Love Letters Volume 4: Travel to Temptation Read online

  “Miss Gemma, may I speak to you privately?” Tui asked.

  Oh, please don’t quit. Gemma wasn’t sure what she’d do if Tui left. Better get this over with. “Sure.”

  They went into the sitting room and perched on the elegant upholstered chairs. Tui looked as uncomfortable as Gemma felt.

  “Miss Gemma,” she started. Gemma could feel her lungs stop in mid-exhale. Tui twisted her hands, then looked away. “I need a favor.”

  Anything. Just don’t quit. “Okay. What sort of favor?”

  “Would it be possible for me to live in? You could reduce my wages. You’d still need the night nurse, but maybe for fewer hours?”

  The rest of the air wooshed out of Gemma’s chest. She had to think but it was hard to focus on anything in the backwash of relief.

  “Well, let’s see. We could clean out the studio for you, if you’d like. It has its own entrance and bathroom. Would that do?”

  Tui’s eyes teared up. “Oh, Miss Gemma, that would be wonderful.” She started to cry, noisy snuffles that made Gemma want to smile.

  “I’ll call my solicitor in the morning and we’ll work out the details, all right?” Gemma stood and fetched Tui a tissue. Should she ask why the nurse needed to live in? Gemma could guess, though, and, really, why intrude on Tui’s privacy. The important thing was that Tui wasn’t leaving.

  *

  Steve Collins checked his watch as he walked through the Auckland Airport, heading for the rental cars. By his calculation, he’d been traveling for more than thirty hours, door-to-door, from his apartment in Brooklyn to New Zealand. He had a horrid feeling he was making a terrible, irreversible mistake. If he could have afforded it, he’d have laid over in Hawaii for, like, a week and then just gone back home. But having borrowed the money for the airfare, Steve had to try to get the only interview with Bethany Jarvis-Robison. He wouldn’t have come to New Zealand if he didn’t think he could pull it off.

  He’d worked hard to cultivate the online affections of “Naughty in New Zealand,” Bethany’s only granddaughter. Bethany, a former Oxford lecturer, had begun to rival Harper Lee for the label of the world’s most reclusive novelist. She’d emigrated to New Zealand in the 1980s to be close to her only child, Naughty’s mother Jane. The family had historical ties to New Zealand, including an infamous nineteenth-century member of parliament who’d advocated for extreme restrictions on immigration. One of the few stories about Bethany that made it into the media had her explaining to the immigration official that he was trying to keep her out on the basis of a law her great-grandfather had drafted. They let her in.

  Steve collected his rental car from a lovely Maori woman and engaged the GPS for the three hour drive to Taupo. As long as he remembered to drive on the wrong side of the road, he should be fine. Once he was clear of the Auckland suburbs, Steve discovered that the biggest risk from driving in New Zealand was being distracted by the scenery. Everything was so green.

  In fact, he’d never seen so many undulating shades of grass green, variegated trees, blue-green hills softening the horizon and drawing the eye away from the road. It lacked the claustrophobic quality of driving on rural roads in England, where the hedgerows hemmed you in and cut off the vista. But it didn’t look like home, either. He didn’t remember family trips around Idaho being so verdant and breathtaking. If Steve didn’t have a strict timeframe for this trip, he’d be tempted to get off the highway and explore places like Putaruru or Tokoroa. With names like those, how could they not be interesting.

  He came to a rise in the road. There, below him, was Lake Taupo. A gorgeous expanse of blue-gray water with mountains on the far side. Like everything else he’d seen so far, the lake made him wish he was a travel writer.

  He checked into his motel and booted up his laptop. There was an email from Naughty. Steve’s heart sped up as he double-clicked to open it. She’d sent it the day before, while he was flying to L.A. Just knowing she was a few miles away made it feel almost illicit to read her words.

  Hi, Steve—

  Looks like another scorching day here in NZ. Just me and Gran, so I don’t even bother with a bra. Not counting my sandals, I have exactly three pieces of clothing on. I wish it was two, or maybe just one…but only if you were here.

