Shadows of the Past (14 page)

Her smile deepened as she realized she was imbuing him with one of the fantasies from her childhood. “Thanks for the compliment. I must tell Franc he has your support. He worries about me. Now, what’s this about a receipt?”

“I thought you might like one for the twenty dollars. Some people claim their charitable donations against their taxes.”

“It hardly seems that charitable. In fact, now that I think of it, maybe I should have given you more. I can’t leave the office unattended, but if you’d like to come in for a coffee, my wallet is inside.”

She stepped aside as he said, “That would be…” Only to be interrupted by someone calling her name.

Now she wished she’d taken the time to wear her glasses.

“Maria.” Her name came again, closer this time. Close enough to recognize Arthur Collins.

He lumbered up to the door, his muscles packed tightly inside the checked shirt and jeans he was wearing, work gear for the Collinses, both father and son, who grew produce for the Auckland market. “Sheesh.” He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “Sorry, that’s what I get for rushing in this heat. Thought I might miss you.”

He gave the chaplain the once-over and visibly relaxed. “D’you pray around here, Father?”

“This is Chaplain…” Embarrassed, Maria suddenly remembered she’d forgotten to get his name.

She turned in the reverend’s direction. His hat shaded his expression as she played tag with the attention of both men.

The chaplain spoke first. “That’s all right. I can see you’re going to be busy. Maybe another day?”

“You know where to find me.”

Once more, the chaplain raised his hat to her. “That’s right, my dear, I do.” He dismissed Arthur with a nod, including him in his “Goodbye.”

Watching the chaplain turn the corner in the direction of Saint Andrew’s Church, she inquired, “What brings you this distance, Arthur? It’s a good few blocks from the market.”

“Your brother told me you worked here, so I thought I’d drop by while I was in the neighborhood. Then I saw you talking to the priest.”

“He’s not Catholic. Presbyterian, I think. He’s chaplain at Auckland Hospital.” She wondered which brother she had to thank for setting Arthur on to her. As soon as she found out, she’d pay him back in spades.

“Makes no difference to me, never go to church.” Arthur swiped his forehead again. He might have muscles but he didn’t look fit after walking up the hill Wellesley Street was built on.

“Bet you’ve got air-conditioning in there.”

“Sorry, Arthur. I can’t invite you in. Company policy.” She could imagine Franc condoning a quiet chat and a cup of coffee with the chaplain, but she well remembered his take on Arthur. No way was she going to rock the boat for the few days between now and when Franc returned to work.

Her thoughts floated her off on a scenario where Franc personally brought her assignments into Tech-Re-Search because he couldn’t stand not having her in his life anymore. Had she been mad to agree to his deadline?

Her dream balloon popped when Arthur leaned closer, one hand opening and closing on the doorjamb so that his muscles flexed. “How about one of those cappuccinos then? On me.”

she hadn’t been alone, she might have found it laughable the way Arthur was coming on to her. Why now, for heaven’s sake, after all these years he’d lived with his parents across the road and never said as much as boo in her direction?

Even as she began to decline his invitation, “I would have—” a lightbulb moment hit her in the middle of her refusal. Of course, Arthur had heard about her parents retiring and splitting up Falcon’s Rise “—but I’m alone in the office and somebody has to answer the phones. Maybe another time when you’re in town, now that you know where I work.” She gave him her best smile and shot his aspirations down gently. “In fact, call me next time. I’m sure Franc would love to join us. He didn’t get much chance to know you last time you met. And I’m sure he’ll be accompanying me home in future. He just loved his visit to Falcon’s Rise.”

Locked inside once more, knowing Arthur didn’t have her number, Maria grinned. Speaking into the empty office in a gruff voice not unlike Arthur’s, she said, “It’s a dirty job, but somebody had to do it.”

Wait till she told Franc that Arthur was after her for her share of the vineyard. Maybe the thought of her being an heiress would make him keep her on when their time was up.

Wishful thinking, Franc didn’t need her money. It was his own success that drove him, not the thought of living off someone else’s efforts.

She shook her head as she frowned at the receipt that recorded, received from Maria Costello, the sum of twenty dollars. She couldn’t quite make out the name of the charity.

