“Cup of Milo, I think,” Josie said, went to the kettle to fix it. “And I’ll give you something for those cramps that’ll set you right. Get Hugh’s brekkie down you, too.”
That settled her down, as Josie had hoped, although they had a bit more fuss after they’d finished the washing-up.
“I don’t want Hugh to come with us,” Amelia said.
“Rubbish,” Josie said. “He’s going to be doing the shopping, and he needs to know what to buy. This happens every month, for our sins.”
“He doesn’t want to buy those things,” Amelia protested. “It’s so embarrassing.”
Josie shot Hugh a look that, she was grateful to see, he had no trouble interpreting. “Nah,” he said. “No worries. Long as nobody thinks they’re for me. That’s the part that’s got me sweating.”
That startled a laugh out of Amelia, and Hugh grinned at her and pulled in her for a quick cuddle, gave her a kiss on the top of her now neatly-combed hair. She stood stiffly for a moment, then her arms went around him tentatively, and Josie melted a little.
“It’s what Josie said,” Hugh told his sister, pulling back and smiling down at her. “Growing up. Being a woman. And it’s all good.”
“Thanks,” Hugh said when they’d dropped Amelia at school after what Josie had dubbed their Women’s World Class Trip. To Josie’s amusement, Hugh had pulled a little black notebook and pen out of his pocket and taken notes. Which was so … cute.
“Thanks isn’t really enough, though,” he said again. “Thanks for saving my life? I was in way over my head there.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I thought you did all right. More than all right, in the end. But your aunt didn’t think about that?” she went on cautiously as he turned out of the Belmont Intermediate School carpark and headed back to Devonport. “I’m a bit surprised, because it’s not exactly news that a girl who’s reached twelve without her period is bound to be starting it soon.”
“Apparently not,” he said with a grimace. “Not to the extent of talking to Amelia, or laying in some supplies. What you’d expect, eh. She was a bit preoccupied, I’m starting to think.”
“Are you hearing much from her?”
“Every week, and she talks a bit more than that to the kids. She’s enjoying her holiday, her romance with the Mad Butcher of Brighton, but … she hasn’t called as much as I thought she would. Wouldn’t you think you’d stay a bit more involved, in the circumstances?”
“Well, I’d think I would, anyway. Maybe she just had faith in you, though.”
“Dunno why she would, so that doesn’t really fly.”
“Not doing so badly, I’d say. Nobody’s starved. Nobody’s notified the authorities or taken the kids into care. Learning, aren’t you.”
“Trying.”
“Well, trying counts.”
“Thanks. Would you have time to get a coffee? You hardly ate any breakfast, I noticed.”
“Because I don’t.” She hesitated, then made up her mind. “Sure. A quick one.”
It was probably best to clear the air. Since they were neighbors, and all.
When they were tucked into a tiny table in the corner of Five Loaves, cozily sheltered from the rain beating down outside, she did just that.
“I wanted to tell you,” she said, “thanks for not—well, not taking advantage of my temporary insanity the other week. That would’ve been a big mistake. You were right.”
“Hang on,” he said, his cup halfway to his mouth. He set it down and looked at her. “A mistake then. At the moment. If I didn’t communicate that, let’s try again.”
“A mistake now, too,” she said. “I’m on the rebound, that’s pretty clear, and even if I weren’t, you’re my neighbor.”
“And? I’d call that bloody convenient, that’s all.” It sounded light enough, but his face was serious, and he still wasn’t drinking his coffee.
“Bloody inconvenient when it goes pear-shaped and you’re ducking out to the curb with the rubbish bags so I won’t see you, and vice-versa,” she said. “This is my first house, and maybe it won’t be my last one, but I’m not planning to move anytime soon, and I’m guessing you’re not either.”
He looked startled, and not happy. “Who says it’s going pear-shaped? Maybe it wouldn’t, did you think of that?”
“We live in domestic bliss next door to each other forever and ever? That your thought? That how your relationships generally turn out? Because it wouldn’t be a very good description of mine. And if I had Derek next door to me right now, his rubbish bags could be meeting with some serious misfortune.”
