The Blackmail Bargain

Clutching it, she said, ‘Calm down, calm down, I’m trying to help you. And Laddie, if you bark again there’ll be no snacks for a month!’

Laddie, barely adult and still not fully trained, tried to restrain himself as Peta struggled with the demented calf. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the tall rider come towards her; Laddie gave up on silence and obedience and let rip with another salvo of defiance. The calf thrashed around, and a lump of smelly goo flew up and hit Peta on the jawbone.

Furious with everyone and everything—most of all with herself—she shouted, ‘Quiet!’ at the dog, wiped the worst of the mud off onto her shoulder, and bent again to the calf.

Still murmuring in her softest, most reassuring tone, Peta ignored the icy emptiness beneath her ribs. It was, she thought bitterly, utterly typical that the landlord she’d never met should find her spattered in mud and dealing with something no respectable farmer would have allowed happen.

It had to be a McIntosh thing. For all her charm, his sister always managed to make her feel at a total disadvantage too.

Silence echoed around her, while the skin on the back of her neck and between her shoulder blades tightened in a primitive warning. Laddie made a soft growling noise in his throat.

‘I’ll do that,’ a deep voice said.

Although she fiercely resented that uncompromising tone, a bolt of awareness streaked down Peta’s spine, setting off alarms through her body. As well as that peremptory command, his voice was textured by power and sexual confidence. It set every prejudice she had buzzing in outrage.

Slowly, deliberately, she turned her head and took in the man behind her with one calm, dismissive survey.

At least that was what it was meant to be. Maddeningly, cold blue eyes snared hers before she’d got any further than his face—handsome, superb bone structure—a face where danger rode shotgun on authority.

Damn, she thought helplessly, he is gorgeous! Her throat closed. And up close he was even bigger than she’d suspected, long-legged and lithe, with shoulders that would be a credit to a rugby player. Clear and hard and ruthless, his gaze summoned an instant, protective antagonism.

Curt McIntosh’s formidable toughness hammered home her acute vulnerability. Oh, what she’d have given to be able to get to her feet and look him in the eye!

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I almost had her out, and then the dog barked—’ Shocked, she stopped the excuse before it had time to shame her.

‘Just keep her head above the mud.’ He picked up the rope she’d been trying to get under the calf’s stomach.

Heart contracting in her chest, Peta ran a swift glance over his clothes. Well-worn the checked shirt and faded jeans might be, but they’d been made for his lean body and long, strongly muscled legs. Of course, his sister patronised the best designers.

It was probably this thought that loosened the links of her self-control. ‘You’ll get covered in mud,’ she pointed out.

His smile narrowed into a thin line. Another shiver—icy this time—scudded down Peta’s backbone.

‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ he said. ‘I’m not afraid of a bit of dirt, and you’re not strong enough to haul it out by yourself.’

True, and why shouldn’t he experience first-hand what rural life could be like? ‘It needs know-how, not just brute strength.’ She summoned a too-sweet smile, inwardly flinching when his eyes turned into ice crystals. ‘Although the brute strength will be very useful.’

The calf chose that moment to kick out in a desperate surge forward. Peta made a swift lunge at it, lost her balance and pitched towards the smelly mud. Just before the point of no return, a hard hand grabbed the waistband of her shorts, another scooped beneath her outstretched arms, and with a strength that overwhelmed her Curt McIntosh yanked her back onto firm land.

Gasping, she struggled to control her legs. For one stark second she felt the imprint of every muscle in his hard torso on her back, and the strength of his arm across her breasts. Although the heat storming her body robbed her of breath, strength and wits, instinct kicked in. Move! it snapped.

‘I—thanks,’ she muttered. But when he let her go she stumbled, and he caught her again, this time by the shoulders.

‘Are you all right?’

The level detachment of his voice humiliated her. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, striving for her usual crispness.

He loosened his grip and she stepped away. With the imprint of his knuckles burning the skin at her waist, she blurted, ‘You’ve got fast reactions for such a big man.’

Oh, God! How was that for truly sophisticated repartee?

His brows rising, he squatted to reach for the calf. Holding its head above the mud he said, ‘I hope this isn’t one of my calves.’