  Miss you—NiNZ

  As sexting went, Steve guessed this was pretty tame. If he didn’t know better, he’d worry that Naughty was really fourteen. But he’d gotten a techie friend to ping the computer sending the emails and for sure it was in Bethany Jarvis-Robison’s house. Which meant it had to be the granddaughter, Gemma.

  Who was just a few miles away.

  Time to meet Naughty in New Zealand. Steve had tried to imagine how this would go, how he’d introduce himself, encourage her to trust him enough to introduce him to Bethany. Obviously, if Bethany didn’t want to talk to a journalist, that was her choice. But Steve hoped the soft approach might work.

  To meet Bethany Jarvis-Robison had been his dream long before journalism school. Bethany’s novel, Sins for Breakfast, had won all the prizes for fiction in the U.K. before taking off in the U.S. It had come out before Steve was born, but he’d read it in freshman lit, just after Catcher in the Rye and before To Kill a Mockingbird. But while Holden Caulfield struck Steve as self-indulgent and Scout Finch as a bit goody-goody, Dora Reeves, the poor relation living with a stolidly middle-class English family in Sins for Breakfast, had grabbed Steve and never let go. He’d speculated that Dora was a thinly veiled self-portrait of Bethany, based on her experiences after World War II. But the sensibilities were more modern, and the book’s focus on how families choose to save some and abandon others—well, fifteen years later, Steve couldn’t say how many times he’d read it. Certain passages and scenes never left him.

  He’d studied Bethany Jarvis-Robison’s life up until the day, like Harper Lee, she’d gotten tired of the media circus following her around Oxford. She retired from teaching and, a year later, emigrated to New Zealand to live with her schoolteacher daughter and granddaughter. That was the last anyone heard of Bethany for over fifteen years, when a thin book of essays, The Lake, was published quietly by a small New Zealand press. The author, B. J. Robison, made no claim to be the author of Sins for Breakfast, but the melancholy voice and quiet gift for description sounded so much like Sins that when it was discovered by a New York publisher and reprinted, it took off as the first words in a quarter century by a beloved author.

  Calls for interviews were rebuffed by a literary agent in Auckland. When Gemma, Bethany’s granddaughter, turned twenty-one, reporters approached her only to find her so reserved and shy it was impossible to get to Bethany through her. After a while, the literary world just shrugged and waited for the next book of essays. Two more books followed, each receiving glowing reviews and excellent sales with no promotion by the author.

  Which is why Steve was stunned when he stumbled upon Gemma in an online forum discussing, of all things, sheep farming. He replied to her comment, which led to getting an email from her (on sheep farming, true, but it was a start), which allowed his techie friend to verify that it was Gemma Robison. From there, it was easy to track that specific computer online.

  Steve’s original thought was that Bethany probably used the same computer. Sure, she was in her seventies now, but Steve’s own grandmother was even older and she had a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and posted her photos on Flickr. Maybe Bethany, a former Oxford lecturer, had an alter ego for surfing the web? Worth trying.

  Nothing from a septuagenarian, but the search led to the sexy blog by Naughty in New Zealand, whom Steve assumed was Gemma. Naughty’s posts about sexuality were hardly X-rated, but they weren’t what grandmas were thinking about.

  Four months later, Steve had cultivated Naughty enough to get her to email him at a blind account he’d set up. He knew it was a slimy thing to do, and occasionally his conscience poked at him, but if he could be the first person to talk to Bethany Jarvis-Robison in over three decades? Worth t
he chance. Wasn’t it?

  He hit reply.

  Hi Doll,

  You remember you told me about your favorite restaurant, Vine Eatery? Want to meet me there tonight? 7:00?

  S.

  *

  In her bedroom, Gemma opened the email from Steve—the subject line still read “re: Just How Skimpy?” from an exchange a week earlier about a certain tank top of hers—expecting it to be more of their usual mildly salacious banter. She’d known when she started posting as NiNZ she was asking for the nutters and pervs to come out of the woodwork—and they had—but Steve seemed okay.

  Ten seconds later, when she could breathe again, Gemma wanted to revisit that determination. He was here? In Taupo? And wanted to meet her for dinner?

