Tempting the Negotiator

by Zana Bell

  “Let me get this straight. You catch it a split second before the wave breaks, is that right?”

  “Yep.” He swept his hair back with one hand, his eyes fixed on the sea. He could no more control his compunction to monitor the waves than she could control hers to smoke.

  “So if your timing is off, you get bowled.”

  “Bowled?”

  “Rolled over and over under the water.”

  “Right.”

  “Whereas if you stay on top of the wave, you always ride safely to the beach.”

  He turned back to her. “More or less,” he said slowly. She knew he could see where this was heading.

  “So why would I risk getting bowled, when I know I can have as good a time riding the white water?”

  “Ah, but that’s just it. Taking the drop is something else completely. Impossible to describe, but it has to be experienced at least once in your life.”

  “But I don’t want to get bowled.”

  “You will, though—deal with it. I promise you it will all be worth it when you do take the drop.” He saw her expression and added, “Trust me.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, right. Look where that got me last time! Soaking wet and shivering with cold.”

  “You loved it, you know you did. Come on.”

  So she got bowled and bowled again. Sometimes she rode the white wash and had fun. More often than not she was dragged up the beach in an undignified tangle of sand, board, limbs and hair.

  “You aren’t committing,” Jake told her.

  “I am so.” Her throat burned with all the saltwater she’d swallowed. She kept lifting the leg of her swimsuit to empty out the sand.

  “No, I’ve watched you. As soon as the wave lifts, at the very moment you should be paddling like mad, you ease off. You hesitate too long. Should I take this wave, yes, no, yes, no, and before you know it, it’s come up and caught you.”

  So they went out again, Sass muttering imprecations against surf Nazis and wondering what the hell was so wrong with having a good time in the white wash, anyway. She was tired and fed up.

  “I’m about done here,” she called over to Jake. “The next wave will be my last one.”

  Jake barely acknowledged her. His whole attention was trained on the sea beyond. “This incoming set is looking great, Sass. You’d better get ready. All set? Go!”

  She saw the swell moving toward her and began paddling.

  “This one’s it, Sass!” Jake’s shouted. “Paddle harder.”

  Bastard, she thought. Bully bastard, bully bastard. The cussing gave her paddling rhythm and strength.

  “That’s right!” he yelled as she felt the wave pick her up. “This is it! Paddle and kick, kick, kick. Commit.”

  She barely caught the last hurled word as suddenly she felt the wave’s power simply take over. The board pitched and then she was over the lip, seeing the shimmering face below her. She fell with such speed, such power and such exhilaration that she couldn’t keep from screaming out, “Yes!” as she swooped down the face, clinging to the board for dear life. It was almost like flying as she whooshed right up onto the shore, to grind to a halt in the sand.

  Jake landed beside her, grinning. “Fun?” he inquired.

  “Did you see me? I got it! I really caught it. I took the drop. It was incredible. That was the most amazing rush I’ve ever had.” She was babbling but she didn’t care. “I’ve just got to do it again.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Now you know what I was talking about. So what are you doing lying here in the shallows when there are waves to be ridden?”

  Much later she finally had to call it quits. Her arms ached. Her legs felt weak. Her body hurt in a dozen different places from where she’d been ground along the bottom, dropped on her head, bounced off her own board. She’d only succeeded in taking the drop another two times, but that didn’t matter a damn. She felt great as she walked up the beach, bodyboard under her arm. No, not great, sensational. She leaned over to put the board down and scoop up her towel, then stood, drying her arms and toweling her hair as she looked out to the waves, where Jake and the boys were still playing. She, Sass Walker, had taken the drop. Her sense of achievement, of triumph, was absurd. Absurd and wonderful.

  Jake rode in, bodysurfing the waves easily and joyously. Seal man. Merman. He paused in the shallows and she waved, then made shooing gestures with her hand to let him know she was fine by herself. He waved in acknowledgment, then turned, wading back thigh-deep before throwing himself full-length to swim out.

