Читать книгу: «Meant To Marry»

CHAPTER ONE

‘AND who,’ Georgia Sanderson purred to her companion, ‘do you think this is?’

Anet Carruthers turned slightly. The newcomer was haloed by a dazzle of sunlight so that all she could see was his outline, but that was enough to sharpen the strange apprehension that troubled her as he strode along the dock towards them. Anet was accustomed to being the tallest person around, and her astonished glance told her that this man towered over her by at least four inches and, like her, was big-boned and strong.

Her gaze slid helplessly to an extremely handsome face, its autocratic framework revealing an authority and control she could only envy. Big as he was, he didn’t carry an ounce of excess weight. Wide shoulders narrowed to lean hips and long, heavily muscled legs. And in spite of his size there was nothing ponderous about him; he walked with the smooth, athletic grace of a supremely fit man.

Although Anet immediately turned back to the tourist group on the diving vessel, she was left with an impression of inborn mastery, of a dominance that was both uncompromising and dangerously compelling.

Trust Georgia to notice him first. Anet’s sister Jan, who moved in the same circles in Auckland as the beautiful redhead, said that Georgia’s antennae were always at the ready for a good-looking man. It was not a compliment. Jan and Georgia did not like each other. Now Anet noticed the woman’s green eyes darken with alert anticipation as the tip of her tongue flicked across her full mouth, moistening its already lustrous sheen.

Not just Georgia either! Every other woman on board watched the man on the wharf with the same intent, intrigued awareness, paying involuntary female homage to his unforced masculinity.

Lord, Anet thought with edgy exasperation, he must be sending off pheromones like nobody’s business. Thank heavens she didn’t go in for all that man-woman stuff!

Pitching her voice to be heard above the soft wash of the waves against the dock, the bustle of the wharf and the ever-present sigh of the trade winds that cooled the South Pacific island of Fala’isi, she went into her spiel.

‘Before we leave the dock,’ she said, smiling with what she hoped was a confident, professional charm, ‘do check to make sure every exposed inch of skin is slathered in waterproof sunscreen. Ears can get burnt very badly, and so can ankles and the insides of your knees—even the soles of your feet.’

Her gaze lingered a moment on Georgia. Scott, bless his generous heart, had responded to the other woman’s impudent use of Jan’s name with an offer of a free morning’s diving for her and her friend. Irritated, Anet had had to stand silently by and endure Georgia’s sly, satisfied smile.

‘I’m already wearing sunscreen,’ Georgia said, dragging her eyes away from the approaching man to reject Anet’s unspoken comment with a haughty stare.

There was no tell-tale gleam on that silken, pale skin.

Stifling her exasperation, Anet returned, ‘Not enough, I’m sorry. Fala’isi is well within the tropics. The sun here is even fiercer than it is in New Zealand. It can really fry your skin, so I’m going to insist that you all put extra on, and I’m afraid that every two hours I’ll act like a schoolteacher until you do it again.’

The curvy little redhead pouted, her bright eyes disparaging as she scanned Anet. ‘I’ll be careful,’ she protested. ‘I’ll stay under cover when I’m not diving.’

Anet had been well briefed. ‘The sun’s rays bounce off the surface of the sea,’ she said, trying to soften her answer with a smile. ‘In fact, even wearing clothes you’re not entirely safe. UV rays can penetrate cloth—especially pale material. We can’t take responsibility for you unless you apply sunscreen.’

‘I have—’

A darkly masculine voice interrupted, ‘She’s right, you know. The tropical sun is cruel to people who don’t take it seriously.’

Uttered with cool authority, in the sort of tone that commanded instant respect, those few words lifted the hairs on the back of Anet’s neck. Automatically she glanced over her shoulder.

The man from the wharf now stood a few feet behind her, his narrowed gaze fixed on Georgia. Beneath thick black lashes his eyes gleamed turquoise, almost pure blue with just enough green to issue a challenge. But then his whole face dared you not to respond to its lean, ruthless good looks.

