A Risk Worth Taking Page 3

“With pleasure.”

  He put his camera down on one of the tables and swept her into his arms. The band was playing “Moon River,” probably because of the full moon now laying a silver track across the harbor. Adam was glad the number was a slow one. Drifting like this on the grass, under the trees and stars, a pliant woman pressed against him, it felt good. He hadn’t had a chance to catch up with Cressa again before now. He’d only seen her from afar, chatting animatedly in different groups, seeming to know everyone. At one stage he’d spotted her in deep conversation with Jake and Sass. They’d glanced several times in his direction and he’d wondered what they were talking about. Nothing bad, clearly, for here she was, in his arms.

  Adam closed his eyes, letting his tired mind relax and his senses take over. He liked her perfume and the softness of her hair. Dreamily, he wound it around and between his fingers. He loved the contrast of the cold night air and the warmth of her body, and his hand slipped up under the hem of her jacket to stroke the sensuous lines of her back. It would be so sweet to melt into the shadows with her and make out. Slow and easy. Almost trancelike, he danced her to the edge of the crowd, toward the sheltering darkness of trees. He’d been so serious for so long, and Cressa reminded him of what he used to be like.

  Tonight he was in a foreign land, among strangers. Tomorrow she’d be gone and he would refocus, get back to his studies. Hell, there was absolutely nothing else to do in Aroha Bay. No distractions, just him and Mom. He’d probably ace the exam, given the empty weeks stretching ahead.

  The thought made him smile as he leaned down to rub his cheek, then his lips, on the top of her head. That felt good, too. She raised her face to his, but just as he was about to let his mouth sink onto her beautiful lips, he saw Deirdre only a few feet away, observing the dancers. The way Cressa’s mother wasn’t looking at them as she sipped her wine let him know she knew exactly what was going on. He swung around with the music so that his back was to her, but already she had knocked some of that delicious, drugged dreaminess out of him.

  Cressa smiled up at him. She appeared so full of mischief and wicked promise that he couldn’t help smiling back. One night with her would be amazing.

  “I’ve a surprise for you.”

  “Yeah?” He could hear the husky, lustful hope in his voice and wondered if she did.

  “I hope you won’t mind. Sass said you’d be delighted. Your mum knows about it and she says that it’ll be wonderful.”

  Suspicion replaced lust. “Really?” His instincts had spotted danger, but his mind couldn’t seem to keep up. “What?”

  “I told Jake and Sass I’m up here on location for the next few weeks, and Sass invited me to stay. Now I’ll be around to show you the country. Won’t that be fun?”

  With alarm bells going off in his head, Adam jerked backward, tripped over the root of a tree and stumbled, knocking the glass of red wine out of Deirdre’s hand and all down her cream suit.

  CHAOS ENSUED as people immediately crowded around, making helpful comments while trying to wipe down the suit. Cressa saw Adam looking wretched as he apologized over and over. She was relieved when Jake carried him off, ostensibly to give a hand bringing out the cake. Adam’s mum, Alicia, whisked Deirdre off to the sleep-out to find her a change of clothes. Then came speeches, more champagne and the cutting of the cake.

  Through it all, Adam never once glanced her way. Cressa couldn’t understand it. When they were dancing, she’d been so sure he was as attracted to her as she was to him. He couldn’t have missed the magnetism between them. Or had she really misread the signals so badly?

  Over and over again in her mind she replayed the shock on his face when she’d told him she’d be staying. Saw again the panic in his eyes. What the hell? She had to find Sass, tell her staying here was off. But it wasn’t easy. The bride and groom were constantly surrounded by people.

  Cressa wandered among the tables now showing the wreckage of carousing. Canapes had dried up; empty glasses littered surfaces. Used plates and napkins lay strewn across the tables and some had fallen onto the grass. The dregs of champagne sat flat in the bottles. The celebration was over and her sour feelings about weddings had only been reinforced. For a while she must have been carried away by a misdirected, false sense of romanticism. What a fool. She glanced over to Adam, now standing on the far edge of the lawn. He looked gorgeous and unobtainable. What a waste.

  How had she read him so wrong?

