The Far Side of Paradise (19 page)

Her flatmate wasn’t going to be diverted. ‘Piffle. It’s just not
natural
for you to never go out with
anyone.’

Taryn said with indignation, ‘Stop exaggerating. I have gone out.’

‘Friends don’t count!’ Isla flung her arms out in one of the dramatic gestures she did so well. ‘Auckland has over a million people living here, half of them men, and quite a few of them looking for a gorgeous woman like you. But no, you ignore them all because you’re still fixated on some man who did you wrong. You know
how you’re going to end up, don’t you? You’ll be an old maid, buying baby clothes for your friends’ kids but never for your own. And it’s such a waste because you’re not only gorgeous, you’re clever and nice as well, and you can cook and change a car tyre—the world
needs
your genes.’

‘What’s this about babies?’ Taryn eyed her suspiciously. ‘You’re not trying to tell me you’re pregnant, I hope?’

Isla snorted. ‘You know better than that. Look, it’s a fabulous night, just right for a concert in the Domain. I’ve got enough food and champagne to feed an army, and I happen to know that in our group there’ll be one unattached, stunning man. You’ll love the whole thing. And it will do you good.’

‘Thanks for suggesting it, but no.’

Isla cast her eyes upwards. ‘OK, OK, but I’m not giving up—I’ll get you out sooner or later, just see if I don’t. And that’s both a threat and a promise.’

She turned away to gather up the picnic basket and a wrap, adding over her shoulder, ‘Still, at least you’re no longer looking quite so much like a ghost. You had me really worried for a while.’

‘I’m fine,’ Taryn said automatically. ‘Go on, off you go. Have fun.’

‘That’s a given. See you.’ Isla disappeared down the passage of the elderly villa she shared with her two flatmates. The other one, a man, was away for the weekend. Taryn liked them both and got on well with them, grateful for their uncomplicated friendship, just as she was grateful for the job she’d found in one of Auckland’s smaller libraries.

She heard the front door open and Isla’s voice, startled
and then welcoming. ‘Yes, she’s here. In the living room—second door on the right. See you.’

Hastily, Taryn scrambled to her feet. She wasn’t expecting a visitor.

The door opened and Cade walked in, somehow seeming taller than she remembered, she thought confusedly above the urgent clamour of her heart. Her stomach dropped and then a great surge of joy burst through her.

He stopped just inside the door, gaze hardening as he examined her. When her tension reached near-screaming point, he said, ‘You’ve lost weight.’

Her head came up. Reining in the urgent need to feast her eyes on him, she said astringently, ‘Thank you for that.
You
don’t appear to have changed at all. How did you know where I live?’

‘I’ve known since you got here,’ he said, adding, ‘and any changes in me are internal, but they’re there. Are you going to ask me to sit down?’

Taryn cast a desperate glance around the room, furnished in cast-offs from Isla’s parents, who were short. ‘Yes, of course. The sofa, I think.’

Afraid to ask why he’d come, what he wanted, she sank into a chair, only to scramble up again. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got anything to drink—not alcohol, I mean. Would you like some coffee? Or tea?’ She was babbling and he knew it.

‘No, thank you,’ he said curtly. ‘How are you?’

She managed to rake up enough composure to say, ‘I’m fine. Thank you. Very well, in fact.’ Struggling to control the wild jumble of emotions churning through her, she sat down again. ‘How are things with you?’

Shrugging, he said in his driest tone, ‘Fine. I thought you’d like to know that Peter’s supplier is in custody
now. And yes, the go-between was Andrée Brown—who cheated Peter by telling him the dealer was demanding more and more money. In effect, she drove him to his death. She’s being investigated for fraud and drug trafficking.’

Taryn grimaced, relieved to have something concrete to fix on. ‘I’m glad. It’s been worrying me that Peter might never be avenged. It was kind of you to come and tell me.’

Cade said harshly, ‘You deserved to know. And I don’t consider bringing them to account to be revenge—it’s a simple matter of justice.’

Taryn realised every muscle was painfully tight, and that she was holding her breath. Forcing herself to exhale, she said, ‘You said you always knew where I was—how?’

‘I had someone keep an eye on you.’ His mouth curved as he met her seething glance.

‘Why?’

He shrugged. ‘To make sure you were all right.’

