Shadows of the Past (9 page)

This new aspect was unforeseen; he’d thought she was afraid of men. It would make things more difficult, yet ultimately more interesting. He smiled at the thought of stealing Maria from under Jellic’s nose.

The camera clicked, capturing an unguarded moment. As the next frame whirred into place, blood gorged his groin as he imagined the moment the exposed print slid from the chemicals, the pleasure of holding it up for his eyes to feast on. Yes, this enlargement could be nothing less than life size.

The smile never left his face. It widened as his teeth clenched, knowing she might never look at him in just that way.

Still, he was a man of infinite patience. He could wait.

“Roses were the last thing I expected to find amongst the vines.” Franc stopped to pick a full-blown yellow bloom and handed the fragile flower to Maria.

She held it to her nose and drew in its perfume, her nostrils gently flaring, and her eyes shut, hiding the ecstasy he knew she was feeling. Franc did a mental rundown on the hours until he could get her into his bed, cursing his suggestion that he take her into the city for a meal, when there was a restaurant less than five minutes from his door.

“Its perfume is almost too perfect, my head is spinning. Oh, oh dear,” she said, dismayed as the rose fell apart and its petals tumbled from her hands. “Don’t you think it’s sad, how quickly the roses die in the heat?”

“Tell the truth, it isn’t something I’ve put a lot of thought into, never having much to do with flowers.”

“I remember Papa planting these roses when he put in the new vines. They used to be an indicator of any diseases that might attack the grapes, but these days they’re more decoration. He ripped out the Muller Thurgau that grew here, and replaced it with red wines. Sangiovese is the newest of the ones he has replaced it with. It’s over there.”

Her serious expression amused him, as if she was conducting him round a famous art gallery and desperately trying to pronounce all the artists’ names correctly.

“Say that again.”

“Say what again?”

He took a step closer, an invasion of her personal space, and watched her eyelids flicker, their dark lashes twin crescents of sable. Her tongue moed her lips as his nearness forced her to look up at him. She smelled of rose petals and sunshine. The thought of taking,
owning,
her and the glorious combination made him hard. “The name of that wine, I want to hear it again.”

“S-s-sangio…”

Before she could finish, his mouth slanted over hers and swallowed the rest of the word. Her eyelids snapped open then sank on a murmur of pleasure.

It was everything he remembered and more. Better. Out here in the open air, just the two of them, as if they were alone in the world, and all their previous stresses counted as nothing.

Slipping his arms round her waist, he began to move as they had when they’d danced, slowly turning to a tune only lovers could hear, on a bed of yellow rose petals.

“Once more, hon, whisper the word for me.”

“Sangioooooo…”

They kissed again…and again, turning till his head spun with the hot scents of grass, and vines, and roses, the sun, and the sensuality, holding Maria in his arms and never quite letting her finish saying the word.

“I guess we ought to look at the view. I expect they will ask how you liked it,” she mentioned as they reached the brow at long last.

“My sister, Jo, has a friend with a winery at Pigeon Hill, I think it’s quite near, though I’ve never visited it.”

“I know her. Maggie Kovacs she used to be. I believe she married a cop, but he gave up his career and works with her now. Pigeon Hill has a few more hectares in vines than us, but when Gina and my brothers combine their properties, I guess they’ll give them a run for their money.”

She flashed a rueful smile his way. “That makes me sound very competitive. I’m not really, I’d just like to see my family do well.”

“I don’t see much wrong with that. Ambition is what lifts you out of the crowd. Without it, my friend Brent and I might be slogging away in dead-end jobs letting other people take credit for our work…our ideas. When I met Stanhope at my sister’s wedding, he was impressed by my ideas and gave me this chance. Of course, I couldn’t leave Brent behind. We were in the same year at Unitech and have worked together ever since.”

“And you don’t compete with each other?”

“Only over women.” One glance at Maria told him he might have made a hash of his chances by being too clever. “But that was a while ago. Now we’re just two old working hacks who know better than to compete over anything.”

As he leaned closer, she looked away. Snubbed him. “I always won, but never so well until I met you.”

Hands shaping her spine, he felt her shiver as she melted against him. He fought an urge to pull her down to the ground to take her right there on the top of the hill with the smell of the grapevines all about them. Goddess country.