A sudden chill in Anet’s stomach expanded to a wintry emptiness. Struck by an intense and frightening foreboding that this man was going to have an impact on her life, she turned away, swallowed and said woodenly, ‘You heard the man, folks. He’s right, so slather on the stuff—and be generous.’

At that moment Scott came bounding up from his devotions over the engine. ‘Hi, Lucas,’ he said, beaming, although clearly surprised. ‘What are you doing here? No, don’t tell me now; I haven’t got time. Do you want to come out this morning?’

‘If you’ll have me,’ the stranger said. His New Zealand accent was barely noticeable, lost in the voice that proclaimed an assurance so deep-rooted it was probably encoded in his genes.

Anet, who had had to work very hard for her confidence, subdued a prickle of animosity.

Sure enough, Scott laughed. ‘There’s always room for you, you know that.’ He turned to Anet. ‘Everyone here?’

Trying to ignore the man whose presence she could feel, watchful, unmoving, almost elemental behind her, Anet said neutrally, ‘As soon as they’ve all put on their sunscreen we’ll be ready to go.’

Resigning herself to the inevitable, Georgia gave a slight, elegant shrug that spurned the bottle Anet proffered, and fished her own expensive brand from her smart bag. When a covert glance revealed that it was over SPF 15, Anet relaxed. The last thing she wanted was a parboiled tourist. Scott’s wife Serena, whose place she was taking on the diving vessel, had warned her that some people just wouldn’t accept how severe sunburn could be until they’d experienced the heat and intensity of the tropical sun.

‘And it is not good for business to dry-fry the customers,’ she’d said wryly. ‘You have to be tough, Annie; some of them are total idiots and will do everything they can to avoid putting it on.’

Like the beautiful Georgia, who was now applying lotion with a sinuous languor that made an erotic exercise of the business—an exercise revealing the many and varied charms of her slender body. Her absorption, her refusal to look once at the man who stood just behind Anet, made it more than obvious at whom she was aiming the whole little production.

It should have been amusing, perhaps rather—pathetic? It was not; in fact, it took all of Anet’s control to quell the sudden, sickening resentment that assailed her. She found herself understanding why her sister found Georgia so irritating.

‘Right,’ she said briskly when at last every revealed inch of the redhead’s honey-smooth skin had had cream smoothed into it with slow, sensual strokes, ‘we’re ready.’

And that was when Georgia stretched, only to slip as the boat lurched in the wash of one of the bigger tourist launches which had just taken off.

With a gasping, choked yelp she went over—fortunately on the lagoon side, not against the heavy, unforgiving piles of the wharf.

‘Look out!’ someone yelled in panicky, high-pitched tones.

Anet fixed her eyes on the cloud of brilliant red hair that bobbed up once before sinking too far down. Slim, pale arms flailed above the surface then disappeared. Without further thought Anet dived overboard, hoping, as the warm waters of the harbour closed around her like a benediction, that the woman was a better swimmer than she appeared to be.

And that the large, laden tourist launch stayed well out of the way.

Several strokes of her powerful arms took her to the floundering tourist, once more on the surface. One look at her face, distorted with genuine fear, convinced Anet that she was going to have to use a release hold. As soon as she got close enough she lifted her arm into the air.

When Georgia grabbed desperately at it with both hands Anet wrenched it down, and used the other woman’s brief confusion to hook her under the chin and kick strongly back towards the boat.

They were almost there when Georgia spluttered furiously, ‘All right. You can let me go now.’

Well, Anet thought wryly, Jan had stated often enough that what few manners Georgia possessed were invariably used as weapons; even allowing for the shock of that sudden immersion, it seemed Jan was right.

Anet released her, but shepherded her back to the diving platform at the stern of the boat. It had happened so quickly that Scott hadn’t yet got there; waiting for them instead was the big man who had, Anet was sure, inadvertently caused Georgia to lose her balance.

Anet could feel frustration and anger emanate from the elegant redhead. No doubt she felt she’d made a fool of herself. Then, so quickly that Anet gave a startled look ahead, the other woman’s resentment evaporated, her frown replaced by a faint, smug smile. Lucas Whatever-his-name-was was crouching on the dive platform, and, although Scott had arrived by the time they reached the boat, it was Lucas’s outstretched hand that Georgia grasped.

