Just in Time (Escape to New Zealand Book 8)

by James, Rosalind

  “Oh, no. Surely not.”

  “No. They said not. But still. When he went, he left a…he left a hole in our family. In our life.”

  He looked out at the moon and thought about Koro up there somewhere. Up there being proud of him, and disappointed in him. He wished he could have said things differently that day. Done things differently. He wished so many things.

  “Kua hinga te totara i te wao nui a Tane,” he told Faith. “Means, ‘A totara has fallen in the forest of Tane.’ A mighty tree. When it falls…it’s not replaceable.”

  “So you came here. Away from your family. Which seems exactly…”

  “Wrong,” he finished for her. “Yeh. Wrong. But then, that was the point of what he said that day, that I was doing wrong. Or at least not doing right.” He hadn’t shared the details with her, because she didn’t need to hear that. And because he didn’t want her to know that. “So I came away, to have a change. To have a think, was the idea. At least that’s what I told myself. Probably just to run away from it, from all the bad thoughts.”

  “I can see that,” she said. “I want to get away…oh, all the time. And after what happened? Of course I can see it.”

  “You can? Seems like exactly the wrong choice now. But Christmas was too sad, with that hole bang in the center of things. Nothing to stay for, I thought. But now, I need it more than ever. The feel of it. The sky, the sea, the lake, the hot pools. The mountains, and the hills. All the greens, because there’s no green like it. I can’t live in the desert.”

  He broke off with a laugh. “I sound like a travelogue for En Zed, eh. It’s just that he’s there, still. The ancestors are there, that’s the idea. That’s why a Maori is always buried in New Zealand. Why they still bring the soldiers back, if there’s any way they can. So their spirits can go where they belong.”

  “It sounds like a good place.” She poured a bit more wine into the glass. “A peaceful place.”

  “A slower place,” he agreed. “A happier place. I mean, nothing slow about rugby, not while you’re playing it. But when you’re not, you’re joking around a bit with the boys, having a laugh. All of that. I miss it. I’m ready to go home. But sad, too.” He looked at her, there beside him. The warmth of her radiated to his side, because he was almost touching her, and he wanted to touch her more. “Sad to leave you,” he said softly.

  She looked down, took a sip of wine, and handed him the glass, but he didn’t drink. He set it down beside him and took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers.

  It wasn’t small, and it wasn’t delicate. It was a strong hand, a capable hand, and it felt good in his.

  “I’ll miss you,” he said again.

  She was looking at him, her eyes huge in the moonlight, her mouth a little parted. She started to say something, stopped again, and Will leaned forward, put his other hand on her shoulder, and brushed his lips over hers.

  He felt the shiver of it, the shock of contact. In her, and in himself. Her lips had all the softness her hand didn’t, and he had to kiss them again, then touch his tongue to that tiny mole for just a moment before he returned to her mouth, because he needed that mouth.

  She’d moved into his arms now, her own hands coming up to clasp his shoulders. She was against the wall, and he was kissing her harder, his hand behind her head, cushioning it, his fingers lacing through the hair that tumbled below her shoulders tonight. The blood was pounding in his ears, and everywhere else, too, and he wanted to keep going. He wanted to take her inside and make love to her. He wanted to do it now.

  She moved first. He realized that she had a hand on his chest, but it wasn’t to pull him closer. She was pushing him away.

  “Will,” she said. “Stop. Stop.”

  He sat back, tried to get himself together. The distress was there, plain to see on her face. What had he done, here at the end? This wasn’t a joke. This wasn’t for fun. This was Faith, and it mattered.

  “Sorry.” It came out a little shaky. “Got carried away, I guess. Again. Because I…I like you.”

  “Yeah.” She laughed, although it didn’t sound like she thought it was funny. “I like you, too. But, no. Bad idea. You’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “I am.” Bad idea, she was right, however much he wanted to do it. “I’ll just…say goodbye, then.”