  Then, to crown her sense of dislocation, she watched as Sass mounted the deck of the sleep-out and lifted her bouquet. Laughing and jostling, all the women gathered below. Des, Portia and Katherine were right in front. Typical. Cressa wouldn’t be caught dead in that silly gaggle. Someone started a countdown. “Ten. Nine…”

  She spotted Adam’s camera lying on the table where he’d left it when they went to dance. She turned it on and flicked through the photos he’d taken of her family. In the darkness of the night, they glowed in bright colors, surprisingly good. Despite her current mood, Cressa smiled. They would all want copies.

  “Six. Five…”

  She continued clicking on the photos and froze. This one was of her. He’d zoomed in for a close-up of her face. She’d been glancing sideways, laughing at her sisters. The wind had caught her hair, lifting it behind her.

  “Two… One!”

  And the bouquet, caught by a gust, sailed over all the guests to smack Cressa squarely in the back of her head.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE NEXT DAY began chaotically. The Curtis family overslept, after having talked and laughed into the small hours of the morning. The rushed start meant hasty cups of tea and battles for the bathroom. Cressa’s sisters tripped over one another as they crammed clothes into bags before realizing they’d picked up the wrong bras, hair straighteners and phone chargers. This led to frantic repacking, which was followed by an uproarious brunch at the marina.

  Cressa leaned back, cradling her coffee, letting the words wash around her. The sun was warm on her back and shone on the dark and tawny heads of her family. Their faces were animated, hands gesturing to emphasize words. With a teacher mother and an actor father, they’d all learned to make their points forcibly. She smiled, her world complete.

  One sister, one brother, one mother.

  He’d looked wistful, which was at odds with his bad-boy persona. So many contradictions. She was, she had to admit, intrigued. Images of Adam, memories of his arms around her, his lips in her hair, kept coming back to her and filling her with anticipation. Then she’d recall his look of horror.

  “How is Brian?” Her mother’s question pulled her back to the present.

  Far from playing the jilted groom, Brian had stayed frustratingly faithful and friendly.

  “Oh, he’s fine. Working mad hours as always.” She was careful to sound blasé.

  “I thought he must be,” said Deirdre. “We haven’t spoken to him for a few weeks now, have we, George?”

  “Not since he dropped by with that particularly good bottle of wine.” Her dad smiled, and she wasn’t sure if it was because of the wine or the pleasure of seeing Brian. Cressa might not have gone through with the wedding, but Brian had somehow remained a fixture in her family.

  “I caught up with him last Friday,” Juliet interjected. “Mike brought him home for dinner. He’s looking great but tired. Did you know he’s presenting at the conference Mike’s gone to this weekend?” She eyed Cressa with a touch of accusation. “He mentioned he hasn’t seen much of you, Cressa.”

  What could she say?

  “Filming’s busy,” she replied.

  But Des was already leaning forward, arms crossed on the table. “Why should she? They’re not an item anymore.”

  “He still loves her, despite everything,” Katherine said. “Cressa’s mad not to see how lucky she is.”

  “But if she doesn’t love him—” Des countered.

  “What’s not to love?” Juliet said. “He’s the most eligible bachelor around.
”

  “It’s none of our business,” said Mum, as she always did just before going on to deliver her opinion. “However, Cressa, you do need someone steady—if not Brian, then someone like him. Not some wild tearaway, here today, gone tomorrow.”

  Cressa glanced at her sharply, but Deirdre’s sunglasses rendered her face impassive.

  Looking mischievous, George covered his wife’s hand with his. “Isn’t that what your parents said when an impecunious actor strolled into your life?”

  They all laughed, then Portia ended the discussion. “We should all butt out. Cressa can lead her life any way she likes after what she’s been through.”

  The uncomfortable silence was broken when their father stood. “I’ll get the bill. Then we should hit the road.”

  Cressa felt squeezed to death by the time her whole family had hugged her before climbing into the van and taking off, hands waving out all the windows. She laughed, waving back with both arms till the vehicle rounded the corner, then she picked up her helmet and made her way to her motorbike. As she switched on the engine, she was aware of a tingle of excitement.