A powerful heave brought her up and into his arms, where she clung, shivering artistically. Against his lithe leanness she looked very small and fragile. Scott hovered, talking very fast, ignored by the other two.

Anet pulled herself onto the platform and stood upright, feeling her eyes widen beneath lowered lashes as she watched Lucas soothe the woman.

Lord, she thought hollowly, no wonder Georgia had lost her footing. He was gorgeous—like something out of a virgin’s fevered dreams of romance. That perfectly proportioned body was balanced by a face that could sink a thousand hearts. Not that he projected the sullen sultriness of a male model, with an appeal owing more to fashion than to aesthetics; this man’s beauty was elemental, the result of commanding bone structure backed by a potent, hard-honed magnetism.

And she, Anet realised grimly, was no more immune to that overwhelming combination of dangerous good looks and virile male authority than the woman in his embrace.

At that moment his head came up as swiftly as a predator scenting prey. When her glance met enigmatic turquoise eyes her pulse quickened, and a shuddery little chill tightened her skin.

All sensible thoughts stumbled to a halt; running a hand through her short black hair, she gave him a weak smile. His brows straightened, but then Scott, who apparently belonged to the school which believed that to be effective an apology should be repeated a hundred times, started again, and Lucas looked down again at Georgia, breaking off that moment of silent, almost subliminal communication with a merciless lack of interest.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Scott babbled. ‘Terribly sorry. That should never have happened—’

‘It’s perfectly all right,’ Georgia interrupted graciously, smiling. ‘I’ll be fine as soon as I’m dry.’

Furious with herself, Anet jerked open a locker and got a towel, offering it to her. It was greeted with a dubious frown.

‘I have one of my own, thank you,’ Georgia said, looking past Lucas’s broad shoulder to her slightly less glamorous friend, who, with eyes fixed on Lucas’s face, held out a bag.

Reluctantly, the redhead stepped away from Lucas and drew out a hotel towel, saying to Scott, ‘It was my fault—I just slipped when that other boat went past us. So clumsy.’ Looking at Anet, she finished sweetly, ‘Don’t tell Jan, will you, or I’ll never hear the last of it. Thank you for coming for me—I’m really quite a good swimmer, but you were certainly quick off the mark.’

Clever, Anet thought judiciously. In two sentences she’d managed to imply both that Jan was a harridan and that any fool should have seen that she was capable of saving herself—and her last comment had hinted at a certain surprise that someone as big as Anet could move fast. Probably she had hoped that Lucas would rescue her!

She should, Anet thought sourly, have let her thrash around until she’d exhausted herself. Hoping that her guileless smile would at least prick the other woman’s armour of self-assurance, Anet ran the rejected towel over her own fine hair, pushing the soot-coloured salty strands back off her face.

‘All part of the service,’ she said lightly.

After an uneasy glance Scott interposed, ‘If you want to change there’s a cabin below that’s—’

Switching a thousand-watt smile onto him, Georgia said blithely, ‘Oh, I don’t think so, thanks.’ And with an arch look at Anet she finished, ‘I’ll dry myself down and put some more sunscreen on, though.’

Forbearing to point out that the stuff she’d applied was waterproof, Anet said with serene good humour, ‘An excellent idea.’

‘Oh, yes, you mustn’t get sunburned.’ Tenderly, Scott escorted the other woman into the shade cast by the canopy.

Anet stood back, but Lucas waited for her to go ahead of him, his cold, beautiful eyes narrowed and intent. The salt water stains made on his cotton shirt and trousers by Georgia’s body were already drying quickly in the sun.

As Anet made her way towards the bow she thought she felt that steady, strangely inimical gaze right through to her bones, and chided herself for her stupidity.

Scott caught up with her almost immediately, accompanied by the newcomer.

‘Annie, this is Lucas Tremaine,’ Scott said enthusiastically. ‘Lucas, this is my cousin, Annie Carruthers, who’s helping me out for a while. Lucas sailed his yacht down from Hawaii last year, Annie, then left it at the marina here when he had to go to New Zealand.’

