Just Say (Hell) No (Escape to New Zealand Book 11)

by Rosalind James

  Marko pulled into the driveway, saw darkness save for one light at the entrance to the house, and was glad for it. It was nearly midnight, and when he parked the car and climbed out, he felt all the usual stiffness from the muscles seizing up on the drive home. Not to mention his body’s delayed reaction, now that the adrenaline had subsided, to the battering it had just taken.

  Never mind. They’d won. And Nyree had been there to watch it.

  He hadn’t thought she’d come. When he’d offered the tickets, she’d hesitated for a long moment, and he’d wondered why he’d care if she didn’t. He still didn’t know the answer. He wasn’t sure it was a question he wanted to ask.

  When he got in the house, he shut the door quietly behind him, set down his bag to deal with tomorrow, when he might be able to get into his bedroom, stretched his arms over his head, and wished for a session in the spa tub.

  He’d flipped the switch tonight the way he’d told Jakinda he would, but no question, it had been harder than usual. Partly because he still wasn’t as easily in sync with his teammates as he’d been in the familiar territory of the Highlanders, and partly because he wasn’t in sync, period. But that was the satisfaction in it, too. That even when it wasn’t one bit easy, you dug deep anyway to put up a performance you could be proud of.

  A faint but persistent sound, growing louder, and then a gray dustball came skittering around the corner, meowing hard. He picked her up before she could launch herself at his leg, put her on his shoulder, and headed to the kitchen.

  He’d like a soak in the spa tub, yeh. For that matter, he’d like to take somebody’s clothes off and put her in there with him. He’d like to look at that full mouth smiling at him across the bubbles. He’d like to carry that sweet, soft somebody to bed, and he’d like to lay her down across it, wet and warm and naked. He’d like to come down over her and cover every single inch of her with his hands and mouth until she was sighing under him. And eventually, when she couldn’t wait another minute, when she wanted it exactly as much as he did, he’d like to sink into her. Slowly, so he could feel her stretch to take him in. He’d like to feel her legs wrap around his waist, and to hear the sounds she’d make when he put his hands flat on the mattress and put some effort into it. He’d like to watch her eyes close, and to see her face twist with the force of her orgasm.

  He’d like heaps of things. For now, he’d get a beer. He navigated in the dark, but when he went to open the folding doors to the deck, something stirred.

  “Hey.” The voice was soft. The accent was Maori. One syllable, one turn of a dark head, the moon backlighting her cloud of hair, and he was gone.

  Lowered resistance. Weary body, aftereffects of adrenaline. He thought it, and he forgot it.

  “Hey.” He came to sit beside her. She wasn’t in the dressing gown tonight. A jumper and leggings instead. “Bit chilly out here, isn’t it, bare feet and all?”

  “Mm,” she said. “Maybe. I could say that you don’t have any furniture, but it’d be a bit teasy. The truth is that I couldn’t sleep, and I wanted to talk to you.”

  “And that you’re a Maori girl from Northland who took off her shoes every day as soon as school was over and walked home barefoot. I’d like to have seen you then.”

  It took her a moment to answer. “Maybe you wouldn’t. Could be I wasn’t beautiful.”

  “Maybe not, but I’ll bet you were more alive than anybody else. Waiting for me tonight, though. That’s nice.”

  “Could be. I may have wanted to tell you that you impressed me. I wasn’t sure I’d have a chance tomorrow, so I wanted to…” She hauled in a breath. “Get my vote in early.”

  That shouldn’t make him feel so good. Girls should be impressed by blokes who saved whales or tackled child hunger, but so many of them were more impressed by blokes who just tackled, period. Sad but true. “I did, eh.”

  “You must know you did.”

  “Maori girl,” he said. “There’s more to a man than his muscles.”

  “Yeh, well,” she said. “You’ve got that, too. That’s the stupid problem.”

  “Well,” he said… yes, stupidly, “that’s good to know.”

