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Things had changed for Jolie after James Rees’s affair with Rachel Tanner had come to light. Jolie’s friends had not remained friends and she’d never really got the hang of making new ones. And when the boys had started to notice Jolie—and they had—Jolie had discovered that former friends could turn into jealous and angry enemies who knew exactly where to hit so as to make the hurt go in deep.
‘You gonna stick around Queenstown for a while?’ asked Hare. ‘Help your mama adjust?’
Jolie shrugged. ‘I can stay a couple of weeks. Then I’ll have to get back to work in Christchurch.’
‘Heard you landed a drawing job there.’ ‘I did.’ Sheer bloody-mindedness and talent had got her a job as a graphic artist for a film special effects company. Sheer bloody-mindedness and talent kept her there. The pay-off being that she didn’t have to deal with reality on a daily basis. Reality was overrated. ‘Could you do it from here?’ ‘Why would I want to do that?’ ‘I don’t know.’ Hare seemed to hesitate. He scratched his head and pulled a frown. ‘Might be different for you here now that James is gone.’
‘I can’t see why. Hannah’s still here. Cole’s still here. James’s widow is here.’ The reclusive Christina Rees. ‘And they still own half the town. They’ve never been inclined to make anything easy for a Tanner.’
‘Wasn’t easy for any of you,’ said Hare gruffly. ‘Could be a good time to let go of old grudges.’
‘Now you’re being rational,’ said Jolie. ‘Interaction between Tanners and Reeses is never rational.’
‘Doesn’t have to be that way,’ said Hare.
‘Yeah, it does,’ she said softly, and opened up to Hare because the big man had always been kind to her and knew more of the real Jolie Tanner than most. ‘Hare, I don’t want to come back to Queenstown. All I ever did here was hide myself away from other people. Put on masks so that people would see what they expected to see. A young girl completely at home in a bar full of strangers. The defiant daughter of James Rees’s mistress. A siren in my own right, fully comfortable in the role. All of them masks, whereas in Christchurch …’ Jolie shrugged awkwardly. ‘I’ve finally gathered the courage to step out from behind the masks and just be me. I kind of like being me.’
‘You’re making friends, then?’
‘Not quite.’ Another awkward shrug. ‘Not yet. But at least I don’t have enemies. That’s something, right?’
‘Right,’ said Hare gruffly.
Now she’d embarrassed him. And exposed herself. Not a place of comfort. Definitely time to flee. ‘You ready to send that gondola downhill yet?’
‘Just waiting on another passenger.’
‘Who?’ The ski field had been closed since lunchtime on account of the unpredictable weather. Jolie figured that all the other employees and skiers on the mountain would have headed downhill hours ago. All except for Hare, who lived on the mountain in a cabin half a kilometre away from the main complex.
‘Cole.’
‘Cole who?’ But Hare wasn’t answering. Nor was he looking her in the eye. Jolie’s stomach began to churn and churn hard. ‘Cole Rees is here on the mountain?’
‘Came up a couple of hours ago. He’s up at the lookout.’
‘Doing what?’
Hare shrugged.
‘But … how can he be here?’ She’d planned her foray to the cabin for a time no member of the Rees family would be anywhere near here. ‘Why isn’t he at his father’s funeral?’
‘Didn’t ask. The man wasn’t looking for conversation, Jolie. He was looking for space.’
And now he’d be sharing space with her all the way back down the mountain. Just Cole Rees and Jolie Tanner and a box full of evidence of her mother’s twelve-year affair with his father. ‘Great,’ she muttered. ‘That’s just great. Any chance of rolling another gondola around so that Cole can ride down on his own?’ The ski lift consisted of several eight-berth sky gondolas and was a twelve-minute ride, top to bottom.
‘None,’ said Hare. ‘Blizzard warning just came in. You’re lucky I’m prepared to run this one.’ He looked out of the triple-glazed window of the control hut and nodded once. ‘Time to go, girlie. There’s Cole.’
Jolie followed Hare’s gaze. And there he was. Cole Rees, large as life. Striding down the lookout path towards the gondola, his raven hair windblown and his pretty face set against the worsening weather. A man so reckless, unpredictable and downright sexy he made Jolie’s insides clench. And that was before she factored in his hatred of all things Tanner. ‘Great,’ she said grimly. ‘That’s just great.’
Jolie grabbed a ratty sheepskin hat with earflaps from the assortment of old lost-and- found attire hanging on the back wall of the tower and jammed it on top of her beanie. The hat wouldn’t be missed, and, besides, she’d give it back. She added a thick black scarf and lost-and-found ski goggles to the ensemble while Hare looked on, deadpan.
‘I take it you’re keeping my coat,’ he said.
‘I’ll give it back tomorrow.’ Not for the first time today, Jolie gave thanks that she’d worn her oldest ski gear. Unisex attire purchased years ago during a mercifully brief phase in which she’d attempted to downplay her looks and her femininity. Her ski boots were black, chunky, overworn and all about getting the job done. Nothing feminine about them either.
‘Hair,’ offered Hare.
