“Hey!” Mac stood and held out his hand, and Sam shook it, followed by Jace. Mac then introduced Jace to Ginger and, finally, Sandi.
Sam watched Jace shake Sandi’s hand. Sandi’s eyes rose to meet Jace’s, and their gazes locked for a moment. A light flush spread across her cheeks, and Jace smiled. That’s it, Sam thought. That’s all it takes. One touch, one look, and a man loses his heart. They were all doomed.
More chairs were brought over, and the guys sat, Sam taking the seat beside Ginger.
“Really?” she said, looking at his T-shirt.
He glanced down. The slogan read Stud Muffin. “What?”
“I thought you might at least have worn a real shirt,” she said, bemused.
He shrugged. “It’s hardly the Oscars. Most guys here have ketchup down their fronts or they’re wearing gumboots.”
“They’re not up for the award, though,” she pointed out.
“True. I’m a man of the people, though. And real men don’t do shirts.”
“Are you two bickering already?” Fred asked. “Let’s call a truce for today, okay?”
Ginger poked her tongue out at him, and everyone laughed.
“Nervous?” Mac asked Sam.
Sam just grinned and swigged the beer in his hand.
“Have you prepared a winning speech?” Fred asked him.
“Nope.” He could tell by the look on Ginger’s face that she’d spent the past few weeks rehearsing her speech in front of the mirror.
“Have you been practicing your losing speech then?” Ginger asked him.
“No. Won’t need it.” He held her gaze and let his lips curve up. She gave a short laugh and looked away.
“Are you ready for the bad weather?” Fred asked him. “It looks as if it’s going to get pretty rough.”
“Yeah, Dad and I stacked the chairs, and we’ve taken down the awning outside. Not much else we can do.”
“We spent all afternoon battening down the hatches,” Ginger told him. “It’s a bit scary, actually. We didn’t know the 1987 storm was coming in England. I don’t know if that’s better or worse.”
“Hopefully it won’t be too bad,” Jace said. “I don’t fancy waking up tomorrow and finding myself up to my chin in water.”
“Jace lives down at the inlet,” Sam advised Sandi, who blushed. “In a big house overlooking the river. He’s very rich.”
Jace glared at him. Sam just grinned.
“I can’t believe this day finally came.” Fred broke off a piece of what looked like one of Sam’s muffins and popped it in her mouth. “It seems like years ago that Ginger said she’d put the restaurant in for the awards, although I know it’s only been a few months.”
“Maybe you’ll finally be able to get some sleep,” Sandi said to Ginger. “She only ever sleeps for four or five hours,” she told the guys. “I don’t know how she does it.”
“Copious amounts of caffeine,” Ginger said.
“Sounds like you need more exercise,” Sam advised.
She gave him a wry glance. He returned it with an innocent look.
“Ohhh...” Jace looked from him to her. “Are you two having a thing?”
“No,” Ginger said, at the same time that Sam said, “Yes.”
“Absolutely not,” she repeated.
Jace grinned. “Not for the want of trying, eh, Sam?”
He shrugged and raised his beer to his lips. “Fair heart never won fair chef.”
“There’ll be no winning of any kind,” Ginger advised. “I’m going to become a nun.”
That made him cough into the bottle, and the others laughed. “You’re going to take vows,” he clarified. “God help the nunnery. Literally.”
“You’d lead them all astray,” Fred told her. “They’d all end up wearing lipstick and curling their hair and dancing down the nave to Abba.”
As everyone chuckled, there was an announcement at the front of the hall that they would be starting in a few minutes. People began taking their seats and turning to face the front.
Sam slung an arm around the back of Ginger’s chair so he could lean closer to her. “Please tell me you were only joking about taking vows,” he murmured into her ear. He could see the soft, pale skin of her neck. He wanted to dip his head and place his lips there.
“All right,” she admitted, “maybe that was a lie. But I won’t be dating. You or anyone else.” She didn’t look at him this time. She studied her bottle of cider, and turned it in her fingers.
So it wasn’t him she objected to, it was men in general. “Why not?”
She shrugged and took a mouthful of the drink. “Too much like hard work. I don’t know that I’ll ever date again.”
He felt a twinge of sympathy for her. Someone had hurt her badly. Why would a man treat a woman as beautiful as Ginger Cartwright badly? “Tell me what happened. Mac said someone broke your heart in England. Who was it? Want me to go and beat him up?”
“You? You couldn’t beat up a teddy bear.”
“Have you seen me play rugby?”
“Not yet.”
“Come to the charity match next month. Then you’ll see what an animal I am inside this handsome exterior.”
Ginger laughed. “I might just do that. Although I don’t know that I’d like to see you get carried off on a stretcher.”
Well, that was something. He’d take anything he could get at this stage.
“So come on,” he prodded. “What happened in England?”
She glanced around the busy hall, and at the committee taking their places on the stage. “Not here. Not now.”
“You’ll tell me later, though?”
“Sam... Will you concentrate?”
“I am concentrating—on you. You’re much more interesting.”
“This is a big moment for both of us,” she said with a frown.
He studied her profile—her small, tip-tilted nose, the freckles on her cheeks, her rosebud mouth.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she murmured, her gaze rising to meet his.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to kiss me.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
Her lips curved up, and she studied his mouth as if she was wondering what it would be like to kiss him back. “You act like you don’t care,” she whispered, “but I know you do.”
“Don’t care about you?”
“Don’t care about the award. You pretend you’re not ambitious, but your dad told me that you used to work on a cruise ship, and that you came home to look after him.”
