Honeymoon Baby. Susan Napier

      CHAPTER ONE

      JENNIFER was filling a vase at the kitchen sink when the sleek, low-slung dark green car came gunning around the tree-lined curve of the driveway, almost fish-tailing into a bank of ferns as the driver belatedly realised the bend was a lot sharper than it looked. She frowned out of the window as she watched the unfamiliar car recover from its near-skid and continue at a more cautious pace up the narrow, rutted gravel drive to park in front of the low dry-stone wall which enclosed the cottage garden in front of the house. With the heavy dust coating the tinted windscreen she couldn’t make out the driver, but the lone pair of skis strapped to the moulded black roof-rack suggested a stray single hoping for a bed.

      Whoever it was would be out of luck. Jennifer disliked having to turn custom away, but all her rooms were currently occupied and—she unconsciously crossed her fingers—apart from a few odd days, booking was fairly solid for the rest of the month...providing the mountain minded its manners.

      She glanced out of the corner window at the billowing, dirty grey mushroom-cloud of steam and ash which boiled up from the snowy summit of Mount Ruapehu, blotting out the formerly blue sky. The scenery was spectacular but living on the borders of a National Park, within twenty kilometres of an active volcano, had its drawbacks. Although there had been no major eruption here for thousands of years, the 2797-metre-high mountain itself was a powerful reminder of man’s vulnerability to the forces of nature, and lately a series of minor eruptions had put a serious crimp in the local economy of one of New Zealand’s premier ski resorts.

      Jennifer’s wide mouth turned down at the corners at the thought of another disappointing winter. Vulcanologists and government scientists had been closely monitoring the mountain since it had exploded back into life just over a year ago, coating the ski fields with successive layers of brown ash for months, causing the closure of the mountain to skiers, sightseers and climbers, and creating great financial hardship for the local businesses who were heavily reliant on a good ski season for the greater portion of their annual income. There had been no loss of life or property, but the damage in terms of adverse publicity had been considerable.

      Now, just as the public alert level had finally been dropped and early snowfalls presaged a long ski season that would enable the local tourist industry to recoup some of the previous year’s losses, Mount Ruapehu was rumbling again, sending steam and sediment from its crater lake streaming into the atmosphere. Although the scientists claimed there was no indication that the new eruption would be any bigger than last year’s, casual skiers were already cancelling their holidays in droves. Only the hard-core snow-junkies seemed willing to gamble on parts of the ski fields remaining open for the duration of their stay.

      Fortunately a small, quiet bed and breakfast establishment like Beech House appealed more to mature tourist couples and lone travellers than to groups of avid skiers, so Jennifer hoped to weather the crisis better than some of the other, larger moteliers and resort operators, whose advertising was focused on pre-packaged ski deals. Some of her guests were even booked in because, rather than in spite of the possibility of a more fiery eruption.

      Jennifer’s mouth curved up again, tawny brown eyes glowing in a secret smile of contentment behind her tortoiseshell spectacles. At least this year she didn’t have to suffer the black panic of wondering whether she was going to be able to meet the next mortgage payment...

      The sound of a car door opening switched her attention back to the new arrival as a slight figure glided into the kitchen to place some garden produce and a bunch of brilliant yellow chrysanthemums on the bench.

      ‘Snazzy car. Who is it?’ asked Susie Tang, going on tiptoe to peer out of the window.

      Even so, her glossy black head barely came up to Jennifer’s collarbone. Although five feet ten wasn’t much over average height for a woman, she always felt like a veritable Amazon next to her diminutive part-time employee. ‘My guess is foreign, lost or illiterate...or maybe just someone who doesn’t believe “No Vacancy” signs.’

      ‘Uh-oh!’ Susie clapped her hand over her mouth, her almond-shaped eyes widening under her jet-black fringe. ‘I said I’d hang it out for you when I left yesterday, didn’t I? Sorry, Jen, I forgot...’ The mournful mobility of her expression banished any illusion of oriental inscrutability. Susie’s every thought and mood registered on her face.

      A masculine hand splayed on the roof of the car as the driver hauled himself out of his bucket seat. ‘Never mind—if he gets a look inside and likes what he sees, maybe he’ll come back and stay another time,’ said Jennifer, reaching for the flowers. A lot of her custom came from repeat business or via word-of-mouth recommendation.

      ‘Wow!’ Susie was nearly falling out of the window. ‘He’s even snazzier