in, erotically charging the humid air.
‘And your mother agreed to this life?’
Peta studied him above the rim of her mug, green eyes enigmatic. ‘She always agreed with him. She thought he was wonderful and perfect in every way. They were ideally suited; he was dominant—in some ways you remind me of him—and she was yielding.’ Her full lips twisted. ‘But she wasn’t strong.’
He suspected that she’d substituted the word dominant for another, more insulting one—domineering? Dominating?
The thought amused him. If he was arrogant, she certainly wasn’t as docile as her mother seemed to have been. ‘Why didn’t you stay on at school?’
‘My father believed that book knowledge, as he called it, was no use to anyone in real life. He was convinced that modern civilisation was leading the world to destruction, and that everyone should be able to live off the land.’
‘And can you?’
Her shoulders moved in a slight shrug. Curt kept his eyes away from the soft movement of her breasts, but a light tinge of colour stole along her high cheekbones when she answered.
‘If I have to.’
He looked at her. ‘Did he give you no choice?’
‘My mother needed me at home,’ she said simply.
Frowning, he recalled the results of the investigation he’d had run on her. ‘And then they were killed in a road accident.’
‘She was already dying.’ Peta turned away so that he couldn’t see her face. ‘I was glad, in a way. She didn’t have to endure much pain, and he didn’t have to live without her unstinting love and her conviction that he was always right.’
This, she decided, was far too intimate a conversation. Noticing that he’d finished his ginger crunch, she made a gesture towards the plate. ‘There’s more.’
He shook his head. ‘That was superb. Did you make it?’
Oddly warmed by the compliment, she nodded. ‘My father believed that every woman should know how to cook.’
‘Very Victorian,’ Curt observed, an edge to his voice. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t settle for a tent, an open fire and a camp oven.’
She laughed a little. ‘He was unreasonable,’ she conceded, ‘but he was passionately committed to his ideas. The kitchen might not be up-to-date but it works. Don’t pity me—I’m perfectly happy here.’
He leaned back in the chair and regarded her with half-closed eyes. ‘You don’t feel any yearning for romance or marriage?’
Peta’s father had been a big man, but he’d never had Curt’s compelling presence. Last night at the barbecue everyone else had seemed dim and insubstantial, their conversation lacking savour and interest because she’d been so painfully aware of the man with her.
Alarmed by her weakness, she said more crisply than she’d intended, ‘At the moment, no, I’m not interested in either.’
His unsparing assessment sent a series of little shivers down her spine. ‘In that case you’ll be only too eager to help me cut Ian’s crush short,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Are you pumping petrol this morning?’
‘Yes.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘And if I don’t get going I’ll be late.’ She drained her mug and stood up. Awkwardly, she said, ‘Thanks for helping me.’
‘Even though you didn’t need it?’ He too got to his feet, his faint smile setting off an unlikely starburst inside her.
‘Even then,’ she said with a glimmering sideways smile that vanished when she met his eyes.
Coolly measuring, they chilled her through and through.
Working the pumps at the petrol station, she wiped a bead of sweat from her temple and decided that the only thing that made Curt seem at all human was his affection for his sister. Apart from that weakness, as he no doubt saw it, Nadine had got it right. That Peta wanted to kill whatever feelings Ian had developed for her didn’t make Curt any less of a cold-blooded user.
Well, not exactly cold-blooded, she decided later as she turned into her drive. He kissed with an expertise that shouted his experience, but was there genuine passion beneath that Ice Man exterior?
Ignoring the consuming she got out of the ute and unlocked the front door. A wave of stuffy air surged out to greet her.
Curt McIntosh was a walking, breathing challenge, and she bet that plenty of women had come to grief picking up the gauntlet of his forbidding self-sufficiency.
Stripping off her petrol-scented clothes, Peta vowed not to be one of them. What she felt for him had nothing to do with love, and she’d keep a watchful guard on her body because once this charade was over she’d see no more of Curt.
Joe, the elderly odd-job man who arrived a few minutes later, was an old friend. He’d been cowman on the station under the previous owner and he knew how to deal with calves. Briskly she showed him how to use the elderly washing machine to mix the formula.
‘You shouldn’t be carrying those heavy buckets,’ he scolded, forestalling her attempt to pick them up. ‘It’s not good for you.’
‘Joe, I do it twice a day almost all year round!’
‘Doesn’t make it right,’ he said firmly.
And he was so concerned she stood back and let him carry them into the calf-shed, watching as he tipped the liquid into the calf-feeders.
Pitching his voice to rise above the bawl of hungry calves, he said, ‘Good-looking girl like you should be looking around for a man to do the heavy work. If I were thirty years younger I’d take you on myself.’
‘If you were any younger I’d have snapped you up years ago,’ she told him, laughing.
His grin faded as he focused on someone coming up behind them. Peta swung around and met a pair of electric blue eyes. Everything about her went taut; she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t hear her heart beat.
And then Curt smiled, and life flowed through her again; she heard the contented sound of calves sucking, smelt their clean animal smell and the sweet, summery scent of hay. She even heard a skylark sing in the brilliant blue sky outside.
‘Hello, Peta.’ His gaze moved to the older man. ‘Joe.’
‘G’day, Curt.’ Respectful but not intimidated, Joe moved on to the next pen and filled the feeder there.
Curt frowned at Peta. ‘Did you lift those buckets?’
‘Of course.’ When his mouth clamped into a hard line she added, ‘They’re not as heavy as they look.’
Over his shoulder Joe butted in, ‘They’re every bit as heavy as they look—far too much for a woman to be carrying around!’
His frown deepening, Curt watched the older man walk down to the next pen. ‘Why don’t you run a hose from the mixer?’
‘Because this works perfectly well,’ Peta informed him with a thin smile. ‘I’m no fragile flower.’
‘Possibly not, but you shouldn’t be carrying that weight.’
She walked outside into the sunlight and turned to face him, her blood singing through her veins in a wild summons. ‘Testosterone clearly muddles male thinking patterns. Relax, Curt. If I couldn’t do it easily, I’d have found another way to deal with it. I don’t force myself to do things that are too difficult; I’m not stupid.’
‘It’ll wait,’ he said, the magnificent structure of his face more prominent. ‘There’s been a change of plan,’ he said brusquely. ‘Can you be ready to leave for Auckland tomorrow morning?’
‘No!’ she said, incredulous