The Final Proposal

‘I wish I’d known my father.’

‘Hugo was a charming scamp,’ her aunt said acidly. ‘He broke his father’s heart and then he did the same to your mother’s. He might have grown up if he hadn’t died on that racetrack, but I doubt it.’

‘I remember him—just isolated incidents,’ Jan said wistfully. ‘And I know my grandfather used to sing nursery rhymes with me. It would have been nice if he’d stayed in New Zealand.’

Her aunt snorted. ‘He couldn’t bear to see Hugo’s eyes in your face. A fine excuse for running away to Australia!’

‘I’d like to know more about your side of the family.’

‘There wasn’t much to know about Hugo beyond the fact that he had more charm than was good for him, and the only family he had was a doting father who couldn’t endure his grief. Fergus even blamed your mother for letting Hugo race, when he knew perfectly well it was impossible to stop him from doing whatever he wanted to!’

Jan hadn’t known this. She said indignantly, ‘What a nerve!’

‘He has that, does Fergus Morrison. Ah, well, he adored your father—I suppose it was understandable. He was middle-aged when he married Betsy, and they only ever had Hugo.’ Her voice softened as it always did when she mentioned her only sister, who’d died in childbirth.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t her father but the restrained figure of her grandfather that Jan had missed the most. She used to wonder why they had both gone, leaving her alone with a mother who had wept for months. Perhaps, she thought now, it had been her memories of the family they’d been that had led her to long so desperately for another. Curiously, she asked, ‘Was there no one else? No aunts or uncles or cousins?’

‘Not a one. We had no relatives in New Zealand, and I think Fergus had lost touch with his too.’

Carefully avoiding the part of the room where Kear Lannion stood, Jan looked around. ‘Family’s important,’ she said softly.

‘You’re a nice girl,’ her great-aunt said with unexpected force.

Jan kissed her cheek. ‘Thank you.’

‘You look like Cynthia, but you’ve got Betsy’s eyes. Set on the merest slant, and that bright, intense blue. Now, go on; you don’t want to sit here talking to me all night. Here comes Cynthia—you go and enjoy yourself. I want to hear all the gossip, and your mother won’t tell me any if you’re here.’

Laughing, Jan left them. It was a good party. She looked around in case someone was in trouble, but everyone in the noisy, laughing, chattering crowd appeared to be enjoying themselves without any help from her.

Then Kear Lannion walked down the steps and came across the lawn. She felt her smile tremble, and before it died forced herself to produce another.

‘Hello,’ she said, wondering if she’d overemphasised her bright tone. ‘Can I get you something?’

The thick dark lashes that curled around his pale eyes screened his thoughts too well. She couldn’t read him at all, and this made her uneasy because normally she was good at body language.

‘You can talk to me,’ he said, a hint of irony in his words. ‘You’ve done your duty.’

‘What shall we talk about?’

His mouth tightened, then eased into a lazy, almost insolent smile. ‘Your innermost secrets,’ he said gravely.

Jan’s brows shot up. ‘Not after such a short acquaintanceship,’ she said, just as seriously, wishing that she could hide behind curtains of long hair like some of her young cousins. Smiling, she parried his bard, intent gaze and said, ‘Tell me about your farm.’

Yes, that sounded fine—interested but not prying, and social rather than personal. But when she looked up at him, she noticed with a faint quiver in her stomach the speculative gleam in his glance.

‘I breed and run beef cattle on Doubtless Bay. Have you ever been up there?’

‘It’s quite close to Kaitaia, isn’t it? I’ve flown there several times to take seminars and workshops,’ she said, trying not to sound indignant. ‘And I’ve sailed around the Bay of Islands.’

His mouth tilted. ‘Let me guess. You went on a gin palace and saw all the sights from the deck.’

Ruffled by the amusement in his voice, she bent down to snap off the suede-soft bloom of a gardenia and held it to her nose. Erotic, disturbing, the scent of the flower floated like an offering to unknown gods on the humid air.

She lowered it and said, ‘It was definitely a gin palace, but I did go ashore a couple of times.’ She didn’t care what he thought of her—after all, he was nobody, a mere passer-by in her life.

Kear glanced across to her mother, now walking with Great-Aunt Kit down her favourite border, pointing out flowering treasures. Lights in the garden illuminated them—the tall old woman, the smaller, younger one unobtrusively lending a supporting hand. ‘After meeting your mother, I can see where you got your features from. You don’t have her eyes, though.’

