Just Say Yes (Escape to New Zealand Book 10)

by Rosalind James

  The words were casual. The rate at which her heart was beating wasn’t.

  “Spending time with you would be top of my list,” Kevin said. “The girls told me you and Zavy were still coming for dinner. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, just like before. Made me think it wasn’t all lost after all, if you were doing that. And it’s Monday now.”

  She came up again and switched legs, swiveling on her toes, feeling her muscles respond and thinking, Maybe they’ve still got it. Maybe so. And her heart gave another lurch. “I was thinking,” she said carefully, “about something else as well. It would mean you’d have to hang about while I took class, though. Probably two hours in all, because I have a meeting.”

  “I could do that. Go have some brekkie, maybe.”

  “We’ll be going to see my mum afterwards. She’ll feed us there. And I know that visit may not be your first choice, but that’s the time I was hoping you had for me.”

  He shrugged. “Second breakfast works. And it’s always a good thing when the girl takes you to see her parents. Even if they do wonder whether you can string two sentences together or tie your own bootlaces, what with the head knocks and your lesser background and all.”

  “There’s a reason I’d be putting you through it. At least I hope there is. Honestly”—she took a breath and said it—“it’s because I could use the support.”

  He looked nothing but satisfied now. “That works almost as well as second breakfast.”

  Her heart may have given an extra-hard thump or two. “Would you mind waking Zavy up and helping him with his teeth and getting dressed? I’m running late.” Because she’d slept too long this morning. Worn out from too much pleasure, or maybe just that it had been so comfortable with his body pressed against hers, his arm across her, as if he wanted to hold her close and safe even in his sleep.

  Pity she wasn’t feeling quite so comfortable now.

  When she came out of the cream-stuccoed building on tiny Lorne Street four hours later with her ballet bag over one shoulder, Kevin was waiting for her. Leaning against the wall between two enormous arched windows, those bulky arms crossed, looking still and centered in that way that was uniquely Kevin. A way that was calm, but let you know that he could move fast and hard if he needed to.

  That is, he was looking like that until a few young blokes passed him, stopped, and did a double take. Chloe was the one who had to wait then, as Kevin posed for first one selfie and than another. When he looked up and saw her, though, he said something to his fan club and came to put his arm around her.

  “Ready?” he asked, smiling down into her eyes, then brushing a kiss over her lips.

  “We’re getting our photo taken,” she informed him.

  He kept his arm where it was. “You say that as if I should care. I don’t. Whatever this thing is I’m meant to support—let’s go do it.”

  “Without even knowing what it is?” She should tell him, but somehow, she needed his genuine response, his first response. And she needed her parents to see it.

  “Without even knowing,” he said, taking her bag from her and starting the walk to her car.

  She’d texted her mum this morning that she was bringing Kevin with her, and when the blue door opened and her dad was standing there, it was a punch low in the gut. Her dad never missed work. He was never even late. His expression was too serious as well, although he shook hands with Kevin and kissed her cheek.

  “Are you here because I’ve brought Kevin?” she asked, trying for a light tone even as she faced facts. “I’d have thought that you and Mum would both have realized by now that my judgment has improved. I know I think so.”

  Kevin had her hand, was squeezing it and not looking a bit defensive. Standing there looking solid and strong, and that was all. He glanced at her, and she could read what was in that glance as clearly as if he’d said it aloud.

  No worries, baby. I’m all good, and so are you.

  “Chloe. Darling.” Her mother came in from the kitchen, looking as polished as always in a cream silk top and fawn trousers, with an impeccable black apron over them to preserve her from splatters. As if anything would dare to splatter on her mum. “And you’ve brought Kevin. How lovely.” It didn’t sound all that sincere, but it was better than I hope he leaves his gumboots at the door, which was the impression she’d given the last time. “Come sit,” she told them both. “And eat. Chloe, you’re looking thin. A bit peaky, darling. That’s shifting house, probably. Always such an upset.”

