On her way out she stopped at the rack of brightly coloured magazines by the counter. TV STAR’S LOVE CHILD REVEALED, the headlines on one screamed. ‘I AM DEVASTATED BY HIS INFIDELITY,’ WEEPS MODEL bellowed another, beneath a picture of a woman who looked as though she wouldn’t be able to pronounce any word of more than two syllables.
‘Do you want one, miss?’ the sari-clad owner said, stopping in her task of ripping the covers off several magazines.
Olivia smiled and shook her head, her eyes lingering on the gaudy covers. ‘Are they very popular?’
‘Oh, yes. These two—’ she indicated the biggest headlines ‘—are running neck and neck.’
‘You’d wonder at people who’d discuss their most intimate concerns with a journalist.’
The owner shrugged. ‘I believe they pay well.’
And if you were desperate—as desperate, say, as she was, Olivia thought—then that money might be a good reason for baring your soul to the public of New Zealand.
Impulsively she asked, ‘Could I have a cover?’
The woman looked surprised. ‘Well, I tear them off any that haven’t sold and send them back to the publisher so I don’t have to pay for them.’
‘Oh. I see.’ Olivia looked at the magazines again. ‘I didn’t realise.’ She smiled at the woman, said, ‘Goodbye,’ and left the shop.
The next morning she swept out the flat before embarking on the chore of washing their clothes; with any luck they’d dry enough to air in the hot water cupboard. A month previously the ancient agitator washing machine that lurked in the bathroom had clattered itself to a standstill, and although the landlord’s agent had promised to replace it, a new one hadn’t eventuated yet.
Determined to look on the bright side, Olivia admired the muscles she was developing in her arms as she hung the clothes out beneath a sky that promised at least a morning’s fine weather. After that she boiled up the bones the butcher always gave her on the pretext that they were for the dog—both of them well aware that there was no dog—and added vegetables she had bought yesterday from the bruised bin. Tonight they’d have the meat from the bones for their dinner, and tomorrow they’d drink the soup.
This afternoon, she decided, I’ll go and see the supermarket about a job again. With any luck they’ll respond to a bit of tactful nagging.
She had asked a fortnight ago, and been told that there was no opening. They’d taken her name and address and said they’d contact her, but it wouldn’t hurt to show her enthusiasm. Even though she knew there was no position for her. Possibly never would be.
Soon she’d be twenty-five, and it seemed as though her life had been an endless grind of work and worry and fear. Such dreams she’d had once, such hopes—all shattered.
‘That,’ she said aloud, ‘is enough of that! Self-pity is not going to get you anywhere.’ And then she began to cough, deep, barking paroxysms that shook her frame and hurt her throat and chest.
Unfortunately, telling herself that depression was the usual accompaniment to illness didn’t seem to help much; she still felt oddly lackadaisical.
‘I’ll make Simon a new pair of trousers,’ she said, using a false cheerfulness to force herself to do it. A month ago she’d bought a skirt at the op-shop which would cut up well.
Setting her lips into a firm line, she took out her old sewing machine—one which she’d earned in her wandering days. Another house-truck family owned it then, but the woman hated sewing. In return for making clothes for all the family, Olivia had been given the machine.
Normally she enjoyed the challenge of creating something new from something old, but after laying the material out on the table she put the scissors down and stared at it.
The last thing she wanted to do was sew.
Perhaps, she thought with a quick glance at the clock, she was hungry. However, the sandwich she made was so unappetising that she put it down after a couple of mouthfuls and sat at the table with her head on her arms, trying to block out the grey mist of hopelessness.
Someone knocked on the door.
A religious caller, she thought with foggy lethargy. Go away.
The knock was repeated—this time a peremptory tattoo that brought her to her feet.
Listlessly she opened the door, and to her utter astonishment there stood Drake Arundell—tall, broad-shouldered, his lean, heavily muscled body elegantly clad in a superbly tailored suit—almost blocking the narrow balcony that served as the access along the back of the flats.
On a sharp, indrawn breath she snatched the door back to shield her body, her eyes dilating endlessly as she looked up into a harshly contoured, expressionless face. Colour leached from her skin and a faint cold sweat slicked over her temples.
Quick as she was, he was quicker, and of course he was infinitely stronger. Without visibly exerting pressure he pushed the door open and walked into the room. Olivia fell back before him.
Foreboding washed through her, a hallow nausea caused by shock and dread. When her heart started up again she found it difficult to breathe.
Moving with the feline grace she remembered so well, he followed her across the room, his eyes revealing nothing but sardonic amusement. Even if she hadn’t seen the forceful features she would have recognised Drake Arundell by his gait alone. After all, she had known him all her life—although it wasn’t until she was fourteen and he was twenty-two that she’d noticed him with the inner eyes of her burgeoning womanhood.
He’d walked down the main street of a little town a lifetime away, and everyone in Springs Flat had watched him—some appreciatively, and some, the parents of young, impressionable daughters, with acute foreboding.
It was the sort of walk that had persuaded the elders of uncounted tribes the world over and down the centuries to look around for a war, or for big game to be hunted, or for an exploratory trip—anything to get that lean-hipped, lithely graceful saunterer out of the district and away from their wives and daughters.
Already famous, earning big money on the Formula One circuit, he was a certainty, her stepfather had said admiringly, to win the World Drivers’ Championship soon.
Brian Harley used to enjoy teasing Drake’s father, who worked in his accountancy firm, because Stan Arundell had resisted his son’s ambitions. A conventional, hardworking man, he’d wanted Drake to take law at university, and he had used Mrs Arundell’s long battle with illness to restrain his son. It had been Brian who had persuaded him to give Drake his blessing. Immediately Drake had left school, and within a remarkably few months had been racing his snarling monsters.
The situation was laden with ironic overtones; however, there was no irony in the expression of the man who was stalking her across her own room. All she could read in his face was a predatory, cold threat.
Compelled by some absurd conviction that the only way she’d retain control of the situation would be to stop retreating, Olivia came to a sudden, stubborn halt in the middle of the room, hands clenched stiffly at her sides.
He stopped too, just within her area of personal space.
Olivia’s eyes travelled reluctantly to his face. At twenty-two he had been amazingly magnetic in a potent, bad-boy way that had set the fourteen-year-old Olivia’s heart thumping erratically whenever her eyes had met those wicked grey-green ones. By the time she was seventeen the raffish appeal had altered to a tougher, more formidable fascination. Now time and experience had curbed and transmuted his raw intensity into a self-sufficient, hard-edged maturity.
He had always been disturbing; now he was dangerous.
Endeavouring