Taryn didn’t dare look at him in case the hope that bloomed so swiftly—so foolishly—was baseless. She said steadily, ‘I’m all right, so you can go. Nothing can take away the fact that if I hadn’t laughed at Peter and refused his proposal he’d probably be alive today.’

‘It’s no use going over what can’t be changed.’ He shrugged. ‘You weren’t to know—he must have gone to incredible lengths to hide his addiction from you—from everyone—as well as his dependence on that woman for them.’

Something shifted in Taryn’s heart, and the grief that had weighed her down since she’d left Fala’isi eased a little.

Uncompromisingly, he continued, ‘We didn’t understand
how fragile he was because he took pains to prevent anyone from seeing it. Nobody could help him because he wouldn’t let us see he needed it. We can wallow in guilt until we die, but it’s not going to help Peter.’

Taryn swallowed. ‘You sound so hard.’

He said harshly, ‘I am hard, Taryn. I suspect the three years I spent with an addict mother toughened me. And the fact that she was an addict probably explains why Peter would have moved heaven and earth to keep me from finding out about his addiction.’

Taryn dragged in a deep breath. ‘What happened to your mother?’

‘She died soon after I went to the Coopers.’

‘Your grandmother must have loved you,’ Taryn said swiftly. ‘Babies need love to be able to survive, and you not only survived, but you learned to love your foster-parents, and Peter when he arrived in the family. You’re not that hard.’

He shrugged. ‘That sort of love, yes, but until I met you I wondered if I’d ever be able to love a woman in the way Harold Cooper loved Isabel.’

Inside Taryn wild hope mingled with bitter regret. Heat staining her cheeks, she met his unwavering regard with slightly raised brows. ‘And after you met me?’

‘I decided to use the attraction between us to get the information I wanted from you.’ He stopped, then went on as though the words were dragged from him, ‘But I made love to you because I couldn’t stop myself.’

Her heart leapt and the pulse in her throat beat heavily, but she didn’t dare let hope persuade her into more illusions. Mutely, she waited for whatever was to come next.

‘When we were together I didn’t think of Peter.’ He
spoke carefully, his face bleak yet determined. ‘I was too concerned about hiding my response to you. Just by being yourself, you wrecked my logical plan to win your trust so you’d confide in me.’

‘Logical?’ she demanded, suddenly furious. ‘Coldblooded, more like.’

He frowned. ‘Yes.’ He paused, then said, ‘I
am
coldblooded. Cold-blooded and arrogant.’

In a shaken voice, she said, ‘That’s not true—you loved the Coopers. You set out on this … this charade. because you loved Peter. The time with your birth mother must have been horrific, but I’m so glad you had those early years with your grandmother and that the Coopers took you in. They must have been wonderful people.’

He said evenly, ‘They were—my mother still is. And I don’t want sympathy. But a background like that probably explains why—until I met you—I found it easier to talk of wanting rather than loving. It’s no excuse. I had no right to do to you what I did. I should have told you who I was when we met.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ she asked, almost against her will, and braced herself for his answer.

He said quietly, ‘I expected someone like Peter’s other girlfriends—like the lovers I’ve had, someone charming and beautiful and chic and basically shallow, I suppose. Instead, I saw a girl with a hose trying to put out a fire she had every reason to know would ultimately get away from her, possibly put her in danger. A woman who was beautiful under a layer of smoke and sweat, a woman who ordered me around.’ He stopped, then said with an odd catch in his voice, ‘A woman I could love. And every sensible thought went flying out of my head. Oh, I thought I was in control, but all I wanted was to get
to know you, to find out what sort of person you were. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—accept that I’d fallen in love at first sight.’

Taryn went white. She stared at his controlled face, the only sign of emotion a tiny pulse flicking in his angular jaw. He
couldn’t
have said what she thought she’d heard.

‘I’m making a total botch of this,’ he said curtly. ‘I didn’t believe I could love. But I did, even when I was telling myself that all I was doing was finding out why Peter had killed himself. And every day that passed I fell deeper and deeper in love with you without recognising it or accepting it. Although I told myself I needed to give you chances to talk about Peter, I really didn’t want to know.’

He got to his feet. Unable to stay where she was, she too stood, but couldn’t move away from her chair. He paced across to the window and looked out at the rapidly darkening garden.

