Tempting the Negotiator

by Zana Bell

  Janet nodded and smiled again. “Make sure the boys don’t all get crushes on her.”

  He laughed. “As if. None of us can think of anything but the coming surf comps.”

  Her last doubts seemingly reassured, the woman said goodbye. Jake stood, watching her taillights disappear, before going back into the house. The boys were buzzing. Even Paul was laughing.

  “Did you see her face?”

  “Man, Sass, you were great!”

  “She honestly bought it.”

  “Jake!” Brad said. “Wasn’t that cool!”

  “Sass,” he said, smiling ruefully as he took his seat, “I owe you big-time. The boys told you she was their social worker, I gather.”

  She shook her head. “They didn’t need to. I could tell right off. I guess social workers the world over must have the same look about them.”

  He stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. “You’ve met a few in your time, then? Did you used to work in juvenile law?”

  “No, but I saw a lot when I was growing up.”

  Jake was glad when Mike asked the next question. “How come? I thought you were from some posh home.”

  This made Sass laugh. “No. I grew up in a trailer park.”

  “No way!” Brad expressed everyone’s disbelief. “You have way too much style.”

  “That’s kind of you to say, but no, when I was your age, I lived in a trailer.” She hesitated the merest fraction, but Jake could see she was weighing how much to say. Then, with the tiniest shrug, she continued. “My dad just up and went one day, leaving behind a large number of debts. My mom had to sell the house to pay them off and we moved into a trailer. So yeah, I knew all about social workers long before I studied law.”

  She let her words sink in and the boys nodded, accepting her as one of them. Watching this, Jake felt some of his antipathy toward the woman dissolving. He’d assumed she’d been born some Southern belle in a Dallas type family with J.R. as her father.

  Somewhat awkwardly, he said, “Well, I’m grateful.” She slanted him a skeptical look and he added, “No, really. I’m indebted to you.”

  This time she smiled back—her real smile. “I didn’t do anything. I just told the truth.”

  This made all the boys fall about laughing.

  “Man, I’ve got to learn to tell the truth like that to teachers,” Brad said.

  “After tonight,” Jake told her, “I’m going to tread more carefully than ever.”

  She nodded and her coolness returned. “I’m not your enemy, Jake. I’m only here to examine the situation and try to make an impartial decision.”

  “I can’t be impartial. I’ve too much at stake.” He was trying to tell her that despite everything, they couldn’t be friends. It wasn’t that simple. Suddenly, inappropriately, he remembered their kiss. He could almost feel her lips on his.

  “We all have,” she said.

  Her tone was light, noncommittal and before he had a chance to speak, she changed the subject. “So what’s the deal here? Why is Janet checking up on you like this?”

  “We’re bad and Jake’s useless,” Brad interjected.

  Jake opened his mouth to protest, but laughed instead. “I guess that sums it up. Not quite, of course. They’ve all got surfing talent and they’ve all run into trouble.” He paused, but the expected question didn’t come. He grudgingly liked that. Most people couldn’t wait to hear what sort of misdemeanors the boys had been involved in.

  “We’re called ‘youth at risk,’” Mark added cheerfully.

  Sass smiled. “One group of bad asses?”

  The boys exchanged glances. They liked that. “Yeah,” Paul said.

  “There are all sorts of schemes going in New Zealand at present to help this sort,” Jake explained. “The fence at the top instead of the ambulance at the bottom.”

  Sass nodded. “Sure, we have programs like that in the States.”

  “So you’re familiar with this sort of thing—boot camps and outward-bound courses. Moana’s brilliant idea was to have a surf camp, the boys living out here and training for the national competitions in a few months.”

  “I see,” said Sass, assessing him. He felt himself grow red. Deep down he knew Janet’s reservations about him were justified. The thought stung. But Sass surprised him. “Y’all don’t know how lucky you are to have Jake.”

  Brad guffawed, but Sass fixed him with a look. “I mean it. I wish somebody had stepped in with my brothers.”

  “Why? Did they get into trouble?” Paul asked shyly.

