Just in Time (Escape to New Zealand Book 8)

by James, Rosalind

  “Yes, you should have,” Miriama said. “If he mattered to you. If you care.” Her gaze was sharp, and all too knowing. “Which I think you do. Now.”

  The implication was clear. “You’re right,” Faith said. Time for honesty, as much as she could manage without making things worse for Will. “Things were a little…different at the beginning between us.” That was all she was going to say about that. “But they changed. I do care now. I care a…a lot. I was wrong, and I’m sorry, and I know that’s not enough. But I’ll do whatever I can to make this easier on him.”

  Miriama nodded. “That’s all you can do. It’s a mistake. No,” she corrected herself, “it’s a wrong choice. A weak choice.”

  Faith winced, but it was true, and she had to face it.

  “But we’ve all made wrong, weak choices,” Miriama continued, and looked at her daughter. “Every single one of us. Especially when it comes to men.”

  “Don’t you dare be comparing me to her,” Emere’s voice was rising. “Don’t you dare. She did what she did for herself, and herself only. Every mistake I made, I made out of love for my kids, and for Anthony. Everything I’ve done since has come from trying to protect my kids.”

  “Maybe so,” Miriama said. “And maybe a few things have come from trying to protect yourself. You’ll know which are which, if you take a good hard look inside, the way Faith’s doing now. But Faith’s just told us she’s going to be trying to protect Will. That she knows she’s hurt him, and that she’s sorry for what she’s done. And I’m guessing that some of her mistakes may have come from her feelings for him as well. Things are never quite that simple, because we’re all human, eh.”

  “Human,” Emere scoffed. “You always say that, like it excuses everything. Like everything is forgivable.”

  “Nah,” Miriama said. “Some things aren’t. Your man running out on you and your kids? That’s not forgivable. But loving him so much that you kept taking him back when you shouldn’t have? Loving him enough to get those kids? That’s forgivable. Even if the person you have to forgive is yourself.”

  Emere was shaking, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “I’m not—I’m not talking about myself.”

  “Oh, darling,” her mother said, the sharp planes of her face softening. “We’re all talking about ourselves. Always, because the only way we see the world is through our own eyes. The way you’ve always seen Anthony in Will, and you’re so scared that he’s his dad all over again. That he’s weak at the core after all, and that he’ll disgrace you in the end, and desert you, too. This is all just one more way you’re afraid he’s done it. But he hasn’t, and he won’t, because he’s not his dad. He’s got you in him, too. He’s got the mum who stayed, and stuck. That’s why he’ll never do a runner on the people he loves, no matter how heavy the burden gets. He’ll take care of you until you’re in your grave, and he’ll take care of his brother and sisters as well. Because he’s strong to the core, and solid to the bone. Because he’s a good man.”

  Faith was frozen. She saw Talia standing just that still, too, but not Emere. Will’s mother was trembling, the tears coming, and her own mother came to her, wrapped her slim, strong arms around her, and held her close.

  “It’s going to be all right in the end,” Miriama told her daughter. “Will’s going to cope. Just like you did. He always has, because he’s got so much of you in him. He’s got his Koro, too. That blood runs strong and deep, no matter how flash he may be on the surface. That’s mana. And it sticks.”

  Faith felt the tears spilling over her lids, down her cheeks, brushed them away with a shaking hand, and saw Talia doing the same. She couldn’t move. She was seeing something…something so private. Something so powerful.

  Miriama looked at both of them from where she stood, still holding her weeping daughter. “All of us have made mistakes,” she said. “Including me. Will told me—he was careful, but he told me all the same—that we hadn’t paid enough attention to Talia since her Koro died, and he was right. Wrapped up in ourselves, weren’t we. In our own grief, our own ways to cope. All you can do, though, when you make a mistake, when you make a wrong choice, is do your best to put it right. You’ve told Will you were wrong. Now, you’ll make the choices you have to make so you don’t hurt him more. That’s putting it right, and it’s all you can do.”

  Faith slipped out of the kitchen. No point in staying here, because that was exactly the opposite of what she had to do, the choice she had to make so she wouldn’t hurt Will more.

  She had to leave. So she sat on the bed again, called the airline, and arranged for it to happen. The last thing he needed was to have her in his life anymore. So much better if it were over. If it came out, and she was gone, because she’d used him, and she’d left him. Exactly the way they’d planned in the beginning, and so much more necessary now.

  So she made her arrangements, then hung up the phone, went to the closet, and pulled her suitcase down from the high shelf with an effort. She flung it onto the bed, began to pull clothes off hangers and fold them hastily into it, and tried not to think.

  It took a different kind of effort not to look at Will’s clothes hanging there beside hers. Looking like they belonged together, when they didn’t. When that, like everything else, was an illusion that was over.

  When a bubble popped, there was no magic and no power in the world that could put it back together again. That was why a bubble was so beautiful. Because it was so fragile, and because it was temporary.

  She heard the knock at the door, and brushed a hasty hand across eyes that still insisted on leaking. “Come in,” she called, and braced herself. If this was Will’s mother coming up to tell her something else she’d forgotten to say, well, she had the right, and Faith was just going to have to endure it.