  A second when he just looked at her, and then she said, “It was good that your mum came. You could say she was necessary. She made this feel… normal. Like Ella could ride it out and come out stronger on the other side. But I’m wondering about some things your aunt said, too. About whether I’m the best person for this. You’re off to Aussie in a couple days, and Ella’s got a rough road ahead. That’s what I really stayed up to tell you.”

  “She does. But isn’t that why you’re here?”

  “I want it to be. But I need to say this. I’m not your mum. I can be a friend, I can be a housemate, but I haven’t had one baby, let alone twins. I can see why she doesn’t want to be with her mum. I think I’d run screaming, if it were me. But now that I’ve met your mum—if she stayed with her instead, and all the rest of her whanau, wouldn’t that be better? Couldn’t she say it was to be with her cousin or something? They text like the phones are attached to their palms. Or you could say that she needed somebody there all the time, since her mum works away from home and your mum doesn’t. You could think of a reason.”

  “I could,” Marko said, “if she wants to do that. Or she could decide not to go through with the pregnancy after all. Twins change things. What did she say?”

  “Oh, I think she’s going to go ahead. Your mum said some wise things, but Ella didn’t seem torn, not really. Not to me. Overwhelmed? She’s that. But every time her mum said she couldn’t do it, she shut her down. She’s steady, eh. A bit like you.”

  “Except green.”

  “Solid green. She went to sleep straight away tonight, and the last thing she said was, “’Your feet are warm. So much better.’ Not weeping, like you might think, when she was alone, or at least alone with me. Adjusting already. And your mum’s awesome, too, but you know that.”

  “What color is she? My mum?” Nyree’s feet were warm? Why didn’t that surprise him?

  “Violet and gold. She’s beautiful. She’s… a river.”

  He took another swallow of beer and looked up at the moon. “But you’re not sure you should stay, even if Ella does. Even though your feet are warm, and you like my mum, and you like my cousin, and you like my cat, and maybe you even like me. But…”

  “You must know why.” She was steady, too. Too sure. “That’s not any kind of surprise to you, and this could get more than awkward. What would happen with Ella if it didn’t work out? She may need somebody who can spend more time at home, too. Somebody without a full-time job who’s trying to paint on top of it. I jumped in too fast, didn’t think it through. You’re meant to be the rational one here. What’s up with that?”

  “Dunno.” He’d finished the beer, and now, he put the bottle down on the deck. “Maybe it’s what my mum said. The Fool taking the leap. Sometimes, you don’t need to look. And here we are.”

  “I want you to know,” she said, “that if Ella does go home, it’s all good. I’ll paint your walls white and go back to my garage, and we’ll both have our regular lives back.”

  There were heaps of ways he could have unpacked that, but he needed to take care of something else first. “She seems to want to be here, so she can separate this from the rest of her life. Whether that’s better or worse, who knows. Whether I should have told her she could stay in the first place—that’s the Fool again, I reckon. And meanwhile, she can’t be alone. Stay while I’m gone to Aussie, at least.”

  “Of course I will. But I’m not qualified.”

  “You’ve judged all right so far. Helped her do what she needed to do, and rung me when she needed more help than that.”

  “Well, thanks. It would be easier if she came with an instruction manual.”

  He laughed out loud. “Now you’re going to tell me you’ve ever read an instruction manual. I don’t think so.”

  “Ha. You’re right.” She
swung her legs off the railing and stood up. “So. Could be she goes home, and I move out. Or she doesn’t, and I stay until you’re back from Aussie, and then we see. And tonight, you’ll sleep in a bed that’s too small for you. Sorry about that.”

  “But in an orange room,” he said. “So there’s that.” She was still there, one hand on the arm of her chair, her body nearly swaying. So warm, and so close. He stood up himself, setting Cat down on the chair along the way, and Nyree watched him do it and didn’t move. He said, knowing it was a mistake to ask and asking anyway, “Something I’ve wondered. You always smell like a cookie. Why is that?”

  “Uh… my lotion. Almond. It has… some orange in it, too. Rose.”

  “Mm. It’s nice.” He shouldn’t touch her. He knew that, too. He’d just slip a hand under her hair, there at the side of her neck. Just feel her hair against his hand. The tips of his fingers grazed her skin, though, and she took a breath.

