Passion Bay

Two women from different ends of the earth discover passion in paradise—a paradise threatened by secrets and impending disaster.

 Mourning the death of her favorite Aunt, Annabel Worth is stunned to find she has inherited two things--an island in the South Pacific and a mystery that can only be solved by traveling there. Disillusioned with life as a securities trader in Boston, she rashly decides to exchange one world for another. New Zealander Cody Stanton has made the same choice. Dumped by her lover, laid off from her job, she rents a beach villa on remote Moon Island, expecting to take comfort in sea, solitude and simplicity. Then she meets Annabel.

 Haunted by a secret that threatens to derail her relationship with her mother, Annabel resists their powerful attraction. Cody, too, is burdened with a secret that could destroy the passion growing between them. When Hurricane Mary strikes the island, each woman must make a choice that will change her life forever.

Chapter One

Mid-winter bus stop conversation was cheerless and predictable, half-sentences captured before the wind could steal them away, people’s faces mottled, noses dripping. Like a family of fat gray caterpillars, the commuters inched their way along Lambton Quay platform, clutching the jetsam of their working lives in briefcases and plastic shopping bags and glaring at the derelict spread full-length along one of the few benches available.

The trolleybus was late of course. It would have caused needless shock and distress were it to arrive on time. The passengers huddled in line would have had nothing to talk about except the weather, and it seemed fairly pointless to tell someone engaged in a death struggle with coat and scarf that it was a lousy day.

Wellington, New Zealand, was a vile city in July. Southerly winds roared straight up from the Antarctic, constant earth tremors made the entire population twitchy, and the suicide rate doubled.

Cody Stanton hated it. She hated the endless grayness of it all, the flu that everyone had in one form or another, the traffic accidents and the sirens screaming all day. She hated the litter blowing unnoticed along the street, the deadened faces of pedestrians, the television screens in store windows playing nothing but rugby.

Someone gave her a shove and she realized the line in front of her had vanished. Hurrying along the platform, she ran agitated fingers through her windblown hair and hoisted herself up into the red and white trolleybus idling at their stop.

“Two sections,” she muttered, for once failing to notice the dyke driver’s muscular thighs or her assessing look. Half the city’s public transport was driven by lesbians, it seemed.

The bus lurched away while she was stumbling along the aisle. Grabbing for a rail, Cody snagged her leather jacket on an old woman’s shopping trundler and trod across the protruding Reeboked feet of a brawny youth. She heard his “Fuck you” without registering it, and headed for the only spare seat in the bus, right at the back next to a large Indian woman. Careful not to destroy the filmy sari spilling from her raincoat, she occupied the child-sized space beside her and stared sightlessly ahead.

People got laid off every day, Cody reasoned. Only she had thought it would never happen to her. She had a nice, safe job in computers and her particular skills were scarce in the technology-shy New Zealand market. It wasn’t going to look too hot on her resumé, she realized. There were people at work who had actually resigned to avoid the stigma; men of course, shit scared of taking a nosedive in the job market. Fortunately she wasn’t too proud to take a bullet and a severance check.

Labor laws being what they were in liberal New Zealand, the payment would be decent. That was something, she thought, feeling for the envelope in her pocket. Its stiffness was reassuring. She hadn’t opened it yet. Packing up her desk had been traumatic enough in the half hour they were given. Clear out your belongings and leave the building. Cody couldn’t believe it. Treated like criminals, somebody said. They weren’t supposed to speak to the other staff or notice the awkward looks.

Cody could remember feeling that same queasy relief herself when the first layoffs were announced several months back. She had watched colleagues depart, some of them with few prospects in their specialties. Many had moved across the Tasman to Australia, one had killed himself. Losing his job was not the main reason, the staff psychologist had insisted. There were personal problems.

The trolleybus jerked and clattered through the rush hour traffic at a crawl, stopping and starting for passengers every few blocks. It would be pitch dark by the time she got home, Cody thought. This was something she wouldn’t miss—the snail’s pace commute morning and night. She grabbed for the seat rail as they lurched drunkenly to the left, navigating their way onto the huge roundabout that spewed traffic into the Mount Victoria tunnels. Almost in the Indian woman’s lap, she struggled to get upright, dragged herself to her feet and elbowed her way through the crush of standing passengers to the exit door.

Her stop was directly on the other side of the bus tunnel. Trolley drivers often missed it altogether. Sandwiched between men in trench coats and students with purple hair, she pulled the stop cord so the driver would have plenty of warning. Today had been bad enough without having to walk an extra quarter mile in the pouring rain.

Naturally the driver accelerated through the tunnel then failed to brake in time to halt safely on the steep downward slope on the other side. Watching her stop recede through the fogged up doors, Cody yelled, “Hey, thanks a lot!”

The driver must have heard her because she ‘missed’ the next stop as well. Cody finally escaped with the exodus of passengers at the Hataitai shopping center. There the smell of fried chicken assaulted her, and she straggled back up the hill toward her flat, her stomach churning.

Once at her gate, she lingered on some silly pretext. Last night it had been paint flakes on the sidewalk, tonight her shoelaces needed tightening. Fool, she berated herself and trudged along the path to her front door. She pushed it open with a pounding heart, half-expecting to smell food cooking and hear some scratchy old Ferron recording. But the narrow hallway was dark and silent, the air stale with last night’s fish and chips.

For the first time that day, tears crept down her cheeks. Impatiently, she brushed them away. If Margaret had been there, she would have rushed down to the kitchen, burst out with her news, thrust the check at her lover to open, and leaned against her, warm and safe. Instead she wandered into the emptiness of her bedroom, dropped her satchel on the floor, and threw herself down on the bed. She stared up at the ceiling for a while, then dropped her eyes to the discolored patch of wall where Margaret’s Amelia Earhart poster had hung.

She really ought to hang something else there, Cody thought for about the twentieth time in four weeks. Instead she lay motionless and icy cold until darkness swallowed the outline on the wallpaper and made a black hole of the gap where Margaret’s chest of drawers had once squatted, drawers neatly packed, doilies arranged on top.

Aware that her teeth were chattering and her hair was making a damp patch on the pillow, Cody eventually sat up. She should make some dinner, only there was nothing in the house. She hadn’t bothered to shop since Margaret left. Anyway she didn’t have much of an appetite, especially not for greasies again.

With a listless sigh, she flicked on her bedside lamp, pulled the envelope from her pocket and tore it open. A message on heavy embossed letterhead informed her that she had redundancy compensation of $10,000. A check was stapled to the back. Cody pried it off and studied it, feeling dull-witted. The zeros looked wrong. She counted them, rubbed her eyes and counted them again.

Tracing her finger along the line, she read the amount out loud. “One hundred thousand dollars.” For a moment she panicked, then she counted the zeros a third time just to be sure. “Shit!” she whispered. “A hundred grand.”

Well, that was just perfect. Those stupid bastards in Admin had messed up and she would have to gird her loins and march straight back in there tomorrow to sort out their mistake. Bureaucracy had triumphed yet again.

With a loud groan, she crawled under the quilt with her clothes on. “This is not my day,” she muttered.

When the sun hit Cody’s face the next morning, she opened her eyes with a start and threw off the bedclothes. Eight-thirty! She was late. Cursing, she hurtled toward the bathroom, then remembered. On the floor beside her bed lay the letter and check that proved yesterday was not just a bad dream. Cody approached the oblong bank draft as if it were radioactive and stared down at it. Even upside down, even in the clear light of day, the neatly typed figures were the same as they were the night before. One hundred thousand dollars.

Of course she would have to give it back. Admin had probably discovered their mistake already and canceled the check. But what if they hadn’t? What if they’d just stamped her file Processed and shoved it back to the records department with this week’s big stack of redundancies?

Cody scooped the check off the floor and brushed away imaginary dust. What if she kept it? What if she spent the lot? That would serve the bastards right, she decided a little wildly. What could they do? Ask her for $90,000 back please? Put her in jail?

For the first time in a month, Cody laughed.

Later that morning, the bank teller was less amused.

“Large deposit,” he commented, looking Cody over as if she were in a police line-up.

“It’s my severance compensation,” she said, suitably tragic. “I lost my job.”

His face cleared immediately, and he rearranged his expression into one of pious concern. “Very sorry,” he murmured with a shake of the head. “Lot of it about.”

Cody did her best to look nonchalant as he keyed in the deposit and rubber-stamped everything. She could almost feel the security cameras zooming in on her, see her face immortalized on TV screens all over New Zealand in Crimewatch: Cody Stanton, female Caucasian aged 28, 5’7”, slim build, black hair, and gray eyes. Wanted for theft. She shivered.

The teller was speaking to her in a confiding tone. “...lot of money. Our manager can advise...don’t hesitate to call…”

“Thank you.” Cody shoveled her deposit book into her bag. “I certainly shall. You’ve been most helpful.” Bestowing her best school-photo smile on him, she escaped.

“A hundred grand,” she muttered under her breath as she walked away from the bank. Now what?

Chapter Two

Seven thousand miles away, Annabel Worth was burying her aunt Annie. It was a small private ceremony and she was one of a handful of mourners who tossed roses onto the coffin as it was lowered. Glancing about, she recognized a couple of distant cousins and several tearful older women, friends of her aunt’s. Annabel’s parents were represented by a lavish wreath in the shape of a cross, the closest they could come to having the last word, she guessed cynically. Her aunt would have hated it, pagan that she was.

When the prayers were over, Annabel slowly approached the edge of the grave, her black Bally heels sinking into the soft lawn. People were drifting away in twos and threes, probably returning to their hotels to prepare for the discreet gathering later in the day. The sun seemed indecently bright. Annie would never see it again, her niece thought sadly. She took a handful of earth and released it onto the gleaming coffin, staring down at her own reflection mirrored across the ebony surface.

She wished she had spent more time with Annie recently, but work had been hell and she had allowed the weeks to trickle by, not realizing how quickly her aunt would fail. Annie had left her home in the South Pacific a few months ago to spend the rest of her borrowed time in her San Francisco apartment. Annabel had flown out from Boston when she first arrived, and she had seemed well, if a little thin. Typically proud, Annie had avoided telling anyone how ill she was for as long as possible.

Four weeks ago, Annabel and her mother visited her once more, and everyone had seemed confident she still had months. They had been profoundly shocked when her doctor called just last week, telling them she was critically ill. Cancer could suddenly accelerate, a woman from the hospice had said. Annie had died while Annabel was still on the red-eye, trying to reach San Francisco in time to kiss her goodbye.

Holding back tears, she pushed a clod of earth into the grave with her foot. It made a soft, distinctive thud.

“Miss Worth?” A voice behind her made her turn quickly. She was faced by a short, perspiring young man who thrust a damp business card at her.

“Jessup. Bryan Jessup of Swain, Buddle & Jessup,” he told her. “Walter Jessup’s my father,” he added, as though that explained everything.

Disconcerted, Annabel retreated from the grave’s edge. “I take it you are a lawyer.” What other professional would collar the bereaved before the coffin was even fully lowered?

“We are,” her companion confirmed loftily.

Annabel waited. He just stood there staring, as though confronted with a rare zoo specimen.

She finally prompted, “What may I do for you, Mr. Jessup?”

“Yes… excuse me.” He cleared his throat. “We wrote after your aunt passed, God rest her soul. I imagine you did not receive our letter before leaving Boston.”

“You imagine correctly.”

“Please forgive this intrusion in your hour of… er. We thought we might catch you here before you left town, you see. To arrange an appointment.”

“An appointment?” What on earth did Swain and so forth want with her?

“To discuss your aunt’s affairs,” Jessup added.

Annabel raised an eyebrow. Her aunt’s affairs. Now that would make for interesting conversation. But not with a sweaty young California lawyer. “You mean before her will is read? I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mr. Jessup,” she said in dignified old Boston. It produced immediate results.

“Of course.” He mopped his forehead. “Allow me to offer our sincere condolences, Miss Worth. Your aunt’s untimely death must have come as a great shock.” He glanced past her toward the grave with obvious discomfort. “You will be aware that you are named in her will of course. But for certain reasons it is desirable that we—”

Annabel cut him off. “Is it really necessary to have this conversation now?”

Jessup, Jr. blinked, apparently accustomed to getting a warm reception from eager relatives salivating over the prospect of a fat inheritance. “Your late aunt left specific instructions that we were to contact you immediately,” he said with a hint of chagrin. “We have a letter from her for your eyes only. My father felt it was important to make you aware of this as soon as we could.”

“I see.”

“Might I er… walk you to your car or drive you somewhere?”

Annabel hesitated. “The latter works for me,” she said, glancing along a meandering pathway to the funeral director’s limousine in which she had arrived. Returning to Russian Hill in its grim luxury was a ride she would gladly pass up.

Obviously thrilled to have scored this coup with a client he wanted to impress, the young attorney led the way to a silver Porsche and opened the door with a flourish. He attempted to assist her in, but Annabel was an expert at avoiding eager hands. She was yet to meet a man who did not behave like a complete fool around her, staring as if he’d never seen a blonde in a country that had cornered the world peroxide market.

People had stared at her all her life, some even assuming they had the right to touch her as one would a curiosity on a store shelf. She had never really grown accustomed to it and for years had loathed her appearance, her paper-white skin, her peculiar pinky-blue eyes, and the hair that was blonder than Barbie’s. Other girls paraded about in bikinis— she wore a sundress. With sleeves. Other girls could wear makeup. Against Annabel’s albino complexion it looked as stark as paint.

Her painful self-consciousness had never quite vanished, even after she’d ‘successfully’ married. What a dismal mistake that had been. How naive she’d been back then, she thought cynically.

After avoiding males throughout high school and college, she had finally met Toby Simpson, a new employee of her father’s. Clever, polished, ambitious Toby. Desperate to feel normal and approved of, Annabel—with a little prompting from her mother—had convinced herself she needed a husband and had accepted Toby’s convenient proposal.

The marriage lasted only six months, and she slunk out of it even less confident in herself than before. That had been nearly ten years ago, and she was no longer a wimp. But men still stared, and to her profound irritation, she was still unnerved by it. The last thing she felt like today, of all days, was trying to keep her close-fitting black silk skirt over her knees while Jessup, Jr. drove her all over San Francisco.

Settling into the black upholstery with an edge of irritation, she said, “I’m staying at my aunt’s apartment in Russian Hill.”

“No problem. I know the address.” He gunned the motor for her benefit, then seemed to remember where they were. Mumbling something apologetic, he cruised through the cemetery with a display of reverence.

Annabel stared out the window. Tall trees and man-made lakes formed a sylvan backdrop for manicured lawns that seemed unnaturally green and shrubs that were too neat for nature. Flowers punctuated this serene vista with shameless bursts of color. Each orderly row of monuments they passed made the reality of Annie’s death sink in deeper. It was so unfair, Annabel thought numbly. She was only in her sixties—a good and decent person. With all the scumbags there were to choose from, why had the Grim Reaper taken her?

Feeling tears threaten, she shifted her attention to the street. Colma, otherwise known as “the city of souls,” was a necropolis, not a metropolis. Instead of fast food and fashion stores, the main route was lined with florists, tombstone engravers and ‘funeral shoppes.’ Home to over a million dead and a mere 1,500 living, the town greeted visitors with a sign that warned It is unlawful to drive through any funeral procession. This was where San Francisco had relocated its dead half a century earlier.

Annabel was surprised that Annie had chosen to be buried here and not in the islands she loved so much. Most people wanted to come home in the end, she supposed.

“Did you know my aunt?” she asked Jessup, Jr. after some particularly flashy driving. They were on the freeway now and he was bent on showing her how a real man handles a sports car.

“I had the pleasure of delivering documents to her on many occasions,” he said, cutting off a guy in a Pontiac Firebird. “A very colorful lady, if I may say so. And kind.”

“Yes, she was,” Annabel said quietly. “I’m going to miss her very much.”

The guy in the Firebird pulled alongside and Jessup stepped on the gas. Great, Annabel thought. I’m going to be killed on my way back from a funeral.

Jessup glanced at her sideways like a puppy that had just eaten your favorite Manolos and expected praise for his feat.

What the heck, she decided. Life wasn’t that great anyway. Producing her toothiest smile, she said, “Wow, this thing really kicks ass.”

Which was all the encouragement he needed.

Chapter Three

At the appointed time the next morning, an entire herd of attorneys were gathered in the overstated luxury of a Swain, Buddle & Jessup conference room, all on her account. Her new best friend Jessup, Jr. flashed her a conspiratorial grin and introduced her to his colleagues.

Buddle was short and solid like a pit bull. Annabel could easily imagine him in court reducing some teenage rape victim to tears. Swain was clearly miscast as a lawyer—a Harvard Med School reject, she decided. Someone called Zimmerman, who looked like Rambo in a suit, mauled his fountain pen as if it were a wrist iron. There were several others whose names she immediately forgot and a complete absence of women.

Jessup, Sr. was a walking advertisement for hair transplants. “We’re so pleased you could join us, Miss Worth,” he began in a voice like glucose.

“Ms.,” Annabel said coolly. Did they all have nothing to do or was there a reason for this over-attended conference?

He recovered quickly. “Ms. Worth.” A slight bow in her direction. “Thank you for coming in at this difficult time.”

Everyone stared and Annabel resisted the urge to stretch her skirt further over her knees. She crossed her ankles instead and twisted her heavy gold signet ring.

“There are a number of matters we will need to discuss with you pertaining to your late aunt’s assets,” Jessup intoned. “Being her principal beneficiary—apart from a handful of legacies to friends and charities…” He waved a dismissive hand as though these stood for nothing. “There will be questions you wish to ask us at this juncture, I’m sure.”

Annabel frowned. They were acting as if the terms of her aunt’s will were old news to her. It hadn’t even been formally read yet. She had assumed Annie would leave her something. Her mother had mentioned the Russian Hill apartment. But she had no idea she would be left everything.

“As you are no doubt aware, your aunt’s estate is considerable—in fact, the largest estate our firm is handling.” Walter Jessup coughed politely. The partners nodded and licked their lips. Zimmerman inched forward in his seat and worked his legs as though jogging on the spot.

Annabel raised a hand. “Forgive me, I’m not really familiar with my aunt’s business affairs. It’s not something we discussed.”

At that the room broke up into murmurs and everyone stared again, eyes glinting, like large rats sizing up their next meal.

“I don’t think she knows,” Buddle whispered audibly to Jessup.

“You are Miss...Ms. Annabel Worth of Back Bay, Boston?” Jessup confirmed belatedly.

Annabel nodded and smoothed a wayward strand of hair back into its French plait.

“Then we have very good news for you,” he declared with the smug paternalism endemic to his profession.

Two hours later Annabel dragged off her clothes and collapsed onto her bed. She still couldn’t believe it. Aunt Annie had left her everything; and everything was, as Buddle had so succinctly put it, “one helluva lot for a little lady to manage on her own.”

Not only did her aunt own the Russian Hill apartment, but her home in the Cook Islands was not just the villa Annabel had so often heard her speak of, but the entire island on which it was located. Annie had also amassed a fortune in stocks and commercial real estate that was almost embarrassing to contemplate. Her bohemian ways had masked a remarkably astute business brain.

Not for the first time Annabel was aware how little she actually knew about her aunt. The details of her life had always seemed vague. Her mother’s younger sister, she was invariably spoken of with polite exasperation. Annabel had come to accept that Annie was somehow an embarrassment to the family. That she was a lesbian was one thing. But it seemed Annie also had a past—one that was supposed to remain well buried.

As she had prepared to leave the attorneys that morning, Walter Jessup produced two sealed envelopes.

“Your aunt left these,” he explained, with an air of ceremony. “One is for you.” He passed her a pale lavender envelope. “The other is for someone called Lucy.” He studied Annabel’s face for a moment. “Can you recall a lady who goes by that name, a friend of your aunt’s, or perhaps a maid?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It seems your aunt expects this ‘Lucy’ to present herself here to claim the letter.”

Annabel wracked her brain. “I’m sorry, I can’t think of anyone.”

“In that case we will need to make inquiries. Miss Adams gave us no other information.” He slid the envelope back into his breast pocket with a resigned air and escorted Annabel to the elevator. “If we are unable to trace this woman we will seek your instructions, Ms. Worth.”

Whatever had possessed her aunt to deal with the likes of Jessup and his firm was a mystery. They seemed to have been time warped from the fifties and did not have a single female partner. The thought of leaving everything in their hands was scary, but Annie’s instructions were very clear. They were to be retained, period.

Baffled, Annabel propped a couple of pillows behind her and tore open the letter Jessup had given her. She read it once quickly then again very slowly. It was dated three months earlier, shortly after Annie had arrived in San Francisco.

My Dear Annabel,

By the time you read this, I will no doubt have met my maker and you will be wondering why you are my sole heir. As I write, my body is exhausted from that wretched chemotherapy and I know I have little time.

For many years I have wanted to discuss with you certain matters of importance, but it now seems I haven’t the strength.

The answers can be found on Moon Island.

Please go there as soon as you can and you will understand.

I wish you a happy life, my dear girl. Know that I have always loved you.

Annie

Chapter Four

“Moon Island,” Cody repeated.

The travel agent stabbed a long red nail at a dot on her map. “Gorgeous,” she breathed. “Totally private. Just five houses on the whole place, and they’re leased out only to women.” She paused a little uncertainly then half-whispered, “An eccentricity of the owner’s, I gather. Something to do with native customs…” She trailed off, doubtless noting Cody’s eyes widen.

“Women only. Amazing.” Cody stifled a cough. The agent’s cloying perfume was giving her heartburn.

“Don’t let that put you off.” The agent did her best to look enthusiastic. “It’s the perfect place to get away from it all, kind of a retreat. Most of my clients adore it. Why, just last week a lady dropped in to tell me she found it absolutely fabulous and didn’t miss men a bit!”

“Imagine that,” Cody said, deadpan. “As a matter of fact it sounds ideal—just what I’m looking for.”

“You won’t regret it.” The red fingernails fluttered over a reservation slip. “Expensive, but then in this business I always say you get what you pay for. Now, how many days was that?”

“A month,” Cody said, producing her wallet and extracting a wad of notes. “And that’s cash.”

“Cash?” The agent froze, slightly bemused. “Cash money?” she squeaked as though she’d never seen the folding stuff.

Cody pushed the notes across the desk and watched her count them.

Earlier that day the bank had been pretty astounded, too.

“You want to close your account and withdraw the full balance?” The teller had disappeared to get the floor manager, a grim-faced woman wearing a frilly shirt and a scarf covered in bank logos. She escorted Cody into a private office where she explained it would take a little time to prepare such an amount. Was Cody sure she wanted it all at once?

“I’m leaving the country,” Cody told her.

The woman smiled glacially. “We could prepare some travelers checks for you, Ms. Stanton,” she offered. “In a hard currency. It would be much safer.”

“Thank you, but I’d rather just have the cash.” Travelers checks were too easily traced. “If you could let me have some in US dollars that would be handy.”

The manager had eyed her with an expression close to pity. Poor creature, it said. She obviously had no idea, and traveling overseas, too, God help her. Cody was told to return in an hour when the bank would provide her with the cash in a combination-locked briefcase with an optional wrist chain. Wearing a martyred expression, the woman escorted her out.

Soon after, briefcase in hand, Cody marched into the nearest travel agency with no idea where she should go. Somewhere very private, she had told the perfumed agent, somewhere obscure, inaccessible and beautiful.

“Somewhere like New Zealand?” the agent joked, and for a moment, Cody actually considered the possibility. She could take a ferry to the South Island and vanish into the wilds of the West Coast, hole up in some gold-mining town along with every other criminal escaping a police dragnet. She could change her name and become a guide on the whale-spotting boats in Kaikoura.

No, she decided, New Zealand was too small. Sooner or later she would phone home in a moment of weakness, or worse, bang into someone she knew and…curtains! They’d be onto her. The sooner she left, the better. And on a one-way ticket so no one would know her ultimate destination. She had already given notice at her flat. All she needed to do now was say goodbye to her mom and she could camp at Janet’s place until she left.

“You’re going where and you want me to do what!” Cody’s best friend Janet stared at her as though she had taken leave of her senses.

“I’m leaving New Zealand,” Cody said. “I’ll be staying on an island near Rarotonga. After that I’ll probably head to London and pick up a job.”

“I can’t believe you’ve let your apartment go. What if you change your mind and want to come back?”

“You’ve got a decent sofa,” Cody responded with a cheeky smile. She could tell Janet was concerned about her frame of mind. In a reassuring voice, she added, “Don’t worry. I’m okay. I promise I’ll call you when I can.”

Janet looked unconvinced. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Cody tried for an innocent expression, but Janet knew her too well. “Well, there is something,” she conceded. “But I can’t talk about it right now. When I can, you’ll be the first to know. Okay?”

“Are you seeing someone? Are you meeting her on this island or something?”

“No! Trust me, I won’t be seeing anyone for a long time if I can help it,” Cody said emphatically. She shoved the bank’s black briefcase across the floor. “Can you do me a favor and mind this while I’m away? And please don’t tell anyone where I’m going. No one at all. It’s important.”

Janet pushed a stray brown curl out of her eyes and examined the locked bag with a dubious expression. “Looks like Fort Knox. What’s in it?”

“Personal stuff,” Cody told her blandly. “Important papers, will and so on.” That at least was true, she thought with a pang of guilt. There was also eighty thousand dollars in there, but she figured what Janet didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.

Her friend squeezed her shoulders in a hug. “I know you’re upset at the moment about breaking up with Margaret and losing your job and everything. But you’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”

Cody leaned against her and released a deep sigh. She felt like pouring out the whole story—what had really happened with Margaret, her job, the money, her escape plan—how everything felt very scary now that she was leaving tomorrow.

Instead she said throatily, “I’m going to miss you like anything.” That was the truth. Janet was the kind of friend everyone hoped for. She was loyal, fun, and always there. Lovers could come and go, but Janet still made the best guacamole in town.

If only Cody had listened years ago when Janet voiced doubts about Margaret. Actually she’d voiced more than doubts. Janet had taken an instant dislike to Cody’s new lover and made no bones about it. Cody had gotten defensive and stormed off in a huff. For a year or so a rift remained between them, until one day Margaret let slip a negative comment about Janet that got Cody thinking. She became aware all of a sudden that in a myriad of ways, Margaret had subtly manipulated the situation to ensure Cody and Janet would not patch things up. Even now she could not put her finger on exactly how her ex had done it, but that was Margaret’s stock in trade. The people she screwed over were always convinced she meant well.

“I’ll miss you too,” Janet said. “You are coming back though, aren’t you?” Her puppy-sad brown eyes combed Cody’s face, searching for more than she could reveal right now.

“Of course I’m coming back,” Cody promised, and hoped it was true.

“You’re doing what!” Nathaniel Kleist glowered at the tall blonde woman sitting opposite him.

“It’s all there in writing, Nat.” Annabel referred him to the single typed sheet on his blotter.

“I can read,” he grunted, brushing the letter aside like a dead bug. “But I’m asking you what you’re really doing? I mean, for God’s sake, Annabel, you’re my best trader. If it’s more money you’re after, in Jesus’s sweet name ask! If you don’t like your new secretary just say so and I’ll buy you another one.”

He was on his feet, pacing the huge art-filled office like a caged bear. Drama queen—they’d invented the term for Nat.

“Nat,” Annabel said with an air of finality. “My contract’s up and I’m not coming back. For personal reasons. That’s it. End of story.”

“Personal reasons.” He clutched his forehead and leaned heavily against his hand-painted Italian blinds. Fixing Annabel with an accusing look, he said, “It’s New York, isn’t it? What are they offering?”

Annabel got to her feet. “Enough!” She started toward the door.

“I’ll better it.” He rushed after her. “I’ll double it…Annabel don’t do this to me.”

“For chrissakes Nat!” Annabel raised her voice. “I’m leaving. I’m giving up trading. There’s no New York, no headhunters. I’ve resigned. Period.”

“It’s a man.” He leaned against the door to prevent her opening it and grinned at her indulgently. “Why didn’t you say so? You wanna stay home and keep his slippers warm. Hey, not a problem… we can hook you up, screen in the bedroom if you like… you name it, sweetheart. Work from home.”

Annabel sighed. “That’s very generous. But it’s not a man. It’s something far more interesting.”

“It is?” Nat frowned, clearly puzzled at the idea.

“If you must know, I’ve inherited a Pacific island,” she enlightened him reluctantly. “And I’ve decided to go live there for a while.”

“An island. As in Robinson Crusoe?” Nat pulled the door open, his face a study in wan disbelief.

“There are amenities,” Annabel said dryly.

He shook his head in bewilderment. As Annabel stepped past him, she heard him mutter, “Cracked. Burnt out, poor kid.”

Chapter Five

The heat hit her like a blast furnace, and Cody automatically started fanning herself with the unread paperback she had nursed for most of her five-hour flight.

Trooping across the tarmac with a cluster of well-fed tourists in baggy pink shorts and florid cotton tops, she felt conspicuous in jeans and a long-sleeved checked shirt. It had been freezing when she left New Zealand.

This is the tropics, she reminded herself belatedly, where civil servants let it all hang out and honeymoon couples travel on group discount. She paused at the customs entrance while round-faced local women dropped sweet-smelling garlands over the heads of each passenger. A crew-cut German ordered his wife to photograph him with an arm around a voluptuous island woman. He could barely drag his eyes from her breasts to say the German version of cheese. Cody flinched at the spectacle.

Customs and Immigration was a cursory affair. Name, destination, rubber stamp, have a nice day, next! They didn’t bother with visas on the Cook Islands. You stayed thirty-one days, longer if you could pay.

Various bellhops and touts waving hotel signs clustered at the main exit, and Cody struggled to remember her travel agent’s instructions. The tourists were dispersing, herded into all manner of transport including an extraordinary number of Subarus. Stragglers like Cody fiddled with their luggage, looked at their watches and thumbed through their itineraries. Cody was supposed to find a man waving a sign saying MOON ISLAND. “Don’t worry if he’s late,” the agent had said. “Time doesn’t mean much where you’re headed.”

Heat shimmered off the road and Cody’s pores oozed in sympathy. She wished she could just strip off her clothes and lie under a tree somewhere. Back home in Wellington, a hot day was when you had to take off your sweatshirt and even then you’d stash it in your car just in case. On record as the windiest city in the world, Wellington was notorious for its rapid weather shifts — one minute warm and balmy, the next a hailstorm. Its population, fancying themselves politically sensitive, tried to keep quiet about welcoming the Greenhouse Effect. But some optimists were already planting banana palms.

Cody wondered when she would see the place again. It felt weird having bought a one-way ticket out. How would she know when it was safe to return? She’d probably be picked up by Customs the second she got off the plane. She marveled that they hadn’t found her already. Rarotonga was, after all, a New Zealand territory.

Stretching limbs stiff from travel, she rolled up her sleeves and popped a couple of buttons at her neck. Her head was aching and sweat had plastered her hair to her brow. With tired fingers she smoothed the short, damp strands back off her forehead.

“Ms. Stanton?” A man’s voice.

Cody swung around. The first thing she saw was a battered hand-painted sign that read MOON ISLAND, the second was a tall woman standing a few paces beyond it. She had dead straight white-blonde hair caught back in a fluorescent pink band, and skin so pale that Cody found herself gaping dumbly. An albino. She must be an albino. Don’t stare, she ordered herself the way mothers reprimand children for pointing at cripples.

“The name’s Mitchell.” The voice came closer. It sounded very British. “Bevan Mitchell. I’m your pilot.”

Cody refocused blankly on the sign and the man tucking it under one arm. He wore light cotton fatigues and a dilapidated straw hat. A cigarette drooped from a permanent groove in his bottom lip and a pair of aviator sunglasses swung from his breast pocket.

“My pilot?” Cody repeated, subconsciously looking for a uniform.

“These your bags?” He picked them up before she could answer. “Follow me.”

Cody looked back across his shoulder. The woman had gone, she noted with a faint shock of disappointment. Perhaps she was never really there at all, but was a ghost or mere figment of her imagination brought on by a lethal combination of heat and stress.

Assailed with doubt, she stumbled after the man. It was not too late. She could say she’d changed her mind, pay the cancellation fee, book herself on the next flight back home. As they skirted the terminal, she saw a police officer strolling purposefully toward the entrance and lowered her head.

“We’re over here,” the pilot said, waving vaguely at a group of hangars.

Cody followed him across an expanse of tarmac, moisture gathering in the small of her back. Her clothing felt wet, clinging everywhere it connected with flesh. The acrid smell of jet fuel mixed with hot tar and ripe fruit in the shiftless air. Dumbstruck, she halted next to a crate of pineapples a few yards from their transport.

The plane was a four-seater twin-engine job. Postwar, but not by much. Cody shuddered at the sight of its delicately strutted wings with their thin silvery fabric cover. They were probably due to crumple from metal fatigue at any moment. Filled with gloom, she watched as the pilot stowed the fruit and her bags, and the body of the little biplane rattled and quivered.

Checking the propellers he called to her, “In you get, old girl.”

“Crime doesn’t pay,” Cody muttered and heaved herself up into the tiniest cabin she had ever seen.

The interior was a battered shell crammed with parcels and boxes. She occupied one of two dwarf-sized bucket seats in the back and wondered where to put her legs. A crate of bananas occupied the floor between her seat and the pilot’s. Gingerly she squeezed her feet down one side and twisted sideways in the rock-hard seat.

“Watch your head,” she heard a moment later, and a second passenger appeared.

Astonished, Cody changed position to create more room. It was her. The ghost. Don’t stare. She quickly looked elsewhere.

The pilot secured the hatch and took his seat, instructing, “Belt up, ladies.”

Cody groped for the ancient straps. It seemed a pointless precaution given the circumstances. They were probably going to be killed anyway, that’s if they ever got off the ground.

“Here, let me.” A pair of hands interrupted her fumbling, clicked the belt shut and adjusted the strap length to fit snugly across her lap. Cody blushed at the bizarre intimacy of the action. It was totally innocent, of course, a helpful gesture on the part of a more experienced passenger. Her whole body tensed nonetheless.

“Thanks,” she blurted with a nervous laugh.

“Have you flown much in smaller airplanes?” the ghost asked her conversationally. It was a low, slightly husky voice, with an accent that sounded American but hinted at England.

She would sing divinely, Cody decided, trying not to be weirdly fascinated by her looks. “As a matter of fact, this is my first time,” she admitted.

“Really?” The stranger took off her dark glasses and blinked into the harsh glare beyond the plane. The light made her pupils shrink, revealing irises of a pale lavender hue that seemed quite unreal. “Well, there’s a first time for everything,” she added lightly. “And if memory serves me, it will probably turn out to be an anticlimax.”

Cody felt her pulse leap. It was innuendo. No, it was nothing. She was confused. The cockpit was hot and airless, cramped and sticky. She’d recently broken up with her lover. She was sexually frustrated. She looked up and met the woman’s eyes, struck all over again by their extraordinary lavender color, a subtle hint of pink beneath the irises. Now you see it, now you don’t.

Her eyebrows and lashes were dark, no doubt thanks to a beautician, she decided. They were a shock against her absolute fairness, drawing attention to those astonishing eyes. And what was that perfume? It was like nothing Cody had ever smelled, warm and delicious, a hint of vanilla and something else, one of those heady tropical flowers. They were sitting so close it was almost impossible to avoid breathing her in. Distracted, Cody wriggled in her seat.

“Are you nervous?” she was asked very softly.

“I guess I am.” Again their eyes met but Cody dropped hers quickly, startled at what appeared to be a very definite bedroom stare.

The engines roared, or more accurately, coughed into life, and their pilot screwed around to them with a cheerful grin.

“Tally ho! Hold on to your hats, girls.”

The din was awesome, the fumes nauseating. Breathe, Cody told herself as they bounced and spluttered up the runway. Her teeth chattered and her stomach lurched. This was madness, she decided as they gathered speed. She wished she could just give the money back and slink home. What on earth had possessed her to trade her nice safe routine existence for a life of crime? She could easily have found another job, and given time, she would get over Margaret. It’s not as if she still loved her. How could you love a woman who had treated you so badly?

Cody could almost hear her mother, One day you’re going to regret your impulsiveness, my girl, and I hope I’m there to see it. Look at me now, she wanted to shout. Instead she stole a peep through the murky little window beside her and gasped, “We’re up in the air!”

The other occupants seemed entertained by this.

“God’s running a special on miracles this week,” Bevan Mitchell called over his shoulder, and it was as though the little De Havilland relaxed all of a sudden, completely at home in the wide sky. The shuddering died down, and the dull thud of the propellers sounded reassuringly constant as they lolloped away from Rarotonga.

