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A Bewitching Compulsion

Page 10

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Sure enough, Tim found the problem and ran the program for her, and as a reward Clare let him work on a program he was constructing for himself. She worked on spread sheets at her desk in the large, high-ceilinged office just off the main foyer of the lodge until lunch, which she and Tim ate in the kitchen along with Shari, the live-in maid, and her husband Kerry who acted as general handyman. Grace produced one of her superb game soups, grumbling all the while about the extra work providing meals and snacks for the painters involved. Those at the kitchen table exchanged grins. Grace wouldn't be Grace without a complaint on her lips. She had been cook at the lodge since it had been a private home, and was commonly acknowledged to be one of the best game chefs in Rotorua. She considered Moonlight her home, and looked on the paying guests as family. Since many of them were regulars, 'invited' by Miles—celebrities, politicians, minor royalty and heads of state to whom the tranquillity and unpretentious luxury of Moonlight were a welcome escape from the pressures of the limelight—Grace made it a point to know all their foibles, while at the same time resolutely ignoring them. It was a measure of. her culinary reputation, and her bad temper, that no one who stayed at Moonlight ever sent a dish back to the kitchen. Clare had seen more than one ruthless tycoon choke down a dish of tripe, or hide spinach in their napkins to dump in the bush later, rather than risk Grace's wrath. At sixty-four, she looked like everybody's kindly old grandmother, but those who had heard her bark agreed that it was only if you had a grandmother who was a Dobermann!

It was a sore point with Grace that the chalets had self-contained kitchens so that guests who wanted complete privacy didn't have to eat in the dining-room at the lodge, but rare was the visitor who, having once sampled Grace's delights, settled for doing their own cooking. The fact that they had two such rarities in residence at the moment had really given Grace something to get her teeth into. George Taverner was a prolific but reclusive writer of action-adventure stories, and whenever he was in danger of not meeting a deadline he holed up at Moonlight, living mainly on whisky, cigarettes and sheer nerves until the book was finished. Clare had seen so little of him, even though he had stayed at Moonlight on and off for about six months during her time there, that she doubted she would even recognise him.

Their other rarity was a famous television face who had slipped discreetly into the country for a break from a gruelling Hollywood work schedule. He, too, was largely an unseen presence, but for a very different reason: a reason that was tall, red-headed, and built like a male fantasy. 'I'll bet that floosie never boiled an egg in her life,' Grace had growled, 'Did you see the order they sent in? Cans! They're over there eating out of cans! And they won't even let Shari in to tidy up.'

'Perhaps they're on a secret honeymoon,' said Kerry, straight-faced.

'Like last year, you mean?' his wife had grinned. 'When he was here with the brunette?'

Clare imagined what a field day a gossip columnist could have, eavesdropping on a conversation in the Moonlight kitchen, but it was in the nature of the place that no one had ever broken the trust that the guests placed in their exclusive hideaway. Because the staff was so small, it was necessarily close-knit.

Tim finally succumbed to persuasion after lunch, and went out for a walk with a long-suffering look at his mother that was very adult: he was only doing this for her sake. For her sake he might even try to enjoy it. Probably he would come across some animal or insect or fern, and spend the whole time studying it closely, ignoring the frisking of three boisterous dogs.

Clare was arranging flowers in the lounge when she heard the helicopter, and a few minutes later she went out to greet Miles, returning after flying an English industrialist and his wife back to Auckland after a two-week stay.

'Miss me?' He grinned at her as he strode up the stone steps and filled the foyer with his booming voice.

'I hardly had time to,' she said drily. 'You seem to flit about like a butterfly these days, never here long enough to do any work and never away long enough for us to get any peace and quiet.'

Miles laughed. He was a big man, as boisterous as his dogs, who thrived on his peripatetic life-style. A keen hunter, he prided himself on his fitness and looked a good deal younger than his fifty years.

'You're too young for peace and quiet, Clare. That's why I've brought you some more guests. First-timers.' He rubbed his hands.

'I thought we'd agreed to delay any more bookings until after the kitchen was finished,' said Clare. 'Couldn't you have put them off for another week?'

'Don't you worry about Grade. This guy's a gourmet. Wait till you see who it is.'

His enthusiasm was like that of a small boy. Clare had to admit that Miles was a genius at 'picking up' guests… creaming them from the Regent or ringing his mates at the Beehive whenever a state visit was touted. The lodge never advertised; it never had to. Miles's roaming around the globe and his many business interests generated word of mouth recommendations that ensured exclusivity. And naturally all guests had to pass the Parrish test of suitability—i.e. Miles had to like them; mere fame and money didn't provide an entree.

'OK, but they'll have to take chalet five and it doesn't have any heating yet.' Their heat came from a thermal bore, and the renovations had necessitated relaying some of the pipes.

'There's only two of them; let them have my suite. I'm off to Wellington in a couple of days, and I'll be gone a week. One of the new suites will be ready by then, won't it? What are the bookings like?'

'How long do these new friends of yours want to stay? We're full up from the end of the month.'

Miles shrugged rather sheepishly. 'I don't know… a week or so, I suppose, I forgot to ask. I was so keen for him to come…'

It must be someone impressive… either that, or someone who shared his obsessi

on with hunting and fishing. Miles was usually blasé about his guests. Clare shook her head. 'Sometimes, Miles, I wonder how on earth you managed before I came along.'

'So do I,' agreed Miles, although they both knew that one of the secrets of his success was his talent for delegation. He draped a casual arm across her shoulders, hugging her against him as he drew her towards the door to greet the guests who were following a suitcase-laden Kerry up the steps. 'You won't ever leave me, will you, honey? Hell, I'll even make an honest woman of you if you really twist my arm…' He trailed off suggestively, and Clare pinkened at the compliment rather than the implication that their relationship was in any way dishonest. Miles was the quintessential bachelor; his affection for women, all women, as expansive as his manner. The idea of his settling down was so ludicrous that he expected everyone to know that he was joking to even hint at it. If the new guests had got the wrong impression, they would soon be disabused—

Clare stopped short, riveted by the sight of the man at the top of the steps.

'Well, I guess you two don't need any introduction,' said Miles, looking smugly from one to the other.

'No, indeed,' murmured David Deverenko blandly. 'Hello again, Clare.'

'What are you doing here?' asked Clare faintly, aware of an embarrassing sense of déjà vu as she eased herself from Miles's friendly embrace.

'Isn't it great? Don't you love my surprise?' Miles demanded. 'I called in on Virginia with your messages, and she told me Davey here was in town and looking for somewhere to relax for a while before he cranks up for his next tour…'

Davey? Clare felt a small shock of betrayal. Was the man everybody's friend—except hers? She looked at him accusingly, and he gave a helpless shrug, as if to ask, 'Can I help it if I'm irresistible?' Yes. It had been two months… she had thought she was safe.

'I wouldn't have thought that this was your kind of place,' she said stiffly. 'I mean, I remember reading somewhere that you don't approve of hunting or fishing for sport.'

'Been looking me up?' Deverenko asked innocently, and she remembered something else. The comment had been made in an exclusive interview with the author of his biography, which she had guiltily dipped into in a spare moment after lunch. She held his gaze with difficulty, her eyes going smoky with the effort of controlling a blush.



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