Emma put her head in her hands, pushed back the sweat-soaked strands of hair, feeling the panic rise. “Too much. I’ve just got used to being on our own, without you. I thought I was handling things. Getting it together. And now this. I feel like I’m actually going crazy. Forgetting things. Losing my keys. Losing my mind. Yesterday, at work. Roger was talking to me about the drawings for the Emirates building, and I just . . . zoned out. Which you know gave him a thrill. He got to reprimand me for something real. What if I lose my job? What’s going to happen to Zack then?”
“Roger’s a jerk,” Lucy replied automatically. “And you’re doing fine. You’re not going to lose your job. Of course it’s disconcerting. But this could be a good thing, Em. Zack needs a dad.”
Emma looked up at her older sister, her attention arrested. “Why? What? Is something wrong?”
“No,” Lucy sighed. “It’s just . . . it’s kind of sad, how much he seems to look forward to his time with Tom, isn’t it? I mean, Tom’s a great guy, and I love him. But a couple hours with your aunt’s partner, once a week . . . should that be the highlight?”
“He’s so kind, though. He watches sport with him. And throws the footy with him too, some,” Emma objected. “And you know how much that means to Zack.”
“Yeah, and how great would that be, if Nic really did step up to the plate? A dad, and his favorite thing in the world, all wrapped up in one pretty terrific package?”
“I don’t know.” Emma got up and picked up her gym bag. “Come on. We’re going to miss the ferry unless we leave now.”
“What did he seem like?” Lucy asked curiously as they walked the few blocks to the Ferry Building. “Nic. The same?”
“No. Older. Harder,” Emma said briefly.
“Hotter?” Lucy asked slyly.
“Luce. Quit it. He’s engaged. And I wouldn’t go there anyway. Not for a million dollars.”
“Really?” Lucy looked surprised. “That’s not the impression I got. I thought he was something special.”
“He is. The most special thing there could be. But the price is too high.”
“Zack.” Emma gave his shoulder a shake the following morning. “Time to get up, sweetie.”
“Ummmm,” he protested. “Wha?”
“If you want to watch the game,” she told him, “it’s on in fifteen minutes.”
“Oh!” He sat up, and Emma smiled at the spikes of hair sticking up. He really needed a trim, much as he resisted. “I’m getting up.”
“OK, then. I’ll fix you a hot chocolate while you’re in the bathroom. Brush your teeth,” she reminded him as she left the room.
“Why do they play so early, Mum?” Zack asked once he was tucked up on the couch under the afghan, carefully holding the Peter Rabbit mug she’d found in another Op Shop success years earlier. Peter was a bit faded now, but it was still her own favorite. It always reminded her of his three-year-old self. The sweet little boy she missed, even as she enjoyed watching him grow up.
“I explained, remember? It’s time zones. It’s not early, in South Africa. It’s Saturday night.”
“Oh. I forgot. D’you think they get confused? The Blues? D’you think Nic does?”
“I don’t know. They’re used to it, I suspect.” Emma sank down next to Zack with her own mug of tea. It was too early, not yet six. She wanted to watch, though. Ironically, she’d become interested in the game when Zack had, after getting through her life first blithely ignoring rugby, then studiously avoiding it. Though she’d wished Zack didn’t follow the Blues, once Nic had moved there from the Chiefs the previous year.
“There he is!” Zack cried, as the players came out of the tunnel. “He said his leg would come right, and it did! He’s starting!” Zack had changed out of his pajamas despite the early hour, and was wearing his rugby camp jersey in honor of the occasion, with Nic’s signature black and bold across the back. Emma knew, though, that under the afghan, he was still clutching Raffo, the flocked giraffe that, in odd preference to a more conventional stuffed animal, had always been his comfort object.
“It’s going to be hard,” Zack said with fierce concentration as the Stormers kicked off to the Blues, Nic fielding the high ball and returning it with a kick that was chased down by another Blues back, who was instantly tackled. “For Nic, I mean. Because all the South African teams kick heaps. And that means Nic has to catch heaps too.”
