Their new retail space was bigger, but still not positioned to capture all the foot traffic necessary to achieve what Vee considered a successful move. Earlier in the year, Kauri Whare’s expansion had been completed and each of its retail spaces had a massive—by Vee’s standard—shop floor and a large workroom/storage area behind it. Add on the daily visits by tour buses and the central location with plenty of parking…
Vee lusted over that building the way Ruby lusted over a double fudge sundae with whipped cream and sprinkles.
There was just no way in their current financial state that Bountiful could afford to lease it. But love had softened Nat’s and Gracie’s pride, and both kept nagging Vee to let them call in favors with the Ngata brothers.
No way. In hell.
Pride was about the only damn thing she had left. Bountiful was doing well enough for now, and maybe if they had stellar sales this summer they’d be in a position to upgrade to Kauri Whare in autumn. Assuming the final leasable space hadn’t already been filled.
Vee was saved from pissing off her best friend by the bleating ring of her cell phone. “Can you get it for me, hon?” She wriggled her red fingers in the air.
Nat aimed a we’re not done with this glance at her and answered Vee’s phone. After a couple of beats of listening to whoever was calling, she crossed over to Vee and held it up to her ear. It was the day care, informing her that another child had hit Ruby and her daughter was crying inconsolably. She wasn’t hurt, but the staff was obligated to let Vee know of the incident.
“I’ll be right there.” Vee nodded at Nat to end the call.
Twenty minutes later Vee managed to find a parking spot halfway down the block from Bountiful and carried a grizzling, clingy Ruby toward the workroom’s back door. Her daughter howled in protest as Vee had to set her on her feet in order to swing the heavy workroom door open. Propping it ajar with her foot, Vee scooped Ruby up onto her hip again and ventured in, calling out as she went.
“Sorry! I couldn’t leave Rubes there, she—”
Vee came to an abrupt halt at the sight of Sam leaning a hip insolently against the large cutting table that dominated the workroom. Whether it was his swimmer’s build filling out his T-shirt so perfectly, or the giant sandwich in his hand that made her mouth water, separate parts of her body reacted to both. Her stomach with a hollow reminder she hadn’t eaten anything yet today, and her scalp giving a tingly hair-lifting shiver at the unexpectedness of his presence. She preferred a little notice to prepare her feminine defenses against Sam Ngata’s undeniable good-looking-guy charisma.
No female in Bounty Bay was immune to it, so far as Vee could tell. Including her daughter, who wriggled like an eel trying to slide off her hip. She set Ruby down and she charged toward Sam with a cry of “Daddy.” Vee winced as Sam’s amused gaze briefly met with hers over her daughter. He set down his sandwich and plucked Ruby off the floor and into his arms.
“Kia ora, Ruby. It’s Sam, remember? Not Daddy. Can you say Sam?”
“Daddy Sam,” Ruby said then giggled as if it were the best joke in the world.
Hardy har har.
One of motherhood’s little quirks was a daughter who’d started to call Vee’s group of male friends Daddy. Ruby had quickly figured out she got a lot of amused reactions from her audience and refused to give up the charade even though she was now old enough to know who her real daddy was. Even if that biological daddy was a spoiled rich kid who never grew up and gave more love and attention to his Porsche than his only daughter.
“The guys are here,” said Nat from the other side of the room. “They brought lunch.”
She was in her usual spot, tucked indecently close to Isaac’s big body, her palm resting on his chest as if reassuring herself that his heart beat solely for her. Which it did. The giant marshmallow was head over heels in love with her friend.
“Yeah, I see that. Looks like enough food to feed a small army.” Judging by the scattering of brown takeout bags on their cutting table.
“Gotta keep my woman well fed now that she’s eating for two,” Isaac said in his deep, rumbly voice and grinned over at her.
“Do you ever miss an opportunity to tell everyone how you knocked up Nat in record time?” She said it perhaps a little more caustically than necessary.
“Nope.” Isaac was completely and unrepentantly happy about Nat’s pregnancy.