“Except that I’m not Derek. How about if I promise that, whatever happens, your rubbish bags are safe, and you are, too?”
She had to smile. “A good offer, but no. I don’t think you’ll be boiling any bunnies in my kitchen, and I can say for sure that I wouldn’t do it to you, but still. No flings with the neighbors. That’s been a pretty good rule for me so far in life, and I’m sticking with it. So thanks for the cuddle, and we’ll leave it at that.”
“Thanks for the cuddle? Was that what that was?”
“Yeh.” She looked straight into his outraged brown eyes, and lied. “That’s what it was.”
Well, not exactly. She’d finished digging the garden with him that day, because she was an actress, after all. She knew how to play her part. He didn’t want her enough to go for it? Fine. She wasn’t going to show him how much she’d wanted to do it.
He hadn’t talked, thank goodness, and she hadn’t either, because casual would have been a hard thing to pull off, actress or no. She’d dug and worked and watched him working beside her like it mattered, like he cared that her garden got dug.
Moe atu nga ringa raupo.
Marry a man with calloused hands.
Her Kuia, her grandmother, had said it often enough. To an auntie, a cousin, clucking her disapproval over a lazy boyfriend. Derek took care of his hands, because they’d be filmed. But then, Derek wouldn’t have helped her dig her garden no matter what. He’d have complained that she’d got up so early, have asked her why she didn’t hire somebody to dig it, have made her feel ridiculous and completely unglamorous for doing it herself. But she wanted to dig it. She needed to dig it.
The anger and the hurt were still there, and her thoughts caromed between them and the memory of Hugh vaulting over her fence with his shirt off, because that had been a startling moment. And a good moment.
He was wrong, or he wasn’t completely right. She might have been thinking about Derek when Hugh had first kissed her, but she hadn’t been thinking about him after that. She hadn’t been thinking at all. She’d just wanted more.
And she still did. But she still wasn’t going to do it.
Star Turn
Hugh had been surprised, and not overly pleased, to be summoned to the Blues office for a PR meeting in early December. The All Blacks had just got back from the European tour, and even the uninjured would be looking forward to six weeks without any obligations, the chance to allow nearly a year’s worth of accumulated niggles to settle, to recharge for the long season ahead. So what was this?
Arriving in the small conference room five minutes before the meeting’s start time, he asked Brenda, the PR, but she just smiled and said, “I’ll tell all of you at once. Wouldn’t want you to get excited and give it away, spoil the surprise.”
Somehow, Hugh doubted it was going to be anything he would be that excited about doing. Part of the surprise, it turned out, was that Koti James and Will Tawera were the other invitees to this party, the new man now signed, sealed, and delivered to Auckland and prepared for what Hugh devoutly hoped would be a well-fought campaign for the No. 10 spot. And once the other two appeared, he quickly found out that he’d been right in his trepidation about the meeting.
“I’ve got a request from the people at Courtney Place to send along three of you for an episode,” Brenda said. “Next week, they’re hoping, so we need to find a day that’ll
work for all of you before you start going off on your holidays. They’ll shoot around your schedule, no worries. The episode will appear in early February, just before the start of the season. Perfect timing for the Blues, get more women watching the games.”
“So, wait,” Will said. “This is, what, a TV show?”
“Yeh, the soap opera,” Koti told him. “What, you’ve never seen it? Been running forever.”
“Been in Aussie, haven’t I,” Will said. “And I’m not much in the habit of watching soap operas, so I wouldn’t know anyway.”
“Here it is,” Brenda said. “Courtney Place, and an intro to your brand-new co-star, Jocelyn Pae Ata.”
She clicked a couple buttons on her laptop, gestured toward the large screen on the wall of the room, and a scene came up. Josie in an exam room with another doctor, both of them wearing their white coats, and looking not the least bit professional.
Whoa. Hugh hadn’t seen this one.
“This was last season,” Brenda explained over the sound of Josie’s smoky voice purring into a dark fella’s ear. “When she started on Dr. McTavish. This would be before she broke up his marriage, lost him his job, and drove him to suicide.”