After sufficient time had elapsed for Cody to recover from the “anticlimax” of take-off, her companion struck up conversation, asking “Have you been to the Cook Islands before?”

Cody shook her head. “Have you?”

“I arrived last week. It’s my first time here.” The ghost slipped on her dark glasses once more, and Cody was ashamed to feel relief. Those lavender eyes were way too unnerving. “My name is Annabel, by the way. Annabel Worth.”

“I’m Cody Stanton.”

“Cody?” Annabel rolled the name about experimentally and Cody imagined hearing her whisper it, cry it as they…

Shocked, she banished the image. Shame on you. Her mother’s voice. And your sheets still warm from Margaret.

“Cody, short for Cordelia,” she explained, clearing her throat and dragging her attention away from the woman’s mouth.

“It suits you —the Cody form that is. So many names seem to be mismatches.”

“I think you look like an Annabel.”

“It’s funny, it never felt quite right to me when I was a child. But I suppose one grows accustomed to things.”

“I never grew accustomed to Cordelia.”

Annabel laughed. “I guess you wouldn’t.”

What exactly did that mean? Cody wondered. Was Annabel letting her know she’d been spotted? Or was she just making conversation to pass the time? “How far is Moon Island?”

“It’s about an hour and a half from here. If you want to sleep, I’ll wake you when we get closer.”

“Maybe I will,” Cody said, knowing it was highly unlikely with this woman’s warm fragrant body jammed against hers. All the same, she didn’t want her companion feeling obliged to continue small talk that was probably boring her to death. Closing her eyes, she turned slightly onto her side and made a show of dozing off.

To her astonishment she really was asleep when she felt a hand brush her arm much later. “Look.” Annabel pointed past their pilot. “There it is. Moon Island.”

Across a hazy expanse of blue, Cody made out a steamy dark green blob banded with cream. Encircling it, the ocean pooled pale, bright turquoise. The travel agent wasn’t kidding—Moon Island really was in the middle of nowhere. Her stomach lurched yet again as the tiny plane abruptly dropped a few hundred feet.

“Sorry about that,” Bevan said cheerfully. “Just testing her reflexes.”

“I think we can survive without the aerobatics,” Annabel said with a familiarity that caused Cody’s brow to pucker slightly.

These two obviously weren’t strangers, she concluded with a slight knot in her stomach. Were they lovers? She stole a look at Annabel and almost protested out loud at the idea. Irrational, of course. It was nothing to do with her whom this woman slept with. How typical. The first woman she’s fancied since the Margaret drama turns out to be straight. Very convenient. It was so much safer to lust after the unattainable.

Swallowing a sigh, she peered boldly out her window as the plane banked to the right. The sea looked close, Van Gogh blue, and suitably shark-infested. The island ahead seemed almost mirage-like, rising sweetly out of the ocean like a glimpse of paradise. As they drew closer, Cody saw the glow of a coral reef beneath the water, a white beach curving around a thatch of palm trees. It was beautiful, breathtaking. Suddenly a reckless optimism chased the negative thoughts from her head. If such a place could exist on the same earth as cold, windy Wellington, surely anything was possible.

Bevan’s voice intruded on her thoughts. “We’re coming in now.” They promptly lurched into a steep nosedive, and the shuddering and rattling started all over again.

“Don’t worry,” Annabel told her. “I do this most days and I’m still alive.”

Cody tried to smile but her teeth were clenched. Willing herself not to faint, she clasped her hands together and refused to permit her life to flash before her. If she was about to be killed, she wanted at least to think about something cheerful.

“We’re nearly there,” the soft voice said. “That’s Passion Bay below us.”

Cody felt warm breath on her cheek, smelled that impossible fragrance. She braved a peek past the pilot. Palm trees. All she could see were palm trees. The plane seemed to stall then, dropping out of the sky like a slaughtered bird.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, falling back on the patriarchy now that the chips were down. There was a pronounced thud, and she clutched her seat as they swayed and jolted to a merciful standstill.

As soon as Bevan Mitchell gave the okay, Annabel was out of her seat. She opened the hatch and sprang lithely to the ground. But Cody’s legs were trembling so much she didn’t think she could move. Pretending to fumble in her satchel, she drew a few deep breaths and waited for her shattered nerves to regroup. After what seemed an embarrassingly long pause, she managed to disembark.

“So...” Annabel turned, hands on hips, and smiled full blast. “How was that for you?”

Leaning back against a wing, Cody managed not to blush. More innuendo. Was it lesbian innuendo or mere wishful thinking on her part? Maybe Annabel and the pilot were not lovers after all. Maybe they were just friends. But Annabel could still be straight. She was probably married. Married and bored.

Cody sized her up. She wore a pale pink long-sleeved T-shirt and baggy knee-length white shorts. Her body was athletic, muscles clearly defined. Aerobics, Cody decided; her face was free of that slightly harassed expression joggers wore.

She was waiting for a reply and Cody wondered what her eyes were asking behind those all-concealing lenses. “For me?” Cody very deliberately ran her tongue across her lips and casually flicked open the next few buttons of her shirt. “I guess you could say the earth moved.”

Grinning, she imagined the stranger naked, hot; imagined sliding against her, stroking her hair. This time she let herself fantasize.

Chapter Six

Monday.

I am tired. Unbelievably tired. It breaks my heart to say goodbye to my beautiful island. I planted another hibiscus near Rebecca’s mango tree this morning and made my farewells. My body aches. I cannot endure another needle. They tell me I’m a fool to refuse further treatment but I’ll swear it’s worse than the disease. I can’t turn away their pain relief, though. Since it went into my bones I simply can’t imagine how a person does without the drugs. Last night I dreamed of Rebecca, dreamed she was holding me again. I am nearly ready to leave and still I have not written to Annabel…  

Guiltily Annabel snapped her aunt’s diary closed. The answer is on the island, the letter had said. Surely she didn’t have to invade her aunt’s privacy, snoop about among the most intimate details of another woman’s life to uncover it. Was that what Aunt Annie had intended?

For a moment Annabel imagined someone else in her shoes, some cousin who had barely known Annie. What would they make of the diaries? Over thirty years worth piled into boxes in her aunt’s attic study. And the letters! Bundle after bundle, tied with thin ribbon and stuffed into the window seat.

The house itself was wonderful, a large sprawling timber construction, built around a central garden-filled courtyard and skirted by deep shady verandahs. Its name was Villa Luna and Annabel had loved it at first sight. It was built on the highest northwestern aspect of the island and looked out across jungle and palms to the huge blue of the Pacific. Set above a belt of stately mango trees, it was screened from ocean winds and the curiosity of the rare passers-by who might walk the beach below.

Exploring the property, Annabel had been amazed and delighted at how immediately at home she felt there, how oddly familiar it all seemed. It was as though she belonged, as if in some strange way the island had been waiting for her.

Behind the villa was a grassy glade and a stable housing a single black mare. Aunt Annie had adored horses and Kahlo, as the mare was called, had arrived by ferry only last year after her predecessor had died of old age. I’m too weak to ride her now, Annie had noted in her diary, but I can watch her run and keep her company. According to Mrs. Marsters, who kept house for the island several days a week, the mare was often tethered to the verandah and Annie would sit reading and writing, periodically talking to her like a friend.

During her first week on the island, Annabel had gradually befriended the elegant creature, and today for the first time she saddled her up. Kahlo shied a little initially, then whickered her acceptance as Annabel climbed into the saddle and gently guided her toward the jungle tracks. Soon she was behaving as though she had never known another rider. Her tail lifted, she pricked up her ears, stretched her pace, and responded to Annabel’s commands like a show-jumper.

They negotiated a path down through the mangos to Passion Bay and trotted along the beach. Whinnying at the sight of water, Kahlo strained at the reins, plainly thrilled by the change of scenery. Careful not to overtire the horse after her more sedentary existence, Annabel did not allow her to gallop. Later in the afternoon she tethered her to the front verandah and was gratified when the mare approached and contentedly nuzzled her lap while she read.

The diary was written over thirty years ago.

Father is at me again to marry Roger and even Laura is hounding me. I just don’t know what to do. I’ve told Rebecca that I must see her and begged her to come with me this summer. She says I cannot dither any longer and I must put poor Roger out of his misery, but he refuses to listen. What can I do?

Three weeks later another passage:

Oh joy! Oh bliss. Rebecca is coming with me to Europe. Last night we sat for hours in her car just talking and Rebecca gave me this little ring with a diamond horseshoe set in it for luck. I can hardly concentrate for thinking about her, imagining her on some Greek Island, wearing only flowers.

Annabel closed her eyes and stroked Kahlo absently. She had known Annie was a lesbian, her mother’s scandalous younger sister, the family skeleton in the closet. But who was Rebecca? Her aunt had never mentioned her. Yet obviously they had been in love, perhaps even lovers. Way back in the nineteen-sixties.

She sipped her iced tea and lapsed for a moment into her own private fantasy centered around the woman on the plane yesterday. Cody. Short for Cordelia. Annabel called to mind her deep, lazy accent. Australian-sounding, only softer. I lahve swemming, she’d said, looking down at the sea. And Annabel remembered; New Zealand was an island, too.

She had seemed shy, dropping her eyes whenever Annabel looked at her. Did she find her appearance repulsive? She wouldn’t be the first. Annabel felt the same sharp pang she’d experienced all through adolescence. She could have sworn she sensed genuine interest and had flirted lightly to test the water. Cody had responded—she hadn’t imagined that.

Cody was in Hibiscus Villa, the house nearest hers. Peering east past the mangos, Annabel made out the pattern of a thatched roof nestled among the palms. Perhaps she would call by tomorrow on some pretext. Maybe invite her to dinner. She conjured a vision of Cody sitting on her verandah, smoothing back that dark, cropped hair with the same appealing gesture that had caught her eye at the airport.

Annabel tried to recall when she had last made love. Months ago, maybe longer. She could barely remember. She had neither the time nor the energy these days of late. All of a sudden she wanted to change all that. Warm, perfumed air went straight to the groin, she concluded.

Cody pulled off her shorts and left them in a heap with her shirt, hat, and shades under a large beach umbrella. It was stupid to wear togs, she supposed, on an empty beach with no one to shock but a few gulls. But old habits die hard and Cody had never been nude bathing in her life. She poked an experimental toe into the water. It was clear and very warm. Reveling in its balmy caress, she swam out into the lagoon, conscious of the outlying coral reef and testing the currents for safety.

The water was amazingly calm, totally different from the chilly surf she was used to in Wellington. It was almost too good to be true, she decided, flipping onto her back and drifting toward the shore. Back home everyone would be shivering in their woolen pants, lighting fires, and buying king-size boxes of tissues. And here she was, swanning about on a deserted island, lapping up the sun and sea on a beach called, of all things, Passion Bay.

How did it get its name? she wondered idly, and imagined a range of highly erotic possibilities, most of them involving the woman on the plane. Annabel. Cody tested the name silently and remembered her bedroom smile, the way she had stood, hands on hips, eyeing Cody. The way she had flirted.

She seemed very sophisticated, quite unlike anyone Cody knew. She thought of Margaret—small voluptuous Margaret, the life and soul of the party, the woman who could sell sand to the Arabs. Her throat tightened and she fought off a flood of memories.

Damn Margaret! Cody wished she could erase every trace of her from her life, slam the door on the last five years. She wished she could forget that Margaret’s favorite color was blue, the very same blue as the sky over Passion Bay. She wished she could forget her elfin face, the dark freckles sprayed across her nose, her innocent, teasing eyes. But somehow Margaret kept seeping through the smallest cracks in her consciousness, at the very moments when Cody least expected her.

Feeling the gritty swirl of sand around her feet, she turned onto her belly and hoisted herself up onto the beach, lying where the half-hearted breakers lapped the shore. To hell with Margaret. This was her holiday and she was not about to let thoughts of her ex-lover dominate it. Margaret had done enough damage already. Willing herself to relax and empty her mind, she stood and washed herself off with sea water.

This place never saw winter, she supposed, returning to her shade umbrella and flopping down on her towel. She wondered how hot it would get in January, during the peak of the South Pacific summer. Unbearable, no doubt. She picked up her book and read a few pages without really concentrating. It felt strange and very decadent not to be at work. She should have invited Janet to come on holiday with her, she thought with a pang of guilt.

Cody closed her eyes and reminded herself that she was entitled to have this time alone. Besides, if Janet had come that would probably make her some kind of accessory, enjoying the proceeds of the crime. Cody’s thoughts strayed to the black briefcase in her friend’s room—of course, that implicated her as well. She closed her eyes, blocking out an image of Janet in a cell downtown with hardened criminals. The heat and the hypnotic pulse of the ocean were making her sleepy. Contentedly, she allowed herself to drift.

“I hope you’re wearing a sun block,” a voice intruded just as she felt herself nodding off. Startled, she blinked up at the speaker, shielding her eyes from the glare.

It was her, this time staring down with an expression of faint concern.

“You’re probably not used to this kind of heat,” she told Cody in a businesslike tone. “Although I guess you don’t need to be as careful as I do.”

She wore a white pajama-style outfit in lightweight cotton, a large drooped-brim hat and dark glasses. Cody figured her skin was so fair she would burn terribly unless she protected it. If Annabel ever sported a tan, it would be compliments of that instant bronzing stuff.

“I thought you might have fallen asleep.” Politely Annabel removed her sunglasses, her eyes roaming Cody with candid appreciation. “I was worried.”

Cody pulled herself up to sitting position, at once conscious of her inadequate bikini top and Annabel’s steady lavender gaze. “I put cream on earlier,” she said. “And I do tan easily. But you’re right. Even with my skin I’d turn to lobster if I lay out here all afternoon.”

Annabel lowered herself onto the sand next to Cody. “I plaster myself all over in factor forty. I’m always terrified I’ll miss a spot so I tend to keep my clothes on. And of course, I can only swim at night. It’s kind of wonderful…naked in the moonlight.” Stretching languidly, she propped herself back on her hands and surveyed Cody with an expression that was hard to decipher. “How’s the water today?”

“It’s divine. I love this beach. Beats a sand storm on Lyall Bay any day.”

Annabel looked at her sideways. “Lyall Bay?”

“A beach where I live. The place is more famous for its wind than its surf. Open your mouth and it fills up with sand.”

Annabel laughed softly. It melted like caramel in the back of her throat. “Sounds like a real resort.”

“It can be…when the locals aren’t tossing fish and chip wrappers all over it and letting their rottweilers practice guard duty on the swimmers.”

“Lends a whole new meaning to Jaws.” Annabel’s eyes sparkled.

Rolling onto her side, Cody leaned on one elbow to face her. “What line of work are you in?”

Annabel didn’t answer at first. Returning her dark glasses to her face, she said, as if weighing her words, “I was in the financial sector, but I’m not working at the moment.” It sounded evasive, and Cody wondered with a quick jolt whether she had lost her job, too.

“Me, neither. I was made redundant.”

“Redundant? Oh, you mean laid off.” Annabel moved closer to Cody so she was fully shaded by the umbrella, and changed position, lying flat on her back.

Cody watched her fine cotton shirt settle on the outline of her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra and the fabric clung slightly where her skin was damp with the heat. Cody experienced a crazy urge to lean across and bite a nipple through the thin covering. Embarrassed, she looked away, suddenly tongue-tied.

“What was your job?” Annabel asked.

“I’m a DBA,” Cody managed to sound like she wasn’t hyperventilating. “Database Administrator. I specialize in systems security.”

“Computers.” Annabel sounded dismayed. “Wonderful inventions, but—”

“Who’d want to work with them?”

“I don’t know how we ever lived without them. I certainly couldn’t have done my job. All the same, I can’t imagine anything worse than having to manage one for a living.” Annabel smiled quickly. “I’m sorry. I hope you’re not offended.”

“Deeply,” Cody said, poker-faced. “You’ve no idea what it does to a girl’s social life to talk encryption and platform—I mean women are simply bowled over, rendered speechless.” She sat up, brushed the sand slowly off her arms and breasts, and began to apply more lotion in long slow caresses, conscious of Annabel following her movements. Dropping her voice conspiratorially, she added. “It’s the mystique of the machine. Why do you do it, they ask…” Turning her attention to her legs, she parted them and applied cream along the insides of her thighs.

“So why do you do it?” Annabel asked.

“Because it’s there.”

Annabel burst out laughing. “Well thank you for sharing.”

Cody unfastened the back of her bikini top, dropped the bottle onto Annabel’s stomach, and asked with brazen innocence, “Would you mind doing my back?”

Screened by the dark lenses, Annabel’s expression was unreadable. She sat up, squeezed some lotion into her palm, and applied it methodically to Cody’s shoulders and neck. After a moment she asked, “Seriously, though, aren’t there things you’d rather do? I mean, I know you computer people are all that stands between us and the end of the world come the millennium, but really.”

Cody took a moment to respond, distracted by the sensory banquet of Annabel’s hands on her nape, her fragrance in her nostrils, the husky softness of her voice. “I can’t think of anything right now.” She had intended to say it flippantly, but a trace of defensiveness crept into her voice. Her jobless situation made her feel self-conscious, she supposed.

Annabel screwed the cap back on the lotion and wiped her hands on the towel. Facing Cody, she moistened her top lip with the tip of her tongue. “Are you sure about that?”

Cody’s stomach dropped. This time she knew she was not imagining the innuendo. She had been flirting with Annabel and the other woman was returning it in kind. But then perhaps Annabel flirted with everyone, female or male. Sexual game-playing was a way of life for some women, so much so that it became unconscious. Well, two could play at that, and Cody was a free woman now. She could do what she liked.

Refastening her bikini top, she returned Annabel’s steady regard. “That would depend on the offer.”

A wicked smile pulled at the corners of Annabel’s mouth and she cocked her head to one side. “Tease,” she said.

Her tone was one of playful invitation. If she wanted this flirtation to deepen, the door was wide open. But Cody’s boldness suddenly deserted her, and she took refuge in a safer conversational tack. “So, how do you like the island?”

For a split second Annabel did not respond. Then, with a trace of resignation, she picked up the ball. “I love it here. After Boston it’s incredibly tranquil. The air tastes really fresh and everything is so lush and tropical. Have you ever been to Boston?”

“I’ve never visited the States at all,” Cody confessed. “Back home most people think it’s really dangerous. You know, crime everywhere, lunatics shooting up schools, crack babies. That’s all we get to hear about in the news.”

Annabel clasped her arms around her knees. “And all I know about New Zealand is that you have the most sheep in the world.”

“Three million people and seventy million sheep,” Cody said. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”

Annabel laughed. It was deep, rich laughter that lingered in the warm air about them. “I guess vegetarianism is virtually a capital offense.”

“No, but we’re all very biodegradable. Besides, we don’t have to eat our mutton. We sell it to the Iranians.”

“You talk to the Iranians?”

“No,” Cody said blandly. “We sell to them.”

Both women chuckled. “Are you married?” Annabel asked abruptly.

“Good God, no!” Cody gave a graphic shudder, then felt embarrassed that she might have put her foot in it. Guardedly, she asked Annabel, “Are you?”

“I was once,” Annabel said. “Years ago in my callow youth.”

Cody felt a sharp pang of disappointment. Annabel was straight after all. Or was she? Heaps of lesbians had been married. “So what happened?”

“I guess what didn’t happen was more the point. I was just a kid and Toby was everything my parents hoped for. I had such low self-esteem back then that I would have done nearly anything for approval.”

Low self-esteem! Cody’s face must have registered her disbelief, because Annabel sounded suddenly defensive. “I know it’s probably hard for someone like you to understand. You seem so confident. I suppose you’ve never had any doubts about yourself.”

What did she mean by that? Doubts about being a lesbian? “To a certain extent that’s true,” Cody admitted. “But I wouldn’t say I’m brimming with self-esteem. Especially since…” She trailed off and deftly changed the subject. “So anyway what happened to Mr. Terrific?”

“I left him after six months. Told him he deserved better than a frigid wife.”

Cody snorted. “I guess there was no question that you were the one with the problem?”

Annabel shrugged. “It was the quickest way out. Besides, I’d fallen for someone, and it didn’t feel a bit like how it was with Toby.”

“Do tell,” Cody prompted. “This is better than ‘Days of Our Lives.’”

“It was a woman.” Annabel slowly shook her head, her tone nostalgic. “Miss Clarice Harvey, my mother’s new piano teacher. She was wonderful. Tall, clever and very pre-Raphaelite. I’d moved back home after my marriage broke up, and she used to visit once a week. After three months I asked her out.” She fell into reflective silence.

Cody prompted, “Did she accept?”

“Yes.” Annabel sighed. “But alas, it was a lesson in un-requited lust. She was engaged to a violinist with the Boston Symphony, and she wanted to bring him along on our date.”

“Say no more.” Cody grimaced. “Did you let her?”

“Of course not. But she spent the whole evening talking about him anyway. God it was a disaster! In the end I bared my soul and, as calm as you please, she said, ‘Oh my goodness you must be a lesbian.’”

Cody burst out laughing, then apologized. “Hell, I’m sorry. Talk about insensitive.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Annabel said. “I’ve always aspired to comedy. Anyway, do you know anyone who has a nice straightforward coming out story?”

“Well actually…”

Annabel groaned. “Tell me it’s not true.”

“What can I say? I just started falling in love with girls, and finally one of them loved me back.”

“You never dated guys?”

“A few times. Double dates mostly. But nothing serious, I mean I’ve never slept with one or anything.”

“Lucky you,” Annabel muttered. “So are you in a relationship at the moment?”

Cody paused. Chewing her lip, she studied the pattern on the towel. “No,” she finally responded, her throat contracting. “I was, but…”

Annabel touched her arm lightly, unexpectedly, the gesture of comfort stirring a clamor of mixed emotion. “I’m sorry. When did it happen?”

“Five weeks ago.” Cody cradled her head against her knees for a moment.

Annabel’s fingers tightened a little. “Rough?”

Cody nodded, hunching her shoulders. She wished she didn’t feel so raw. Here she was in this beautiful place with this beautiful woman, and what was she doing? Talking about her ex.

“Is that why you came to the island?” Annabel asked. She sounded tentative, as if wary of intruding.

“It’s part of the reason,” Cody said huskily.

“And the rest?” Annabel’s hand moved to rest cautiously on Cody’s shoulder.

A small shiver of awareness snaked down Cody’s spine. Unsettled by her wayward response to Annabel’s touch, she felt awkward. “It’s kind of complicated,” she said evasively.

“I’m sorry. You must think me dreadfully inquisitive. I don’t mean to be.”

Her arm dropped. Cody immediately missed its weight and warmth. “It’s fine,” she said. Why couldn’t she accept Annabel’s empathy for what it was, instead of reacting sexually to her slightest touch?

“I’m here if you want to talk about it,” Annabel offered. “Sometimes it’s easier with a stranger.”

“That’s really nice of you,” Cody said, conscious that her tone was unenthusiastic. “Right now I don’t think I can, but thanks.”

“No problem.” Annabel paused, then, as if against her better judgment, said, “Don’t give yourself a hard time. Everyone copes differently. It’s still very fresh.”

Understanding that she was trying to reach out to her on a level beyond the superficial, Cody felt both touched and embarrassed. Annabel was making an effort to relate to her, and she was backing off as fast as she could. “It’s weird,” she spoke her thoughts out loud. “I’d never consider getting back together with her. And I’m angry with myself almost as much as her over what happened. So I don’t understand why I’m not just over it. I guess I need to do some work on my grief.”

Annabel grinned. “How about doing some work on your holiday instead. Have dinner with me tonight?”

Cody felt her heart lurch. Dinner. “That would be great.”

“Say seven o’clock?” Annabel traced a map in the sand with her finger. “My place is here,” she said, making an X. “You can’t miss it. Just cut through the mango trees and look for a gabled roof. If I’m not there when you arrive, grab a chair and help yourself to a drink.” She got to her feet and brushed herself off. “I’m flying into Rarotonga this afternoon. Do you need anything?”

Conscious of a sharp sense of disappointment that she was leaving already, Cody said, “No thanks.”

“Then I’ll see you later.” With a brief wave, Annabel strolled off across the white sand.

Chapter Seven

Annabel’s house was spacious and restful, not the least bit like a holiday place. It was full of books, ornaments and pictures and the wooden furniture looked old and loved.

“Wow. Do you actually live here all the time?” Cody asked, taking in worn Persian rugs and huge potted palms.

“No, but my aunt does… did.”

“Is your aunt—”

Annabel responded flatly. “She died recently.”

“I’m really sorry.” Cody wondered if she should change the subject as people did when someone had died. Instead, because she wanted to know more about Annabel and her family, she asked, “Were you close?”

“Yes, later in her life we were. She left me this house. Can I get you another drink?”

“Just a little. Champagne goes straight to my head.” Besides, Cody noticed, Annabel had barely touched her own glass.

She allowed her gaze to drift across the striking woman at the other end of the sofa. Annabel wore a white shirt tucked into faded old Levis, and her hair was pulled back into a French plait, a mixture of casual and formal that suited her perfectly. The only jewelry she wore were a tank watch and a heavy gold signet ring.

“Have you always lived in Boston?” Cody asked.

The bright lavender eyes lifted. “Pretty much. I made a bid to break out when I was eighteen. I told my parents I was going to college at the University of California in Berkeley. You would have thought I’d just taken shares in Sodom and Gomorrah. Mother had a migraine for a week. Anyway my bid for freedom was short-lived and I ended up at Radcliffe where they could keep an eye on me. I was a real wimp back then.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Cody said.

Annabel shrugged. “Sometimes I get frustrated when I look back at my twenties. It feels like such a waste of time. I can’t believe how stupid I was.”

“Do you mean not realizing you were a lesbian sooner?”

“I suppose so. And I had some issues around my appearance.” Annabel twisted her signet ring. “People tended to treat me as a curiosity—it’s hard to cope with that when you’re a kid. I thought it meant I was ugly and for a long time I allowed this to limit me. Even now, it doesn’t matter what anyone says or how much I intellectualize it, I still get paranoid.”

“But you’re stunning,” Cody blurted. “I’ve never seen anyone quite like you.” She found herself transfixed by Annabel’s perfect mouth, the hollow of her throat.

“I wasn’t fishing for compliments,” Annabel said a little stiffly.

Embarrassed, Cody dragged her attention away. “I meant what I said, Annabel. You’re beautiful. I’m… I think you’re very attractive. I mean—” Blushing, she broke off and recklessly poured herself another glass of champagne.

There was only one way a conversation like this could end up. She wished suddenly that it had never begun. She hated playing games. It all seemed so farcical. Either she was going to bed with Annabel or she wasn’t. And if she wasn’t, it was time to leave—only she didn’t want to yet.

Something of her confusion must have showed. In a warmer tone, Annabel said, “Well, thank you. As you can probably tell, the attraction is mutual.”

With the watchfulness of a lioness, she poured yet more champagne into Cody’s glass and relaxed back in her corner. She seemed very much in control, her predatory self-assurance disquieting. After this drink she would leave, Cody decided. She gulped another large mouthful of the rich amber-toned liquid, letting the bubbles pinprick their way into her senses.

“This is great champagne,” she said, staring into her glass, suddenly engrossed in the effervescence. A warm rush weakened her legs.

“My aunt kept a spectacular cellar,” Annabel said. “We’re drinking a fifty-nine Dom Pérignon.”

This meant little to Cody, whose knowledge of wines was confined to choosing red instead of white for steak. But she could tell from Annabel’s tone that it must be something a bit special, so she said, “Wow.” Not exactly a suave response. To her dismay this made her giggle and she hastily set her glass down, attempting to gather her scattering wits. “Oh dear,” she said, “I think I’ve had enough.”

Cody seldom drank alcohol, having learned the hard way that she made her worst mistakes after a few drinks. She thought about Margaret and how tempting it had been to head for a bar and stay there, obliterating the feelings. It’s Margaret who needs the lobotomy, not you, Janet had said.

Cody wondered what time it was and whether it was too early to leave. She felt as though she’d only been with Annabel for a short while. The meal had been wonderful and their conversation easy and comfortable. Until now.

“You look tired,” Annabel interrupted her thoughts. “Would you like to lie down for a few minutes before you walk home?”

Cody found herself nodding before it dawned on her that this was the oldest trick in the book, and here she was falling for it hook, line, and sinker. All the same she allowed herself to be led into a dimly lit room and guided toward a large futon bed. There were candles around the walls and their golden halos blurred and danced before her eyes.

“Annabel...” she began, but a finger was placed on her lips and the other woman drew her down onto the edge of the bed.

“Relax.” She slid her hand through Cody’s hair and around to massage the back of her neck. “You’re very tense,” she commented, probing the stiff tendons.

Cody wished she could think of something sophisticated to say. Annabel’s fingers kneaded the tight muscles around her shoulders in a hypnotic rhythm. It felt delicious. Cody allowed an arm to drift around Annabel’s waist, turning to face her. In the haze of the candlelight, she looked soft and golden, like a goddess strayed to earth. She lifted a tentative hand to Annabel’s cheek, then to her plait, gently loosening it. Like a web, the fine, silky hair clung to her fingers. She pulled out the pins, letting it spill down over Annabel’s shoulders.

Cody was aware of her T-shirt being eased out of her jeans, of Annabel’s hands caressing her back, drawing her closer. Her stomach hollowed and goose bumps crept across her flesh where Annabel explored. She closed her eyes and her head spun. She wanted to say something but the words wouldn’t form. You’re drunk, a distant voice reminded her.

Annabel lowered her onto the bed and Cody did not resist. She felt a mouth on her neck, her shoulders, her breasts, and savored the sensations. When her T-shirt was deftly removed, she opened her eyes and focused dazedly on her surroundings.

This was not her room, she thought in a mental fog. The hands stroking her were unfamiliar. She stared up at Annabel and fell short of breath. Almost of their own accord, her muscles tensed. Annabel, this is Annabel. A woman she had only met two days ago. They were here in her room making love. This was not Margaret.

Hot tears stung and her lips trembled. She pushed her hands against Annabel and elbowed herself back into sitting position, head spinning. This was not how she wanted it to be. She wanted… she didn’t know what she wanted. “I can’t,” she stammered jerkily, covering her breasts.

Annabel drew back. “Are you okay?”

Cody wet her lips. Avoiding Annabel’s eyes, she lowered her head. “I just can’t do this,” she said miserably. “I’m sorry.”

She moved to get off the bed, but Annabel prevented her, taking her gently but firmly into her arms. “No, I’m sorry, Cody. I was taking a lot for granted.” She cupped Cody’s cheek and gazed into her eyes.

Cody could feel her shoulders shaking as she tried to stifle a sob. Somewhere inside a voice persecuted her. Fool, you want her don’t you? What’s the matter with you. Quit that whimpering. Embarrassed, she looked away, trying to hide her tears.

Annabel trailed a finger down Cody’s wet cheek, then licked the moisture off it. “Don’t cry. There’s no harm done. It’s just too soon. I can understand that.”

“I feel so stupid,” Cody said, angry with herself. “It’s been more than a month and I just don’t seem to be getting over it at all. I can hardly think about her without crying and I can hardly think of anything else.” Feeling sluggish with drink and emotion, she sagged against Annabel, permitting herself the comfort of her embrace.

“Are you still in love with her?”

Cody shook her head adamantly. “No.” Of that, at least, she was certain. “I did love her. I thought we were going to grow old together. All that stuff. But now, when I look back… it’s like something changed. I’m not sure when.” Probably around the time Margaret started seeing men.

“Relationships go through stages. At some point the honeymoon period ends.”

It was more than that, Cody thought. There were so many tiny things she had never added together. If she were really honest, she knew her feelings for Margaret had undergone a transformation during their last year together. It was as if her love had been eroded into little more than a sentimental attachment to the future they always talked about sharing. Having Margaret in her life had become a habit. It made no sense to be this upset over losing a partner she was no longer in love with.

“What’s her name?” Annabel asked.

“Margaret,” Cody said into her shoulder.

“Want to tell me about her?”

Cody turned her head, one cheek cushioned against Annabel’s breast. She could hear the regular thud of her heart and smell that familiar scent—vanilla, but not quite. Annabel stroked her head. Her touch was tender and soothing.

“I met her on a holiday job in my final year at University.” Cody closed her eyes. “Strawberry picking. It was so hot and everything was sort of sticky and juicy. I had this enormous bucketful ready to weigh and she was lugging hers up to the station. My bucket wasn’t where it should have been and she tripped over it.” Cody half chuckled, half hiccupped. “There were strawberries everywhere.”

“Very kinky,” Annabel remarked lightly.

“We had this huge fight...a physical fight, and well...we both got the sack.”

“Obviously a match made in heaven.”

Cody had thought so. “We started going out, and a few months later we moved in together. That was nearly five years ago.”

“Five years,” Annabel raised her eyebrows. “You really were married then.” She paused. “What happened?”

Cody braced herself. Every time she tried to say the words they eluded her, froze on her lips like little stones. She hadn’t even been able to tell Janet.

Annabel had pulled back slightly, her expression calm and attentive. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “It just might help if you did, that’s all.”

Cody met her eyes and saw in them only warmth and genuine caring. No games. Maybe the alcohol had loosened her inhibitions or maybe it was just being here in a far-off world. Whatever the reason, the urge to unburden herself was irresistible.

“She left me,” she said quietly. “There was… someone else.” The tears started again and she didn’t bother to wipe them away. “It happened so fast. One minute we were lovers and the next she was saying how she’d never felt truly happy with me and it was all over. She had met this person and they were soul mates.”

I have to leave you Cody, had been her exact words. I’d like us to stay friends but I’ll understand if you can’t. I still really care about you.

“Did you know the other woman?” Annabel asked.

Hunching her shoulders, Cody shook her head. “It wasn’t a woman. It was a man,” she heard herself say, suddenly aware of nausea rising.

“A man…” Annabel repeated blankly.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” Head swimming, Cody donned her T-shirt and swung her legs off the bed. “I need some fresh air.”

Annabel took her hand and led her insistently to the front door. They walked out onto the verandah and stood in the moonlight while Cody drew deep breaths. Her cheeks tingled where a mild breeze made the tears evaporate. She felt mortified. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Don’t be. I’m glad we talked.”

“I just don’t get it. I’m not even sure if I really loved her in the end. So why do I feel like this?”

“Cody, this is a person you trusted and she betrayed you. That’s incredibly hurtful, whether you loved her or not.”

Cody nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Annabel was dead right. It was the betrayal that was making her crazy. How could the woman she had shared her life with for five years treat her with such contempt? Her throat tightened around a sob and she stared up at the crystalline stars, willing her head to clear. She felt dizzy and humiliated. Obviously, she had completely blown it with Annabel. A woman like her was not going to bother with an unemployed country girl boo-hooing over a broken relationship.

Determined to depart with some dignity still intact, she said. “I’m feeling better now.”

“Liar.” Annabel slipped an arm around her waist and helped her down the wooden steps. “I’ll walk you home.” With a trace of dry humor, she added, “Don’t worry—this too shall pass.”

Cody tried to take a step but the soft grass beneath her feet receded. Her legs felt like they were about to give way. I’m a mess, she thought retching slightly.

Annabel’s arm tightened around her. “On second thought, I have a spare bed. I think you should stay here tonight.”

“No. Really. I’ll be okay,” Cody insisted. Even to her ears her voice sounded slurred.

“I don’t think so,” Annabel said without inflection. “Come inside.”

“No! Please.” Cody broke free of her hold and started toward the track. “I want to be by myself.”

“Cody, stop! You’ll hurt yourself!”

Cody was aware of Annabel coming after her, but she half ran, half tumbled down through the huge trees and onto the track. “Leave me alone,” she protested, as a hand caught her by the arm.

In the dark cloister of the night, she could not make out Annabel’s expression but the anger in her voice was plain enough. “I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you really want. But first I’m taking you home. Now shut up and walk.”

Chapter Eight

Cody rolled on her stomach and opened her paperback to page twenty-one which she had already read several times. The words ran together and she pulled off her Ray Bans, wiping tiny beads of perspiration off the lenses with her T-shirt.

The alleyway was empty save for a mangy cat trying its luck in the garbage outside a cheap pasta joint. Amanda pressed her back flat against the grimy stone wall and inched her way along, one hand straying to the reassuring bulge of her Smith & Wesson.