  They sat at the round glass dining table, and Kevin dug straight into his Eggs Bennie with spinach and smoked salmon. He hadn’t been joking, then, about second breakfast. Chloe poked around the edges of her own breakfast until her dad looked at his watch and said, “I do need to be in court at one, Chloe. You told your mum you had something important to discuss, so if you’d like to start ...”

  Chloe took a deep breath and said it. All in a rush, because that was the only way it would come out. “I’m going to sell the school and go back to dancing.”

  It was a bombshell, and it landed like one. Her parents looked shocked, and Kevin looked thrilled. He shoved his chair back, picked her up bodily out of hers, gave her a ferocious cuddle that practically knocked the wind out of her, and said, “Yes. Yes.”

  “Darling,” her mother said when Chloe had got done smiling at Kevin and he’d set her down again, “isn’t that awfully risky? You know how Dad and I felt for you when you had to give it up.”

  “Gutted,” her father put in economically. “Especially your mum.”

  “But it’s been years,” her mum said as Chloe and Kevin sat down again. This was going to take a wee while. “Why on earth?”

  “And it’s a good business,” her dad put in, “and getting better.” He helped sort out Chloe’s taxes, so he knew. “I have to agree with your mother. Too risky a move at this point. I hope you haven’t taken any irreparable steps, though I don’t see how you could. Bit hard to get a buyer for a specialized business like that. It could take months, I’d imagine.”

  Kevin didn’t say anything. He just looked at her, inviting her to go on.

  “I’m working out an agreement with Jennifer to buy the school,” Chloe said. “My lead teacher. She jumped at it like she’d just been waiting for me to ask. It is an earner, and she’d like to be in charge. She’s already planning to bring her husband into it, and it’ll be a monthly payment, of course. A cushion. I’m hoping you’ll help me with that, though, Dad. The agreement.”

  “Of course I will, if you’re determined. But—”

  “Now?” her mother said. “Before you even know if you can make it again? Why would you give it up now?”

  “I met with Dmitri Provokoff last week,” Chloe said. “The creative director at the Ballet, you know. And again today. He came and watched me take class this morning, and afterwards, he said they were willing to take me on again. No promises, but I can try. We’ll both know in three months. In three months, I’ll be back, or I’ll know I ...” She had to stop for a minute. “In three months, I’ll be back.” There was no other possible outcome. She’d be out on the screaming edge, and she’d be out there with Zavy. It had to work.

  “Try?” her mum said. “Try? Let me explain something to you, Chloe Ann. ‘Try’ is for somebody who doesn’t have a child, or somebody who has a backup plan. If you sell the school, where’s your backup plan? If it doesn’t work, what do you have? You had a lovely career, my darling, but it’s over. There’s no use trying to go back to the past. It’s gone.”

  Chloe looked at Kevin, but all he did was stare steadily back at her. She knew he was longing to say, “I’m her backup plan,” but he didn’t, and that wasn’t someplace she could go anyway. She said, “It was something Kevin told me, actually. He saw how I felt about dancing, somehow, and pushed me to think about it, to really think about it.” He had hold of her hand, and she squeezed it and told him, “It hurt, what you said. It sliced me like ... like knives. I mean it hurt in my h
eart when I faced it. That day I moved to the new place, when I was lying there in bed ... that night, I felt so lost. I had to face that there was a part of me, no matter what else I do, no matter how much I love my son, no matter how good my life looks from the outside—that part isn’t ... isn’t full. It isn’t whole unless I dance. Like you said. Because I’m a dancer. First and last.”

  She looked at her parents again and said, “Kevin told me, ‘You don’t choose what you do. It chooses you.’ About rugby, but it’s true of ballet as well. The first time I put on my pink slippers and went to class? When I was seven? I remember that day. I remember how it felt, and what I looked like in the mirror. Like I’d found my one best thing, and I wanted to do it always. Everything else—school and playdates and sport—they were all just things you had to do in between ballet. And it’s been like that ever since. When Rich left me and I knew I couldn’t go back, it was a hole in my heart that even Zavy couldn’t fill. He filled a different hole, but not that one. And when I decided to try again, I could feel the hole starting to close. I’m a dancer again. I’m a dancer. Do you know what that means?”

