and remembering. Outside the window of the cottage where she’d lived with her mother was a cherry tree, and each spring her mother had waited for the tuis to come and glut themselves on the nectar.
Just ahead, beside a transparent veil of water that ran over the sand, stood a clump of flax bushes. Strappy leaves supported tall stems with bronze- and wine-coloured flowers, mere tubular twists of petals with dark stamens protruding from the tip.
Yet in those flowers glistened nectar, and a tui, white feathers bobbling at its throat, sat on the stem and sang his spring carillon.
When Paul said her name Jacinta yelped, whirling to say angrily, ‘Don’t do that, for heaven’s sake!’
Paul frowned. ‘Your nerves must be shot to pieces.’
‘No! I just wasn’t—I didn’t—’
‘It’s all right,’ he said, his voice deep and sure and strangely soothing.
As the tui broke off its song to indulge in a cacophony of snorts and wheezes, interspersed with the sound of a contented pig, Paul put a hand on her shoulder, grounding her until the sudden surge of panic died away to be replaced by a slow combination of emotions—keen pleasure, and peace, and an oblique foreboding.
Swiftly she stepped away. ‘Unusual birds you have here,’ she said, snatching at her composure. ‘Penguins that bray like donkeys, tuis that mimic pigs...’
‘That’s normal for both of them. Is it normal for you to jump like that whenever anyone comes up behind you?’
‘No, but I didn’t hear you and I suppose I am a bit tense. I thought that by now I’d be nicely ensconced in a bach with just the sea for company. Instead, I’ve been hijacked.’ She smiled tentatively and his frown disappeared, although his gaze was still keenly perceptive as it rested on her face. ‘Where is the bach, by the way?’
Dropping his hand, he nodded to where a road left the main one and ran over the headland to the south. ‘In the next bay,’ he said.
She nodded too, not quite knowing what to say. The tui forgot its barnyard imitations and went back to foraging for nectar. Jacinta enjoyed the iridescent sheen of its plumage as the thin stem swayed in the sunlight—greens and purples, blues and bronzes, brighter by far than oil on water.
Every sense she possessed was at full stretch, so that she heard with keen pleasure the susurration of the waves on the beach, felt the heat and the wind on her tender skin, inhaled salty air and tasted her own emotions in her mouth, a sharp delight edged with wanness.
Paul didn’t seem in a hurry to leave, so they watched the bird until Jacinta was unnerved enough by the silence to ask, ‘What’s the name of this bay?’
‘Homestead Bay.’
She laughed a little. ‘Of course. What a glorious place to grow up in.’
‘I’m sure it would be,’ he said calmly, ‘but I’ve only owned it for five years or so.’
A note in his voice steered her well away from that topic. Too late she remembered that he’d bought it after he’d been jilted by the lovely Aura. Stumbling slightly, she asked, ‘Is that the Coromandel Peninsula on the skyline?’
‘And Great Barrier Island.’
Gloating, her eyes dreamy, she murmured, ‘It’s so beautiful.’
‘I think so,’ he said smoothly.
Jacinta stiffened. However banal and ordinary his words, there always seemed to be a subtext, some oblique intonation or cool, fleeting amusement adding an extra meaning to what he said.
She couldn’t help but feel that in some subtle way Paul McAlpine neither liked nor trusted her.
And that was ridiculous, because she didn’t know the man well enough to interpret either his tone of voice or expression. As well, he was a lawyer, trained to keep his features under control.
Although she was prepared to bet that they’d never been exactly open and candid. There was too much self-discipline in that beautiful mouth, and in spite of their vivid colour his blue eyes were surprisingly opaque, hiding Paul McAlpine’s emotions very well.
She said abruptly, ‘Gerard said you’re a lawyer.’
‘Most of my work is in international law,’ he told her, a hint of reserve flattening his tone.
So he didn’t want to talk about it. Neither had Gerard. ‘Very high-powered,’ he’d said. ‘He deals with governments.’
Whatever that meant. As Paul’s career seemed to be off-limits, she said, ‘And is this a working farm?’
‘Certainly. It’s a stud; we breed Blonde d’Aquitaines, French beef cattle. We’d better go for a short tour to orient you.’
That not-quite-lazy, assured smile sizzled from the top of her head down to her toes, curling them involuntarily in her sandals. He knew very well the effect he had on women.
She returned his smile, pleased by the slight narrowing of his eyes as she said courteously, ‘A good idea. I don’t want to end up in the bull paddock.’
‘Our bulls are normally placid enough,’ he said. ‘However, it is a good idea to keep away from them. Any large animal can turn dangerous.’
Like the man who owned them, she thought, startled by the insight. Ignoring a mental image of that easy self-reliance transformed by violent emotion into something much darker and infinitely more hazardous, she asked dulcetly, ‘Do you think that pastoral farming has any future in a world that appears to be going green and vegetanan?’
A slight lift of one dark brow recognised the provocation in her question, but he gave a reasoned, restrained reply. This man would scorn an emotional response, an argument based on anything but facts.
Legal training again.
Another thought slipped so stealthily into her mind that it had taken possession before she realised its existence. Had he been hurt by his emotions, hurt so badly that he no longer indulged them?
Not that he looked like someone too wounded by love to risk it again, she thought after a snatched glance at the strong, clear-cut profile. Still, she suspected that his pleasant, approachable attitude was armour. She didn’t know what lay beneath it, but she’d be prepared to bet that it would take intense goading to penetrate his shield of self-contained authority.
Gerard, who seemed to still have a mild case of hero-worship for his older cousin, had once told her that Paul never lost his temper.
Not even when Aura had told him she was going to marry his best friend?
As they walked past woolsheds, and an implement shed where brightly coloured monsters lurked, and beneath darkly needled macrocarpa trees along a fenced, metalled race that led to other paddocks, they talked objectively, intelligently, about the world and where it was possibly headed.
Jacinta filed little snippets of information away like hiding treasure. Paul McAlpine moved with a tightly leashed vitality that was at odds with his indolent appearance. He looked at each topic of conversation from both sides; he had a sharp, incisive mind; he enjoyed discussing issues, but when the conversation became personal he blocked.
He needn’t worry, she thought when at last they came back to the house. She’d be as detached and dispassionate as he was.
But these next three months would have been a lot simpler if those penguins hadn’t decided to take up residence beneath the bach...
If only she had the money to say thanks, but no thanks, and walk away.
Unfortunately, her mother’s legacy covered only her tuition fees—although since their rise ‘covered’ was hardly the word, and if they rose again next year she’d be in trouble. Her student’s allowance paid the rent and bought her soap and shampoo and other necessities.
And she