  Maybe he was touching some. Skin even softer than her hair, fine as silk, pale in the moonlight. Snow White.

  Her breasts rose and fell, there where the jumper plunged, and he’d swear she was naked under it. He stroked his fingers down her neck again, and she shivered.

  “I want to kiss you,” he said.

  She didn’t answer, but her hand had come up to grasp his upper arm like she couldn’t help it. Her scent was in his head, and all he could see was her eyes. Huge. Dark in the night.

  He shouldn’t. He did anyway. He had an arm around her waist the way he’d imagined, was lifting her onto her toes, and her arm was around his neck. He brushed his lips over hers, then did it again.

  Surely those were sparks. An electric pulse, starting where his lips touched hers and moving all the way down his body. He did it again, nothing but soft, and then she had both arms around him, and somehow, she was almost all the way off her feet, pressed against his body. His hand at the back of her neck, her mouth opening under his.

  It was gentle, and then it wasn’t. He settled his mouth over hers and kissed her more. Kissed her deeper. He kissed her like there was no coming back, like she was already his. And she wrapped her hand around his head, soft and strong and warm, and let him do it.

  Surrender.

  That kiss was all about the warrior. All about the winner. She felt it. She knew it. And what he was winning—it was her.

  His jaw was smooth under her palm, and the muscles of his back, where she clutched him, were heavy and thick. He was wrapping her up in him, holding her so close, kissing her so deep, and she wanted to go further. Straight down into the dark. Right down onto her back. It was like she was already there, her head swimming, her body melting into his.

  No.

  The word hovered, trying to batter its way through, but how could anything get through Marko?

  You’d be a liar. And he’s going to know it.

  All right. That one made it. She dragged her lips away from his, rested her face against the strong column of his neck, and breathed.

  One more minute. Just one, to feel those arms around her and all that hardness pressed up against her. One minute to smell his spice and leather, and to believe in that sheltering strength. Just for a minute.

  He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t stop holding her, either. Finally, she said, “Bad… idea.”

  “Oh?” he said. “Doesn’t feel like it.” His hand stroked over her back. He wanted to slide that hand inside her jumper. She knew it. She wanted that, too. You could call it “desperately.”

  “I know. But we both know it is.” She’d been so clear, earlier. Moving in had been an impulsive decision that had been nothing but selfishness, or some kind of twisted revenge on rugby for a humiliation she needed to put behind her, because hanging onto it was never going to help her or anybody else. No matter how she felt about Ella, no matter how she felt about Marko—sometimes, the Fool was just the Fool. And then there had been twins, and his mother, and Ella’s mother, and this… heat. All of it jumbled together, a tangle of colors and emotions and mistakes and aching desire. Past and present.

  He set her down, and she took a step back, shoved her hair away from her face, and said, “I need to… I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “No,” he said. “But I did.” His hand was in her hair again, smoothing it this time, then touching her cheek. “Whatever the problem is, maybe you could tell me, eh. Could be as easy as that.”

  The black water was closing over her head. Mistake. Danger. Back off. “Let’s get Ella taken care of," she said. “Two weeks before you’re back again. And it’s a long way until September.”

  She didn’t have to look at him to see the frustration. “Fine,” he said.

  “See?” she said, and tried to laugh. “Awkward already. Like I said.”

  He didn’t look like he wanted to kiss her anymore. Not exactly. He looked like he wanted to do something, though. “You want to try to make this about Ella, or about me,” he said. “I’m not so sure it is, or not all of it. All I know is, I can’t tell what’s a green light and what’s a red. I don’t walk on a red light. I’m not enjoying the thought that I just did.”

  “You didn’t. But I think… I’m sure it should go back to red. Anything else is a mistake.”

  “Fine,” he said again, his voice absolutely controlled. “Stay with Ella. I’ll say thank you. Right now, though, I’m going to bed.”

  So that was wonderful.

  When her phone rang on Monday morning, Nyree didn’t swear.