  That was not okay. “Okay” implied manageable. “Okay” didn’t cause her to break out in a sweat. “Okay” made it possible to tease and joke in her replies, not be torn between telling him “Why wait?” and “Go away!” in equal measure.

  She flopped back on her bed, listening for Tui’s humming. Gran got agitated if the TV or radio was on, so Tui ended up humming to herself. Tui’s replacement at the weekends hummed to herself. So did Ralph, the night nurse. They all ended up humming to themselves, because otherwise the house was too damned quiet.

  The most beautiful cage in the world.

  Gemma’s bedroom boasted a view of the lake that still took her breath away. It had been her mother’s bedroom, with Gran’s room next door. But Gran had been moved downstairs after her fall, so Mum took the huge master and moved Gemma into her room. Then Mum died and it was up to Gemma to keep the household running. Or humming.

  Back to the point. Dinner. With Steve, an American who had traveled halfway around the world to meet NiNZ. No invitation, no discussion of whether they should ever meet in person. How outrageous. But also, how thrilling.

  Go? Not go? And if she didn’t go, what did she say to him?

  Gemma stared at the lake, a glittering gunmetal blue in the sunshine. Finally, she ignored the obvious choices and wrote back:

  Steve—

  You’re here in Taupo? Or Auckland? If you’re in Auckland, be warned that NZ may be small by American standards but it still takes a few hours to get here.

  NiNZ

  Did that imply she’d meet him for dinner? Yeah, probably.

  Five minutes later, she had the answer.

  Yup, I’m here in town. Do I need a reservation? Or shall we meet now, in case you hate the look of me?

  S.

  Jesus. She hadn’t decided on dinner yet. Now she had to decide about meeting him right away?

  When in doubt, make more tea. Gemma went downstairs to brew a pot. She poured a mug for Tui, which she took into the former studio, now a colorful mishmash of native and European textiles and artwork.

  “How’s Gran?” Gemma asked.

  Tui looked up from her book and shook her head. “No change.”

  Gemma wondered why she’d even asked. Over months, she could tell her grandmother was slowly fading, but day-to-day? There was rarely a change in her “no change” status.

  Gemma turned to leave, intending to get back to her computer—and Steve’s dinner invite—when she paused. She turned back to Tui.

  “Would you be able to stay in tonight? It’s Ralph’s night off, so I was going to take care of Gran, but someone’s in town from America and he’s invited me to dinner,” Gemma said in a rush.

  Tui, a stocky woman of Maori descent, suddenly looked quite girlish. “Why, Miss Gemma, of course you should go. You don’t get out enough and that’s a fact.”

  Five minutes later, Gemma pressed the Enter key to send a simple reply.

  See you at Vine Eatery at 7:00. I’ll be the one in a blue dress with disastrous hair.

  *

  Steve got to the restaurant ten minutes early and explained his situation.

  The hostess nodded with a huge grin. “Ah, Ms. Robison. Yes, we’ll show her to your table as soon as she arrives.”

  Steve took the seat facing the rest of the room, a large industrial space shared with a wine store. The light fixtures—huge balls made of wineglasses—were particularly intriguing. They looked like crystal Sputniks.

  He’d barely sipped his water when a small woman in a slate-blue dress appeared before him. She had dark hair piled untidily on her head and huge brown eyes, wide-set and wide open. A half-smile lifted her lips and made her eyes narrow a bit. Steve popped up from his chair.

  “Steve,” Naughty said in a low, musical voice. She sat down, allowing him to fall back into his seat.

  “I should have asked what your real name was,” he blurted out. Would she know that he’d told the hostess he was meeting Gemma Robison?

  “People call me Gemma.” She shook out her napkin.

  “That’s pretty.” He wanted to add that she was beautiful, and clearly not as young as he’d feared, but something stopped him from overt flattery. Maybe it was her—she lacked the preening self-awareness he was used to in American women.

  “Why have you come to New Zealand?” she asked after the waitress had brought their drinks and taken their order.

  Steve stared at her mouth, which had full lips lightly tinted with lip gloss or something. Her skin was a pale mocha shade, her arms and shoulders bare other than the thin straps of her dress. He’d gotten a quick impression of a curvy figure before she sat down and he didn’t want to appear to be checking out her breasts, but it was hard to focus on anything other than lining up their tepidly sexy emails with the smoking-hot woman sitting opposite him.