  The joy was a silver light, an aura surrounding her, cushioning her. She felt as if she could float away. As hard as this was—it didn’t matter. It was necessary. It was her life.

  “Zavy, though,” her mother said, her pretty face looking troubled. “What about him? You could be closing one hole to open another. How will you forgive yourself if he suffers?”

  That dimmed the silver light some. Chloe wished she hadn’t eaten breakfast, because she was feeling sick. “I did make the right choice for Zavy at the time, but Zavy’s three now, I have such good care for him, and I’m working full time anyway. And the last two times Kevin has traveled with the team, Zavy’s given Kevin his bear to keep him company. Kevin told me that wasn’t something a boy did if he wasn’t secure, and he was right.”

  “Kevin,” her mother said, shooting him a penetrating look. “I’m sorry to be blunt with him sitting right here, but I have to wonder why he’s sitting right here. I have to wonder how much he had to do with this. You can’t have known each other six weeks. If you’re making decisions on that basis, well ... I’m sorry, but maybe your judgment about men still isn’t perfect, darling. Even if he were the most wonderful man in the world.” Which, she didn’t need to add, he isn’t. Just look at him. Jeans and a T-shirt, rough as guts and twice as uneducated.

  Chloe set that aside. It wasn’t what mattered right now. “Kevin did have something to do with it, but it isn’t what you think. He forced me to take a hard look inside, to look at that hole in me and recognize how deep and black it was. After that, I sat down and drew up a timetable. I wrote down the way it is now, and the way it would be if I were performing three or four days a week. And I could do it. It’s more evenings, but it’s fewer weekend hours, and Zavy’s asleep in the evening anyway. I’ll know for sure in three or four months, and so will Dmitri. That’s why we signed the contract today. I start in two weeks.”

  Silence, then, until her mother said, “Oh, my God.”

  Chloe’s hands were shaking, but something else was happening, too. She felt like she could float just from the lightness of her spirit. Saying the words, like signing her name on that piece of paper, was the most terrifying thing she’d ever done, and the best. Just as it had been the first time, when she was seventeen and her parents had had to sign for her because she hadn’t even been old enough. And it had worked. She’d given everything, and more than everything, had worked toward that impossible goal with all her strength and all her determination, when her feet had bled and her muscles had ached and she’d been too exhausted even to cry. Apprentice to corps de ballet, corps de ballet to soloist, soloist to principal, one step after the other.

  She’d made it. And she’d make it again.

  She looked at her dad, and she looked at her mum most of all. She didn’t look at Kevin, because she didn’t need to. His support was there in that solid body, in the strong hand wrapped around her own. It was there, and it was real. “Don’t you see,” she told her parents, “that I have to try? It’s my dream. It’s my life. It’s my risk, and it’s massive. But if I try and fail, at least I know I tried. At least I know I gave it one last shot to be my best person. My best everything. To be everything I’m capable of. At least I’ll know I gave everything I had to be a dancer.”

  Kevin couldn’t believe it.

  He wanted to jump up, do a fist pump, shout “Yes!” and whirl Chloe around her parents’ lounge. He wanted to spend some time kissing her and telling her how proud he was of her. After that, he wanted to move her and Zavy straight into his house and keep her there. Keep them both away from that cliff.

  He didn’t do any of it, of course. He just sat there letting the satisfaction seep in as he saw the shuttered look leave her eyes, saw the nymph stepping down from her fountain and running free. As he saw a woman taking back her dream.

  He saw her parents, too. Still dubious as hell.

  Ah, well. She got her caution the honest way, he guessed. She’d inherited it.

  Her mum said briskly, “Well, if you’ve decided and have signed a contract, that’s that. You’ll need to bring Zavy to us more, though, if you do get to that stage. If you’re performing again.”

  “Really?” Chloe asked. “You’d do that?” She was looking shaky now, nearly teary, and no wonder. How much courage had it required to take those steps, to sign those papers without consulting with anybody? And then to announce it?

  Heaps, that was how much. Heaps.