Cody lifted the book up, shook out the sand, and tried to remember how Amanda came to be stroking a pistol in that dark alley. She backtracked to the beginning of the chapter and skimmed a couple of pages, then dropped the book in disgust. She’d been trying to read it for days. Ever since that evening at Annabel’s, in fact. So much for escapism, she thought miserably and rolled over to stare up at the coconut palms.

The sky was a cloudless big-screen blue, and the ocean pounded the reef with all the involuntary passion of a heartbeat. A slight breeze stirred the drooping palm fronds but fell short of cooling the afternoon air.

A week, she’d been on the island for a week, and she was homesick already. Cody conjured up a vision of her office, terminals banked up around the walls, printers spooling frantically, Suzie Wentworth concealing a cigarette behind the latest BYTE magazine. While she was there she’d hated it, but now that she couldn’t return she missed the security and predictability of it all.

Marooned on a desert island, no ticket home. Why had she burnt her own boats? If she hadn’t kept the money, she could still have paid for her holiday. Then she could just fly home when it was all over, get a nice well-paid job, go to the movies with her friends, cruise the women’s dances. There were worse ways to spend the last years of her twenties. So what if she didn’t have a lover for a while?

She hadn’t spoken to Margaret before she left, Cody remembered with a sharp pang. Maybe she would never speak to her again. And she’d given Janet explicit instructions to tell no one where she was, especially Margaret.

“But what if she wants to talk?” Janet had dutifully protested. “Sometimes couples make it up and get back together.” Janet was addicted to happy endings and was even willing to overlook Margaret’s shortcomings if it meant Cody would have one.

“She won’t be back,” Cody had said with grim confidence. This was real life, not the movies.

What was Margaret doing now? she wondered. Jumping out of bed the second her alarm rang, pulling on her tracksuit and heading off for her morning run? Was she living with what’s-his-name already, cooking his dinners, washing his shirts? Cody pushed the sordid fragments of a memory out of her consciousness: Margaret sitting in the car with him after moving her furniture out, reaching across, kissing him…

Rage crowded her, forcing her up off the sand and chasing her along the beach. “Bitch!” Cody shouted into the breakers. “Lousy, rotten bitch!” Loud sobs forced their way out and she collapsed onto her knees weeping into the water’s edge.

Cody had no idea how long she stayed there, tears of fury merging with the salt water until there was no distinguishing between them. It was the noise that first penetrated, a dull drumming as regular as the waves, only a different tempo. She looked up, saw nothing, listened again.

It wasn’t the Mercy Mission, as Annabel jokingly referred to her regular flights in Bevan Mitchell’s Dominie. There was no whine, no screaming of displaced gulls as the little plane evicted the local birdlife from its landing strip on the island’s western promontory.

Cody wiped her face and got to her feet. It might have been a boat she had heard. Maybe one of the other guests on the island was out fishing. She hadn’t met anyone else since she’d arrived, but Annabel had mentioned that there were three women staying in another bay south of here. Guests were invited to Villa Luna for evening drinks twice a week, but Cody hadn’t attended the gathering last night.

Forcing herself not to think about the evening she had spent at Annabel’s earlier that week, she returned to her beach towel and page twenty-one of her thriller. She found the mangy cat then stopped reading. There it was again, that soft rapid thrum. She sat up and scanned the beach to either side.

It was a horse, a black horse. Cody lowered her book. Annabel. She could vaguely remember her mentioning the animal, and she wondered how it had got to the island in the first place. Horse and rider were approaching at a canter. With a frown, Cody gathered her belongings.

She didn’t want to see Annabel today. Recalling their last encounter made her cringe. She remembered apologizing over and over, staggering along the jungle track with Annabel’s stoic assistance, then rudely pushing her away when she offered to help her undress for bed. The next morning she had heard a knock at her door and, knowing it was Annabel, had ignored it.

She was behaving badly, Cody realized. There was no need for her to avoid Annabel. They were both adults. They could talk this through like mature women. Besides, there was nothing to talk about. After all, nothing had happened. Cody could apologize for getting drunk and spoiling the evening, and Annabel…

Cody’s gaze returned to the rider. If Cody hadn’t stopped them, they would have made love. A one-night stand. Was that what Annabel wanted? A good time—sun, surf and sex?

What was wrong with that? Cody reasoned. Since when had she joined the Moral Majority anyway? With a defiant shrug she stuffed her towel and paperback into her bag and dusted the sand off her arms and legs. She would talk to Annabel, but not right now. Dragging her feet a little, she retreated into the jungle beyond the palm trees.

Annabel dug her heels into Kahlo and felt the mare respond instantly. In the distance she caught a glimpse of a dark head and something colorful, a towel perhaps. Cody. Part of her wanted to rush after her, part of her wanted to pretend she wasn’t there. Pulling back on the reins, she slowed the mare to a trot and watched Cody disappear.

She hadn’t stopped kicking herself since that night. What on earth had gotten into her, plying the woman with champagne, assuming they would go to bed, as though having sex was no more significant than coffee after dinner. Not content with that, she had squeezed her for the details of her breakup when she had barely processed them herself. No wonder Cody was avoiding her like the plague.

Annabel felt butterflies invade her stomach as visions of her dark-haired neighbor flooded her mind. There was an unconscious sensuality about her Annabel found profoundly alluring. She seemed very straightforward and natural, devoid of the weary cynicism Annabel encountered in most women she met. It was a cultural difference, she supposed. Cody possessed a coltish charm and independent spirit Annabel associated with farm girls and small town high schoolers. She was frank, funny, and perceptive. Then there was her body.

Annabel could not remember the last time she had wanted a woman so badly. It seemed like years. She had almost forgotten what plain, old-fashioned lust felt like. Since she had started in commodities trading it was as though nothing could compete with the adrenalin highs of her job. She had moved to the trading floor after her split with Clare, and she had sworn then that it was the last time she would get ‘involved.’

In retrospect, their relationship had been doomed from the start. Clare, the out lesbian, the political activist; Annabel, the privileged only child. They fought as passionately as they loved and made love. They had talked around their differences for three years until what was unsaid became louder than words.

Annabel could never forget the leaving, holding each other and crying for what they would both be losing. Neither of them had been capable of articulating their feelings. Words had become traps, weapons, and could be trusted no longer. They had tried couples counseling, but Clare considered therapy a middle-class soft option and Annabel blamed their subsequent breakup on her unwillingness to participate.

They still wrote. Three times a year—on each other’s birthdays and at Christmas. Since Clare, there had been other women, of course, but over the past year Annabel had found herself less and less interested. Not long before Aunt Annie died it had even reached the stage where she began to wonder if she was going straight.

It was on the island that she had started to have some understanding of how soul-destroying her job was, how empty her life. She could finally admit she was suffering physical withdrawal from the adrenalin highs her body had grown accustomed to—the impossible hours, the alcohol, the caffeine.

Up ’til now Annabel hadn’t put the pieces together. She hadn’t wanted to, she supposed. But here, listening to the sea and breathing in fresh untainted air, she had started to think about her gradual weight loss, the periods missed, her six-cups-a-day coffee habit, her increasing social isolation, and the exhaustion that knocked her sideways an hour after she finished work every night.

Why hadn’t she seen it before? Some of her friends had, and Annabel recalled her hostile reactions with embarrassed remorse. She hadn’t been ready to hear about it back then.

Guiding Kahlo into the jungle, she located the route to Hibiscus Villa, paused, then reined the mare in the opposite direction. She wanted to see Cody. But it could wait.

Chapter Nine

I cannot believe how much has happened in one short year. I am engaged to Roger. My beloved Rebecca is still in London and Laura has married that pompous bore Theodore Worth...

Laura and Theodore. Her parents. Annabel smiled at Aunt Annie’s description of her father. There was no love lost between them. She flicked along a few pages.

I miss Rebecca desperately and write nearly every day. Her letters are full of some woman called Alexandra. They traveled to Paris together. I cannot bear to think of it but I know it is madness to feel such jealousy for one’s best friend. Roger pesters me constantly to allow liberties but I simply loathe his hands all over me. I don’t know how I shall endure married life.

Annabel’s brow creased. As far as she knew, Aunt Annie had never been married. She returned the diary to its shelf and extracted the next volume. A wafer-thin letter slid out as she opened it. Annabel read the contents guiltily, feeling like a clumsy intruder on someone else’s private world.

Sweet Annie,

I’m coming home and I shall never leave you again. I can’t tell you how I feel knowing that you have finally accepted what we’ve always known in our hearts. Don’t worry about Roger. He’ll find some other girl and forget you soon enough. I’m so impatient to see you my darling. I want to take you in my arms and keep you there forever.

All my love, Rebecca

Annabel refolded the letter and tucked it into the diary. She had an uncanny sense of not being alone, of someone else’s presence in the house. For a second she wondered fancifully if it were her aunt’s ghost, or maybe the unknown Rebecca.

Sliding the diary back into its place, she listened carefully but heard only the familiar waves on the distant reef, the rustle of palms, insect operatics.

“Is someone there?” She poked her head around the door of the upstairs attic and listened again. Footsteps. “Is that you Mrs. Marsters?”

“It’s me,” a voice responded from the verandah.

Annabel recognized the accent with a quickening of her pulse. “Cody?”

She descended the stairs and hurried out, suddenly conscious of her clothes: tiny cut-off shorts, a tatty old halter top. Her hair was loose and tangled from an afternoon catnap and she pushed it off her face with fingers that trembled slightly.

Cody was waiting on the verandah and Annabel’s heart lurched at the sight of her. She was wearing a short, brightly-colored sarong knotted at the valley between her breasts. The knowledge that she probably wore nothing underneath affected Annabel in all sorts of ways, making her shorts damply uncomfortable and her breathing erratic. Cody looked awkward, transferring her weight from one foot to the other as if she might bolt at a loud noise. What had she come for? To tell Annabel she was leaving the island?

“Hi.” She greeted Annabel with a quick uncertain smile. “I was going for a walk and I thought I’d drop in.”

“I’m glad,” Annabel said. “Can I offer you a drink?” Even as she spoke, she was mortified. A drink! If Cody were dying of thirst she’d probably turn down a glass of water from her.

“Better not,” Cody said. “Look where it got me last time.” Her color heightened and she stroked her hair back with that innocent gesture Annabel found almost unbearably sexy.

“I’m sorry—” both women began at the same time, then laughed awkwardly.

“Be my guest,” Annabel offered with mock gallantry.

Cody started again. “I came to apologize for the other night. I had too much to drink and I behaved badly.” She backed down the verandah steps.

“Cody!” Annabel’s tone arrested her. “Please don’t go. I’m sorry, too. You might find this hard to believe, but I don’t make a habit of plying women with alcohol and having my wicked way with them.”

Cody’s mouth turned up into a wry smile. “You wouldn’t have to try very hard. You’re an attractive woman.”

“I find you attractive, too, Cody,” Annabel said huskily. “The other night I...” She was embarrassed. “I guess I must be sexually frustrated,” she added in an attempt to laugh it off. “It’s been a while.”

“Very flattering,” Cody responded with heavy irony.

Annabel raised a hand to her mouth, groaning and laughing at the same time. “Wonderful. Now I’m adding insult to injury.” She took Cody’s hand. “I’m sorry. Can we start again?”

Cody allowed herself to be drawn up onto the verandah. Staring straight into one another’s eyes, they stood frozen in a moment of bright awareness, each recognizing the birth of something new between them.

“I’d like that,” Cody said very softly.

Chapter Ten

The days that followed passed in a blur for Annabel. She spent many hours poring over her aunt’s diaries, trying to piece together the complex picture of her life. At times it was all she could do to concentrate. She found her thoughts straying constantly to Cody, wondering what she was doing, when she would come by.

They saw one another every day, ate dinner together, walked along Passion Bay in the moonlight, occasionally brushed fingertips or thighs, but were not lovers.

Last night, on one of their strolls, Cody had slipped an arm around Annabel’s waist and asked, “How did Passion Bay get its name?”

“I don’t know,” Annabel replied. “I guess my aunt must have named it. She lived here for the past thirty years and this was her favorite beach. The Bay does have a certain reputation among the Islanders though.”

“Oh, yes?” Cody prompted. “What’s that?”

Annabel smiled. “Well, there’s a legend. According to Mrs. Marsters, hundreds of years ago the Islanders believed that the waters of Passion Bay held the secret of fertility, so any woman who could not have a child would come here to bathe. A famous chief whose wife was barren—her fault, naturally—brought her to the island and left her here for three full cycles of the moon.”

“Great way for her to get pregnant,” Cody murmured.

“Indeed. Anyway, the story goes that he returned to pick her up and she had conceived. In due course she gave birth to a daughter.”

“So she was already pregnant when he left her here,” Cody remarked. “I guess they didn’t have test kits back then.”

Annabel administered a playful prod. “No, she wasn’t. And this is where we get to the interesting bit. Evidently this woman was quite certain she actually conceived on the island. She claimed she was visited on a number of occasions by the goddess of the island, who lay with her and made her the gift of a child—the only one she ever had, as it turns out.”

Cody’s eyes widened. “Presumably this was after the local missionary told all the heathen about the virgin birth?”

“Cynic!” Annabel sighed. “No, it was way before the missionaries sank their talons into the Cook Islands. And even more interesting is that no one lived on Moon Island at the time except for a small group of priestesses—the Island was sacred to women and men were forbidden. But the women who did live here had children, all girls.”

“Very weird,” Cody said. “So what do you make of it all?”

“Well there’s really only one possible explanation.”

“That the ‘goddess’ was a man in disguise?”

Annabel laughed. “Of course not! It was parthenogenesis, the splitting of an egg without a sperm.”

Cody looked dubious. “I thought scientists couldn’t be sure about that.”

“Do you really think they’d tell us if they could? Imagine that—men not required for procreation.”

Cody stopped in her tracks and grinned widely. “Women’s eggs carry only an X chromosome...”

“Now you’re getting the picture. If parthenogenesis really can happen, it would result only in girls, and given that the female is the species type, that’s hardly surprising.”

“Oh, dear,” Cody commented. “The male-as-mutant argument. You’re not a man-hating lesbian ball-breaker by any chance, are you?”

Annabel glanced at her sideways, sparkling. “Will I score any points if I say yes to that?”

“If you want to score points I have some more creative suggestions.”

Annabel turned to face her, slid her arms behind Cody’s neck. “Nothing that could result in parthenogenesis, I hope.”

She trailed slow sensual kisses down Cody’s throat and onto her bare shoulders and they sank down onto the warm sands of Passion Bay. Reading in Cody’s eyes an echo of her own desire, she cupped her face and claimed her mouth in a kiss fraught with pent-up need. She felt Cody’s hands tangle in her hair, the exquisite pressure of their bodies aligned hard against one another. But as she moved to unfasten the knot holding Cody’s sarong, the younger woman tensed, her retreat unmistakable.

Shaking, her body hungry for release, Annabel eased her embrace. This was not rejection, she realized. Cody needed time to build trust with her. Tenderly she cradled her, and they lay together listening to the sounds of the night.

Annabel knew with fatalistic certainty that they would become lovers. The thought filled her with restless anticipation. At the same time she was aware of mixed emotions. The more she came to know Cody, the more conscious she was that for her, the attraction was not purely physical. She was drawn to Cody on another level.

Somehow the New Zealander had slipped beneath her guard, engaging a tender part of her self Annabel seldom connected with any more. It made her feel oddly vulnerable. Wary of exposing herself, she decided to play a waiting game. It was obvious Cody was attracted to her, but she also sensed the younger woman’s confusion. It was hardly surprising. Cody had just been left by a long-term lover for a man. That would be enough to dent anyone’s confidence.

Annabel could remember all too clearly those feelings of helpless rage, of self-blame and introspection when she broke up with Clare. For months afterward she had stared at herself in mirrors, wondering if there was something wrong with her, some defect only others could see. Even though the breakup was more or less mutually agreed, she had still felt somehow at fault. If only she were more political, Clare might have stayed, if only she looked more butch, if only she enjoyed demos as much as theater, if only she didn’t sound like old money. There was a list as long as her arm.

She had been so vulnerable then and so lonely. It was one of those times when she had most felt her isolation as a lesbian. How different it was from her breakup with Toby. After only six months of marriage, she had been inundated with support—phone calls from her mother, cuddles from friends, and kindness from people at work. And she was the one who had left!

With Clare, she had been forced to pretend that everything was just fine and rosy in her world, that her housemate had got a new job in San Francisco, and wasn’t that great? Of course her lesbian friends understood and comforted her. But for the first time in her life, Annabel had experienced deeply the distress of her invisibility. She had felt like two people, one the hard-working, successful banker, the other a secretive, distressed misfit.

Her parents were pleased, of course. Not because they wanted to see her hurt, but because they had always believed her sexuality could only lead to unhappiness. They saw her breakup with Clare as a sign of their daughter coming to her senses. Her mother even referred to the possibility of another marriage now that she’d “got all that out of her system.” Annabel didn’t bother to argue. What was the point?

Since that time she had barely mentioned the subject of her relationships to her parents, and they never raised it. They knew she was still a lesbian, but it was not discussed. Silences were nothing new in Annabel’s family. For as long as she could remember, she had sensed the unspoken; the underground messages, her parents exchanging subtle glances, anger simmering beneath the quiet earth like a volcano. As a child, she had sometimes felt so nervous she had been unable to keep hold of her cutlery. And she never understood why.

Dusting off another diary, Annabel shook her head. The old trepidation was still there, that strange waiting feeling. Waiting for what? With curious unease she opened the book and read.

Rebecca has been wonderful. She won’t let me feel ashamed for a moment. She’s even bought me an island of all things, the goose. Mad isn’t it? I have no idea how we are ever to get there but Rebecca says her family isn’t in the shipping business for nothing and we leave as soon as the baby is born. I want to go now but Rebecca insists we should stay just in case anything goes wrong. As always she is the sensible one.

A baby? Whose baby? Her mother’s perhaps. There was nothing about Laura’s pregnancy in the diaries, yet the timing seemed right. Heart thumping wildly, Annabel skimmed back through the pages in case she had missed something. She could find no other reference to a baby. The diary was full of Rebecca—her cigar smoking and how Annie worried it would ruin her lungs, her passion for art and the poverty stricken painters who turned up for dinner every odd day, her conservative family and the politicians her father had in his pocket.

Page after page was dedicated to their love for one another and their lovemaking. Annabel skipped by those, unwilling to intrude on her aunt’s most intimate revelations. She would have to make sure her mother never saw any of this, she thought with faint humor. Not that there was any danger of Laura Adams flying halfway across the world to read her sister’s letters and diaries. She had never visited the island, in fact, had never spoken of it other than in the vaguest terms.

Until her friendship with her aunt had begun to flourish, Annabel had no idea Annie’s overseas home was in the Cook Islands. It was another subject no one ever mentioned. Even Annie had seemed strangely reluctant to talk about her life on Moon Island.

Cursing, Annabel glanced at her watch. It was Mercy Mission time, and Bevan Mitchell didn’t appreciate his passengers not turning up. With a sigh of impatience, she closed the diary and climbed down the attic steps into the hallway. A baby?

She gathered up her gear, donned her riding hat and stalked out, churning her discovery over in her mind.

Someone her aunt knew, some close friend perhaps, had been having a baby. Or was it Rebecca? Aunt Annie was childless. Annabel knew that much. Again she felt that uneasy curling in the pit of her stomach and a nebulous image floated across her mind—herself as a tiny child, on a woman’s knee, handling a large golden object and biting it. The woman’s face was out of focus, but her hair was pale. Mother, Annabel thought. Yet she felt oddly disturbed.

Chapter Eleven

“Cody! Cody!” Annabel reined in Kahlo close to Hibiscus Villa, tethered the horse, and jumped the steps up to the open door. “Are you there, Cody? I’ve got something for you.

Cody emerged from the bathroom wearing a towel, her black hair wet and plastered to her head like a seal. Annabel pulled a sharp breath and let her eyes travel over the finely molded form in front of her. It should be illegal for any woman to be so sexy with so little effort, she thought. Water rolled across Cody’s smooth shoulders, following the sinuous contours of her body, to gather in rivulets between her breasts.

Completely distracted, Annabel held out a large paper bag. “Your mail,” she said, puzzled when Cody’s expression underwent a subtle change.

“Thanks.” She took the bag and dropped it unenthusiastically onto a small table nearby.

Annabel stayed where she was, flexing her whip slightly against one thigh and trying to pretend her muscles weren’t taut with tension. “I’d love a cup of tea,” she hinted finally.

“I’ll get dressed,” Cody said and turned back toward the bathroom.

“Look, am I interrupting something?”

Cody halted. “You know, Annabel,” she said dully, “life can get very complicated.”

“Indeed it can.” Annabel stared at Cody’s long, beautifully shaped legs, her eyes hovering where the towel began high on those damp thighs. Dryness glued her mouth shut and her shirt seemed too tight at the neck. Easing a couple of buttons undone, she tilted her head back, exposing her throat to the cool air drifting through the verandah.

Cody retreated back into the house. “I’ll put the tea on.”

“I can make it, while you dress,” Annabel offered and followed her indoors.

As she was stacking their cups onto a tray shortly afterwards, Cody appeared. She had changed into cut-off denim shorts and a sleeveless lavender T-shirt that revealed more than it covered. Annabel had the impression she had been crying.

“Are you all right?” she asked, realizing with a slight shock how much she actually cared.

Cody made a convincing display of unconcern, shrugging her shoulders and lifting the tray with a flourish. “I’m fine,” she managed without a tremor. But she still looked everywhere except at Annabel.

Out on the verandah, Annabel pulled off her riding hat and flopped down into a cane chair. They sat in silence performing the tea ritual. It was not a silence like the communion of old friends, or new friends completely at ease with one another. It was dense and clammy, and exaggerated by the piercing birdcalls and persistent drone of insects. It stretched like quicksand, deceptive, treacherous—neither woman willing to take an experimental step lest she sink out of her depth, uncertain of rescue.

Cody wanted to speak, but her throat was tight and her eyes still stung. Annabel looked so cool and somehow certain of the world. She would be shocked if Cody told her, shocked and disgusted to find she was calmly sipping tea with a criminal. Cody knew the secret put a barrier between them and she struggled to find the words to breach it.

“Annabel,” she finally plunged in. “Have you ever done something you regretted?”

Annabel’s eyes widened. In the shade of the verandah they looked pansy-blue. She cocked her head to one side as though lost in thought, then said softly, “Something I’ve regretted? Well, that gives me plenty of scope. I guess you don’t mean taking a bath on the Yen either.” Her brow creased and she admitted, “It’s strange you should ask that. Since I came to the island, it’s like I’ve seen my life from a whole new perspective. I realize how miserable and empty it’s been. I feel like I’ve spent years so busy and tired, I haven’t had time to think about what’s missing.”

Responding to an unspoken question in Cody’s eyes, she said, “I didn’t have time for relationships either. I’ve had a few flings. Nothing serious. Maybe I’ve been horse shy.” She said it reflectively as though the idea were new and interesting. “So to answer your question before you fall asleep, yes, I have done something I regret. I wish I had spent the last few years doing something positive. And I wish I had spent more time with my aunt. So… how about you?”

Cody sipped her tea and shifted in her seat. Watching her, Annabel looked calm, reflective, a little sad. As if sensing Cody’s apprehension, she threw her a reassuring smile. The urge to spill the beans was overwhelming but Cody fought it off anyway. How could she tell Annabel everything? They barely knew each other and it was hardly fair to involve another woman in her guilty secret. Yet it would be such a relief to discuss it. Hardly an hour passed that she did not experience a sinking in her stomach when she thought about that briefcase lurking in Janet’s wardrobe, or of a letter somewhere recording her crime and demanding restitution.

Releasing a breath held too long, she set her cup down with a clatter. “I’m not sure that I have regrets, exactly. But I have done something that’s making me feel very guilty.”

Annabel said nothing at first, but looked across her cup at Cody with eyes that were curious, but also kind. “Sounds serious,” she commented with a hint of humor.

Despite herself, Cody relaxed. “It is. I can’t talk about it right now but it’s on my mind a lot, and I guess I wanted you to know. I don’t want you thinking I’m unfriendly or rude.”

Annabel leaned forward, cupping her chin in one hand and examining Cody’s face with unnerving intensity. “Is it important what I think?”

Cody blushed and lowered her eyes. It was important, but she found herself wishing it weren’t. Since that kiss on the beach, she had been unable to get Annabel out of her mind. Even now her skin tingled with the imprint of Annabel’s hands and her mouth felt hot with the memory of Annabel’s. Don’t, she ordered herself. The very last thing she needed in her life right now was another complication.

Forcing a lighter note, she said casually, “Of course it is. You’re supposed to be wildly impressed with my good looks, charm and incisive wit. Back home, the girls can’t leave me alone.”

Without missing a beat, Annabel clutched her chest and simpered, “I can sure see why that is. The first time I laid eyes on you, well, I just said to myself, Annabel honey, this is your lucky day.

Cody grinned at the Southern Belle impersonation. “You betcha.” She affected a pose that drew attention to her neatly muscled arms. “They don’t call me hotlips for nothing.”

Annabel groaned. “Hotlips, how original.” She focused blatantly on Cody’s mouth. “I take it you have a reputation?”

Cody nodded. “Yeah. Ever since a bad moment with a chili taco at the Refuge fundraiser.”

“Cramped your style?” Annabel’s voice was dry.

“I thought I’d never be the same woman again.”

“And are you?” Annabel’s gaze traveled warmly across her body.

Not yet, Cody’s mind ordered, but her body was not convinced. Her pulse had quickened and she found herself unable to look away from Annabel’s face—the way the fine stray hairs escaped from her plait and clung damply to her forehead, the way her lips turned up slightly in the corners and her chin dimpled when she laughed.

When Annabel got to her feet, Cody felt a sharp pang of disappointment. “I should be going,” she said without conviction.

Those bright lavender eyes scanned Cody’s face, a hint of challenge in their gemlike depths. When Cody remained silent, she glanced about, apparently looking for something. “My whip,” she explained, reaching past her.

Then her hands were on Cody’s shoulders and Cody felt the warmth of her as she leaned over the chair back. Her heart accelerated so sharply she felt winded. Annabel’s fingers lingered possessively, burning her skin. Twisting in her chair, Cody looked up her.

“Annabel…” she began awkwardly, then chickened out. Trying to sound normal, she said, “Um, have a nice day.”

To Cody’s consternation, Annabel bent lower, letting her arms slide from Cody’s shoulders over her breasts. She rested her head against Cody’s, her mouth just inches from her ear.

“Why don’t you come along?” she invited, her warm breath caressing Cody’s cheek.

Cody inhaled that familiar Annabel fragrance and swallowed with difficulty. Her nipples strained against the thin cotton of her T-shirt, betraying the desperate craving that engulfed her. She tried to steer her thoughts to some common sense destination, but her mind would not co-operate.

“You might even enjoy it,” Annabel persisted. She moved around the chair to face Cody, and with a broad smile took both her hands and pulled her to her feet.

She was impossibly close and this time Cody let herself stare. At point blank Annabel’s skin was the radiant creamy white of a fine pearl. Cody found herself fascinated by its texture, by the natural red of Annabel’s mouth against it, the denseness of her lashes. She imagined owning it with her fingers, her lips, her tongue, and felt a flowering in her groin.

Annabel was watching her with a frank expression. A trace of indolent humor played across her features, and Cody realized she must be gawking like some star-struck adolescent. Dropping her eyes, trying to concentrate on anything but the wet ache between her thighs, she pulled her hands free. Her heart pounded against her ribs so fast she could barely breathe.

Annabel had to know the effect she was having, Cody thought with a mix of awe and dismay. “I won’t come,” she said. “But thanks anyway.” Her voice sounded hoarse, unlike her own.

She took a step back, wanting to distance herself from the chaotic emotions the other woman aroused. Her skin clamored for touch, her pulse surged. She felt altogether too exposed, transparent in her yearning.

Annabel picked up her whip and flexed it absently, contemplating her next move. Cody looked to one side, hands tucked defensively into her armpits. Annabel studied the outline of her breasts flattened beneath her folded arms and imagined pulling those hands away, teasing the nipples they guarded. She experienced a powerful urge to reach for her, to seduce away her inhibitions. Conscious of her own heightening arousal, and of Cody’s obvious discomfort, she hesitated.

Cody has just broken up with her lover, she reminded herself. She needs time to heal. Annabel had promised herself she would wait, yet here she was attempting to seduce her. When you were on the rebound, it was all too easy to jump into bed with any woman who came along. That was a class act, the kind she’d become famous for after her breakup with Clare.

Back then, she had adopted a love ’em and leave ’em approach and had spent a year proving she could fuck any woman she liked, whenever she liked, and feel nothing. To whom she was proving it was a moot point. When she finally made the switch from banking to commodities trading, she had been secretly relieved. The long hours and exhausting routine soon provided the excuse she needed to slide out of any kind of commitment, and before long, hanging over a screen and shouting into a phone in each hand gave her a bigger rush than an orgasm.

At the time she had been delighted—cheap thrills without the emotional hassles of relationships. Now she felt sick at the thought of the women she must have hurt along the way. Tempting though it was, she decided it would be wrong to draw Cody into some kind of consolation fling. With a flash of self-awareness, she knew she wanted more than that. Certainly she recognized the sexual current that ran between them, but there was something else, too. Cody aroused in her an unaccustomed tenderness, an urge to find out more about her—feelings she would have run a mile from only months ago.

Impulsively Annabel closed the distance between them, her hand straying to Cody’s cheek. With tantalizing softness, she brushed her lips against Cody’s, intending simply to say farewell. But Cody’s mouth felt so welcoming, parting against hers, the tips of their tongues fluid against one another. Coaxing her lips further apart, Annabel moved her hand over Cody’s jaw to rest against the wild flutter of her pulse.

Cody might be able to persuade herself she was not ready for this, Annabel thought, but her body sent quite different signals. Her defensive arms had dropped to her sides. There was no reserve in the sway of her body against Annabel’s, the press of her thighs, the telltale hardness of her nipples. She worked a caressing hand beneath Cody’s T-shirt, thrilling to the feel of her, so lithe and responsive.

“I could stay,” Annabel murmured against her mouth.

Cody’s arms wrapped hard around her, returning her sensuous embrace. This time it was she who kissed Annabel, urgently and deeply, making the demands Annabel ached to meet.

Barely able to catch her breath, Annabel said, “Is that a yes?”

Their eyes locked and the world around them seemed very still in the sultry languor of the afternoon. Annabel was conscious only of Cody: her soft shallow breathing, the undisguised need in her eyes.

But something was tugging at her. She gave a slight, bemused start, looked around and groaned. “Oh, no.”

A pair of dark liquid eyes surveyed her inquisitively, and Kahlo prised the whip she was still holding from her fingers.

Cody’s face was a study in dismay. “I thought she was tied up.”

“I’m sorry.” Annabel shook her head, disbelieving. “I’ll put her in the lean-to around the back.” She touched Cody’s cheek. “Don’t go away.”

It was a tragic piece of timing, Cody decided as she went into the villa. In more ways than one. It would have been so easy to fall into bed with Annabel right then and there. But, like a bucket of cold water, reality had intervened and stopped her short of a choice she would probably regret.

It was for the best, Cody convinced herself. Not only was she fresh out of a broken relationship, but she was also a fugitive from justice. The last thing she needed was another complication.

Raking a despondent hand through her hair, she paced the sitting room. Her mind seethed with conflicting emotions. She wanted to make love with Annabel—her body was unmistakably clear about that. But her life was a mess. She was a mess; a walking rebound disaster. How could she even contemplate getting involved with another woman? And that’s exactly what would happen. Annabel already meant more to her than any stranger should. She was kidding herself if she thought she could keep things on a purely physical footing.

Lamenting her folly, she crept onto the sofa and buried her face in a cushion. A moment later someone touched her shoulder.

“Have you changed your mind?” Annabel sat down beside her.

Embarrassed, Cody straightened up. “No...I mean...yes.”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

“No.” Cody caught at Annabel’s hand. She felt trapped, beached on the disorienting sands of her own insecurity. She knew she should tell her to leave, but instead she begged, “Please. Don’t go.”

Annabel took her in her arms and gently caressed her cheek. “We don’t have to do anything, you know.” There was a hint of amusement in her voice. “I’d like to, of course.” She tilted Cody’s chin and stared at her intently. Then she bent forward and delicately kissed her.

They sat very still, mouths just touching. Cody closed her eyes. Annabel’s breath was warm on her face. She moved against her, placing her hands behind her neck and responding to her kisses in kind. By some unspoken consensus, they moved to Cody’s bedroom and stood there kissing until Cody felt so weak she could barely stand. Annabel’s mouth moved from her face to her throat, licking and kissing as her hands unfastened Cody’s shorts. Panic fluttered along with desire in the pit of Cody’s stomach and her breath came in short, shallow gasps. She turned her attention to Annabel’s shirt, unbuttoning it and sliding it off her shoulders.

Annabel’s skin glowed with the richness of ivory silk and begged to be touched. Cody stared, wanting at the same time to taste and smell and feel her.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered and lowered her head to plant devotional kisses along Annabel’s shoulders, slowly working her way down to the perfect slope of her breasts and those nipples, the same astounding dark pink as her mouth.

She pulled off her T-shirt, longing to press her flesh against Annabel’s, to remove the final layers between them. Annabel unzipped her jeans and Cody helped tug them over her hips, impatience making her a little rough.

With a soft laugh, Annabel stepped out of them and reached for Cody’s hands, raising them to her mouth and kissing the palms tenderly. “Not so fast,” she said and twisted Cody’s arms playfully behind her back, grazing her mouth with teasing kisses.

Cody drew a ragged breath and broke free of Annabel’s grip. Catching hold of her, she pulled her determinedly toward the bed, throwing back the covers and drawing her down. She felt sick with passion. She wanted Annabel inside her, around her, close and hot.

Annabel knelt across Cody’s body, astride one thigh. Cody could feel her wetness, the hands pinning her shoulders down, the hot crush of their flesh. Her breasts ached. Her mouth felt full and trembling. She opened heavy eyes and met Annabel’s bright, intense stare. Transfixed by what she saw there, she twisted her fingers into Annabel’s hair and pulled her down hard, kissing her passionately, reveling in the foreign textures of her body. Her breasts felt firm, the nipples hard. She was hot and smooth, as supple as a cat.

Murmuring Annabel’s name, Cody gasped as fingers found her throbbing clitoris, slid down to explore her wetness, moved casually back again. With her hips, she begged for more than the slow, teasing strokes. She was almost crying with desire as Annabel slid her hands beneath her shoulders and pulled her upright so they were both on their knees, each free to explore the newness of the other’s body. Cody pressed hard against her, loving the way their stomachs, their mounds, connected. She dug her fingers into Annabel’s ass, kneading the firm flesh, drawing her forward, sighing with pleasure as the pressure against her groin increased.

Annabel’s sure fingers left her clitoris to work new magic, stroking and caressing her breasts, rolling her nipples into tense arousal. They were followed by her mouth, and Cody’s skin shocked and tightened as tantalizing licks rapidly gave way to hard urgent bites.

“Don’t stop,” she moaned as Annabel’s attention moved further down her body, her mouth tracing circles around her stomach and down into the join of her thighs.

As she felt herself parted, Annabel’s arm locked around her to keep her from sinking back onto the bed. Swaying, she clutched Annabel’s shoulders as she felt the head of her clitoris enveloped slowly, wetly. Beads of perspiration clustered on her forehead and between her breasts. She wanted to say something but her mouth was dry with passion.

“Please,” she croaked, an exquisite tension swamping her limbs.

Annabel pulled back a little and straightened. Aligning her body with Cody’s, she placed one hand firmly behind her head and kissed her hard, entering her at the same time. Releasing a sharp whimper, Cody bit down on Annabel’s shoulder and felt the pressure inside her ease slightly.

“Did I hurt you, baby?” Annabel’s voice shook.

Cody could only mumble a denial.

“You feel so good.” Annabel’s mouth was on hers once more, and Cody could taste her own juices, salty and sharp.

She wanted to touch Annabel, too, make her cry out with pleasure, but instead she grasped hold of her more tightly, steadying herself as her arousal climbed. Legs shaking, Cody felt herself pass that final threshold of resistance, surrendering to sensation, giving herself completely to this woman.

Finally, mercifully, Annabel lowered Cody onto her back and slid a hand beneath her hips, angling her so she could move deeper inside. Cody felt a strange heat roll beneath her skin as if a layer of super-sensitive new flesh had just unfolded. She was sweating freely now, her body open and compliant. Annabel’s tongue circled her clitoris once more and Cody rocked against the voluptuous rhythm of fingers and mouth.

