Just My Luck (Escape to New Zealand #5)

by Rosalind James

  “We’re just not getting the traction we should,” he’d sighed. “The games are televised on Sky Sport, right enough, but we aren’t getting the viewership numbers from women or men that we’d projected. The time should be right for women’s sport, but somehow we aren’t quite where we’d like to be. What d’you think? Any bright ideas?”

  “I did look the team up online,” she admitted, “and saw the news stories and so forth. It could be this is just me, but it seems like a lot of what you’ve done is more . . . soft news. Fluffy, you know?”

  “Fluffy,” he said slowly.

  “I’m not being critical,” she went on quickly. “Just giving you my impressions.”

  “No, please,” he insisted. “Tell me.”

  “Well, I didn’t see a lot of emphasis on them as athletes,” she said. “It all seemed to be almost glamour pieces. And I thought you said that you were trying to get the sport taken more seriously.”

  “We are,” he said immediately.

  “Well, first thing I’d say, maybe stop having them play in little dresses,” she said with a laugh. “Because that just screams ‘girly non-sport,’ doesn’t it? But you probably can’t do anything about that. So maybe show them in the gym, training, taking part in clinics with schoolgirls, things like that. Emphasizing their skills, even their personalities, as long as it’s their drive, their athleticism you’re talking about. Focusing less on their looks and their personal lives. Because even though netball’s so resolutely non-contact,” she added, “which, along with those dresses, does make it seem a little girly to me, I can tell they do have skills. But it’s almost like you’re scared to show that.”

  Now she wondered. Had that been too blunt? Nate had commented on that aspect of her personality, after all. Even Kristen had, and Kristen rarely said an unkind word about anybody. Ally knew she was pretty direct by North American standards, and in polite New Zealand, she was beginning to realize, she might well qualify as downright abrasive. Had Devon resented her criticism? He hadn’t seemed to at the time, but even though it had seemed like he’d enjoyed himself too, and he’d appeared even more interested than before, the week turned into the weekend without another word, not even a text. So she snatched at her mobile when she saw his name come up on it as she sat eating a late breakfast with Kristen on Saturday.

  “Hi,” she said happily, seeing Kristen’s eyes sharpen on her across the table. Too bad she was working late tonight, Ally thought quickly. She’d have liked to have dinner with him, and that was probably what he was calling to ask about.

  To her surprise, though, it wasn’t. “I was wondering,” he said instead, “if you and Kristen would like to go to the City Market with me tomorrow morning. Do some food shopping, have a look around, a bit of breakfast. It’s a nice outing, and I’d love to talk to both of you before the event next week, get any last-minute thoughts.”

  “Hang on.” Ally felt the disappointment rise. Did he really want to go out with Kristen, then? Was he thinking he could somehow switch roommates? Good luck with that. Kristen wouldn’t do it even if she liked him. Or maybe Ally actually had offended him. No, that couldn’t be it, or why would he be asking her out again at all?

  She gave up on the speculation, pressed the phone against her chest. “Want to go to breakfast with Devon and me tomorrow?” she asked Kristen. “He’s invited both of us.”

  Kristen was shaking her head vehemently. “You’re busy,” she hissed. “Say, ‘sorry, I’m busy.’”

  “What? I’m not, though,” Ally whispered back. “I want to go. Do you?”

  Kristen shook her head again. Ally shrugged, put the phone back to her ear. “Kristen’s busy,” she told Devon. “But I’d love to go.”

  “Why?” she asked Kristen when she’d hung up after making plans to meet Devon near the Market the following morning.

  “He’s calling you Saturday, for Sunday morning,” Kristen pointed out. “After not calling for days.”

  “So?”

  “So he’s telling you you’re not important,” Kristen insisted. “Giving himself the upper hand, because he knows you’ve been waiting to hear from him. Now he knows he doesn’t have to bother to call in advance, or to hide the fact that you’re not the one he’s taking out on Saturday night. He’s not even coming to pick you up.”