Never mind she knew she wouldn’t claim it off her tax anyway. The reminder that by April the first, when her tax forms would have to be filled out, she wouldn’t be caring if she saved a few cents or not. She would be on her own again, with nothing left but the memories she and Franc were making together.

Her thoughts shifted to Randy Searle.

Would he be out of her life by then, or would Franc’s departure signal open season on Maria?

B
y lunchtime Saturday, Maria felt she’d earned her keep by doing a share of Franc’s housework. Being typically male, he would have left it u
ntil his cleaner returned after the holidays, but Maria had insisted that was a cop-out, and refused to let him get away with the excuse.

She joined him in the kitchen when she finished, and was in the process of teasing him about the cleaning equipment, or lack thereof, she’d found in the apartment. “I can’t believe that someone used to your level of technology has such a ratty vacuum cleaner. Doesn’t your cleaner complain?”

“She brings her own. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with that one. It was my grandmother’s. Grandma Glamuzina used it every day for years and I inherited the machine.” His voice echoed back at her from the pantry.

“It shows.”

He looked around the white p door and slanted an eyebrow in her direction as if waiting for the punch line.

“That she used it every day.”

As in most of the other rooms in the apartment, the decor was in shades of black, white and gray, the white kitchen with black granite counters looked clean and bright. Yet Maria wished she could lay her hands on a fern or two or maybe a red geranium to cheer the kitchen up and turn it into a place with a bit of life instead of second cousin to a mortuary.

A little voice in her head cautioned her, “That would be one way to lose him quick, to start taking over his living space with feminine froufrou.”

Maria wasn’t stupid; she’d seen the movie.

Though he’d showered her with fancy aromatic candles, Franc didn’t have a history that urged him to get his fingers dirty with rich brown soil, to make things grow, as her father and brothers did. No, it was the technical aspect of electronics and software that rang Franc’s bell. He’d fixed the little problem with her laptop last night in no time flat. A guy like Franc was handy to have around even without the great sex.

He’d been staring at her while her mind went on a journey of its own. It took her a second to realign her thoughts and say, “I only meant that it must have sentimental value. No one would give it houseroom otherwise.”

Franc closed the pantry. “I think I must have created a monster when I took you in off the streets.” He advanced toward her with a look in his eyes that made her shiver with anticipation and sent an excited giggle up the back of her throat to spill over just before he reached her.

“What with you criticizing my equipment.” He tried a theatrical leer, and when that didn’t work, pretended to twirl a mustache. “And the sexual demands you make in the bedroom, your mother wouldn’t recognize you as the meek-and-mild daughter I took home on Christmas Eve.”

Joining in the game, she grabbed the front of his T-shirt, pulling him closer. “Kiss me,” she demanded, lifting her mouth to his, and when he obliged, hooked a leg round the back of his knee until he fitted against the tingling between her legs and helped ease its intensity.

Her head was spinning, dazzled by the glorious combination of his taste and hers as their tongues stroked in a coup de grâce that nobody suffered or lost. They both won. “Take me to bed,” she moaned, impatient to finish what she’d started.

Franc lifted his head, a dazed, clouded look in his eyes. She didn’t need to feel the hard, thick ridge rubbing against her belly to know how aroused he felt. “I’ve created a monster, an insatiable one. But why go to bed? What’s wrong with the counter?”

“I just cleaned them.”

A chuckle tumbled out of his mouth. She felt its journey as it bubbled up in his chest then poured over her.

She could love this man.

He kept on laughing as he told her, “God, I just heard Mamma Costello speaking. When you get older, you’re going to be just like her.” As he finished speaking, both pairs of eyes widened as his stomach rumbled.

“Youneed to be fed.”

“Guess what? We need to shop. There’s nothing in there that would go even halfway to making a decent lunch, unless you can work some magic with stuffed olives and pickled gherkins.”

She shook her head. “Not even Mamma could work magic with that combination.”

“Then we need to eat out, and then we need to grocery-shop.”

“I can do the groceries,” she offered, knowing her father’s aversion to trailing round the supermarket after her mother.