And granted, so was Vee—so, so happy that with all the misfortune Nat had gone through losing her first husband in a tragic accident, she now had everything she wanted. But with most of Vee’s friends married, engaged, and both Nat and their other friend, Lauren, expecting babies this year, it left her feeling a bit deflated. Like the girl she’d once been whose older sisters found love and success seemingly so easily, while Vee fought to carve out an identity for herself other than the dreamy youngest Sullivan girl.
“I like your hair,” Sam said, though she couldn’t tell if the compliment was back loaded with sarcasm. “And I’ve got an extra sandwich and a cookie if you want it.”
“I’m good,” she said at the same instant her stomach gave an extra loud yowl.
“Cookie?” Ruby tugged the neckline of Sam’s shirt. “I have cookie?”
Vee crossed to the cutting table, instinctively bracing her spine at the warm, masculine smell of Sam—some sort of pheromone-drenched cologne underneath the woodsy scent of fresh sawdust.
“Sweetie, you’ve already had lunch at day care.” She held out her arms to Ruby. “Come to Mummy and we’ll get out your special coloring books.”
And somehow Vee would manage to juggle a restless toddler and finish the screen-printing at the same time. Perhaps she’d send Olivia a text to see if she could mind Ruby for a couple of hours once she’d finished school for the day.
Ruby arched away from her, clinging to Sam like a burr. She tucked her head into his chest, her rosebud mouth quivering with impending tears. “I want Daddy’s cookie.”
Her daughter had no idea of the hurtful little twinge that went through Vee every time Ruby called Sam, Isaac, or their other friend, Dr. Owen Bennett, Daddy.
“Be a good girl and let go of Sam.” Vee touched the little girl’s back and she squirmed up higher on his broad chest to wrap her arms around him, burying her face into the crook of his neck with an ear-splitting squeal.
She met Sam’s gaze above Ruby’s dark hair. Expecting some sort of judgment at what a terrible mother she was, the touch of sympathy mixed with amusement in his eyes was somewhat of a relief.
“Unlike her mum, this girl isn’t afraid to say what she wants,” he said, voice only just audible over Ruby’s grizzling cries. “Eat the sandwich, Vanessa.”
She couldn’t help the little frizzle of awareness that zipped down her spine at the way he said her full name. “I haven’t got time.”
Sam glanced over at his brother, exchanging an indecipherable look with him, then nodded and turned back to her. “Ruby can come with us for a few hours. One of the aunties can keep her occupied in the staff room until you’re done here.”
“Oh, but—”
“You know they all adore her,” said Isaac. “What do you reckon, heihei? You want to come play with Auntie Rae for a bit?”
Ruby pulled her tear-stained face from Sam’s neck and craned around to look at Isaac, her grizzling tapering off into wet sniffles. Vee’s gaze was drawn to the patch of wet on Sam’s T-shirt. Ooops. Sam followed the direction of her gaze and fired off a sharp grin, rolling a bunched shoulder muscle forward in a ‘what’s a little snot among friends?’ gesture.
“Auntie has cookies?” Ruby asked.
Vee had to seal her lips together to prevent a chuckle at the calculation in her daughter’s tone. She definitely wasn’t afraid to say what she wanted.
“Auntie could probably be talked into whipping up some muffins in the staff room kitchen,” Sam said, then mouthed over Ruby’s head, “Banana and bran ones.”
“Okay. If you’re sure?”<
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“We’re sure,” Isaac interrupted, appearing at Vee’s side to slip the backpack off her shoulder. “She’ll be fine.”
“Le’s go. I want muffins!” All former tears now evaporated, Ruby beamed and kicked her feet against Sam’s hips as if he were her noble steed instead of an all-around good guy who treated Ruby as one of his many little cousins. A man who treated Vee as his baby sister’s childhood friend—which was to say, in a friendly yet you’re an annoying brat manner. She’d been just one of the many kids who’d gravitated toward the Ngata family in her childhood years, and in some ways, invisible to Sam as anything but the girl she’d once been.
She stroked her daughter’s back again, and this time, temper tantrum averted, Ruby reached out a chubby hand to her. “Buh-bye, Mummy. Kiss now.”
Vee angled her cheek near Ruby’s mouth and got a sloppy smooch from her. “Be good for Auntie Raewyn and I’ll see you soon.” She pulled back from Ruby, smoothing down her ruffled curls.