  She picked up her glass, her bottle, and shivered a little, because the night had grown colder. “I’m glad you’re going home.” She shook her hair back and looked him in the eye, her gaze steady. “For yourself. And for me. Go home and…be happy.”

  “Thanks.” He watched her go, saw her slide back through her window, back into her apartment. He looked at the moon. The next time he saw it, it would be right side up, and that was what he wanted. He needed to remember that.

  Leaving Las Vegas

  Will hated goodbyes. He usually avoided even saying them. He just…left. He’d said goodbye this time, though, and it had been as bad as he’d feared. Saying it to Faith had been the worst. But even saying it to Solomon and his family had been rough.

  “When does the construction work start up again?” he’d asked the other man when he’d walked him out to his car after dinner the night before.

  “Next week. Still waiting to hear on the Outlaws deal. But if not—” Solomon shrugged a big shoulder. “I’ll work construction through the spring, and then my agent says there might be a chance with the Vikings. Minnesota,” he explained at Will’s blank look.

  “Don’t know where that is.”

  “Think cold. Think very cold.”

  “Bit hard, hauling around to all those different cities, isn’t it? Seems like that’s what players here do, though.”

  “You don’t do that?”

  “Nah. We mostly stay where we are. One team. We tend to stick, stay home.” Except Will, of course, but then, he’d had his reasons, and he’d always had restless feet anyway.

  “Yeah, well. Home. I barely remember what that is. Vegas is where our families are, but mostly—home is wherever I am. Or more like where Lelei and the kids are. Home is where she is.”

  Will sat back two hours later in the leather seat of the first-class cabin of the Air New Zealand Dreamliner and thought about that. Home is where she is. He wondered what that would be like, and knew that he didn’t have a clue.

  He did know something about home, though, and he was glad to be going there. He was rapt to be going there, in fact, just as he’d been rapt to leave Aussie in the first place, to come home to the land of the silver fern. And the land of the All Blacks. But all the same…

  “Another beer?” the flight attendant asked on her way by, her accent falling on his ear with all the comfort of home.

  “Please.”

  She brought it a minute later, poured it into a glass, and set it on his tray table. “Going home where you can see the stars, eh,” she said, and Will glanced at her, startled.

  She caught the look and laughed. “That’s what I always think, when I’m making the return journey with a few days off. That I’ll be able to get home where I can see the stars.”

  “Yeh.” Will smiled at her. Nothing but a coincidence. Everybody liked to look at the stars. He raised his glass. “Cheers for this.”

  She swayed up the aisle as the big jet rocked a little in the airstream, and Will took a sip and realized that he never had got around, the night before, to asking Faith why she didn’t move someplace where she could see the stars. Why she had to look at the city lights instead. Why she had to pretend.

  Faith’s feet negotiated the rocky trail, her steps quick and light as she pushed a little more speed out of her body on the way up the steep slope towards Pine Creek. The winter quiet of the stark desert landscape surrounded her, Red Rocks’ namesake formations glowing in the weak late afternoon sunlight, and her soul found a little peace, because this was her favorite spot in Las Vegas. Her escape, her beauty and solitude and space.

  She focused on breathing into the sadness. Made herself examine each regr
et, holding it like a butterfly in her hand, its wings beating against her skin, then opening her fingers and letting it go.

  If she’d slept with Will, she would have been missing him even more now, and probably feeling used, too. Feeling abandoned. The risk had been too great, and she didn’t take those kinds of risks. Or any risks, if she were honest.

  She’d wondered all along why Will had agreed to model, since he hadn’t seemed to relish the idea. If it hadn’t been for the money, why? Now, she thought she understood. He’d wanted some risk. He’d wanted something new. He’d wanted to feel alive, and who was she to judge that? She was living in her mother’s apartment building, doing two jobs she didn’t care about to pay off her student loans, dreaming of living by the ocean, of living a different life, but so frightened to take the leap, to leave everything she knew. So afraid to try, because if she tried, she might fail.