‘Apparently I inherited mine from my father’s mother,’ she said evenly, thinking it odd for this conversation to turn up twice on the same evening.

‘So intense a blue they make me think of the sheen on steel,’ he said, and held out his hand for the gardenia.

Startled, she gave it to him and watched as he smelled it, his dark features etched arrogantly against the lights.

The compliment unnerved her totally, melting the bones at the base of her spine. ‘Really?’ she said in a quiet, startled voice.

‘Yes.’ His brief smile sent her heart thudding. ‘My cousin said that you’re Anet Carruthers’ sister. I saw her win gold at the Olympics. You’re not in the least alike.’

‘We’re half-sisters. Anet gets her javelin-throwing expertise from my stepfather.’ Jan sent a swift, winged smile across to Stephen Carruthers. Obeying a distress signal she hadn’t realised she’d sent, he said a few smiling words to the couple he was with and came down to join her.

After that it was easy. Listening to them as they talked, Jan was surprised to find out that Stephen liked Kear; her stepfather was clever and an excellent judge of character, yet he responded to the other man’s magnetism without any sign of resistance. But what set her stupid heart galloping in an uneven rhythm was the sight of that gardenia tucked negligently into Kear’s buttonhole.

‘Interesting chap, Lannion—I’ve always liked him,’ Stephen said hours later, when all the guests had gone.

‘I didn’t realise you knew him,’ Jan murmured.

‘He’s on a couple of boards with me. Not an easy chap to know, and no one pushes him around, but he’s a good man to have beside you in a fight.’

Cynthia nodded. ‘As well as being a very desirable piece of real estate.’

‘Mother!’ Jan pretended to be shocked.

Laughing, her mother defended her choice of words. ‘That’s what Gerry called him. I think she might be smitten.’

Jan subdued something that came ominously close to being jealousy, and kissed her parents. ‘Well, I’m heading off. Goodnight, and thank you. I had a lovely party.’

‘You’re sure you don’t want to stay the night?’ her mother asked automatically.

‘No, I’ll go home, thanks.’ Jan hid a yawn. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning, though. And don’t have the place cleaned up by the time I get here like you did last year!’

‘There’s not a lot to do, darling. The caterers have already tidied up, so all that’s necessary is a bit of vacuuming.’

‘Don’t do it.’ Jan looked at her stepfather. ‘Dad, keep her in bed.’

His answering grin was transformed into laughter as Cynthia blushed and bridled and shook her finger at him.

She was very lucky, Jan thought as she drove through Auckland’s darkened streets. She had a super family.

Back at home, she took off her make-up before sitting on the side of the bed with Anet’s present in her lap. She had been astounded when she’d opened it, because the tiny painting on ivory had been given to Anet by mutual friends barely a year before.

Even the note hadn’t allayed her surprise. Anet had written:

Dearest Jan

I hope you have a wonderful birthday. I’m sorry we won’t be there—I always hate missing your party, the best of the year! This is our present. Yes, I know Olivia and Drake gave the portrait to me, but it was always with the proviso that I had to hand her on sooner or later. She’s ready to leave now, and I want you to have her. Don’t worry about her; she has the ability to keep herself out of trouble. Jan, be happy.

Jan tilted the severe wooden frame so that the light illuminated the pretty face. It was exquisite work, done by a master. Fresh as though she were not at least two hundred years old, the woman gazed serenely out at the world, her delicately fine features set in an expression of confident assurance.

‘I wonder just what she means when she says you’re ready to leave now,’ Jan murmured. ‘I wish you could tell me. I’ll look after you carefully, and when Anet comes back I’ll ask her why she was so cryptic.’ Carefully, she steadied the wooden frame and put it on her dressing table.

Two weeks later Jan was ushered into a solicitor’s office in the city. Holding out her hand, she said, ‘Mr Gates? I’m Jan Carruthers.’

He was a well-tailored, middle-aged man, with shrewd dark eyes and a mouth clamped shut on secrets. ‘How do you do, Ms Carruthers,’ he said neutrally. ‘Actually, I think that legally your surname is Morrison, is it not?’

‘No,’ she said a little stiffly. ‘My stepfather adopted me.’

‘I see.’

‘But my birth father was Hugo Morrison.’

He nodded. ‘Do sit down, Ms Carruthers,’ he said, and gestured to a chair. He waited until she was seated before saying smoothly, ‘Thank you for responding so promptly to my letter. You have your birth certificate?’

‘I have my shortened adoption one,’ she said, handing it over. ‘I can write away and get a copy of the one with my father’s name on it if you want it.’