  Sass spread out her towel and sank onto the sand. It was hot from a day’s baking heat, and her muscles relaxed. This truly was paradise. A paradise families would flock to. She squinted against the glare of light bouncing off the waves, and tried to imagine this beach crowded with vacationers. Children building castles, teenagers playing volleyball and Frisbee, families under umbrellas, and well-oiled twentysomethings basting in the sun and sleeping off hangovers from the night before. In short, it would end up looking like the beaches of Spain, Greece, Hawaii, Brazil and all the other exquisite places around the world changed irrevocably by tourism. Something indeed would be lost.

  Sass could understand Jake thinking it would be a travesty. But land deals were a fact of history. How, for example, had the Maori viewed the building of English houses on their ancestral lands? Manhattan Island had been sold for only sixty guilders. That was how the world developed. You might not like it but could you stop it?

  She could.

  She could save Aroha Bay, if nothing else. And lose everything she’d ever worked for. Lose the future she’d battled so hard to secure. For what? Jake had no money to buy the land himself to keep it safe, and besides, Sass was still not convinced of his long-term commitment to the bay and the birds. Certainly, they were the sole focus of his attention now, but he was a surfer. They were his ride at this moment in time. Soon something else would come along to catch his fancy, and in the meantime another developer would swoop down. In many ways the locals would be better with the devil they knew. Sass could at least ensure there’d be no high-rise hotels, no shopping malls, no casino. That was something.

  She had to find a way to get Jake to see it was inevitable. She watched him swoop down another wave front, and felt a cold trickle of misgiving. He’d never accept it. He would hate her. She would wear the face of her company and he would despise her.

  She could not bear even to imagine his loathing. And yet she simply could not surrender her career, her life, for a fling. Because it could never be anything more. What if she did throw the deal? Jake would get his bay, his birds and, social workers willing, his boys. For a while. Until his attention wandered. And what would she be left with?

  A vision of her empty apartment flashed into her mind. She’d be left with nothing, zip.

  There was no way she would stay with the company if Kurt got the promotion.

  It was too ridiculous to contemplate. This was all her fault. She should never have broken her own damned rules. She should never have fallen victim to a pair of green eyes and an amazing body.

  She deliberately kept her mind from suggesting her attraction to Jake was anything other than physical. She refused to think about the warmth of his writing, his charisma, his humor or his sensual, caring side. She blocked both the death-defying surfer and the exasperated, worried guardian. But even disregarding so many facets of his personality, she still found the scales tipped too far in his favor.

  She had put herself into an appalling position, but since it was of her making, she must accept the consequences. A week ago she hadn’t cared if Jake Finlayson hated her or not. So when his hatred did come—and it would—she would have to reach deep inside and locate that indifference that had become buried under a tumult of emotions and new experiences. It was going to be awful—the worst feeling no doubt of her life—but it was inevitable. In the end, nothing had changed except her feelings about Jake. All she could do now would be to enjoy it. Take the drop. Then q
uit the waves forever.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  AFTER LUNCH

  , Jake took her to see the terns. “We’ll be on sand so you won’t need shoes,” he said as he handed her binoculars, “but you might like these.”

  Sass kicked off her sandals and hung the binoculars around her neck. They banged against her chest as she walked.

  “I can’t believe I’m going bird-watching,” she remarked. “And you, buddy, look completely wrong for the game.”

  He glanced down at her. “How so?”

  “You know, of the Lesser Spotted Nerd variety. No one would take you seriously as an ornithologist like this.”

  He was looking his usual gloriously rumpled self, eyes more vivid than ever, reflecting the green T-shirt he wore.

  “You should be wearing a checked shirt and khaki shorts with lots of pockets filled with notebooks. Oh, and glasses, you should definitely be wearing glasses.”

  Jake tweaked her ponytail. “Talk about pots and kettles. What jury would ever take you seriously as some hotshot, up-herself lawyer?” He glanced appreciatively at her cropped T-shirt and short shorts.