Desire almost won, would have won, if he hadn’t seen the flash of sunlight on glass. Seen someone watch

Maybe someone innocent.

Maybe not.

He moved so her back was toward the slope where the flash of light had come from. “C’mon, let’s go back to the house and offer your mother a hand.”

“I always thought you were brave, now I’m sure of it.” She winked at him but he couldn’t return the gesture. “Okay,” she finished. “Next stop the lion’s den.”

B
efore most members of the household were moving next morning, Franc rolled out of bed with the intention of taking a walk and doing a little on-the-spot investigating. The more he thought about the flash that had made him shepherd Maria back indoors—as he saw it, to safety—the more he needed to be sure he hadn’t imagined the diamond-bright light in the midst of the vines.

He wanted confirmation. It made no difference that Maria had confided in him, given him chapter and verse on her reasons for pointing the finger at Searle; witnessing one tiny particle of evidence had opened his eyes to a startling revelation about himself. Hell, if he’d had a daughter who’d been abducted at one time, he’d never let her out of the house without him glued to her side. His stomach churned the way it had for the most of yesterday.

After a whole night of tangling the sheets into one big knot, he’d realized Maria had known the truth of the matter when she’d set out to confront Searle. You couldn’t spend the rest of your natural life in fear.

Thanks to his occupation, Franc had an eye for detail; he could look at the big picture without losing sight of the components that made up the whole.

Measuring the angle with his eyes, he stared at the spot on the opposite slope.
The place where he’d almost laid Maria down and made her his own.
The thought of someone spying on them, tainting their moments of intimacy with lewd thoughts, made his skin crawl.

He gauged the distance and took three more paces. If he’d got it correct, the flash had come from right about here.

He studied the ground, looking for clues to something out of the ordinary. Without rushing it, he walked across the curve of the slope, eyes to the ground between the trellises, searching the loose dirt around the roots of the vines and the mown strip of grass bordering them for a sign of someone’s presence.

And found it.

He hunkered down. Shoe prints dug more than a quarter of an inch into the soft soil as if someone had stayed in one position for a while. Cross trainers by the look of the pattern on the sole, a full print and one half-size from the toes back, as if the wearer had crouched down and balanced most of his weight on the back of one heel.

He studied the spot intently, knowing a sensible solution would be to take a photo. Too bad he didn’t have a camera handy. He lined up his feet with the prints and looked through a small gap that had been cut in the vines. The guy couldn’t have got better cover if he’d buil himself a duck shooter’s hide. From up here he would have had a perfect view of the comings and goings of the Costello household.

What kind of way was this, for anyone without malice, to celebrate Christmas?

Franc pushed to his feet, stood staring for almost two minutes and let his conclusions take shape. Determination changed the thrust of his jaw. He didn’t want to see a guy who was innocent take the rap for what was going down around Maria.

If Jo was correct in her assumptions, that’s what had happened to his father and the whole of the Jellic family had paid for the injustice.

The way the Costellos had paid. Because, as he’d discovered before he left Maria to seek out his lonely bed, her abductor had never been caught.
Damned
if this guy would get off so easy.

He looked to the horizon. Time to get back to the house. Thunderheads had begun to breach the dark gray rugged peaks of the Barrier Islands and looked ready to charge down on Kawau a few miles’ distance across the water. As he headed down the slope, a band of sunlight sliced through the full bellies of the clouds and lit up Little Barrier’s crenellated slopes and towering peaks. The impression endured for less than the blink of an eye before the rain front rolled over it.

Funny what a difference a little bit of light made. Yesterday it had taken his life in a different direction. His back teeth ached as he saw his dreams begin to recede, but he was damned if he would let Maria go until he knew she was safe from the Peeping Tom on the hill.

The connecting door to the room Maria had slept in stood open. With a shower in his sights he entered the bathroom and caught her concentrating on her reflection. She stroked a brush through her hair in front of the bathroom mirror, letting the strands curl behind her ears. She had changed into a new apricot crop top that sat almost six inches of skin above white pants. The peachy-pink color brought out sparks of copper in her hair as she tamed its waves with the brush.

