The Temptress Of Tarika Bay

Why, if she was the mercenary, calculating woman he’d assumed, hadn’t she sold Tarika Bay to him?

His lips tightened as he watched her sip her wine, red lips lushly inviting. For a while—okay, since the day they’d met!—he’d been fighting a desire to find excuses for her supposed greed.

He put his fork down on his empty plate. Now he found himself wondering whether her wild abandonment in his arms had been a natural generosity, or a calculating attempt to soften him in case she needed a loan. The thought outraged him for reasons he wasn’t prepared to explore right then.

It would be much easier if he could convince himself she was a greedy, amoral sensualist.

Perhaps it was simply that she had enough contradictions in her character to intrigue him. Businesswoman, artist and craftsperson, sensual lover, yet a woman who blushed occasionally and hated it…

She had certainly enjoyed making love with him, but did it mean anything to her?

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Harlequin Presents #2342

Robyn Donald

The Temptress of Tarika Bay

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

DRAGGING her gaze away from the polished hide of the bull pacing past her, Morna Vause eyed the spectators at the local Agricultural and Pastoral Show. Tinny music from the sideshows floated across the showgrounds, mingling with the busy hum of New Zealanders having a good time.

In a brittle voice she murmured, ‘I’d feel safer if there was more than one strand of wire and a few spectators between that animal and me.’

Cathy Harding grinned. ‘I know you’re the consummate city slicker, but can you imagine something that big actually running? I bet I can hop faster than its full speed. With your long legs it wouldn’t have a hope of getting anywhere near you. Are you bored? Would you like to go home?’

‘I’m not in the least bored,’ Morna told her honestly. She squinted from beneath the brim of her hat at the cloudless sky, a richer, more mellow blue than summer’s brassy brilliance. ‘It’s autumn—we’re supposed to be cooling down.’

‘Not in Northland.’

Morna’s idle gaze skimmed the crowd, stopping at an arrogantly held head a few yards away. Registering great height—about six inches over six feet—blue-black hair, olive skin, and an air of cool authority, she felt an odd shimmer of awareness, a kind of alteration to the fabric of her life she’d only experienced once before.

And look what that got you, she told herself sternly. Humiliation and pain and bitter betrayal and a total loss of self-respect…

Physically, this man didn’t even look like Glen. Not only was he much taller, his wide shoulders reminded her of the axemen she’d watched demolish tree trunks a few minutes ago. Glen had cherished his urban worldliness, whereas this man looked thoroughly at home in a very rural situation.

Unexpected heat shivered along her nerves. All she could see of the unknown man was one superb cheekbone, a strong nose and an even stronger chin, yet something about his stance—an indefinable aura of complete self-confidence?—goaded her into instant dislike. Glen had had the same—

Mercilessly slamming the door on unwanted memories, Morna fanned herself more vigorously and forced her eyes back to the show ring, where another gleaming mountain of animal was striding ponderously past, dwarfing its handler.

Face lighting up, Cathy exclaimed, ‘Oh, look, there’s Marty with our bull! Nick’s so pleased it got Champion of Champions.’

Nick Harding was Cathy’s husband and Morna’s foster-brother. Morna patted a damp black lock of hair back into her sleek bob and said respectfully, ‘It’s certainly a splendid beast. Gorgeous.’

Cathy chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t exactly call them gorgeous, more overwhelming. I saw you admiring them like a veteran cattle fancier over at the pens with Nick.’

‘I love those burnished colours.’ Frowning, Morna watched another animal approach. ‘They make me wonder if I could get that effect in a piece of jewellery. I’d have to use enamel…’

‘It intrigues me that you rely on forms and colours from nature so much. Designing and making jewellery seem such sophisticated skills.’

Wrinkling her nose at the sickly perfume of candyfloss that floated over other, more earthy scents, Morna pointed out, ‘The raw materials are very basic. Precious gems and metals are gifts from the earth. And as for sophistication—who could be more sophisticated than Nick? Yet here he is, lord of the manor and thoroughly enjoying it.’

Cathy said cheerfully, ‘You know Nick—he digs really deep into anything that interests him. He’s enjoying learning about genetics, and the right swear words to use with cattle dogs, and how to put a post in.’