A spasm of apprehension tightened her nerves another notch. More mildly she said, ‘Yes, it’s one of yours. If you can lift her enough to get her belly free of the mud, I’ll slide the rope under her.’

Be careful, she told herself as he crouched down beside her. Clamp your mouth on any more gauche remarks, and remember to be suitably impressed by his strength and kindness once the calf’s out of the swamp.

This man could make her life extremely difficult. Not only did she lease ten vital hectares from him, but her only income this year was the money she’d earn from that contract. As well, sole access to her land was over one of his farm roads.

With two rescuers, one of them impressively powerful and surprisingly deft, freeing the calf turned out to be ridiculously simple. Curt McIntosh moved well, Peta thought reluctantly as they stood up, and he was in full control of those seriously useful muscles. She was no lightweight, and he’d saved her from falling flat on her face in the mud with an ease that seemed effortless, then hauled the calf free without even breathing hard. Clearly he spent hours in the gym—no, he probably paid a personal trainer megabucks to keep him fit.

Ignoring the odd, tugging sensation in the pit of her stomach, she bent to examine the calf, collapsed now on the ground but trying to get to its feet.

‘Where do you want her?’ Curt asked, astonishing her by picking up the small animal, apparently not concerned at the liberal coating of mud he’d acquired during the rescue.

Infuriatingly, the calf lay still, as though tamed by the overwhelming force of the man’s personality.

And if I believe that, Peta thought ironically, I’m an idiot; the poor thing’s too exhausted to wriggle even the tip of its tail.

She’d been silent too long; his brows lifted and to her irritation and disgust her heart quickened in involuntary response. The midsummer sun beat down on them, and she wished fervently she’d worn her old jeans instead of the ragged shorts that displayed altogether too much of her long legs.

‘On the back of the ute.’ She led the way to the elderly, battered vehicle.

He lowered the calf into the calf-cage on the tray of the ute. ‘Will she be all right there?’

‘I’ll drive carefully,’ she said. The manners her mother had been so fussy about compelled her to finish with stiff politeness, ‘Thank you. If you hadn’t helped I’d have taken much longer to get her out.’

He straightened and stepped back, unsparing eyes searching her face with a cool assessment that abraded her already raw composure. ‘So we meet at last, Peta Grey,’ he said levelly.

Pulses jumping, she could only say, ‘Yes. How do you do?’ Mortification burned across the long, lovely sweep of her cheekbones. Bullseye, she thought raggedly; yet another supremely sophisticated bit of repartee!

He smiled, and she almost reeled back in shock. Oh, hell, she thought furiously, he could probably soothe rattlesnakes with that smile—female ones, anyway! ‘How do you do?’ he replied courteously.

Just stop this idiocy now! she ordered herself. Your heart is not really thudding so loud he can hear it.

But perhaps it was, because when she looked up she saw his eyes rest a second on the soft hollow at the base of her throat. Thoughts and emotions jangling around in turbulent disarray, she went on painstakingly, ‘And I believe we’ll be seeing each other tomorrow night at your sister’s barbecue.’

‘I’m looking forward to it,’ Curt McIntosh said, somehow managing to turn the conventional response into a threat. He looked around at the paddocks that belonged to him. ‘Your lease is up for renewal, I believe.’

It wasn’t a question; of course he knew it was due for renegotiation. Foreboding brushed her skin like a cold feather. Seriously unnerved, she evaded his gaze and looked past him to his mount. With lowered head, the big black animal was cautiously inspecting Laddie. ‘In a month’s time.’

‘I’ll give you fair warning,’ he said, still in that pleasant tone, although now she recognised the steel beneath each word.

Defiantly, she lifted her head to meet his eyes. Cold blue had swallowed up the grey rims, and they were too keen.

The hollowness beneath her ribs expanding into a cold vacuum, Peta braced herself. ‘Warning of what?’

Instead of answering Curt McIntosh whistled; Laddie frisked across to his frozen owner while the horse—a gelding, Peta noted tensely, not a stallion—paced with measured strides towards the man who’d summoned it.

He swung up into the saddle and gathered the reins in one lean, mud-stained hand, examining her with an unsparing gaze. She took an involuntary step backwards. Horse and rider seemed to blot out the sun.