He put his hands on her shoulders and stood behind her as he had in the dark that first night. He admired what he saw. No way could he deny it, what with his body reacting like a randy thirteen-year-old’s. “Hey, you almost ready to go?”

“Almost. I have to collect a few things from my room once the kids finish ransacking it. But other than that I’m ready to eat and run.”

As he turned her around into his arms, her hands slid to his neck as if that was their natural position. He drew in her scent, letting it curl around his thought processes to do its worst.
Scramble them.
“Boy, do you smell good.”

Holding his mouth inches from hers, he moistened his lips. “You ready for this?”

Eyes wide, she stretched up into his kiss. Her crop top rose with her, and his hands made short work of slipping underneath. She shivered, passing little mewls of pleasure from her mouth to his. He answered with a groan as her skin slipped like satin under his hands. Her mouth flowered under his, welcoming the thrust of his tongue and the scrape of his teeth as he searched for the taste of nectar that haunted like a hunger he couldn’t satisfy. He supped and burned with the need to get closer, skin to skin, heart to racing heart

Her eyelashes fluttered against cheeks, flushed with desire, as he raised his head. She was
his
and absolutely perfect, but the time wasn’t. “I’m sooo looking forward to tonight, Maria.”

She leaned into him, the hard nubs of her breasts left trails of fire down his chest. “If you keep wanting to jump ahead, you’ll never truly enjoy the moment you’re in.”

He thought about it for a second as his hand slid between them, cupping her soft female flesh. “I’m versatile, hon. I can enjoy both. Right now the feel of you is driving me crazy from wanting to be inside you.”

Pressing closer to her, he made his point without words.

“That’s what I want, too, but I’m worried that I might disappoint you.”

He flicked his thumb over the sweet hard center of her breast. Her eyes glazed over, and he caught her up against him as her knees caved. “You couldn’t disappoint me if you tried. This is an affair made in heaven…no, Olympus. You know, where goddesses live? First time I saw you, I was absolutely positive that Olympus was your home address.”

Her expression grew serious, her gaze narrowing as she locked on to his. “Don’t put me on a pedestal, Franc, I’m liable to fall off and break your illusions.”

“Don’t worry, hon. I’ll catch you.”

One glance at her own room and Maria almost threw up her hands in horror. Most of the shoes she’d left behind were scattered on the floor. Boxes she used for storing stuff she hadn’t gotten around to throwing away had been opened, her books and photographs piled haphazardly inside.

The windows had been thrown wide and the rising wind flapped at the floral curtains she’d once thought matched so prettily with the sprigged wallpaper. The room lost some of its country-cottage appeal when seen beside Franc’s uncompromising maleness.

It definitely wasn’t the sort of bedroom you dragged a guy into with sex in mind, she mused, turning her attention to the mess. “Guess I know what the kids were up to last night.”

“Looks like they’ve been dressing up or playing hide-and-seek in the closet.” Franc picked up a book, glimpsed at the couple in a clinch on the cover and set it down on top of an open carton. She waited for a comment, but he didn’t ask the obvious— “Do you like romance novels?” The big guy was just full of surprises.

“I can’t leave my room like this. Mamma has enough work on her hands, so I should tidy up before we take off. But I’m afraid it’s going to set back our arrival time in Auckland.”

“How about I help? That should knock a few moments off. You straighten up the piles of shoes,” he suggested with a raised eyebrow, scanning them as if doing a quick count.

“I like shoes.”

“Hey, I’ve got nothing against them. They stop wear and tear on the feet.” He picked up a black sandal with a four-inch heel and examined it. “Great engineering, but I haven’t a clue h women walk in them without falling off. That said, on you they look great. Make your legs look longer than the Homer Tunnel.”

“Well, thanks…I think,” she said, taking the shoe out of his hands and pairing it with a matching one. “You stick to closing up the cartons, I’ll put the shoes away.”

He bent to straighten a carton, and had it closed and added another to the pile with quick efficient movements.

Warmth welled up in Maria’s belly as she sneaked a quick peek at Franc’s khaki-clad butt, and before she realized it, she was staring. Spending the next couple of minutes concentrating on the job at hand did nothing to delete the memory. Huh, and he’d said her legs were long.

