The Final Proposal

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The road finished at what was obviously the entrance to Kear’s farm. A notice proclaimed that it was called Papanui, and five letter-boxes indicated a surprisingly large workforce. Jan stopped and examined them in case one had her grandfather’s name on it. None did.

She stood looking around, breathing in the sharp, sea-scented air, smiling a little as she recalled the swift glint in Kear’s eyes when she’d teased him about the quality of rural air. A cattlestop kept animals within while allowing vehicles through without the bother of opening and closing a gate. On the edge of the road an old rosebush scrambled in an untidy heap over a bank that revealed the shells of cockles, washed bone-white by rain and sun. An ancient Maori midden, probably.

Jan drew an unsteady breath and got back into the car. After some careful driving through what even to her city eyes were obviously fertile paddocks, she came to a place where the road divided; obeying her instructions, she took the right-hand fork. Immediately the surface of the road deteriorated into a series of ruts as it plunged down through a thick forest of feathery kanuka trees.

‘It’s all right,’ she comforted the MG. ‘Not much longer now.’

But it seemed to go on for ever, gouged into deeper and deeper furrows by the same rains that had produced the lush green grass on Kear Lannion’s station. Jan changed gear so cautiously that she felt she was on tiptoe, and finally, after creeping down a last steep grade, emerged onto a swathe of what had once been grass but was now reverting rapidly to coastal teatree scrub.

‘Oh, my God,’ she said as she saw the house.

She stopped on a final flourish of white road metal and, half-horrified, half-delighted, got out of the car.

The flat area, about three acres of it, was cradled by hills and bordered by a beach of white sand. To one side of the bay a little stream debouched into the sea. So far, so good. However, on the other side of the stream mangroves crouched, olive-green and sinister, their gnarled roots anchoring them into mud that seemed to have a life of its own, if the furtive movements she could see from the corners of her eyes were any indication.

‘Oh, hell,’ she said aloud, repressing a shiver. It looked the sort of place that should have crocodiles lying in wait.

Worse even than that was the house, an old weatherboard bach left over from the days when families used to camp out all summer in such affairs, with a large brick chimney supporting the end wall. Further back from the beach, and on higher ground, stood a floorless, three-sided shed clad in sheets of rusting corrugated iron. The two buildings looked forlorn and dingy and lonely, a jarring note in the serenity of sea and sky.

‘Why,’ Jan asked herself aloud, ‘don’t you listen when people tell you you’re too impetuous for your own good? And why on earth did he want me to spend a whole month here?’

Tears sprang to her eyes. No man should have to live in conditions like this when he was old and death not far away. The fact that her grandfather had chosen it didn’t help.

She fished out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes before heading determinedly across the coarse, springy grass towards the bach, the key to the door in her hand.

‘It’s highly unlikely,’ the solicitor had told her as he’d handed it over, ‘that it needs locking. However, your grandfather was a careful man.’

Careful? Jan nearly laughed. Anyone who lived in this shack had to be positively reckless! It looked ready to collapse at any minute.

It should have been impossible, but the inside was even worse than the exterior. Dust lay squalidly on the few items of old furniture and coated every other surface. Mixed with salt and rain-stains on the windows, it was so thick that she could only just see through the panes.

Jan was standing in the middle of the main room, looking helplessly around, when she heard the sound of an engine. It startled her so much that she scanned the room desperately, searching for a place to hide.

‘Don’t be an idiot!’ she commanded stoutly. But she stood out of sight as a Land Rover came down the hill, considerably faster than she had, and pulled to a stop beside her car, so incongruously sporty and chic.

Jan’s heart thumped erratically in her chest. She’d recognise that lithe form anywhere.

At Kear Lannion’s curt command the black and white dog on the back of his vehicle stopped its eager suggestions that it get down and explore and settled back quietly, its eyes fixed on him as he came towards the house.

He could be an axe murderer, but at that moment he represented safety. The oppressive weight of her grandfather’s fate lifted slightly as Jan walked across the cracked linoleum floor-covering to stand in the doorway.