  “Maybe he’s broke, like me,” Ally protested. “Maybe breakfast is all he can afford.”

  “Then why couldn’t he have called you a couple days ago to schedule it?”

  Ally shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s been busy. Or maybe he’s more spontaneous, also like me. Anyway, I can’t play those kinds of dating games.”

  “OK,” Kristen sighed. “But I have a feeling he can.”

  “So. Sport,” Devon said when the two of them were perched on tall stools in a seating alcove behind the City Market on Sunday, drinking coffee and eating an assortment of delicious items, from tiny dumplings filled with chopped prawns and fresh ginger to an almond croissant from the French Bakery table that had Ally’s eyes almost crossing with food lust on her first bite.

  “So,” she agreed, smiling back at him and taking another bite of croissant. Oh, yeah. Just as good the second time. “Sport.”

  He laughed. “You’ve had a good dose of it, sounds like, since you moved to En Zed. Not only everything you’ve done, but all the rugby exposure. Most visitors seem to manage to discover, eventually, that Kiwis are keen on rugby, but not many of them spend their Christmas with the captain of the All Blacks.”

  “Retired captain,” Ally pointed out over another sip of her trim flat white. Boy, Wellington had some good coffee, she thought appreciatively. And this was one of the best yet.

  “You’re able to see, though,” Devon persisted, “how much more important rugby is here than any other sport. Oh, people love it when we do well in basketball,” he admitted, “or when we send the All Whites to the soccer World Cup, win the sailing and rowing medals at the Olympics, but nothing really compares to rugby.”

  “I’m gathering that. It must get a little frustrating, trying to drum up interest in something else.”

  “Exactly! You’ve got it exactly.” He smiled at her with an appreciation, a warmth that made Ally feel just a little bit smarter, a little bit more appealing. “Which is why,” he said, “though I’d never presume, I do hope you’ll tell me if Drew and Hannah pop down again to visit Kristen.”

  “How do you know her name?”

  “You told me.”

  “No,” she said slowly. “I don’t think I did.”

  He shrugged. “Must have read it somewhere. But, yeh. If they do, I’d love an intro. That’d help. Having Nate so dead set against me—it makes it tough to break in. And now that he’s captain, it’s even harder. But Drew still has heaps of clout.”

  “Mana,” Ally remembered. “Right?”

  “Yeh. You know about that? You keep impressing me, the way you pick up on things. The way you get straight to the essence. That thing you said about athleticism, last time we were out, that we’d focused too much on glamour . . . that was brilliant. I took that straight back to the office. Made us all think a good bit.”

  “Really? That’s great. I’m glad I could help.”

  “Yeh. So, much as I hate to ask . . .” He smiled ruefully. “I’d love the intro, if the chance ever comes up.”

  She looked down at her coffee cup, rearranged her croissant on its paper napkin, then met his eyes again.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I don’t think I’d be comfortable doing that. Drew gets so much of that, I know. And they’ve both done a lot for me,” she hurried on. “I just can’t . . .”

  “No worries,” he smiled easily. “I’ll get my chance someday, one way or another. Keep working hard, doing my best, and the opportunities will come, I’m dead sure of it.”

  “I’m sure they will. And I’m sorry I can’t help,” she said again.

  “Nah.” He waved her apology away. “Forget it. Now, le
t’s put our heads together about this event. I’m getting quite nervous, tell you the truth. Only a couple days away. Just glad you’ll be there to hold my hand.”

  Partners

  Kristen jumped a bit when she heard the knock, even though she’d been anticipating it since she’d buzzed Liam in. They’d made this climbing date after their picnic with Jack, and he’d called her a few days ago to confirm. And to ask if she wanted to have lunch afterwards, to which she’d found herself, surprisingly, saying yes. But she’d been thinking Ally would be here when he came by, and Ally was out with Devon.