‘How do you do?’ As she held out her hand Anet produced the right sort of smile—pleasantly impersonal. And was appalled at her swift, rapidly suppressed thought. Why am I not five foot three and curvy and redheaded, instead of six feet tall with more muscles than your average prizefighter? Why can’t I show off in a bikini that makes me look like a seductive bird of paradise?

Shamefully ridiculous questions! Long before she’d left high school she’d come to terms with her Amazonian build.

Lucas Tremaine’s hand was bigger than her long-fingered one, and certainly much stronger. Over the years Anet had been faced with quite a few men compelled by ego and insecurity to prove their power to a woman almost their size, but although this man’s grip was firm he made no attempt to wring her fingers off.

‘I thought your name was Anet,’ he said, his eyes lingering on her wet T-shirt.

She wondered whether she had seaweed in some strategic place and looked down, but it was still pristine white, with the logo of Scott’s company gleaming across her breasts. And beneath it her decent blue swimsuit prevented any sort of exposure. Withdrawing her hand, she shrugged. ‘My family call me Annie.’

‘A very mundane name for an unusual woman. I watched you win your gold medal at the Olympic Games,’ he said, those brilliant eyes strangely oblique. ‘I thought you looked like Atalanta.’

She had long ago forced herself grimly past that memory. ‘Atalanta was a sprinter,’ she said with a light lack of emphasis.

His mouth tilted into a smile. ‘Of course. Like an Amazon, then—or better still Hera in majesty.’

Surely he was taunting her? However, her startled glance discerned nothing in his expression but an aloof self-possession. She smiled. ‘I rather like that image,’ she said, ‘although the mind boggles at the thought of the queen of the gods in a tracksuit.’

‘I imagine she’d have found one very useful,’ he said gravely. ‘Why did you drop out of sight so quickly?’

Although there was no blatant curiosity in the deep, intriguing voice, Anet chose her words carefully. ‘All I ever wanted to do was win an Olympic gold. Once I’d accomplished that I had other things to do.’

‘Annie’s just finished training as a physiotherapist,’ Scott said proudly. ‘She’s damned good. She got my shoulder going really well.’ He flexed it experimentally. ‘Yep, just like new. What are you doing here, Lucas? Are you planning to sail off into the unknown again? Not in the hurricane season, surely?’

Before Lucas could answer either of his questions a flash of movement from one of the paying clients recalled Scott to his surroundings. ‘Hell—we’ll talk later, OK? I’d better get this show on the road before someone reminds me we’re supposed to be diving.’

He disappeared to the wheelhouse. Feeling obscurely tentative, Anet nodded at Lucas Tremaine and said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, I have to let go forward...’

‘I’ll do the aft line,’ he said.

At her doubtful look his wide, hard mouth lifted in a fascinating crooked smile. ‘I’ve spent most of the last five years at sea,’ he said gently, and went through the crowd of tourists like—like a hot knife through butter, she thought, half amused, half bewildered.

Whatever charisma was, he possessed it—and the kind of self-assurance that came close to arrogance. It didn’t seem fair that as well as size and looks and presence he had, if the clothes and watch he wore indicated anything, a substantial bank balance. A darling of the gods, she thought ironically.

Hera in majesty! Really!

Scott’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘Ready?’

Embarrassed, she hastened up to the bow, thankful that there was no one around to see the rush of colour to her skin.

Today, besides the well-being that came from fitness and health, something else ran through every cell in Anet’s body—a kind of primitive excitement she ascribed to the sheer delight of being alive in the sultry golden heat of a tropical morning, with the scent of coconut and frangipani and salt in her nostrils and the sunlight glittering and dancing over a sea as brightly coloured and much more transparent than Lucas Tremaine’s eyes.

And where, she wondered, grabbing the heavy loop of rope from the islander who slung it down into her hands, had she heard that name before? If he’d been an athlete she’d have remembered him. He wasn’t the sort of man you forgot. Not if you were a woman anyway.

