‘It’s a banana!’ he was saying in a deep, clipped American accent, the words rumbling up from a wide chest, a spectacular set of pectoral muscles and a six-pack playing peekaboo with the loose black fabric of his T-shirt when he moved. ‘So, sue me!’
Wayne, the customs officer, looked seriously pissed off, which surprised Sherry because, while he was very efficient, he was one of the least officious of the MAF officers. The banana appeared to have arrived inside one of the pockets of the big American’s golf clubs—not the first time it had happened, but it was still a breach of New Zealand bio-security. Sherry could see that Wayne was losing patience.
‘It’s a breach of bio-security, sir,’ he said shortly. ‘You were supposed to declare any food or animal products you were carrying on your declaration card.’
‘How could I declare it if I didn’t know it was in there?’ Movie-Star Man demanded. ‘Look at the damned thing—it’s rotten!’
Wayne glowered. ‘I don’t appreciate verbal abuse, sir.’
Sherry wandered closer. She smiled sympathetically as Wayne looked back glumly. ‘Anything I can do to help?’ she said, being careful to keep her tone even and non-confrontational.
The American turned quickly and stared at her with eyes an astonishing shade of golden-brown, fringed in thick, black luxuriant lashes. As they slowly swept Sherry from head to toe, they widened and actually seemed to deepen in colour. His mouth curved in a slow, ladykiller smile, making the cleft in the middle of his chin deepen.
Sherry felt like her lungs had suddenly seized. Her heart seemed to do a forward somersault and then a backward one for good measure. He was absolutely gorgeous. And he knew it. She loathed the confident, I’m-God’s-gift-to-women smile he gave her. Her blood began a slow boil.
‘You’re a cop?’ he asked incredulously.
‘That’s what it says on my badge,’ Sherry replied briskly. ‘Now what seems to be the problem?’
‘The gentleman doesn’t seem to appreciate how serious it is to bring food or animal products into the country,’ Wayne said flatly.
Movie-Star Man spread his hands and widened his eyes. ‘It’s a banana, for crissakes!’
‘It’s a breach of New Zealand bio-security, sir.’ Sherry enunciated each word carefully. ‘The infringement carries a fine of two hundred dollars.’
He laughed. He actually laughed. Sherry almost expected him to bend over and slap his knee. ‘You’re going to fine me two hundred dollars for a banana? Damned expensive banana!’
‘Isn’t it just?’ she replied silkily. ‘If you don’t have the necessary funds in New Zealand money, Amex and Visa are quite acceptable.’
Sherry knew she was handling things all wrong, but the guy made her fume. It gave her a measure of satisfaction when she saw that the smile had been wiped off his face.
‘Take the damned banana and throw it in the trash!’ he growled, scowling at Sherry. He turned his back on her and looked expectantly at Wayne. ‘Can I have my golf clubs back? Please?’
‘Certainly, Mr Brogan.’
Sherry’s mouth dropped open.
Surely not? Surely this couldn’t be Dan’s brother—Greg or whatever his name was.
She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. Brogan isn’t such a common name, Sherry thought, unless you’re in Ireland, and then there is this guy’s extraordinary height.
It had to be.
Shit!
Just her luck.
After paying the fine, Dan’s brother wrenched his golf clubs from the bench and slung them over his shoulder like it was a bag of driftwood instead of a full set of Pings. ‘Thanks for the welcome, sweetheart,’ he said to Sherry sarcastically and strode away.
‘Here to serve, sir,’ Sherry said sweetly.
‘Dickhead,’ Wayne muttered.
31
Lisa and Dan were married on Waiake beach on Saturday afternoon watched by the Jackson and Brogan families and a small group of friends, including Edie, Norm, Simon and Esme. Anton, Susie and Starr came from the café. The ceremony was very simple and very moving. As far as the celebrant was aware, Lisa and Dan were renewing their marriage vows; but everybody else understood that for them this was their wedding day.
Jill cried and Brian brushed away a tear when he gave Lisa’s hand into Dan’s keeping. Lisa looked lovely in her simple white dress. She carried a spray of white gardenias and had a few more sprinkled through her short black hair. Her feet were bare and her smile was huge.
Glenn stood up for his brother and Sherry for her sister. They scrupulously avoided making eye contact during the entire ceremony.
Glenn hadn’t been able to believe his eyes when she’d walked through the door of the Jackson household the day before the wedding and was introduced as Lisa’s sister. Out of her uniform she was even more stunning than before. She wore a pin-striped trousersuit with black spiky-heeled boots. Her black silky hair swung about her shoulders like a waterfall, and Glenn’s practised eye saw that she was naked beneath the tailored jacket, her full, creamy breasts swelling provocatively above the top button. He just about swallowed his tongue.
Pointing at her like a two-year-old who didn’t know any better, Glenn barked, ‘You!’
Sherry Jackson raised her brows, curled her lip and murmured. ‘The pleasure is all mine, Glenn.’
Glenn had told Dan about his run-in at the airport with a drop-dead beautiful female cop, and Dan had instantly made the connection. When Glenn first described the woman to him, Dan had looked across at Lisa, his brow wrinkled, and said, ‘Sherry isn’t working at the airport, is she?’
