High Stakes Bride (17 page)

Becca picked up her coffee. “It's Walter. Nola rang John up last night to tell him the news. They're dating.”

“Since when?”

“Since the fire at her house.” Becca shrugged. “Nola won't admit to anything, but rumour is that she lit the fire solely to get his attention—which she did.”

As Dani lifted her cup to her mouth and sipped, Carter's truck slotted into a parking space outside the café.

Becca watched his progress as he locked the truck and stepped up on the curb. “Speak of the devil….”

Dani tensed. There was no doubt that Carter looked good. Female heads automatically turned when he walked by. Her spine stiffened as a familiar voice called out. She spotted Mia sitting at a shady table with Roger Wells. The last she'd heard, Mia was just passing through—on her way to pick apples in Nelson. Either she'd never made it out of town or she was back for another visit.

Carter lifted a hand, but didn't change direction and Dani breathed a sigh of relief. She'd never thought of herself as a jealous woman—another of the changes she was slowly adjusting to.

Nola appeared as he took the seat next to Dani. Within seconds a glass of ice water was deposited in front of him.

Absently, Dani listened to the way he answered Nola's queries. Not for the first time she noticed there was nothing flirtatious or over-friendly about Carter's manner or his replies, he was decidedly low-key. Despite that reticence, the female sex gravitated to him—whether they were eight or eighty. The machismo aside, they simply liked him.

Nola tucked her tray under one arm. “When are you leaving?”

Carter's gaze caught hers. “Tomorrow night.”

Dani kept her expression blank. A few minutes later, Carter helped her into the truck. She felt edgy and aware and fragile, and more inclined to argue than make nice conversation. “Where are we going?”

“Home.”

The word carried more poignancy than usual.
One more day
. She couldn't help it; she had a sense of foreboding.

D
ani rose in the pre-dawn darkness. Rex, David's gelding, nickered and trotted along behind her as she caught Elsie. A cool breeze blew in off the ocean as she led the mare out of the paddock, bringing with it the smell of salt and ozone and blowing away the last dregs of sleep. Suppressing a shiver, she rubbed the old mare's nose as she slipped off the halter, slotted the bridle over her head and fitted the bit in her mouth. “Last time girl, then you can retire.”

They both could. After this she would be packing her bags. When David came back, she intended either to move her practice into Jackson's Ridge, or make a fresh start in Mason. For most of her life her home had been at Galbraith, but now that time was over. Whether she succeeded or failed to meet the mortgage, it was past time to strike out on her own. The challenge both invigorated and scared her, but the reasoning was sound.

Becca had been right: it was time to let go. She was thirty years old, and for the past six years she had been running on guilt. Once David moved back to Galbraith it wouldn't take long for him to settle into a relationship and start a family and when that happened, Dani intended to be long gone. There was no way she was going to play gooseberry in her brother's marriage.

Minutes later Dani cinched the saddle tight, swung up and squeezed her calves against Elsie's flanks, although she hardly needed to urge the old mare on. Elsie was a stock horse born and bred, she might be close on sixteen, but she loved to work. Her ears pricked as she started forward at a brisk amble, automatically heading through the gate.

Dani checked the luminous dial of her watch. The truck was due at ten, which gave her five hours to get the cattle into the stockyards. Most of the herd was already in close, it wouldn't take much to move them, but Murphy's Law held for farming just like it did for everything else. There was always a difficult one in the bunch. In this case she could guarantee it was going to be Buster. Buster had been a headstrong calf and a difficult yearling. Neutering hadn't seemed to make much difference; he still thought he was in charge.

As Elsie ambled on, the echo of hooves became more distinct, then separated into two sets of hoofbeats. A sense of inevitability gripped her as a rider materialised out of the mist. It was Carter up on Rex. He must have caught and saddled him just minutes after she'd ridden out.

An ache started in her chest as he came abreast. “I thought you were leaving today.”

“I changed the appointment.”

 

By lunchtime the cattle, including the breeding herd, were mustered into the stockyards, ready to be trucked to the sale. Two hours later, dust hung in the air as the last truck pulled away, leaving the pens, and the farm, empty.

Emotion gripped Dani as the roar of the last truck receded to be replaced by silence. She had the strongest sensation that the pulse that was Galbraith had just stopped. She had been prepared to feel empty, but she hadn't expected to feel grief. Over the years the high, windy plateau and coastal strip had made a place for itself in her heart. It was home.

As they rode back to the house a curious calmness settled on her. She would still have to wait on the sale prices to see if there was enough to meet the balloon payment. Win or lose, she had done her best. If that wasn't good enough, she couldn't change it now.

 

The night was hot and close, most of the stars blanked out by cloud, as a vehicle idled along the dusty farm roads that crisscrossed the Rawlings property and provided access to the long peninsula that curved out into the sea and formed the northern-most point of Jackson's Bay. The road angled in close to the beach before downgrading to little more than a goat track, but Carlisle wasn't interested in reaching the peninsula.

Bringing the truck to a halt in the lee of a small dune, he slipped a knapsack on his back and struck out across country toward the Rawlings place, keeping to the cover of scrubby manuka, stunted by salt and bent and twisted toward land by perpetual sea winds. Satisfied that he had taken every precaution to elude Marc O'Halloran, who had almost caught him on a couple of occasions, he paused in the deep shadow of a lone pohutukawa, allowing himself several minutes to adjust to the night sounds. When he was satisfied he was alone, he threaded his way up the slope, keeping his steps slow and deliberate.

A half moon emerged from behind a sullen bank of cloud and the bulk of the Rawlings homestead sprang into prominence. Keeping clear of the house, he skirted the shadows, waiting patiently for the cloud to blank out the moon. Rawlings was gone for the night, but that didn't mean he would take unnecessary risks.