‘He never showed any sign of being interested in farming! We were classic city kids—didn’t even know where milk came from. And then he turned into an advertising whizzkid in Auckland’s best agency…’

Cathy filled in the silence. ‘You certainly couldn’t get more urban than that.’

‘Indeed.’ Morna wished she’d kept her mouth shut, but the past that entangled them both had a way of intruding into the present.

From somewhere close behind her, a deep, sensuous rumble of male laughter summoned swift shivers. The big, dark-haired stranger flashed into her mind. She was, she thought angrily, behaving like a hormonal teenager—it probably wasn’t the same man, and if it was, so what?

Tilting her hat so that it shaded her face even further, she said abruptly, ‘I wish we’d known each other—without Glen.’

‘You can’t change the past,’ Cathy said simply. ‘If it hadn’t been for him I probably would never have met Nick, and that would be—well, I’m so glad I did. I hope one day you meet someone you can trust.’

Morna shrugged. ‘I hope so too.’ Not that she expected it to happen. Ruthlessly she dragged the conversation back onto a previous track. ‘I’m impressed at how well Nick fits in. The men at the cattle pens treat him like an equal, yet I believe country people are notoriously hard to please.’

‘Nick would fit in anywhere.’ As always, Cathy’s tone deepened into an enviable combination of love and pride when she spoke of her husband. She sent a quick glance at Morna. ‘When I first met you, I wondered if you loved him.’

‘I do,’ Morna told her equably, ‘though not the way you’re meaning. I’d lay down my life for him, but as far as I’m concerned he’s my brother. He always has been and he always will be.’

Cathy nodded. ‘The Two Musketeers—one for both and both for one.’ She laughed wryly. ‘I was jealous.’

‘You had no need to be. We’re family. He loves you quite differently.’ She met Cathy’s eyes and smiled.

‘I love him too.’ Cathy’s fine-featured face glowed.

Morna wondered what it would be like to be as small and delicately beautiful as the woman beside her.

Not that she’d exchange her extra height and strong-boned face, but occasionally she thought it would be…well, interestingly different to have a man treat her with the intensely protective love that Nick reserved for his wife.

She moved uncomfortably, transfixed by an itch between her shoulderblades. Someone was watching her with more than ordinary interest—she could feel an intentness that set alarm bells jangling in a primitive warning.

With a swift, mischievous grin Cathy nodded behind her. ‘If you want a real lord of the manor, your next-door neighbour Hawke Challenger is the best candidate. He’s just got back from Central Africa.’

Morna turned, oddly unsurprised when she caught the eyes of the dark-haired man. Conspicuously light-coloured in his tanned face, they held her gaze for several tense seconds before releasing it to survey the woman speaking to him.

Furious at the cool assessment in that pale scrutiny, she said thickly, ‘Is that him?’

‘That’s the owner of Somerville’s Reach cattle station,’ Cathy told her, adding, ‘And the staggeringly chic, exclusive resort at Somerville’s Bay, as well as its diabolically difficult golf course.’

To cover the prickle of feverish excitement in her bones, Morna remarked flippantly, ‘How could any couple stare into the face of their newborn child and decide to lumber him with such a totally over-the-top name?’

Hawke Challenger chose that moment to smile at the woman beside him.

Morna’s heart jumped. Shocked and disturbed, she noted how a brief flash of white teeth and the relaxation of a few muscles around a strong, masculine mouth could turn an impressive mask of force and power into an outrageously handsome face.

A hot flicker of sensation twisted inside her. She was not, she realised, the only woman watching him from behind sunglasses. Such potent male charisma summoned a focused high alert from every woman within range.

Stunned by her reaction, and bleakly resisting, she concentrated on what Cathy was saying.

‘I think Hawke Challenger suits him. Anyway, he’s not the sort to be swamped by a name, however extravagant. He’s got far too much presence.’

‘You’re completely right,’ Morna said, squelching a latent huskiness in her tone. ‘Too much—too, too macho. He’s not in the least what I expected.’