‘Hello,’ he said, looking, she saw with a spurt of anger, unsurprised, although the narrowed grey eyes were enigmatic. ‘This is a long way from Auckland.’

‘Isn’t it just? Another universe.’ The flippancy of her reply sounded crudely out of place, but it was all she could manage.

He smiled, not very nicely. That comprehensive survey had taken in her narrow linen trousers and elegant boots, the fine weave of her cotton shirt and the thin gold chain around her neck.

‘This is private property,’ he said.

Jan discovered that she disliked him in equal measure to her unbidden, reluctant attraction to him. ‘My private property,’ she told him, not without relish.

He didn’t move but she detected a waiting kind of stillness in him, an unexpressed astonishment. Aha, she thought maliciously, you didn’t know that.

Not even trying to hide the dismissive note in his words, he said, ‘How did this happen?’

‘Fergus Morrison was my grandfather.’

His brows came together. For a moment she sensed a cold, deliberate patience that sent an icy chill down her back.

Then he said, ‘I see. I assume you plan to sell it.’

Later, she would understand that that was when she’d made up her mind to keep the place, but at the time she was too busy trying to ignore his effect on her to realise anything. ‘Possibly,’ she said.

It was just his size; short, thin people tended to be a bit wary of big people, especially when those big people walked with head erect and a rangy, almost arrogant self-assurance that sent out all sorts of messages—most of them tinged with intimidating overtones.

Kear went on conversationally, ‘If you do, I’d like first refusal.’

It didn’t seem too much to give him, but something held her back. She said, ‘I’ll have to talk to my solicitor about that.’

‘Of course,’ be said laconically. Nothing altered in his expression, no emotion darkened the pale gaze, but every nerve in her body suddenly screamed a warning.

He said, ‘Where do you plan to stay the night?’

As wary as a deer in tiger-haunted jungle, she swallowed. ‘Here.’

There was an alarming silence. Or perhaps it was stunned. No, a swift upward glance revealed that the first word had been the right one. Kear Lannion kept tight rein on his emotions, but his mouth had compressed and there was a glint of irritation in the frigid depths of his eyes.

‘Do you know how to work the range? The water?’

‘No,’ she said.

With brusque impatience he demanded, ‘Don’t you think it would have been a good idea to find out what the conditions were before you came up to gloat over your inheritance?’

Jan raised her brows, delicately questioning his right to make such comments. ‘I’ll manage.’

His icy gaze slid across her face, cold enough to burn the ivory skin. She thought she actually felt the welts as he said, ‘So, even though you never came near Fergus Morrison, he left what he had to you when he died?’

‘He did.’ It angered her that this man somehow managed to strip off the comfortingly opaque social mask she took for granted. She never lost her temper—never—and yet she wanted to stamp her feet and scream with childish, uncontrolled rage. In a voice that could have congealed lava she told him, ‘I’m his only descendant, apparently. I thought he was dead—we all did. He left for Australia after my father died, and didn’t contact us when he came back.’

‘I wonder why?’

‘My mother told me he adored my father and went a little mad when he was killed.’

‘He certainly turned into a hermit,’ he said. ‘Jan, you can’t stay here. You’d better come back and spend the night at my place.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘THAT’S very kind of you,’ Jan said formally, ‘but I’ll be perfectly all right.’

Sleeping with rats—and oh, how she prayed there weren’t any around!—would be less stressful than accepting his hospitality.

His dark brows drew together above hard eyes. ‘I’ve seen you in your native habitat,’ he said, ‘and you are not going to like it here, believe me.’

She didn’t have to prove herself—she wasn’t in the least worried about what he thought of her—and she wasn’t going to cave in like a wimp under the relentless assault of his masculine dominance.

Tilting her chin, she said, ‘I’ll be perfectly all right.’ Wickedly, she added, ‘I have been camping several times.’

And she enjoyed a fierce satisfaction when his mouth curved into a slow smile that was both sinister and sexy as hell.

‘Don’t play games with me,’ he said softly. ‘There’s a difference between camping with the latest equipment and this. You’ll find the homestead much more comfortable.’

