Christmas Holiday Husband (3 page)

The temptress in the white sundress who’d danced like a dream.

And the shy, determined virgin who’d pulled him down into her welcoming body as she lay beneath him in the moonlight that long ago evening.

A decade later she was self-possessed, slightly distant, with an indefinable air of ‘touch-me-not’ that had him curiously rattled. He could handle huge stud-bulls, dominate boardrooms, keep a plane safely aloft, control the whole of his vast estate—but he had no idea how to force his way through the gossamer barrier she’d erected between them.

Ellie turned and held out her hands toward his girls, and they claimed one each, pulling her through the door, chattering and squealing, vying for her attention. Tony sat on at the table, staring sightlessly after them.

His first love was back.

Everything in his busy predictable life had just been turned on its head.

CHAPTER
TWO

“I’m stuck,” she yelled.

The twins giggled and shrieked. They’d led her out to see the ducks, and Ellie now stood ankle-deep in gloopy mud. The innocent looking little stream that ran a hundred yards from the house had saturated the ground and turned part of it into a bog.

“Come on, Ellie,” Antonia squealed.

“It’s easy,” Carolyn yelled.

Ellie sighed deeply, rolled her jeans up another couple of turns, and slid her feet from her sandals. She fished them out of the disgusting mess, hoping that might make it easier to escape. A hot blush raced up her neck and over her face—her authority was disappearing fast. She needed this job and didn’t want to jeopardise her chances of keeping it. A short-term contract with accommodation over the summer school holiday was more than she’d dared hoped for—and perfect apart from the obvious fly in the ointment called Tony. She’d somehow just have to cope with him. And hope she survived.

She pulled first one foot out of the ooze and repositioned it, then the other. Slowly she stepped free.

xxx

Tony listened with half an ear to the excited chatter and laughter. There’d not been enough of that in his life lately; he strolled out from his farm office to investigate.

The corners of his mouth twitched when he found Ellie on the gravelled driveway, mucky sandals held aloft by their straps. She hobbled along, exclaiming as the sharp stones bit into the soft soles of her feet.

“Been led astray, have you?” he called, picking up speed, scooping her into his arms and carrying her, protesting vigorously, across to one of the other buildings.

“Let me go, you clown!”

“You can’t walk over this on your tender townie feet,” he said, holding her firmly across his chest.

“This is no way for your twins to see their tutor,” she grumped.

“Did you two do that on purpose?” he asked, looking back over his shoulder and nearly brushing Ellie’s lips with his own as he turned. Her sweet breath caressed his face. Her perfume floated on the warm air, teasing his senses.

Keep your distance. Treat it as a joke.

He shot her an amused glance, hoping that would work. Her blue eyes sparked with challenge only inches from his. Their bodies rubbed together as he walked...the sweetest of tortures and sharpest of provocations. One of his hands practically cupped her breast.

“No, Daddy,” the twins chorused.

“You weigh no more than you did at eighteen,” he murmured in Ellie’s ear as he carried her. “I can feel your bones—among other things...”

Ellie fumed and struggled, but succeeded only in making him smile more broadly and tighten his grip on her. “Relax, Ellie. You’re safe enough now.”

“I was safe enough a minute back. I made it out of your wretched bog under my own steam.”

“I mean safe enough with
me
.” He gave her a small shake to emphasise the word. “You seem—edgy?” he said, reluctantly setting her down next to one of the other farm buildings. He turned on a tap with a garden hose attached.

“I’ll do it,” she insisted, but he quickly squatted beside her, rinsing the mud away, running his hands over her ankles and feet. Loving the excuse of having his hands on her again.

So fast, so easily, after all this time.

“This little piggy went to market...” he said, tweaking her smallest toe.

“And this little piggy got none,” she snapped.

“
Had
none,” he corrected, glancing up at her, knowing full well what she’d meant, and not intending to let her get away with it. She’d felt fantastic in his arms. He’d drawn in the scent of her hair and skin ... enjoyed the same sweet fragrance that had turned him on so long ago.

She’d plummeted back into his life like a stone into a still pond, causing ripples—ripples of longing to recapture their time together. Ellie had excited and challenged him, and messed with his mind far more than he’d been willing to admit back then.

And she has no husband in the way
.

Was she his reward for enduring the last two bitter years of marriage to Julia? Followed by the months of guilt-ridden regret as he watched her slowly die?

Did he deserve such a prize after ruining Julia’s life?

He sighed deeply as he finished smoothing his hands over Ellie’s fine-boned ankles, and turned his attention to her sandals. Eventually he handed them back to her. “They’ll get you back to the house, anyway. Put them somewhere warm to dry out and they might recover.”

xxx

Ellie eased the damp straps back over her feet. No doubt Tony had seen they were the cheapest of the cheap. It was humiliating to be reduced to this; the minimum of possessions, and none of them beautiful.

Even before the fire, she’d had very little. Now she had even less. She felt the embarrassment keenly, assuming his wife owned European shoes, designer clothes, and expensive jewellery. Wharemoana was huge and superbly maintained. Money was plainly available in generous quantities. Even the twins’ everyday clothes had labels she’d seen only in the glossy magazines of the school staffroom. Another world—not hers.

She shook her head in an attempt to clear such thoughts away. Why was she worrying about her appearance all of a sudden? The last thing she wanted was to attract Tony. There was plenty on her plate already. “Thank you,” she said ungraciously, and hurried inside to collect other shoes from her meagre selection.

Her bedroom mirror told the tale all too clearly. She was flushed and huge-eyed. Tousled and trembling. And he’d only been washing her muddy feet and disgusting old sandals...

How would she survive if he decided to seriously turn his potent charm in her direction? But of course he couldn’t. His wife had died quite recently. He’d have no interest in the temporary teacher.