  Again Sass hesitated. Then, putting whatever reservations she might have to one side, she said, “Yeah. Adam, my baby brother, ended up being a father when he wasn’t much older than you guys.” That made Brad wince, Jake was pleased to note. “He made his living as a stunt rider. Wouldn’t listen to anyone—more guts than brains. Crashed doing a damned stupid act everyone told him was crazy, and spent a year in hospital with a broken back, among other things.”

  “Shit,” said Mike, exchanging glances with his twin. They both pushed the limits constantly with their skateboards.

  “Yeah. His wife took off with their kid, too. He hasn’t seen his daughter in years. He won’t talk about it, but I can tell it eats him up.”

  The boys, however, didn’t care about losing some kid. “What about the other one?”

  Sass’s eyes darkened. “Cole’s in prison,” she said softly.

  “Ho,” said Brad, awed. “What for?”

  Jake saw her hands clench in her lap, but she kept her voice even. “Driving a getaway car. He was a hotshot driver and just saw it as a game—you know, taking on the establishment. He’s not really criminal, not deep down.” She met Brad’s eyes and Jake knew she’d picked up that the boy was the one most at risk. “Both my brothers were dare-devils at heart, but they let it out in the wrong places. Life doesn’t give us many chances. Jake’s giving you guys a big fat one here. If you’ve got any brains at all, you’ll be grabbing it with both hands.”

  Four heads swiveled in his direction and Jake looked down. He hadn’t expected Sass’s support. The twins would follow him to hell and back, and Paul seemed to accept him—

  “Yeah, whatever,” said Brad.

  Jake decided it was time to change the subject. “So, what about these parent interviews?”

  There were groans from Brad and Paul. Mike and Mark looked smug. “Ours aren’t for a few weeks,” Mark said.

  “What time do I need to be there?”

  “It’s a teachers-only day tomorrow, so we’ll all be home,” Brad reminded him, “but Paul and I made them for the afternoon. The first is at two.”

  Jake helped himself to more fajitas. “Jeez, it’s going to be quite a day. I have to pop up to Mac’s first.”

  “Great! Can you drop me and Paul in town?” Brad asked. “We want to see the new racing movie.”

  “Okay, we’ll take the van.”

  “That heap of shit?” Brad shook his head. “It’s got serious problems, man. It needs to be overhauled.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get to it.” Jake was irritated. He didn’t have the time, money or interest to waste on a damned motor. Brad, a petrol-head, just didn’t get that.

  Sass cut through the gathering hostility. “And what will you twins do? Surf?”

  “Yeah, if the waves are good,” Mike said. “Xbox otherwise.”

  “Maybe I should come and watch,” Sass suggested.

  “Best come when Jake’s out,” Mark said. “He rocks.”

  “Yeah, you should see the video of him,” Paul added. “Mike found it when we were cleaning up this afternoon.”

  “Video?” Sass raised her eyebrows.

  “I should have thrown that thing out ages ago,” Jake muttered. “It’s nothing.”

  Never one to miss an opportunity to wind Jake up, Brad dived in. “No, you should watch it, Sass,” he urged, “and see what Jake used to be like before he turned into such a girl.”

  “You were
in a movie? Seriously?” Sass stared at him.

  “It was a long time ago. No big deal.”

  “But it’s so cool,” Mark protested.

  Sass leaned back in her chair, clearly enjoying his discomfiture. Any charitable thoughts he’d been entertaining about her in the past half hour disappeared.

  “Don’t be shy, Jake. I’d love to see it,” she drawled. “All those boards and muscles.”

  “Trust me,” he said through gritted teeth, “you’ll be bored to tears within five minutes.”

  Ignoring him, Sass said to Mike, “Can you put the video on?”

  “Sure can.” He pushed his chair back. “I’ll go set it up.”

  Jake got up and glowered at Brad and Mark, who were both grinning. “Well, if you’re determined to drive our guest screaming mad, I refuse to have any part of it. I’m going to bed. Make sure you switch everything off before you turn in, okay?”