  It was Talia.

  “Hi,” the girl said. She looked at the suitcase on the bed. “Um, I just wanted to…”

  Faith sighed. “Sit down. And you can say it. Whatever it is.” She tried to smile. “He’s a pretty good brother, I know. You’re allowed to defend him.” She kept on packing, though, because it helped. She had no choice but to listen, but she couldn’t stand to look at Talia while she did it.

  “I didn’t come to say anything bad,” Talia said. “I came to say…I don’t get it. So you wrote a story that has sex in it. Is that so bad? I mean,” she hurried on, “I know Mum thinks so. But people do it, don’t they, and if they like to read books about it, well…” She looked down and picked at the comforter a little. “I don’t think it’s so wrong. You can’t help…thoughts. And,” she said, looking at Faith again, “I think it’s kind of cool that you wrote a book, actually.”

  “Well, that’s how it felt to me.” Faith was unable to resist the cowardly relief. At least somebody didn’t think she was the devil personified. “It was about the coolest thing I’ve ever done, and I loved it, and it wasn’t,” she couldn’t help saying, “It really wasn’t about Will, so you know. I know people will think so, but it wasn’t. It was my story, and my characters. I shouldn’t have used him on the cover, and then it would have been better, but that was how the site started off, so…” She was running out of steam a little. “And he’s so handsome,” she admitted. “The book covers—he was the best.”

  “Yeh. He is. All my friends think so.” Talia smiled at Faith a little proudly. “If you’re going to write a sexy book, you have to use a sexy fella.”

  “But it was wrong not to tell Will about it,” Faith went on hastily. “Don’t let me off the hook that easily. Too many secrets, and the secret coming out to bite him, hurting him like that, well, of course he’s upset, and of course your mother’s upset for him.”

  “Mum’s always upset,” Talia said simply. “She worries something will happen, and then when it happens, she thinks she was right. So what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to leave.” No point in not saying it. It was obvious.

  “Well, I knew that.”

  “No,
I mean I’m going to leave sooner. Tonight. Maybe it’ll help. It’s all I can do, so I’ll do it. I’ve got to be at the airport in an hour, in fact. I guess I’d better call a taxi, because I don’t think anybody’s driving me.” Faith hesitated for a moment. “You could do a favor for me, though, if you wouldn’t mind. It would mean going as far as the bank with me, and mailing something to Will. Would you be willing?”

  “Course. I could ride to the airport with you, too, see you off.”

  Faith choked up a little at that. “Thank you,” she managed to say. “But I don’t want to upset your mother and grandmother any more. But…the bank. That would be good.”

  Die Trying

  Will shuffled off the plane with the others and headed down the steep, narrow steps to the tarmac, following Koti’s back. Just one of thirty-three blue dress shirts straggling in a queue across to the terminal, everybody moving a bit stiffly, three hours of sitting having tightened abused muscles once again.

  He waited until the cameras had had their moment, and then he was pulling out his phone and ringing Faith, not even sure what to say.

  No answer. Of course there would be no answer. She’d be on the plane to join him already, or waiting to board. And being Faith, she’d have turned off her phone, because that was the kind of good girl she was. He’d just have to wait until he saw her, would have to trust that feelings that strong couldn’t have been destroyed by his anger, by the mess that was their situation just now, by the fact that he couldn’t see exactly how they were going to get out of it.

  If he’d been right, that is. If her feelings really were that strong. If it were real.

  He couldn’t wait for one thing, anyway. He needed to find out whether Hope could believe in Hemi.

  Of course she could. It was a romance. It could only end one way. But all the same, he needed to read it for himself. Maybe what he needed to see most of all was whether Faith could believe. If he read it, he would know, because Faith couldn’t tell anything less than the truth.

  He was standing with the other fellas at the carousel, waiting for his bag, but he had his laptop out again, held in one arm, and was waiting impatiently for Book Five to appear on his screen.

  “Cuz,” Koti said beside him. “All right?”

  “Huh?” Will looked up, blinking.

  “You look … a bit odd,” Koti said cautiously. “Something the matter? Bad news?”

  “Nah,” Will said. “I’m all good.”

  He wasn’t. But he needed to read. So he went on and did it, all the way to the end. He was reading Hemi’s thoughts, Hemi’s reactions. But the answer still wasn’t there.

  I paced from the living room to the bedroom once again, not taking in one bit of my surroundings, unable to concentrate on the emails and calls I should have been answering. The suite at the Four Seasons Milano could have been the Holiday Inn, for all I was aware of it.

  I should have heard from her by now. Had she hated it? Had she thought it was over the top? Or had she…I turned on a heel again on the thought as if walking faster could allow me to outrun it.

  Had she decided, after all, that what I was offering wasn’t enough? Now that Karen was out of danger, was she looking at her situation clearly for the first time, deciding that she didn’t want a man who could never be there for her the way she needed him, could never say the words she needed to hear? Whose silences and absences were more than she could bear? All Hope’s warmth, the shining force of her spirit—had it hit the wall of my reserve one too many times?

  I should have called her more. I should have gone back sooner, no matter what. Or not have gone at all.