She tried to speak, but could only make small animal sounds as the tension in her body climbed to breaking point. She no longer had any sense of what Annabel was doing, only that she was lost to the irresistible. A pulsing swell of pleasure rose from her engorged center, and she bit down hard on her lip as a series of powerful shudders claimed her. She was barely aware of her own fierce cries of release, when a final startling burst of moisture swamped every pore and saturated her thighs.

Then Annabel was kissing her tenderly and Cody realized she was crying. Suddenly self-conscious, she half-turned her head aside but Annabel gently drew her back.

With shaky tenderness, she said, “You’re fine, Cody,” and pushed the damp hair off her forehead to plant a kiss there.

When Cody attempted to part Annabel’s thighs her hand was caught and guided resolutely away.

“Later,” Annabel murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And as the hours passed and a full moon swam placidly across Passion Bay, they made love again and again until exhaustion overtook them and, curling into one another, they slept.

Chapter Twelve

It was dawn when Cody awoke. Barely daring to breathe in case this was just a dream, she watched the sky transform and listened to the birds and insects come alive. Next to her, Annabel lay sleeping, her thick lashes resting on her cheeks like two dark crescents. Her hair, released from its plait the night before, tangled about her head, and her mouth curved delectably upward as though she were dreaming clouds of butterflies.

In the gathering light, Annabel’s skin glowed pale and flawless. Mesmerized by its translucence, Cody peeled the sheet back a little further. Even in sleep, there was an innate grace about her, in the languid droop of her head, the curve of her arm over her hip. How was this possible? Cody marveled. She had just spent the past night making love with this woman, exploring every inch of her body, finding the secret places that made her writhe and beg for more. She was stunning, incredible. Disbelieving, she curled closer and smoothed the bedding over them, careful not to disturb her.

She had no idea where their lovemaking would lead, and for the moment it did not seem to matter. Her body felt warm, used, content. Her mind was clear and fresh. Best of all, she could think of Margaret and… nothing. No tears, no rage, nothing. You shallow person, a voice chastised her. Only six weeks to mend a broken heart. The first attractive woman that comes along and wham! Margaret’s history.

Cody lifted a strand of Annabel’s hair. It was fine and silky, nearly white. The kind of hair chemicals couldn’t reproduce. Cody wished she would wear it loose all the time but guessed she was far too practical for that.

In the two weeks since she had met Annabel, every one of her unconscious assumptions had been turned inside out. Somehow she had never imagined herself with a blonde American lover who looked like she thought hard work was a day’s shopping in Saks Fifth Avenue, but fixed her own plumbing without batting an eyelid.

Annabel was a mass of contradictions. Sometimes she seemed entirely cynical and world-weary. Then she would rush outside to catch the first evening star or stand stock-still on her lawn trying to persuade a mynah bird to eat from her outstretched hand.

During the time they had explored the island together, Cody had been astounded at Annabel’s knowledge of plants and birdlife, her navigation skills, and her fitness. She was once a Girl Scout, Annabel had said.

Easing an arm over her body, Cody tried to remain focused on the magic of now but thoughts of the future hovered like wasps. Two weeks. Her Moon Island booking ran out in just two weeks’ time. What then? London? Some tiny flat in Highgate… wall-to-wall commuters… cliquey parties. Maybe she should head for Australia instead. Melbourne was a laid-back kind of city with plenty of jobs. There were friends she could camp with for a few weeks while she got her act together.

Cody frowned. She didn’t want to think about leaving, especially now. But how could she stay? Even if she booked another month on the island, it would only be a short-term solution. And it would make leaving so much harder. Besides she had no idea what Annabel’s plans were—when she intended to return to Boston. Cody’s heart lurched and almost unconsciously she tightened her arm.

Annabel stirred. Opening her eyes, she blinked sleepily up at Cody and said, “Hi.” She sounded dazed but happy. “Do you still respect me?”

Cody grinned. “Well, that depends.”

Annabel lifted her eyebrows. “Oh, really? Depends on what?”

“On whether you can rustle up a decent breakfast, of course.” Cody changed position, lounging back on her pillows, hands behind her head.

“Why how very butch of you, Cody Stanton.” Annabel’s eyes gleamed. “Do I detect a hint of role confusion? Let me see now. One of us was not exactly fighting the other for control last night.” She propped herself up onto her elbow and trailed a knowing hand down Cody’s body, applying just enough teasing pressure to Cody’s clitoris to make her squirm deliciously.

“Don’t get too excited,” she whispered against Cody’s ear, then nibbled her lobe. “After all, I’m about to go get intimate with your kitchen.” She drew back, slid her feet off the bed and stretched languorously.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Cody crawled after her, giggling. “I take it all back.”

“Too late.” Annabel located a sarong and wrapped it around herself. “I wouldn’t want you lying in bed suffering from cravings.” She slapped Cody’s hands as Cody tried to untie her sarong.

“What do you feel like eating?” Her tone was business-like, but her eyes sparkled. “Something hot?”

“Precisely,” Cody said and grabbed her around the waist. “Come back to bed, you flirt.”

“Make it worth my while,” Annabel said.

And Cody did.

“I have to go.” Annabel slid her arms around Cody’s waist and kissed the corner of her mouth. “I’d know that whine anywhere.”

Cody grimaced and followed Annabel outside in time to see the Dominie slouch its way across the sky.

“Can’t he go without you for once?” she muttered.

Annabel was saddling Kahlo and pushing her shirt into her loose-fitting jeans. She shook her head. “Duty calls, I’m afraid. If I don’t go to Rarotonga none of us will eat. And while you and I could probably think of better ways to spend our time, the other guests might not see it that way.”

Cody made a snorting sound. “Let them eat cake. Doesn’t Mrs. Marsters look after all that stuff.”

“Actually, I do. The job comes with the house,” she said, not quite ready to explain that she owned Moon Island.

Her aunt had previously employed a manager to handle the day-to-day operation of the island, ferrying guests, bringing in supplies, and handling requests. But the woman was pregnant now and had given notice virtually the day Annabel had arrived, having put off her departure for Annie’s sake. She had spent a few days showing Annabel how things were run, then she was on her own. How hard could it be? she had thought. There were only a few guests and they seemed to keep to themselves, obviously seeking privacy and seclusion.

Following a tradition her aunt had started, Annabel operated an open house a couple of evenings each week, serving hors d’oevres and drinks. The rest of time guests did their own thing. Each morning she or Mrs. Marsters delivered platters of food to the occupied cottages and made note of any problems.

Annabel had not yet decided if she would continue to run the island as a vacation spot. She could not envisage living here indefinitely, miles from civilization. For now, she had decided to give it six months—maybe a year. So she was continuing to accept reservations, content to see how things went. Annie had found it too lonely on the island by herself and had built the guest cottages for that reason. It made sense, Annabel thought. And besides, it had brought Cody here.

Finished with the saddling, Annabel glanced back. Cody looked so dejected standing in the doorway, her unbrushed hair sticking out at crazy angles, gray eyes wide and appealing. Annabel felt curiously protective. She was startled by the emotion and not entirely comfortable with it. Feeling protective smacked of ownership and blurred boundaries. In her experience it was a trap for the unwary. It meant losing touch with your common sense and sometimes your self-respect. The last time she had felt protective, she’d sold herself short, allowed a woman to manipulate her, and been hurt. She knew better than to do that again.

With a hint of reserve, she looked at Cody and willed herself not to respond to the unspoken plea. She had responsibilities. Life could not be put on hold because she had just rediscovered sex with one of her guests.

“Want to come over later tonight?” she said, mounting Kahlo with careless ease.

“Okay,” Cody said quietly.

Annabel tried not to notice the slight hurt in her voice. She could feel Cody watching her as she reined the mare away from the villa, but she did not look back.

Bevan was waiting when she reached the landing strip, and he greeted her over his habitual cigarette. Without ceremony, Annabel boarded and strapped herself in. She was fast coming to take for granted the shuttle to and from the island. She liked the fact that they went to Rarotonga almost every day and brought in fresh supplies, taxied guests and Mrs. Marsters, and collected mail.

At first the decrepit plane had unnerved Annabel, and Bevan’s comment that he could fly her under the Golden Gate if necessary had done little to inspire confidence. She hated the helpless, dependent feeling of being an ignorant passenger, of staring at the flickering needles on the control panel without the slightest idea what any of them meant.

To her surprise, Bevan had been quick to notice her attitude and had promptly offered to teach her to fly. He pointed out that the Dominie was originally used as a navigation trainer for the English RAF. The plane was built during World War II, originally for six passengers, but after the war, it had found its way into private ownership in Australia, and eventually Bevan swapped a bag of opals for it at Broken Hill.

He converted it to a two-passenger and cargo transport and had spent a decade flying charter through most of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Annabel’s aunt had employed him six years ago when he settled on Atiu, the island whose coffee was the best Annabel had ever tasted. He still lived there with a friend she had never met, but who was evidently some kind of journalist.

Annabel had been amazed at how easy it was to learn to fly. With each lesson she grew more confident, co-piloting at different stages of the flight and coming to grips with navigation.

“Feel like taking her up today?” Bevan asked, securing the hatch.

She smiled wryly. “I don’t think I’m quite ready for that.” She had made a futile attempt on their last flight. After they bunny-hopped the entire length of the strip twice, Bevan finally took the controls back and got them off the ground.

“They’re like horses,” the pilot told her. “You have to keep climbing back in the saddle.”

“Okay,” she said with resignation. “It’s your funeral. But just don’t ask me to land the thing.”

Bevan wiggled his cigarette, the equivalent of a grin, then made a show of stubbing it out, ready to do business. “Full throttle,” he ordered blithely.

Annabel had no idea how they made it to Rarotonga. By some fluke she coerced the Dominie into the air and, apart from a few bumps, managed to keep her at the appropriate altitude. As they approached, Bevan radioed for clearance and cheerfully informed Annabel that he would talk her down.

“Land her? I can’t!” she protested.

“Most popular words in the female dialect,” he goaded her. “Come on. It’s no big deal. Anyway, we’re low on fuel, so we can’t muck around up here for too long.”

“Oh, great!” Annabel glared at the gauge and turned accusing eyes on him. “You’re paid to make sure that doesn’t happen!”

“And it hasn’t. We’re here, aren’t we? Watch your back pressure.”

“Bevan!” Her hands began to shake.

“Keep your nose up,” he said blandly.

He continued firing instructions at her, and there was no time to do anything but obey. Putting her anger aside, Annabel concentrated on her landing transition. They came in with a resounding thud and veered waywardly along the strip while she tried to sort out her rudder control. When they finally stopped, back-to-front and off the runway, she let out a whoop and collapsed over the controls with relief and exhilaration.

“Well done, old girl.” Bevan shook her hand with British formality, and Annabel felt her anger dissolve.

“I really did it,” she marveled as they taxied across the tarmac. “I flew a plane!”

Bevan’s mechanic, known universally as Smithy, was waiting for them a few yards from the hangar. A wiry little man of indeterminate age, he set the chocks and released the hatch.

As they descended, he doffed his cloth hat to Annabel, saying gallantly, “Nice to see a lady at the controls.”

Once on the tarmac, Bevan instantly lit a cigarette, revealing a stress level belied by his casual demeanor. “Last time I talked a novice down was in ’Nam,” he said, quickly exhaling.

“You fought in Vietnam?” Annabel eyed him suspiciously.

“God, no. Not a British war, old girl. The Aussies and the Kiwis joined you folks, of course, under the ANZUS alliance. I ran supplies. A spot of black market here and there.”

“Racketeering,” she said, shocked.

He blew a modest smoke ring. “Beats slaughter any day. You sleep a whole lot better, too.”

Annabel said nothing.

“Oh, by the way...” He fished around in his pockets. “I picked this up yesterday.” He handed her a folded notice. “Compliments of the local constabulary.”

Annabel opened the sheet and stared, knuckles whitening. “But it’s—” She fell silent, willing herself not to leap to any conclusions.

“Thought I recognized one of your guests.” Bevan sucked calmly on his cigarette.

Annabel examined the photograph and the caption underneath. Cordelia Grace Stanton.

“The police…” she murmured.

“Seems they’re concerned for her safety. Sounds like she did some kind of runner, and the folks back home have their knickers in a twist.”

Annabel’s brow creased. “Have you told anyone she’s here?”

He shook his head. “She’s your guest.”

Annabel slid the poster into her bag. “I’ll take care of it,” she said with more confidence than she felt.

Back on the island later that afternoon, Annabel paced agitatedly about the Villa. Her brains felt scrambled, her nerves on edge. Part of her wanted to rush straight over to Cody and ask her what was going on, another told her to mind her own business.

The poster said information was wanted by her family. Perhaps they were incredibly possessive of her, Annabel reasoned. Perhaps she’d had to disappear just to get a little privacy. Some families were like that. All the same, Cody did not seem the type of woman who would vanish without a word, leaving people worried for her safety. And if she had, surely it would be a good idea to get in touch with them so they could give up bothering the police and pasting up wanted posters.

Annabel made herself a double espresso and examined the poster for about the thousandth time. What was it Cody had said the day before about something she regretted, something that made her feel guilty? This must be it, Annabel decided. She had lost her lover and her job and she needed space. Without really thinking it through, she had picked an island in the middle of nowhere and fled. Her family, knowing she was upset, had panicked. Or maybe her family knew nothing about her lesbianism and therefore would not understand what she was going through. It was probably asking a bit much for anyone to come out to her parents when her lover had just left her for a man.

Annabel sipped her coffee and chewed her bottom lip. She wished Cody would open up to her. All she really knew about her family was that her parents had separated when she was much younger. She had no idea whether Cody got along with her mother, whether she had sisters or brothers, or anyone else close to her in Wellington. With a sudden pang, she wondered whether they needed to get in touch with her because of some emergency. Someone might be sick, or worse. Annabel’s thoughts strayed to her own aunt and she frowned again.

It was all very peculiar, she decided. But Cody would be around soon and no doubt she would have a simple explanation for everything.

With reluctant fingers, Cody tore open her mail and stacked her letters in an orderly pile. There were several from Janet. These accompanied a large bundle Janet had tied together to forward. Protruding from the stack, a long, white envelope with a distinctive embossed logo taunted her. Deciding to read the bad news first, Cody plucked it from the pile.

The letter was polite and to the point. It told her how much her employers had regretted the need to downsize and how they wished her all the best in her next career move. She was not to hesitate if they could assist her in any way with obtaining a new employer and to that end a reference was enclosed.

Disbelief mounting, Cody read the said reference and told herself to breathe. It was full of glowing comments about her skills, reliability and self-motivation. It promised any prospective employer that they would be getting a good deal, and it said nothing whatsoever about ninety thousand missing dollars.

They didn’t know, Cody realized with a shock. It was almost anticlimactic. Here she was convincing herself that she would have to leave the islands—probably in the dead of night in a cargo boat—change identity, dye her hair, get a tattoo. But no. Those incompetents in the accounting division hadn’t even noticed the discrepancy. How typical!

Almost drunk with relief, she leaned heavily into the sofa and took a moment to breathe. She could stay! Maybe they would just write the discrepancy off as some mysterious accounting glitch, and it would be swallowed, like most things inexplicable, in the mists of time.

“Fat chance,” she muttered to herself. Come the audit, they would leap on that extra zero like a shoal of piranhas and that would be the end of Cody Stanton’s life of crime. Shuddering, she wondered how long she had.

Janet’s letters were mostly gossip and complaints about the miserable winter weather. Cody was reaching the end of them when a name leapt out at her. Margaret. She had phoned and asked for Cody’s address. She wants to see you, Janet had written in her scrawling purple ink. She says there’s something she needs to talk about. According to Janet she seemed upset that Cody had gone without discussing her plans.

Cody snorted. Since when did you call your ex-lover—the one who had just traded you in for beefcake—and say, By the way, dear, I’m so traumatized about the way you’ve treated me that I’m leaving for a month’s peace and quiet on a tropical island. Here’s the address.

What a nerve! And to cap it off, Scott, her bloke, also had an opinion to share. Margaret says Scott is truly concerned. He cares about you, too. Janet had written puke! next to this in big purple letters, along with the comment, I told her to go fuck herself, of course. Cody felt like ripping that page up and ritually burning it. Scott cares, too…How touching, how very liberal of him. What a prince.

“Jerk,” she said, and wondered all over again how a woman of Margaret’s intelligence could have been taken in by a BMW and a bunch of smarmy platitudes. Scott Drysdale was about as plausible as the Animal Liberation Front browsing a fur shop.

What did Margaret want? she wondered. Their coffee machine, or maybe half the bed linen? Perhaps she’d discovered her precious Ferron tape missing. Cody allowed herself a smug little smile. As it happened, a few of Margaret’s most cherished collector’s items had found their way out of the boxes of music she had packed and into the stuff Cody had donated to the City Mission before she left. Shame.

Petty, a little voice prodded, very petty. Ignoring it, Cody continued reading her mail. There was no other long, white envelope, no court summons, no letter from a law firm. Nothing. Cody wished the queasy feeling in her stomach would leave. It was ridiculous. She had some breathing space. They hadn’t found out yet, but she almost wished they had. At least then she wouldn’t be faced with another week of uncertainty, of waiting for the ax to fall.

The truth was, she was fed up with thinking about the wretched money. None of this trivia should be able to interfere with her holiday, but it did. Here she was, preparing to go round to a new lover’s house for the evening, probably the night, and all she could think about was a briefcase full of banknotes in her best friend’s bedroom.

Poor Janet. What if she found out? What if she was somehow caught with the loot? That would make her an accessory. Cody cringed. Theirs was an indestructible friendship, and Janet would love her no matter what—but arrested? That could be pushing her luck.

Cody cleared the pile of letters away and went inside. Looking around her bedroom, she couldn’t help but smile rather foolishly. The bed was a shameless mess, mattress askew, sheets untucked, and duvet languishing on the floor.

Annabel’s tank watch and some small pearl studs sat on the window ledge and Cody examined them with careful fingers. She sighed, felt a telltale wetness between her legs and poked her head out the window to search the sky. She wanted to go ’round to Villa Luna now. She wanted to hold Annabel, bury herself in her. The strength of her feelings struck her like a physical blow. It’s a holiday romance, she tried to tell herself, a brief intense encounter, safe because it offers no future.

She had never had a fling, although there’d been no shortage of offers. Her only other lover apart from Margaret had been her first—May, thoughtful, introspective and academic. They had met as students, both in Women’s Studies. May had offered to help Cody with an essay, then calmly seduced her. Their relationship lasted nearly two years until May returned with her parents to Canada. By that time they were more like close friends than lovers, and Cody was not even entirely sure how the transition had occurred.

She had never fully understood the dynamics of that relationship. She had nothing to measure it against. May never asked for monogamy, but Cody hadn’t imagined anything else. At first she had been shocked to find May had other lovers, and she was also puzzled at her choices—always a new lesbian.

“It’s my duty,” May had told her very seriously. “Women coming out need careful handling, a happy introduction to lesbianism. It’s the least I can offer.”

It sounded hilarious but May had been deadly serious. In retrospect, Cody, too, was grateful for that careful handling.

May had a child now, a three-year-old daughter. She lived with her lover in Montreal. Come and see us, she had written to Cody earlier in the year. Cody thought about that invitation. It was summer over there now, she supposed. Montreal sounded like a great place to visit, and with Canada being a Commonwealth country, she would be able to get an extended visa. It wasn’t such a bad idea.

She tried to picture herself sharing May’s spare room with whatever waifs and strays were passing through her home at the time. People borrowing her jeans, her CDs, her car keys. Helping themselves to her vitamins, eating her personal cache of ice cream. I’m too old for that shit. She and Margaret had just saved enough for a house, and over the past few months Cody had started looking at real estate, thrilled that they could stop renting at last.

But Margaret had emptied their savings account the day before she left. If she and Scott were going to buy a place together, she would need it, she said when Cody confronted her. It was not like Cody could afford a mortgage on her own, anyway. Margaret would pay it back as soon as she could, which—knowing her ex’s spending habits—would be when hell froze over. Cody knew she should hire a lawyer, but the thought of having to recount the sorry truth of her own stupidity to a stranger was too humiliating by far.

Feeling angry with herself over this feeble cop out, she gathered up her bikini and headed off to Passion Bay. She would have to make a few tough decisions about Margaret before much longer. Meanwhile, she had just enough time for a swim before she went to Annabel’s.

Chapter Thirteen

“So here you are!”

Cody rolled over and squinted into the fading sun. “How was Avarua?” she asked.

“Hot.” Annabel lowered herself onto the sand.

She wore her dark glasses and big shady hat. Cody couldn’t see enough of her face to tell what she was thinking, but her voice seemed strained. All that flying backward and forward. It was no wonder. “Why don’t you take some time off?” she suggested, “Couldn’t Bevan fill in for a few days?”

“Bevan has enough to do. It’s not his job to run the island as well.”

“What about the other owners? If people want to rent their places out why should you have to be responsible?”

Annabel’s mouth tightened slightly. “It’s a long story. Right now, I don’t feel like going into it. Okay?”

Cody shrugged and backed off a little. “I guess I was just wondering why you have to fly into Rarotonga with some man all the time. I’m jealous already.”

This drew a brief smile. “You’re welcome to come along any time you want. We could do with the extra ballast.”

Cody cringed dramatically. “Forget it. I’ll only be flying in that antique when I absolutely have to.”

“It’s not so bad,” Annabel defended. She was about to add that she had been flying the Dominie herself but thought the better of it, envisaging Cody torturing herself with lurid plane crash fantasies. Extending a hand, she caressed the flat plane of Cody’s stomach, hooking her thumb into the narrow bikini briefs.

“Nude sunbathing is allowed here, you know.”

“You don’t say.” Cody lifted her hips slightly to enable the briefs to be discarded. Her top soon followed and Annabel stretched out alongside her, sliding her hands the length of Cody’s body.

“You’re delicious,” she murmured, stifling an unwelcome pang of guilt. She had come down to the beach to show Cody the poster and ask her what was going on, not to make love to her.

But the air was very warm and a mild breeze rustled the palms. The shadows were deepening around them. Soon the sky would flush pink and the first stars would appear. Annabel didn’t want to let precious hours slip away talking about something she already knew would only raise another barrier between them. They had so little time left together, she was loath to spoil the mood.

The thought jolted her. So little time…

“Cody,” she paused in between kissing her shoulders. “When do you have to go back home?”

Cody’s gray eyes took a moment to focus. “Home?” She sat up, gathered her towel about her, and examined Annabel’s face with a guarded expression. “I’m leaving the island in fifteen days.”

Annabel groaned inwardly. So much for not spoiling the mood. She slid an arm around Cody’s shoulders. “Sorry, that was about as romantic as a tuna sandwich before bed.”

“It’s okay,” Cody said. “I’ve been thinking about it, too.” She tried to sound blasé. “You know the kind of thing. Will we ever see each other again or are these just a couple of weeks we won’t be telling our grandchildren about in years to come.”

She got to her feet, tied the towel around her waist and shook the sand out of her hair. Her skin had already tanned a rich caramel brown, except for her breasts, which clearly showed the marks of her bikini.

She was upset. Annabel sensed her change of mood and felt her own confusion surface. “Cody.” She scrambled to her feet and reached for her arm. “This is not just a holiday fling for me. I want you to know that.”

Cody turned to face her, eyes darkening to rain cloud gray. She started to say something, then seemed to change her mind and shrugged half-heartedly. “Let’s not make this complicated.” The words sounded odd, stilted, “I mean, this is the grownups.”

“What are you saying? That you want nothing more than a meaningless affair?”

Cody lowered her gaze, screening the feelings her face invariably betrayed.

Her silence frustrated Annabel. “Cody, I don’t want to say goodbye to you in a week or so and never lay eyes on you again.”

“Well, what do you want then?”

“I want to give whatever is happening between us a chance.” She tightened her grip on Cody’s arm. “Why are you being so defensive? I’m not Margaret.”

Cody stared down at the fingers and shook her head slowly. “Oh, Annabel. It’s just so complicated.”

“I wish you would trust me.” Annabel drew closer. She wanted Cody to speak to her, tell her of her own volition whatever had to be told. Annabel could sense an internal struggle in her, something hidden. It raised a wall between them that would have to come down if they were to have any chance of building something more than a holiday romance. And Annabel wanted that chance. She wanted it badly.

But she was pushing Cody too hard, she realized, demanding a level of trust there had not been time to establish. And, not surprisingly, Cody was running in the opposite direction. That was what the mixed messages were about. Annabel loosened her hold and reached up to stroke Cody’s hair. This was one woman she didn’t want to frighten off. The police notice could wait and so could the deep and meaningful conversation.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this is hard for you. I just want to help. That’s all.”

“I know.” Cody’s shoulders relaxed and she leaned against Annabel, linking her hands in the small of her back. “I have to figure some things out for myself. One day, when it’s all ancient history, I’ll tell you about it.”

“So, you’re planning on us knowing one another past next week then?”

A flash of wicked humor erased the despondency from Cody’s expression. “Only if you’re good,” she said.

Laughing, Annabel imprisoned Cody’s wrists behind her back. With her mouth impossibly close to Cody’s, she said, “I think we both know I can be very, very good.”

“Where did you grow up, Cody?” Annabel asked later that night.

“On a farm,” Cody responded drowsily and nuzzled Annabel’s breast. “Near a little town called Waipukurau. Until I was twelve.”

“And then?”

“In Wellington city. The place with the permanent wind machine.”

“Your family moved?”

“No. My mother did, when she separated from my father.”

“Any sisters or brothers?”

“Just one brother,” Cody said quietly. “He was killed in a car accident when I was eighteen.”

Annabel felt her stiffen, caught the unmistakable edge of grief in her voice. Instinctively she tightened her embrace. “You were close?”

“Twins,” Cody said. “When my parents separated Charles stayed with dad, and we only saw each other on the holidays. It was awful. Up ’til then we had done everything together. We had a lot of fun.” She smiled, memories flooding. “One thing we used to do was dress up in each other’s clothes and fool people, even our teachers. We looked so alike, you see.”

“That must have been incredible.” Annabel was clearly fascinated by the idea. “Did you notice any difference in how people treated you when you were dressed as a boy?”

“Hell, yes! One thing that really got me was putting up my hand in class. When I was dressed as Charles, I always got picked to answer questions or volunteer. Normally I could have chopped my arm off and thrown it at the teacher and she wouldn’t have noticed me.”

“They say boys get more teacher time,” Annabel said. “What about at home?”

“We couldn’t get away with it around Mom. She always knew. But it was a different story with Dad.” She thought about her father, always distracted with something.

Back then, when Cody had asked her mother why she was leaving him, she had said it was because of her hair. She’d had dyed it blonde.

But what’s wrong with that? twelve-year-old Cody had demanded.

Your father doesn’t like it.

So who cares what he thinks? Cody had stamped her foot. Anyway it’s been like that for months now.

That’s the whole point, Cordelia, her mother said in her quiet way. He only just noticed.

Cody shook herself back to the present. “Dad was always too busy to spend time with us. I suppose back then men didn’t anyway. You know, they left the kids to their wife.”

“Not always,” Annabel said. “My Dad used to take me out to all kinds of places and sometimes we went on vacation without Mother. She’s not an outdoors person. So if it involved boats or camping, she always stayed home.”

“Do they know you’re gay?” Cody asked.

“Yes. It wasn’t the best news they ever had, but I think they’re coming to terms with it.” Abruptly, as if uncomfortable talking about her family, she returned the conversation to Cody. “Tell me, what was it like growing up in your country?”

For a moment Cody hesitated, wanting to know more about Annabel’s world. But she was worried her questions might seem intrusive, so she replied, “I’ve never given it much thought. New Zealand’s a small place, and Waipukurau is what you might call a one-horse town. It’s the kind of place the film crews hire to make retro commercials and they don’t have to change a thing.” She snuggled closer and ran her hand over Annabel’s warm curves. “It’s a beautiful country, Annabel, all green and natural. Tourists go wild about it, but I guess when you live there you take it for granted. We call it Godzone.”

“And you’re called Kiwis aren’t you, like the fruit?”

“That’s right. But in reality the Kiwi is a rather fat flightless bird that sleeps all day and comes out at night.”

“Sounds like half of San Francisco,” Annabel quipped. “So what sort of things did you do as a kid?”

“God, that’s so long ago...I went to school on a decrepit bus that stopped at the farm gate. There were only sixty kids in the entire school, and show and tell usually meant bringing your pet lamb or demonstrating how to make cheese. Later on I went to a girls’ boarding school, which is where my father thinks I got these lesbian ideas—as one does.”

“You had a crush on the sports captain?”

“I was the sports captain.” Cody laughed. “I think maybe the best part of my childhood was playing with my brother. We did the usual stupid stuff—like trying to blow up the neighbor’s mailbox with fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day, and driving Dad’s Land Rover into the river when we were ten.”

“Guy Fawkes Day?”

“It’s a British thing. Four hundred years ago a bunch of Catholics tried to blow up the English Parliament along with King James. Their leader was Guy Fawkes. He got caught and they executed him in the usual gruesome manner and ever since, people celebrate the whole deal. We build bonfires and burn effigies. There are all kinds of fireworks and parties. No one’s really sure whether it’s the poor bastard’s execution we’re meant to be celebrating or his attempt to overthrow the government.”

“Astonishing,” Annabel said. “And you do this even though you’re not actually in England?”

Cody nodded. “It’s one of those colonial hangovers. Lately it’s been going out of fashion because New Zealand banned fireworks. But it was bigger than Christmas when I was a kid. Kind of like the Fourth of July for you folks.”

“Your childhood sounds amazing.”

There was a wistful note in Annabel’s voice. In the moonlight her expression was hard to fathom, but Cody had a strong sense of some deep, unspoken sorrow. Not everyone had happy memories of childhood, she reminded herself, even people like Annabel who seemed to be born with the world served up on a platter.

“How about you?” Cody asked the most innocuous question she could think of. “Were you born in Boston?”

Annabel opened her mouth to say yes, but paused as that image repeated in her consciousness—herself on a woman’s knee, playing with something shiny. “I’ve lived there ever since I can remember,” she answered.

“Were you happy?”

“I had everything a child could want.” Annabel thought of her huge doll collection, her pony, her vast wardrobe of expensive dresses. She felt her eyes sting suddenly.

“Mmmm,” Cody nodded sleepily. “But were you happy?”

“Happy?” Annabel felt her heart thump erratically. Of course she was happy. She had the perfect family, didn’t she? The beautiful people, Clare had always called her parents. Annabel had the kind of life that was the envy of most children, certainly nothing to complain about. She had always scorned the poor-little-rich-girl syndrome. She was lucky and she knew it. But happy?

“Not really,” she admitted in a whisper. “No, I wasn’t happy.”

“It must have been a drag being an only child,” Cody said.

“That was part of it. I tried too hard to be a good girl, I think. There wasn’t much room for fun.”

Cody did not reply, and listening to her deep even breathing, Annabel knew she had fallen asleep. For a long while she lay there, restlessly revisiting the past. Plagued by that image of the faceless woman with the shiny object, she turned onto her stomach and cuddled her pillow. The longer she spent on the island, the more she learned about Annie’s past, and the greater the uneasiness that lurked in the back of her mind.

Chapter Fourteen

Cody dug her toes into the wet sand and gazed at the horizon. The beach was deserted, the sun too newly risen to have gathered strength. Wading along the water’s edge, she was lost in thought. A week. She and Annabel had been lovers for a week, and already Cody could not conceive of a future without her.

But what kind of future did they have? Since that uneasy conversation on the beach a few days ago, they had avoided the topic entirely. It was as if they had reached an unspoken accord to live only for the moment. They spent most of their time together and found that they had the oddest things in common. They both liked their eggs barely cooked and without salt, they had both broken their collarbones when they were eight, each had stamp collections they could not bear to part with.

Cody was often conscious of Annabel’s lavender eyes on her, a question in their depths—and something else. Sadness? She could not be sure. Cody felt confused, torn. When she was with Annabel she was gloriously happy, her flesh singing. When they made love she surrendered herself totally to the experience, feeling a powerful sense of belonging.

Sometimes she fancied irrationally that she had been waiting for Annabel all her life, that nothing mattered until now. In those moments she knew with startling clarity exactly what she wanted, marveled at the meaningless trivia of her life, hated herself for doubting the future, for all the fears that surfaced every time she was alone.

“I’m falling in love with her,” she said to the ocean as a wave broke around her feet. “What shall I do?”

She had lost count of the times she had framed a sentence, rehearsed her story, preparing to tell Annabel about the money. But somehow the moment never seemed quite right. There was always some reason to put it off. Some excuse, Cody corrected. Coward, she thought angrily. It was not that she didn’t trust Annabel—or was it?

When Margaret left, Cody had felt the trust seep out of her, leaving a hollowness deep inside and a compulsion to protect herself. Now she had spent the past week exposing herself physically with an abandonment that shocked her. Yet all the while she knew she was pushing Annabel away emotionally. She couldn’t carry on like that if she wanted their relationship to have a chance. It was time she stopped hiding behind the excuse of the money secret and started being honest.

Cody paused and stared into the blue horizon. In that moment she knew with absolute certainty what she must do.

“I need to come into Rarotonga with you today,” Cody announced over coffee.

A flutter of apprehension stirred Annabel’s insides. “Fine,” she said calmly.

She resisted the urge to ask Cody why. Having sex with a woman did not mean owning her, and at the moment sex seemed to be all she did have with Cody. A reticence surfaced in her every time Annabel attempted to come close, and she had learned that confronting her only exacerbated the situation. With unsteady fingers, she poured another aromatic cup of coffee and wondered what Cody planned to do in Rarotonga.

“I need to drop by home and pick up a few things before we leave.” Cody said, hastily draining her cup.

Annabel felt that familiar churning in the pit of her stomach as she watched Cody slip into her sandals. She was wearing outrageously short shorts and a clinging white T-shirt that emphasized her perfect torso and the deep tan she had acquired since coming to the island. Her limbs were smooth and muscular, and Annabel was suddenly flooded with images of her naked, of the two of them entwined in fierce passion, of her face saturated with sweat and Cody.

Don’t leave me, she implored wordlessly, then felt humiliated. Nothing had prepared her for this—she felt almost dependent. It was an unexpected development and one she did not welcome. Annabel wondered if it was some kind of sex addiction. It happened. And after all, she’d been celibate for almost a year before coming to the island and she was still withdrawing from the adrenalin highs of her job. She didn’t need to repeat that addictive pattern in her relationships. It was destructive and ultimately unsatisfying—short-term gratification, nothing more. Not that there was anything wrong with having sex for plain enjoyment, no strings attached.

But she had been there and done that. She wanted more this time. She wanted to be close to Cody. She wanted the intense intimacy they experienced in lovemaking to extend to other levels. Yet for that to be possible Cody had to trust her, and Annabel was beginning to despair of that ever happening. Sometimes she felt like grabbing her and shaking her, yelling that she wasn’t the only one who was scared. That she didn’t have the monopoly on baggage from past relationships, that nothing she was hiding could be any worse than some of Annabel’s less appetizing exploits.

Annabel could not shake a sense of unease about Cody’s sudden decision to come to Rarotonga. It had to be something serious. She would not make that dreaded flight on a whim. Fearing that whatever potential their relationship had was about to be lost on some stupid technicality or false assumption, Annabel said, “Please tell me what this is about.”

Cody gazed at her blankly. “What do you mean?”

“If there’s an errand you need to do, maybe I can help… you know, spare you the flight from hell.”

Cody shook her head. “No, thanks anyway. I need to do this myself.”

“I’m not stupid, Cody.” Annabel struggled to dampen down her frustration. “I know you have stuff to resolve, and I don’t expect you to discuss your personal affairs with me. But maybe there’s something I can do.”

“You can’t. Trust me.”

Was it all about pride? Annabel wondered. Was Cody stubborn about accepting help because she did not want to feel beholden? Sensitive to the disparity in their situations, Annabel had told Cody almost nothing about her true financial position. She knew Cody perceived her as having resources—a nice house, a profession—but nothing that could create an impasse between them. From their conversations she knew Cody saw a similar future for herself, only she would have to buy her house instead of inheriting it. She had teased Annabel about this, but it was light-hearted.

Yet if Cody had a financial problem, Annabel wanted her to know she could help. Taking a risk, she said, “If you need some money—”

“I don’t.” Cody flushed.