“How come he sometimes kicks it away, and sometimes he runs with it?” Emma asked Zack an hour and a half later. She’d never watched Nic closely before. Had never wanted to. But this time, she’d found herself riveted. The game had been an intensely physical one, a battle of forwards so typical in matches against South African rivals. The Blues had come away with the narrowest of victories at 17 to 16, aided by two missed Stormers conversions. Zack had been on the edge of his seat during the entire second half, his usual close attention with a desperate edge now. He’d eaten the cereal she’d given only after it had turned to mush in his bowl, and the toast too had grown cold on his plate.
“He decides,” Zack told her. “Which is better. But I’m not sure how. How does he know? I could ask him, d’you think? Tomorrow? If he really comes?” His hand went out for Raffo, Emma saw, and her heart lurched with fear for him. If Nic didn’t keep his promise . . .
“You can ask him,” she agreed. No point in trying to dampen his expectations. He’d only worry. Time enough to comfort him if Nic failed to appear.
Show up, Nic, she thought fiercely. You said you would. Show up.
Chapter 7
“Am I keeping you?” Roger asked sarcastically as he intercepted Emma’s glance at the clock.
She flushed, turned her attention back to him. “Of course not. I want to finish that Emirates drawing before I leave tonight, that’s all.” Was that pointed enough for you?
“It would’ve been done already, if you’d been willing to cut your lunch hour short,” Roger reminded her.
How had she ended up with the only supervisor in New Zealand with an American attitude toward her legally entitled work breaks? “I like to think that working out at lunch keeps me productive during the afternoon,” she said levelly. “Do you have a problem with my performance?” She was startled at her own directness. She’d never challenged his jibes before. But she was so sick of his harassment.
She saw the flush rise to the scalp visible under his thinning hair, his lips hardening above the indeterminate chin. She’d only made him more hostile, she realized. Mistake.
“Just be sure you get all those drawings done this week,” he warned her. “You’ve said you could do it.”
“And I can.” She’d better mend this fence. As much as she could. “They’ll be done, I promise.”
“Because I’ve been wondering if you value your job,” he said meaningfully.
A bolt of pure fear shot through her, the anxiety making her feel physically ill even as her anger rose. “I value my job, Roger. In fact, I’d like to finish one of those drawings tonight. Before I leave.” She glanced at the clock again.
“Good,” he muttered, and took himself off at last. She turned back to her computer, trying to calm her racing pulse. However she felt about it, she needed this job. Not just the paycheck. The sickness benefit, and the holiday leave. She couldn’t afford to lose it. Not now. Not ever.
She turned reluctantly again as she saw Ryan making his way towards her desk. Yet another interruption, before she could even get the document open.
“Hi,” she greeted him briskly. “What can I do for you?” Blond hair, carefully mussed. The close-fitting, casually untucked dress shirt atop slim trousers. The complete, casual young Kiwi professional.
“Just wanted to ask you how you’re going with those bridge drawings,” he said with a smile. He asked nicely, but when she thought about it, he was at least as demanding as any of the other engineers. Asked about the status of his projects more than anybody else. Or maybe just came over to talk to her more than anybody
else.
“Next on my list,” she promised.
“Because I’m getting pushed on the internal deadline,” he confided. “So if you could do it earlier, it’d help.”
“I said next week, and it’ll be next week.” She heard the ding of a text from her mobile, tried not to glance at it on her desk. “3-D takes time. You know that. If you need them sooner, you’ll have to talk to Roger. Maybe he can shift them to Sean. He has less on his plate than I do. Or Roger may even be willing to do them himself.”
“Nah. I want you to do it. Don’t want to have to give them back six times.”
“Shh,” she hissed, shooting a quick glance to her right. Roger was over talking to one of the engineers, and Sean had ducked out early, she saw with relief. She might not appreciate her colleague’s work habits, but she didn’t want to talk behind his back, either. “I’ll do my best. But I’ve got quite a stack, and I take orders from Roger.”
“Wish you took them from me.” She glanced up at him, startled. Surely he couldn’t have meant that. “How about coming out with us for a drink after work on Friday?” All right. He had meant that.