‘Oh.’ She took off the hat and goggles, twisted her auburn tresses round and round and then up beneath the beanie, and then jammed the hat back on her head. Her red hair was a legacy from her mother and truly distinctive. Men were fascinated by it. Hairdressers wanted to bottle it. Jolie had no complaints of it, truth be told, but right now she wanted it hidden. She pulled the hat’s earflaps down. ‘Better?’
‘You look like E.T.’s Alaskan cousin,’ said Hare. ‘I take it that’s the point?’
‘Yes,’ she said, snapping the goggles down over her eyes.
‘Or you could be yourself,’ murmured Hare.
‘No, I really couldn’t. Meet JT. J for Josh. He works for you.’
‘Go,’ said Hare with a roll of his eyes. And as Jolie leaned in to embrace her old minder and mentor, ‘Well, don’t kiss me!’
‘Suit yourself.’ Jolie gave him a manly thump on his arm instead. ‘We going to see you at the bar tonight?’
‘If the weather clears,’ said Hare gruffly, glancing at his computer screen and the satellite weather map currently dominating it. ‘Which it won’t. Tell your mama I’ll be down for that drink tomorrow night.’
‘Will do.’
‘And tell her I’m sorry for her loss and mind you say it right.’
‘I’ll say it right,’ said Jolie, with a catch in her voice on account of Hare’s deep understanding of her mother’s position. Brazen bar owner Rachel Tanner—the bar reputedly a gift from James Rees—would get little sympathy from anyone on account of James’s death. Instead she would grieve for her lover in lonely silence. ‘I’ll practise beforehand.’
Hare just rolled his eyes again and looked out of the tower window and up at the sky. ‘Kia waimarie, little one.’ Good Luck. ‘Keep your head down. And close up behind you as you go.’
Hare waited until Jolie was out of the door before rubbing at his aching arm again and letting out a sigh. The girl wasn’t wrong to want to avoid Cole Rees on this of all days, but whether she could was a different matter altogether. Chances were that at some point during the ride down the mountain Cole Rees would look twice at the youth who rode down with him. Chances were that he’d start adding up the inconsistencies.
Hare employed teenagers on the mountain if they had the experience and steadiness he was looking for, but he didn’t take them that small. Ever.
Nor did they come with alabaster skin, a delicate jaw and, if a man could get past those lips—and some couldn’t—eyes the colour of snow clouds.
It’d be Jolie’s eyes that would give her away. No one had eyes like the Tanner women. Not that colour. Not that … challenge that lurked in their depths. A siren’s mix of sensual self-awareness shot through with aching vulnerability.
Fact: a man could get lost in such eyes and never surface.
He’d seen it happen.
And witnessed the carnage it had caused.
‘Eyes down, girlie,’ he whispered. ‘You give that boy a chance.’
Cole Rees put his head down and quickened his stride as he headed for the ski gondola. The weather matched his mood: filthy and unpredictable, his emotions a roiling mess of sadness and regret, anger and defiance. He hadn’t been able to sit through his father’s funeral, not all of it. The glowing accolades had turned his stomach. His mother’s genuine grief had fuelled his fury. His sister’s anxious pleading for him to please not make things worse had only cemented his decision to get the hell out of there before he cursed his feted father to rot in hell for eternity.
There would have been no coming back from that.
His mother the society maven would have crumpled completely.
Hannah, his sister, was stronger than that. Hannah would have made him pay dearly for subjecting the family to yet more scandal.
Only the gossip mongers would have been satisfied, but not for long. They never were.
He’d wanted a woman to lose himself in—and there were plenty around—but even that small comfort reeked of his father’s legacy. Of thoughtlessness and recklessness and appetites not easily sated. And maybe Cole had outgrown thoughtlessness a few years back, and maybe he did his best to check his recklessness, but on that third count he was as guilty as sin.
When it came to women and sexual relationships he didn’t satisfy easily. When it came to the mindless use he would make of a woman’s body tonight and how little chance she had of engaging his emotions, well … no woman deserved that. Better for everyone to simply practise what his late, great father had never practised and do without.
His mother had organised a wake for after the funeral, but Cole didn’t intend to put in an appearance there, either. He’d come up the mountain instead. To mourn his father in his own way and in his own sweet time.
If at all.
The enclosed ski lift was a new addition to the mountain and one he’d been in favour of. It had replaced a series of ageing four-man chairlifts and doubled Silverlake’s profits overnight. The sport of skiing had changed. Braving the elements and putting some effort into getting uphill was no longer part of the on-slope experience. Not any more.
These days it was all about comfort.
He looked up at the gondola control-tower windows and sent his father’s ski-field manager a wave. Why Hare hadn’t been at the funeral was anyone’s guess, but the big Maori always had been a law unto himself.
Loyal to James Rees though. Utterly.
A bundled-up youth stepped out of the tower and headed towards the waiting gondola, slipping into step some distance behind Cole and locking down doors and gates behind them. Cole shrugged the snow off his coat and swiped a hand through his hair once he got beneath the boarding station roof. The gondola door stood open and a duct-taped box sat just inside the door. Cole crossed to the opposite wall of the gondola and leaned back against it, hands in his coat pockets for warmth as he waited for the boy to finish closing up.