  How well her mother knew her. A wild tearaway, here today and gone tomorrow, was exactly what she wanted. She just had to convince him it was what he wanted, too. First, however, she had a phone call to make, and then she was going to drop in on her cousin and his wife. Rob and Moana had gotten to know Sass extremely well, and Cressa wanted as much information about the Walkers as possible. As a Valkyrie, she’d learned never to go into battle without being fully armed.

  THE SUN WAS SETTING when Adam opened the door in answer to her knock, mop in one hand, bucket in the other. Cressa suppressed a smile. With his dangerous looks, he should be toting a weapon, not a mop. His hair, as black and glossy as the feathers of an eagle, fell thick and straight down each side of his face. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt that made his olive skin appear more tanned than ever. Moana had said his father was Cherokee. Cressa liked that. It made him somehow even more exotic and exciting.

  “Hey, good to see you,” he said, stepping back to let her enter. “Just finished getting the house in order.”

  So that’s how he intended to play it. His manner was impeccably pitched at the “polite acquaintance” level. As if he had never run his hands up and down her back, causing her to shiver with anticipation. Okay, she could play along—for now.

  “Hi.” She stepped inside the kitchen. The smell of roast chicken filled the air, and pots were boiling on the stove, though no one seemed to be attending to them. “You didn’t have to clean up for me, you know.”

  He smiled, and his teeth were very white. American dentistry, no doubt. His slanted cheekbones gave his smile a wicked edge.

  “I didn’t.” He sounded apologetic. “I did it because Mom ordered me to.”

  Cressa laughed. The warrior still taming to his mother’s orders. She liked that, too.

  “Was there a lot to do? You guys should have taken us up on our offer to help.”

  Adam dismissed the idea with a wave of one lean hand. “It was no trouble. Rob and Moana came over in the morning, and with the boys here, too, we got most of it done in no time. Sass was commander in chief. Bossy but efficient. To be honest, when they all left at lunchtime, it was a relief.”

  “Sounds like Juliet. Being the eldest, she thinks of herself more as mother than sister. So, where am I sleeping?”

  “Mom’s been living in the sleep-out these past couple of months—Sass put her there to give her some privacy. So you’ll be in the house with me. You’ve got a choice, but I expect you’d like Sass and Jake’s room. It’s the biggest and has a double bed. The twins’ room is another option, but it has bunk beds and is a mess.”

  He pushed open the door. “Here you are.”

  But the sight of the double bed, the almost tangible sense of intimacy, had her backing out.

  “You know, I’ll take the boys’ room.”

  “Sure,” said Adam in his easy Texan way, but she’d seen his curious glance. She covered up with an explanation.

  “That’s where I always used to be. I haven’t slept in the bunks for years. Now I won’t have to fight sisters for the top one.”

  “You’ve been here before?” Adam was surprised.

  “Yeah, we used to have family holidays here when I was a kid. That was how Jake got to rent it now, and why he and Sass invited me to stay. Jake thought I might like to enjoy the place one last time before the resort goes in.”

  She felt sad at the thought of the house being taken away so the eco-resort could be built, but as Jake had said with a wry expression, it was time for other people to share the beauty of Aroha Bay. To have this final opportunity to experience the serenity of the bay was wonderful, and she’d have leaped at the chance, anyway. Adam just happened to be a bonus.

  The room at the end of the hall felt like home. She’d forgotten how lovely it was, with windows on two walls and a view over the harbor. Teenage detritus was scattered about, but nothing she couldn’t chuck into the cupboard in a couple of minutes.

  “It’s perfect.”

  She unzipped her jacket. She saw Adam’s eyes follow the movement as he propped a shoulder against the top bunk. So she hadn’t been wrong. The currents weren’t as edgy as yesterday, but they were definitely running between them, however much he might pretend they weren’t.

  “Really? Even the artwork?”

  The walls were covered in posters of waves and girls in impossibly tiny bikinis. She stuck her hands into her back pockets as she looked around. “Makes a change from the pop posters we used to paper our rooms with. Except for Des. She had this thing for kitten posters. What did you have?”