A heavy patch of cloud slid across the moon. Satisfied that he was close to invisible, he drifted between the outbuildings, comfortable with the night.

 

Dani climbed the shell path that led from the beach to her house. Carter had left shortly after the muster, but even though she knew he was only gone for one night, the fact that he was back in barracks didn't make her happy.

Moonlight slanted over Carter's house as she stepped up onto the lawn. She studied the luminous dial of her wristwatch. It was just after eleven. She'd walked for an hour, trying to wear herself out in the hope that she'd simply fall asleep, but the remedy hadn't worked, she didn't feel even remotely tired. After months of being alone, it had only taken days to get used to being one half of a couple again. She
missed
Carter.

 

Corrosive anger ate at Carlisle as he watched Dani stroll beneath the trees, feet and legs bare, long hair trailing down her back, as if she'd just enjoyed a leisurely stroll along the beach. In the fitful light her resemblance to Susan was uncanny.

Hunkering down in the deep well of shadow cast by an old oak, he set himself to wait, letting the rhythmic sound of the surf on the beach below soothe away the eruption of temper. A few minutes later her bedroom light went out. He gave it ten more minutes then he rose to his feet and strolled along the edge of the lawn toward the house.

Fifteen minutes later he crawled beneath the house and extracted dry strips of kindling, newspaper, a lighter, and a container of fire gel from his knapsack. Petrol or white spirits were more volatile, and normally he got a kick out of the explosion, but in this case he needed to keep the noise level down. The surf provided a level of background noise that would hide the initial sound of the flames, but not for long, and the last thing he wanted to do was alert Dani.

He watched as the flames consumed the kindling then fed the fire with larger wood he'd found on the woodpile. A burst of blue-white flame spat a glowing ember out of the centre of the fire into a drift of dried leaves. Instantly flames shimmered to life.

Grabbing his knapsack, he retreated from the small blaze and coldly assessed the weather conditions. The usual sea breeze had dropped, leaving the night disappointingly still. The lack of wind and the boxed-in position he'd built the fire in—set where the house bellied low to the ground—would slow the fire but, all the same, once it took hold it would be spectacular.

Picking up his knapsack, and checking the ground in case he'd left anything behind that could incriminate him, he backed into the shadows. This fire was an exception to the rule.

This one he wanted to watch.

 

Carter strolled through his darkened house, waiting for Murdoch to call. He had ostensibly left town this afternoon, calling in at the supermarket on his way to make sure the message that he'd gone back to barracks was clear. If Carlisle was going to show his hand, it would be tonight.

He hadn't told Dani. As certain as Carter was that Carlisle was the arsonist, so far all he and Murdoch had was supposition. They didn't have one evidential link that connected Carlisle to the Jackson's Ridge arsons. He'd tossed up and decided that with five police officers and himself surveilling the property, Dani didn't need to know that it was possible the man who had stalked her and Susan when she was a child was back in Jackson's Ridge until
after
they'd apprehended him.

The phone rang. Murdoch and Lowell were on stand-by down on the beach road, the two Mason cops were watching Dani's driveway, O'Halloran was watching the beach.

 

Dani kicked the cotton sheet, her only covering, aside. The polished wooden boards were cool on her feet as she padded across the room to switch the ceiling fan on. Normally, she would simply push her French doors open and let the night air circulate through the house, but Carter had insisted that while he was away, she secure the house. Every window was latched, every door locked, and had been ever since she'd left the house earlier on in the evening. Consequently, the old homestead with its tin roof and lack of ventilating windows was as hot and airless as an oven.

The steady hum as the blades stirred the air provided more comfort than relief; it didn't cool the air so much as move it around.

Sliding back into bed, Dani punched the pillow into shape and made herself comfortable. She needed to sleep, but it was hard to relax when the relationship she needed was slipping through her fingers—for the fourth time.

When Carter had left for barracks she'd recognized the remote quality in his gaze: she'd seen the look often enough.

Her head lifted off the pillow. For long seconds she listened, but the hum of the fan drowned out everything but the distant cry of a pukeko—one of the swamp birds that inhabited the marsh down on the river flat. Punching the pillow again, she forced herself to relax.

It must be her imagination, but it seemed to be getting hotter.

 

Carter's phone rang again. O'Halloran had spotted a vehicle concealed at the far end of the beach. At first he hadn't been overly alarmed, because the truck was parked some distance away, at the opposite end of the beach, on the track that led out to the peninsula. Locals who were serious about fishing and owned four-wheel-drive vehicles used the track on occasion. And this particular vehicle was familiar; it belonged to a neighbour.

Carter tensed, all of his instincts on alert. The Galbraith roads were being watched; not his. The omission had been a calculated risk. Murdoch only had so much manpower, and they were already stretched thin covering the access points into Galbraith Station. Added to that, after Walter's arrest, Carlisle should have felt safe enough to use one of his usual routes. The arsons had been “solved” and the manpower Murdoch had thrown into the case was supposedly reduced.

“Are there any rod holders welded on the back?” asked Carter.

O'Halloran swore beneath his breath. “None.”

“Then that's our boy. Radio Murdoch, tell him our plans just changed; he's already here.”

Carter retrieved the Glock he kept in his bedside table. The handgun was light and reliable—a standard-issue police weapon—which meant the gun and the ammunition were relatively easy to obtain. He checked the load on the clip, slotted the magazine in place then slipped the gun in the waistband at the small of his back.

Pulling on a black knit cap to hide his light hair, he exited the house through the French doors that faced the beach. The line of Dani's house was a solid silhouette against the night sky. Her light was out which meant she had finally gone to bed.

He checked the kitchen door and a window. Satisfied that she was safe, he ghosted along the edge of the trees, heading for the barn and outbuildings. He knew she had locked up, because he had watched her do it.