“Can’t do it,” she said briskly. “Sorry.” She enjoyed going out with the group sometimes. But the ongoing drama with Nic had her unsettled and faintly panicky. She wasn’t going to feel like socializing this weekend, she knew. She just wanted to go home and be with Zack.
Ryan took himself off at last. Emma cast a quick glance around for Roger, then checked the text on her mobile. Nic.
Got Zack. Back around 6.
She set the phone back down, looked at the clock on her monitor. Four-thirty. She was leaving on the dot today. With luck, she’d be across the bridge and home by five-thirty. Time enough to change and be a bit more composed by the time he brought Zack home, be ready to meet him again. She took a deep breath and finally opened the document. She wouldn’t have time to finish it tonight after all. She couldn’t worry about that now, though.
Keep plugging away. Do what she had to do, right now. That was all she could do. All she’d ever been able to do.
“Mum!” Zack burst in through the front door. “It was brilliant!” He kicked his shoes off impatiently, dropped his rugby boots next to them before struggling out of his jacket. Nic followed him in, grabbed the jacket and hung it on the brightly painted rack next to the door when Zack would have dropped it on the floor.
Emma reached out for a hug that, Nic saw, the boy was still willing to give his mother, at least here at home. Her eyes met Nic’s as she looked over her son’s head. How did she always look so soft? So . . . pettable? She was wearing another sweater, that was all, he told his troublesome libido. Another light, lacy one, prettily trimmed once again. A pale pink cardigan with pearly shell buttons, edged in cream, over a long stretchy top and leggings. She looked like an invitation to cuddle. Like the best blankie ever.
“Can Nic stay for dinner, Mum?” Zack asked excitedly, offering a welcome distraction from his wayward train of thought. “He could help me tell you all the things we did. We’re having spaghetti!” he told Nic. “It’s really good.”
“Can’t, mate. Sorry,” Nic put in hastily at Emma’s instinctive shake of the head. “But I’ll have a glass of water, if one’s on offer.”
“Sit down,” Emma told him. “Please.”
Nic slipped off his own shoes before heading to the couch with Zack. “Cheers,” he said as she came back from the kitchen to hand each of them a glass, then took her own seat in a small armchair next to the couch, the only other option the little room offered.
“You look tired,” she said abruptly. “And bruised. Are you OK?”
“Just a bit confused on the sleep schedule, still,” Nic admitted. “I took a wee pill on the flight home, but it never works that well.”
“It’s a long way, Mum,” Zack put in. “South Africa’s really far.”
Nic took a long drink of the cold water, looked around for something to set the glass on. “Coaster?”
“Just put it down,” Emma told him.
“Don’t want to spoil this,” he said, looking more closely at the coffee table. The simple rectangle had been transformed into a forest of ferns, with native birds peeping out from underneath fronds, perched in trees. The parson-throated tui making a meal of red fruit, the colorful, stumpy takahe on the forest floor, tiny fantails darting overhead.
“You can’t,” Emma assured him. “It’s all enamels. Everything in this house is pretty indestructible.”
“Did you find the ruru yet?” Zack asked him, leaning forward.
“Don’t tell me,” Nic said. “Let me look.” Zack watched him eagerly as he searched and finally pointed triumphantly to a notch in a tree where the owl blended into the bark. “There.”
“You did this too, eh,” he asked Emma. “Nice.”
“I did everything. That’s my decorating theme. Things I made.”
“I like it,” he said. The warm colors of the lounge seemed to cocoon them. Two walls were a rich caramel, the others a warm yellow. She didn’t even paint every wall in a room the same color, he realized. Well, at least in the kitchen it was all the same. Purple. He wondered what color her bedroom was. How it looked. And found himself wishing, against every better impulse, that he could see it.
“So did you kick?” she interrupted his thoughts to ask her son. “Did you get your practice?”
“Yeh.” Zack’s smile was enormous. “And Nic explained, what I told you. About when he kicks it back. So I can do it, when I’m nine. And I got better already, Mum! He said!”
“He needs better boots, though,” Nic remarked. “Where’d you get those?”