  Enough regrets. They would get her nowhere. Time to escape into another world, another story, one she could control.

  She could take Hope and Hemi to the ocean, or better yet…maybe Hemi flew Hope to New Zealand.

  They’d travel on the corporate jet, of course, would eat five-star cuisine and join the Mile-High Club in the teak-paneled cabin…

  Once she had them walking down the steps onto the tarmac, though, Faith’s mind blanked. She could take Hope to Paris, because she’d seen enough pictures and read enough books for that. But she couldn’t take her to New Zealand. Will was on his way back there right now, headed across the Pacific, and Faith had no clue what the view would be like on his way from the airport to his house, or what his house would look like when he got there. She knew he lived in Auckland and was going to be playing for the Blues, and that was all she knew, because she hadn’t asked him any more than that. Because she’d held back, so afraid to care.

  But she’d said she was letting it go, so she took Hope and Hemi to the Pacific coast instead. To her own dream, the sea stacks and crashing surf of Northern California, where they would walk on the bluffs above the beach, watch pelicans gliding overhead in a perfect V formation, their wings barely needing to flap. They would see the majestic birds diving down between cliff and sea, plunging into the water, and Hemi’s hand would be strong around Hope’s. Both of them savoring the moment, and that they were sharing it, Hemi’s pleasure all the greater because Hope was loving it.

  The two of them, walking into the wind, drinking in the sights and sounds and smells of the sea. Perfectly at peace. Perfectly happy, because they were together.

  May Surprise

  Four months later

  Will walked out of the locker-room showers with his towel wrapped around his waist. “Shove over,” he told Koti James, because the big centre was, as usual, taking up more than his share of the bench.

  “Bugger off,” Koti said lazily. “Some of us need space.”

  Will snorted, feinted, and threw a punch that Koti caught in a hand, and they stayed like that, palm to palm, doing some impromptu arm-wrestling. A few seconds of stalemate, and then Will was pushing Koti’s arm slowly back until his elbow bent too far and his hand banged against the wooden cubicle.

  “And some of us need more space,” Will said. “Shove over.”

  “Try it when we’re both sitting down next time, cuz, and I’ll show you who’s boss. That was me with one hand tied behind my back. Still almost won, didn’t I.” But Koti shoved over.

  Will grinned, toweled off, and pulled on his warmups. Messing around like that was stupid, maybe. It was juvenile. But it was fun.

  He grabbed his mobile out of his duffel to shove it into his pocket, but paused at the sight of a text from his agent showing green on his home screen.

  WTH have you been doing. Call me ASAP.

  Will blinked. What the hell had he been doing? Nothing, that was what. Well, nothing that could have got Ian in a lather. He’d been training and playing rugby, just like always. Not doing too badly at it, either. He’d been head down, bum up all season long, ever since he’d come back from the States. He’d come back fit, he was in form, and he’d just been told that he’d been selected for the All Blacks’ June series against England. He was going to be an All Black at last. What more was there?

  He thumbed his mobile, shoved down to the end of the bench, turned his back on the banter and male laughter surrounding him, and rang Ian.

  “Will.” The exasperated sigh came clearly down the line. “Why? Were you born stupid?”

  “What?”

  “I’d say you got pissed and forgot yourself,” Ian said, “but there are too many of them for that. You can’t have done it all in a day. What could possibly have possessed you to pose for nudie pics, and then to let them be posted to some porn site? A brainless moment posting a selfie, that I could see. Don’t get me wrong, I’d still tell you that you were a bloody fool. But this? What were you thinking?”

  “Wait. Wait.” Will was having a bit of trouble breathing. “I didn’t use my name. And it isn’t porn. It’s just…suggestive. But it’s got out?”