  “I shared a room with my brother, Cole. He’s into art, so we had all his drawings on one wall and my posters of motorbikes on the other.”

  Cole. The one in prison. Moana hadn’t known much about why he was there. She’d said the Walker family had lots they chose not to talk about. Adam had mentioned his brother casually, but Cressa decided now was not the time to go into it. Although Adam seemed the same easygoing Texan of the night before, she could sense his defenses were up; his face gave nothing away.

  He straightened. “Where’re your bags? I’ll bring them in.”

  “Hey, no need. I can manage on my own.”

  “I’m sure you can, but Mom would kill me if she saw you carrying them by yourself. She’s a feminist, but still doesn’t see why a gentleman shouldn’t be a gentleman.”

  “Indeed I do not.”

  They turned at the soft voice, and Alicia came forward to kiss Cressa on the cheek. “Welcome. Sorry I wasn’t here to meet you. I was out in the garden. Dinner’s nearly ready. We’re so pleased you’re joining us. We’ll eat in the kitchen, since there’s just the three of us. It’s cozy in there. Adam, you get Cressa’s bags while we set the table.”

  “See what I mean?” Adam raised his hands in humorous resignation and departed. Cressa smiled.

  “It’s very kind of you to have me, Alicia.”

  “The pleasure is ours. The house will be so quiet now that Sass and Jake and the boys have gone. I know Adam will appreciate having someone other than his mother around. Wasn’t yesterday wonderful?”

  Cressa followed her down the hallway to the kitchen just in time to find one of the pots on the stove boiling over.

  “Dear me,” said Alicia, lifting it off the element and setting it to one side. She opened the oven door. Smoke and the smell of burning chicken filled the room. “Oh, my. That’s not good.”

  Cressa went to set the table, and was astonished to find that the place mats and cutlery were kept exactly where they used to be. It gave her an eerie feeling of déjà vu. As she and Alicia chatted about the wedding, Cressa checked out the older woman. She was as neat as a pin, in white trousers and a blue jersey, and Cressa found it difficult to believe she had been cleaning all day. Her shoulder length hair fell in a silky curtain the way Adam’s did. Otherwise, they
couldn’t look more different. It was as if a dove had given birth to an eaglet. An aura of femininity surrounded Alicia. Her soft voice and graceful movements were a far cry from Deirdre’s quick efficiency.

  Hard to imagine Alicia an alcoholic. Hard to imagine her the mother of a convict. She’d had a blond husband and had taken a Cherokee lover. There was a lot more to this woman than her sweet, vague Southern mannerisms might suggest.

  Adam came in. “Ah, I’d forgotten the smell of home cooking.”

  His mother swatted him with the oven mitt. “I was distracted by Cressa’s arrival.”

  Cressa thought about the untended pots and held her tongue, but she and Adam exchanged glances. It was the first time he’d looked her in the eye today, and Cressa immediately found Alicia’s cooking methods endearing.

  “Now tell me, why are you up here for the filming? Is it just coincidence?” Alicia asked, draining a pot over the sink and disappearing into a cloud of steam.

  “Not really. We were going to be on location in the Coromandel, but it got flooded out in the storms last week. I know the assistant director—he’s a friend of Dad’s—and suggested up here. Our family has been friendly with one of the local farmers for years. He can always do with some cash and his land has everything we need—so here we are.”

  Alicia turned and smiled at her. “Well, I’m very pleased. It’s lovely for Adam to have another young person around. Me, too! What’s the show about?”

  “It’s a pilot for a fantasy apocalypse series. Nuclear holocaust, the collapse of civilization, ongoing battles. Enter the Valkyries, who complicate things when they fall in love with fighters on different sides.”

  “Sounds like you are enjoying it,” said Alicia, collecting the plates from the cupboard.

  “Oh, yeah. The Valkyries are great—real kick-butt chicks. The warriors they fall in love with are also seriously cool.” Cressa dug in a drawer for serving tongs. As though he’d read her mind, Adam retrieved them from the dishwasher. “Alas,” she added, putting on a woebegone expression. “Only a few more weeks and then I’ll have to find a real job again.”