  “I’m not ‘up myself,’” she said, backhanding him across his arm. “But I sure am one hotshot lawyer—and don’t you forget it.”

  “I won’t,” he promised, and took her hand as if they were teenage kids on their first date.

  It felt nice, walking hand in hand along the shore, the breeze ruffling their hair, the sand squeaking under their bare feet. The air in New Zealand smelled so clean. As she drew in a deep breath, Sass could feel her city lungs expand. Two seagulls wheeled above, and an oystercatcher prowled in the shallows, taking fussy-old-man steps. She loved the strength of Jake’s hand with its callused palms. More DNA sequencing, she thought, from when women sought the best hunters to keep them alive.

  They rounded the top end of Aroha Bay, scrambled around a small rise and then down onto the spit, where the sun was catching silver glints in the fine sand. Jake shortened his stride and his voice dropped to a murmur.

  “We’re coming into their territory. See that dune over there?” He pointed and Sass nodded. “One family is usually there and another pair with one chick is farther along.”

  Suddenly there was a low cry as a bird swooped down, heading straight for them and pulling out of the dive only at the very last moment. “There she is,” said Jake. “Mum coming in to protect her babies.”

  Sass looked up at the bird floating above them, still warning them off. It was slender, graceful, and seemed very small against the vast blue sweep of sky and sea. Only thirty-eight fairy terns left in the entire world. The full impact of the fact had been hard to absorb before. Now, seeing this mother hovering so protectively, and knowing how minimal their chances of survival were, Sass felt unexpectedly moved.

  “Lie here.” Jake pulled her down beside him so they were peering over the brow of a small dune. “The chicks will be somewhere out there.”

  The small clearing among the low dunes in front of them was littered with shell fragments and driftwood. A few balls of marine grass blew across the sand, reminding Sass of tumbleweed. A second bird materialized from over the ocean to also circle the area. The mother hovered in one spot, her earlier cries softened to chirrups.

  “She’s telling the chicks to stay still,” Jake whispered. “They’re almost impossible to see unless they move. Oh, look, she’s coming in.” The bird’s touchdown was light and she instantly froze. Sass blinked and for a second thought she’d lost the bird, the plumage blended so well with the surroundings. Lying on her stomach, propped up on her elbows, Sass lifted the binoculars and there, caught in the lenses, was an adult tern. The bird had a white belly and soft gray wings and back. The crown of its head was black, which, along with the elongated black eyes, gave the bird a dignified, almost aristocratic air. The legs and long narrow beak were orange. Extraordinary that such dramatic notes of color could disappear against the dunes, but they did.

  “They’re beautiful,” she breathed, and Jake, only inches from her, turned his head and smiled.

  “Aren’t they?” he murmured. “The chicks are balls of gray fluff and they crouch low. Sometimes you can find them by their round eyes. Otherwise they look like part of the beach.”

  “Will they be near the mother?”

  He shook his head. “The parents land away from the chicks to throw predators off the scent. They’re canny wee birds.”

  His admiration was clear and Sass smiled to see this six-foot-three man entranced by a family of birds.

  “Look, here comes the father.”

  The other parent landed in a different part of the beach and froze in turn, blending into the scene. Minutes passed. Sass watched the pair through the binoculars, marveling at them. Then she tried to find the chicks, sweeping the area systematically with her binoculars. Sometimes she paused at a curious twist of driftwood, or her attention would be caught by the glint of shiny fragments in the sand, but she couldn’t find the chicks. Her eyes began to water with the effort.

  “You try,” she whispered, passing Jake the binoculars. While he was scanning the sand, she took the opportunity to look around her. The spit was narrow, with dunes running down its spine. Tufts of silver-khaki grass threaded them, binding them against the sea. The waves on the ocean side unraveled the length of the beach, leaving lacy patterns on the sand, while on the harbor side tiny waves washed the shore with a soft shushing sound.