  A snort was the response to that. “Too right it’s got out. And I know what it is, because I saw it. Everybody saw it. You didn’t have to use your name. You’re a public person with a very public face. Can’t believe I’m having to explain that to you. One person finds out, tells somebody else? You’re a red-hot sensation, and not the kind anybody wants. What’s the first thing I said to you when you signed with me? The first thing I say to everybody? Nothing is private online. We’d better get your story ready, because this has ‘disgracing the jersey’ written all over it.”

  Will tried to focus. “What story could there possibly be that would explain it? Other than that I had my head up my arse?” When he’d thought about it since arriving back in the goldfish bowl that was the life of a rugby star in New Zealand, the whole thing had seemed like a dream, one he’d tried to forget. It had been stupid and irresponsible. He’d known it even at the time, he’d done it anyway, and here it was, back to bite him.

  “Well,” Ian said, “I have a couple ideas. And meanwhile, no comment. I shouldn’t have to tell you that either, but who knows? Absolutely no bloody comment.”

  Three hours later, Will was holding the phone to his ear and counting the seconds until the ringing finally began. Three rings. Four. He calculated times. Ten P.M. in Vegas. He should have waited, but he couldn’t stand to wait. He needed to know.

  “Hello?”

  “Faith? It’s Will.”

  “Will?”

  “Yeh. Will. Your model.” She didn’t even remember him? He’d ruined his life with her, and she’d already forgotten?

  “What—where are you?”

  “Wellington.”

  “Um…Oh. New Zealand.” She took an audible breath. “The capital. Why are you there?”

  “Because I’ve got a match tomorrow.” What did that matter? “What I need to know is, did you do it?” He was trying to control his temper, but it was getting away from him again at the idea of it.

  “Did I do what?”

  “Did you leak it?” he demanded. “Did you tell somebody it was me on that site?”

  “Of course I didn’t tell anybody. Who would I tell? Who would even care?”

  “All of En Zed and half of Aussie, that’s who. It’s blown up over here.” He’d thought the site hadn’t had a hope. It was still hard for him to believe it had gone global enough for somebody in a nation as small and remote as New Zealand to see it. But judging from the number of stories that had been uploaded, the number of votes for those stories, and most of all, the subscriber count—something had happened. It had gone viral, and, yes, it had gone global.

  “Oh, my gosh.” She did sound genuinely surprised, but he wished he could see her face so he’d know for sure. He thought of her that last night on the roof, of him spilling his guts to her, and of how soft her eyes had been as she’d listened. Surely she wouldn’t have done this. Surely not.

  “That’s why the uptick in subscription
s,” she was saying. “It’s been doing pretty well, with the contest and all, but the past day or so…That’s you? And, what? That’s really a big deal? Why? We haven’t even showed that much yet. Hardly any of the special stuff.”

  He groaned. “Oh, bugger. The special stuff. What’s up there already, the writing—it’s nasty. Thought you said it was going to be romance.”

  “Erotic romance. Which means sex.”

  He passed that one by, because she didn’t have to tell him. All he’d say was, women were so much dirtier than he’d ever imagined. If those authors actually were women. He had his doubts. “And you didn’t tell anybody else it was me?” he pressed. “Not your mum? Not Calvin? Because Calvin would’ve sold me out in a heartbeat.”

  He could hear the testiness in her voice. “Of course I didn’t. I told you I wouldn’t. What do you think I am?”

  “I didn’t really think so, but I had to know.”

  “Well, now you know. It wasn’t me. I’m sorry if it’s a problem, but, Will…”

  “I know.” He sighed. “You don’t have to say it. My own bloody fault. And I signed a release.”

  “Well, yes. I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, but, yes.”

  “There it is, then, and I have to do something about it. Could I pay Calvin not to put any more up, d’you reckon? Or better yet, to take the whole thing down?”

  “No. I’m sorry, but no. I really doubt it. He’s got visions of a million dollars, now more than ever. Not possible, unless you have a million dollars.”

  “Well, not right to hand, I don’t. The damage is done already anyway. So it’s Plan B.” And he started to tell her what that was, doing his very best to convince her that she wanted to be part of it.