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‘No,’ Peter murmured. ‘He usually calls ahead to let me know…for Coop’s sake as much as mine. I wonder where he’s come from this time?’
Emily knew that Ethan West had been a structural engineer before he had ventured into the rarefied world of custom-built, luxury homes, and that his speciality was building on difficult sites in remote areas of New Zealand.
‘When you said he made flying visits, I didn’t think you meant literally,’ she said, turning away from the window. Ethan’s primary home was on Waiheke Island so she supposed it would make sense for him to commute by air to his offices in uptown Auckland when the car or passenger-ferry services didn’t fit in with his business schedule. It would only be a fifteen minute flight from the small island out in the Hauraki Gulf to Peter’s hilltop home, and only another short hop to the city centre.
‘Well, while you see to your nephew I?
??d better get on with organising myself. I’ll just put a box of a few work things I hope I can salvage into the studio, and then I’ll unload my personal stuff into the storage locker you asked Jeff to empty for me in the garage. I’ll have to make another run to the house because there were a few other boxes that I couldn’t manage to squeeze in on this trip, then I’ll need to get the car back to Julie, so I won’t actually be able to start work in the studio until tomorrow…’As soon as she had picked herself up some bus timetables. The list of things she had to do in order to rebuild her life seemed to be getting longer rather than shorter.
‘Oh, but you can’t rush off without saying hello to Ethan,’ said Peter, clasping her shoulder. ‘It’s about time I introduced you two…’
Emily looked at him. ‘I rather got the impression that you preferred me not to meet your family,’ she said quietly. She couldn’t have failed to notice that her invitations had never coincided with his nephews’ visits or any other guests, and that he had never suggested that they should.
His fingers tightened on her shoulder, his eyes shifting guiltily. ‘You can blame that on an old man’s selfishness in wanting to keep all your attention for himself,’ he said gruffly. ‘Is that why you won’t accept my invitation to stay—because you think I’m ashamed of our friendship?’
‘No, of course not—’ she hastened to reassure him.
‘Then you’ll think about it?’
She sighed. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she temporised.
‘Because it would mean a great deal to me. You mean a lot to me,’ he said, his brown eyes gravely intent. ‘Just having you around the place has been better than any tonic. You’re easy to talk to, not like a lot of young people who are always rush, rush, rush—off with the old and on with the new! And you know that there’s no one else I’d trust to spruce up Rose’s favourite things. So never, never think you’re not valued and wanted, Emily.’
Not quite sure what had prompted his uncharacteristic emotional frankness, Emily felt a warning prickle in her eyes. Since the fire, her own emotions had been riding dangerously close to the surface. She had received plenty of sympathy and commiseration, but there was no substitute for the intimate concern of family. She had never missed her grandfather more than she had this week, as Peter had obviously realised. Impulsively she flung her arms around his gaunt frame and gave him a fierce hug, rising on tiptoe to give his leathery cheek a kiss that made him blush.
‘I love you, too!’ she said cheekily, blinking away the threat of tears to experience a horrifying sense of déjà vu as her gaze met with a lethal pair of blue eyes surveying them from the doorway.
‘Should I have knocked?’
They sprang apart, Emily’s knees so weak she staggered drunkenly and subsided abruptly onto the bed, while Peter spun around, his blush deepening as he straightened his bow-tie over his bobbing Adam’s apple, a spurious picture of guilt.
‘Ethan, my boy!’ said Peter heartily. ‘I was just suggesting to Emily she come out and be introduced.’
‘Out of the bedroom?’ Dark, arched eyebrows shot up towards a severe widow’s peak, a mocking counterpoint to the aridly dry voice. His narrowed eyes swept the room, lingering briefly on each group of simian players. Was he checking that they were all still there?
Oh, God, it was him. This wasn’t just her over-stressed brain playing morbid tricks on her; there was no mistaking that stony visage and coruscating look.
Peter’s eldest nephew was her contemptuous saviour—the Black Knight from the Webbers’ party. The man she had taunted and teased like a cheap tart!
He had recognised her, too, the instant that he had seen her peering at him over Peter’s shoulder. For a moment she had seen an explosion of disbelief followed by microsecond bursts of puzzlement, confusion and anger.
He had switched to studying his uncle’s thin frame with a suppressed intensity. ‘I just got back from the South Island yesterday,’ he said abruptly. ‘When I rang you were out, but Mrs Cooper was full of your exciting doings on behalf of your young, homeless friend…’
He made her sound like a bag lady, thought Emily hysterically—which, technically at the moment, she supposed she was! Considering Peter’s habit of keeping his own counsel, she couldn’t really blame the housekeeper for feeling the need to offload her suspicions onto someone whom she knew for certain would have her employer’s best interests at heart.
‘Coop never knows quite as much as she thinks she does,’ retorted Peter, having recovered from his unaccustomed start.
‘Emily…?’ He reached for her limp hand and drew her to her feet. Miraculously her woolly knees managed to weave themselves some strength and she moved stiff-legged to meet her fate. ‘This is my nephew Ethan,’ he pronounced with a redundant flourish. ‘Ethan, I’d like you to meet Emily Quest, who’s become a good friend to me in the last couple of years—as well as doing some finely skilled work. She’s a very talented restorer of antique ceramics.’
‘Is she indeed?’ There was the faintest hiss of acid in his slow sibilance.
Emily’s cold hand was completely swallowed by the fiery warmth of a large, slightly abrasive palm, the slow wrap of hard fingers around her delicate bones reminding her with a sinful jolt of the last time they had touched.
‘I’m absolutely fascinated to meet you, Emily Quest,’ he drawled with caustic enthusiasm, his hand tightening by menacing degrees, rendering her effectively his captive. ‘I have no doubt that you’re extremely talented at…whatever it is you do.’
Emily bit her lip and struggled to pull the corners of her mouth into the semblance of a polite smile. ‘Hello, Ethan. Peter has talked a lot about you—’
She gave his hand a firm shake, pulling her elbow back with a vigorous jerk, feeling a complete fool when he let her fingers slide easily through his, as if he had never intended anything else.
