Christmas Holiday Husband Read Online Free Page A

set the photo down again on the chest of drawers beside her bed. He was the last thing she chose to see at night...the first she wanted to find upon waking. Tony’s lovely secret son.
    xxx
    The previous afternoon, she’d driven through the rolling New Zealand countryside in her battered old hatchback. The early summer heat had been oppressive. Her hair was too hot on her shoulders so she’d stopped and tied it into a ponytail while she let a rattling stock transporter hurtle by. The sharp smell of sheep dung had seeped through the car’s ventilation system and she’d pushed the air vent closed for a few stifling minutes until the truck was well clear.
    Once she turned off the main highway to the unsealed back-country road, hard stones caught in her tyre treads and flew noisily up under the bodywork. Her eyes narrowed each time an occasional vehicle swept by, scattering pebbles and leaving a choking cloud of pale dust to peer through.
    Unused to such conditions, she drove ever more slowly, trying to keep her wheels lined up in the smoother ruts, worrying she’d slide in the loose gravel and pitch right off the road on one of the corners.
    Somehow she misread the instructions and went miles too far north. Finally, defeated, she’d bumped up the long drive to one of the remote farmhouses, and was redirected as though everyone should know the way to Wharemoana.
    At last she’d turned in through the vast iron gates. Her teeth rattled together like dice in a cup as the car shuddered over the cattle-stop bars. Then the weary relief of arriving changed to awe and apprehension.
    The long driveway curved through an immense, beautifully tended garden. The grand old two-storied timber homestead gleamed golden in the late afternoon sun. This was not the way she’d pictured the farm.
    Reasonably remote, yes. A house big enough to accommodate an extra guest—fine. Some sheepdogs tied up by a nearby tractor shed.
    But this was practically a village—and an opulent one at that. The outbuildings were smartly painted to match the main homestead. Long-established trees cast pools of welcome shade. And the roaring Pacific Ocean glimmered and thrashed against the wild coastline only a few hundred yards distant.
    She should have expected that.
    Whare— far-ray —the house.
    Moana— mo-arna —the sea.
    Far-ray-mo-arna. The house by the sea. She’d rolled the melodious Maori word around her tongue before braking to a halt under the big sheltering portico. Easing stiffly from the driver’s seat, she tugged and slapped at her creased-up jeans and dusty navy T-shirt. A floaty dress and high heels would have been much more appropriate in such a sumptuous setting. Not that she had any dresses left after the fire. And only one pair of horribly uncomfortable high heels, come to that.
    As she approached the gleaming ruby front door it swung open, and a buxom fair-haired woman stepped out to welcome her. “Ellinore? Lovely to meet you. I’m Virginia Eastman.”
    So this was the voice on the phone, the signature on the letter, the grandmother of the two little girls who needed tutoring? Ellie reached out to shake hands. “I’d prefer just Ellie.”
    Virginia nodded. “Ellie. I’ll try and remember that. Leave the car there until tomorrow. We’re not expecting anyone else this evening. You can put it into one of the garages around the back once you’re unloaded. Come in and get settled first.”
    Virginia led her into a wood-panelled entrance hall with richly patterned rugs and a splendid timber staircase. She indicated they were to climb. The walls were crammed with impressive paintings, old maps and tapestries. A corner cabinet on the landing shone with silver trophies.
    “It’s an amazing house,” Ellie said, reaching out and caressing the banister rail, smoothed and polished by more than a hundred years of hands sliding over the swirling wood-grain...and maybe the pants of a few daring little boys as they slid down, too. “I can