  Her mum looked cross now. “Of course I would. Isn’t he my grandson? Who was there on Saturday, I’d like to know, spending the day with Rich? Do you think I did that for my health?”

  “I thought you liked him,” Chloe said. “I thought you loved him. What was all that about how a boy should know his father?”

  “He hadn’t locked my grandson in a car then, had he? And he doesn’t wear nearly as well over six hours, I’ll tell you that. Fonder than ever of his own opinion and his own way, and no more real care for Zavy than if he were a ... a ...”

  “Pet,” Chloe said. “Though you like your own opinion well enough yourself, Mum.”

  “That’s because I’m almost always right,” her mum said, and for the first time, they both smiled.

  “Thank you,” Chloe said, her voice unsteady. “For coming with Rich on Saturday. I don’t know how I could have let Zavy go without you. I don’t know how ...”

  She couldn’t go on, and her mum, now, was the one who reached a hand out and gripped hers. The one Kevin wasn’t already holding while he thought, Next time you turn up, mate, you’ll be looking at me. Except that he wouldn’t always be there. Another reason Chloe and Zavy should be in his house, though. Just one more.

  And then Fiona sobered and said, “There’s something new as well, though. The real reason your dad’s here. We didn’t know your announcement would be anything so ... momentous.”

  Just like that, the atmosphere, which had never been what Kevin would call “jolly,” got tense. Again. “Oh,” Chloe said, trying to joke even as she gripped Kevin’s hand harder, “I thought Dad was hanging about to tell me Kevin’s no good for me and I can do better.”

  “Haven’t made up my mind on that, have I,” Frank said with a glance at Kevin, as if he were still measuring him up. Suited Kevin fine. He hadn’t decided about Frank yet, either. “But no. It’s this. I played a foursome with Max Lebring yesterday. Labour MP, you know. And he asked me, wasn’t Rich seeing my daughter at one time. I said, yes, she was engaged to him, and he’s the father of her son. Not like that’s a secret.” His voice was still controlled, his delivery deliberate, and Kevin longed to ask him to get to the point.

  “And? Chloe asked, clearly feeling exactly the same.

  “And he told me,” her father said, “that they were planning to put Rich up for a seat in the elections in the spring.”

  “So ... what?” Chloe asked
.

  “So that would be why, I’m guessing,” her father said, “he’s taking an interest in wee Zavy. Because it wouldn’t look good if it came out that he had a son he never saw. We’re not the States, of course, and he doesn’t have to be married to the mum, but he can’t look like a deadbeat dad, either. Mothers vote. I said something of the kind to Max, off the cuff as you do, and he said, ‘But Rich tells us he’s always paid child support, that he sees the boy. Are you saying that’s not the case?’ He asked like the party wanted to know, and I’d say that’s a pretty good indicator of Rich’s motivation. Getting ready to have his photo taken with his son, I shouldn’t wonder, having father/son bonding time, and he’d need to have spent time with him for that, wouldn’t he?”

  Chloe’s hand jerked in Kevin’s, and he realized he’d been squeezing it. He said, “Sorry, baby,” edged closer, and put an arm around her shoulders. Even though all he wanted to do was to go find that bastard and do him over. Spending time with Zavy was for show? What kind of a man would even think of that? What kind of man would be that cold-blooded?

  A politician, he answered himself, and all right, that wasn’t entirely fair. It felt fair, though. Or maybe he didn’t much care about being fair just now.

  “The good news is,” Frank said, “you can stop worrying, Chloe, that he’ll ask for a change in the custody arrangement. I can’t see him going beyond the every-other-weekend he’s got now. He needs to show a reasonable level of interest, but he’s not going to put himself out beyond that—at least, I can’t see why he would.”

  “How did you know I was worrying about that?” she asked. Her face was closed down again, and Kevin hated it.

  “Call it a guess,” her father said. “But it sounds to me like you don’t need to worry. And you know, Kitten—most men don’t know how to be dads at first, and Zavy’s a lovable little fella. It’s bound to get better, especially with your mum’s help.”