  But this was who I was. This was all I had. My drive, my ambition, my success. What if it wasn’t enough?

  The phone vibrated in my hand, and I glanced at the caller ID. The leaping hope was there for a second, then gone in an instant.

  “Te Mana.”

  “Mr. Te Mana, this is Charles Farquar at Tiffany,” I heard. And then, damningly, the hesitation, and even before the man spoke again, I knew. I knew. “I’m sorry, sir, but the necklace…came back.”

  “Came…back.” My blood was ice. “How?”

  “The messenger said…” More hesitation.

  “Just tell me,” I snapped.

  “Yes, sir. He said that he was still in the lobby when she came…flying out of the elevator. Agitated, he said. That she shoved it at him and said, ‘Take it back.’ I’m sorry, sir,” he said again. “We’ll credit your account of course.”

  I didn’t answer. I was already hitting the End button, getting my pilot on the phone.

  “Warm it up,” I said. “We’re going home.”

  Maybe I couldn’t do it. Maybe it was going to be the thing that defeated me. The thing that crushed me.

  But I was going to do it anyway, or I was going to die trying.

  Will looked up again, blinking. Koti was setting his duffel next to his feet.

  “One too many knocks last night?” his teammate asked. “Need a ding-dong test? When the bags come along on the wee roundabout, we pick them up.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  “Need a lift? Kate will be out there.”

  “Nah.” Will brought himself back to earth with an effort. “Hanging about here for a bit, meeting Faith’s plane in an hour or so.”

  And then he’d be saying…something. He wasn’t sure what. But surely he could think of something by then. He had an hour to do it.

  Except that he didn’t. An hour later, he was standing outside Security, and the flight had landed twenty minutes ago, and Faith wasn’t here.

  He couldn’t have missed her. He’d scanned every face, had tensed with every new group that had come through, had rehearsed what he planned to say again and again. But she’d never come out. He’d rung her twice, and his phone had gone straight to voicemail both times.

  Finally, he walked to the Air New Zealand counter, stepped up behind the single person in the queue at Premier Check-in, and waited some more, until the woman behind the counter was looking up and beckoning to him.

  “Hi,” he told her. “My partner was meant to be on Flight 2354 from Rotorua, and she didn’t come out. Can you check for me?”

  He gave her Faith’s name, and she looked at her monitor. “She’s not listed on the flight,” she told him.

  “What?” Cold fingers of dread were creeping up his spine. “I know she was. I saw her make the booking, and she sent me a copy of the itinerary.”

  “I’m sorry.” She knew who he was, he could tell. “But she’s not on it.”

  “Then…what? Another flight?”

  “I can’t check that. Against the rules. Sorry.”

  “Please. I’ve rung her, got no answer, and I’m worried.”

  “Sorry,” she said again. “I can’t. I would if I could.”

  He wasn’t going to get anywhere, and anyway, he didn’t have to, because, he realized, he could just ring his mum. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of that.

  He did it, and that was when the fun didn’t start. It took ten minutes of listening, of trying to explain, to get her past it.

  “So she left early,” he finally said. “Why? And to go where?”

  “I don’t know,” his mum said. “We weren’t exactly having a cozy chat, were we.”

  He finally rang off in frustration, thought a moment longer, and rang Talia.

  “D’you know where Faith is?” he asked her. “She left early, eh. So where did she go? Did she come here? I can’t get her to answer, and I’m worried.”

  A long silence on the other end.

  “Talia?” he prompted. “You there?”

  “Yeh,” she said slowly. “But I’m not sure if I should tell you.”

  “Tell me. Tell me what she said.”

  “Well…she’s going back to the States.”

  “I know that,” he said impatiently. “Of course she is.”

  “I mean, she’s going today. She got an earlier flight, so she co
uld. Flying to LA. I saw the boarding pass, when she…when we were in the taxi.”

  “What?”

  “She gave me an envelope. To post to you.”

  “And? Did you post it?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Then get it. Please,” he thought to add. “Open it. Read it to me.”

  “I guess if she gave it to me, it doesn’t matter if I post it or open it now. I mean, if it’s for you anyway.”

  “Of course it doesn’t.” He did his best to soften his tone. “Please, Tal. Please read it to me. I need to know what it says.”

  She exhaled. “Right, then. Hang on.”

  He waited, pacing in front of the windows near the ticket counter, oblivious to the occasional curious glance of recognition.

  “OK,” he heard at last. “I’m back. I’m opening it.”

  A rustle, and he was pacing again.

  “Money,” she said.

  “Money? Why money?”

  “Dunno. Looks like…six hundred dollars. That’s a lot of money. And a note. D’you want me to read it?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK. Here you go.” She cleared her throat and began.

  “Will—

  This is all I could take out of the ATM. I’ll get you the rest when I’m home. I shouldn’t have taken it. I shouldn’t have come at all. I know it, and I’m sorry.

  I’m flying home tonight. I hope that’ll make it easier for you to do what you have to do.

  Faith.”

  “Something else,” Talia said. “Written at the bottom. Can hardly read it. It’s a bit—scrawly.”

  “Read it,” Will commanded. “Much as you can.”