do you think, Mrs Jordan?’

She swallowed, trying to work moisture into the dryness of her throat, wishing that he would stop sneering her name in that ominously insulting fashion.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, meaning she didn’t dare speculate. ‘Are—are you just passing through on holiday?’

He bludgeoned aside the frail hope. ‘Not a holiday—a hunting expedition.’ He kept on moving, forcing her to back up until her calves hit the dressing table drawers. ‘For certain very valuable—and very elusive—kiwis...’

Jennifer’s stomach lurched sickeningly at his use of the plural. ‘K-kiwis are a fully protected bird,’ she stuttered stupidly. Although she knew he was only just over six feet, he seemed to loom for ever. ‘It’s against the law for people to hunt them.’

His feral gaze gloated over her white face. ‘In their native habitat, yes, but what happens to greedy kiwis who venture where they don’t belong and violate the laws of nature...? I’d say that makes them fair game, wouldn’t you?’

He made no attempt to touch her, yet she sensed his straining muscles yearning to do physical violence. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, her eyes sliding away from his grim expression to search the empty doorway behind him.

‘Where’s Susie? What did you say to get her to let you in?’ Her cold hands were suddenly as clammy as her brow and her voice sank to a horrified whisper. ‘What have you told her?’

His shrug was a ripple of expensive leather. ‘About our relationship? How about the truth?’

She fought against the bile rising in her throat. ‘What truth?’

His full-lipped smile was cruelly taunting.

‘Why, that you’re my father’s wife, pregnant with my child!’

The heavy vase slipped through Jennifer’s nerveless fingers, smashing to pieces on the polished hardwood floor as she tumbled headlong into the smothering darkness.