Cole wasn’t dressed for the ski fields. Beneath his heavyweight woollen overcoat he was dressed for a funeral. The only concession he’d made towards the mountain had been to exchange dress shoes for snow boots.
It hadn’t been enough. Not for this weather.
The youth finally reached the gondola and slipped inside, shedding snow as he shut the door behind him. Small for one of Hare’s chairlift workers, thought Cole absently. Hare usually employed them bigger. Brains aside, brute force was always an asset on the mountain and everyone who’d ever worked a mountain knew it.
Hare’s sidekick—hell, he was just a kid—settled in beside the box. Feet body width apart, knees slightly bent, he leaned against the wall and window in much the same way as Cole had done. Snowboarder, if the stance was anything to go by. Hardcore, given the mismatched clothes. No fancy be-labelled outfit, no swagger at all, just a quiet competence that drew the eye and held it. This one would be all about the thrill that came of mastering a peak, and the next one and the one after that. Nothing to prove to anyone but himself.
Cole envied him.
His next few months would be all about proving to bankers and shareholders that he was every bit as good as the old man when it came to managing the family holdings. As if he hadn’t been raised from the cradle to just this position—learning the Rees businesses from the ground up at his father’s command. No quarter asked for and none at all given.
James Rees had been told he was dying two years ago. He’d been handing Rees management over to Cole ever since. Teaching by example. What to do. What not to do. And how to recover. Making Cole admire him in so many ways. Making Cole care about the businesses under his control and the people employed within them.
Always two steps ahead of any game, James Rees. Except when it came to thinking that his high-born wife and his stunningly sensual mistress could coexist peacefully in this town.
When it came to that, James Rees had been a fool.
Cole knew what his father had seen in Rachel Tanner—he hadn’t been blind as a boy and he wasn’t blind now. A simmering sensuality that hit a man hard. Unapologetic awareness of a man’s deepest desires. Full knowledge of how to satisfy those desires—a knowledge that Cole’s puritan, well-mannered mother had wholly lacked.
James Rees had wanted. James Rees had taken. He might have even got away with it if he’d left it at that. If he’d only done it once. Or twice.
Instead he’d had to have it all and to hell with the pain it had caused those around him.
The gondola moved off smoothly while still within the protection of the station walls and roof. And then the wind hit, and snow peppered the windows, and the ride got considerably rougher. It was an automatic response for both Cole and the kid to look up at the cable join, just checking, as the wind lashed against fibreglass walls.
The kid glanced at the intercom on the wall of the cable car next, as if assessing the need to contact Hare. Cole glanced at it too.
‘The front’s still a way off, according to the forecast,’ said the boy finally, his voice cracked and barely audible beneath his scarf.
Cole nodded. He’d seen the storm rolling in from the lookout. The kid would have been monitoring radar loops on Hare’s computer deck. Cole adjusted the boy’s probable age upwards a couple of years on account of his composure and conversation. No point trying to judge the boy’s age from his face—about the only thing visible was his mouth.
Lord, what a mouth.
Cole looked away. Fast.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Another gust of wind shook the gondola, slinging it sideways, causing both him and the youth to look up again, always up, to what held them.
Again, the boy glanced at the intercom.
Again Cole studied what he could see of the boy’s face beneath the hat and the goggles and the scarf. And looked away, disquieted.
The wind settled, the gondola steadied, nothing to worry about there. Nothing to worry about when it came to his reaction to Hare’s chairlift operator, either. Today he was just … off. For too many reasons to count.
Only eleven more minutes of this ride to go.
No point staring out of the window at the view; visibility was down to zero.
Nor did it seem advisable to stare at Hare’s lift operator.
That left the box.
Grey-brown in colour, with a removalist’s name stamped on the side. Wet at the bottom with one corner slightly concertinaed in. The top of the box patchy damp too, and hastily taped shut. All function over form, just like the youth standing next to it.
The kid shifted restlessly. Cole beat back the urge to look at him and kept his gaze pinned to the box. Just a wet and battered box. Nothing noble about it at all.
Ten minutes to go.
The gondola began to rise as it neared the first of seven cable tower connections. The hair at the nape of Cole’s neck started rising too. Hare’s youth was studying him now; he could damn well feel it.
And his reaction was pure heat.
The lift shuddered, jerked and stopped.
Cole’s heart thumped hard and settled to an uneasy rhythm. Probably Hare just slowing them down on account of the wind and the approaching tower. But the gondola did not start inching slowly forwards. It stayed right where it was, swinging hard.
Keeping his hand lightly on the handrail, Cole made his way to the two-way and pulled it from its bracing. Just like the kid, he’d worked the lifts on this mountain and plenty else besides. He knew the drills. ‘Hare, you there?’
But Hare did not reply, and neither did the operator supposedly manning the base station. Not good. The kid said nothing, just watched him through those blasted ski goggles and chewed on his full lower lip. Cole’s own lips tightened in reply.
‘Hare,’ he barked. ‘Can you hear me?’ And when there was still no reply he shoved the two-way back on the wall and fished his mobile phone from his coat pocket. No signal. Not that he’d held out much hope for one. White-out did that.