“I know things can be tough financially after a breakup,” Annabel said. “I’m only saying I could lend you whatever you need.”

“Thanks. That’s really nice of you. But I’m fine.” Cody avoided looking directly at her. Dropping a quick hard kiss on Annabel’s mouth she said, “See you at the strip.”

Looking for distraction in the two hours she had to kill before the flight, Annabel decided to sort out once and for all why Aunt Annie had insisted that she come to Moon Island. She had allowed herself to become so absorbed by Cody over the past week, she had given the mystery little time. And, if she were completely honest with herself, she had been relieved to have an excuse to abandon those uncomfortable forays into her aunt’s private world. No matter how much she told herself that Aunt Annie wouldn’t have written that letter if she hadn’t wanted Annabel to do what she was doing, it still felt underhanded and voyeuristic.

With reluctant fingers, she opened the diary to where she had hurriedly closed it a week ago.

I am so fed up with this great big stomach and constant rushing to the bathroom. Rebecca is very patient with me, the dear angel. No matter how crotchety and unreasonable my demands, she is all tenderness. Sometimes I feel so frightened about having the baby and I hate the way my body is out of control. The doctor says I have only a week or so to endure this discomfort and I have certainly reached the stage where I shall sing and dance the day I feel my first pains. Rebecca has already engaged a nurse for the baby and we have chosen a list of names, all girls’!

Annabel slid a bookmark into the diary and dropped it heavily onto her knee. Her heart was racing. She felt dizzy, a little nauseated. Aunt Annie had had a baby. She couldn’t believe it. What had happened to the child? Was there a child?

Agitated, she began flicking through the pages to catch phrases, words.

… took so long...weak… The baby is so beautiful, the most beautiful baby in the world… Rebecca is besotted. We are calling her Lucy… leaving for Moon Island tomorrow...so tired but Lucy is a vision…

The entire diary was full of Lucy. Lucy’s first smile, sitting up, eating solids, first words, starting to walk. Annabel’s hands were shaking uncontrollably by the time she reached the final page. Her whole body felt slippery with perspiration.

Lucy! She had never heard anyone mention a cousin. They’d be the same age this year—thirty-three. Annabel felt momentary outrage, quickly followed by pain. She thought of her huge toy-filled bedroom, the inanimate playmates that had substituted for other children, the desperate loneliness of her growing up.

From the time she was a small child, she had been so painfully shy about her appearance that she had trouble making friends. People had never meant to be cruel. She came to realize that eventually. But their comments and stares had made her profoundly self-conscious. The sensitive child she had been was forced deep into a protective shell.

How different it would have been if she’d had a sister, a cousin, to grow up with—Lucy. Annabel bit her lip and located her aunt’s next diary. For a moment she sat just holding it, a curious heaviness settling on her chest. When she opened it, she could not put it down and read solidly until the sound of an engine intruded on her consciousness.

“Damn.” She got to her feet and peered out the window. The Dominie made a low pass over the Villa then out above Passion Bay, wheeling westward for the approach to the Marama Bay landing strip.

Annabel pictured Cody waiting at the strip and felt a flare of anger. Her taciturn behavior this morning had been downright hurtful, and Annabel was not in the mood to spend the next two hours sitting in silence with her. She could delay going into Rarotonga, she decided. There were plenty of supplies and she had more important things to do. If Cody didn’t like it, too bad. She hadn’t exactly welcomed Annabel’s attempts to treat her like she was more than a fling. In fact, she seemed to be going out of her way to ensure their relationship would never exist outside the bedroom.

Resolutely Annabel marched into the kitchen and lifted the hand-piece from her radio set.

“Annabel won’t be coming,” Bevan Mitchell informed Cody as she tossed her bag into the cabin. “You’re invited to dinner with her when you get back.”

Cody raised her eyebrows. “Thanks,” she said stiffly.

She could not help but glance across her shoulder in the direction of Annabel’s house. Was she all right? It was not like Annabel to skip her chores on Raro. Conscious of a curious pull, she was tempted to abandon her plans and head straight for Villa Luna. But common sense got the better of her. If Annabel wasn’t well or needed her, she would have said so. They weren’t joined at the hip. Telling herself to act maturely, Cody clambered aboard the Dominie.

“Business in Rarotonga?” Bevan observed as he taxied the plane around to prepare for takeoff.

“A little.” She caught his quizzical look, but would not be drawn, instead making a show of reading her book.

She had no idea what it said on the page. All she could see was Annabel’s face, shadowed with misgiving. She should have answered her questions, Cody realized belatedly. She owed her some kind of an explanation, even if it left out crucial details. Every time Annabel tried to reach her, Cody was aware that she withdrew, keeping an artificial distance between them that denied her own emotional reality. This she justified in terms of keeping her secret safe. Yet she knew there was another reason.

The truth was she was afraid of making herself vulnerable, of Annabel somehow finding her wanting and rejecting her. They were from such different worlds. Cody was acutely conscious that she had almost nothing to offer a new relationship—Margaret had torn so much away from her, materially and emotionally. Gazing down at the watery infinity far below, she was gripped by a tugging sensation so intense it made her gasp. It was as if she were bound to Annabel by some mysterious force. The strain of parting wrenched at her gut, unleashing a flood of sense memories—of Annabel wetly astride her, of their bodies sated, entwined, yet still craving.

She slumped in her seat, the paperback sliding from her hands. She knew she had a choice—either she could run away, deluding herself that it was for the best, or she could take the chance Fate had thrown her way. A woman like Annabel happened once in a lifetime. Only a blithering idiot would slink off into the night, paralyzed by some temporary loss of self-confidence. She could not allow the past to impact so profoundly on her future, whatever it might hold.

When she got back to Moon Island later that day, she would speak to Annabel. Maybe she wouldn’t tell her absolutely everything. But she would be honest about her feelings and her fears. What did she have to lose?

Cody managed not to scream or otherwise make a fool of herself during the rest of the flight, however she did gulp a much needed breath as they touched down.

“There. Not so bad now, was it?” Bevan pronounced with the confidence of a dentist extracting a tooth.

Cody grunted a response and refrained from kissing the ground.

“I’ll see you back here at four then,” he said as she headed for the terminal.

It seemed to take forever to buy a return ticket to Auckland.

“For tomorrow?” The agent seemed suspicious of her haste. Cody figured most people made their travel arrangements a little further in advance.

“It’s a family emergency,” she said.

“The outbound flights are full. You’ll have to go on standby.”

“Fine.” Cody knew she sounded as doleful as she felt.

He took a long hard look at her, then said, “Just a minute,” and vanished with her passport into a room behind the counter.

Cody’s stomach gurgled with nerves. Was this it? she wondered. Was she about to be handcuffed and read her rights? Did criminals have any rights here? She flicked a sweeping glance around the terminal, tempted to make a break for it. Bevan knew these islands. She could ask him to fly her somewhere she would never be found. Maybe she could pick fruit or dive for pearls or something.

“We found a cancellation and you’re booked,” the clerk said keying in data. “Check in is at four p.m.” He asked all the usual questions, then handed back her passport and asked her to check the itinerary before he printed out the tickets. There was no sign of nervous agitation in his demeanor, no hint that he might be setting her up.

Feeling like she had just slipped through a dragnet, Cody paid her money and stuffed the tickets into her bag. With a polite thank you, she fled the terminal, heady with relief.

To her surprise, Bevan was already at the Dominie when she got there. He had said he would be in Avarua picking up their fruit order, but it looked like Smithy had already completed the chore. Puzzled, she watched him stacking cargo in the hangar instead of the plane.

“We won’t be going back today,” he answered her unspoken question. “Fuel problems. Looks like there’s water in it, and God knows what else. Someone forgot to clean the barrel out. Happens all the time.”

“Can’t we get the fuel from somewhere else?”

He rolled his eyes eloquently. “We could, but the problem is that we’ve already refueled. So the lines are contaminated. I just tested her and—” He slid a finger across his throat.

“But I have to get back today.” She didn’t add that her flight to New Zealand left the next morning.

“There’s no chance of that. I have to drain the fuel lines, filter the damned stuff, and test-run the motors for at least half an hour. We’ll be lucky if she’s airworthy before tomorrow lunchtime, and Smithy’s off shortly.”

Cody raised frantic eyes. “Can’t I help? I know something about motors.”

Bevan shook his head. “She’s not a car. I’ll book you in at The Rarotongan and give you a call tomorrow when we’re ready to roll.”

“Damn it! I don’t believe this.” Cody surveyed the little silver plane with disgust. “Does anyone else round here fly charter?”

“Not to Moon,” Bevan said. “And I already checked to see if I could get you something on spec.”

“Shit.” Cody wiped away the sweat that was gathering across her brow.

“Sorry, kid,” Bevan said. “Even if we could get her going today we’d be flying at night and there’s no way we could land. You’ve seen the strip. There’s not a marking on it, much less lights.”

Cody pulled a deep shaky breath. “I know. It’s just that I’m leaving for New Zealand tomorrow morning, and I really need to speak to Annabel before I go.”

Bevan’s face was impassive. “There’s a short-wave transmitter here. We could try radioing her.”

Cody gripped his arm. “Thank you. Yes! The radio!”

She hovered impatiently as Bevan signaled, “Moon. Moon Radio. This is Dominie two-one-eight-five. Come in please. Come in Moon. Do you read me… Repeat do you read me? Over.”

There was nothing, just an occasional pulse of static. He tried again.

“Looks like Moon is out of range today,” he noted. “It depends on the weather. Why don’t you keep trying while I finish getting this stuff in the hangar?”

He showed Cody how the radio worked and left her to it. After a fruitless hour, she flopped into a chair and stared listlessly out at the day.

“No luck?” Bevan joined her, taking a couple of beers from a decrepit refrigerator and handing one to her.

“If they had decent phones out there I could call her,” Cody muttered. “But no. That would be too simple. That island must be the only place on earth that still has those ancient crank handle things.”

“Miss Adams liked to keep things the way they were. The simpler life… you know.”

“Island madness,” Cody said. “I always wondered what that term meant. Now I know—no phone, no TV, and no clue what’s going on in the rest of the world.”

Between sips of beer, Bevan radioed the island a few more times then said, “I’ll take you over to the hotel.”

Cody hesitated, then gave in. There didn’t seem to be any alternative.

Chapter Fifteen

It was first light when Annabel finally stopped reading through her aunt’s letters and diaries, but the beauty of the new day was lost on her. Dazed, she went into the kitchen and mechanically brewed a pot of extra strength espresso.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she had registered something odd about yesterday. Her eyes strayed past the handset on her bureau, and she remembered. The Dominie. She hadn’t heard it return. It was possible she had been so absorbed in her reading she hadn’t noticed the familiar throaty hum of the flyover, but she doubted it. Besides, Cody hadn’t arrived for dinner, and Annabel couldn’t imagine her just not turning up.

With stiff fingers she poured coffee into her mug and carelessly gulped the hot, bitter liquid. She felt curiously numb, assailed by a sense of unreality. Her eyes swept the living area, halting at a large portrait of Aunt Annie. Why? she asked wordlessly. Craving some fresh air, she stalked out onto the verandah and stood propped against the rail, gazing absently out to sea.

The morning breeze was unexpectedly cool, making her skin goosebump. She took a deep breath, drawing in the rich, honey musk scent of frangipani and the sweet sharpness of lime. On the slopes below, spires of rose-tinted creamy flowers clouded the mango trees, rising like clusters of spicy candles from the glistening wine-tinted leaves. This place was drowning in flowers, she thought.

Her head felt foggy with fragrance, overcrowded with a crush of fragmented memories.

Her father. Poor Ann… more unstable by the year.

Her mother. Don’t be so hard on her, Theo, she’s had a difficult time.

A “difficult time”. Understatement of the year. Engaged to a man whose advances she detested and who had finally raped her, resulting in a pregnancy—in Lucy. Annie had moved to Moon Island after the baby was born and for almost two years she and Rebecca had lived in absolute bliss. Her diaries so clearly documented her happiness, her absolute passion for Rebecca, the magic of their time together.

Just after Lucy’s second birthday, Rebecca reluctantly traveled to New York for her brother’s wedding and to attend to what Annie had described as “family matters.” Annie had wanted to accompany her, but Lucy had just recovered from a fever and the two women decided the long trip by steamer and airplane would be too difficult for the toddler.

Two months later Rebecca was killed in a car accident, only days before she was due to return. By the time Annie learned what had happened, her lover had already been buried.

Rebecca’s family contested her will, in which everything had been left to Annie. And they won, for Annie was so devastated she simply couldn’t face a legal battle. Fortunately for her, the “family matters” Rebecca had mentioned included transferring Moon Island and a substantial portion of her investments entirely into Annie’s name, transactions uncannily completed in the week before her death. Much of Annie’s wealth had originated with these assets.

Shattered by her loss, Annie traveled back home to Boston. What happened there Annabel could only guess. Her aunt had left no diaries for almost ten years. Annabel turned the house upside down, opening roll after roll of letters, skimming through every paper she could find. It was as though the missing years did not exist. And, worst of all, it seemed that Lucy had disappeared off the face of the earth. The child was never mentioned again.

Annabel gazed into the glare of the morning, hands pressed to her throbbing temples. She felt choked, but unable to cry. She could remember times with her aunt, stilted conversations over dinner, her parents looking on with mask-like smiles and another emotion in their eyes. Anger? Fear?

Aunt Annie had once invited her to Moon Island, but her parents had forbidden the trip, and the invitation had never been repeated. On one of the rare occasions she had been alone with her aunt as a child, Annabel could remember glowing with pleasure at her kind words, her support. They had talked for hours, Annabel confiding her worst fears about being shunned because of her albinism, about feeling unloved and unlovable. She remembered now what Annie had said. Love is always there for us. But we have to look it in the face, expose our tender self. Sometimes it’s easier to hide.

As time went by, Annabel developed a special bond with her aunt and made it her business to see her as often as she could. Annie divided her time between San Francisco and her beloved island, and after graduation, Annabel became her aunt’s frequent guest at the Russian Hill apartment. It was Annie who shared her grief over the breakup with Clare. Yet never once had she mentioned her own tragedy, her life with Rebecca, her child.

Annabel felt oddly hurt by this. Annie had loved her, yet apparently she had not trusted her enough to share these secrets. Did she think Annabel would judge her as harshly as others had? Why was Lucy never spoken of? Had something awful happened to her?

Exhausted, Annabel took a shower and crawled into bed. Despite the coffee, she could not keep her eyes open. She would sleep, she decided. Then she would go find Cody. It was time they talked.

Annabel glanced about her and realized her feet had carried her automatically to Hibiscus Villa.

“Cody,” she called. The door was locked. Annabel sat down on the verandah.

They must have stayed in Rarotonga for some reason, her common sense informed her. What if they hadn’t? What if something was wrong? A wild panic gripped her and she bolted back along the path. She was panting hard by the time she reached her front door. Heart pounding, she rushed inside and radioed Bevan Mitchell.

The response was immediate. “Moon Radio. This is Dominie two-one-eight-five. I read you. Over.”

“Where are you?” Annabel burst out. “Over!”

“At five hundred feet. Twelve o’clock high. Out.”

Annabel slammed down the set and marched outside just in time to see the little plane circle her house and then carry on to the airstrip. Furious, she stalked back indoors, gathered up her riding gear, and headed straight for Kahlo’s stable.

“Where the hell have you been?” She glared at Bevan.

He pulled on his cigarette. “Don’t tell me you thought I’d gone and committed suicide out there. I’m touched.”

Annabel bit her lip. She was behaving like an idiot. Distractedly, she demanded. “Where’s Cody?”

Bevan removed the cigarette and Annabel noticed him stiffen. “She left this morning,” he said quietly.

“Left?” Annabel’s mouth went dry.

“We tried to make radio contact with you yesterday and again this morning, but we couldn’t raise you.” He felt about in his shirt and produced a folded slip of paper. “She asked me to give you this.”

Annabel stared down at it for a moment, then stuffed it into her pocket.

“She seemed upset,” the pilot added carefully.

“Did she—” Annabel tried to frame a question.

“She was traveling back to New Zealand,” Bevan told her. “That’s all I know. I’m sorry.”

Annabel gave him a nod, then, on shaking legs, mounted Kahlo and reined her toward the beach. “I won’t be coming tomorrow,” she told the pilot. “There’s just one guest to meet. Can you handle everything?”

“No problem.” He started unloading the plane. “I’ll radio when we get here.”

With a brief wave of thanks, Annabel rode off.

Cody had gone. Right when she needed her. I’ve gambled and lost, Annabel reflected bitterly. It had probably been naive to expect any degree of commitment from someone who was still getting over the breakup of a long-term relationship. All the same, she felt let down. Cody had no doubt intended to come back to Moon Island last night—if only to collect her stuff from Hibiscus Villa. They would have spoken of course, and Cody would have invented some bullshit reason for her hasty departure. Whatever was really going on for her, Annabel felt sure she would be kept in the dark.

Tears stinging, she whipped Kahlo into a gallop, weaving in and out of the surf until she reached the familiar crescent of Passion Bay. She slowed only as they neared the track to Villa Luna, tethering Kahlo in the late afternoon shade of a palm.

“I’ll be back soon, girl.” She patted the mare and strolled down toward the water’s edge, reaching into her pocket for Cody’s letter. It was empty.

Frowning, Annabel stuffed her hands into every other pocket, then ran frantically up the beach. The crumpled note she finally retrieved from the tide was soaked through. A wave flopped across her feet as she peeled it open. She stared in disbelief, then she tried to laugh. But the only sound that emerged was harsh sobbing.

Cody’s writing was dispersed across the page in a mass of inky rivulets. Only the first line was legible.

I’m sorry Annabel. I wanted to tell you, but…

Chapter Sixteen

Cody woke up in a small crowded room, its windows wet with condensation, the sky beyond them a lethargic gray. Shivering, she closed her eyes and willed her surroundings to disappear. Janet was still asleep, her cheeks rosy and her long brown hair tumbling across the pillow. Studying her best friend, Cody felt a rush of affection and wished for a moment that she could have fallen in love with Janet.

Life would have been so uncomplicated. Janet was calm, happy, a great cook and enthusiastic gardener. They liked the same music, movies and sports. Their backgrounds were similar and they lived in the same city. What more could a woman want?

Cody conjured up a vision of making love with Janet. It seemed to revolve around cuddling her and stroking her hair. It felt comforting instead of exciting. She stretched out an experimental finger and touched Janet’s cheek, then wriggled a little closer so she could put an arm around her.

Janet opened sleepy eyes, smiled at Cody and moved into her arms with a sigh of contentment. “I’ve missed you so much,” she said and kissed Cody’s cheek.

“I’ve missed you, too.” Cody gently kissed her mouth.

Their eyes met. Cody caught the uncertainty in Janet’s, but she still slid her hand under her friend’s pajama jacket and stroked her back. She felt so different from Annabel; she was rounder and softer. Cody continued her exploration and kissed her again.

“Cody!” Janet pressed her hands flat against Cody’s chest, pushing her away. “What are you doing?”

Cody’s heart thumped and her head felt heavy. “I—” She wavered. What indeed? “I want to make love to you,” she said flatly.

Janet examined Cody’s face. “Are you sure? I mean, I’ve had more romantic propositions.”

Cody frowned. “I—” she began. “Oh, damn.” She rolled restlessly onto her back and heaved a profound sigh. “Hell, I’m sorry, Janet. I’m just being a schmuck.”

Janet laughed. “Well I’m about to be nominated for the idiot of the year award. If this gets out I’ll be a laughing stock at the club. The only dyke in Wellington fool enough to turn Cody Stanton down. Ever since word got out about you and Margaret, the phone’s been running hot with desperates offering me bribes to fix them up with you.”

“You’re joking!” Despite herself, Cody grinned. “With me?”

“False modesty never did suit you,” Janet said pertly. “If I could sell timeshares in your body, I’d be a rich woman.”

She paused, pulled Cody into an embrace and kissed her sensually. “See,” she said against her mouth after a moment. “Nice, but… nothing. Who is she?”

Cody met her friend’s amused brown eyes candidly. “Her name is Annabel, Annabel Worth. And she...we...”

“I see,” Janet said, with expressive eyebrows. “Tell me more.” She got out of bed, hurriedly pulling on a thick chenille robe. “Talk to me while I make coffee.”

Cody threw on some clothes and padded after her. The sight of Janet’s pink Formica kitchen table and padded chrome chairs made her feel safe somehow. “Have you ever fallen in love at first sight?” she said, plunking herself down.

“Lots of times.” Janet cranked up the coffee grinder and shoved thick slices of cinnamon bread in the toaster. “Especially with Helena Bonham Carter.”

“God.” Cody knocked her forehead playfully against the table. “I mean with someone you can actually smell.”

“Twice,” Janet said. “And as you know it was a very bad idea both times.”

“Suzannah and Connie, right?”

“Don’t let’s go there. I’ll only want to cut my wrists. So… would this be some roundabout way of telling me you’ve met the love of your life?”

Cody sighed. “She’s wonderful.”

“Which explains why you propositioned me so charmingly a few minutes ago,” Janet said with cool irony. “I’m sorry, did I miss something?”

“The toast’s ready,” Cody muttered.

Janet buttered the hot slices and stacked them on a plate. Pouring coffee into their cups, she said, “If she’s so wonderful what the hell are you doing back here?”

“It’s a long story.” Cody sipped her coffee, thankful to feel the caffeine kick in. “Promise you won’t yell at me. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“It’s that briefcase, isn’t it?” Janet’s eyes narrowed.

Two hours later Cody dialed the Personnel Manager at her ex-employer’s and booked an appointment.

“Did you tell her?” Janet asked.

“Not over the phone. I don’t want to get there and find a paddy wagon waiting.”

Janet laughed. “I’m sure the boys in blue have better things to do, like maybe catching muggers and rapists.”

Cody grinned at her. “Let’s do lunch.”

“Can you afford it?”

“I have exactly two hundred, forty-two dollars and sixty cents to my name.”

She and Janet surveyed the neatly stacked banknotes lined up along the kitchen table. Both women sighed audibly.

“Ninety thousand dollars,” Janet said. “It doesn’t look like that much, does it?”

“Just a lot of paper,” Cody said quietly.

Annabel paced her verandah restlessly, a glass of scotch in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She hadn’t smoked in years and had coughed and spluttered for the first few drags. She’d found a half-full box in one of her Aunt’s cupboards and figured they must have been left by a guest; one of Annie’s lovers, perhaps. In recent years Annie had a few, Annabel recalled. Perhaps she felt Rebecca would not have wanted her to be alone all this time.

Annabel wondered if any of them had stayed on the island and decided it was unlikely. Annie would not have brought another woman into the home she had shared with the love of her life. How did that feel? she mused. To find the love of your life. Was there only one? Did you just know when she came along that there would be no other like her? Ever. Or was it all just a myth? Could you spend your entire life looking for her, only to find somehow you missed one another—that something went wrong in the universe the day you were destined to meet? A plane was delayed or it rained and she caught a taxi instead of walking through the park where your paths should have crossed. Was it the luck of the draw, and nothing more?

It was three days since Cody had gone, and Annabel had given up wondering what else her note had said. She had interrogated the staff at the Rarotongan and lied through her teeth to Air New Zealand officials. All she had managed to elicit was that Cody Stanton had left for Auckland, New Zealand. She had given no forwarding instructions for her mail and had paid cash for her hotel room.

Annabel had contemplated going to the police but, thinking of the poster, she held back. If Cody was in any kind of trouble the last thing she wanted to do was make things worse for her.

As it happened she had little choice in the matter, for the police, finally discovering Cody had been on Moon Island, contacted her. After offering condolences on the death of her Aunt—the donor of a sea rescue craft to the local station—the young sergeant was remarkably forthcoming. He even phoned his Wellington counterparts for more information.

“A relative, Miss Margaret Redmond, wishes to contact Miss Stanton,” he explained to Annabel. “She believes Miss Stanton may be depressed, possibly suicidal. A family dispute it seems.”

Annabel kept her face impassive. “Really? Margaret Redmond?” What was Cody’s ex doing going to the police with a story like that?

“Miss Redmond said something about arranging a reconciliation,” the officer said.

Annabel felt the blood drain from her face. A reconciliation? That explained everything.

“Well, there’s nothing more for us to do now that Miss Stanton has returned home,” he said, obviously pleased to have ‘solved’ the case. “I’ll notify Wellington. Thanks for your help, Ms. Worth.”

“My pleasure,” Annabel said, her voice laced with irony.

The days that followed were a nightmare. Trying to force Cody out of her mind, Annabel had gone over her Aunt’s diaries again, scouring for more clues about what had happened after Rebecca died. In her mind she constructed version after version of the truth.

Annie had gotten a job in Boston and Lucy had died tragically of some obscure illness. Annie and Lucy had gone to live with relatives in Europe and Lucy had been killed in a drowning accident. Lucy’s fever turned out to be meningitis and she had died soon after Annie reached Boston.

If only Cody had stayed, Annabel thought distractedly as she stubbed out her cigarette. More than anything, she longed to discuss the whole mysterious business with someone else, gain another woman’s perspective. There was something blindingly obvious she was just not seeing. And somewhere in the back of her memory a faint chord registered, a phrase ran through her head over and over: She need never know.

Who had said that? Her brows knitted as fragments shifted in and out of focus. The letter Jessup had asked her about—addressed to “Lucy”; the uncanny sense of déjà vu that had beset her ever since she set foot on the island; the missing diaries; the family silence around Annie’s life and that of her child; the inheritance.

Annabel churned it over and over, poured another scotch, lit another cigarette. She was becoming obsessed. Pull yourself together, she ordered sternly. She had to stop thinking about it, creating a soap opera out of her life. Abruptly she froze, choking on a mouthful of scotch. It hit her with such blinding clarity she almost fainted.

“No,” she whispered. It wasn’t possible. It simply couldn’t be.

But every cell in her body knew.

Chapter Seventeen

Janet saw Cody off at the airport. “Well, you can’t afford a taxi, can you?” she joked innocently.

Cody held her close, “I love you.”

“Oh, Cody!” Janet clutched her. “I hope everything works out.”

Cody squeezed back tight. “Me, too.” She handed Janet a tissue and waited for her to mop up, then bent to kiss her.

“I still can’t believe they bought that story about you not looking at the amount on the check.”

“Well, I guess they figured no one in accounts noticed, so why would I?”

“You were dead lucky.” Janet slowly shook her head. “I don’t know what you were thinking. You could have gone to jail.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Cody said.

“I’ll tell you what’s a good idea. Making your scum-sucking ex give you back the money she stole. It’s time you stopped being so damned nice. That woman would take the cane from a blind man.”

“I will. Honestly. As soon as I get back,” Cody promised, entertained by her friend’s choice of phrase. Now that Margaret had proven herself to be a rat, the gloves were off. Janet could badmouth her as much as she liked.

“Be safe, and come home soon.” Janet gave her a long hard look, then smiled. “Bye for now.”

“Bye sweetie.” Cody planted a kiss on her cheek and walked through the departure gate without looking back.

Mopping sweat from her face, Cody slung her cabin bag over her shoulder and strolled toward the cargo hangers. Heat shimmered in waves across the tarmac. There was no sign of the Dominie. She checked her watch, surprised.

“You lookin’ for someone?” A small weathered man in white overalls approached her.

“Yes, is Bevan Mitchell about?” she asked politely.

“Not ’ere,” she was told. “Lad’s gone ’ome. His mum passed on.” Catching Cody’s startled eyes, he added, “He didn’t take the Dominie. She’s still ’ere. I’m the mechanic.” He wiped a hand on his overalls and held it out. “Name’s Smith. Round ’ere they call me Smithy.”

Cody shook hands gingerly. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. er… Smithy.” She shot a quick uncertain look at the sky. “So, um...who’s flying the Moon Island shuttle?”

“The lady ’erself. Miz Worth.”

Cody blanched. “Annabel?” It came out more like a loud squeak than a question.

The mechanic nodded as though humoring the simple-minded. “Miz Worth’s been flying ’er the last few days. Cap’n Mitchell taught ’er. Says she’s a natural.”

“A natural,” Cody repeated dumbly. Born to fly. And Bevan had taught her. Bastard. The thought of Annabel flying that dilapidated apology of a plane…

The old mechanic rambled on in his thick cockney English. “Nothin’ wrong with lady fliers—’Melia Earhart, Amy Johnson, Jean Batten. ’Course Cap’n Mitchell said she weren’t to fly on ’er own, but you know Miz Worth.” He seemed to laugh and cough all at once.

Cody ran a nervous hand over her hair. “Is she expected this afternoon?”

“Guess so.” He glanced up toward the sun. “Due any time, I’d say. You can rest yer bones over there.” He indicated a small bench in the shade of the hanger.

Fanning herself, Cody gratefully occupied the seat. She could barely sit still knowing she would be seeing Annabel any minute. Her stomach rolled and fluttered with anticipation. Indelible images crowded her mind—Annabel on Kahlo, her hair streaming back from her face… Annabel lying asleep beside her, flushed with passion spent. This would be a whole new beginning. No secrets, no half-truths.

She didn’t have to wait long before she detected the familiar whine of Bevan Mitchell’s pride and joy. The little silver plane landed elegantly and taxied off the runway and over toward them. Cody watched the pilot jump out and her heart turned over. Annabel wore a thin silk shirt tucked into khaki pants and a battered bomber jacket. This she removed as the heat greeted her, but she kept on her dark glasses and thin leather flying gloves.

Cody could hear her talking to the English mechanic but couldn’t make out a word they were saying. Annabel appeared to be indicating something on one wing and Smithy was poring over the flap. She looked very assured, hands on hips, attention totally absorbed by the plane. Then, as if she sensed she was being watched, she turned around and stared toward the hanger.

“Annabel!” Cody waved and hurried across the hot tarmac, overwhelmed. “Thank God. I mean—”

“Well, imagine seeing you here,” Annabel drawled softly. “Coming over today?”

Her tone was so cool and impersonal, Cody flinched. “Yes. If you’ll take me.”

“Sure. I’ve got to pick up a few supplies first. But I won’t be long.”

“I could give you a hand,” Cody offered.

“Thanks,” Annabel said cursorily. “But Smithy’s coming into Avarua with me. I’m sure we can manage between us.”

She sounded polite and disinterested. Small shock waves rippled through Cody. She wished she could see Annabel’s eyes but she hadn’t removed her glasses. In fact she had barely glanced at Cody.

“Let’s go, Smithy.” She signaled the mechanic as she peeled off her gloves and tossed them into the Dominie. “Sit in the plane, if you want,” she told Cody in a flat tone. “But it’s probably cooler in the hangar.”

With that, she strolled off with the mechanic.

As they moved out of sight, Cody rounded on the hapless Dominie and delivered a swift kick to its undercarriage. “Shit,” she muttered to herself. “Looks like you blew it, kid.”

“I didn’t know you could fly,” Cody commented once they were safely off the ground and leveling off. Sitting next to Annabel, she was dazzled by her seemingly effortless control.

“Officially I can’t, but these are the Cook Islands. They see it as a form of driving. So long as you buy the local license and drive a cop from the police station to the roundabout and back, to prove you know the difference between the brakes and the accelerator, you’re legal. In my case Bevan vouched for me and voilà.”

“Remarkable.”

Annabel didn’t seem to notice the irony in her tone.

Cody tried again. “So how are you?”

“I’m fine. You?”

Cody’s throat felt tight. “I’ve had better weeks.” She stretched out a hand, resting it on the warmth of Annabel’s thigh. “You look stunning as a pilot,” she told her truthfully.

Annabel didn’t reply and Cody became aware of a tension in the other woman’s body, a rejection of her touch. Self-consciously she withdrew her hand. “Is something wrong?” she asked shakily.

“Let’s talk when we reach the island. I need to concentrate on getting us there in one piece.”

The next ninety minutes were spent in silence, Annabel intent on her task, Cody trying to control her rising panic. She only had limited time left on the island now, she thought with dismay, and she could not afford to extend her vacation. Maybe her letter hadn’t struck quite the right chord. Annabel was obviously still upset about her leaving the way she had. Cody could only hope they would be able to resolve their differences before she had to leave.

“Would you like to come up to Villa Luna for a coffee?” Annabel asked as she secured the plane after a textbook landing.

She could have been talking to a stranger, Cody thought miserably. But she accepted anyway and, lugging a box of supplies, followed Annabel’s athletic figure through the banana palms. Annabel was obviously determined to keep her at a distance. What did it all mean?

“Annabel,” she blurted the moment they entered the villa. “Is there someone else?”

Annabel halted. “I don’t know. Is there?”

“For me?” Cody was confused. “Of course not!”

“So what in hell was it that sent you rushing back to New Zealand so fast you couldn’t even say goodbye?” She stalked into the sitting room, Cody hot on her heels.

“Didn’t you read my note?”

“I would have. If you hadn’t used a damned fountain pen.”

Cody felt like some giant hand was squeezing her gut. “I don’t understand,” she said unevenly.

“It got wet. I was riding along the beach and it was in my pocket and…” Annabel started to pour herself a drink then slammed the bottle down. “Oh, what’s the use? Even if I had read it, how do you think I would have felt having you disappear on me like that?”

“It wasn’t my fault the bloody Dominie broke down and I couldn’t get back.”

“Oh, and I suppose if that hadn’t happened, you were planning to tell me all about Margaret.” She broke off, looking flushed.

“Margaret?” Cody’s jaw dropped. “What are you talking about?”

Annabel folded her arms. “I’m talking about your cozy reconciliation.”

“Jesus, Annabel!” Cody flung herself onto the settee. “I haven’t laid eyes on Margaret since the day she walked out on me. Where the blazes did you get that idea?”

Annabel crossed the room and located a sheet of paper. “Here.” She thrust it at Cody.

Cody scanned the flyer. “Where did this come from?”

“The police. They told me ‘family’ were trying to get hold of you for a reconciliation. And when I asked, the family turned out to be one Margaret Redmond.”

Cody stared down at her own face and nearly cried with relief. A wanted poster. Her worst nightmare. And it had nothing to do with the money. She wiped a hand weakly across her forehead and willed her heart to slow down.

“I went back to New Zealand to sort out some urgent business,” she said quietly. “But it had nothing to do with Margaret. I hope you believe me.” She reached out and took Annabel’s hand. “Oh, Annabel. I was so upset about not getting back to the island that day, and I have such a lot to tell you. I want us to spend every minute of this week together.”

Annabel stiffened. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” Her voice was tight and still a little distant. “You see, I’m flying back home tomorrow. I didn’t know what was going on with you and I needed to do this. I couldn’t delay any longer, so…”

“Home?” Cody whispered. “Home, as in Boston?”

“That’s right.” Annabel pulled free of Cody and moved across to the liquor cabinet. “Like you, I have some urgent business to attend to. But the difference is, I’m letting you know before I disappear.”

She sipped at a scotch and Cody watched her through narrowed eyes. She’d never seen Annabel drink in the afternoon, and as much as she tried to tell herself it was none of her affair, it bothered her. The “urgent business” was obviously a stressful subject and Cody sensed Annabel was in no mood to discuss it.

“When will you be back?” she asked, trying not to sound like she was pressuring her.

“I don’t know. It depends on what happens. At this stage I haven’t booked a return.” She sounded off-hand, as though she couldn’t care less whether she came back at all.

Cody felt cold. It couldn’t be true. She knew it wasn’t. Maybe Annabel was applying for a job, she speculated. Or was there a woman in her life, after all? Cody got to her feet. “Annabel, last week you said you wanted something more than a holiday fling with me. I want that, too. That’s why I did what I did. To clear up a few problems back home so I could concentrate on us.”

She stood in front of Annabel and deliberately took the drink out of her hand. Annabel raised shuttered eyes, and Cody had the impression she had somehow walled herself round with glass. Her body exuded control, tension. Her face was a cool, detached mask.

Cody trailed a finger down her cheek and across her mouth, feeling an involuntary response there. She stretched her hand around the back of Annabel’s neck and soothed the taut muscles with gentle fingers. “Please don’t be angry with me any more,” she begged. “I made a mistake and I’m sorry. If I had known the plane was going to break down, I would never have gone without talking to you.”

“You were planning to talk to me that day?”

“Yes!”

She could still feel resistance in Annabel’s body and tried not to be hurt by it. She couldn’t believe Annabel had gone cold on her over a silly poster and a misunderstanding. There had to be something else going on. Whatever it was, it had deeply disturbed her. Wanting to comfort her—and also just plain wanting her—Cody slid her arms around Annabel’s waist and pulled her close, shivering at the memory of her body.