In a level voice that somehow showed strain, he said, ‘I love you, Taryn. Even when I was accusing you—I loved you. I sent you back to New Zealand because I needed time to accept what I’d learned about my brother. And I needed to see my mother. But I came here because I couldn’t stay away.’

For long moments she stared at him, his face drawn and stark, a charged tension leaping between them. He didn’t move and she couldn’t take a step towards him, held prisoner by caution that ached painfully through every cell in her body.

But she believed him, although it was too soon to feel anything other than relief, and a fierce desire to see everything out in the open after all the lies and secrets.

She said, ‘That connection between us—I felt it
too. I’d never have made love with you so quickly—so easily—if I hadn’t somehow known that beneath the hunger and the excitement there was more. I didn’t know what the
more
was, but it was always there, from the moment I saw you.’

He said her name on a long, outgoing breath, and covered the distance between them in two long strides.

But, half a pace away, he stopped and examined her face with a gaze so keen she had to fight the urge to close her eyes against it. His voice was deep and hard when he demanded, ‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes,’ she said with all her heart. ‘Living without you has been a lesson in endurance, but it’s made me utterly sure.’ She gave a half smile and searched his beloved face. ‘Are you?’

‘Sure you deserve more than I can give you,’ he said quietly. ‘These past interminable weeks have shown me that without you my life is empty and useless, bleak and joyless. Taryn, I need you to make it complete.’

As though the admission opened some sort of channel he took that final step. Her eyes brimmed when his arms tightened around her to bring her against his lean, strong body.

‘Don’t,’ he said in an anguished voice. ‘Don’t cry, my love, my dearest heart. I don’t deserve you, but I’ll spend the rest of my life making you happy. I feel like an alien, dumped onto a strange, unknown planet with no support. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Once I’d realised I was falling in love, I was scared witless.’

She gave a little broken laugh. ‘I understand the feeling. It’s beyond comprehension. These past weeks have been … bleak. Hollow—just going through the motions.’

‘Exactly. And, as I’m being honest about my feelings,
I must admit I hoped I’d get over it.’ His smile twisted. ‘I tried to convince myself that loving you was an aberration, something that would die once you left. In fact, I felt like that feral five-year-old—at the mercy of something so much bigger than myself I had to protect myself in any way I could.’

‘Oh, no,’ she whispered, understanding for the first time why he’d fought so hard against this miraculous love.

‘It’s all right,’ he soothed swiftly. ‘And that’s a stupid way of describing how I feel. How on earth do people deal with such an overwhelming, uncivilised need? I had to come and ask you if there was any hope for me.’

Every cell in her body cried out for the relief and joy of his arms around her.

But she said, ‘I love you with all my heart, everything I am.’ And pressed her fingers over his mouth when he went to speak. ‘Cade—there’s still the fact that, although I didn’t intend it, I caused your brother’s death.’

‘You didn’t,’ he said simply. ‘Possibly, he hoped you’d rescue him but, in the end, the decision to take his life was his, no one else’s.’

‘Your mother—’

‘She knows I’m here, and why. She’s not happy about this, and yes,’ he said quietly, still holding her, ‘I won’t say that didn’t affect me but, although I love her, this is none of her business. If you come to me, Taryn, I will do my best to make you happy, to make sure that you never regret it.’

His oddly formal phrases were enough to banish the final cowardly fear.

‘Is it going to be so simple?’ she asked softly. ‘Because I will do my best to make you happy too. Is that all it takes?’

She felt his body stir against her and a leap of excitement pulsed through her.

‘I hope so. It hasn’t been easy for either of us,’ he said quietly. ‘I had to struggle with the knowledge that I’d done you a grave wrong, one I regret bitterly. Except that out of it has come this utter commitment to you—one without any reservations.’

Taryn’s heart swelled and, lifting her face so she could kiss him, she said against his mouth, ‘I love you so much.’

A year later, with small Teresa Rose Peredur sleeping in her arms, Taryn watched her husband come across the room.

Love misted her eyes. She’d never been so happy as in these past months. He’d supported her through her pregnancy and been with her during their daughter’s birth, and he’d been wonderful in his dealings with her parents. Not only had he charmed them and won their respect, but he’d financed the trust they’d been trying to set up, so that by the time they gave up their practice there would be local doctors and nurses to take over.