It would be perilously easy to give in to that deep, assured voice, to his smooth assumption of mastery—especially as that smile sent a hot pulse of sensation washing through her. Ignoring the quick, uneven flurry of her heartbeats, Jan said crisply, ‘I’m sure I would, but I’m quite capable of looking after myself.’

He gave her another intent, measuring glance, then said, ‘If you’re determined to stay here I’ll leave you my mobile phone.’

Lightly, wishing he’d go, Jan told him, ‘I have one in the car. Look, if it worries you, give me your number and I’ll call each night to let you know I’m all right.’

He didn’t like being crossed. Not that he showed it—she was beginning to think that his control over his expression was almost unnatural—but she could feel the irritation coming off him in waves. His disapproval stiffened her backbone—not ousting the intense awareness that played havoc with her heartbeat, but making it easier to ignore.

He seemed to realise that she meant it, because he said indifferently, ‘Very well, if that’s what you want.’ And he gave her his number, waiting while she wrote it down in her Filofax.

‘Ring tonight at seven,’ he said. ‘Have you got food?’

‘Yes, plenty, thanks.’

‘I’ll see you around.’ And he turned and went back to the Land Rover, the warm autumn sun striking fire from his head.

She watched him turn the vehicle with an economy of movement she envied; a hand waved, the dog braced itself and the Land Rover took the rutted track easily and without fuss to disappear beneath the kanuka trees.

Perhaps she should have asked him how to get the range going. Ah, well, it was too late now, and she was intelligent enough to work it out on her own. Waiting until the sound of the engine had died away, she drove the scarlet MG into the shed, where it would be sheltered from any rain. Looking around at the logs neatly stacked against the walls, she decided that the range had to be fuelled by wood.

Somehow, from there the bach looked even more suspicious and surly. ‘It’s only because you could have gone to stay with the local laird,’ she said out loud, forcing herself to walk back across the coarse grass.

Once inside she explored properly. There was no kitchen, just a rickety set of cupboards—empty, she was thankful to discover. An old enamel bowl, probably used for washing-up as there was no sink, rested upside down on a bench, hiding three dead spiders and the faded pattern of a vinyl covering. A small window revealed a galvanised tank on a dilapidated wooden stand just a few feet away; from it one pipe led to a tap, another to the lean-to bathroom at the back of the bach.

In which, she was grateful to see, there was a proper toilet. No chilly morning trips to an outdoor privy.

First things first. She tried the tap over the bath and only realised how tense she’d been when water spurted into the bottom and she felt overwhelming relief. Even then, she didn’t draw a breath until the year’s accumulation of debris in the pipe drained away and the water ran clear. Although it looked as though the only method of heating it was the range, at least she wasn’t going to have to carry water to the bach in buckets.

She turned the tap off and went to check out the bedroom.

It was lined with matchboarding, and an old double bed with wirewove and kapok mattress that smelt sourly of dampness took up most of the room. Gingerly, Jan opened the door of a kauri wardrobe to find that someone had cleared everything away there too.

Wondering just what Fergus Morrison had hoped to achieve with the conditional clause in his will, she went back to the main room. A rocking chair in front of the range and an unpainted wooden table and chair pushed against the wall beneath the window were its sole items of furniture.

But the view from the window stopped the breath in her throat. Long, mellow rays from the afternoon sun illuminated the panorama with an artist’s skilful hand, glinted across the beach, turned the still waters to a sheet of softly glowing pearl-blue. In the light’s fugitive glamour even the mangroves looked a little less sinister.

‘Yes,’ she said aloud, imagining buildings on the flat land and the voices of children and adolescents—young lives given hope and confidence, ‘it could be perfect.’

She’d brought detergents and rags, and after changing into jeans and T-shirt she wasted a good half-hour fiddling around with kindling and paper in the firebox of the range, juggling levers and knobs only to have each promising fire die down into raw-smelling ashes. Eventually she gave up in disgust, and, thanking the twentieth century for detergents, scrubbed the porcelain bath with cold water before tackling the other fittings. They were not as old as the bath or the building, so presumably her grandfather had had them installed fifteen years ago, when he’d come to live here.