She squinted down at the stern. Yes, he knew exactly what to do. The group of divers stayed respectfully away from him while he dropped the rope loop into its place and straightened to fend the boat off from the piles. Beneath the cotton shirt, muscles moved across his back and down his arms. Something tightened inside her; hastily she transferred her gaze across to the white line of the reef.

The engine increased its noise as they swung away from the wharf. Lucas stepped back into the cockpit and smiled down at one of the women. Anet reminded herself that she had to entertain this group until they reached the coral gardens where they’d anchor to dive.

Back in the cockpit, she picked up the microphone and began to expound on the sights as Scott headed the craft towards the gap in the reef formed by the flow of fresh water from the river.

Ahead was a busy day. They’d dive, then call in at one of the small motu—the Polynesian word for island—on the reef, where they’d eat a barbecue beneath the coconut palms. After that this group would be brought back to the town to be replaced by a load of snorkellers who didn’t want to venture beyond the silken aquamarine waters of the lagoon.

She was glad she’d been able to answer Scott’s call for help three weeks ago. Although she found some tourists rude, and others foolish, most were very pleasant. And she loved Fala’isi. The island, its green mountain spine and lush vegetation forming a beautiful backdrop to the sea and the blindingly white beaches, epitomised the South Sea paradise embedded so deeply into the fantasy life of those who lived in colder climates. Scott was her favourite cousin, and the social life was fun too—a vigorous mixture of expatriates, locals and tourists.

All in all, she thought, looking across the glinting waters of the lagoon, life probably couldn’t be more perfect.

The cool, challenging speculation in a man’s sea-blue gaze meant nothing.

Although she did her best to keep her eyes off Lucas Tremaine, she noticed when Georgia approached him and engaged him in conversation, her sparkling eyes and tempting little smiles making her interest only too obvious.

It should have been amusing to watch her hastily hidden pique as first one, then another woman drifted across, eager to join in the conversation, yet an ignoble pang of envy shot through Anet.

And that’s enough of that, she told herself sternly. You’ve accepted that you’re never going to know the easy, casual interest these women feel, or their confidence. Experience had taught her that her height, combined with the powerful build of an ex-javelin-thrower, was not alluring.

No man ever saw Anet Carruthers as sexy; likeable, certainly—almost one of the boys—but not feminine, not the sort of woman who could drive a man mad. Even the man she had been engaged to, the man who’d dumped her for a slim, small woman barely reaching her shoulder, had liked her.

Mark had worried about hurting her, but he hadn’t thought her capable of intense emotional distress. Of course, she thought aridly, turning her head to point out the position of a famous shipwreck, he’d been right.

Although she’d been hurt, she hadn’t been shattered. She must have missed out on the capacity to lose herself in love as other women seemed able to do. Even her unrequited love—and she had loved him—for Drake Arundell when she was eighteen hadn’t blighted her life.

She’d recovered with astonishing speed, although Drake was still her ideal of what a man should be like. Which might, she thought, eyeing Lucas Tremaine covertly, be the reason this man made strange things happen to the base of her spine. He and Drake were alike, both big men, but there was more to their similarity than the physical; both possessed an air of controlled power.

Anyway, she was now in full command of her life, looking forward to a happy and useful future.

‘Great view,’ an amiable masculine voice said.

It belonged to an amiable masculine face. Supporting herself against the side of the boat, Anet smiled at him. ‘Isn’t it just?’ she said. ‘What more could anyone want? Glorious weather and the prospect of a day spent diving and eating, then lolling the afternoon away on a coral beach-’

‘Heavily anointed with sunscreen,’ he interpolated, his brown eyes laughing.

Her eyes gleamed with answering amusement. ‘Of course,’ she said solemnly.

‘And you forgot something in your catalogue of pleasures.’

‘Oh, a hundred things. Fala’isi is full of delights.’ Sunlight soaked through her, drying out the material of her T-shirt and bathing suit, melting down to her bones.

‘Well, this is important. Good company.’