The Challenger man laughed again. Instead of softening that hard buccaneer’s face, his amusement seemed sardonic—a match for his slashing profile. He was truly gorgeous, his hard-edged features underpinned by a formidable self-possession that echoed his surname.

Morna made a habit of refusing challenges, except purely business ones, and this one she wasn’t going to touch. Chills scudded down her spine, because something in that cool, impervious regard, something in the way he smiled at the woman beside him, reinforced that initial reminder of Glen.

Did Cathy not notice it?

Cathy’s eyebrows rose. ‘You haven’t even met the man, yet you’ve made up your mind not to like him.’

Clearly she liked him. ‘He’s beautiful,’ Morna drawled.

Cathy chuckled. ‘Oh, absolutely. So?’

‘Beautiful men—apart from Nick, of course—are usually self-absorbed and conceited.’ Deliberately she turned away. ‘Bet you anything you like that Handsome Challenger is checking out the best-looking women here.’

‘You do jaded and worldly so well! I do admire that curl of the lip and the bored tone.’ Cathy grinned at her. ‘And if he’s assessing the best-looking women you’ve just been elected to that group, because he’s keeping an eye on you. Without being obvious, of course—Hawke is never obvious.’

The twining heat in the pit of Morna’s stomach tightened into a knot. ‘He’s probably eyeing you up and envying Nick,’ she said uncomfortably, keeping her gaze fixed onto the slow-moving procession of animals filing past.

The younger woman snorted. ‘Not Hawke—married women aren’t his style. And why shouldn’t he be interested in you? You’ve got spirit and character written all over your face, and a body to die for. As well as that fabulous skin.’

‘Well, thank you—’

Cathy ploughed on, ‘Hawke isn’t conceited. Dominant, yes, and completely confident—’

Smiling, Morna agreed, ‘OK, OK, he’s certainly nothing like the agricultural tycoon I’d imagined.’

‘What did you think he’d be like?’

‘A testy middle-aged man with a weather-beaten face and an unhealthy interest in sheep,’ Morna drawled.

Cathy choked back laughter. ‘I don’t believe that! You must have heard about him.’

‘The only locals I’ve talked to since I moved to Tarika Bay are you and Nick, and the Gorgeous Challenger hasn’t come up in the conversation.’

‘It’s time you started meeting people.’ Cathy looked at her with determination. ‘We gave you a month to settle in, but from now on I’m going to invite you whenever we entertain, and I expect you to come. You work too hard—you need to play a bit too.’

‘I’m a self-employed businesswoman; I have to work hard.’

Besides, she had an old debt to pay off.

At that moment Hawke Challenger looked deliberately at Cathy and smiled. It felt like a betrayal when Cathy’s face lit up with a warm response. Morna’s lips tightened. Why couldn’t her intelligent friend catch that painfully evocative resemblance to Glen?

Not in looks—although Glen had been a good-looking man, he wasn’t in the same league as Hawke Challenger. But both men wore an air of arrogant confidence, of complete conviction that they could do what they wanted because of who they were.

Cathy seemed quite blind to it. In a tone that could only be called cheerful she said, ‘So now you know you’ve got a truly fanciable man living right next door.’

‘Well, just over the hill,’ Morna agreed. She added tautly, ‘And I’m certain every time he thinks of Tarika Bay, with its three acres and that lovely little beach, he comes over all acquisitive. Before he died Jacob told me that “the Challenger circus” had approached him a couple of times to sell. Jacob turned each offer down, but I’ll bet Hawke Challenger believes he’s going to buy it off the estate.’

Cathy said fairly, ‘I can understand why Hawke wants it. His land surrounds Tarika Bay.’

‘He might want it,’ Morna told her with calm determination, ‘but he’s not going to get it.’

Cathy sighed. ‘You’ve decided to dislike him. I recognise that mulish jut to your jaw!’

‘I haven’t made up my mind,’ Morna said. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think of him. I’m the interloper here, not him. He fits in very well with all these splendid animals: big and well-muscled and seething with testosterone. The colour’s right too—I’ve seen several bulls exactly the same bronze as his hide. And you can take that matchmaking look off your face. He’s years younger than I am!’