“Cody, I—” Annabel began, but Cody claimed her mouth, kissing her into silence. She could feel the resistance draining from Annabel’s limbs, and smiled against her mouth. “Relax,” she whispered. “We can talk later.”

She kissed her again, this time moving from her mouth to her throat, losing herself in the scented expanse of her skin, wanting to take her time. Annabel felt ripe and smooth beneath the silk of her shirt. Cody unfastened the buttons and slowly eased the garment out of the way, quickly following it with her lace bra. Stepping back a little, she absorbed Annabel’s milky tautness, the hollows above her collarbones, the womanly fullness of her breasts.

Pink stained the skin where Cody’s mouth had been, reminding her of the first time they had made love. She had discovered then that Annabel’s skin could be tinted by the slightest pressure. Her kisses caused tiny clouds of pale rose, her bites, dark crimson pools. Where her fingers traveled, color washed a blushing trail.

The memories brought with them a surge of desire and Cody felt a slow sinking in her belly. When their lips met she tasted salt and saw that Annabel was crying.

“Annabel, honey, what’s wrong? I wish you would tell me.”

Annabel shook her head and stretched her arms up around Cody’s neck to pull her closer. As Cody grazed a nipple with her teeth, she felt Annabel’s hands in her hair, guiding her steadily downward to the firm flesh of her stomach.

“You like this?” Cody murmured between bites, and proceeded to divest her expertly of her khaki pants.

Sighing, Annabel twisted Cody’s T-shirt impatiently, then gasped as fingers slid under the silk of her French knickers to tease their way along her labia. She snatched Cody’s hand away and pulled her toward the bedroom, dragged off her T-shirt with impatient hands and threw it on the floor.

“God, I missed you,” she said thickly, squirming as Cody’s fingers found her clitoris through the damp silk. Cody discarded the rest of her clothes, and Annabel opened her eyes to take in her nakedness; the well-defined muscles in her arms and shoulders, her dark tan, the hollows and curves that were still so new to her.

A sudden rush of feeling made her mouth tremble and her heart race. She wanted to hold Cody and never let her go. Cody eased them both back onto the bed, her fingers sliding Annabel’s knickers out of the way, her mouth making sweet demands.

They lay facing each other for a long moment, Cody’ face oddly serious as she read the wanting in Annabel’s. “We don’t have to make this so hard for ourselves,” she murmured. “I’m crazy about you. Don’t you know that?”

Taking one of Annabel’s hands, she caressed the palm, the fingertips, the wrist with delicate kisses then she guided it down to the wetness between Annabel’s legs. “You’re so wet,” she whispered. “You feel exquisite.” She pulled the hand back to her mouth, slowly licked the juices off Annabel’s fingers and gathered her close. “I hate that you’re going away.”

“Me, too.” Annabel sighed.

“Then stay,” Cody urged between kisses. “Please.”

“I can’t. This can’t wait.” She seemed very naked then, her eyes asking more from Cody than the fleeting mirage of intimacy lovemaking would confer.

Cody relaxed her weight onto Annabel, separating her thighs. Feeling Annabel’s legs lock around hers, she said, “If you ask me to wait for you, I will.”

She felt Annabel’s fingers slide through her hair to cup her face on either side. “I’m asking.”

There was an undisguised vulnerability about her Cody had not seen before. She felt a rush of protectiveness. Annabel’s sophistication could be misleading, she had discovered. Like everyone, she had her insecurities. Cody sensed that in some way she was confronting these right now. “I’ll be here, I promise,” she said.

“And I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

As the minutes went by, a breeze stirred the palms like the rustle of a ball gown, and the late sun filtered through the crystals in Annabel’s window to cast rainbows across them. Shadows deepened, birds returned home and, as night fell, the moon turned the ocean silver.

Cody stirred in Annabel’s arms, but was too soundly asleep to hear the stifled sound of her weeping.

Chapter Eighteen

“Annabel, darling. What a surprise.” Laura Adams Worth moved forward and pecked the air next to Annabel’s cheek.

“You look well, Mother,” Annabel observed.

Thin and elegant in a pale linen dress and single strand of pearls, Laura never seemed to age. All her life Annabel could remember her mother looking like this: poised and expensive, as distant as a Cape Cod horizon. The smell of her perfume brought memories flooding back and Annabel felt suddenly gauche, clumsy, unattractive: a stuttering twelve year old tasting blood as braces gouged into her gums; a fifteen year old filled with shame when her period leaked at Thanksgiving and her mother had called in the maid to remove the gory chair.

Even now she could feel Laura Worth’s critical blue eyes rejecting as crass and juvenile her choice of black tights, pink sling back pumps and huge pink T-shirt.

Why did she do it? Annabel wondered. Whenever she visited her parents, some strange perversity made her pass over the respectable clothes that dominated her wardrobe in favor of those she knew her mother would most deplore. Childish attention-getting. Annabel knew that. Silly underground game playing. No wonder her therapist drove a Mercedes.

“Tea, my dear?” Her mother was already calling Doris, her Filipino maid.

Annabel nodded with resignation and flopped down onto a pristine peach leather sofa she’d never seen before. Obviously her mother still enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with her decorator. “Where’s Daddy?”

“Playing golf in Newport,” Laura replied without a flicker of interest. “I’m not expecting him back all week.”

“I guess I’ll miss him then.”

At least she shared some interests with her father. They could talk Wall Street, politics and horseflesh. And Theodore Worth made no secret of the fact that he worshipped his daughter. Not once had Annabel ever been made to feel guilty for not being a son. Her father had taken her everywhere, taught her to trade commodities while she was still at prep school, put her at the helm of his yacht almost before she could walk, and allowed her to work at McDonald’s on her vacations even though her mother acted as if Annabel were selling herself on Times Square.

Annabel had always sensed an ally in her father, and the thought of facing her mother without him distressed her. She clasped her clammy hands together and, suppressing a wayward urge to ask for milk, watched Laura pour the tea and add a curl of lemon to each cup.

“Are you enjoying Anne’s island, dear?”

“It’s beautiful.” Annabel sipped her perfectly brewed tea. “You should visit.”

Laura avoided her eyes. “I hope you’ve placed the estate in the hands of competent people,” she said with a hint of censure.

“I’ve retained Aunt Annie’s lawyers.” Annabel tried not to sound defensive.

Her mother lifted a lightly penciled eyebrow. “Really? I never suspected you of sentimentality, my dear.” She gave a short brittle laugh and examined Annabel with a patronizing expression. “I take it the urbane Mr. Jessup is still in good health?”

Clearly Walter Jessup had prepped at the wrong school, Annabel thought. Then again, when did anyone from the West Coast ever measure up to her mother’s standards? She promptly decided to keep him on—so long as he could produce a female law partner, that is.

“He sends his regards,” she said coolly. “And this…” She reached into her satchel and dropped an envelope on the occasional table in front of her mother. It was the one addressed to Lucy. “Mr. Jessup hasn’t been able to trace this person. I wondered whether you might have some idea who she is.”

Laura glanced down at the envelope then looked at Annabel without blinking. “Lucy?” she toyed with the name. “No, I don’t think I can help.”

“I’m surprised,” Annabel commented dryly. “I would have thought you might know the whereabouts of your niece.”

Laura returned her cup to its saucer with an uncharacteristic clatter. One hand strayed jerkily to her pearls. Annabel was certain she detected a flicker of emotion in her mother’s light blue eyes. Fear? Guilt perhaps?

In a voice as tight as piano wire, she asked, “What do you know about Lucy?”

“That’s what I’m asking you, Mother.”

Laura Worth deposited her tea on the table, crossed her legs and regarded Annabel with assessing eyes. “Of course!” she said with a slight flutter. “I had all but forgotten. Poor little Lucy…”

She shook her head sadly, and Annabel felt suddenly insecure, as though she were walking on quicksand, her reality as insubstantial as a mirage. “Poor Lucy?” she queried.

Laura seemed to relax a little. “Anne’s child.” Lowering her head, she folded poignant hands in her lap. “A tragic business, absolutely tragic. She made me promise never to tell a soul, but…” She eyed the envelope with an air of troubled resignation.

Annabel immediately felt like a jerk. Her mother’s message was loud and clear. Laura was being asked to dishonor a promise—and to a dead woman. How could Annabel be so insensitive?

“Mother, I know Aunt Annie had a baby after she called off her engagement. And I know she lived with that child and a woman called Rebecca on Moon Island until Rebecca was killed. Then she came to Boston, didn’t she?”

Laura paled and Annabel saw her hands were no longer folded but had balled into two tight fists.

“How do you know this, Annabel?” she asked with a hunted expression.

“Aunt Annie left me a letter and—”

“Anne told you!”

There was no mistaking her mother’s agitation. Annabel felt her pulse begin to race. “I know a great deal about Aunt Annie,” she said quietly, and watched dull red wash over Laura’s porcelain features.

Her mother rose and moved across the large room to stare out at her gardens, hands gripping the window ledge. “Anne did not want to have the baby,” she said in a strained voice.

“Hardly surprising under the circumstances,” Annabel retorted, recalling Annie’s desperation about the rape.

“She gave birth in the Back Bay house,” her mother went on as though she hadn’t heard. “It was a difficult birth. She was very weak. Afterward she and… Rebecca… stayed for a short time then left for that damned island.” Laura paused, her chest rising and falling unevenly. Apparently this decision still inflamed her. “Can you believe it? Taking a sick mother and brand new baby to some God-forsaken place in the middle of nowhere. No decent hospitals, no refrigeration, not even running water.”

“What was she like?” Annabel interrupted.

“Who, the baby?”

“No. Rebecca.”

Her mother stiffened. “She was a Gardner—the shipping people. Anne met her at Wellesley and they became close. Whenever she came home for a weekend she always had Rebecca in tow. I thought they were best friends. Very naïve. Rebecca was a wild type of girl.”

Annabel could almost hear it. Led poor Annie astray, turned her head.

“After college she went to Europe. She fancied herself as an artist.” Laura frowned, her lips compressed. “Anne followed her and… Oh, she was such an innocent and Rebecca’s crowd was very bohemian. You can imagine.”

“They became lovers?” Annabel translated boldly.

Her mother shuddered. “Father was ill, and eventually Anne had the decency to return home. We all thought she had finally come to her senses. After a few months she became engaged to Roger Lawrence, a very nice Harvard boy. He’s a surgeon now, of course.”

“Of course,” Annabel said. “Specializing in gynecology, no doubt.”

The acid jibe appeared to go straight past her mother. “Everyone was amazed when Anne suddenly broke off the engagement.”

“She was raped,” Annabel said succinctly.

“Annabel!” Laura Worth looked outraged. “Roger was her fiancé. He loved her.”

“Funny way of showing it.”

“You know nothing of these matters,” her mother said indignantly. “Anne was a highly-strung girl and young for her age. She had little understanding of adult emotions, and physically she had been a late bloomer. Roger certainly wasn’t to blame for what happened.”

“Oh, please. He was old enough to understand the word “no,” surely.”

“Anne was a decently brought up girl. Roger mistook her reticence for the shyness of an inexperienced young woman.”

Annabel gasped. It was plain her mother was determined to cling to a sanitized explanation of what had really occurred between Annie and her Harvard fiancé. “Of course we tried to change her mind about breaking off the engagement,” she continued, ignoring Annabel’s reproachful stare. “But she simply couldn’t see what a mistake she was making.”

Annabel rolled her eyes. “I’m guessing she was never permitted to forget it.”

Laura heaved a long-suffering sigh. She seemed determined to finish the whole story now that she had started it. Annabel guessed she must have been holding on to enormous resentment, bottling up a family secret like this over the years.

“When Anne found she was expecting, she was hysterical. Mother tried to reason with her. Roger would have taken her back. I mean, the poor boy nearly went out of his mind.” Laura’s burgundy-penciled mouth tightened into a thin straight line. “But she had already written to Rebecca, and within a month they set up house together. Anne refused to see Roger at all and insisted he be told the child was not his. That was Rebecca’s doing, of course. She was always extremely possessive, accustomed to having her own way.”

The more Annabel heard of Rebecca, the more she liked her. “So in the end they all went to Moon Island?”

“Yes,” Laura said. “We didn’t see Lucy again until that dreadful accident.”

“By which time presumably I was a toddler?”

Laura nodded, her eyes distant and focused somewhere beyond Annabel’s shoulder. Her expression made Annabel uneasy.

“So what happened when they came back here?” she prompted.

“Anne was very depressed. She simply refused to speak with anyone, even the child.” She turned to stare out the window for a long moment. “Poor little Lucy. She was just a baby. She didn’t understand why her Mummy wouldn’t hold her.”

Annabel’s eyes widened. She could have sworn there was genuine emotion in her mother’s voice.

Laura folded her arms and paced absently back and forth across the garden view. “She stayed like that for months, silent and wasting away. We tried everything. We took her to the best people. I think she saw every expert on the East Coast. They prescribed drugs, but Anne would not take them. She refused to help herself at all.”

She sounded unreasonably angry, and Annabel suddenly wondered what it must have been like for Laura, the competent organizer and socially active young Boston matron, having to cope with a younger sister’s despair. Despair over a lesbian lover, and a secret life no one could be told about.

“In the end we were desperate.”

“Desperate?”

“Yes.” A defensive note. “It was decided Anne would benefit most from full-time psychiatric care.”

“You put her in a mental hospital?” Annabel asked slowly.

Her mother lowered her head a fraction, and suddenly Annabel noticed her age; the stoop of her shoulders, the chin sagging slightly. “We did what we thought was best,” she said wearily.

“And Lucy?”

There was a long pause. Annabel tried to read her mother’s expression, but her eyes were veiled, her face as fixed as a portrait.

“Lucy became unwell and died.” It was said blankly, and something in her tone jarred. Annabel felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

“Lucy died,” she repeated matter-of-factly. “Then why did Aunt Annie leave this letter for her?” She lifted the envelope and her mother flinched. “Didn’t she know?”

“Anne was disturbed,” Laura said quietly. “When she came out of the hospital she said she didn’t want to talk about Rebecca or Lucy ever again. She was not herself.”

Annabel watched her mother carefully, recognizing that there was something not being said. “How long was Aunt Annie in the hospital?”

Laura was silent for so long, Annabel found herself concentrating on the subtle noises around her; the whisper of the cooling system, the faintest tinkle from a chandelier prey to the vented draughts. When Laura finally answered, it was reluctantly. “Nearly five years.”

“Five years?” Annabel got to her feet and stalked across the carpet to confront her mother. “You let her stay there for five years!”

“Lower your voice, Annabel,” her mother protested.

Annabel was enraged, fiercely, blindly angry. She took her mother by the arm and spun her around. “How could you?” she demanded.

Laura shook her head dumbly.

“Was that the big white house we used to visit?” Fragments of a memory danced before Annabel. High spiked iron gates and a curving driveway, vacant-eyed strangers wandering across the lawns. She was never allowed outside to play and had to sit in a hot room filled with plants while her parents sipped tea with Aunt Annie.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. She had thought it was her aunt’s home.

“You don’t understand,” Laura began, but Annabel was not listening.

“You kept her in a mental hospital while you raised her daughter!” she shouted, tightening the grip on her mother’s arm and shaking her slightly.

Laura’s face drained chalk white. “No,” she gasped. “Lucy died.”

“Don’t lie to me, Mother,” Annabel sputtered. “I want to know the truth. You owe me that much and you owe Annie.”

“Annabel darling. Please don’t—” Laura’s voice wavered on a sob.

Annabel could feel her trembling. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was deeply shocked at her own behavior—shouting at her mother, handling her roughly. This was not what she’d planned at all. Somehow she had imagined… What? A civilized little chat? She would produce the envelope and Laura would immediately pour out the truth after thirty years of secrecy? This was real life, she reminded herself.

But feeling angry and frustrated did not give her the right to use her mother as a psychological punching bag. Laura was crying openly, and with shattering clarity Annabel realized it was the first time she had ever seen her mother show such emotion. Ashamed, she released her grip and instead placed a tentative arm around her thin, hunched shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she said huskily. “I’m so sorry. Forgive me.”

Laura covered her face with her hands. “I can’t tell you,” she sobbed. “I don’t know how to begin.”

“It’s all right.” Annabel led her to a settee and sat down beside her. “I love you, Mom,” she said, and felt a profound shudder move her mother’s body.

Laura looked up, her eyes pain-filled. “Lucy was such a beautiful little girl,” she began, and Annabel took her hand, pressing it encouragingly.

“She was an angel. She loved everyone and everything. The moment I first saw her I knew she was special. Anne was barely conscious during the birth and Rebecca was concentrating only on her. So the doctor gave Lucy to me and I held her and I...” She gulped, tears streaming down her face. “I loved her. Then they left, and I didn’t see her again until the accident. It was terrible. The one baby in my life gone where I could never see her.”

She looked at Annabel with eyes that were suddenly soft and loving, and Annabel felt her own tears begin.

“By then I had lost four babies of my own, stillborn or miscarried. Lucy was so healthy and beautiful. I suppose I was bitterly envious of Anne. It seemed so unfair. I’d done everything right. I married Theo, I kept myself fit and ate properly, I took vitamins. And Anne behaved scandalously her whole life and even lived with a woman...as husband and wife.” She blew her nose indelicately into a fine lace handkerchief, then tossed the sodden thing onto the floor.

“You can’t have any idea how empty my life was,” she said brokenly. “I felt like a nothing. Not even a woman. There seemed no point to my existence. All I was any good for was bridge. And, you know, it’s hard to convince oneself that playing cards is the full extent of God’s divine plan for one’s life.”

She managed a watery smile and Annabel gently squeezed her shoulder. “I understand more than you think,” she said softly, remembering the mindlessness of her life until she left for Moon Island. “I’m not judging you. I just want to know the truth.”

Laura met her eyes and seemed to take strength from the genuine support she saw there. “When they came home after the accident, I didn’t know what to do. Anne was beside herself, inconsolable. She said she didn’t want to live without Rebecca.” She paused, a haunted expression in her eyes. “They were so much in love, you see.”

Annabel nodded. She knew from Annie’s diaries how all-consuming that passion had been, even till the day she died. Her final entry bore stark testimony… My love, my love. At last together again.

“Poor Lucy. Anne hardly responded to the child and Lucy forever ran about the house searching under chairs and covers. When I asked her what she was doing she would say, “Looking Becca.” I tried to comfort her. I took her everywhere with me. Theo wanted to engage a nanny but I refused. I wanted her all to myself.” She clutched at Annabel’s hands with sudden desperation. “I didn’t deliberately take her away from Anne. You have to believe me.”

Annabel stroked her hands soothingly. “Of course I believe you,” she said, wiping her own tears.

“Then Anne tried to kill herself, and she had to go to the hospital. The doctors told Theo she needed psychiatric help, but when we found out what was involved, we were horrified. The treatments seemed barbaric. Naturally we refused. But then she stopped speaking even to Lucy. It was as if she had gone away into another world and had merely left her body behind. I used to put Lucy on her knee, and she would play with Anne’s big gold locket.”

“I remember…” Annabel said sickly and again the image flashed before her.

But this time she could see the face.

Annie’s face. Annie, her mother.

“In the end we met a young doctor, a woman. She had heard about Anne from a colleague and asked if she could examine her. She was very frank with us and revealed herself as a woman who was… of Anne’s persuasion.”

“She was a lesbian?” Annabel inserted dryly.

“Yes. She was a lesbian.” Annabel knew what it must have cost her mother to say that.

“She took Anne to Belletara, a private clinic. It was only meant to be for a week but Anne wanted to stay.”

“And Lucy?”

“We visited Anne most weekends, and Theo and I treated Lucy like our own daughter. As time went by she started to call us Mommy and Daddy and it became very easy to forget that we weren’t really her parents.”

“So Lucy didn’t die?” Annabel pressed. Even though she knew the truth, she needed to hear it.

Laura shook her head slowly. “No. She thrived. Oh, Annabel. I tried not to love her, become too attached. But when Anne asked us whether we would consider adoption, I was ecstatic.”

“Annie asked you?” Annabel’s mouth went dry.

“It was after a year. She said she didn’t think she could raise Lucy, and she had no idea when she would feel ready to leave the clinic. Theo took over her affairs along with Rebecca’s lawyer, Maisie Jessup of San Francisco… that’s her son you deal with.” As an aside, she added, “Maisie made all the legal arrangements for the adoption and—”

“Why did you change my name?” Annabel asked.

Laura looked slightly ashamed. “We were frightened. I was frightened. Roger, your natural father, knew of your existence under the name Lucy, and he had inquired after you when Anne first arrived. I was afraid he would sue for custody.”

“So you made Lucy vanish?”

Her mother nodded. “Annabel was your second name.”

Annabel sighed deeply and sagged back into the couch. “Why?” she said after a long pause. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Laura Worth looked oddly calm, her body more relaxed than Annabel had seen it in her lifetime.

“I wanted to, but I couldn’t. At first I told myself it was to protect you, so you wouldn’t feel abandoned. Then, when Anne finally discharged herself, we made an agreement never to tell you. That was my doing. You see, I was so terrified that Anne would come and claim you back. I never stopped being afraid all through the years. Sometimes I was almost too frightened to love you, in case you were snatched away from me.” Sorrow drowned her eyes, and Annabel remembered with deep grief the coldness, the way her mother had kept her distance.

“I thought you didn’t love me,” she said quietly.

Laura blanched, placing horrified hands to her face. “Oh! If only you knew. I feel so angry with myself now. When you live a lie it’s like digging a grave. The longer you dig, the deeper it gets until you can’t climb out any more, even if you wanted to. In the end you find you’ve buried yourself.”

She paused and shivered. “I tried to find a way to tell you when you were growing up, but even then I was too cowardly. I thought that if you found out you would leave me and go to Anne, that you would hate me…and I couldn’t bear that.”

Annabel’s heart thumped painfully. “I don’t hate you,” she said very gently. “How could I? I love you too much.”

“Oh, my darling girl.” Her mother moved toward her, and they held each other as never before.

Hours later, when she felt much calmer, Annabel opened the letter to Lucy.

My beloved daughter,

I wish I could be with you as you read this.

Now that you understand my life, can you also understand that I’ve always, always loved you?

For many years I was lost to myself and the world, and to you. When I returned, it was too late to turn back the clock. I wanted you to have the life you deserved, with two parents who loved you and all the advantages of ‘belonging’ in a world that can be harsh to those who do not fit.

There have been many times when I wanted to tell you the truth. But I could not break my promise to my sister. She was never sure of herself as you and I are.

I hope you intend to live on Moon Island. Please understand that although it is owned by you under the laws of this age, by rights it also belongs to the Cook Islanders. It is an ancient place held sacred by the people who knew its mysteries long before white men set sail for far lands and glory. Respect their rights, and they will respect yours.

I always dreamed that we would sit together one day on the verandah at Villa Luna and I would tell you about the life we had—you, me and my Rebecca. This letter is a poor substitute, but I hope it expresses what I never could—that I was your mother and I love you most dearly.

Annie

Chapter Nineteen

“Moon. Moon Radio. Dominie two-one-eight-five at two thousand feet. Four miles southwest. Do you read me? Dominie to Moon. Come in please. Over.”

She would never get used to the conventions of radio communication, Cody thought as she lifted the handset. “This is Cody,” she said. “Um… over.”

“Company on its way,” Bevan Mitchell said. Cody’s heart leaped. Annabel! “ETA fourteen hundred hours. Can you meet us? Over.”

“I sure can. Fourteen hundred hours. That’s now!” Cody sprinted to the window to see if she could spot the Dominie.

“Five minutes, Moon,” Bevan said, but Cody was no longer listening. She grabbed her hat and shades and frantically shoved cushions back into their usual places. As she ran out the door, she heard Bevan’s voice crackling over the radio, but didn’t bother to wait. All she could think about was his passenger.

Annabel had been away for almost a week. It felt like an eternity. Restless and fretful, Cody crammed every day with a succession of distractions. Annabel had left her with the task of supervising the cottages around the island. This meant delivering food supplies and checking in on guests.

There were three other women on the island. Two were friendly, sensible types who had chosen the seclusion of Moon Island because they wanted ‘time out.’ The other was a problem child who was only here because some relative had fully paid for the holiday but had to cancel at the last minute. Apparently she had expected Club Med. Cody might have felt sorry for her if she had any manners at all, but she was a whining, spoiled brat.

Cody hastened her steps along the trail, pushing aside milky green banana palm leaves and stems of frangipani. The jungle was intense all over the island, tropical flowers and sinuous vines forming a fleshy tangle beneath a canopy of coconut palms, breadfruit, mango, and guava trees. A blanket of torpid air clung to the jungle floor, pungent with the smell of over-ripe and rotting fruit.

The airstrip was situated west of Villa Luna on a promontory overlooking Marama Bay. Like many small airstrips in the South Pacific, it had been built by the Americans during World War II and had fallen into decay. Annabel had said something to her about rebuilding it one day. From all accounts the impecunious Cook Islands government had long ago abandoned all responsibility for the island’s amenities. There was no proper electricity—only a couple of noisy generators, no modern telephone service, and no television.

For a moment Cody lapsed into her favorite day-dream: she and Annabel staying together on Moon Island for a few months, shutting out the world. It would be heaven. Impatiently, she paced alongside the Dominie waiting for the hatch to open. When Bevan appeared and lowered the steps, she grinned up at him, brimming with expectation. Instead of the blonde hair she was looking for, a coppery head materialized.

“Margaret?” Cody’s lips felt like they’d just been shot full of Novocaine.

“Cody. Hi!” Margaret threw herself into the arms Cody had stretched out to receive a box of pineapples. The fruit rolled haplessly around the tarmac while Bevan looked on quizzically.

Cody detached herself as quickly as she decently could. “Well,” she said weakly. “Um… what a surprise.”

Margaret grinned. “A nice one, I hope.” She looked Cody up and down and whistled softly. “Sweetheart! You’re looking hot. The tan is amazing.” Before Cody could prevent her, she planted a big wet kiss squarely on her mouth.

“I guess you two don’t need an introduction.” Bevan lit a cigarette, his expression cryptic. In response to a look of desperate enquiry from Cody, he added, “No sign of Annabel yet.”

Cringing inside, Cody extricated herself from her ex’s unwanted embrace. “You’re staying on the island?” she asked, trying to gather her wits.

“For two whole weeks,” Margaret enthused. “Isn’t that great, darling?”

A rush of hot blood made Cody’s knees feel flaccid. She could scarcely take in the reality of Margaret’s presence. Her ex was gazing around as if enraptured.

“I’m so excited,” she gushed. “It looks like paradise.” Grabbing Cody again, she slid caressing hands beneath her T-shirt, compelling her into a more intimate clinch. Clearly the presence of a man meant nothing to Margaret.

Avoiding her eager mouth, Cody drew back, disgusted. “For God’s sake,” she hissed, “get your hands off me.”

Making like he hadn’t witnessed any of this, Bevan tossed Margaret’s luggage down to her. “Everything under control?” he queried dryly.

Does it look like it? Cody wanted to shout. Instead, she pasted a phony smile on her face and said, “I’ll manage.”

With a discreet nod of comprehension, Bevan lifted another box. “No need for you to hang about. I’ll take care of the supplies.”

As soon as he had vanished back into plane, Cody turned to Margaret. “Have you got your booking slip?” She masked her agitation with a stoic calm.

Margaret produced a voucher. Hibiscus Villa, Cody read with a sinking heart. Margaret would be just ten minutes walk from Annabel’s place. How had this happened? Before she left, Annabel had said something about releasing the villa for guests since Cody would no longer be using it. Telling Cody she would get a refund, she had notified the travel agent who handled reservations, and that was the last Cody had heard.

She should have paid more attention to the stuff Annabel told her about the booking process. Reservations were received by an agent in Avarua, and most days Bevan collected these and brought them over. A pile lay unopened on the kitchen counter. If she’d known her ex would be loony enough to track her down and turn up here, she would have read them. It was too late to cancel the booking now.

Numbly she lifted Margaret’s luggage. “It’s a bit of a hike to the Villa you’re staying in,” she said in a discouraging tone.

Margaret looked charmed by the prospect. “Lead the way.”

As they followed the trail Cody became increasingly alarmed—alarmed at her sense of disorientation, her feeling that she barely knew this woman. Was it really Margaret? She stole a look. Same short, curly auburn hair, same laughing eyes and wide mouth, same voluptuous body, large breasts, narrow waist. This was Margaret, the woman she’d lain with for nearly five years, whose body she knew almost as well as her own.

“Where’s Scott?” she asked abruptly.

Margaret stopped in her tracks, looked up at Cody, and smiled her most provocative smile. “That’s all over. As far as I’m concerned, it’s Scott who?”

Cody felt distinctly queasy. “That was quick.”

“I’m so connected these days, I trust my instincts to tell me whether a situation is right or wrong. As soon as I moved in I knew I’d made a mistake.”

“Your instincts didn’t reveal this when you started fucking him?” Cody kicked a papaya brutally off the path.

Margaret did not respond, and they continued in silence to the clearing around Hibiscus Villa. There they stopped, Cody dropping the luggage, Margaret rushing up the steps to the verandah.

“Oh, this is gorgeous!” she squealed. “All these flowers and the quaint thatched roof. Oh my God, look at the view. It’s so romantic.”

Cody opened up the villa and all but shoved Margaret in. The place reminded her unbearably of Annabel and she marveled at the sick joke fate had played by sending Margaret instead of the lover she was yearning for. She felt tears prick and automatically wiped them away with the back of her hand.

Margaret must have mistaken her obvious emotion for something else, for she dragged Cody into a hungry embrace.

“Darling,” she whispered urgently. “I’ve been desperate to see you. I feel like such a fool. I can’t believe I did this to myself—to us.”

Her small hands made circles on Cody’s back, making her skin prickle in response. Then Margaret was kissing her and it was like being jerked back in time. They were lovers. It was a hot afternoon. Her body remembered every sensation. The sweat, the taste of Margaret’s mouth, a clock ticking on her dresser, the roar of a plane overhead.

“I must have been out of my mind,” Margaret was saying. “Every night, lying there with him, it was you I was thinking about.”

“Uh huh.”

“It was,” Margaret insisted. “Even when we made love, I couldn’t—”

“I don’t want to know,” Cody said.

“I’m just trying to tell you how it’s been for me.” Margaret sounded snippy. “I made a mistake. Is that a crime?”

With a jolt Cody realized she was being undressed. She caught Margaret’s hands and drew back, watching puzzlement alter her ex-lover’s features. “I need to get going,” she said.

“Going? Why? I was thinking we could stay here together.”

“That’s out of the question,” Cody said. “We’re not together, Margaret.”

“But I said it’s all over with Scott. The whole thing was a disaster. The moment we started living together he acted like he had ownership papers. He was so unreasonable. He even expected me to go on the pill… can you believe that? He said condoms ruined the aesthetic, he—”

“Puh-leeze!” Cody arrested her with a groan of distaste. “Spare me the gory details.”

Margaret had the grace to look embarrassed. “Look, I know you’re upset. And I can respect your feelings. But this experience has been incredibly important for me. It’s really helped me resolve confusion about my sexuality.”

“You were confused during our relationship?” Cody felt stunned. Was Margaret making up justifications as she went along, or had Cody just spent the last five years with a closet straight woman?

“I know I should have told you sooner. But I felt so guilty about being attracted to men. You know how it is.”

“Not really.”

Margaret cast her an accusatory glance, as if Cody were being intentionally obtuse. “I tried to rationalize it as het conditioning and all that. But when I gave myself permission to explore my feelings without guilt-tripping myself, when I let go of buying into all that political crap—I finally got to know myself.”

“I’m happy for you,” Cody said without expression.

Margaret seemed encouraged by this. “I was so self-hating until I accepted that it’s perfectly okay to have feelings for men as well as women. We’re all one human race. My rebirther says that if we reject our feelings for men, we reject the male in ourselves.”

“The male in ourselves.” Cody contained herself. “And is your rebirther a dyke?”

Margaret looked puzzled. “No, although she’s very woman-oriented.”

“Uh huh.”

Cody was stunned. Right under her nose Margaret had been pining after men—plural. She was bi-curious. She needed to explore her sexuality by having sex on the side. It sounded like a personal ad. Had she been blind, Cody wondered, or just plain stupid? “So what’s different now that you’ve had this epiphany?” she inquired.

Margaret smiled fulsomely. “I’m really at peace. I feel connected to myself at a much deeper level. I’ve accepted who I am, and I don’t care what society thinks. I’m going to live my life without lies.”

“Lesbian and proud, eh?”

Margaret looked a little taken aback. “No, bisexual. Bisexual and proud.”

Cody took a deep breath and studied the woman in front of her, taking in the subtle changes she had missed at first. Margaret was thinner, her hair redder than usual and growing out of the close-cropped style she had always worn. She wore light-pink cotton knit pants and a designer T-shirt with a greenie slogan. Her nails were painted the same dark pink as her pants, and her blue eyes looked heavy in her small face, mascara caking in the fine creases beneath them.

“Why have you come here?” Cody finally asked.

Margaret’s expression radiated mute appeal. “To be with you of course.” The hurt, little girl voice that once would have quickened Cody’s pulse now sounded ridiculously phony. “I’ve been trying to track you down for weeks. I even went to the police.”

“So I gathered.”

Margaret tugged at her arm, wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Please don’t be angry at me,” she wheedled.

Cody took a step back. “I’m not angry,” she said. It was true. Looking at Margaret she felt virtually nothing but vague disgust and a sense of disbelief that she could have contemplated spending her life with her.

Her answer appeared to please Margaret who promptly grabbed her around the waist and pressed into her body. “I knew you’d be able to let go of this stuff and see the bigger picture. I was a bit worried when I talked to Janet. She was really unhelpful, even when I explained she had no right to interfere in our relationship. She had to know how important this was for both of us, but she still wanted to control you. It’s really unhealthy.” She looked up at Cody as though expecting some kind of endorsement.

Yet again Cody wondered how she could have missed Margaret’s jealousy of her deep friendship with Janet. “Did it occur to you that if I wanted you to know where I was I would have told you myself?” Cody asked.

“People do things on the spur of the moment. I knew you were angry. I could see this was about punishing me.”

“Actually this was not about you, Margaret,” Cody said. “It was about me. I made a decision for my own well-being. Apparently you could not respect this, and… here we are.” Hardly a new experience, Cody recognized. When had Margaret ever respected her wishes?

Margaret rolled expressive eyes. “If I really believed you wanted it, maybe I would have accepted it. But I know you better than that, no matter what Janet said.”

“Janet has nothing to do with this. I specifically told her not to tell you where I was,” Cody said. “I trusted her to respect my wishes because she actually loves me.” Cody tried not to betray the extent of her bitterness. She would be damned if she was going to let Margaret know how much power she’d had. But a trace of it seeped out anyway.

Margaret looked wounded. “You’re still angry, aren’t you?”

Cody put some distance between them by going into the kitchen for a glass of water. She felt as if she were talking to a stranger. Couldn’t Margaret hear herself? Didn’t she have any idea how Cody must have felt during this voyage of self-discovery? What it must have been like, after five years of living together, to have your lover walk out for a man she’d only just met? Now she was hearing their entire relationship reduced to little more than youthful experimentation for a woman confused about her sexuality!

“Christ, Margaret! What in hell did you expect? That I would be waiting around for you, desperate for whatever crumbs you might toss me? That you could kick me in the teeth, shit on my feelings, and come crawling straight back when the bubble burst?”

Margaret went pale, her flirtatious looks replaced by a cautious, darting stare. She studied her hands miserably. “I thought you cared about me,” she mumbled.

Cody deposited her glass on the bench with a restrained thud. “I did,” she said, gritting her teeth. “I’m not the one who walked out, remember? I’m not the one who lied and manipulated.”

Margaret leaned against the door jamb, twisting her T-shirt in her hands. “But I explained everything,” she said in a whiny tone. “I told you I needed some space. I told you I was confused about my feelings for Scott.”

“How exactly is leaving me and moving in with him getting some space?” Cody shouted.

Margaret put a hand to her mouth and looked beseeching. “I don’t like it when you yell at me.” She pouted like a child. “My rebirther says that as long as I am completely true to myself, those who really love me will support me. She says it is cosmically impossible for anyone else to be hurt if I am acting for myself.”

“I get it. You do whatever you like, and if anyone is hurt by it, that’s our problem. Do I have that right?”

