You know what they say, though. You can’t always get what you want.
After my weak moment, we talked to a cop, which was about as satisfying as talking to cops generally was, as far as “We’ll-get-them-no-worries” assurances. Not satisfying at all, in other words, because he looked dubious about the chances of finding anybody other than “Jamie.” He was pretty distinctive, but he was out of Thames police jurisdiction and hadn’t even been the one stealing from us, so there you were. I wanted more satisfaction than that, but then, I generally did.
The encounter was fairly satisfying as far as the “respect-for-our-brothers-in-khaki” went, though, because the cop sure did like Jax. He didn’t even flinch much when I said, in describing the guy I’d tackled, “He could have a sore face, too. Some bleeding around the nasal area, possibly, from where he fell down.” As far as I was concerned, when you stole people’s stuff and risked the life of their duck, you might get accidentally kicked in the face during the struggle to get said stuff back. Thanks to Jax’s influence factor, if the cop thought differently, he didn’t say so.
When the two of us were eating lunch after all that, at a sidewalk table outside a bakery, I tucked into my chicken-and-mushroom pie, noticing, as always, that New Zealand pastry was heaven on earth, snuck a piece of it and some salad to Debbie, who shared my appreciation of Kiwi cuisine, and asked, “So what are we doing for the rest of today? I know we’re going canyoning tomorrow, which I’m pretty excited about, and pretty interested to see how you manage, but are we hanging out in a tent this afternoon reading a book, or what? I’m not sure what’s up there by the river, but doing activities is probably better. I need to know about them, so I can report back to Hemi.”
“Doing activities, eh,” Jax said. “As it happens, I did have a couple things in mind. Do you want me to tell you, or would you rather be surprised?”
Were there better words in the world for a woman to hear? They could cover everything from an erotic night to a marriage proposal. Or, of course, adventures in ecotourism, and never mind where I’d gone with it. “It might be better if I let you surprise me,” I said. “For research purposes. The way I might be surprised if I had some vague ideas before my trip,” I hurried to elaborate, “but I didn’t exactly know the area, and when I got to my destination, some helpful Kiwi clued me in and showed me where the track started. Which is so often what does happen.”
“Or,” Jax said, “if you came to New Zealand on a holiday, being your fairly irresistible self, and met a bloke who wanted to show you a good time. Impress you, even. Whilst spending the night in his own tent, of course, because he’s a slow mover. Takes his time, does it right, and so forth. Hypothetically.”
Whoa. His eyes were doing that warm thing again, which gray eyes shouldn’t be able to do. He hadn’t shaved this morning, probably because he’d been about to set off on a five-day adventure with pit toilets and dubious hygiene, but I was forgetting about the reason and just liking it. That could be because the thick blue line on the side of his face ran into the scruff on his jaw in a way I just plain appreciated, and maybe also because it was such a contrast to the hot-geek black glasses.
A glamour boy he was not anymore, however short and neat his hair was, and however well his T-shirt fit him. However pleasingly his proportion of arm and leg length to torso had turned out, and however much your gaze wanted to rest on his face. The body and face, of course, were nothing more than a fortunate accident of genetics, having to do with things like inherited height, bilateral symmetry, ratios of eye spacing and nose length, and definition of jawline. His looks were nothing he’d done at all, just like I was genetically programmed to be tall and thin and energetic, and not to have much in the way of boobs. If it had taken years of hard work, though, for him to get that strong, hundreds of miles of long runs loaded down with gear, through the heat and cold, on days when he was hurting, when he was sick or tired or he’d had bad news from home? If it had taken obstacle courses and marching and whatever else soldiers did to achieve that level of functional fitness and that kind of stoicism? That part, he could take credit for.
The question I couldn’t answer, though, and the one that was really messing me up, was this. How could he be even more attractive than he’d been in his modeling photos, before he’d gotten himself blown up? I found I couldn’t think of him any other way. Why was that? And was my current level of judgment adequate to decide that?
That was an obvious “nope.” Moving on.