  Sass looked guilelessly at him. Jake was not deceived. “You brought this on yourself by encouraging them. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  SASS WATCHED as Jake turned on his heel and stalked out of the room. She knew he knew that had been an ungracious speech. Wow, they really had got to him. She felt a twinge of conscience. On the other hand it had been fun to see a cool surfer dude lose it like that. Seemed she’d just found his Achilles’ heel. That could prove very useful, she thought as she followed the boys into the TV room.

  Mike had pulled down a big screen that had been furled above the French doors, and it was now filled with images of huge blue waves. Loud surfing music blared from the speakers. Her quarry now gone, Sass settled into one of the battered armchairs with a sense of anticlimax. Fun over. Though she’d never admit it, she put surf movies of boys with bad haircuts and cheesy grins right up alongside televised golf as must-be-avoideds. Perhaps she could watch for a bit and then excuse herself, claiming exhaustion. A spring dug in under her backside and she had a craving for a cigarette. Dumb house rule.

  Within minutes of the credits beginning to roll, however, Sass realized this was no corny Californian movie but a documentary, charting the history of big wave riders. These waves were enormous. Sass blinked. Did Jake…no, surely not. No way.

  “I’ll fast-forward to the bit with Jake,” Mike said. “You don’t want to sit through all these old guys talking about their youth. They were cool in their day, but—” he shrugged “—Jake’s way outsurfed any of them.”

  Brad leaned back in his chair, in unconscious imitation of Jake. “Yeah, he’s an old woman now, but man, he was something in those days. Outgunned the lot.”

  The tumbling blur of waves, talking faces and men paddling out at double speed suddenly halted as Mike found the spot. “This is it! Jake in Hawaii.”

  Sass stared at Jake’s face filling the screen. He was younger then, cockier, his hair more bleached and his face even more tanned. But unmistakably Jake. The man was exceptionally photogenic, with Hugh Jackman charisma. Alight with passion, his eyes looked greener than ever as he spoke about the almost spiritual joy that came with riding a big wave. Cut to Jake paddling up and up what the commentator referred to as a twenty-foot wave. Jake crested it as the lip began curling, then effortlessly spun, his arms digging deep, the muscles in his back rippling as he began the race to catch the next monster wave.

  The helicopter with the camera rose to get out of the way as white spray lifted like a mist off the huge blue-black wave that picked Jake up and carried him like a piece of flotsam. Except he was not flotsam, he was fully in control. His powerful arms pulled him up to the lip, then with a jump he was standing and immediately sliding down the wave. The camera panned back to show him as a speck on the immense flank.

  The microphone picked up the deafening roar as the white lip began chasing him down the face, threatening to bury him under tons of surging water. He swooped on, skimming and weaving, before plunging into the trough. Even though she knew he’d survived it, Sass was gripped with terror. His tiny figure wavered at the very bottom as the mountain of water finally caught and tumbled him, engulfing him in churning surf.

  “You feel like a piece of lint in a washing machine,” Jake’s voice-over said. “All you can do is hold your breath and go with it until it stops. You have no idea which way is up and you hope like hell you don’t find the reef. It’ll shred you like you were an old newspaper. Then all of a sudden the weight lifts and you follow your leash up to where your board is floating.”

  The churning maelstrom cut back to a close-up of Jake grinning, eyes blazing, hair awry. “It’s the biggest blast you can ever hope for,” he said, looking out of the screen, seemingly straight into Sass’s eyes. “Nothing else in life even comes close.”

  The documentary moved on, showing how Jet Skis enabled surfers to catch bigger and bigger waves in exotic locations. More dizzying drops, more tumbles into seething surf crashing against razor-edged rocks. And weaving through them all was Jake, larger than life but still only a splinter against the waves.

  “Now for the greatest contest of big wave surfing,” the commentary said, and Mike switched off the video.

  “That’s it. That’s all that Jake was in.”

  “Not the competition?” Sass couldn’t believe it. He’d been described as one of the hottest contenders.

  “Nope,” said Brad. “He didn’t enter.”

  “How come?”

  The boys exchanged glances and shrugged.