“Oh, no, I’m not letting you out of my sight. Look what happened yesterday while I wasn’t there. Not one, but two men, came calling on you at work. I can just see some lothario cornering you in the produce section.” He bent toward her as he spoke, his hands tickling and his mouth inches from the side of her neck.

She lifted her chin to give him better access.

“He’ll cover you with grapes and cherries and eat you all up.” He showed her how, in the curve where her shoulder met her neck. The wide, low neck of the turquoise T-shirt she’d chosen for its coolness gave him the freedom to choose the most tender spot.

Franc was heading lower, his chin grazing the curve of her breast. “And if you escape, he’ll come after you. He won’t stop till he has you, even if it means chasing you round the checkout counter…” His voice faded away as she shuddered. No sex involved. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, hon. I’d forgotten about Randy.”

She placed a finger over his lips to still his apology. “So had I, big guy. That’s one good thing about you and me together, you make me forget.”

Franc opened his mouth to reply, but the doorbell got in first. They both turned together, but only Franc voiced his thoughts. “Who the hell can that be?”

If thoughts of Randy had made Franc’s arousal subside, the sight of what looked like the whole Costello tribe on the other side of the peephole in his front door was a dash of ice-cold water.

“Wow—” he finger-combed his hair then smoothed it back with the flat of his palm as he opened the door and was swamped with a mixture of men, women and children “—this is a surprise.”

How did they find us?

“Maria,” he called over the buzz of greetings, kissed cheeks and the feel of small sticky hands wiping past his knees, Ricky most likely. He counted heads.

“Your family has arrived.”

Come and rescue me.

A suspicion lurked at the back of his mind that Maria’s mother was a witch. How else had she known he was hungry? Or that the formidable smell of coriander, basil and oregano, combined with tomato and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, would make him forgive her anything? Including invading his apartment without warning.

Since meeting Maria, Franc had discovered two new weaknesses: Italian cooking the way Rosa Costello did it, and Italian women, namely, Maria her mother had a hand in both those weaknesses no longer came as a surprise.

“You’ve saved our lives, Mrs. Costello.” He was still wary enough not to call her Mamma or Rosa to her face. “We were about to go out to eat and then call in at the supermarket.”

Her mother had followed them into the kitchen, taken some casserole dishes and tinfoil trays from Maria’s sister, Giovanna, and her two sisters-in-law, Sarah and Carol, and then shooed them back into the sitting room. A room that had shrunk from the large open space he’d always considered it to be. But between children running round his black leather lounge suite, and men sprawling at their ease on top of the soft-cushioned seats, he could tell he needed twice as much room to house all the Costellos comfortably.

Strangely, it didn’t bother him as it might have a few days ago, and that laid-back, take-life-as-it-comes attitude should have given him something else to worry about.

He was a planner, and the situation with Maria and her family had never been part of any plan he’d concocted. Not even a glimmer of light on his laptop where he’d once had the foresight to list all his goals. And until he’d met Maria, he’d never veered from that set path.

Never considered it, until Maria.

The woman in question was busying herself switching on the oven and pushing a deep dish of pasta into the microwave. She wasn’t quite as laid-back. “How did you know where Franc lives, Mamma?”

Maria peeled back tinfoil from a tray, looked inside, took a deep satisfied sniff and covered a huge dish of what looked like lasagna back up again.

“It’s listed in the phone directory. You’d given me Franc’s number, so it was easy to check.”

The lasagna went into the oven. Maria closed the door on the foil tray. “I wonder you didn’t think to give us some warning.”

“It was a surprise.” Rosa turned to him, her dark, wide-eyed stare asking for confirmation that she’d done the right thing. Over the top of her mother’s head, Maria’s almost identical eyes rolled as if to say her mother was full of surprises lately.

“Doesn’t matter to me, I’m easy.”

Maria’s eyes spoke volumes, and the glint in them confirmed what he’d told her earlier. He’d created a monster, one that wasn’t above sharing a laugh with him over his discomfort at the double entendre. But it was true; where Maria was concerned he was
easy.

“At least you brought plenty of food, Mamma. Franc has a large appetite.” She qualified the words by saying, “You know, he eats enough for two men.”

“Good, I like that in a man. Maria, I noticed Franc has a large dining table. Why don’t you show your sister where he keeps the tablecloths and silverware, while Franc shows me round his apartment.”