Lisa laughed. ‘No. Sherry hates pulling airport duty almost as much as she hates working with schoolkids.’
Glenn decided Lisa’s sister sounded like a ballbreaker.
He hadn’t been able to get the airport cop out of his head. Glenn had become so used to women throwing themselves at him during his years playing in the NBA that he was pretty blasé about it. There were a lot of beautiful women in the world, but that didn’t mean they were special.
The airport cop had been. Her body alone was worthy of a second or third look, but her face was what made her truly different. Even without a scrap of makeup on and her hair pulled back in a ponytail, her extraordinary bone structure and challenging dark blue stare made her compelling. She had a sexy little mole right beneath her left eye that Glenn imagined painting with the tip of his tongue. He knew he hadn’t imagined the flare of attraction in her eyes when she’d first looked at him. She’d definitely liked what she saw, but she sure as hell didn’t like him one bit. Her lip had curled and her nostrils had flared with distaste.
Glenn knew he’d acted like a complete asshole, but he was tired and his knee was killing him after the long flight despite his seat in first class. Ever since he’d quit playing professional basketball—and, if truth be told, for several months before—he’d been increasingly restless and disenchanted with his life and he didn’t know what the hell to do about it. And Glenn was a loose cannon when he was bored. In fact, he was more like a stick of dynamite waiting to go off.
He was deeply worried about his brother. Dan didn’t deserve any more shit in his life. The story he’d been telling Glenn about Linda who was now Lisa alarmed him. His brother, who was the calmest, most sensible person he knew, believed his wife was dead and another woman was living in her body; a woman, furthermore, whom he loved.
Glenn didn’t buy the reincarnation theory, or whatever you wanted to call it. He admitted Lisa was different to Linda. She even looked different, her hair cropped short and always slightly messy, one strap of her wedding dress slipping off her shoulder, and she laughed—laughed—when she stepped too close to the water and got her feet and hem soaked. Dan hooked an arm around her and swung her out of the waves, smiling the way he did when he was really happy. In the past Linda had tried to flirt outrageously with Glenn, which he hadn’t appreciated from his sister-in-law. Lisa had nothing more than a joke and smile to offer him. Her
eyes were only for Dan.
‘What do you make of her?’ Glenn asked his father, Kell, as they headed up the beach for the ride back to the wedding banquet being held at the Jackson house.
‘Don’t know what the hell to make of her,’ Kell replied in a low voice so his wife, Molly, wouldn’t hear. ‘If I’d met her for the first time today, I’d be an extremely happy man.’
The photographer called them back for a few final shots. ‘I think the weather will hold just a little longer! But we need to hurry.’
Lisa was shivering, so Dan had put his jacket around her shoulders. Sherry Jackson had goosebumps, too. Glenn would have offered her his jacket, but she lifted her nose in the air and borrowed her brother’s. Glenn had noticed Ben Jackson didn’t look nearly as thrilled with the proceedings as the rest of the Jackson family. He was holding himself aloof and seldom smiled.
‘Poor lad,’ the little old lady with the walking frame said when Glenn went to dig her out of the sand. ‘He’s just been jilted at the altar, you know.’
‘Gee,’ Glenn said. ‘Bad luck.’
More like a lucky break. What idiot would willingly consign himself to a lifetime with the same woman? His brother excepted, of course.
‘He wasn’t the one who was jilted, Mrs Moody,’ a tiny, young woman with stunning lavender eyes and cropped red hair said. ‘He was the one who jilted her.’
Glenn looked at Ben Jackson with renewed respect.
‘No!’ Mrs Moody gasped. ‘But he seems such a nice young man! All of Lisa’s family seem nice.’
Glenn had to agree with her. They did seem nice—apart from her elder sister, of course.
The photographer moved them all around, taking shots of them sitting on the rocks on the beach or under the trees that Lisa said were called pohutukawa trees and burst into red flowers at Christmas.
‘They’re also known as the New Zealand Christmas tree,’ she’d told the Brogans.
Weird. Very weird. How did a native Californian who couldn’t read suddenly become a walking New Zealand guidebook?
The wind kicked up and Lisa shivered inside Dan’s jacket.
‘Come on! Off with it! We won’t be able to see your lovely dress!’ the photographer called.
‘But it’s a lovely jacket,’ Lisa teased, snuggling into Dan’s oversized jacket before handing it to his mother.
Glenn had to grin.
He stopped smiling when he was asked to pose beside Sherry Jackson on one of the rocks.
‘Closer! Can you sit closer together?’ the damned photographer called, crawling around in the sand on his hands and knees to get the right angle. ‘And can you take your jacket off, dear?’
Sherry rolled her eyes and flipped her brother’s jacket behind her into the sand.
Glenn had a clear view straight down her beautiful cleavage.
‘Put your eyes back in their sockets, Glamour Boy,’ Sherry said snidely, staring at the photographer as he adjusted the lens of the camera.
Glenn’s lip curled. ‘You should be so lucky, Attila.’
‘Smile!’
They both bared their teeth for the camera.