“Sort of. It’s all about owning our own stuff. The thing is, I now process at a higher level, so I can let go of guilt.”

“Don’t you mean responsibility?”

With forced patience, Margaret said, “I knew you wouldn’t be able to hear this. I’m just trying to explain that I had to let go of my destructive patterns around men before I could come to terms with who I am. My rebirther says—”

Cody raised a hand. “Enough of this shit. My rebirther says...” she parroted. “When are you going to switch your brain back on? Your fucking rebirther is charging you sixty bucks an hour to tell you exactly what you want to hear! Can’t you get that from your mom for free?”

“Cody!” Margaret lifted martyred eyes. “I’m finding this conversation very negative. I’m feeling very unsupported by you.”

“Unsupported!” Cody laughed harshly. “Give me a break! I didn’t ask you to come here. For God’s sake, you haven’t even acknowledged how much you hurt me or said you’re sorry for your shitty behavior…nothing.”

“I know that all of this has brought up unresolved stuff for you, and I’m truly sorry if that process has been painful. I know you felt abandoned when your parents divorced and your brother died. I acknowledge that. But my rebir...I think it’s really important that we take responsibility for our own stuff, not other people’s.”

“So you decide our relationship is over because you’re finally ready to shack up with the toyboy you’ve been seeing behind my back. And if I feel terrible about all the lies and the betrayal, it’s because of some old stuff of mine and has nothing to do with you? Is it just me, or is there something wrong with that picture?”

Cody knew she should end this ludicrous confrontation right now, but she had so much anger bottled up inside, she could not simply allow Margaret walk away. At some point her ex had to hear that her actions had consequences.

Margaret folded her arms stiffly across her body. “This conversation is getting us nowhere,” she said as if it were Cody’s fault.

“No kidding.” Cody’s voice dripped sarcasm.

“You’re just not hearing me,” she continued self-righteously. “If your feelings for me were truly evolved you would be able to hear that I meant no harm to you. You would support my right to grow even if you don’t like the learning paths I choose.”

“Evolve!” Time to walk out and not look back. Margaret had lost her mind. She was always a little flaky, but she sounded completely brainwashed now. Had she joined a cult or something?

Margaret glared at Cody, then that old sparkle lit her eyes. “You know, you’re beautiful when you’re angry,” she said with a giggle.

Cody looked at her incredulously. “Margaret, I’m not going to bed with you. Not now, not ever. I don’t love you any more.” Even as she said it she was aware of a heady relief, a lightness in her heart. She didn’t hate Margaret. She cared for her still. But the Margaret standing in front of her was not the woman she had fallen in love with. She met her gaze squarely. “I don’t want to fight with you, or play games. And you don’t need my support to do whatever you want to do. You’ve got your rebirther and your boyfriend, not to mention the church, the state, and society at large.”

“Here comes the lecture on political correctness,” Margaret muttered.

“Cut the crap, Margaret. You’re not the first person to want all the emotional goodies you can get from women and to fuck blokes at the same time. Call it bisexual if you like—after all it’s trendy, isn’t it? But don’t pretend you’re on some ‘higher path.’”

“If you ever did any work on yourself you would have some respect for my process and how much courage it took for me to leave!” Margaret’s cheeks were bright crimson.

Cody was stunned into silence, then she couldn’t help but laugh. “Courage…” she mused eventually. “Well I guess that’s subjective.” Her anger had ebbed, and she was left with a new understanding of Margaret as essentially a woman of weak character.

Margaret had spent five years with her because it was convenient. Someone had to keep a roof over her head so she could continue in school for another two years. Maybe she had really loved her once. Cody wanted to believe it, but she no longer felt certain of anything, least of all her own judgment. Deciding she owed it to herself to close this chapter of her life without mincing her words, she said, “You lied. You betrayed a person who loved you, and you stole her savings. By any standards that’s shameful. I really doubt unethical conduct is a ticket toward a higher self, but I can see you need to be in denial. And you know what? That’s your stuff, not mine.”

“You’re leaving?” Margaret asked dully.

“Hell, yes. And I won’t be coming back.”

“Is there someone else?”

“If there is, it’s none of your business.”

“I see.” Margaret examined her nails. “Your broken heart recovered pretty quickly.”

Cody’s temper flared briefly again. “Let’s say knowing you walked out on me so you could live with your soul mate helped speed up the healing process,” she said coldly. “Then of course I discovered I had also donated my hard-earned savings to your vision of self-growth.”

“I said I’ll pay you back,” Margaret said sullenly.

“I won’t be holding my breath.” Cody did not press the point. Whatever had happened, she had spent five years with this woman and had once loved her. It was time to say goodbye with dignity. “Let’s stop now,” she said. “I’m willing to be a friend to you, and that’s why I’m being honest about what I think.”

Margaret’s bottom lip quivered, and Cody touched her arm lightly. “As a friend, I want you to do something when you get back home.”

“What?”

“Go and get some counseling, and I mean with a real professional. I can get you the name of someone good.”

Margaret looked dubious. “I’ll think about it, although I find the lesbian perspective very narrow and limiting.”

“As opposed to the liberating and value-free heterosexual perspective?” Cody opened the front door. “Flights leave for Rarotonga every second afternoon. Just phone me when you’re ready to take one.” She indicated the old party line telephone in the hallway. “Turn the handle once and wait.”

“I understand,” Margaret said in a low voice.

Cody escaped out the door and jumped lightly off the verandah. Turning briefly, she searched her former lover’s face. No, she didn’t understand, Cody thought with a rush of sadness. Margaret had no idea why she had not been welcomed back with open arms.

Three days later, Cody was on page 90 of her thriller, and Annabel still hadn’t returned. The sky was as blue as ever but there was a curious heaviness in the air, and the gulls seemed noisier than usual, wheeling expectantly over Passion Bay and gathering in shrill cliques along the beach.

Amanda Valentine, Private Eye, was in a tight spot with some drug-crazed psycho.

“Blowing you away won’t exactly break my heart, dirtball,” she yelled, crouched low behind the forklift.

She hoped Jesse Brown wasn’t expecting company. She’d wasted a round already and at six bucks a throw that was one too many for scum like him.

“So whatcha waitin’ for, bitch?” the quarry bellowed.

Amanda caught a blur of denim behind a container to her left and followed it, bracing the Smith & Wesson against her rock-steady forearm.

Punks like Brown could sometimes be egged into mistakes. Bearing that in mind she tightened her finger around the trigger and taunted, “You better hope your brain’s bigger than your dick, sonny.” Then she squeezed.

A shadow fell across the page. Startled, Cody looked up. It was Margaret. Her heart sank.

“Hi,” she greeted her, lukewarm.

Mumbling a hello, Margaret sat down on the sand and removed her sunglasses. “I just wanted to let you know I’ll be leaving tomorrow,” she said flatly. “I’m going to spend the rest of my vacation on Rarotonga.”

“Okay.” Cody returned her attention to her book, making it clear she had no interest in further conversation.

Margaret squinted out to sea. “I thought about what you said,” she began in a rush. “And I’d like the name of that therapist.”

Cody laid her book face down on the towel, conscious of Margaret’s extreme unease and the tell-tale puffiness around her eyes. For a moment guilt stabbed at her. Perhaps she’d been too hard on her.

“Sure,” she said gently. “I’ll drop Janet a line and ask her to call you. She has the details.”

“Thanks.” Margaret trickled sand between her fingers. “Cody, I don’t know what to say.”

“I think we’ve said enough.”

“You’ve every right to hate me. I behaved like a deadshit. I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you.” Cody accepted the apology at face value. She gave Margaret’s hand a quick squeeze. “I was very hurt.”

“I know, and I know I can never make up for the way I behaved. But I’ve been doing some thinking. I still feel confused about my sexuality, but… Oh, Cody.” Hope brightened her eyes. “Could we…”

Cody shook her head. “It’s too late. There’s no going back. In some ways I feel like a different person now and I’ll bet you do, too.”

“I feel older, I’m not so sure about wiser, though,” Margaret joked weakly.

Cody felt a surge of relief at that hint of her ex-lover’s old sense of humor. “We had some great times together,” she said, wanting to acknowledge their bond. “Five years doesn’t vanish overnight. I still care about you, Margaret.”

Margaret stooped forward, shoulders heaving. “I don’t know what went wrong,” she sobbed. “It was like one day I woke up, and I just couldn’t get any vision of the future, of us as old people. All I could think of was husband and wife, parents, children, grandparents, nuclear families—and I’ve been terrified ever since. I don’t want to be lonely when I’m old. I need people...family.”

“Of course you do.” Cody put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s not a crime to want that, Margaret. Role models of old lesbian couples and lesbian families are in short supply. Anyone would think we spontaneously combust at age fifty or something.”

“Yet there are masses of older women around,” Margaret said. “Some of them must be lesbians.”

“Of course they are. But older women are invisible at the best of times, especially in terms of their sexuality. Many are very closeted, and I’m sure some are not even aware they are lesbian.”

“At least it won’t be that way for our generation,” Margaret said.

Cody tried not to show her skepticism. “I hope you’re right. We certainly do have a few more options about how we choose to live now. They may not be easy options, but they’re what we’ve got, and I guess if we want anything to change, it’s up to us, isn’t it?” She gave Margaret a hug. “Thanks for talking with me. I’m sorry this has been so rough.”

Margaret gave her a watery smile and a kiss on the cheek. “Will you phone me when you get back?”

“Of course I will.” As she watched Margaret trudge off down the beach, she released a profound sigh.

Since their conversation when Margaret first arrived, Cody had rifled through her feelings again and again, seeking the slightest evidence that she might want to give the relationship another chance. She could find none. If anything, seeing Margaret once more confirmed what she knew in her heart. It was over. No matter what happened with Annabel, Cody realized, she would never go back to Margaret.

Chapter Twenty

Annabel gazed up at the leaden sky with ill-concealed frustration. “Looks okay to me,” she said.

Bevan shrugged impassively. “At the moment.”

“We’ve got hours before it hits, and I have to get back to the island and batten down the hatches.”

“I radioed this morning and Cody’s got all of that under control.”

“Cody—” Annabel bit back the urge to ask about her.

“Smart cookie, that one,” he said. “The place has been running like a well-oiled machine.”

Annabel frowned at him and tried not to feel irrational envy at the idea of anyone having seen Cody regularly for the past two weeks, especially a man.

She indicated the Dominie. “So how long before she’s ready?”

Bevan waved his mechanic over. “The lady pines to fly the silver sky, my friend. Are we making any progress?”

Smithy wiped his hands on the rag dangling from his back pocket and sucked in his breath wetly. “’Bout another two hours guvnor, and that’s without testing ’er.”

“You hear the forecast?”

“Yep. They reckon it’s the big one this time.”

“Hurricane Mary,” Bevan mused out loud. “She’s five hundred miles northeast and nowhere to go but here.”

“The gulls are in,” Smithy said, indicating the squabbling ranks congesting the tarmac.

Bevan lit a cigarette and turned to Annabel. “We won’t be flying today,” he said bluntly. As Annabel glared across his shoulder at the forlorn Dominie, he explained, “Even if we get the new struts welded we’re not going to have enough time to test her before the storm hits.”

“There’s always some damned thing wrong.” Annabel cursed, coming to the rapid conclusion that she would soon have to buy a decent plane. “How long does testing have to take, for God’s sake?”

“We’d have to circle Raro a couple of times, put down and inspect her. That’s at least another two hours on top of repair time. It’s not happening.”

Annabel glanced at her watch and scanned the sky again. The horizon was condensing into a deep bruised purple and the air felt thick and humid. Bevan was right. They would never get to Moon Island in time. The hurricane would be there long before it reached Rarotonga. She wondered briefly whether Silk & Boyd had a freighter leaving and contemplated heading into Avarua to check them out.

Bevan seemed to read her mind. “All shipping’s canceled,” he said dryly, “And air traffic’s been diverted. You’re lucky you got here when you did.”

Annabel snorted. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it. A hurricane fetishist would be thrilled. Isn’t it unusual to have one at this time of year?” she noted with a frown.

“Sure is,” Bevan agreed. “Round here most of the action happens November to March.”

“That’s mid-summer in this part of the world?”

Bevan nodded. “Mid-summer to autumn, the wet season.”

“So how long before it gets here?”

“Depends how fast she’s moving. The tide’s way up. By early evening the outer winds will be here. She’ll hit Moon Island before then, of course.”

Annabel shoved her hands into her pockets and paced in frustration. If only she had left Boston a little sooner—not that traveling to the Cook Islands was exactly a garden party. It had taken two days and four changes of plane.

For a moment she felt a pang of homesickness. It had been so reassuring to slip into the comfortable routine of a Boston week, catch up with friends, wander the Freedom Trail like a tourist. Somehow the city had seemed more relaxed than she remembered, or perhaps it was just her. Boston was beautiful in the summer, the cobblestones mellow and warm, yachts bobbing on the Charles River.

To Annabel’s surprise she actually enjoyed herself spending whole days in her mother’s company. She survived shopping expeditions to Newberry Street and lunch at the Ritz Carlton with Laura and her cronies. She had listened to her mother complain about the Desecration of Our National Heritage in Back Bay without once defending her own apartment.

For the first time in her life, Annabel was aware of feeling totally relaxed around her mother, unafraid to be herself. She sensed it was different for Laura, too. It was as though each of them was taking tiny tentative steps toward the other, creating safe passage across uncharted emotional territory.

As they drew closer, it pained Annabel deeply to look back at her childhood and realize how much she had missed out on, how badly she had been affected by an agenda she had known nothing about, a lie lived by the people who loved her best. The veiled comments and underground messages had not been her imagination. She was not paranoid or hysterical. There was nothing wrong with her. There never had been.

Annie was gone. She grieved for her—for the relationship that might have been. Yet at the same time, she began to feel curiously light. It was such a relief to know the truth. That she was Annie’s daughter. That Annie had loved her and had tried her best to do right by her. The times were very different back then.

Now, as she came to terms with her past, she suddenly saw a future she could never have imagined and a relationship with Laura on a whole new basis. How strange it was, she thought. In losing a mother, she had found one, too.

When Laura had kissed her goodbye at the airport and said to come home soon, Annabel knew she meant it and had said impulsively, “I’d like to bring a close friend.”

Her mother had looked a little nervous. “A woman friend?”

“Yes. Her name is Cody… er Cordelia.”

Laura gave a quick nod. “I shall look forward to meeting her.”

It was a little stiff, but the genuine openness in her eyes had both startled and touched Annabel, and she hugged her mother warmly.

Recalling that hug, Annabel felt a rush of emotion for Laura—her mother. Love. It was the simplest truth of all.

She looked again at the congealing horizon and cursed the weather. Short of swimming, there was no way she could get to Moon Island now. Damn it all to hell, Annabel thought, and her stomach lurched. What if something happened to Cody?

Bevan must have glimpsed her expression, for he delivered a comradely slap across the shoulders. “She’ll manage,” he said and something in his voice caught her attention.

He knew. Annabel was immediately uncomfortable. She stole a second glance at the pilot and comprehension slowly dawned. Bevan was gay. The man he lived with on Atiu was his partner. Annabel felt like an idiot. Why hadn’t it clicked sooner? Stereotypes, she thought cynically. Bevan was a tough flier with a past she knew better than to inquire about. He was tall and lean, a kind of dog-eared version of Robert Redford. What had she expected a gay man to look like? She knew plenty of them back home, and none conformed to the hairdresser stereotype.

For that matter, what was a lesbian supposed to look like? Annabel thought about her own appearance and almost laughed. “Let’s go hole up at the Banana Court,” she said with cheerless resignation.

“Sounds good to me.” Bevan stubbed out his cigarette and paced around the Dominie. “Time to tuck her up, Smithy.”

The wiry little mechanic shook his head. “I’ll carry on if yer don’t mind, guvnor. I’d like to see ’er airworthy before the storm ’its. You never know,” he added obscurely.

Annabel pulled off her jacket and tossed it over her bags in the rear cabin. “Smithy’s right,” she said briskly. “Let’s get her in shape. The Banana Court will still be there tonight.”

An apprehensive silence descended and they looked at one another then laughed uneasily. “Tempt fate, why don’t you,” Annabel muttered.

Bevan fiddled with the radio set against the wall, and Annabel felt her heart leap as she caught the sound of static, then Cody’s voice drifting in and out of range. “Moonbase to shuttle Dominie. Moonbase calling Dominie, do you read me?”

“Roger, I read you Moonbase. Over,” Bevan responded.

“When do you expect touchdown Dominie? The natives are getting restless. Over.”

Annabel exchanged a look with Bevan and hurried over to take the handpiece. “Not today Moonbase,” she said huskily. “We have a gravity problem. Over.”

More static, then, “Annabel! Oh! Are you really here?”

“Seems like I’m just in time to be too late. We’re grounded here. Over.”

“What does that mean. When are you coming?” Cody sounded panicky.

Annabel was aware of the handpiece sliding in her wet palm. She felt sick at heart, desperate to be on her island, to be with Cody. “We’re not going to make it before the hurricane hits. Are you okay? Over.”

There was a pause. The radio whistled and Annabel frantically twisted the dials. “I wish you were here,” Cody’s voice faded in and out.

“Me, too,” Annabel said hollowly. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise. Over.”

“Oh, Annabel,” Cody said. “I’ve missed you so much. Over.”

Annabel noticed Bevan had moved discreetly to the plane and was helping Smithy with a welding iron. “I have to go help the others,” she said, controlling her voice with difficulty. Trying to inject some confidence, she added. “We’ll be there as soon as we can get off the ground. What are your plans for the storm? Over.”

Cody immediately sounded businesslike. “It raining here on and off, and the wind is getting pretty bad.” A wave of static swallowed her next few words, then the transmission become miraculously clear. “Mrs. Marsters went back to Rarotonga yesterday, and I’ve evacuated all the guests to Villa Luna. We’re going to spend the night in the Kopeka Cave. I walked Kahlo in with the supplies this morning, and now we’re all loading up to leave. Over.”

Annabel heaved a sigh of relief. The cave was a perfect shelter. It was only a little more than an hour’s walk from Villa Luna across the makatea, a fossilized coral reef now covered in jungle. Like many on the neighboring islands, the cave was a nesting place for hundreds of tiny Kopeka birds. Cody and Annabel had picnicked there one day and Annabel had been amazed at the chambers full of stalactites and curious limestone formations. There were even some human bones stacked neatly along the walls of a small antechamber, and Mrs. Marsters had explained that some of the caves were ancient burial sites for the one-time inhabitants of Moon Island, and very tapu, or sacred.

“The cave is a great idea,” Annabel said. “Be careful, won’t you. The makatea is sharp.”

“We will,” Cody promised and said something else that was lost in a flurry of static.

Annabel quickly adjusted the frequency. “Cody…” She felt awkward. “I know this is silly, but if anything goes wrong I just wanted you to know you mean a lot to me. Over.”

Through the fading signal, she could not make out most of Cody’s reply, catching only, “—be careful. This is hard.”

Hoping Cody had heard what she said, she found a positive note to end on. “Have fun camping out. I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye, darling. Over and out.”

Both women sat for a long moment staring at their crackling radio sets and wanting to cry. Overhead the sky darkened and a few hundred miles away, above a warm oily sea, Hurricane Mary gathered strength.

“There’s no way we can take all that.” Cody pointed at a set of luggage stacked on the verandah next to the supplies and bedding rolls they would be taking to the Kopeka cave. This time they would be hiking in and could only take what they could carry.

Dawn, the young Australian staying in Frangipani cottage, stamped a belligerent foot. “Well, I’m not leaving it here. What if this place blows down? Anyway,” she pointed a finger at one of the other guests, “she’s taking an extra back pack.”

“Yes, but she’s carrying it herself.” Cody held her temper in check. What they didn’t need right now was to have their well-organized evacuation thrown into chaos by some bratty teenager. “I’m storing everyone’s personal gear in the basement. We can only take what we absolutely need.” For Dawn’s benefit, she added. “Water and toilet paper are more important than your make-up kit, in other words.”

Catherine, the woman Dawn was glaring at, opened her pack and offered, “I can probably squeeze a few extras in here if there’s something you really don’t want to leave behind.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dawn said with such ill grace Cody wanted to slap her.

Catherine, a high school teacher, was unfazed. Obnoxious teenagers were nothing new for her, Cody supposed. “We’re not going to be there long,” she said in a reassuring tone. “Maybe a couple of days at the most.”

“Do we have a first aid kit?” inquired an older woman, sitting on the verandah steps tying her bright orange shoelaces.

Brenda was an accountant from Wisconsin, Cody recalled. So far her approach to the crisis had been calm and pragmatic.

Cody handed over the saddlebag she was packing. “It’s in here. Want to look it over?”

“One of us should in case anything happens to you.” Brenda extracted the case and opened it, inspecting the contents like someone who knew what to look for.

Catherine stood over her, also taking an interest. Sounding exactly like every teacher Cody could remember from her school days, she said, “Show of hands, girls—how many of us have done first aid training?”

“I can do CPR, but that’s all,” Dawn said as the other three women raised their hands.

“Looks like we got it covered then,” Brenda slid the kit back into the saddlebag and returned to her load.

Catherine gazed up at the brooding sky. “How long have we got?”

“Four hours before it turns really stormy. Maybe five.” Cody said, trying to sound like she knew what she was talking about. So far she hadn’t been able to get anything more accurate and radio reports mostly referred to Rarotonga, not to the more far flung islands of the Cook group.

A gauzy rain veiled the island, and she wanted to set off before it got any heavier. Already the trail was slippery, a menace when you were crossing the makatea. Coupled with the poor light, their progress was going to be slow. They could not afford to risk injury—the first aid kit was not designed for anything more serious than minor cuts and sprains.

Gathering Dawn’s luggage together, Cody hauled it beneath the verandah into the basement and dragged a plastic sheet over everything. Because of its elevation, Villa Luna was not built on stilts as were many island homes, especially those in low lying areas. Storm surges were a frequent occurrence in this region of the Pacific, so the locals built their homes to cope with an inundation of salt water. The villa must have survived plenty of severe tropical storms, Cody thought. Hopefully this would just be one more.

She wondered where Annabel would take shelter. Most of Rarotonga’s buildings were single story to reduce the danger of collapse. Remarkably the island had emerged unscathed from most of the cyclones that had flattened its neighbors in recent years. This knowledge provided no comfort. Annabel was miles away and in peril. Cody had never felt more powerless.

Chapter Twenty-One

“I remember Tracy,” a loud Australian slurred. “Back in seventy-four. Crikey mate, smashed Darwin to bits. Christmas bloody Day, too.”

“Peace on earth, eh?” A man near him mumbled into his Fosters.

Annabel sipped her coconut water and peered gloomily out across the main street to the lagoon. The sea looked unusually murky and already the tide was up. It was the usual Friday night carnage outside: drunken drivers jockeying their Subarus around the Post Office roundabout, Honda two-strokes polluting the air faster than you could breathe it, and the occasional Banana Court patron collapsing in the middle of the road in a stupor. At intervals the police showed up and transported these barflies to Avarua jail to sleep it off.

The Cook Island News informed Annabel that a panty thief at large in Avarua was found to be Mr. Jimmy Tuara’s goat, and that New Zealand’s newly elected Prime Minister was a thin woman who climbed mountains and had a husband but no children. From the tone of the article, this fact appeared to be of grave concern.

Local radio was ordering everyone under cover and inland. Meteorologists predicted the hurricane might bypass Rarotonga and that the island would only experience its fringe winds. But Bevan was not convinced.

“I think it’s time we got to the hotel,” he told Annabel above a cacophony of paté drums.

Normally show time at the Banana court happened much later, but faced with the looming financial disaster of early closing, management had rustled up some dancers for a happy hour show. Tourists hung over the decorative wooden surround that protected the performers from wandering hands. Lithe male dancers worked the audience in a dance of pumping eroticism, while women wearing leafy green garlands egged them on with sensuous hand and hip movements. As the dance reached its conclusion, several members of the audience were pulled on stage to prove that white people don’t have the rhythm.

Annabel had never seen anything like it. Distracted by the acreage of smooth flesh and jiggling coconut halves held mysteriously in place over rounded breasts, she contemplated waiting the storm out here. But she could see Bevan was restless.

“I wonder how Cody is doing,” she said, belatedly guilt-ridden at the thought of her huddled in the Kopeka Cave while she and Bevan were partying in one of the last old-time South Seas bars on the planet. Thank God they’d made radio contact. Ironically, that was one debt they owed to the freak weather conditions, according to Bevan. Normally Moon Island was consistently out of range.

Bevan climbed onto a chair. “Rarotongan Resort Hotel,” he shouted into the melee. “Anyone need a lift?”

A woman materialized at their table as they were preparing to leave. “Do you have room for me?” she asked nervously, and Annabel caught her breath as she recognized the accent. The woman was a New Zealander, and very attractive, with curly red hair and wide dark blue eyes.

“No problem,” Annabel said.

The woman followed them outside. “By the way, I’m Margaret,” she said as she climbed into the back seat of the jeep.

Annabel shook hands and made an obvious remark about the weather.

The woman lifted panicky eyes to the sky and shuddered. “We get a lot of wind back home. But never a hurricane.”

“You’re a New Zealander?” Annabel asked conversationally.

“Yes. I’m from Wellington. That’s the capital city.”

Wellington. Annabel’s eyes darted to the woman. “What do you think of Rarotonga?” she inquired cautiously.

“It’s beautiful,” Margaret enthused. “Although I liked Moon Island better.”

“You’ve been on Moon Island?”

“Yes. I just spent a few days there.” She sounded wistful and Annabel tried to ignore the sudden alarm that squeezed her gut. She exchanged a look with Bevan. If this woman had been on the island, he must have flown her there. Yet he was acting like they’d never met.

“There’s another New Zealander on the island,” Annabel began, the germ of a suspicion forming.

Margaret’s eyes widened. “Do you know Cody?” she asked. “Cody Stanton?”

“Yes,” Annabel said flatly. This woman knew Cody. Her name was Margaret, and she had just spent some time on the island. Annabel tried not to leap to any conclusions, but it seemed obvious that their passenger was Cody’s ex-lover.

It had started to rain and the air felt unbearably thick. Gusts of hot wind tore at the foliage around them, littering the ground with papaya. Annabel couldn’t help but notice the way Margaret’s T-shirt clung to her full breasts and that her hair was curling into wonderful little ringlets. She was quite stunning, she thought, feeling colorless by comparison.

“How did you get to meet Cody?” Margaret asked.

“I live on Moon Island,” Annabel explained. “I kind of run the place. As a matter of fact, Cody has been filling in for me recently, while I was back home in Boston.” Her voice fell slightly short of normal.

Margaret looked at her intently. “Are you lovers?”

Annabel nearly spluttered. She shot a pleading glance toward Bevan, who merely raised an eyebrow at her, offering no help at all. If she wanted to tell their passenger to take a hike, evidently she would have to do it herself.

Margaret had added two and two. “You are,” she concluded. “That was quick work.”

Annabel moistened her lips. Why the hell should she feel guilty? Cody was single. She and Margaret had broken up well before she traveled to the island. And from all accounts, Margaret was not exactly a woman wronged.

“I guess Cody has told you about us,” Margaret said.

Annabel fastened her safety belt as Bevan pulled away from the curb. “She mentioned her relationship had broken up. It’s really none of my business.” Wanting to end the conversation, she turned in her seat, facing forward.

“I was a fool,” Margaret said, resting her elbows on the seat back. “I came over to get her back.”

“I see.” Annabel felt like she was walking on nails. “Look, Margaret, I really don’t feel comfortable discussing this. It’s between you and Cody—” She broke off as they drew up alongside the hotel.

Dense sheets of rain had replaced the drops that were falling just moments ago, and the palm trees around the Rarotongan were doubled over in the wind. Hotel staff were taping glass and battening windows. A sign at reception warned guests to stay indoors until further notice, and the lobby was choked with excited tourists capturing the moment on video as if a tropical hurricane was just another thrilling attraction on their holiday of a lifetime.

Although she could see Margaret wanted to continue their conversation, Annabel immediately excused herself and escaped to her room, a jumble of thoughts chasing each other in her head.

Long-term relationships went through bad patches, everyone knew that. Couples could often heal their differences and carry on. Perhaps this was the very process Cody and Margaret were going through. Perhaps she should take a step back right now and give them some room.

Peeling off her damp clothes, she stalked into the compact bathroom and stood under the shower. Less than an hour ago, Cody had seemed thrilled to hear from her. Why would she have stayed on Moon Island if she had just got back together with her ex? Was she planning to have her cake and eat it too—to return to the cozy domesticity of her LTR after the thrill of a holiday fling?

Dismayed by this possibility, Annabel soaped the sweat and travel grime from her body. She had spent the entirety of that hellish trip back from Boston wildly impatient to see Cody—virtually planning a future with her. She had allowed herself the fantasy that their short-lived romance might translate into something more meaningful. Before she left the island, it seemed she and Cody had reached an understanding of sorts—a tacit agreement that they both wanted to explore that possibility. But that was then, and this was now.

In an environment like Moon Island, it was all too easy to forget there was a world beyond the horizon, to get caught up in the heat of the moment. Had they just been swept away by the intensity of their physical attraction and interpreted lust as love? Short flings could be very passionate. Women became infatuated. I’ve been through that pattern, Annabel reminded herself. It was classic rebound stuff—which was why it was a dumb idea to get hot and heavy with someone who had just broken up. She should have known better.

Drying herself roughly, she tried to push the memory of their lovemaking from her mind. But the very thought of Cody sent a shock of tingling awareness down her spine. She ached to lie next to her, to feel the sleek strength of that body, to surrender to the strange magic of their union. With Cody she felt more intensely alive than she had ever known. Her world seemed brighter, safer, rich with enchantments. Flowers roared their perfumes at her, birds danced slow ballet in the sky, Cody’s touch lingered in mind and body like a love letter.

Whatever might be going on for Cody, Annabel recognized with dazzling clarity what was happening for her. She was falling in love. It would be impossible to see Cody as nothing more than instant gratification. Annabel had experienced the McDonald’s approach to lesbian relationships—eat and run, as she’d once put it to a friend. She knew this was different. Yet it seemed she was in danger of making a fool of herself. If Cody was willing to run straight back to the ex who had dumped her for a man, what did that say about the depth of her feelings for Annabel?

Her stomach lurched. The thought of Cody with another woman bruised her heart. Fool, Annabel said to herself. How could she have let this happen?

Cody twisted in her sleeping bag and changed position, stretching her cramped limbs. The four women in the cave sat wrapped in their bags in a huddle around Cody’s attempt at a fire, and Kahlo was tethered in the adjoining chamber.

Outside the sky was black and the noise of the hurricane was deafening. It filtered down from the mouth of the cave with the distortion of an outdoor rock concert. Cody was astounded at the range of sounds, everything from a deep low bass to screams that made “Nightmare on Elm Street” sound like a Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearsal. Dust fell in clouds from the cave roof, and its resident Kopeka birds clicked and swooped like thousands of tiny bats.

“Yuk!” Dawn batted ineffectually at them. “I hate these creepy little birds. How long is this going to last, anyway?” The young Australian with the blonde ponytail and the attitude problem had complained non-stop ever since they left Villa Luna.

“It depends on the size of the hurricane,” Cody responded patiently. “According to the radio, the winds will be at their worst for six hours. After that…” She shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to hope there’s something left of the houses.”

“You’re exaggerating!” Dawn accused.

Brenda cast a sympathetic look in Cody’s direction. “Since when were you an expert on hurricanes, Dawn?” she remarked with gentle irony.

Dawn prodded the fire and said nothing.

Cody wriggled out of her sleeping bag. “I’m going to take a look.”

“I’ll join you.” Catherine scrambled up. “I could do with stretching my legs.”

“No worries. Are you sure that knee of yours is okay?” Cody eyed the woman uncertainly. Catherine had fallen as they crossed the makatea, and the razor sharp coral had sliced her leg open in a jagged line from her knee down her calf almost as far as her ankle. Her jeans were stiff with drying blood, and Cody was worried the wound would open again if she moved.

“I think so.” Catherine tested her leg gingerly. “Brenda did a pretty good job of binding it.”

Cody took her arm, and they made their way slowly toward the mouth of the cave, halting well within its protection. A steady hail of silt, leaves and twigs rained down on them, but thankfully the cave mouth seemed to be trapping anything larger. Cody stared up at the groaning sky. It was starless, writhing and filthy with debris.

“The truth is,” Catherine admitted as soon as they got out of earshot, “I couldn’t stand another moment listening to that spoiled brat. If she says another word about demanding a refund when she gets home, I’m going to stuff her Reeboks down her throat.”

Cody laughed. “She’s just a kid. And she’s really scared. I think she complains all the time because it gives her something to think about. It takes her mind off her fear.”

“You’re far too nice,” Catherine said, raising her voice to be heard above the relentless cacophony beyond their refuge. “If it wasn’t for you, the silly little bitch would have been mincemeat crossing the ridge. And she’s not the least bit grateful.”

“Ignorance is bliss,” Cody said. “Anyway, I think I’d rather have her grumbling and in one piece than chopped up and screaming.”

“You ought to make her piggyback you going back,” Catherine said darkly.

Cody shook her head. “I plan to get there.”

“Do you think there’ll be anything left… really?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Cody squinted up at the swirling chaos overhead. “It’s pretty bad out there. I reckon those winds must be over a hundred miles an hour.”

Catherine shuddered. “Thank God for this place.” With some difficulty she lit a cigarette.

“Your cottage won’t survive,” Cody said. “It’s too close to the beach.” She thought regretfully of pretty little Frangipani Cottage, the one-person villa in Hibiscus Bay. The beaches on the western side of the island would probably be the worst hit.

Catherine had been staying over there for the past week, and Cody had enjoyed visiting her to drop off supplies. To her amazement she had discovered that Catherine, a fellow Wellingtonian, lived only a few streets away from her old flat in Hataitai. Yet they’d had to travel thousands of miles to meet.

Catherine looked puzzled. “What difference will it make whether the cottage is on the beach or not? It’s a hurricane. Won’t the wind be just as strong everywhere?”

“More or less,” Cody said. “But it’s the storm surge I’m worried about. That’s a kind of tidal wave that comes in just as the hurricane strikes. They were talking about it on the radio. That’s why I decided to move us all inland. At least it’s elevated here.”

“Oh my God. A tidal wave.”

Cody wished she hadn’t said anything. Catherine looked so pale, it seemed like she could faint at any moment. Giving her a reassuring hug, Cody said, “Don’t worry. We’re completely safe here.”

She tried not to think about the possibility that if tree branches and torn vegetation filled the mouth of the cave, they could find themselves trapped. But Annabel and Bevan knew their location. They could probably survive inside the cave for at least a week on the provisions she had brought in.

“So half the island could be under water even when we get out of here?” Catherine was trying to take it in. “What about the runway? What if aircraft can’t get in to rescue us? We could be stranded for weeks with no supplies and no idea when anyone will get to us.”

“It’s possible,” Cody conceded. “But if we are, then we’ll just have to make the best of it.” God, she sounded like a Girl Scout leader.

Catherine seemed to get a hold of herself. “I’m sorry. It’s not like me to panic.”

“It’s not every day you’re in a hurricane.”

“At least we’ve got water. And there’s so much fruit around. We could probably survive for months if we had to.” She laughed suddenly. “That would really give Dawn something to complain about.”

They both glanced down into the cave where the young woman was piling extra wood onto the fire. She was speaking to Brenda, but the noise around them made it impossible to hear anything she said.

“She says she’s training for the Australian Olympic squad,” Catherine said. “Can you imagine?”

“Don’t tell me—beach volleyball.” Cody snickered.

“Swimming,” Catherine said.

“You’re kidding. Who’d have thought she had the discipline?”

“I’ve seen her. She’s out there every morning. Up and down the beach for a couple of hours.”

“To think she made me carry her half the way here.”

Catherine laughed and stubbed out her cigarette. “My point exactly.”

Cody took her arm as they descended once more into the cave.

“How does it look?” Brenda asked.

“Dangerous,” Catherine replied, awkwardly lowering herself onto her makeshift bed, her leg extended out before her.

Cody handed her a couple of Motrin from the first aid kit and said, “I don’t think we should go up there again until it’s over. There’s a lot of crap falling in around the entrance.”

“Will it block the way out?” Brenda asked anxiously.

“It might,” Cody said. “But—”

“Then how the fuck are we meant to get out of here?” Dawn cut her off.