“Hmm,” I said, taking another bite of flaky pastry, melt-in-your-mouth chicken, creamy potato, and leek, all of it coated with gravy, and trying not to purr at the silky mix of flavors. “Right. First, I’m not that irresistible. I just got dumped after eight years, is how I know that. Personally and professionally, or rather—professionally, which meant ‘personally’ followed right along, since I found that being secretly cut out from everything I’d ever worked for sort of killed the ‘love’ idea. Second—this guy I’m meeting on my exotic holiday is a gentleman, is he? Or undersexed, in our hypothetical world?”
Jax just smiled. “Right, then. Challenge not quite accepted, because I still can’t make out what the challenge is. Here’s something for you to ponder, though. It could be that not every man is up to your weight. Could be you’re intimidating. It could also just be that you haven’t found the right man, one who is up to it. Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about that right now. All we need to know is that I live for adventure, and so do you. So let’s go have some.”
The campground didn’t have pit toilets, and it started feeling good before we even got to our tents.
As we pulled our various bags and boxes along behind us from the carpark on a couple of helpful wagons, the forest track was dark and shaded. Overhead, the canopy was feathery with the tops of second-growth kauri, the one-time giants making their resurgence since the forest had been logged to the ground, the trees grown tall now and strung with vines as thick as my arm. There were a few other species I knew, too, because I knew New Zealand trees so much better than the ones back home. Credit Koro and Hemi for that, Hemi educating his kids, and me being along for the ride. You couldn’t hang out with Maori and not learn the names of the other species inhabiting the world around you. Which was why I recognized the drooping branches of rimu and the exuberant crimson blossoms of rata, as well as the spiky shrubs of manuka in the open areas, in bloom now and offering up their nectar to the hovering bees. Ferns uncurled their fronds beside the track, and the bush beyond was full of birds in full summer-feeding voice. I told Debbie, who seemed to be enjoying the ride in his box, “Hear that? Those are your relatives. If they’re OK here, you probably will be, too.” I could hear a rustling that was the wind in the trees, or maybe the river below, the musical calls of tui and bellbird, the occasional cooing call and tree-rustling flight of a kereru, the New Zealand pigeon, and that was all. We were less than a half hour’s drive from the outskirts of Thames, but separated from it by hills and the canyon and the river. I probably still had cell phone reception, but I didn’t want to look.
This part, I liked fine. Of course, I preferred it followed by a hotel room.
Then we came around the corner, went down a short side track, and I saw my tent.
It was more like a yurt, a great big round thing made of white fabric, with a double fabric door that was pulled back to show a king-sized bed and rustic wooden night tables set with candle lanterns. You’d lie in there and look out at nothing but trees, which was actually pretty perfect. The patio outside had a table and a couple low chairs, and through the door of the little wooden building next door, I could see a wooden counter holding a stainless-steel sink and, above it, a log-framed mirror. I set Debbie’s box down on the ground and told Jax, “It has a sink.”
“Could be you’ll survive, eh,” he said, and I poked my head in and found a shower. And a toilet. Which was great, but it wasn’t the best part. Around the corner from the bathroom cabin, tucked into a tiny clearin
g, was a bathtub. Yep, a bathtub outside, in the middle of the forest. There was also a kitchen tent with a sink and a barbecue on the other side of the sleeping tent, but I was more interested in the bathtub.
“I’m next door,” Jax said. “No worries, though, you’ll be private. That’s the whole idea. You’re camping, and you’re not.”
“You going to have a bath tonight?” I asked him, starting to rip open the package holding Debbie’s fencing.
“I could do,” Jax said, getting on one knee again—the augmented one—and pulling some sort of survival tool from his pocket, with which he cut plastic. “Could feel good, eh. I have a bottle of wine in the car that may suit you. Worse things in the world than a warm candlelit bath in the trees, lying back and looking at the stars, and a glass of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. But we’ve got a few things to do first, as surprising you is part of our plan.”
How could a man constructing a pen for a duck still have a voice that sent shivers down your back? I had a chance to ponder that as I helped him pound the ends of fencing poles into the ground with rocks and fasten netting to them with clips. He really was the most absurdly competent man, and he didn’t seem to have any problem with me being competent, either. Between the two of us, we had a pen constructed in about ten minutes. I filled Debbie’s food and water dishes, plus a plastic dish tub, put him in the pen and splashed my fingers in the water, and he flapped his way over the rim and was paddling around in seconds, quacking and peeping away and making me smile.