All trace of emotion gone from his face, from his voice, Curt said, ‘I’m in two minds about renewing it.’

Panic kicked her brutally in the stomach. Peta looked him full in his starkly powerful face and tried to hide the thin note of desperation in her voice. ‘Why? It would cost you a lot of money to build a bridge across the gully and link it to the rest of the station.’

He didn’t tell her that money was the last thing tycoons lacked, but she saw the glint of mockery in the depths of his eyes when he said negligently, ‘That’s my worry.’

One glance at that formidable face told her that pleas wouldn’t work. Swallowing, she said, ‘I was informed that it would be all right…’

Her voice tailed away when she realised that he was once more looking at the long line of her throat. Her breath blocked her airways. Then he raised his eyes and she had to stop herself from flinching because dark fire flared for a second in the blue depths.

‘Then whoever told you that made promises he knew he might not be able to keep. I have plans for this land.’

Without waiting for an answer, he made a soft, chirruping noise. Obediently the gelding picked up its hooves and turned away.

Motionless, her mind darting after thoughts like a terrier after rabbits, Peta watched them go. Of course the children of rich parents had advantages, and learning to ride as well as you could walk was just one of them. She’d never learned; her father hadn’t seen the necessity.

But then, he hadn’t seen the necessity of a lot of things. After he’d died she’d relied on her neighbours’ offers of lifts into Kowhai Bay until she’d learned to drive.

And Curt McIntosh was another dominant male who thought he had a God-given right to make decisions and control people.

Slowly, stiffly, she got into the ute, but once in its stuffy interior she sat with hands gripping the wheel while she stared unseeingly ahead.

On the rare occasions they’d met, Gillian Matheson had spoken of her brother—so strong, so clever, so drop-dead stunning that women fell at his feet! But Gillian was a restless, dissatisfied woman, and often her words had seemed to be aimed at her husband; although Peta had listened politely, she hadn’t believed in this paragon. After all, extremely powerful magnates were by definition attractive to women—some women, anyway.

She believed Gillian now.

‘Up, Laddie!’ she called, patting the seat beside her, and waited while the delighted dog jumped in. ‘Yes, this is a real treat for you, isn’t it? Just don’t get used to it; the only reason you get to ride in front is because on the tray you’ll spook that calf even more.’

Slotting the key into the ute, she turned it, but something about the engine’s note brought her brows together. It was missing again. ‘Not now,’ she breathed, putting the vehicle into gear.

Instead of working in the garden that evening she’d poke around the motor and see what she could find. And if it wasn’t something she could fix it would have to wait, because she couldn’t afford any repairs this month.

But during the careful trip down to the calf-shed, she wasn’t working out what she could do if the knock in the engine was too much for her basic mechanical skills. Her mind dwelt obsessively on Curt McIntosh, whose touch had sent her hormones on a dizzying circuit of every nerve in her body.

And whose relentless authority and aggressive, arrogant masculinity reminded her so much of her father she had to unclench her jaw and rein in a storm of automatic resentment and anger.

He controlled her future.

If he refused to renew the lease she’d have to get rid of her own stock, the ones she was rearing for sale in two years’ time to finance a new tractor. Because Ian’s calves—Tanekaha’s calves, she corrected hastily—were covered by contract, their needs were paramount. Without the leased acreage she had barely enough land to finish them off and send them back in good condition.

But she desperately needed a new tractor. Hers had to be coaxed along, and six months ago the mechanic told her it wasn’t going to last much more than a couple of years—if she was lucky.

She braked and got out to open a gate. Without the income from her stock she’d be in real trouble; extra hours pumping petrol at the local service station wouldn’t cover the cost of a new tractor.

Swallowing to ease her dry throat, she got back into the ute and took it through the gate. And there was little chance of more casual work at Kowhai Bay; the little holiday resort sank back into lethargy once the hot Northland sun headed for the equator.

After she’d closed the gate behind the ute, she leaned against the top bar and looked out over countryside that swept from the boundary to the coast.