Sherry looked over her shoulder at him. ‘Lucky? Lucky would be you getting caught in the surf and washing all the way back to America.’ She glared at him warningly. ‘I’ve seen the way you look at Lisa, so I’m warning you: do not upset my sister. She’s been through enough.’
‘I haven’t got a beef with your sister—well, not much—provided she treats my brother a damned sight better than she did when she was Linda. He’s had enough shit to last a lifetime.’
‘Your parents must have given all the nice qualities to Dan,’ Sherry sneered. ‘There was obviously nothing left over for you. What a relief they didn’t have a third child.’
‘Yeah,’ Glenn retorted. ‘It probably would have been a girl.’
‘I don’t think my sister and your brother like each other,’ Lisa told Dan when they were dancing together in her parents’ living room after the wedding banquet. The furniture had been taken out and the doors to the adjoining deck thrown open, leaving a large spacious area for dancing. Ben had managed to get his old band back together and they were providing the music from outside on the deck.
‘Maybe,’ Dan said.
Lisa frowned. ‘What do you mean maybe? They avoid looking at each other.’
‘Only when they think the other one can see.’
Jill was dancing with Kell, clinging to his six-feet-four-inch frame and chatting up a storm as he smiled and guided her around the makeshift dance floor. Molly and Brian were parked on one of the sofas looking at horticultural books, having discovered a shared passion for gardening.
Edie and Norm had come dressed in their best kilts and frilled shirts, complete with tartan bonnets. They had blocked off one corner of the room and were leaping about with their arms above their heads, somehow managing to keep in time to the band and perform a Scottish reel. Norm had been delighted when he’d discovered Starr was a student midwife. ‘They almost lost me in the hospital, you know,’ he told her.
‘They did lose me! For over an hour!’ Esme piped up, stealing his thunder.
‘You were stuck in a lift, Esme!’ Norm complained. ‘It’s not the same thing!’
Starr was trying to teach Slade how to rock and roll, tripping lightly under his arm and around his back like a pretty little water sprite in a dress of deepest purple. Ben’s eyes strayed to her often where he stood at the microphone playing lead guitar and singing up a storm.
‘Your brother’s really good,’ Dan said.
‘I know,’ Lisa agreed proudly. She looked at Ben and wished he would unbend just a little bit, but knew she’d have to be patient.
‘Give him time, Lisa,’ Dan said against her ear.
She snuggled into his arms, wrapping hers about his waist, and looked up into his face. ‘Somewhere amongst the wedding presents there’s a really ugly ashtray. It’s a present from Ben.’
Dan’s brow wrinkled in confusion. ‘Why? Neither of us smoke.’
Lisa stroked his back through his suit jacket. ‘It’s a bit of family tradition. I’ll tell you about it later.’
She lifted her face for his kiss.
Whatever their views about the wedding and the strange beginnings of Dan and Lisa’s relationship, there wasn’t one person in the room who didn’t smile a little when they saw Dan kiss her.
Lisa suddenly pulled away from him, crying, ‘Hang on!’
She rushed up to Ben and made circles with her hand to get him to lean down to her so she could whisper in her ear. He nodded and straightened. Lisa skipped back to Dan and he caught her against him.
Ben finished the song and smiled.
‘The next song is a special request from the bride for the groom,’ he announced with a wry smile.
Stepping up to the microphone, Ben closed his eyes and began to play his electric guitar. Behind him an electric organ purred and the drummer picked up the beat of Matchbox Twenty’s hit ‘Unwell’. He put his lips against the microphone and began to sing about how right now he wasn’t crazy—just a little unwell—and soon they would all see a different side of him and how he used to be.
Somebody began to clap and everybody joined in and began to dance, some hooking arms and whooping about the room, while Norm and Edie gave a particularly energetic display in their corner.
Dan looked down at Lisa and laughed. ‘You little minx,’ he murmured, cupping her face in his hands.
Lisa giggled, stood on tiptoe and wound her arms around his neck. She let out a shriek when Dan wrapped his arms about her hips, lifted her off the ground and swung her around and around. Lisa lifted her arms above her head and laughed out loud.
George and Moira watched the proceedings, invisible unseen guests. George clapped along with the music while Moira tapped her foot sedately.
‘I do love a good party. See?’ he said, grinning and nudging her gently with his elbow. ‘Told you it’d be alright.’
Acknowledgements
Thanks to everybody at HarperCollins for making this experience so much fun and being so understanding, even on the days when I wasn’t sure what my name was.
A big thank you to Helen, Bronwyn and David for their invaluable help with the medical aspects, and Mike for putting me straight about life in the New Zealand police force. Any mistakes, inconsistencies and irregularities, however, are purely down to me.
And thank you to Mark from the MAF office in Wellington for taking my question about the process when somebody arrived in New Zealand with a banana in their golf bag seriously!
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in 2007
This edition published in 2010
by HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
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Copyright © Michelle Holman 2007
Michelle Holman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This work is copyright.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
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National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Holman, Michelle
Bonkers / Michelle Holman
ISBN 978 1 8695 0679 7 (pbk.)
ISBN 978 0 7304 0115 5 (ePub)
I. Title.
NZ823.3—dc 22
About the Publisher
Bonkers Page 35