Cathy returned, ‘Turning thirty-four yesterday didn’t transform you into a hag overnight. As it happens, he’s two years younger than Nick—’

‘Which makes him two years younger than me,’ Morna interpolated.

Cathy sent a resigned glance skywards. ‘Who’s counting? Who cares?’

The man they were both watching chose that moment to direct a long, speculative stare at Morna. Hawke Challenger’s light eyes duelled with her golden, resentful ones before he lifted one straight black brow in a mocking acknowledgement and turned his attention back to the people with him.

Morna fumed. Over-confident bastard! She’d trained herself not to be intimidated by his type, but it irritated her that while she’d been grateful for the wide brim shadowing her face, he’d held his autocratic head high.

Without expression she commented, ‘He certainly doesn’t look like your average farmer.’

‘He’s not—he’s the New Zealand equivalent of the landed gentry.’

‘I’ve designed jewellery for some of them,’ Morna said thoughtfully. ‘They demand quality and they’re not afraid to go modern.’ She shrugged, adding, ‘But, unlike the fanciable Mr Challenger, most of them are pretty weather-beaten. I can see him cutting a swathe through impressionable tourists at his resort—even showing off on a prancing black stallion to match his hair—but I’d be surprised if he does any of the grunt work, either at the resort or on the station.’

‘He’s really getting to you, isn’t he?’ Cathy surveyed her curiously. ‘He grew up on a family cattle and sheep station on the East Coast, north of Gisborne, so I imagine he’s competent on a farm.’

Another trickle of awareness snaked through Morna. ‘If he doesn’t mind hard work and getting his hands dirty, why did he abandon agriculture to go into tourism?’

‘He didn’t. He owns land all around New Zealand, mostly agricultural land. Overseas too—he does a lot of travelling. This is where he’s settled; his office is in Orewa.’

Interested in spite of herself, Morna nodded. Orewa was a seaside town a few miles away. ‘If he’s got the whole country to choose from, I wonder why he decided to come up here instead of settling on his ancestral acres.’

‘Ask him,’ Cathy said smartly. ‘Somerville’s Reach was practically derelict when he bought it. He poured money into it until he’d whipped it into shape, which provided four new jobs for the district. Then he demolished the old homestead in Somerville’s Bay—’

‘Barbarian!’ Morna interjected on a scornful note.

Cathy returned serenely, ‘It was a ruin, and the district’s gained lots more jobs from the resort. You won’t find anyone here complaining about his development plans. And when Hawke turned the gumlands into a fiendishly tricky golf course, that brought more tourists and yet more employment.’ She glanced up at Morna. ‘As you well know, because you drive through the golf course twice a day from your little shack to Auckland and back.’

‘It’s not a shack, it’s a bach,’ Morna said automatically, turning a fraction to sweep Hawke Challenger’s uncompromising features with another rapid glance.

As though he felt it, he lifted his head and once more their eyes met and clashed. His wide sexy mouth—classically chiselled into perfection—lifted at the corners in a smile that held no warmth, nothing but potent sensuality.

A flash of foreboding darkened the day. Lowering her lashes as a shield, Morna scrambled to remember what they were talking about.

Cathy said, ‘In your case, bach and shack are synonyms.’

‘Baches are New Zealand icons!’ Ignoring Cathy’s sniff, Morna stressed, ‘OK, it’s shabby and old, but it’s clean and it’s comfortable. Although until Jacob’s will is probated it’s not mine. I’m paying rent to the estate for it.’ Her voice turned tart. ‘I don’t imagine I’ll see much of Hawke Challenger—rich, well-connected resort owners might buy jewellery, but they don’t socialise with the people who make it.’

She sneaked another glance, only to have Hawke Challenger catch her again. This time he deliberately examined her face, his own coolly judgmental.

Startled colour flamed across her ivory skin and burned through every cell. Bewildered, she tore her eyes free, swallowing as the music and chatter drummed around her.

Cathy’s voice broke the spell. ‘Minimal rent, I hope.’

‘Pretty minimal.’ In fact, very minimal. The bach was sturdy, but basic.

‘It’s great to have you living so close. Nick worries about you.’