“Thanks for this. I appreciate it.” Instead of meeting his eyes she spoke to Sam’s razor-sharp jawline. It was covered with a dark scruff that looked as if it’d be deliciously scratchy against a woman’s softer skin. And…that was why she shouldn’t skip lunch. She was starting to get fuzzy-brained and weird.
“Maybe I will have that sandwich after all,” she added, taking a giant step to the side away from him and snatching up one of the bakery bags.
Sam chuckled as he carried her daughter toward the door. As her teeth sunk into the heavenly smelling sourdough bread, she furiously pretended that the pit in her stomach was due only to her needing a carbohydrate fix.
It was closer to three hours by the time Vee finished the last batch of screen-printed T-shirts and left Susan to close up the shop for the evening. She drove to Kauri Whare, the parking lot still crammed with cars, and not for the first time wondered if Natalie was right. Maybe it really was her stubborn pride preventing them from taking Bountiful to the next level. They wouldn’t be asking for a handout, not really. Just a little mates’ rates flexibility in the first crucial months of settling in. Until they could set Bountiful on the path to becoming the success Vee had always believed it could be.
She finally found a parking spot around the rear of Kauri Whare, close to the three new retail shops. Sunlight dazzled off the glass display windows, and one of the artisans’ stained glass panels of pohutukawa trees in bloom shot crimson fire into the light. She passed by the empty shop at the end of the building as she rounded the corner, heading toward the main entrance.
The sound of a little girl’s laughter stopped her in her tracks. Vee glanced to the right toward Sam’s workshop—off limits to the public, unlike the main workshop where tourists could take a tour to watch the staff create their incredibly beautiful kauri products. Forehead crinkling into a frown, she changed direction and walked briskly to the smaller building set a little away from the others. Another high-pitched giggle drifted out of the workshop’s open door, followed by a deeper, masculine chuckle. That was definitely Sam and Ruby together in there.
She spotted them as she reached the doorway. Ruby in her pink tutu, crouched on the sawdust-sprinkled floor with a small hammer, and Sam cross-legged in front of her, his hands braced either side of a wood off-cut that had a number of bent nails sticking up from its surface.
As if he’d sensed her hovering in the doorway, Sam’s face turned toward her. Something flickered across his gaze—something she didn’t know how to identify because it didn’t fit into any of the usual categories of glances he gave her. Amused and teasing, slightly bored with familiarity, or frustrated and irritated. Oh, and sometimes she thought he had a special glance she liked to call pity for a woman dumb enough to believe a player’s lies and then get pregnant by him. That one she hated.
“Hey,” he said from the floor. “Ruby’s nailing it.”
His sensuous mouth curved up in the corners. The pull of his smile tugged deep down in places she really, really shouldn’t be feeling it. Ruby held the hammer in a death grip with both hands, continuing to study the nails with the focused determination usually reserved for food.
“You’re braver than me.” She dipped her chin at his callused fingertips that were awfully close to the hammer’s head.
Ruby’s head shot up at the sound of her voice and she dropped the hammer—the tool narrowly missing one of Sam’s fingers as it clanked to the floor.
“Mummy!” She sprang upright, ran across the workroom floor, and flung her arms around Vee’s legs.
Stroking Ruby’s soft curls, Vee allowed herself a moment to soak in the feel of her daughter’s hands gripping her skirt, the warmth of her cheeks burning through the thin cotton. Out of all the things she’d created that gave her satisfaction, the sheer wonder of Ruby was the greatest gift of her life.
“Baby, you’ve been busy working,” Vee said.
Ruby pulled her face from Vee’s leg and looked up at her, big blue eyes sweetly earnest. “Me an’ Sam working. Me an’ Auntie made ’nana muffins.”
Banana and chocolate chip muffins since the smudge of chocolaty-brown around Ruby’s lips was evidence enough. “What are you and Sam making?”
Ruby let go of her legs and grabbed her hand. “Come see!”
Vee let her daughter tug her across the workshop to where Sam still sat, relaxed as a cat in a sunbeam, on the sawdust-strewn floor. Behind him on a workbench was a slab of roughly hewn kauri, a scattering of tools around it. From where she stood it looked as if he was carving out an intricate Māori-inspired design to complement the timber’s natural wood rings and honey-golden tones. Next to it a partially constructed dining table was in the process of being sanded.