  She ran her hands down her pant legs, because she could tell that her palms were sweating. Took a deep breath, let it out, and went to open the door to him.

  “Morning,” he said, and he didn’t look scary at all. Just stood there quietly and looked big, and strong, and solid, and . . . good, like he always did to her. Even the broken nose merely seemed like another badge of strength, an essential part of him. Just like the Maori tattoo that extended down from his T-shirt sleeve to well below his elbow, the intricate whorls and twists a dark pattern against the background of smooth brown skin. She knew it continued up to cover his shoulder, one entire solid slab of pectoral muscle, because she’d checked online. And she’d thought that looked good too.

  He stood patiently where he was, and she realized she’d been standing there like an idiot, staring at him. “Oh. Sorry. Come in. I’m ready to go, I just need my bag.” She stepped back so he could enter the living room.

  “You look pretty,” he said, and she glanced down at the skinny deep-blue pants with their suggestion of a zebra stripe, the drapey silk top tucked loosely into the waistband around which she’d slung a black leather belt with copper accents.

  “I know we’re climbing,” she apologized, picking up her gym bag. He was already in shorts, she saw, would only have to change his jandals for climbing shoes. “But I thought, if we’re going to lunch, I’d change at the gym, then change back afterwards, you know, so I could look a little nicer, walking around.” She snapped her mouth shut. “Sorry. I’m babbling. I’m a little nervous.”

  “You’re allowed to be nervous, inviting me round and all. Even,” he said with a smile, “as a friend. Still a big step. And dressing up’s good. I’d be the last to complain about that, wouldn’t I, since I’m the one who gets to look at you. But—” He looked down at her feet. “Why are you wearing those shoes?”

  She looked at the low-heeled sandals with surprise. “Because . . . uh . . .”

  “Because if you wore the shoes you’d normally wear, you’d be taller than me,” he guessed.

  “Well . . . uh . . .”

  “How about showing me what you would’ve worn, if I weren’t such a stumpy fella?” he suggested.

  He smiled in satisfaction when she came back from her bedroom holding the high black suede heels. “Much better,” he pronounced.

  “But you don’t mind?” she asked, sitting on the couch to slip off her sandals and slide her feet into the heels. When she stood up, she topped him by a good half-inch or more, she realized with a flash of worry. “Because I can change back. When you’re five-ten, you get used to adjusting your shoes to the . . . the occasion.”

  “The minute my masculinity feels threatened,” he promised, “I’ll let you know.”

  “And don’t you feel better now?” he asked, taking her bag from her and holding the door as they left the flat, seeming not in the least bothered by their height difference. “Now that you like how you look?”

  “I do,” she admitted. “But that’s shallow of me, I know.”

  “Why? If I like looking at you too?” He was holding the car door this time.

  “So that is why you want to be with me,” she said as he slid into the driver’s seat of the substantial, if unflashy, sedan.

  “Nah,” he corrected, turning the key and starting the car, heading down the hill to the CBD. “I want to be with you because I like you. I like how hard you’re trying even though you’re scared. I like the way you love your family and your friends, how sweet you are with Jack. But I’ll admit, the way you look is a pretty good bonus.”

  At the gym, he waited without complaint for her to change, then took turns climbing and belaying her, and Kristen found herself gradually relaxing.

  “You know what the bonus of you is?” she asked him as he stepped down, lightly as always for such a big man, from one of the intermediate climbs.

  “Nah, what? That you know you’d have a big target to land on, even if I let you fall?”

  She laughed, saw a man belaying nearby turn to check her out at the sound. A man who’d been eyeing her for the last five minutes. Until right now, when he caught Liam’s eye and turned hastily away again.

  “That,” she said. “That exact thing.”

  “What?”

  “That nobody bothers me,” she said simply. “At least not when you get back down to the bottom again and they see you, they don’t.”