Tablecloths were something they hadn’t bothered with before. When on his own, he either ate in the kitchen or on the run, and the night he’d ordered dinner for them both, the Point restaurant that had catered the meal had supplied everything.

“Toprawer, left-hand side of the black-lacquer credenza, take whatever you can find,” he said. And when they both appeared puzzled, he explained, “The tablecloths. I inherited them along with the vacuum cleaner, so they don’t come with guarantees.”

“If they were your grandmother’s, as well, I’m sure they’ll be perfect.” Maria poked him in the ribs as she went past. “Don’t let the food burn while I’m gone.”

“Here, before you go, take the men some beer.” That was one thing he hadn’t run out of.

With Maria gone, that left just him and Rosa in the kitchen, as she’d no doubt intended. He’d yet to experience having the hard word put on him by the mother of someone he was dating. But he was sure the unenviable task was uppermost in Rosa’s mind.

“She really likes you, my Maria.”

“I hope so.”

“No, she really does. I’ve never seen her so relaxed, except with family. Yes, she likes you.”

He was feeling his way here, not exactly sure what was coming next but determined to run with it. “Well, I really like her.” Flattening his palm against the second door in the kitchen that would take him through to the hallway, he said, “If you follow me, I’ll show you the rest of the apartment.”

Rosa followed. But he had to wonder why she thought it necessary to bring her purse along.

There was a certain amount of relief in the knowledge that they’d tidied up earlier and there were no messed-up beds or nightdresses hanging off the chair in his bedroom. Maria had given up wearing one. “What was the point,” she’d said, “when you’re going to take it off anyway.”

“The main bathroom is in here.” He flung open the door. “It’s just your basic white. I haven’t done much more to the place yet than move my stuff in. I bought it mostly furnished, apart from the beds.”

Maria’s toiletries were arranged on the counter of the vanity, a splash of color in a sea of white. He didn’t know why the sameness bothered him now, when at the time he’d bought the apartment he’d simply agreed with the Realtor that all the rooms with hard surfaces looked clean.

“My office is on the south side, as well, since it doesn’t need much sun, and this is Maria’s room facing north.”

Her mother looked in the door and nodded. Sunshine dazzled on the blue quilt and pillow set Jo had given him as a housewarming gift. The bed looked as though it had never been slept in, and it hadn’t. During his short stay in the apartment, less than four months, Maria was the first woman—first anybody—he hadn’t been pleased to see the back of, as they left him to get on with his work in peace. Hell, he’d hardly thought of work from the moment he and Maria met. He knew that would change though, it always had in the past.

She was the only woman to sleep, actually sleep, in his bed. He’d bought the king-size bed a few years ago when he got sick of his feet dangling over the end of a normal mattress, and she was the only one of maybe three women he’d taken to it that he hadn’t wanted to send away when the sex was

Sleeping together as opposed to making love had seemed to carry a ring of permanence and needed to be avoided at all cost.

“So, Maria hasn’t moved in with you?”

“She’s only living in the apartment until after the holiday break. When the women she shares with come back to the villa, Maria will go home, too.”

“It’s not permanent then.”

Franc pulled the door closed. “No, it’s not a permanent arrangement. Down here at the end is my bedroom. It runs the full width of the building and has its own terrace and en suite.”

She followed him into the bedroom and walked across the carpet Maria had raced around with the vacuum cleaner. “Nice view.”

View? He hoped she couldn’t see what he did when he looked in the room. Couldn’t remember the smell of Maria on his skin.

“That’s Chelsea Sugar Works where the boat is docked. Behind it, covered in native bush, is Kauri Point reserve. It was the most expensive extra in the apartment.” He said the words as he had many times before, but this time he didn’t laugh when he mentioned the cost of the view.

He had a feeling in his bones that the most expensive extra was now the one he kept catching flashes of in his mind’s eye. Of Maria, her head on his shoulder, her reflection boneless and pliant, succumbing to the pleasure of his hands as he brought her to completion.

Of her sitting astride him the first time she’d demanded to be on top, and the fearless way she’d ridden him, how her being much smaller made it easy to clasp her breasts as she slid up and down on his shaft.