The Far Side of Paradise (2 page)

Frowning, he stared at it. At first nothing more substantial than a subtle darkening of the blue, the haze swiftly thickened into a veil, an ominous stain across the sky.

In the grip of its severest drought in living memory, the province of Northland was under a total fire ban. The manager of the farm he’d rented the holiday house from had impressed on him that any smoke anywhere had to mean danger.

Muttering a word he wouldn’t have said in polite company, Cade headed towards the house, long legs covering the ground at speed. He grabbed his car keys and cell phone, punching in a number as he headed towards the bedroom.

‘I can see smoke in the sky,’ he said curtly when the farm manager answered. ‘South, and close—in the next bay, I’d say, and building fast.’

The farm manager swore vigorously, then said, ‘Bloody free campers probably, careless with a camp-fire. OK, I’ll ring the brigade and round up a posse from
here. With any luck, we’ll be able to put it out before it takes hold.’

Cade eyed the growing smoke cloud. ‘I’ll go over and see what I can do.’

‘Man, be careful. There’s a tap in the bay, but the creek’s probably dry. If you’ve got a bucket there, grab it.’ Possibly recalling that the man renting the farm’s beach house was an influential tycoon, he added, ‘And don’t try to be a hero.’

Cade’s swift grin vanished as he closed the cell phone. The smoke suddenly billowed, forming a cloud. Until then there had been no movement in the air, but of course the instant some idiot lit a fire the wind picked up.

The faster he got there, the better. He hauled on a long-sleeved shirt and trousers with swift, economical movements, then wasted precious moments looking for a non-existent bucket before giving up.

Not, he thought grimly as he got into the car, that a bucket would be much help, but it would have given him an illusory feeling of control.

He drove too fast along the track to the boundary gate; unlocking it wasted a few more valuable seconds so he left it open to give the manager and his men easy access. Lean hands tense on the wheel, he swung the four-wheel drive onto a narrow public road that led to the next bay.

It took too long to manoeuvre his vehicle around the tight corners through thick coastal scrub that would go up like a torch the moment a spark got into it. When the car emerged into searing sunlight a glance revealed no tents on the grassy foreshore or beneath the huge trees—nothing, in fact, but an elderly car parked in the deep shade cast by one of those trees.

And a woman in a skimpy bikini far too close to an area of blazing grass.

What the hell did she think she was doing?

Putting his foot down, Cade got there as fast as he could. He turned the vehicle, ready for a quick getaway, and was out of the car and running towards the woman before he realised she was directing a hose at the flames.

Tall and long-legged and young, she had a body guaranteed to set a man’s hormones buzzing in anticipation. Smoke-smeared and glistening with sweat, she exuded unselfconscious sensuality.

At that moment she turned, pushing back a mane of copper-coloured hair that had been fanned across her face by the hot wind from the flames.

A flame flared up only a few inches from her feet and she jumped back, water from the hose splashing gleaming legs that went on forever.

The woman was crazy! Couldn’t she see she wasn’t achieving anything except putting herself in danger?

Cade covered the ground between them in a few seconds, watching the woman’s expression turn to undisguised relief.

She thrust the hose into his hands and commanded brusquely, ‘Keep directing it anywhere the flames try to get away. If they make it to those bullrushes the whole place will go up. I’ll wet my towel and have a go at it from the other side.’

‘Get dressed first,’ he suggested, turning the pathetic dribble of water onto the flames.

She gave him a startled look, then nodded briskly. ‘Good thinking.’

Taken aback and amused by her air of command, Cade watched her race across to her car to haul on a
pair of inadequate shorts and a T-shirt and jam her feet into elderly sandshoes. Only then did she sprint down to the waves to wet her towel.

A sudden flare almost at his feet switched Cade’s attention, but as he sprayed water onto it he wondered why on earth he was bothering. It was a losing battle; a wet towel would be as useless as the meagre trickle from the hose. Yet clearly the woman had no intention of giving up and doing the sensible thing—getting out of there before the fire made retreat impossible.

Cade admired courage in anyone, even reckless, blind courage. She might have lit the fire, but she was determined to put it out.