  He laughed himself, a low rumble that seemed to slide right inside her, come to rest there. “Good to know my face has its uses.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it’s just your face,” she said. “I think the rest of you has a little bit to do with it too. Not to mention that they all know who you are.”

  “Some advantages to bashing other blokes for a living,” he agreed. “Let’s get you up on this one, then. I can’t promise that I’ll be the only one who looks at you up there, but I’ll be the only one talking to you down here, if that’s what you want.”

  “That’s what I want,” she said. “Exactly.”

  Afterwards, he waited again while she changed out of her climbing gear, then took her to a nearby waterfront café where he insisted on paying for lunch.

  “If it’s friends,” she argued, “I should pay my own way.”

  “I said you could be taller,” he said, sliding his EFTPOS card through the reader. “I never said you could pay.”

  “You’re such a great climbing partner,” she said impulsively after their meals had arrived. “I love climbing with Ally, but she’s so good.”

  She stopped, appalled by what she’d said. “I don’t mean you’re not good,” she stammered. “Just . . .”

  He just smiled. “No worries. I don’t have to be taller than you, or older than you, or a better climber than you. If I have to be better than you at everything, I’m not much of a man. Long as you let me pay, I’m happy. That one’s non-negotiable.”

  She looked down at her plate, poked at a lettuce leaf with her fork. “I wasn’t just trying to let you down easy, you know. I’m really not ready for dating yet. I’m not sure I’m even ready to be friends, if I even knew how to be friends with a man. Climbing was nice, but trying to talk feels hard. Lunch probably wasn’t a good idea. I’m not good at this anymore. I’m just this . . . pulpy mess inside. Everything’s all so raw. And I can’t be . . .” She looked up at him, felt the tears in her eyes, threatening to fall. “I can’t be charming,” she said, hearing her voice break a little, and hating it. “I can’t be fun. I used to be fun.”

  He laid a big brown hand over her own where it lay clenched on the tabletop. “I don’t need you to be charming,” he promised. “I just need you to be you. Not to try to hide how you’re feeling from me. Can’t you tell that I want to get to know you?”

  “I don’t see why,” she said with the honesty he’d asked for. “When what you’ve seen so far has been so unimpressive.”

  “D’you want to know what I see?”

  “Do I?”

  He laughed gently. “It’s all good, no worries. I see a woman who’s had some hard knocks, had her faith in herself shaken, who’s determined to start over and do things differently. You could’ve gone to live near Hannah, couldn’t you? Bet that would’ve made your life a lot easier. And that she wanted that. But you came here instead, so you could do it on your own. To a new city where you don’t know anyone except your one friend, and a job that’s a big chal
lenge for you. You could be trying to show me all that charm right now too. I’ll bet you still know how to do it. Instead, you’re being honest with me, and that’s a challenge too, I know. That takes real courage.”

  “I don’t feel like I have courage,” she said. “I don’t feel brave. Exactly the opposite. All this, even talking to you. Even going out with you. It’s terrifying.”

  “That’s what being brave is, though,” he told her. “Being scared to do something, and doing it anyway. If it were easy, they wouldn’t call it courage.”

  “So,” he said after a pause, “what d’you think? My face scare you off too much, or are we OK here?”

  “We’re OK,” she decided. “As long as you’re all right with this being all there is. I meant what I said about the celibacy thing, and I still have a long way to go. I said a year,” she added in another burst of honesty. “And it’s only been about five months. And anyway, I’m not ready.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “We can be celibate together. You can be my climbing partner, and I’ll be your celibacy partner.”

  “I would never ask that,” she said with shock. “That wouldn’t be fair to you. It’s not my business what you do.”

  “I’d like it to be your business, though,” he told her. “And I’m not proud to say this, but I’ve had more meaningless sex in my life than is good for any man. I reckon it’s time to hold out for something that’s going to matter. For both of us.”

  “I can’t promise,” she warned him.

  “And neither can I,” he agreed. “We’ll just spend some time together. Some celibate time. And see how we go.”