‘Nick still thinks of me as the kid he used to protect and bully for my own good.’ Morna’s smile was wry, almost wistful. ‘I know I relied shamelessly on him, but I’m over that now.’

‘He thinks you’re mad to insist on donating Glen’s legacy to a charity,’ Nick’s wife said honestly. ‘And so do I. Glen knew he’d treated you badly.’

At twenty-one Morna had fallen head over heels, fathoms deep in love with Glen Spencer, Nick’s mentor and the owner of the advertising agency where he’d worked.

Glen had been her first—her only—lover, and she’d been—well, sinfully naïve. Certainly stupid! When he’d asked her to live with him she’d ignored Nick’s warnings and moved into his opulent apartment. And she’d been lyrically happy, smugly convinced that Glen loved her and that her fierce loyalty was returned.

And then he’d met Cathy, young and beautiful and vulnerable.

Five years of loyal love turned out to mean less than nothing; brutally pragmatic, Glen dismissed Morna from his bed and his life by dangling the offer of a fully paid course at a prestigious design institution half the world away.

She had swallowed her bitter pride to accept his conscience money, and as soon as she’d been out of the way he’d married Cathy with as much pomp and ceremony as he could command. But Morna had attacked his ego when she’d stubbornly treated the fees as a loan and repaid them, month by month.

Cathy had known none of this, nor that Glen’s ruthless rejection of Nick’s foster-sister had persuaded Nick to leave his fast-track career at the agency and strike out on his own in the crazy, dangerous, high-octane world of information technology. Glen had been the only person surprised when Nick’s cutting intelligence and business skills had catapulted him into huge wealth and international power.

Although Cathy had been married to Glen for four years before his untimely death in an accident, she still didn’t understand the way Glen’s mind had worked. In his will he’d left Morna the exact amount of the tuition fees, down to the last cent, throwing the money back at her in a final sneering insult.

With these thoughts churning through her head, Morna said to Cathy, ‘How did you know about the course fees? I suppose Nick told you.’

‘He told me you wouldn’t let him repay Glen, or lend you the money to do it. Instead you worked as a waitress in nightclubs to get it,’ Cathy said, distressed but determined.

‘Excellent tips in nightclubs,’ Morna said succinctly. ‘It wasn’t Nick’s problem. And I refuse to stay beholden to Glen.’

‘At least you used his legacy to set up your shop! But he’s dead, Morna—he has been for years. Why repay a dead man by donating most of your income to a charity?’

‘I only ever considered it to be a loan.’ Morna’s voice was cold and sharp, brittle as an icicle.

‘You’re too stiff-necked and principled for your own good,’ Cathy returned doggedly. ‘Nick would have been proud to stake you—’

‘I know.’ Morna’s voice gentled. ‘Cathy, I’m not going to sacrifice my independence to another man ever again—not even Nick. Using Glen’s legacy got the shop off the ground, but if I didn’t treat it as a loan I’d always feel—I’d feel that the five years I lived with him were a sort of prostitution. It wasn’t like that—not for me.’

Cathy’s face softened. ‘Of course it wasn’t,’ she agreed. ‘I do understand. It’s just—well, it seems such a waste—to scrimp and save when you don’t have to.’

‘What happened to his bequest to you?’

Cathy flushed. ‘I use it to support the hospital in Romit,’ she admitted.

‘So you use it for a hospital in the Coral Sea, and I use it for deprived children here.’ Morna’s voice gentled. ‘Don’t worry, and don’t let Nick worry. I’m managing.’

‘Oh, yes—buying your clothes from second-hand shops, driving around in a car that gives Nick a heart attack whenever he thinks about it, ploughing everything back into the shop—!’ Dismayed, Cathy caught herself up. ‘I’m sorry. I admire your determination to do what you think is right, but you can overdo independence.’

‘Don’t be sorry. I know you’d do anything to save Nick a moment’s worry.’

‘Of course I would,’ Cathy said briskly, ‘but I’m concerned for your sake too!’

‘At least admit I buy my clothes from exclusive charity shops,’ Morna said lightly.

Cathy smiled, but her blue eyes revealed a lingering anxiety. ‘OK, I’ll admit that. Not that it matters—you’d look good in a flour sack.’