She could hear Franc working behind her, the sound of cardboard buckling and scraping as he overlapped flaps to hold a box closed, but she wasn’t prepared for the “Damn!” or the crash that followed.

The box Franc held had emptied its contents, books and old framed photos, onto the floor from underneath. “Guess this carton was past its use-by date, the bottom just gave way. Do you think Rosa will have any others?”

“Bound to. Are you game enough to interrupt her while I sort out the stuff I want to take back to Auckland? Last time I saw her she was vacuuming.”

“Sure, no problem. Me and Rosa, we’re like that.” He crossed two fingers together and grinned as he started toward the door.

Maria bunched her hands at her waist and cocked her head toward his departing figure. “Don’t get too big-headed. She’s a sucker for anyone who compliments her cooking and you were laying it on thick last night.”

He ducked back in for a second. “I cannot tell a lie. I haven’t enjoyed, or eaten so much food, in years.”

This time she waited till he was out of earshot before letting a smile shape her lips as she thought of his fantastic butt. “It certainly doesn’t show, big guy.”

So much for Franc’s boast to Maria that he and her mother were tight. Rosa had insisted on following him back upstairs as if he wasn’t to be trusted to repack the contents of the carton.

In the few moments since he’d gone in search of Rosa, the pretty, feminine room had been swamped in the gray gloom of the leaden sky as if it were underwater. Rosa flicked the light switch to on. “It’s going to rain,” she mentioned as though they were blind to what was happening in the sky outside. “Did you pack raincoats?”

Listening with half an ear, he started to gather the books from the floor. Maria pulled the tag across the last few notches of zipper curving round the small bag of summer clothes she intended to take back to Auckland. “I’m going to be in the car, Mamma. Besides, it might not be raining in Auckland.”

He dropped the first pile of paperbacks into the carton and started on another. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her and make sure she doesn’t melt. She’ll be okay with me.”

“Huh, no one can control nature. The storm is going to get a lot worse before it gets” said Rosa as he dropped the last of the books in the box. The noise caught her attention and she picked a book from the carton. “Why have you kept these? I thought you got rid of them years ago.”

“I might want to read them again. In fact…” She took the book Rosa was holding then grabbed a few more. “I think I’ll take some back with me.”

“I didn’t think a man like Franc would leave you much time for reading.”

“Mamma…” Maria opened the bag again and pushed the books on top, closing it with an air of finality as Franc picked up some framed photographs, turning them over one by one to examine the glass in case any had cracked in the fall. Most were old photos of the Costello tribe when the kids were young and Rosa and Pietro sprightly.

The last almost startled a gasp out of him, as his breath backed up behind the lump in his throat. It was of a teenage Maria, a school portrait in black and white. Her face was thinner, her eyes no less huge than when they’d danced together the night he met her. She’d worn her hair long down her back, held back by a bandeau, matching the white regulation blouse with its collar sitting primly over the neckline of a dark-colored uniform. Black, navy, he couldn’t tell. And she was absolutely beautiful, so beautiful it twisted his heart simply to look at his goddess in the making.

Embarrassed by the emotions churning in his chest, he laughed, “Hey, Maria. Get a load of this. You look like a little nun, all that black and white. Cute though. You should have this picture on display somewhere.”

Rosa took charge. “We have so many photos of Maria the house is full of them.”

Funny, he hadn’t noticed.

The photo was shoved away out of sight and Rosa piled the others on top. Her mouth was pinched, the lines around it showing her sixty or so years for once. “She’s much prettier now. I don’t even know why she kept that old photo.”

“How old were you then?” he asked, reaching for the question like a drowning man clutching at splinters, unaware of how he’d fallen into a dark bottomless pool he hadn’t known existed.

“She was seventeen, an awkward age,” murmured Rosa.

Bull’s-eye! The answer hit him where it hurt the most. Seventeen. The year she was abducted.

He wanted to say something, anything, to rectify his blunder. Maria looked at him, her eyes wide and dewy as if fighting back emotion—and who could blame her. The next moment he knew he’d been wrong as she shook her head and put an arm round her mother’s shoulders and gave her a peck on the cheek. Looking back at him, she shook her head, as if he’d be crass and say more.