  “He said it didn’t seem important anymore,” Mark said.

  It didn’t make sense, and clearly, the boys didn’t think so, either.

  “He dropped his balls,” said Brad, and though the others demurred, no one came up with another explanation.

  LATER, SASS LAY IN BED, one hand behind her head, staring out the open door to the night sky. She’d never seen stars as bright as here, but right now she wasn’t thinking about them. Having just finished paging through surfing magazines the twins had dug out for her, she was wondering what made Jake tick. He’d been featured in many of them, an editor’s dream with that jaw, those sun-streaked, untamed curls, those cool green eyes. He’d been one of the hottest properties on the surfing scene. So what had made him walk away from it all? He must have made a mint, so where the hell was all that money now? A surfer could dress in faded tees and threadbare shorts, but no guy with an ounce of testosterone would drive that van voluntarily.

  His face was different, too. He’d seemed younger, yet most of the footage had been shot in the past couple of years. The diamond-hard cockiness she’d seen on the screen had been replaced by something more…She searched for a suitable word. Farseeing? Wiser? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  Who was this guy? She’d already seen several sides to him—hostile SOB, teasing brother, surfer with a death wish and an ex-champion who got hotly embarrassed at reference to his success. Also, for those few moments, she’d glimpsed one very passionate lover. She sighed. Know thy enemy. How could she when she wasn’t sure he knew himself? It would be real interesting to meet his folks, though.

  Flipping onto her side, Sass tried to settle. Sleep took some time coming, however, and her dreams were a confusion of enormous tumbling waves, with herself, helpless as a rag doll, at the very bottom of them as a pair of cool green eyes watched.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SASS WAS INTO HER

  third mile the next morning when she heard Jake call, “Hey, Sass, are you around?” as he came up the steps. Good of him to warn her he was approaching the curtainless glass doors, but still she was annoyed. She was just hitting her stride and didn’t want to be interrupted.

  “Yeah,” she called out, trying not to lose pace.

  He arrived at her open door and stopped abruptly. “What the hell is that?”

  “A treadmill. I’ve rented it.”

  “Why?” He looked genuinely amazed.

  “To keep fit.” If she sounded brisk, it was because she had to conserve her breath.

  “But why run
in here when there’s all that?” He waved toward the beach and sea, splashed in early morning sunlight.

  “It’s my routine.”

  “Routine?”

  “Yes, I run every day. The treadmill means I can keep track of my fitness.”

  He shook his head. “You are one sad lady.” Even as he said that, though, his eyes were traveling over her body.

  “Why?”

  “To be indoors when you can be out—”

  “Look, I work long hours, okay? I have to exercise when I can. Most of the time it’s not safe to be out.” She slowed her pace a little. Talking and running was hard work. He was really interfering with her regimen. At the same time, there was an easiness between them this morning that hadn’t been there before. That social worker’s visit seemed to have unlocked some of this dude’s aggression. She didn’t like to concede that her impression of him had modified, too.

  “Yeah, but while you are here…never mind. I’ve come to see if you want to join us. The boys and I are going surfing.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, but I’ve already got plans for this morning.”

  Was that annoyance that flitted across his face? It was gone so fast, she couldn’t be sure.

  “C’mon,” he said, “you told Rob you’d get to know the place. See it as research.”

  He smiled, but she was damned if she’d succumb to his trademark surf charm like some teenage kid. She needed to get to the library, get some background on Aroha Bay. But Jake was right, it would be useful to get the feel of the place. The library could wait until the afternoon.

  “Okay, I’m nearly done, just another one and a half miles,” she said. “I’ll come over then.”

  He nodded, and if he felt triumphant, he hid it well. Today she was being treated to the perfect host. “Great. You’ll enjoy the swim. The waves are beautiful this morning.”

  “I told you, I’m not into waves. I’m happy to watch, but I prefer swimming on the harbor side.”

  He propped a shoulder against the door frame. “New Zealand is wasted on you, Sass. You jog indoors, won’t try the waves. I’ve never seen anyone so fainthearted.”