  Well, maybe she swore a little. She’d seized the chance of her day off and Marko being home with Ella—who hadn’t gone home to Tekapo—to come to the garage and do some work. Marko’s house had been much too full of emotion and energy yesterday, with Jakinda and Olivia still there. Commenting on Ella’s new decor, Jakinda asking why Marko couldn’t have bought something “actually nice, darling, because this is Op Shop all the way, and God knows he needs the furniture and can pay for it, if he bought this house,” and Olivia saying, “What a clever idea this desk was. Who thought of that?” Both of them going through the few maternity clothes Ella had bought so far off TradeMe, and Jakinda saying, “You aren’t going to want to show off every line of your bump like that, surely, not when you get huge,” and Olivia being relentlessly cheerful. They’d finally taken Ella shopping for new bras and undies, and when they’d come home again, Ella had crawled straight into bed in the middle of the day and gone to sleep. Marko, meanwhile, had gone off to play golf for four hours. Both, probably, out of desperation.

  Nyree had headed to work at Bevvy with the same emotions, had come back at ten o’clock last night to the hypnotic sound of Marko’s guitar on the deck, and had gone out to sit with him. Just for a few minutes, she’d promised herself. He’d looked at her, then out into the night again, and had played for both of them, wrapping her in his music until she’d felt the calm all the way into her bones, until she could feel it resetting her brain waves. She’d known he would play as long as she needed him to, and the deck had felt like the safest place in the world.

  When she’d finally left him, she’d wanted to sketch. Wanted to work. Being in the midst of that maelstrom the last couple days, not to mention her own tangled emotions about Marko, could have driven the need away, but it hadn’t. It had only intensified it. She’d only managed an hour, though, before her eyes had blurred and her hand had slowed.

  Not being able to work for over a week now was driving her mad. She hadn’t had the physical space, and she hadn’t had the mental space. So this morning, when Ella had gone off to school and Marko had left to take his mum and aunt to the airport, she’d escaped. It was barely nine o’clock, and she was in her garage again, in her colors again, with the whole day stretching before her. Victoria was safely at work, and Nyree’s music was playing, a mix of Maori, world music, and some newly added classical guitar. All of it let the back of her mind loose, the place where the pictures lived. After six flipped sketchpad pages, she could feel, through her increasing
frustration, that she was nearly there. And then—the idea. The big one. The starburst.

  Which was when her phone rang.

  She ignored it. It rang again. The thought finally made it through. Ella. She put down the sketchpad and charcoal and started looking for the phone. Not easy, because her coffee table was at Marko’s, which gave her no place to put anything.

  The phone wasn’t ringing any more, of course, which made it harder. Finally, she found it. In the sink. Made sense.

  The call hadn’t been from Ella. Her concentration was broken anyway, though. She hit redial.

  “Morning, love,” her mum said. “Good time to talk?”

  “For a minute, sure,” Nyree said.

  “At work?”

  “Yes. No. Sort of. Drawing.” She looked at her sketchpad again. If she switched the perspective…

  “Oh, good. I’m glad I didn’t catch you at work,” her mum said, and Nyree tried not to grind her teeth. “I wanted to ask whether you want to go to Fiji at the end of September with Grant and Kiri and me once the season’s over. We’re doing eighteen days, almost the entire school holidays. A real getaway at last. You know how Grant is about taking time off, but he’s agreed to it, and I’d love you to come as well.”

  “Thanks,” Nyree said. “Really. But I’ll be working.”

  “You can get time off from the restaurant, surely,” her mum said. “It’s not like they don’t have heaps of servers.”

  A rumble in the background, and Nyree’s mum said, her voice muffled, “Of course it’s not a real job. I can hardly say that to her, though, can I?” Another pause. “I know, darling. But I want her to have something nice, and that way Kiri will want to come, too. Surely one holiday a year isn’t enabling.”

  Nyree said, “Mum. Mum.” Loudly.

  “Yes, love,” her mother said. “I’m here.”

  “You need to mute,” Nyree said. “When you’re talking about somebody.”