She looked around the boat, feeling a bit sorry for him. Lucas Tremaine seemed to have snaffled all the available women. As her gaze passed over the cluster of them about him her mouth curved sardonically. He looked up, and for a moment she had the giddy and entirely erroneous idea that they duelled across the distance.

‘Well,’ she said vaguely, looking unseeingly at the man beside her, ‘every pleasure is intensified by good company.’

A wave sloshed across the bow, sending a glittering, evanescent veil of spray into the air. Warned by the sprinkle of drops across her face, Anet flicked on the microphone again. ‘We’re approaching the gap in the reef and it looks as though it could be a bit bumpy today, so hang on everyone. If you don’t like getting damp, it might pay to take shelter.’

A few seconds later the first comber caught them. Although Scott knew the opening as well as any islander, and was ready for it, a gurgle of laughter whipped Anet’s head around. Her mouth compressed. Georgia was once more snuggled against Lucas Tremaine, her sleek, pale body a blatant contrast to his golden tan and corded muscles.

An odd little quiver wrenched Anet as Lucas set the woman on her feet, smiling down at her while he said something that brought a slow, sleepy smile in response.

Immediately he stepped back, made a further comment that tilted Georgia’s lushly blooming mouth into more laughter, and left her, heading towards Anet.

He was the most handsome man she had ever seen—as beautiful as a god. And as dangerous, instinct warned her; the magnificent combination of form and face was almost overshadowed by the aura of authority and power that he radiated.

As he came towards her the smile he’d bestowed on Georgia faded. Anet was accustomed to being sought out—many New Zealanders knew who she was, and quite a few people liked to talk to someone who had won a gold medal for New Zealand at the Olympics—so there was absolutely no reason for her stomach to clench and her palms to sweat.

‘Is he a friend of yours?’ the man beside her asked casually.

‘Of Scott’s,’ Anet responded absently, then, aware that she was being rude, smiled at him. ‘Scott owns the boat.’

He had good manners. When it became obvious that Lucas Tremaine intended to speak to her he said easily, ‘I’ll see you later, then.’

She gave him her best smile. ‘You will,’ she told him, and kept that smile pinned to her face as he moved off and Lucas arrived.

‘How long is it before we get there?’ he asked.

She looked along the reef. ‘About twenty minutes.’

‘Where’s Serena?’

‘In Australia. Melbourne, actually. Her mother’s in hospital for tests.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. How is she?’

Anet bit her lip. ‘Not too good, unfortunately. Serena rang last night; Scott says she’s worried. The tests were positive, and her mother has to have an operation.’

‘That’s tough,’ he said, frowning. ‘Lucky for them both that Scott managed to find someone to take her place so quickly.’

Although his skin was glossed by sunscreen, he was tanned a deep gold that indicated long hours of exposure to the elements. When she looked more closely she could see tiny lines at the comers of his eyes.

‘I was the logical person to ask. I have a diving instructor’s certificate and I was at a loose end. The clinic I was to start work at burned down,’ she explained. ‘It will be a couple of months before it’s rebuilt, and in the meantime the owner’s working from home. He didn’t have room for me, so when Scott sent out his SOS I was able to come up.’

‘As I said, lucky man.’

Watching her cousin at the wheel, she said drily, ‘Oh, he’d have found someone, but he might have lost a few days’ work.’

‘I gather he isn’t qualified to take out divers?’

‘Not yet. He and several men from the local family he’s in partnership with are sitting for the instructor’s certificate now, but none of them have got it yet. They’re doing the boatmaster’s too. In Fala’isi you have to have certificated people on each boat before the local tourist board will let you take divers out. I can understand that, but when you think that the Polynesians have been sailing around the Pacific for the last three thousand years or so, making them take the boatmaster’s seems like overkill.’

‘Ah, but tourists need special treatment,’ he said a little mockingly.

He was right, of course. The subject seemed to have reached a dead end, so after a moment of searching for a new topic she ventured, ‘Scott said something about your yacht. Are you planning to sail somewhere?’

‘No,’ he said, adding with an edge to his voice, ‘only fools go wandering around the tropics in the hurricane season.’