“The youngest and fittest members of the party will go up there and clear a way through,” Cody said coolly. “And that means you and me.”

For a moment Dawn just sat with her mouth open. Then, collecting herself, she said, “No way. And you can’t make me.”

Cody met her gaze squarely. “Try me.”

 Chapter Twenty-Two

“That is a horrible sound,” Annabel said, pushing her meal half-heartedly around her plate. It was her new favorite—ika mata, a spicy, marinated fish salad, one of the few authentic Polynesian dishes on a menu clearly designed for carnivorous Westerners.

The hotel restaurant was packed, and looking around, Annabel couldn’t help but be reminded of the carnival atmosphere of a “Poseidon Adventure.” She shivered at the idea.

“Collective madness,” Bevan remarked, verbalizing her sentiments. “They’re tossing down cocktails like there’s no tomorrow.”

The Rarotongans loved a good cyclone, he had told her earlier. As they drove to the hotel, she saw people swarming the shoreline, apparently thrilled by the prospect of fleeing huge waves and howling winds. This cavalier attitude to danger was also embraced by a small minority of tourists who should know better, but behaved as if a hurricane was just another joyride in the theme park of life.

“Damned fools,” Annabel muttered. Like most New Englanders, she had a healthy respect for storms. Her mother had been a child in the 1938 hurricane and returned from vacationing on Westhampton Beach only days before the great gale hit. The family’s house had been completely destroyed, earning Laura the childhood nickname “Lucky” for getting out in time.

Family legend had it that the shock of losing her favorite home had been so great for Annabel’s grandmother that it had set her health into a decline. She had died not long after, leaving fourteen-year-old Laura to manage the household.

Recently Annabel had wondered how much this experience had contributed to her mother’s over-developed sense of responsibility and her obvious insecurity about close relationships. Annabel was conscious of an echo of this pattern in her own reluctance to commit herself. Something her mother said came back to her—Everyone I love leaves.

On some level, she expected the same thing herself, Annabel realized. She thought about a little girl called Lucy whose two mothers had left her—one in body, the other in mind. Now she was the one who did the leaving. Since Clare, she had walked away from every woman she became involved with. Was this what she was doing with Cody, too? Was Margaret just an excuse?

Frowning, Annabel stared down into her drink. She did not know what to think. Maybe Cody and Margaret were just friends now. Maybe Margaret’s visit was a total coincidence.

“Get real,” she murmured.

Bevan nodded agreement. “Let’s hope none of them is called on to make like a hero.” He eyed a particularly raucous bunch of tourists.

Annabel followed his gaze and grimaced. Four drunk men were showing off to the women at their table.

“Reckon we should leave the sheilas here and go take a squiz down the beach, mate,” one large member of the group slurred loudly. There was general agreement and they got to their feet and lurched off.

“Bloody lemmings,” Bevan hissed and pulled out his chair.

“You’re not going after them?” Annabel protested, then swallowed her irritation. If Bevan chose to take responsibility for some of the more limited members of his sex, that was his funeral. On the other hand, she needed an experienced pilot. “Just don’t go outside, will you?” she insisted.

Bevan stubbed out his cigarette. “You’re the boss,” he said with an impassive expression and strolled from the restaurant.

An hour later, when he hadn’t returned, Annabel tried not to panic. A moribund hush had descended on the revelers, who now seemed transfixed by the awesome roar outside the hotel walls. The band strummed “Staying Alive” with all the enthusiasm of an undertaker’s convention. Annabel stared into her drink and fought off images of Moon Island decimated, Cody maimed, or dead. She should have taken her to Boston, told her what was going on. Suddenly everything that had occurred over the past three turbulent weeks seemed mere soap opera. What mattered most of all was life… and love.

Rebecca left Moon Island thirty years ago without Annie, and they never saw each other again. Annabel couldn’t bear to contemplate history repeating itself. She felt tears plop onto her hands.

“Cheer up.”

It was a woman’s voice and Annabel swung her eyes to a squarish face she did not recognize. A stranger occupied the other chair at her table. She was very tanned, with short, graying black hair and a hard-looking body clad in white shirt and black pants. Very nice, too, Annabel thought abstractly.

“I see your guy’s got himself lost,” she observed.

Annabel stiffened. “You noticed.”

The woman grinned. “You looked like you could use some company, and I thought I’d beat out the incredible hulk over there.”

Annabel followed her gesture and met the bloodshot eyes and salacious grin of a balding man in a Hawaiian shirt.

“Oh great,” she muttered and quickly looked away.

“My name’s Rose,” said the stranger in a near-Texas drawl. “Rose Beecham.”

“I’m Annabel Worth.”

“I’ve seen you fly that little de Havilland,” her companion remarked, moving a little closer to make herself heard above the din of the storm.

“You have?” Annabel was surprised.

“When I first got here,” Rose explained. “I was thinking I’d stay on that island of yours but you were booked out. I thought I’d check again when I arrived, and they said I could find you flying the island shuttle. So I showed up at your hangar and some old dude who couldn’t speak a word of English told me you were out of town.” She was so completely deadpan, Annabel burst out laughing.

“That was Smithy,” she said. “And he’s as English as they come. London, no less.

“No doubt the confusion was mutual. He acted like I was off another planet.” Rose Beecham laughed from low in her belly. Appreciative dark blue eyes traced Annabel from head to toe. Could this woman be any more blatant about cruising her? “So who’s the cowboy you were with? Tell me he’s not your husband.”

Annabel gave her a measuring look, then told herself not to be so prickly. So what if a dyke tried to pick her up in the middle of a tropical hurricane? It wasn’t as if she had anything else planned. “That was Bevan Mitchell. He owns the Dominie and flies for me.”

“And you own Moon Island, right?”

Annabel nodded, a little bemused at the third degree.

“What can I get you?” Rose summoned the waiter.

“Pineapple juice,” Annabel said and Rose ordered the same.

“Is your hair natural?” she asked Annabel bluntly, then said, “Sorry. Betcha get real sick of that type of question.”

Annabel relaxed. “Mostly people don’t ask. They stare instead.”

“Well, I can certainly understand that,” Rose said. “You’re mighty pleasing to the eye.”

Annabel could hardly believe such a corny line could make her blush, but it did. Guiltily aware of Cody trapped on the island trying to keep the paying guests safe, she sipped her pineapple juice and prepared to deliver a gentle but definite brush-off. Before she could frame the right words, an unearthly boom erased every other sound and the restaurant shuddered as if an earthquake had struck. Everything went black and people started screaming.

Annabel felt her arms grabbed. In her ear, Rose’s voice ordered, “Don’t panic. Come with me.”

Rose had her firmly about the waist and also gripped one hand with fingers so strong Annabel was losing feeling.

“Where are we going?” Annabel shouted as they descended stairs.

“We’re getting our asses out of here.” Rose seized a door handle. “My room’s right around the corner.”

“No!” Annabel shook herself free and staggered back a step. “We can’t go out there in this.”

The building shuddered again and she clutched Rose once more.

“If we go now, we can do it,” Rose urged, as the gale momentarily lulled. “Otherwise we can head back into that watering hole and get ourselves trampled to death. Take your pick.”

Knowing it would almost certainly be safer anywhere but in a two-story building with a mob of people, Annabel renewed her grip on Rose’s arm and yelled. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

Rose inched the door open, assessing the pattern of the winds for a moment. Then she yelled, “Now!” and the two of them ran through driving needles of rain across a short expanse of paved garden to a long single building. Arm locked around Annabel, Rose jammed her key in the lock and they fell into her room, gasping for breath.

“Guess the power’s out everywhere.” Rose tried the light switches to no avail. “Probably a good thing. All we need now is live current setting off a fire.”

“Do you think we’re safe here?”

“It’s hard to say. We’re on a single level and we’re overlooking the gardens not the ocean. Nothing can come crashing down on us other than the roof.”

“Great.” Annabel eyed the ceiling. A dark void, it seemed very close.

“And if that happens we’ll get in the shower cubicle.”

“You’ve thought of everything.”

In the pitch darkness, Rose led her into the bathroom and guided her to a recess, “The shower,” she said.

“This is crazy. Don’t they have hurricane shelters here?”

“They claim this place is built to survive the average tropical cyclone,” Rose said. “I guess we’ll find out.”

They groped their way back into the main room, and Rose steered her toward a sofa. “Have a seat. I’m going to organize some light.”

What am I doing here? Annabel thought. Even if they were about to be blown off the island, she should not be in some attractive stranger’s hotel room. It was asking for trouble. She would simply inform Rose she was in a relationship, Annabel decided. Yet was she? Annabel rested her forehead in one hand for a long moment. She wished she could say she was in a relationship. But since Cody had just got back with her ex, where did that leave her?

She had no doubt that Cody wanted to see her again, but on what basis? If Cody was looking for an open relationship, why try to keep her and Margaret secret from one another? She didn’t seem the non-monogamous type, Annabel thought. But what did she know? Cody hadn’t exactly broken down the door to be honest with her.

Despondently, she kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet beneath her. Sometimes falling in love was one-sided and you had to make a choice, she concluded. Either settle for whatever crumbs you were thrown or preserve your self-respect and walk away.

Three hours later, while the hurricane pillaged the Cook Islands with random cruelty, Annabel lay in Rose’s arms and marveled at the twist of fate that saw her confiding her most guarded secrets in a total stranger.

“It would make a great book,” Rose said when Annabel finished telling her about Aunt Annie. “Wrong genre for me, of course.”

Annabel stirred. “You’re a writer?”

“Sure am, honey.”

“I’m impressed,” Annabel said. “Is that why you’re over here? To research a book?”

“Hell, no. I came for some peace and quiet. And the one-night stand of a lifetime.”

Annabel spluttered. “You’re joking!”

“Nope,” Rose said. “When I saw you flying that Dominie I said that’s the one, and tonight in the restaurant I knew the goddess had delivered.”

“Rose!” Annabel pulled back from the warm circle of her arms. “We’re about to be blown off the island, and you’re propositioning me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rose said. “The way I see it, truth is stranger than fiction. When they ask you what you did in the hurricane and you say, I got picked up by some woman and we went up to her room for a quickie, what do you think they’ll say?”

Annabel couldn’t help but laugh.

“Who’d believe you?” Rose continued in her deep easy drawl. “Last Tango in Rarotonga. What a title.”

She rolled to face Annabel squarely. “This is a once-only opportunity. We can lie here all night wondering what it would be like and worrying about whether we’ll see tomorrow, or we can have some truly excellent sex. Your choice, honey.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

When Cody poked her head out of the cave at dawn, she could sense only an incredible stillness. The air smelled green and woody. In the distance the sea pulsed softly. A breeze wandered across the makatea, but nothing moved. She blinked and stepped over a pile of torn branches into the thin light.

The jungle had been laid to waste, trees uprooted, palms and undergrowth flattened. It looked as though some giant had kicked a drunken path across the land. Lonely clumps of papaya and banana palms stood dazed in the midst of the carnage like soldiers in a spent battlefield. Birds perched silent and observant on torn branches.

Cody turned back into the cave. “You can go outside,” she told the other woman. “But only in pairs and no more than a hundred yards from the cave. I’m going to Villa Luna to check the damage. If I’m not back by tomorrow morning, start making your own way. I’ll leave a trail in the difficult patches. Just remember, once you get over the ridge, head straight for the sea.”

“I don’t think we should move until you get back here,” Dawn broke in. “Catherine can hardly walk, and I can’t cross that coral by myself.”

“You’re not by yourself, Dawn,” Brenda reminded her crisply. “You have us.”

“Oh, terrific!” a petulant Dawn responded. “A cripple and a granny.”

“Dawn!” Cody pulled her up short. “Here.” She thrust a water canteen at the pouting blonde. “You’re in charge of this. Keep it filled. You’ll find plenty of rainwater trapped everywhere.”

“Well if that’s the case then I don’t see why I need to fill the damn thing up all the time.”

Cody suppressed a strong urge to slap some sense into her. She didn’t want to have to explain her worst fears, that she might find the houses razed and radio contact lost, that there was every chance they could be stranded without water or supplies for days, weeks even, until help arrived. It would all depend on what had happened on Rarotonga, and Cody could hardly bear to think about that.

Keeping her temper in check, she passed her compass to Catherine. “Take this as well. Villa Luna is approximately an hour and a half northeast of here. If you have to go it alone, walk slowly and take turns carrying the supplies.”

Cody had just finished cleaning and dressing Catherine’s leg wound, and she knew it needed urgent medical attention. The first aid kit contained only a tiny tube of antiseptic cream and Cody had used most of it already. Besides, they needed something stronger. Wounds could infect overnight in this heat, and Catherine’s looked angry already. It must be painful, Cody thought, wishing she could offer more relief than a few Motrin.

“I’ll be all right,” Catherine said, as though she’d read her mind.

Throwing her a grateful look, Cody left them standing forlornly in front of the cave, Dawn sulking, Brenda philosophical, and Catherine looking decidedly stressed.

Checking her bearings with the sun, she took Kahlo’s reins and led the mare carefully out across the makatea toward the ridge that separated them from the sea. She was almost too scared to climb it. God only knew what she might find on the other side.

Annabel and Rose kissed chastely, as though last night had never happened. The walkway outside Rose’s room was a sea of bags, bedding, and dazed hotel patrons. Windows had smashed in several rooms, and hotel staff were attempting to remove some of the debris.

“I’m going to take a walk,” Annabel said. “I’ve got to find Bevan.”

“And I think I’d better line up for the phone.” Rose smiled her slow easy smile, eyes sparkling Kodachrome blue. She took Annabel’s hand. “You’re quite a woman.”

Annabel flushed. “So are you. You oughtn’t waste yourself on one-nighters, Rose.”

“Was last night a waste?” Rose inquired softly.

Annabel could not suppress a smile. “Last night was great. I’ll never forget it.”

They kissed again and crossed the courtyard in companionable silence. Last night, Annabel thought. In life, turning points came in many forms. Some, like last night, were unexpected and disturbing. She had chosen to have sex with Rose partly out of hurt and anger, and partly to prove to herself that she could move on without a pang. If she could see her time with Cody as nothing more than a pleasant interlude in a life punctuated with them, she could not be hurt when it ended.

But as she lay awake in Rose’s bed, she knew this safeguard was as illusory as the four flimsy walls that stood between them and nature’s fury. She could delude herself that she was in control, but in truth she was completely vulnerable. All she had proven was that making love with Cody had meaning for her she had never found with anyone else, and perhaps never would. Going back to her old ways was not an option. She had tried with this handsome stranger and it didn’t work.

It made no difference that the sex was good. Rose was one of those old-fashioned butch lovers who focused entirely on her partner’s pleasure. She was accomplished, chivalrous and self-assured. A year ago, Annabel would have envisaged a dalliance with her lasting several months. Now, she knew she would never see her again, no matter what happened with Cody.

The realization was a shock. Something inside her had changed and there was no going back. It was Cody she wanted and no one else. Annabel had always dismissed the idea of fighting for a woman as ludicrous. Yet she knew all of a sudden that she intended to do exactly that. If Cody needed time to get over her relationship, fine—she would wait. But she was not going to stand aside and allow Margaret to walk back into her life as if nothing had happened.

“Well, this is goodbye.” Rose halted a few feet from the lobby doors. Taking Annabel’s hand for a moment, she said. “If you ever need a friend, look me up. As you know I’m happy to address other needs as well.”

Her dry self-mockery precluded any awkwardness and Annabel dropped a light kiss on her cheek, saying, “I’m glad we met. Good luck with the next book.”

“I’m feeling inspired,” Rose said. “Goodbye Annabel. It was a real pleasure.”

With the briefest flash of wickedness in her eyes, she held open the door and Annabel walked into the noisy fray feeling as if she had just turned the page on part of her life and nothing would ever be the same again.

Fighting for elbow room in the mob at reception, she wondered how on earth the harassed staff could be expected to cope with hordes of tourists asking impossible questions. When is the next flight to Sydney? Was my pearl earring found in the restaurant last night? If I post this letter today when will it be delivered? She was debating the usefulness of leaving a message for Bevan when, from somewhere behind, a woman called her name, and Margaret squeezed her way to her side.

“Is Cody all right?” she asked urgently. “Have you heard from her?”

“No,” Annabel said in a frosty tone. This woman had spent five years with Cody, she reminded herself, and they were in the midst of a natural disaster. It was entirely reasonable for her to be concerned for her safety. Forcing herself to be marginally pleasant, she added, “I’m sure she’ll be fine. As soon as I can I’ll be flying out to the island.”

Margaret nodded, then looked a little flustered. “I’m sorry about yesterday. Ever since I got here all I seem to have done is open my mouth to change feet.”

Annabel shrugged it off. “Forget it.” She wished Margaret would just go away.

“You might like to know that I’m going home the minute I can get a plane out of here,” Margaret informed her. “I just wanted to wish you luck.”

“Luck?”

“With Cody. It’s all over between us, in case you hadn’t worked that out.” Her eyes shone briefly with pain. “That’s what I was trying to tell you yesterday. I came here to get her back and she turned me down.”

“Because of me?” Annabel asked. She wondered if Margaret could see how quickly she was breathing.

“No. It’s not your fault, if that’s what you’re worried about. I blew it with her. It’s that simple.”

Annabel scrutinized Margaret’s face. Why was Cody’s ex bothering to tell her this?

As though to answer her, Margaret said, “Last night I wondered if I was going to be killed, or maybe Cody was, and I guess it made me think about a few things, helped me get my priorities straight.”

Annabel nodded. “I can understand that.” How could she have been so wrong?

Her heart pounded a wayward staccato against the walls of her chest. What had she done?

“Are you okay?” Margaret was looking at her oddly.

“I’m fine, thank you. Last night was… quite a night.” Annabel felt color drench her cheeks.

“Anyway, I’ve said enough.” Margaret fidgeted self-consciously. “Give Cody my love. I hope the two of you are happy.” She stepped back and was quickly lost in the anxious crowd choking the lobby.

Dazed, Annabel allowed herself to drift back through the crowds around the counter. Her face felt hot and her legs weak. A flood of mixed emotions made it impossible to concentrate on anything but her overwhelming need to get back to the island, to find Cody safe and well.

To hell with trying to read the casualty list or leave a message for Bevan Mitchell, she decided. She would go down to the hanger right now and fly the Dominie back there herself.

Pushing through a sea of Hawaiian shirts and screaming children, she had made it to the doors when someone tapped her shoulder from behind. Turning, Annabel gasped, “You!”

The object of her wrath grinned sheepishly. “Good to see you, too.”

Relief flooded her and she clutched his arm. “Thank God you’re okay. I was worried sick.”

“I’m overwhelmed,” Bevan commented.

Recovering herself, Annabel gave a snort. “You’re lucky you’re not fired.” She glared pointedly. “Oh my God. You’ve got a black eye!”

“You should see the other guy.”

Appalled, Annabel shook her head. “Tell me you didn’t get into a bar fight with those morons?”

“Not exactly. I told them they had two choices. Stay inside, or stay inside tied up.” With his particular brand of British arrogance, he added, “Being Australian and drunk, the silly bastards couldn’t figure out which was the smarter move.”

Annabel rolled her eyes expressively. “Men!” she said with disgust. “We’re getting wiped out by a hurricane and the boys are playing Rambo. Come on.” She started toward the door. “Let’s get out to the airport.”

Bevan lit a cigarette and looked at his watch. “Smithy should be there by now. I doubt we’ll be flying, though.”

“Why not?” Annabel glanced up at the sky. “Is it too windy?”

Bevan looked at her as if she were kidding him. “Look around,” he said, as they emerged from the torn hotel gardens onto the street.

Wordlessly, Annabel stared around her. In the chilling aftermath of the storm, a little boy walked along the road, tears pouring down his face. Next to him was a woman carrying a dead dog in her arms. Medics ran stretchers and shouted instructions. Bulldozers pushed piles of debris aside to clear the road for traffic. Stunned, she took Bevan’s hand as they negotiated their way past overturned cars, uprooted palm trees and smashed walls.

“We’ll be lucky if we have a plane,” he said when they finally came to the jeep. “Let alone a runway.”

“Someone up there was lookin’ out for us, guvnor,” Smithy noted as the three of them inspected the Dominie a little later. The hangar, apart from the loss of half its roof, was in remarkably good shape, and the plane herself was untouched.

Annabel ran wondering fingers across the smooth silver fabric of a wing. The area surrounding the terminal was a shambles. Her heart sank when she took in the full extent of the devastation. It seemed impossible to imagine their fragile little plane could have survived the onslaught.

“The poor islanders,” she said, thinking about the child and his dead pet, the hundreds of homes razed to the ground. “The tourists can go home and brag about their big adventure at the next office lunch, but what about the locals?”

“They’ll get aid,” Bevan said. “It won’t be enough of course. Hundreds of families have lost everything, even their clothes.”

“There’s three dead in Avarua,” Smithy commented.

“Names?” Bevan peered out from under the plane.

“Not yet,” Smithy told him.

“Your place?” Bevan queried. Smithy had a little villa southwest of Avarua.

“Just lost some shingles. Day’s work, that’s all, guv.”

“What about the other islands—any reports?” Annabel asked him.

“They reckon six dead on Atiu.”

Bevan’s head jerked up and Smithy spread his hands. “No names yet. Bleedin’ tidal wave flattened the place. Heard nothing from Moon either.”

“Can we fly this afternoon?”

Smithy shook his head. “Runway’s a bomb-site. Air traffic’s grounded.”

“But what about rescue flights?” Annabel insisted.

“New Zealand’s sending in a few Army choppers, and Silk and Boyd are heading out for the Northern Group this afternoon.”

“But we can’t wait for them!” Annabel paced back and forth, then halted, adding with stubborn determination. “They have to give us special flight clearance. We’ve got tourists to rescue.”

“Helpless females,” Smithy noted.

They all knew what was being said. The islanders could wait. Foreign tourists were the Cook Island’s livelihood.

“You’re absolutely right,” Bevan said very seriously. “I think we should convey that laudable sentiment to our Police Chief without further ado. God forbid we have rich foreign ladies roughing it alone on those inhospitable shores.”

“Shocking,” Smithy agreed. “Could end up with casualties.”

“Big insurance companies investigating for negligence,” Bevan added. “It could get damned ugly for the authorities.”

“Sleazy,” Annabel commented. “Very sleazy. When can we see him?”

Annabel pulled on her bomber jacket and settled into her seat next to Bevan.

“No heroics if we dump her,” the pilot said very seriously. “This runway’s a disaster and God only knows what the strip will be like at the other end. Are you quite sure you want to come?”

Annabel threw him a sharp look. At least Bevan knew that Don was okay. A journalist, Don had radioed to say he was on his way to Rarotonga via army helicopter. But so far, no one had been able to make contact with Moon Island.

Smithy pulled away the chocks, and they taxied toward an area of runway that had been cleared of large branches and torn metal.

“In a crash this thing will go up in sixty seconds,” Bevan said tersely. “She’s all skin. So if we take a spill, bail out and run as fast as you can. No heroics. Don’t think about me. Got it?”

“Got it,” Annabel said coolly. “Same goes for you.”

“Sure.” Bevan built the revs, and Annabel closed her eyes and held her breath.

She could see how it was that he had managed a successful supply operation in a war zone. Skirting the pot-holes and remaining debris with scorn, he bounced the little place into the air on their first attempt. It was only when they’d safely climbed to two thousand feet that he casually broke the bad news.

“We’ve damaged the landing gear. Can you take a look?”

Annabel matched his cool. “Will do.” She clambered around in the rear of the cabin, peering out the windows. “One of the wheels is twisted. It looks fairly serious. What are we going to do?”

He shrugged. “Land and fix it.”

“Land?” Annabel shivered. “But how can we?”

“Well, we can’t stay up here all day,” he pointed out dryly.

Annabel took their bearings and calculated an estimated time of arrival. “ETA thirteen hundred hours.”

The pilot responded with a grin. “That gives you a whole hour to get your affairs in order.”

“Bastard.” Annabel slipped her aviator sunglasses on and relaxed back in her seat like she flew across the Pacific ocean in a crippled war-era biplane every day.

When they came in sight of Moon Island she almost cried with relief. It was still there, exactly where the map said. Bevan made a low pass over Passion Bay, and they both peered down at the carnage of broken palm trees and debris piled on the beach.

“Christ,” he said. “Lucky we’re carrying enough fuel to get back to Raro.”

They climbed and swooped in for a wider pass. From five hundred feet overhead Annabel glimpsed a movement on the makatea not far from Villa Luna, and they circled back for a second look.

“Definite signs of life,” she said with relief. “I think I saw two or three of them. They’ll get to Villa Luna by the time we land.”

“If we land,” Bevan muttered.

They banked steeply over the strip, both gazing down.

“It’s not too bad. Looks almost like someone’s cleared it.” There was relief and puzzlement in Bevan’s voice. “Or else Mr. Big really is looking after us.”

Annabel was also baffled. The strip looked like a freshly swept patch of floor in the midst of an expanse of litter. “Weird,” she remarked. “I guess the women must have done it. Good thinking.”

Bevan shrugged. “It’s sure as hell going to make the difference between flying and frying with this damned wheel shot. Let’s take her in.”

They climbed rapidly and turned into the wind to prepare for landing. Annabel tightened her belt and braced herself as they dropped out of the sky. Bevan seemed to be making the descent at a peculiar tilt, the nose too far up.

Annabel started to panic. “Bevan!” she cried. “Straighten up!”

He elbowed her roughly away, shouting, “Get down in the plane and get ready to jump.”

Annabel obeyed blindly, screaming as they crashed down hard on the tail. The little plane bounced once, then veered into a spin, tried to straighten and bounced again frantically from side to side, wingtips just brushing the earth.

As the spinning slowed and Bevan killed the engines, Annabel smelled petrol, released the hatch, and clambered toward the cockpit.

“Go!” Bevan shouted, but she had already released his belt and grabbed his arm, dragging him roughly after her.

They jumped in quick succession, rolled, and sprinted for the cover of the torn jungle, diving, then belly-crawling as fast as they could.

After a couple of minutes lying with their heads covered, Bevan hissed. “Are you fucking crazy? I told you to get out.”

“As if!” Annabel lifted her head indignantly. “Anyway, I want you to teach me how to land on one wheel like that.”

“The lady’s gone troppo, old son,” Bevan tapped his head to illustrate the point.

“You could try thanking me.”

“You could try doing what your captain tells you.” Getting to his knees, he studied the Dominie for a moment, then stood and took a few ginger steps toward her.

Annabel followed suit, halting beside him about twenty feet away. There were definite petrol fumes, but so far no flames.

“Must be time for a cigarette, eh Mitchell?” she joked, and received a filthy look.

After another few minutes they approached the battered biplane. She had run off the strip and was leaning drunkenly against a palm stump, a large fabric tear on one wing fluttering in the Moon Island breeze like a surrender flag.

“You poor old thing,” Annabel said and flicked a propeller with new respect for the game little craft.

“I think she’ll live,” Bevan declared as he knelt down beside the undercarriage. “Whether I can fix this is another matter,” he continued.

But Annabel was no longer listening. Her eyes were drawn to a figure staggering from the jungle at the far end of the strip, something huge in her arms. “Cody!” She was running before she even became conscious of the fact.

The figure lowered her load to the ground and stretched out her arms.

“Annabel.” Cody caught her, stumbled back a step and overbalanced, and the two women fell laughing and crying to the ground.

They lay there crushed together and gazing into each other’s eyes as though they could never see enough.

“I love you,” Annabel said.

“I love you, too,” Cody told her.

After a long moment just holding each other, they managed to stumble to their feet. Holding hands, they started across the strip.

“Wait. My barrel.” Cody hurried back and hoisted a cumbersome wooden keg into her arms. The top was fractured and several of the struts were loose.

“What on earth—” Annabel began.

“I found it when I was cleaning up the strip. And since the water pump isn’t working out here, I got kind of worried in case you…”

“Crashed?”

Cody glanced towards the Dominie. “That landing. I nearly threw up.”

Annabel smiled. “Creative, wasn’t it?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Leaving Bevan to work on the plane, Cody and Annabel slowly made their way back to Villa Luna, stopping every so often to clear branches from the jungle track.

Walking a little ahead, Annabel was caught up in a description of the damage in Avarua and how petrifying it had been to get off the ground. Listening to the husky sweetness of her voice, Cody felt like a sleepwalker who had stumbled into a dream so wonderful she could not bear to wake.

Annabel turned suddenly. “I don’t know why I’m chattering like this. I think it’s adrenalin.” Beaming, she reached for Cody, pulling her close, kissing her with wild joy.

“I can’t believe you’re home.” Cody’s words were all but silenced by Annabel’s mouth.

Stripping Cody’s T-shirt away, she fell on her hungrily and they sank onto the hot crush of the jungle floor, each frantically removing the other’s clothes. It occurred to Cody that any minute Bevan would probably show up, or one of the women from the cave would stumble across them. But she didn’t care. Grasping Annabel’s breasts, she buried her face between them, then captured a nipple, tormenting it with teeth and tongue until it grew marble hard in her mouth.

Urgently, desperately, she pushed her knee between Annabel’s thighs, pressing hard against her wetness. Backing her up against a fractured tree trunk, reason and restraint lost to some primal imperative, she cradled that sweet slippery core against her palm.

With a breathless whimper of pleasure, Annabel arched her back and rocked her hips hard against Cody’s hand, offering herself for the taking, urging her on with hoarse little pleas.

Filling her, working into her with hard, rapid strokes, Cody lifted her head, finding her mouth once more, exploring its depths with a craving so profound she thought it could never be slaked. Blood mixed with the taste of salt and sweat, and Cody drew back slightly, uncertain whose mouth was bruised.

In that instant she felt Annabel’s fingers dig into her shoulders, refusing to be denied the release she needed. Braced against one another, they seemed merged somehow, locked in a ritual known only to their bodies.

With a sense of wonder, Cody felt Annabel clench around her, drawing her deeper. Then she was shaking uncontrollably, engulfed by a series of contractions that radiated from her womb to the heart pounding against Cody’s breast.

Panting, barely able to stand, they rested their heads one against the other for what seemed an eternity. When finally their breathing grew more even, Cody said, “Did I mention I’m happy to see you?”

Annabel smiled into her shoulder. “Mmmn… maybe you should tell me again.”

Villa Luna had lost its verandah and part of its roof, but otherwise it appeared to be remarkably intact. Cody and Annabel reached the front door just in time to hear a loud petulant complaint from within.

“All I can get is a pile of static. The fucking thing must be broken.”

Annabel drew a startled breath.

Lifting a hand, Cody whispered, “That would be Dawn.” Obviously the young woman was none the worse for wear.

“They must have landed by now,” said another voice. Brenda.

“Well, one of us is going to have to find that bloody strip, and I guess it’ll have to be me.”

Could anyone sound resentful and pleased all at once? Dawn certainly gave it her best shot.

“Look after her,” she ordered, and Cody felt a stab of alarm. How was Catherine’s leg? The wound was looking inflamed by the time she had left.

“That bloody Cody Stanton.” Dawn was on a roll. “She was definitely here. That bed’s been slept in and her T-shirt’s on the floor. She’s probably sunbathing on the beach or something while we’re half dead. Just wait ’til I find her.”

Annabel raised expressive eyebrows.

“Looks like I’m dog food,” Cody mouthed.

“…a bloody knuckle sandwich,” the litany continued.

As footsteps approached, Cody and Annabel jumped guiltily into the shadows. A bedraggled young woman emerged from the Villa, hovered for a moment in the doorframe then dropped down onto ground. Picking her way through the wreckage of the verandah, she started into the jungle in the opposite direction from the strip. She was filthy, jeans and T-shirt torn and stained with sweat and jungle. Her wavy honey-colored hair was matted and tied back into a sorry ponytail with a shoelace that looked like one of Brenda’s fluorescent orange specials.

Cody took a couple of paces into the open and called, “Dawn, you’re going the wrong way.”

The blonde ponytail bobbed as Dawn stopped in her tracks and spun round. “You!” she burst out. “Where the fuck have you been?”

Her face was a picture. Anger, relief and mortification all at once. Cody expected to be slapped, but instead Dawn virtually threw herself into her arms.

Completely overwrought, she wailed, “Thank God you’re all right. We were so worried, and Catherine’s leg is all swollen, and we got lost. It was awful.” She wiped her running eyes and nose on her fist, then slapped Cody with both hands, sobbing. “Where were you? You promised you’d come back for us.”

“I’m sorry.” Cody stilled her hands and led the hysterical young woman over to Annabel. “I’m here now, and you made it all on your own. That was really brave.”

She dragged the wicker chaise lounge from beneath a pile of smashed timber and sat Dawn on it, giving her shoulders an encouraging squeeze. “Sit out here with Annabel and relax. I’m going inside to take a look at Catherine’s leg.”

“We’ve got a full medical kit in the plane,” Annabel said as Cody hoisted herself up into the doorway.

They were both surprised when Dawn scrambled up, dusted herself off, and said, “I’ll get it. Which way do I go?”

Annabel opened her mouth to give directions, thought again, and said, “Come with me.”

It was nearly daybreak when Annabel and Cody finally crawled exhausted into bed.

Dawn, Brenda and Catherine were bunked down in the guest room and Bevan in the living room. They had patched the roof as best they could with wood and leaves.

Fortunately the Dominie’s medical kit was well equipped with local anesthetic, antibiotics and surgical instruments, and Bevan and Cody between them had stitched Catherine’s leg where the wound had reopened. Bevan, Cody had discovered, was often called on by the islanders if a doctor wasn’t available. He was a trained paramedic and told Cody that since flying the islands, he had also acquired a specialty in emergency pig surgery.

After Catherine had been made comfortable with pain-killers and the two other women were sound asleep, Cody and Annabel had met to devise a plan for getting everyone off the island and back to Rarotonga. Bevan made radio contact with Avarua to provide a status update, and within the next twenty-four hours an army medical team would arrive to chopper them out.

“What a day!” Cody snuggled against Annabel and sighed contentedly. “I wish I had some energy left.”

Annabel stroked her face lovingly. “Me, too. But we need to get some sleep. We’ve got a heap of work to do tomorrow...today.”

“I can’t believe all this has happened,” Cody said. “Twenty-four hours just doesn’t seem long enough for a hurricane, a plane crash, and major surgery.”

Annabel smiled at the embellishments, then said, “A month doesn’t seem long enough to have had my whole life turned upside down. I haven’t even had a chance to tell you about it all.”

“Me neither,” Cody said. “I hardly know where to begin.”

“We’ve got plenty of time,” Annabel said and kissed her gently. “I want us to be together always. We belong together.”

Cody felt a rush of emotion at Annabel’s words. She’d experienced that same sense. Of belonging with Annabel. Of destiny throwing them together from continents apart. At times it seemed so bizarre and unlikely that it was almost beyond belief. Cody had been laid off the day Annabel’s aunt had been buried. If Cody’s employer hadn’t made a mistake with zeros she would never have dreamed of “escaping” to an island, if Margaret hadn’t left her...if...

“We were meant for each other,” she murmured sleepily. “I tried to run away, but I couldn’t.”

“Me, too.” Annabel rocked her slowly, kissed her eyelids closed. “I love you,” she whispered.

And while they slept in each other’s arms, an innocent breeze stirred the palms on Passion Bay and the island awoke to an untroubled horizon.

Epilogue

A year later in a Back Bay apartment, Annabel Worth slid onto her lover’s knee and bit her neck softly. “What’s the book, sweetheart?”

“It’s the latest Amanda Valentine,” Cody enthused. “And guess what. It’s set in Rarotonga! Hey!” she objected as Annabel whipped the book out of her hands and scanned the opening lines.

The second Amanda Valentine laid eyes on Lucy Jones she knew she was looking at trouble. But she liked what she saw anyway. Lucy was sitting two tables down, mutilating a fish.

With mounting disbelief, Annabel snapped the book shut and examined the jacket as though it were alive with crawling things. Last Tango in Rarotonga by Rose Beecham, and an artist’s impression of the Rarotongan Resort Hotel on a stormy night.

“So what do you think of it?” she asked Cody faintly.

“It’s great,” Cody pronounced. “Although a bit far-fetched, especially that first scene when she meets Lucy and they jump straight into bed. Right in the middle of a hurricane. I mean, really.”

Cody rolled her eyes and Annabel dropped the book back into her lover’s lap, snuggling closer and smiling at a private joke.

“You know, Cody Stanton,” she said, sliding her hands over her lover’s midriff. “I love you.”