Her smallholding was insignificant in that glorious panorama, yet the land she could see was only a small part of Tanekaha Station. Blue hills inland formed the western boundary, and the land stretched far along the coastline of beaches and stark headlands, shimmering golden-green in the bright heat.

Lovely in a wild, rugged fashion, serene under the midsummer sun, it represented power and wealth. If it came to swords at sunrise, Curt McIntosh had every advantage.

Perhaps she should give up the struggle, sell her land for what she could get, and go and find herself a life.

She bit her lip. All she knew was farming.

‘And that’s what I like doing,’ she said belligerently, swinging back into the vehicle and slamming the door behind her.

Once she’d settled the calf undercover in a temporary pen made of hay bales, she glanced at her watch and went inside.

After a shower and a change of clothes, she went across to the bookshelves that bordered the fireplace, taking down her father’s Maori dictionary.

‘“Tanekaha”,’ she read out loud, and laughed ironically as a bubbling noise told her the kettle was boiling. ‘How very apt!’

Tane was the Maori word for man, kaha for strong. Ian Matheson was a strong man, but his brother-in-law was out on his own.

‘And whoever chose his first name must have known what sort of baby they were dealing with,’ she decided, pouring the water into the pot. ‘Curt by name and curt by nature.’

Grimly amused, she returned to the bookshelves and found another elderly volume. “‘English and Scottish Surnames”,’ she murmured as she flipped through it. “‘McIntosh—son of the chieftain”! Somehow I’m not in the least surprised!’

In the chilly bedroom she’d converted into an office, she pulled out a file and sank down at the desk, poring over the lease agreement in search of loopholes.

Curt glanced around his room. The old homestead, now the head shepherd’s house, had been transported to another site on the station. In its place Gillian had spent the last two years—and a lot of money—supervising the building of the new house, and then decorating it. Her innate artistry meant that each exquisite room breathed good taste, but she’d paid only lip-service to the homestead’s main function as the administrative head of a substantial pastoral concern.

At least she’d kept the integrity of its rural setting and hadn’t gone for stark minimalism, he thought drily.

He scanned the photograph on the chest of drawers, taken on the day Gillian married Ian. His sister glowed, so radiantly happy she seemed incandescent with it, and Ian was smiling down at her, his expression a betraying mixture of tenderness and desire.

Almost the same expression with which he’d looked at Peta Grey in those damned photographs.

What the hell had gone wrong?

It was a rhetorical question. Several things had gone wrong; an urbanite born and bred and a talented artist, Gillian had found it difficult to adjust to life in the country as Ian had worked his way up to managing the biggest station in what Gillian referred to as ‘Curt’s collection’. She’d stopped painting a couple of years previously, about the time she’d discovered she couldn’t have children.

A disappointment Ian clearly shared, Curt thought sternly.

Gillian’s suspicions were probably right. In the woman next door, Ian had seen the things his wife lacked—the promise of children and an affinity for the land.

As well, he’d seen something Gillian had missed entirely—a tempting sensuality. Curt swore beneath his breath. Ian’s wandering eyes were no longer so startling. Barely concealed beneath the layer of mud and her suspicious antagonism, Peta Grey radiated a vibrant, vital heat that had stirred a dangerous hunger into uncomfortable and reckless life.

It still prowled his body. Not that she was beautiful; striking described her exactly. Her skin, fine-grained as the sleekest silk, glowed in the sunlight, its golden tinge echoed by an astonishing golden tracery across her green eyes. Tall and strong, when she walked her lean-limbed, supple grace was like watching music materialise.

Perhaps it was simply her colouring that had got to him; all that gold, he thought with a mocking twist to his smile. Skin, eyes—even the tips of her lashes were gold. Not to forget the golden-brown hair, thick and glossy as a stream of dark honey.

His brain, not normally given to flights of fancy, summoned from some hidden recess a picture of that hair falling across his chest in silken disorder, and his breath quickened.

Hell! He strode across the room to the desk, stopping to flick up the screen of his laptop. While the state-of-the-art equipment purred into life, he sat down and prepared to concentrate on the task ahead.