“Trade Me. But they’re Pumas,” she hastened to add. “They don’t have any holes or anything. And they’re the right size.”
“I know they’re Pumas. But they’re worn down.”
“Go wash your hands, sweetie,” she told Zack. “Bath can wait till after dinner.”
“OK.” He bounced up, still buoyed by the excitement of the afternoon. She watched him go, then turned back to Nic.
“Don’t tell me what he needs in front of him,” she said levelly. “He doesn’t need to feel . . . deprived.”
“He’s not going to be deprived anymore,” Nic said in frustration. “I’ll buy him new boots.”
“Don’t promise him that,” she said sharply. “It’s too soon.”
He didn’t answer her directly. “Blood test Wednesday,” he reminded her. “Five. D’you need me to collect him? Because I can.”
“No. I’ll meet you there.”
He nodded, stood to leave as Zack came back into the room. “Got to go have my own tea. See you in a couple days, mate.”
“Really?” Zack asked.
“I’m going to meet you and your mum. We’re going to see a doctor,” Nic told him. “All together.” He looked across at Emma again.
“A doctor? I’m not ill. I don’t have to get a jab, do I?” Zack asked in sudden alarm.
“Why? D’you mind jabs?”
“I hate them.” Zack looked worried. “Mum. Do I have to get a jab? I just got them.”
“A bit like that,” Emma admitted.
“We’ll do it together,” Nic said. “I’ll go first, and then you. It won’t be so bad, I promise.”
“Really?” Zack looked at him doubtfully.
“Word of honor. And then we’ll have dinner, all together,” Nic told him.
“We didn’t talk about that,” Emma protested.
“Hamburgers?” Zack asked, ignoring his mother.
“If you like. Hamburgers,” Nic agreed.
Chapter 8
The drive back to Narrow Neck again, his mind still back in the cozy lounge. The flat might not be flash, but she’d made it into a home, he had to admit. And with all the money he and Claudia had spent, could he say that? He’d liked the sleek modernity in their decoration of the big house, the black leather couches and white walls, the recessed lighting and splashes o
f color that came from the modern paintings that hung here and there, the dark wood pieces and gleaming hardwood floors. He still liked it. But maybe it could use a bit of warming up. Something. Some . . . touches. He shook his head. He wouldn’t have a clue how to do that. Maybe he could ask Claudia.
But first, he had to get this over with. He felt the fatigue overcoming him again at the thought. Maybe he could get some rest first. But no. If he were going to get blood tests with Zack and Emma on Wednesday, he needed to tell Claudia first. It was only fair. And it would be a long training session tomorrow, followed by an endorsement obligation with Cooper’s. He had to turn up, do a video session at their new bakery. And then he’d be telling himself he was too tired again.
Harden up. Do it now. He pulled into the garage, walked through the connecting door into the house without wasting any more time thinking about it.
“Hello, darling. You’ve been awhile.” Claudia came into the entryway where he was shedding shoes and jumper. “I was just about to eat without you.”
“Sorry,” he answered automatically. “What is there?”
“Steak,” she said. “Rose marinated it, fixed a salad and some vegies too. All we have to do is grill it.”
“Give me a few minutes to take a shower, OK?”
“All right. But be quick, will you? I’ll get the steak started.”
The warm water helped revive him. She was opening a bottle of wine as he came downstairs again. “Want one?”
“Just a small one. Still a bit knackered from the time change. I’ll fall asleep if I drink much. And be rubbish tomorrow.”
“Where did you get off to tonight, anyway?” she asked him as they finished their dinner. She’d just wound up a long work story, with the upshot that the long-sought, much-anticipated partnership looked to be within her grasp. They sat at the sleek dark wood table, eating from heavy, square white plates set on woven mats along with chunky cutlery and glassware. The modern furnishings gave a stylish effect to the greenhouse-style dining room that protruded from the back of the house, offering the feeling of eating in a forest of the native plantings that surrounded it on three sides. Artfully placed lights glowed amidst the fern trees, allowing them to appreciate the greenery even at night. This was his favorite part of the house. A good place to talk.
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