have to stop at the foot of the drive. The landscape looked far different in bright sunlight than it did in the moody gray that so often swathed the area.
Sunshine glimmered and glinted on the dewdrops that had survived the morning sun, and speared through the green of the leaves to turn them translucent, and she could hear the distinctive song of the tuis with their white ruffle at the throat and iridescent black feathers.
Sometimes, Anahera could imagine no more beautiful place in the world.
Other times, she wondered why she’d come back to a place she’d always wanted to escape. Maybe it had never been about the place at all.
She’d seen him in town as she drove through, the man who called himself her father. He’d seen her, too, had paused on the sidewalk, as if expecting her to stop.
Anahera hadn’t stopped, would never stop for that man.
It was only as she was about to reach the top of the Baker drive that she realized while Vincent was gone, Kyle might well be home. If that turned out to be true, hopefully Jemima would either usher him out or he’d stick to a distant end of the house.
A second later, she saw Kyle pull out of the top of the drive in what looked like a Ferrari, the color a lustrous obsidian. Sending her a brilliant smile, he raised his hand in a wave as he headed down while she headed up. Anahera raised hers back, keeping things friendly. If he was a psychopath as Will suspected—and the cop had good instincts—it’d do well not to let Kyle see that she wasn’t taken in by his act.
Parking, she got out and had just begun to walk up the two shallow front steps when the door opened from the inside. Jemima stood smiling on the doorstep. “Oh, you’re here.” A delighted brightness to her, a hint of surprise.
Because Anahera had kept her word?
“Thanks for having me,” Anahera said with a smile of her own, “but I’m starting to feel a little underdressed.” Jemima was wearing a white dress with little red flowers on the fabric, the bodice nipped in at the waist and the calf-length skirt flaring out below. Her hair was blow-dried to perfection, shone under the sunlight.
Vincent’s wife laughed. “Oh, don’t mind me,” said the woman no one seemed to truly know. “I used to dress up even as a little girl. I don’t get much of a chance to do it when in the Cove. I hope you don’t mind.”
“As long as you don’t mind that I’m wearing jeans and a shirt.” She hadn’t bothered to put on her anorak after leaving the church; the sun took some of the bite out of the air.
“You look beautiful.” Jemima’s face glowed. “Come in.”
When Anahera walked into the living room, it was to see two cherubic children playing on the rug in front of the crackling fireplace. “I always get cold,” Jemima said. “The whole house is heated, of course, but nothing beats a fire, don’t you agree?”
“Mama!” The boy held out his arms.
Not hesitating, Jemima went over and picked him up for a cuddle. Not to be outdone, his younger sister asked for the same.
“They’re so competitive at this age,” Jemima said afterward, “but they do play well together. We should be able to talk without too many interruptions.” She showed Anahera to a comfortable seating area in front of wide windows that looked out over the dramatic untamed landscape beyond.
Anahera didn’t immediately sit. “Damn, that’s magnificent.” It came out as a long exhale.
There were no pathways in this part of the bush, no trails for hikers to follow. If you went into the dense growth so thick it turned the world quiet and dark, you did so on your own steam, knowing the wild could swallow you whole.
Jemima came to stand beside her, her perfume a delicate floral note in the air. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” she said softly.
Anahera turned to look at the other woman’s unsmiling profile. “It must get lonely, though,” she said. “I used to feel that way in London, a country girl lost in the big city.”
“It’s not so much the country—I grew up in a large game reserve. It’s that…” She wrapped her arms around herself, her hands cupping her elbows. “Everyone knows each other already and they don’t seem to want to know me.” A glance at Anahera out of the corner of her eye.
“Small towns,” Anahera said. “They have their