But work, which usually took precedence over everything else, didn’t do the trick today. When he found himself doodling a pair of sultry eyes and remembering the exact texture of her skin beneath his knuckles as he’d hauled her back from the swamp, and the tantalising pressure of her full breasts against his forearm, he swore again, more luridly this time. After putting down the pen with more than normal care, he crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball and lobbed it into the waste-paper basket with barely concealed violence.

Other women had made an impact on him, but none of them had taken up residence in his mind. He resented that sort of power being wielded by a simple country hick on the make, someone he neither knew nor trusted.

He got to his feet. He was, he realised contemptuously, aroused and unable to control it.

The word ‘jealousy’ floated across his consciousness, only to be instantly dismissed. There had to be some sort of connection for jealousy to happen.

‘Accept it,’ he said with cool distaste. ‘You want Peta Grey—reluctantly—but you’re not going to take up Gillian’s suggestion and make a play for her.’ His main concern was to get her out of his sister’s life, and that process had already begun.

Relieved by the summons of his mobile telephone, he caught it up. His frown wasn’t reflected in his voice when he answered the query on the other end. ‘Working, but you knew that.’

His lover said something teasing, and he laughed. As Anna spoke he noted the long line of dark trees on the northern horizon. They hid, he knew, the small cottage where Peta Grey lived.

Anna’s seductive voice seemed to fade; he had to force himself to concentrate on her conversation, and found it difficult to look away from that row of trees.

‘…so I’ll see you next Friday night?’ Anna asked.

‘Yes.’

She knew better than to keep him talking; he hung up with a frown.

Time to put an end to their affair. Anna was trying subtly to work her way into his life, and although their relationship was based on more than sex it would be cruel to let her cherish any false illusions. She wasn’t in love with him, but in him she probably saw an excellent chance to establish herself.

As Peta no doubt saw Ian.

His expression hardened. It was time Peta Grey learned that actions always had repercussions.

A knock brought his head up. ‘Come in.’

Gillian peered around the door, a gallant smile hiding her tension. ‘Lunch in fifteen minutes.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll be there.’

Once she’d closed the door he glanced at his watch before dialling his lawyers in Auckland.

Peta scanned the cloudless sky, then walked back inside. It was going to be a hot, dry summer and autumn; she could feel it in her bones. Each morning she woke to heat and walked across dewless grass that was slowly fading from green to gold. The springs were already failing, the creeks dwindling. The wind stayed serenely in the north-west, pushing humid air from the tropics over the narrow peninsula that was Northland. In the afternoons taunting clouds built in the sky, huge masses of purple-black and grey, only to disappear over the horizon without following through on their promise.

If no rain came she’d need money for supplemental feed for the calves—money she didn’t have, and wouldn’t get from the bank.

Moving mechanically, she picked up her lunch dishes and washed them. She just had time to shift the older calves into another paddock, then she’d drive to Kowhai Bay for her stint at the petrol station. Once there she’d ask Sandy if she could work longer hours.

That morning the mail had brought a letter from an Auckland firm of solicitors telling her that it was possible the lease would not be renewed. However the contract to raise calves for Tanekaha Station’s dairy herds would remain in effect, although if she decided to sell her farm some agreement could be made in which she wouldn’t come out the loser.

The cold, impersonal prose removed any lingering hope that Curt Blackwell McIntosh might change his autocratic mind.

Last night she’d sat over the figures until too late, juggling them as she tried—and failed—to find ways of increasing her income.

And when she’d finally gone to bed she couldn’t sleep; instead she lay in bed listening to the familiar night sounds and wondered how much her land would be worth if she put it on the market.

In Kowhai Bay’s only petrol station, Sandy shook his head when she asked about more work. ‘Sorry, Peta, but it’s just not there,’ he said, dark eyes sympathetic. ‘If I give you extra hours, I’ll have to sack someone else.’

‘It’s OK,’ she said quickly. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ But her stomach dropped and the flick of fear beneath her heart strengthened into something perilously like panic.

Her shift over, she called into the only real-estate agency in Kowhai Bay, and asked about the value of her land.

‘Not much, I’m afraid—although I’d need to come out and check the house and buildings over.’ A year or so older than she was, the agent smiled sympathetically at her as she picked up a volume of district maps, flipping the pages until she found the page she wanted.