When she came running up from the shoreline she thrust the heavy, sodden towel into his hands. ‘I’ll take the hose—you’re stronger than me so you’ll be more efficient with this. Just be careful.’

The next few minutes were frantic. And hopeless. Working together, they fought grimly to hold back the flames but, inch by menacing inch, the bright line crept closer to the stand of bullrushes, pushing first one way and then, when frustrated, finding another path through the long, dry grass.

‘Get back,’ Cade shouted when flames suddenly flared perilously close to those lithe bare legs. Two long strides got him close enough to put all his power into beating it out.

‘Thanks.’ Her voice sounded hoarse, but she didn’t move, directing that inadequate spurt of water with a stubborn determination that impressed him all over again.

She looked down at the towel, which was beginning to scorch. ‘Go down and wet the towel again.’

‘You go.’ Cade thrust the towel into her hands and grabbed the hose from her.

Sensibly, she didn’t waste time in protest, turning immediately to run across the sand.

His foster-mother’s influence was embedded so deeply he couldn’t evade it, Cade thought wryly, stamping out a tuft of grass that was still smouldering. Women were to be protected—even when they made it obvious they didn’t want it.

He glanced up the hill. No sign of the fire brigade yet. If they didn’t appear damned soon he’d grab the woman and, if he had to, drag her away. It would be too late once the bullrushes caught; they’d be in deadly danger of dying from smoke inhalation even if they took refuge in the sea.

Panting, she ran up from the beach and almost flung the dripping towel at him. Her face was drawn and smoke had stained the creamy skin, but she looked utterly determined. Clearly, giving up was not an option.

Cade said abruptly, ‘The brigade should be here soon,’ and hoped he was right.

His arms rose and fell in a regular rhythm but, even as he beat out sparks along the edge of the fire, he accepted their efforts were making very little headway. No way could they stop the relentless line of fire racing through the grass towards a stand of rushes so dry their tall heads made perfect fuel.

If they caught, he and the woman would have to run, but not to the cars. The beach would be their only refuge.

Once the fire got into the coastal scrub it would take an aerial bombardment or heavy rain to put it out. The cloudless sky mocked the idea of rain, and a helicopter with a monsoon bucket would take time to organise.

And if the wind kept building, the blaze would threaten not only the beach house he’d rented, but the houses and barns around the homestead further up the coast. Cade hoped the farm manager had warned everybody there to be on the alert.

A muted roar lifted his head. Relief surged through him as the posse from the station came down the hill on one of the farm trucks, almost immediately followed by two fire engines and a trail of other vehicles.

‘Oh, thank God,’ his companion croaked, a statement he silently echoed.

Taryn had never been so pleased to see anyone in her life. Smoothly, efficiently the firemen raced from their vehicles, the chief shouting, ‘Get out of the way—down onto the beach, both of you.’

She grabbed a bottle of water from her car and headed across the sand. Without taking off her shoes, she waded out until the water came up to her knees, and only then began to drink, letting the water trickle down a painfully dry throat.

Heat beat against her, so fierce she pulled off her T-shirt, dropped it into the sea and used it to wipe herself down. The temporary coolness was blissful. She sighed, then gulped a little more water.

The stranger who’d helped her strode out to where she stood. ‘Are you all right?’ he demanded.

He was so tall she had to lift her face to meet his eyes. Swallowing, she said hoarsely, ‘Yes. Thank you very much for your help.’

‘Go easy on that water. If you drink it too fast it could make you sick.’

Taryn knew the accent. English, clipped and authoritative, delivered in a deep, cool voice with more than
a hint of censure, it reminded her so much of Peter she had to blink back tears.

Not that Peter had ever used that tone with her.

The stranger was watching her as though expecting her to faint, or do something equally stupid. Narrowed against the glare of the sun on the sea, his disconcerting eyes were a cold steel-blue and, although Taryn knew she’d never seen him before, he looked disturbingly familiar.

An actor, perhaps?

She lowered the bottle. ‘I’m taking it slowly.’ Stifling a cough, she kept her eyes fixed on the helmeted men as they efficiently set about containing the flames. ‘Talk about arriving in the nick of time!’

‘I wouldn’t have thought the village was big enough to warrant a fire station.’