Guilt immediately flooded her. As laid-back as Sam appeared in his public persona, he was still a driven businessman. You couldn’t build a business like Kauri Whare by being a flaky artist type who waited for the muse to strike and bummed around the rest of the time banging nails into wood with a toddler. And not even his toddler.
Ruby released her hand and crouched back in front of Sam, touching the nail heads. “Look, Mummy. We made…” Her face scrunched up in concentration as she stared at Sam, obviously trying to remember something he’d told her.
“Toi whakairo,” he said. “Art of carving. Or at least an imitation of it since I’m not letting her handle anything sharp.”
Ruby picked up the hammer again and tapped one of the nails, missing more times than she hit. It didn’t seem to deter her in the slightest.
“Keep trying, Ruby. You’ll get it, I reckon,” Sam said.
“How did you end up drawing the short straw as babysitter?” Vee folded her arms, trying to keep her gaze from wandering to the muscled length of Sam’s arms as he kept the piece in place. Which was ridiculous. She’d been around Sam her whole life and seen him many times in less than shorts and a T-shirt. A prickle of heat stung her cheeks at the direction her thoughts were taking.
Whoa, pervy thoughts.
She meant at the beach. He’d been a Bounty Bay volunteer surf lifesaver since he was a teenager—and there were none of those Aussie-style Speedo swimsuits going on. Just red swim shorts that weren’t clingy but still showed off a lot of ripped, tanned skin, and, crap—why the hell was she thinking about him in swim shorts anyway?
“I offered.” He shot a grin up at her and, double dammit, her stomach took a nosedive into her summer flip-flops. “Ruby and I are mates, aren’t we, heihei?”
“Mates,” Ruby said solemnly and brought the hammer down, once again narrowly missing Sam’s fingers.
The cute nickname Isaac had first started calling her daughter—which meant chicken in the Māori language—squeezed around her heart. It didn’t mean anything other than the natural cultural affection Māori had for children. Sam showed that same kindness toward his friend Owen’s adopted nieces and nephew. But this unexpected sweet side of him with Ruby…
Maybe she’d misjudged him. Maybe there was more to Sam Ngata
than being Bounty Bay’s unofficial Player of the Year. More than his surfer dude image, or the reigning king of his kauri empire. Maybe she should run by him the possibility of Bountiful leasing out the remaining shopfront.
Vee moistened dry lips and crouched beside Ruby. “Sweetie, it’s time to go. We’ll go and say goodbye to Auntie Raewyn, okay?” She braced her spine for a howl of outrage, but Ruby set down the hammer and sprung to her feet.
“’Kay. Buh-bye, Sam.”
He unfolded his tall frame from the floor in a fluid, practiced motion. “See you later, Ruby-gator.”
Ruby giggled and ran to him, jumping into his arms with the confidence of a child who knew this person was trustworthy enough to always catch her.
From her crouched position, Vee saw him from a two-year-old’s point of view—or should she amend that to say from a two-year-old’s height perspective as there was nothing innocent and childlike about her inspection of him.
Sam towered over her, his chest and arm muscles flexing as he scooped Ruby up high, lifting her over his head. Her sandal-covered feet dangled in the air, one of them kicking against a rock-hard pec outlined by strained cotton. While not as bulky as his older brother—a former squad member of New Zealand’s elite rugby team, the All Blacks—Sam still had some serious upper body strength and the lean, toned build of an Olympic swimmer. Seriously, if the man had any excess fat on his body, she’d eat one of his kauri creations.
“Hong-gee!” Ruby demanded and grabbed a fistful of Sam’s thick dark hair either side of his ears. “Hong-gee.”
Sam laughed up at her and obliged, touching the tip of his nose to Ruby’s in the centuries old Māori traditional gesture of hongi. “There now.” He lowered the little girl to her feet. “Don’t forget her whakairo,” he directed at Vee.
She rose with the piece of wood and unstuck her tongue from the roof of her mouth, softly clearing her throat. Sam’s gaze shot to hers, his eyebrows lifting with curiosity.
Break Your Heart_A Small Town Romance Page 3