“Happy duck, happy . . . woman,” Jax said, collecting plastic wrapping.
“That’s your sexy talk?” I said. “Don’t tell me what that was supposed to rhyme with. That’s pitiful. You can do better.”
He laughed, fortunately. “Come on, then. We’ll get the rest of the gear, and I’ll show you what I have in mind.”
Which was how I came to be crossing a narrow swing bridge over the Kauaeranga River an hour later, then scrambling down to a rock outcrop, with the hypnotic burble of water over stones filling all the clamoring space in my head. The river was restless, and I wasn’t. Already, my thoughts were ping-ponging around less than they had been for weeks, as if the folds of my brain were actually relaxing.
What was Jax doing? He was standing behind me, his strong hand over mine, showing me how to cast a line for rainbow trout.
“Whip it back there,” he said, getting a little closer and putting his other arm around my waist, and not talking one little bit like he wanted to kiss my neck, even though his deep voice was giving me those shivers again, “and forward again. Keep it smooth. Aim for the deep pool under the rock, let the fly rest a minute, then pull it slowly back, skimming the surface. Be the bug, eh. A stupid bug, going where the trout are hiding.”
“I’m not much for fishing,” I said, trying to keep it cool. “Too boring, normally, but this is all right. At least I can move around and try different things, and I’m not sitting in a boat.”
He was a warm man, and such a solid one. The late afternoon was still warm, but had lost some of the baking heat, and the light fell in slanting rays on the fast-flowing water, forming glinting prisms like so many crystal suncatchers hung in a kitchen window, making you slow down while you washed the dishes just to watch the light change.
Not that I washed dishes by hand. I normally flung them into the dishwasher fast and got back to work. I reeled my line in, and nothing bit at it along the way. Jax said, “You can move around, yeh. You’ll still need a bit of patience, though. No side-arm. Here.” He took my hand again. “Smooth motion overhead, and then an abrupt stop. Practice your aim, and you’re good as gold.”
“I hope you brought steaks,” I said. “I suspect my fly is seriously unconvincing. I’d have to luck into a mentally deficient fish.”
How could you feel a man smile just from the relaxed pressure of his shoulder on yours? “That would be giving up,” he said. “We’ll see how we go. Go on down and wade out there, if you like, try some other spots. The trout like the holes at the base of the rocks. Just don’t hook me.”
“This would be where you say I already did,” I said.
“I would,” he said, “but you’d tell me I could do better.”
Jax
I caught a couple good-sized rainbow trout. Karen caught three.
“And, yes, I realize I had to throw two of mine back for being too little,” she’d said when we were gutting the fish at the cleaning station back at the campground, something she’d clearly done before, because she’d performed it neatly and with no fuss, “but still. Three to two.” Why did she always make me smile? “I’m saving the heads and tails for Debbie,” she’d added, wrapping them in a plastic carrier bag. “Ducks are omnivorous.”
“Time to tell me why you’ve called your male duck Debbie,” I said a lazy hour or two later. We were back at Karen’s campsite, sitting on the wooden patio like we were sailing on an ocean of green, eating crispy golden-fried rainbow trout, grilled slices of kumara, and tender asparagus with lemon juice, along with slices of buttery, savory Turkish bread sprinkled with herbs, bits of which, along with every other item on the menu, Karen kept “accidentally” dropping for Debbie, who was going to be a very plump duck indeed in very short order. The shadows were long, the golden rays caught the edge of a fern tree and outlined its lacy pattern, the hum of insects merged with the sound of the river below, and Afghanistan felt as far away as the moon.
If only you could drift along like this forever. Or maybe that should be—if only you could be content to drift along like this forever. I couldn’t, and I knew it. Skimming along the surface of life like a fly at the end of a fishing line, with all the world at your command, might look brilliant to somebody looking in, but it could also make you feel like a fraud who hadn’t done much to earn all that he’d been given. At least, that was the way I remembered it.