“I want you,” Josie told the man on the screen. She was unfastening his coat, and if somebody could be said to unbutton somebody else caressingly, that was what she was doing. Her lips were parted, her face hungry, avid with desire. “I need you now. And you need me.”
She kissed him passionately, very nearly as tall as he was in her stilettos, and she had both her hands in his hair. His own hands fluttered helplessly for a moment, and then he had grabbed her, was kissing her back as if he were lost and she was the only road home.
She had ripped her mouth away, was kissing his ear, his neck, her tongue just coming out to touch his skin, and he was gasping. “You’re burning up,” she told him. “You’re on fire for me, aren’t you? You need it so much, don’t you?”
“I …” He gasped. “Eva. Please.”
“I know exactly what you need,” she told him, her voice promising everything. Every bit of sensation a man could imagine. Ultimate pleasure, and impossible release.
She was dark, and she was deadly. “You need,” she said into his ear, her voice a silken tongue licking its way down a man, “a very … thorough exam. You need it from a doctor who knows how to treat her most difficult patients. I’ve got exactly what you need, and I know exactly how to treat you. Get up on that table for me right now, and I’ll do it.”
Click. The screen went black, and Hugh shut his mouth and tried his best to look detached. Will and Koti appeared slightly stunned as well, he noticed, and Brenda was smiling in satisfaction.
“Bloody hell,” Will breathed. “What I’ve missed. When is this show on?”
“Seven,” Brenda said. “Every single weeknight. Did this assignment just start to sound a wee bit more enticing?”
“Too right,” Will said. “When do they want me, again?”
“We’ll get to that. Maybe you’re getting the picture as to why they wanted three of you, too. Because one is never enough for our Dr. Eva. Three good-looking ones, that was the request.”
“That’s me gone,” Hugh said, and made to get up from his chair.
“Not so fast,” Brenda said. “We did a quick poll round the office, and you rated up there pretty high.”
“I’m not a looker,” Hugh protested. “You’ve got the pretty boys, don’t need me.”
“Big, tall, tough,” Brenda said. “Hard man. Girls love that. All broody and intense, too, like you’ve got a secret vulnerable side that only they can see. Makes them want to cuddle you.”
“They want to cuddle me?” Hugh asked in outrage as the other two men burst out laughing.
“You know. Afterwards,” Brenda said breezily. “Don’t blame me, I just tabulate the results. I could take you or leave you, myself. But you tick all the boxes, no worries. Besides, we need a Pakeha. Diversity, you know.”
“So get Nico. He’s better-looking than me, I don’t care what anybody says.”
“I already tried, because like I said, I can take you or leave you. But, A,” Brenda ticked off on her fingers, “married. B, won’t be here. Taking Emma off on a holiday on their own, he said, last chance for her to travel before the baby. So he’s out of it.”
“Excuses,” Will said with a grin. “Always the excuses.”
Hugh sighed. All right, Nico couldn’t do it.
“So that leaves you,” Brenda told him. “And all those flattering things you didn’t want to hear. Oh, well. Probably just that women love a man in uniform, specially a short, tight one, which you’ll all be wearing.”
“Why on earth would we be wearing our uniforms?” Hugh asked.
“You just came from the game,” Brenda said. “Late at night. Or after training the next day, or something.”
“Makes no sense at all,” Hugh said. “We’d change. And there’s no training the day after a game.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” she answered. “It just has to make good television. Uniforms.”
“I’m married too,” Koti pointed out when that was settled. “Why am I here?”
“You’re top of almost everyone’s list,” Brenda informed him. “Well, some said Nic, and one or two said Hugh. And I took a flyer on you,” she told Will.
“Better not disappoint, then, had I?” he answered.
“Better not. You did get a fair few second-place votes,” Brenda said to Hugh. “Reason you’re here.”
“Geez, thanks.”
“We want to give the ladies what they want, don’t we?” Brenda said. “And married doesn’t matter for you, Koti.”
“Matters to me,” Koti said.