What had his words been? Something about not jumping her in front of his mother-in-law and daughters? Of course he’d ignore her. So why had some vicious knife-blade peeled ribbons of disappointment off her heart?

She flopped down on the bed for a moment and reached for Callum’s photograph. He grinned back at her with the same smile as the man who’d been crouched at her feet just minutes before. She ran an affectionate finger across her son’s face, caressing his skin and soft thick hair. His father in every respect. Even his dark brown eyes had Tony’s golden flashes of mischief.

She’d been away from him for only one day, and already it was breaking her heart not to be able to see him, touch him, and ask about his day at school. She’d known it would be a long heart-rending summer without him, but to be aching unbearably so soon was much worse than she’d been expecting.

Sighing, she set the photo down again on the chest of drawers beside her bed. He was the last thing she chose to see at night...the first she wanted to find upon waking. Tony’s lovely secret son.

xxx

The previous afternoon, she’d driven through the rolling New Zealand countryside in her battered old hatchback. The early summer heat had been oppressive. Her hair was too hot on her shoulders so she’d stopped and tied it into a ponytail while she let a rattling stock transporter hurtle by. The sharp smell of sheep dung had seeped through the car’s ventilation system and she’d pushed the air vent closed for a few stifling minutes until the truck was well clear.

Once she turned off the main highway to the unsealed back-country road, hard stones caught in her tyre treads and flew noisily up under the bodywork. Her eyes narrowed each time an occasional vehicle swept by, scattering pebbles and leaving a choking cloud of pale dust to peer through.

Unused to such conditions, she drove ever more slowly, trying to keep her wheels lined up in the smoother ruts, worrying she’d slide in the loose gravel and pitch right off the road on one of the corners.

Somehow she misread the instructions and went miles too far north. Finally, defeated, she’d bumped up the long drive to one of the remote farmhouses, and was redirected as though
everyone
should know the way to Wharemoana.

At last she’d turned in through the vast iron gates. Her teeth rattled together like dice in a cup as the car shuddered over the cattle-stop bars. Then the weary relief of arriving changed to awe and apprehension.

The long driveway curved through an immense, beautifully tended garden. The grand old two-storied timber homestead gleamed golden in the late afternoon sun. This was not the way she’d pictured the farm.

Reasonably remote, yes. A house big enough to accommodate an extra guest—fine. Some sheepdogs tied up by a nearby tractor shed.

But this was practically a village—and an opulent one at that. The outbuildings were smartly painted to match the main homestead. Long-established trees cast pools of welcome shade. And the roaring Pacific Ocean glimmered and thrashed against the wild coastline only a few hundred yards distant.

She should have expected that.

Whare—
far-ray
—the house.

Moana—
mo-arna
—the sea.

Far-ray-mo-arna.
The house by the sea. She’d rolled the melodious Maori word around her tongue before braking to a halt under the big sheltering portico. Easing stiffly from the driver’s seat, she tugged and slapped at her creased-up jeans and dusty navy T-shirt. A floaty dress and high heels would have been much more appropriate in such a sumptuous setting. Not that she had any dresses left after the fire. And only one pair of horribly uncomfortable high heels, come to that.

As she approached the gleaming ruby front door it swung open, and a buxom fair-haired woman stepped out to welcome her. “Ellinore? Lovely to meet you. I’m Virginia Eastman.”

So this was the voice on the phone, the signature on the letter, the grandmother of the two little girls who needed tutoring? Ellie reached out to shake hands. “I’d prefer just Ellie.”

Virginia nodded. “Ellie. I’ll try and remember that. Leave the car there until tomorrow. We’re not expecting anyone else this evening. You can put it into one of the garages around the back once you’re unloaded. Come in and get settled first.”

Virginia led her into a wood-panelled entrance hall with richly patterned rugs and a splendid timber staircase. She indicated they were to climb. The walls were crammed with impressive paintings, old maps and tapestries. A corner cabinet on the landing shone with silver trophies.

“It’s an amazing house,” Ellie said, reaching out and caressing the banister rail, smoothed and polished by more than a hundred years of hands sliding over the swirling wood-grain...and maybe the pants of a few daring little boys as they slid down, too. “I can picture my son whizzing and squealing along the slope here—and probably hurtling off the end!”

Virginia smiled serenely. “He wouldn’t be the first,” she agreed. “The girls haven’t tried it yet, but I’ll bet their father did.”

They swung around a gracious curve and stepped into the top gallery. The dark oak furniture smelled of beeswax polish. Velvet-red roses glowed from a gleaming brass vase, and a long display of framed family photographs ranged along the wall.

Virginia stopped and pointed to one. “There are your twins. They’re outside somewhere—I’m surprised they haven’t already come running in to meet you. Carolyn and Antonia. Always knows as Caro and Ants, I’m afraid.”

Ellie grinned. “My son is Callum, but he answers to nothing but Cal.” She inspected the photograph. The girls looked identical—two little blondes with arresting dark eyes. “I’m going to have fun telling them apart until I know them better.”

“There’s a trick,” Ginny said. “Red hair ribbon for Caro, blue for Ants. If you think ‘C for caro, C for crimson’ you’ll be fine.” She turned away from the photos. “And it’s rare I’m anything except Ginny,” she continued as she opened the nearest door. “I’ve put you in the Blue Room. Some years ago Robbie arranged en suite bathrooms for each bedroom so you’re quite private.” She led the way in. “They were an extra wedding present for my daughter, Julia,” she added softly.

Ellie bowed her head, not knowing how to reply. Ginny’s daughter had apparently died quite recently, but it was difficult to express grief for someone she’d never met. “I’m so sorry that I have to be here,” she managed.