For the Taking. Lilian Darcy

the house was a stable and a shed or two, neatly kept, then more green fields and forest, and finally, in the distance, the mountains. Wild mountains, Loucan observed, clothed in forests of sage-green eucalyptus.

      This view to the west was impressive enough, but behind Loucan, in the opposite direction, it was even better. More significant, too. It told him much more about Lass than she probably wanted him to know. About three miles away, beyond lush dairy country, beyond a scattering of small towns, beyond tidal lakes, rocky headlands and miles of pristine sandy beaches, was the beckoning sea.

      Technically, it was the Tasman Sea, this two-thousand-mile stretch between the coasts of Australia and New Zealand, but in reality it was an integral part of the Pacific Ocean. It stretched, blue and sparkling, in a long, wide ribbon from north to south, and in the summer haze its horizon blurred indistinctly with the almost garishly blue sky. The whole scene was breathtaking.

      “You came,” Lass said.

      He turned to find her watching him from a distance of twenty feet or so. “I said I would.”

      “I hoped you wouldn’t. I didn’t want to see you again.”

      “I know.”

      He had a sudden flashback to the other night’s most shocking moment. After he had told her who he was and how he had found her, she had fled from him across the sand in the darkness to hide among the jagged piles of rocks on the nearby headland. He had followed her, and found her sobbing wildly, in anger and fear, while hacking at her gorgeous fall of hair—it reached to her thighs—with a jagged piece of oyster shell.

      “I like your hair that way,” he said to her now. He wasn’t going to let her avoid the difficult issues between them. He couldn’t pretend. They both needed to confront this.

      “I’m getting used to it,” she answered guardedly. Self-conscious, she ran her fingers through its short, bright strands, making it seem more alive than ever. The gesture momentarily deepened the cleft between her breasts and drew his gaze. “I went to my hairdresser on Wednesday morning to get it properly shaped,” she added.

      “What did you tell her?”

      She shrugged. “That I’d grown sick of it, suddenly. That it was too much work, so I’d chopped it off.”

      She was so prickly and distant and defensive! Loucan knew how emotional she had been the other night when he’d found her on the beach and told her who he was, but she was trying to pretend her outburst had never happened.

      “Why did you hack it off like that?” he persisted.

      “You know why.”

      Yes, but I want to hear it from your own mouth.

      She had a passionate mouth, he observed. It was full-lipped, sensuous and strong. With a surge of understanding, he gave in and said it for her. “Because your hair was the thing that led me to you.”

      Her nod was just a brief jerk of her jutting chin, and her green eyes were narrowed.

      “Does this mean you’re going to hurt the dolphins, too?” He asked, then ignored her shocked hiss of breath. “Hearing that you’d been seen surfing with them at sunset was what clinched it for me. I knew you were the woman I’d been looking for, and I knew where to find you.”

      “Hurt the—!” She shook her head and swallowed, outraged.

      Maybe he’d gone too far. He wanted to push her into talking about what she believed and why she was so scared, but this wasn’t the way. She wasn’t like Kevin Cartwright, who rose to the bait of a direct attack. She was a woman—a mer woman, if she could accept that—and therefore very different.

      He was about to apologize, but she hadn’t stopped speaking. “Why are you doing this? I won’t tolerate it. Leave my property, please!”

      She turned in the direction of the house, ignoring him as he followed her. When she reached the veranda, she clumsily levered off her elastic-sided riding boots and socks, and tossed them into a basket beside the door. Retrieving a pair of flimsy, high-heeled cream sandals from the same basket, she slipped them onto her feet and tottered inside.

      Still he followed her. Still she ignored him. It would get to be a habit between them, soon. Almost immediately, as if hardly noticing what she’d done, she kicked the sandals off again and frowned down at her pink manicured toes.

      Did she have a love-hate relationship with her footwear? Or with her feet?

      She tipped her head to one side thoughtfully and said, “Is it enough to tell you that I’m busy this morning? Or should I phone the police?”

      “Thalassa—”

      “My name is Lass. Or Letitia Susan Morgan, if you want the full, legal version.”

      “Cyria did change your name, then.”

      “Who? Oh, you mean Aunt Catherine?”

      “Do I?” His gaze held hers for a moment, and it was a toss-up whose was the most stubborn. He changed tack. “You have a fabulous view of the ocean, Lass.”

      “I prefer the view in the other direction. To the mountains.”

      “No, you don’t,” he told her softly. “It’s not the mountains you watch. It’s not the mountains that call you. You couldn’t stay away, could you? You couldn’t when you bought this place, and you still can’t.”

      She lifted her chin, and he appreciated the stubborn yet delicate line of her jaw. “I go for weeks, sometimes, without setting foot on the beach.”

      He laughed. “You sound like a gambler, talking about visits to the track. You do without it for weeks, but you think about it every day. Are you really going to call the police?”

      “Yes! And I really don’t have time to talk! The tearoom opens at ten, and there’s a ton of stuff to do to prepare. My staff will be here any minute.”

      “I have something for you from your sisters, Lass.”

      Loucan didn’t wait for another defensive answer, another threat to throw him off the property. He just reached into the breast pocket of his conservative and anonymous navy T-shirt and pulled out a paper packet.

      “Wedding pictures,” he said, and took the sheaf of prints out of the packet to show her. He knew exactly what effect it would have. It was his one asset in all this, and he was counting on it.

      Watching her reaction, he saw that he wasn’t wrong.

      Lass gasped and clamped a fist to her heart. Pictures? Of Phoebe and Kai? She had long ago shut off any hope of finding them, had often wondered if they were even still alive. She had thought of trying to trace them somehow, but it had seemed like such a hopeless quest. She didn’t even know to which part of the world or with whom her father had sent them. Didn’t know if they were together or apart.

      She hadn’t seen them since they were two years old. They’d been the light of her life, back then—the beings she’d loved most in the world. She still remembered the soft, plump feel of their little cheeks pressed against hers for a “Tiss, Lassie. I want a tiss!” She remembered the exuberant embrace of their little arms, the innocent joyousness of their laughter and the equal intensity of their tears. And now they were grown women, old enough to be married.

      She wanted to hear about her sisters.

      Set against this longing, all her bravado toward Loucan was fake. For the sake of her sisters, she would make herself believe what he said—that he hadn’t been part of the violence. Because of her sisters, she wouldn’t turn him off her property.

      And he knew it, too. Oh, he knew it.

      He’d brought those pictures with him on purpose, and he’d mentioned them at exactly the right moment. Now he was cradling them closely in his hand. On the surface, it was a casual gesture, but she knew he was doing it with deliberate intent. She wasn’t going to get to touch