  A breeze tugged tendrils of hair out of her ponytail and they tickled her cheek. The sun was hot, the breaking waves as regular as a heartbeat. She was very aware of Jake’s body lying beside her, could see sand caught in the fine hairs of his arms, which were braced, supporting the binoculars. His tangled curls created an almost halo effect under the sun. She had an urge to comb them with her fingers, bringing some order to their chaos. Not because she didn’t like the chaos—far from it—but because it would take a while and there’d be no need for words or thought.

  Sass blinked. This was ridiculous. They were supposed to be having a flirtation—time out from work and stress, time off from celibacy. Nothing more than that. Firmly, she resisted the impulse to lean toward him and inhale his own special scent of salt and soap and pure maleness.

  “There,” he breathed. “Gottcha, baby.”

  “Where?” He handed her the binoculars and put an arm around her back, to help point them in the right direction. The warm weight of it felt wonderful.

  “Over there, do you see that piece of driftwood?”

  “Yes.”

  “A baby’s squatted in front of it. Can you see it?”

  Sass stared till her eyes strained. “No.” She was surprised at the depth of her disappointment.

  The parents seemed to sense a baby had been spotted. How could that be? One flew up, wheeling, as fragile as a twist of paper in the sky, chirruping down. The other circled high, then came plummeting down at them time and time again.

  “He’s watched Birds one too many times,” Jake murmured. Sass giggled, at the same time touched by the valiance of the tiny creatures.

  “They sure are plucky.”

  Jake glanced sideways at her. “They are.”

  She could see he wanted to say something else. “What?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing.” But he removed his arm from her back. She knew he was thinking about the resort. She couldn’t help thinking about it herself. There were only seven birds on this spit. Seven. Jake saw it as perfectly reasonable that they can a multimillion dollar project because of seven birds that might or might not make it anyway. She could feel the imprint of his arm on her back rapidly cool in the breeze. She wondered if he was going to push their case, but his attention had already gone back to the driftwood. He squinted against the sun, scanning the nearby grass, then grunted in satisfaction and pointed toward the driftwood.

  “There’s the other.”

  Sass followed his finger and saw the grass ruffle as a tiny shape dashed from
one end to the other.

  “I saw it!” She was jubilant. “Sort of.”

  Jake laughed under his breath. “Good, they’re both still alive, still safe. Now that we know where they are, we can get closer.”

  Silently, they rose and made their way down to the piece of driftwood.

  “See it?” he asked.

  Sass shook her head. “No.” What was he talking about?

  “Stop!”

  There, in a hollow in front of her foot, was a tiny fluffball, speckled gray and white, exactly like the surrounding sand. Another step and she’d have crushed it.

  “Oh!”

  She finally understood. You could fence the birds off, sure, but if kids disobeyed signs and came racing in, the birds wouldn’t stand a chance.

  For a few minutes she and Jake stood looking down at the chick, which hadn’t moved a feather. The tiny beak hadn’t yet changed to orange and there was no hint of black on that tiny white, fuzzball head. Overhead the adult birds wheeled, screaming at them.

  “We’d better go,” Jake said. “We’re stressing the parents. I’ll check on the other family later.”

  As they walked back, they were silent and there was no lighthearted clasping of hands. Among the dunes, they’d drawn the battle lines, invisible but tangible.

  Seven birds, that’s all. But they symbolized the chasm separating them.

  SASS HAD TO GET AWAY. She couldn’t think in Aroha Bay. Jake’s presence seemed to surround her, invade her, even now when he was out on the waves, coaching the boys again. Grabbing cigarettes and car key, she headed out. She knew she was driving too fast for the winding dirt road, but she didn’t care. There was something burning inside her and she didn’t like it. Wanted to outrun it. She lit a cigarette and drew in the first breath with something close to defiance. The tip glowed orange.

  What was wrong with her? Usually she didn’t agonize over things. Only this morning she’d resolved not to let sleeping with Jake influence her. After her bodysurfing, she’d been so sure the resort had to go ahead. But having seen the terns changed things, she couldn’t deny it. It was one thing to hear about the possible extinction of a species, it was another to see some of the last surviving members.