‘It might be a good idea, but this will do for the moment.’ He looked at the document, then passed it back to her, saying, ‘Ms Carruthers, are you aware that you had a paternal grandfather—your birth father’s father?’

‘Yes,’ she said, feeling something chilly take up residence in the pit of her stomach. ‘Fergus Morrison. He went to Australia after my father’s death.’

‘He returned to New Zealand about fifteen years ago,’ he said.

Astonishment raised her voice. ‘Did he?’

‘Yes.’ He shuffled the papers on his desk a moment before saying, ‘He saw you at some function a few years ago.’

She felt the colour leach from her face. ‘Why didn’t he speak to me?’ she asked numbly.

‘I gather he thought he might not be welcome,’ he said, watching her with keen interest.

‘He might have tried to find out.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know what his reasons were for keeping his distance. However, he made this will after he’d seen you.’

He paused, but she’d already guessed what he was going to say. She’d never have thought that it could hurt so much.

‘Ms Carruthers, your grandfather died a year ago. He wanted his estate wound up before you were contacted. That has now been done, leaving money and a hundred acres of land some hundred or so miles north of Whangarei, in Northland. As you are your grandfather’s sole beneficiary, it is yours.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want it,’ she said. Her voice sounded odd, as though she had a severe cold.

‘There is no one else.’ He was firm. ‘If you don’t accept it, it will be sold and everything will go into the Consolidated Fund. There is, however, a condition.’

‘What?’ she asked warily.

He picked out a piece of paper. ‘There is a house on the property. He wanted you to stay there for a month before you decide what to do.’

‘That’s impossible. I have a business to run.’

‘You have a year’s grace. After you’ve fulfilled his wish you can do what you like with the property.’ He looked at her with something like compassion in those cautious eyes. ‘There is quite a lot of money involved, Ms Carruthers,’ he said.

‘Exactly how much?’

‘Well, the place itself is on the coast. I believe there are several beaches. People are prepared to pay a considerable amount of money for coastal property nowadays,’ he said calmly.

Slowly she asked, ‘And if I don’t stay there everything goes to the government?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

Jan thought of the centre. She could sell this unexpected inheritance and use the money to buy land closer to Auckland for a camp. Or perhaps, she thought, excitement quickening inside her, it would be suitable in itself for such an enterprise. At the very least, its sale would give the centre money to buy a van and add to the trust fund.

Compared to that, a month out of her life wasn’t much sacrifice. She’d allowed herself a fortnight’s holiday in May, and with a little shuffling she could probably take a whole month.

Instantly making up her mind, she said, ‘All right. If I decide I want this land, do I have to stay there the whole time? I mean, can I make dashes to Auckland overnight?’

‘Certainly,’ he said gravely.

She nodded. ‘And exactly where is this place?’ ‘Reasonably close to Mangonui,’ he said. ‘It’s a very scenic area. The property has frontage on Doubtless Bay.’

‘Good heavens,’ she said blankly.

‘Does that make a difference?’

‘No. No—no difference at all. You don’t happen to know who the neighbours are, do you?’

He shuffled more papers. ‘There’s only one—a Mr Kear Lannion. Well-known in the north—an excellent farmer—and, I understand, prominent in business circles both here and in Australia.’

As she went away Jan thought it was very strange that she should meet a man one week and within the next fortnight find herself committed to a month’s stay next door to him.

And she would not, she told herself, firmly squelching something that could have been an eager, forbidden anticipation, consider that it might be some sort of omen—that it might be meant.

Six weeks later she drove the MG carefully down a narrow road beside a harbour formed by the estuaries of two small rivers. Black tarmac wound ahead of her. Across an expanse of glinting water the main north road bypassed the little village of Mangonui to head for Kaitaia. She could see what was probably the peninsula where Kear lived, a hilly appendage separating the harbour from the huge, open Doubtless Bay beyond. Within the protective embrace of pohutukawa trees were tantalising glimpses of a double-storeyed house.

On the neck of the peninsula the land crouched to reveal a glimpse of kingfisher-blue sea. Somewhere on a beach below that dip stood her grandfather’s house. Inland, a vast area of hilly green farmland crumpled eventually into the foothills of a high bush-covered peak.

By some quirk of settlement the only access to her grandfather’s land was across Kear Lannion’s property.

‘That’s odd, surely?’ she’d said to her stepfather, before he and Cynthia had left for a holiday in Fiji.

‘Very,’ he’d answered drily. ‘I imagine there’s some form of easement across Lannion’s land.’

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.