But now? I’d take now. This moment, or the one when you were cleaning out the knee of a woman too brave for her own good, when she had her foot on your bare thigh and her hand clutching your shoulder, and you could see the skin of her own thigh pebbling into gooseflesh and catch the warm scent of her body, because she was just that close. Not perfume, not down here. That was all her, running and tackling and hurting and, just possibly, knowing I was holding her, because I’d swear I was smelling sex. The soles of her feet were dirty and bruised, and I’d cleaned those, too, wiping them off gently with paper towels, my hand around an ankle. I hadn’t said anything, and fortunately, neither had she, because I wouldn’t have trusted my response.
“Debbie Duck?” she asked now, finishing off her trout. She was sounding relaxed as well, even though she was probably hurting again, or still, just like I was. I should leave soon, let her get her bath and take one of my own. She’d pulled on a long-sleeved shirt and draped a blanket over her knees, but as soon as the sun set, it would get chilly fast. She went on, “I was thinking about Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Donald Duck’s nephews, you know. And I realized—the only female animals in cartoons are the love interests, except Peppa Pig, maybe. Otherwise? You’ve got Daisy Duck. Minnie Mouse. Et cetera. All right, they’re from a long time ago, but almost all cartoons are that way. Even SpongeBob is a boy sponge. So I thought—Debbie Duck. And I probably got stubborn after that, once I found out he was a boy, or maybe his name just makes me laugh, and I kind of miss laughing, you know? Or I was missing it, because you make me laugh, too. Huh. That’s interesting.”
“Brilliant,” I said, although I was smiling. “Not quite what a man wants to hear.”
“Hey,” she said, “you asked.”
“So how does a city girl from New York know what ducks eat?” I asked. “How did you come to like being outdoors so much? Even though you’re a pretty reluctant camper.”
“Why does anybody like being outdoors?” She said it lightly, but I thought there was some tension there. “Maybe because I couldn’t always have adventures, and now, I want to do all the living I can. Why do you like it?
Don’t tell me you aren’t a city boy. Your family lives in Dunedin. I looked you up.”
“I’m a Kiwi, though. Fishing, camping, boating.”
“Killing people in the desert.”
An icy wind went through my body. “Or keeping other people from being killed.”
She froze, exactly like I had. She started talking twice and cut herself off before she finally said, “Sometimes, the words come out before I have a chance to think them through. Maybe forget I said that.”
I nodded, knowing it was stiff. So was my leg, for that matter. Too much time in the car, and last night’s pain not wanting to leave.
“Jax.” She reached across and put her hand on my forearm. I looked at it there and did my best to haul my emotions back under control. And for some reason, I couldn’t. She said, “I’ve got it wrong, haven’t I? Tell me how. I’ve never known anybody in the military. That’s weird, but I haven’t.”
“Not so weird,” I said, trying to get it together. “Not many millionaires’ kids in the New Zealand Defence Force.”
“Except you. Why did you join up? You did join up, right? There isn’t a draft here, is there?”
“No. I volunteered.” I stuck my legs out in front of me, crossed the good ankle over the prosthetic one, tried and failed to feel casual, and thought about what I wanted to say. Whether I wanted to say.
Karen said, “You don’t have to say if you don’t want to. You don’t owe me anything.”
I looked up. “That’s what I was thinking just now. Whether I wanted to say. Odd. I had some requests for interviews, after I came home. Photos. Wounded warrior. All that.”
Her face twisted. “Blech. I’d hate it.”
I had to laugh once more. “Yeh. That was about the size of it. But I don’t mind telling you, maybe.”
“Hang on,” she said. “We could need a little more wine for this.” She poured it, and bent to light the candle lantern, too, her expressive face lit from beneath with its glow. After that, she sat back in her chair and took a sip of wine. I looked at my own glass and thought about readiness, and about how I didn’t need to think about readiness anymore. It was twelve hours until we needed to drive back to Thames for our adventure, and I had nothing to do until then but sit here, take a bath, and wish I was kissing a girl’s neck and, possibly, was sliding my hand up her thigh while I did it, the way I’d wanted to do in the Mitre 10 toilets.
Kiwi Rules (New Zealand Ever After Book 1) Page 12