A note in his voice lifted tiny invisible hairs on the back of her neck. He was very good-looking, all angles and strong bones and lean distinction. Not exactly handsome; that was too neutral a description for a man whose arrogantly chiselled features were stamped with formidable self-assurance. His aura of cool containment was based on something much more intimidating than good bones. An odd sensation warmed the pit of Taryn’s stomach when she met his gaze.

Unnerved by that flinty survey, she looked away, taunted by a wisp of memory that faded even as she tried to grasp it.

‘They’re a volunteer group.’ She took refuge in the mundane and held out her bottle of water. ‘Would you like some?’ Adding with a wry smile, ‘I’ve wiped the top and as far as I know I have no diseases you need worry about.’

‘I’m sure you haven’t,’ he drawled, not taking the
bottle. ‘Thanks, but I’ve already had a drink—I brought my own.’

Stick to social pleasantries, she told herself, rattled by a note in his voice that came very close to mockery. ‘Thank you so much for helping—I didn’t have a hope of stopping it on my own.’

‘Didn’t it occur to you that lighting a fire in the middle of a drought could be dangerous?’

No, not mockery—condemnation.

Controlling an intemperate urge to defend herself, Taryn responded evenly, ‘I didn’t light it. I came down for a swim but before I got that far I noticed someone had had a fire on the beach above high tide mark to cook
tuatua
—shellfish. They didn’t bother to put it out properly with sea water so I hosed it down, but a spark must have lodged somewhere up in the grass.’

‘I see.’

Nothing could be gained from his tone or his expression. Stiffening, she said coldly, ‘As soon as I saw smoke I rang the emergency number.’

‘Ah, so that’s why they arrived so quickly.’

Screwing up her eyes in an effort to pierce the pall of smoke, she said, ‘It looks as though they’re winning, thank heavens.’

Heat curled in the pit of her stomach when her gaze met his, aloof and speculative. Something in his expression reminded her she’d been clad only in her bikini when he’d arrived. And that the shorts he’d ordered her to get into revealed altogether too much of her legs.

Shocked by the odd, primitive little shiver that tightened her skin and set her nerves humming, she looked away.

He asked, ‘Are you a local?’

‘Not really.’ She’d lived in the small village a mile away during her adolescence.

‘So you’re on holiday?’

Casual talk between two strangers abruptly hurled together …

Taking too deep a breath of the smoky air, she coughed again. ‘No.’

‘What do you do?’ He spoke idly, still watching the activity on the grass behind the beach.

‘I’m a librarian,’ she responded, her tone even.

The brows that lifted in faint surprise were as black as his strictly controlled hair. In an abrupt change of subject, he said, ‘Should you be swimming on your own?’

Taryn parried that steel-blue survey. ‘This is a very safe bay. I don’t take stupid risks.’

How did this man—this
judgmental
man, Taryn decided—manage to look sceptical without moving a muscle?

In a bland voice, he said, ‘Fighting the fire looked risky enough to me. All it needed was a slight change of wind and you’d have had to run like hell to get to the beach safely. And you probably wouldn’t have saved your car.’

That possibility had occurred to Taryn, but she’d been more afraid the fire would set the coastline alight. ‘I can run,’ she said coolly.

His gaze drifted down the length of her legs. ‘Yes, I imagine you can. But how fast?’

His tone invested the words with a subliminal implication that summoned a swift, embarrassing heat to her skin.

That nagging sense of familiarity tugged at her again.
Who was he?

Well, there was one way to find out. Without allowing herself second thoughts, she said coolly, ‘When it’s necessary, quite fast,’ and held out her hand. ‘It’s time I introduced myself—I’m Taryn Angove.’

C
ADE’S
heart pounded a sudden tattoo, every nerve in his body springing into instant taut alertness. This young Amazon was
Taryn Angove?

OK, so courage didn’t necessarily go with attributes like compassion and empathy, but she was nothing like the women Peter usually fell for. They’d all been startlingly similar—slight and chic, with an intimate knowledge of fashion magazines and the latest gossip, they’d pouted deliciously and parroted the latest catchphrases.

Cade couldn’t imagine any of them trying to put out a fire, or throwing commands at him.