“Yeh, well,” Brenda still sounded cheerful, not the least daunted by the resistance she was encountering, “that’s why they call it acting.”
“What do we have to do?” Hugh asked, ready to cut to the chase. If they had to do it, they had to. Might as well get it over.
“Just a couple little scenes,” Brenda said. “One day, long as you can learn your lines and make a decent fist of it, because they film fast. One of you’s the patient, got an injury on the field, brought in for surgery. Dr. Parker’s your surgeon. Lucky you. There’d be that first short scene where they bring you in, groaning in agony.”
“We do not groan,” Hugh said firmly. “No groaning. No whingeing.”
“Clenching your teeth in a manly fashion to conceal your agony,” Brenda amended. “Then the two of you visiting your wounded teammate in hospital, and finally one more short one when the injured fella’s alone and vulnerable, where Dr. Parker gets a little frisky with her patient.”
“Isn’t that against the rules or something?” Will asked.
“It’s a soap, not a doco about En Zed medical standards,” Brenda said. “No worries, you won’t be compromised. They want Koti for the patient.”
“Oh, no,” Koti said. “Like I said. Married.”
“And like I said,” Brenda returned. “Acting.”
“No,” Koti said, his normally cheerful expression hardening for once. “I told Kate when I married her that I’d never kiss another woman, and I’m not doing it.”
“You’re not really kissing her, though,” Brenda said coaxingly. “It’s just for the show. And she’s more likely to kiss you, from what I know.”
“If my lips are touching hers,” Koti said, “I’m kissing her. That’s how it’s going to look to everybody who sees it, and that’s how it’s going to look to Kate. I’ll do the show, but I won’t be snogging any doctors. I’m a good-looking visitor, and that’s it.”
“You’re whipped as,” Will laughed.
“Have you seen my wife?” Koti demanded.
“Yeh, I’ve seen her,” Will said. “All forty-five kg’s of her. And you’re, what, a hundred?”
“Trust me,” Koti said. “It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you can do with it.”
&
nbsp; “Not what the girls tell me,” Will said with a grin.
“Aw, nice,” Koti said. “Brenda doesn’t want to hear that. Keep it clean.”
“Nah. Fascinating stuff,” Brenda said. “I’m making a note. So Hugh takes a step up, as usual. Leading from the front.”
“Sorry, not going to be me either,” Hugh said. “Flattery or not. Because Josie Pae Ata’s my neighbor.”
The other three stared at him. “Your neighbor?” That was Will. “I knew I should have looked around more before I settled on a place.”
“So you already know her,” Brenda said. “Even easier.”
“No. It’d be too awkward,” Hugh said. “She lives next door to me. She’s friends with my brother and sister. How’m I meant to explain that, if they see it? Which they would.”
“Maybe by saying that you were acting?” Brenda suggested.
“I’m not an actor, though,” Hugh tried to explain, without saying what he really meant, which was that if he kissed Josie, on camera or off, he wasn’t going to be acting, and she’d know it. He didn’t need to make this any more complicated than it was, or make her any more skittish than she already was, either. Slow and cautious was working. He thought. He wasn’t taking any risks.
“Does anybody here make his own decisions?” Will wondered aloud.
“You do, clearly,” Brenda said. “Which is good, because it looks like the job’s fallen to you by default. Even better, now I come to think of it, and that’s how I’ll be pitching it to Courtney Place as well. Our new first-five, being introduced to the women of Auckland in all his shirtless glory. I suspect you’re going to find you have a shoulder injury that requires a manly bandage that covers as little as possible, and that the hospital’s going to be oddly short of gowns.”
“Works for me,” Will said. “You boys are running away screaming from a potential snog of Miss Jocelyn Bloody Fit Pae Ata, and it’s on me to do the hard yards. Yeh, much as it pains me, I think I could just see my way clear to putting my hand up. There’s no ‘i’ in ‘team,’ eh.”
“Right, then,” Brenda said. “I’ll let them know it’ll be you.”
Just Not Mine (Escape to New Zealand) Page 17