The Blackmail Bargain. Robyn Donald

lowered the calf into the calf-cage on the tray of the ute. ‘Will she be all right there?’

      ‘I’ll drive carefully,’ she said. The manners her mother had been so fussy about compelled her to finish with stiff politeness, ‘Thank you. If you hadn’t helped I’d have taken much longer to get her out.’

      He straightened and stepped back, unsparing eyes searching her face with a cool assessment that abraded her already raw composure. ‘So we meet at last, Peta Grey,’ he said levelly.

      Pulses jumping, she could only say, ‘Yes. How do you do?’ Mortification burned across the long, lovely sweep of her cheekbones. Bullseye, she thought raggedly; yet another supremely sophisticated bit of repartee!

      He smiled, and she almost reeled back in shock. Oh, hell, she thought furiously, he could probably soothe rattlesnakes with that smile—female ones, anyway! ‘How do you do?’ he replied courteously.

      Just stop this idiocy now! she ordered herself. Your heart is not really thudding so loud he can hear it.

      But perhaps it was, because when she looked up she saw his eyes rest a second on the soft hollow at the base of her throat. Thoughts and emotions jangling around in turbulent disarray, she went on painstakingly, ‘And I believe we’ll be seeing each other tomorrow night at your sister’s barbecue.’

      ‘I’m looking forward to it,’ Curt McIntosh said, somehow managing to turn the conventional response into a threat. He looked around at the paddocks that belonged to him. ‘Your lease is up for renewal, I believe.’

      It wasn’t a question; of course he knew it was due for renegotiation. Foreboding brushed her skin like a cold feather. Seriously unnerved, she evaded his gaze and looked past him to his mount. With lowered head, the big black animal was cautiously inspecting Laddie. ‘In a month’s time.’

      ‘I’ll give you fair warning,’ he said, still in that pleasant tone, although now she recognised the steel beneath each word.

      Defiantly, she lifted her head to meet his eyes. Cold blue had swallowed up the grey rims, and they were too keen.

      The hollowness beneath her ribs expanding into a cold vacuum, Peta braced herself. ‘Warning of what?’

      Instead of answering Curt McIntosh whistled; Laddie frisked across to his frozen owner while the horse—a gelding, Peta noted tensely, not a stallion—paced with measured strides towards the man who’d summoned it.

      He swung up into the saddle and gathered the reins in one lean, mud-stained hand, examining her with an unsparing gaze. She took an involuntary step backwards. Horse and rider seemed to blot out the sun.

      All trace of emotion gone from his face, from his voice, Curt said, ‘I’m in two minds about renewing it.’

      Panic kicked her brutally in the stomach. Peta looked him full in his starkly powerful face and tried to hide the thin note of desperation in her voice. ‘Why? It would cost you a lot of money to build a bridge across the gully and link it to the rest of the station.’

      He didn’t tell her that money was the last thing tycoons lacked, but she saw the glint of mockery in the depths of his eyes when he said negligently, ‘That’s my worry.’

      One glance at that formidable face told her that pleas wouldn’t work. Swallowing, she said, ‘I was informed that it would be all right…’

      Her voice tailed away when she realised that he was once more looking at the long line of her throat. Her breath blocked her airways. Then he raised his eyes and she had to stop herself from flinching because dark fire flared for a second in the blue depths.

      ‘Then whoever told you that made promises he knew he might not be able to keep. I have plans for this land.’

      Without waiting for an answer, he made a soft, chirruping noise. Obediently the gelding picked up its hooves and turned away.

      Motionless, her mind darting after thoughts like a terrier after rabbits, Peta watched them go. Of course the children of rich parents had advantages, and learning to ride as well as you could walk was just one of them. She’d never learned; her father hadn’t seen the necessity.

      But then, he hadn’t seen the necessity of a lot of things. After he’d died she’d relied on her neighbours’ offers of lifts into Kowhai Bay until she’d learned to drive.

      And Curt McIntosh was another dominant male who thought he had a God-given right to make decisions and control people.

      Slowly, stiffly, she got into the ute, but once in its stuffy interior she sat with hands gripping the wheel while she stared unseeingly ahead.

      On the rare occasions they’d met, Gillian Matheson had spoken of her brother—so strong, so clever, so drop-dead stunning that women fell at his feet! But Gillian was a restless, dissatisfied woman, and often her words had seemed to be aimed at her husband; although Peta had listened politely, she hadn’t believed in this paragon. After all, extremely powerful magnates were by definition attractive to women—some women, anyway.

      She believed Gillian now.

      ‘Up, Laddie!’ she called, patting the seat beside her, and waited while the delighted dog jumped in. ‘Yes, this is a real treat for you, isn’t it? Just don’t get used to it; the only reason you get to ride in front is because on the tray you’ll spook that calf even more.’

      Slotting the key into the ute, she turned it, but something about the engine’s note brought her brows together. It was missing again. ‘Not now,’ she breathed, putting the vehicle into gear.

      Instead of working in the garden that evening she’d poke around the motor and see what she could find. And if it wasn’t something she could fix it would have to wait, because she couldn’t afford any repairs this month.

      But during the careful trip down to the calf-shed, she wasn’t working out what she could do if the knock in the engine was too much for her basic mechanical skills. Her mind dwelt obsessively on Curt McIntosh, whose touch had sent her hormones on a dizzying circuit of every nerve in her body.

      And whose relentless authority and aggressive, arrogant masculinity reminded her so much of her father she had to unclench her jaw and rein in a storm of automatic resentment and anger.

      He controlled her future.

      If he refused to renew the lease she’d have to get rid of her own stock, the ones she was rearing for sale in two years’ time to finance a new tractor. Because Ian’s calves—Tanekaha’s calves, she corrected hastily—were covered by contract, their needs were paramount. Without the leased acreage she had barely enough land to finish them off and send them back in good condition.

      But she desperately needed a new tractor. Hers had to be coaxed along, and six months ago the mechanic told her it wasn’t going to last much more than a couple of years—if she was lucky.

      She braked and got out to open a gate. Without the income from her stock she’d be in real trouble; extra hours pumping petrol at the local service station wouldn’t cover the cost of a new tractor.

      Swallowing to ease her dry throat, she got back into the ute and took it through the gate. And there was little chance of more casual work at Kowhai Bay; the little holiday resort sank back into lethargy once the hot Northland sun headed for the equator.

      After she’d closed the gate behind the ute, she leaned against the top bar and looked out over countryside that swept from the boundary to the coast.

      Her smallholding was insignificant in that glorious panorama, yet the land she could see was only a small part of Tanekaha Station. Blue hills inland formed the western boundary, and the land stretched far along the coastline of beaches and stark headlands, shimmering golden-green in the bright heat.

      Lovely in a wild, rugged fashion, serene under the midsummer sun, it represented power and wealth. If it came to swords at sunrise, Curt McIntosh had every advantage.

      Perhaps