Free Ravishing Rose by Kris Pearson Page A

to be anonymous?”
    “Frankie, I paid a couple of thousand bucks each for these tickets. I want everyone in Wellington to know I’m there.”
    “Showing off your money?”
    “Supporting an excellent cause.”
    “And showing off your money,” she repeated, enjoying the confidence the costume gave her. Twelve years older than her, he’d been a somewhat distant figure for the last decade, rocketing up the business ladder in London while she’d been a teenager back home at the end of the world.
    “Letting them see I’m worth a dollar or two,” he agreed, tucking the mask away and tossing the car keys up and catching them again before he ushered her out.

    Frankie hugged her arms around herself as they drove. They left the main harbor behind, drove out along the expressway, then turned and skirted a huge tidal inlet. The lights of the big houses rimming the cliffs along the shore danced and rippled in the placid water as the showy car sped along. It was a perfect early autumn night.
    Skyrockets burst somewhere ahead.
    “That looks like the party,” she exclaimed.
    “Did Bella tell you what’s happening?”
    Frankie shrugged in the darkness. “Fundraiser. Posh nosh. Important guests.”
    “Yes, but the house?”
    “She didn’t say.”
    “We’re going to demolish it for kicks. It’s coming down anyway. Practically in ruins already, or so the story goes.”
    “We’re supposed to work ?”
    “Nah, just have a little fun. Graffiti the walls. Rip the place up a bit. Smash a few windows...”
    “Well that’s different.”
    “There’s something new being built on the same site—hence the decadent costumes and so on.”
    “Poor old house.”
    “Way past saving, apparently.”
    “I bet Dad could have saved it.”
    Mike grimaced and reached across to pat her hand. “Yep, great carpenter. He was one of the good guys. Just as well Mom had you to look after her once he died.”
    Frankie sighed. “She missed him so much, and she was so sick...” She tried to banish the tremor in her voice, knowing she wasn’t quite in control of it.
    “Tough on you, seeing them both go.”
    “Tough on you, too, Mike.”
    “But at least I was in London, away from the worst of it.”
    “You came home for Dad’s funeral. And you’re back here again now with your girls.”  
    Mike braked for a tighter bend, then accelerated again. “Bella wanted to get them settled in Wellington before they started school.”
    “You’ve come back, but I can’t wait to leave. I need to start a different life.”
    “If you’re looking for a man, this’ll be a good hunting ground.”
    She gave him a scathing look which he couldn’t possibly have seen in the dark car.  
    A man? The last thing she needed was to be tied down again. She’d itched to have a life of her own. Now her Mom had passed, Frankie’s time had finally arrived. Her first step would be Melbourne, Australia—house-sitting while her friend Kimberly honeymooned in Tahiti.  
    “Ohmigod!” she exclaimed as they swept around a bend, and immense gateposts topped with grinning orange pumpkins came into view. Each was illuminated inside with flickering lights. “It’s Halloween, half a year early.”
    “It’s the right season for pumpkins in the southern hemisphere anyway,” Mike said, turning off the sealed road onto the crunching gravel of an ill-tended driveway. They growled up the incline and leveled out in a field set aside for parking. The ghostly gleaming shapes of other luxurious cars sat in haphazard lines.
    He offered Frankie his arm as she straightened from the low seat, and she took it gratefully.
    Flames leaped and flickered in braziers either side of the front steps of the spooky old timber mansion. The ancient surrounding trees sported eerie green up-lighters. Pungent smoke from exploding fireworks drifted in the still air. A shiver of excitement ran up her spine.
    “It’s fantastic, Mike. What an atmosphere! It feels as though anything could