  Finally, he gave his head a hard shake. “I’m sorry to ask this, but are you sure you’re Naughty in New Zealand? Because you seem different in person.”

  She blushed and ducked her head. That seemed more appropriate for a woman in her mid-twenties. Then she peeped up at him, her eyes bright with amusement. “You tell me why you’re here and I’ll say something only Ninns would say.”

  “Ninns?”

  She grinned at him and spelled it out. “N—I—N—Z. Naughty in New Zealand. I call it NiNZ in my head.”

  “Why did you start the blog?” he asked.

  “You first. Why are you here?”

  “To meet you.” The truth, as far as that went.

  Her eyebrows rose, making her eyes look enormous. “Me? You’ve got to be kidding. It’s halfway around the globe, must cost a packet and takes forever.”

  “Nonetheless, it’s the truth. So. Why the blog?”

  Her eyelids swept down and Steve could see her inexpertly applied eye makeup. Nothing about her made sense. Saucy blogger, mildly smutty emailer, gorgeous woman with a kick-ass body in a hot dress and makeup an American teenager could have applied better.

  “Boredom.” She shrugged, then tilted her head to consider him. “Loneliness, I guess.”

  Why loneliness? She lived with a famous writer. Did Bethany ignore her granddaughter? Steve knew what that felt like.

  “You live alone then?” Steve took a sip of water.

  “Not married, not engaged, not dating.”

  Steve tried to think of another way to ask the question while their food arrived and was arranged on the table. It was a tapas restaurant, so the waitress had to identify all the little plates before she could ask them if there was anything else she could do. By the time she walked away, Steve still wasn’t sure how to get Gemma to mention her grandmother.

  “Relax. I didn’t order anything too outrageous. Try the paella balls.” Gemma passed him a plate. “They’re delicious.”

  He took a bite. She was right.

  *

  Steve Collins. Born in someplace called Idaho but living now in Brooklyn. Gemma watched as he enjoyed his food. He said he was a writer, but she let that comment go by. Too much like real life. He looked sad when he’d said it, which was oddly reassuring.

  Four months of emails had given Gemma a pretty good picture of this man. A few years older than her, but not necessarily more exper
ienced. He wasn’t married, Gemma was sure of that. He’d even seemed slightly shy at times, although they’d hardly been burning up their emails.

  This man? The man sitting across from her? He struck her as lonely, looking for something. Why he thought he could find it in New Zealand, she wasn’t sure. But she didn’t mind him trying. He’d leave in a day or two, on to the next tourist spot her country had to offer. She’d next hear from him when he was safely back in Brooklyn.

  The sun was low in the sky when they left the restaurant. Gemma wanted Steve to see the sunset, so they walked down Ruapehu Street toward the lake.

  “My motel is around the corner. I even have a view of the water,” he said.

  They crossed over to the lakefront. He took her hand as they watched the colors shift and gradually fade.

  His fingers caressed the back of her hand, just a little. Gemma wondered if he even knew he was doing it.

  She turned to him suddenly. She wanted him, wanted him sexually. Of course. That was why she came to dinner, that was why she couldn’t take her eyes off his clean-shaven jaw or his slightly shaggy blond hair. Was he handsome, or was it the vitality of being American that made her find him so appealing? He vibrated with an odd energy and eagerness She’d soaked it in over their dinner banter about music, TV, movies. It was as though they’d agreed not to talk about themselves.

  “Show me,” she said suddenly.

  Steve turned toward her. “Show you what?”

  “Your view of the water.”

  His eyes blazed. “Your place?”

  Gemma shook her head. Definitely not her place. She tugged on his hand, pulling him back to the road.

  His motel was in need of refurbishing but it was clean and, yes, he did have a view of the lake. They admired the last of the colors merging into the twilight, then Gemma reached for his shoulders. She threaded her fingers into his hair and kissed him, letting her lips part his.

  Finally, he pulled away. “Gemma—”

  “No talking. This is why you came to New Zealand, isn’t it? To get a little naughty with a Kiwi?”