“Been having a nice little heart-to-heart, have you?” He knew that George enjoyed his chats with her. It was one reason why he’d enjoyed being away—in a small place like this, everyone knew everyone else’s business.
She looked up, into his eyes. “When I told you about ways to develop the business, why didn’t you just say you want to keep things like they are for your dad, instead of pretending like you don’t care what happens to the bakery? I would have understood. You know what happened with Mac’s father. All three of us value honesty above almost everything else.”
He felt a twinge of guilt. “I understand that, and I know you’ve been hurt, so I’m sorry if you felt I was misleading you. But just as you haven’t told me all about your past, I wasn’t ready to pour out my heart to you. I like you, Ginger, but we’re not confidantes, not yet.”
A sullen look came over her face. She wanted him to beg her forgiveness, to say he was wrong and that he should have been up front with her about what had happened with the business. Well, he wasn’t going to do that, no matter how much he liked her. That was private, and he wasn’t ready to discuss it with her—with anyone, in fact.
She turned her gaze back to the stage. “They’re about to start.”
He removed his arm from her chair and settled back. She was annoyed with him now. Well, it wouldn’t be long before they’d find out who’d won the award. Maybe then they’d both be able to put what h
ad happened over the past few weeks behind them and start over.
And if they couldn’t, well, maybe that was for the best too. Because whether he won the award or not, he was still planning to leave and head back out to the open sea, where he belonged.
Chapter Six
Ginger watched the members of the Gold Food Award committee take their seats, and tried to calm her breathing. She knew she was being unfair to Sam. He was right—he hadn’t lied to her, as such, and there was no law that said he had to confide his deepest feelings to her. But she felt foolish. She’d come up with all these ideas and accused him of a lack of ambition, when it sounded as if that wasn’t the case at all.
Whatever. She had more important things to think about now.
The leader of the committee, a tall, thin lady called Megan Smith, took the microphone for an introduction. She thanked everyone for coming, and talked for a little while about the high standard of cuisine in the Northland, and how some of the businesses were becoming known not just nationally but internationally, too. Ginger tapped her foot impatiently on the floor—enough with the talk, she wanted to yell. Get onto the awards!
Eventually, it was time to announce the ten category winners. As she announced each category, Megan Smith read out the list of nominees and gave a summary of each business, so it took a while to get through them.
Ginger couldn’t help but glance at Sam when Megan read out the nominees for the best bakery. He looked very relaxed, leaning back in his chair, and smiling when All or Muffin was mentioned. However, when Megan revealed, “And the winner is... All or Muffin!” his eyes widened and his jaw dropped for a second as he met Ginger’s eyes.
“Go on,” she said with a smile. “Go and get your award!”
He stood and made his way to the front as everyone clapped and cheered, and accepted the certificate before making his way back to his seat.
Two categories later, it was time for the best restaurant. This was a big prize, second only to the overall winner. Ginger felt sick as the nominees were read out. She smiled as Blue Penguin Bay’s Cellar Door was announced, but she had to force her lips to curve, her stomach churning. If she didn’t win this, then she wouldn’t be in for the overall award.
But when Megan announced the winner, it was Ginger’s restaurant she named, and she almost cried with relief.
“Go on,” Sam whispered in her ear, following it with a press of his lips to her cheek. “Claim your prize.”
Ginger walked up to the front, her skin tingling from Sam’s kiss, the smell of baking that had arisen from his warm skin still in her nostrils. As if her head wasn’t spinning enough! She accepted the certificate and shook Megan’s hand, waved to the cheering crowd, and went back to her seat.
Now it was only the final winner to be announced. Ginger hardly breathed at all as the winners of all the categories were read out again. It won’t be you, she told herself repeatedly, afraid of disappointment, but secretly so hopeful and excited that she thought her head was going to explode. Surely, she stood a good chance? She’d worked so hard, and the restaurant was being spoken about all over the Northland.
She deserved to win. After everything she’d been through in England, and after what Jack had done to her... If there was any justice in the world, any fairness at all, she’d be walking up to the stage to get that trophy in just a few seconds...
“And the overall winner of the Bay of Islands Gold Food Award is...” Megan’s gaze turned in her direction and she gave a big smile. Ginger inhaled sharply. “Sam Pankhurst for his All or Muffin bakery. Congratulations, Sam!”
All the air left her lungs at once. Sam had won? She looked at him, too stunned to smile, and saw similar shock in his own eyes as he met her gaze. The corner of his mouth quirked up with what might have been regret or pity. And then everyone around them was thumping him on the back, and people were coming from all over to shake his hand, and he had to make his way to the front to receive his award.
“Smile, Ginger,” Fred instructed from beside her, and she forced her frozen lips into a curve and clapped with everyone else.
Inside, though, she was dying with shame. How could she have been so arrogant, so bloody stupid to think she was going to win? Sam had tried to tell her that the committee would never vote for a new business, especially one run by someone who’d only been in the country for four months, but she’d refused to listen. He was going to be so smug, and he had every right to be.
She’d had this feeling of embarrassment and humiliation before, and it took her right back to the moment in London when she’d walked out of the hotel where she’d worked as head chef. She’d seen some of the staff sniggering behind their hands as she’d passed them on her way out. They’d tried to tell her about Jack, but she’d refused to listen. Jesus, she never learned. Hadn’t she told herself she would never be so arrogant again? Why did she persist in assuming she knew better than everyone else? Why did she never think before she acted or spoke?
She watched Sam shaking hands with the other members of the committee, and nausea washed over her. She was going to be sick—holy crap.
“I don’t feel well,” she said to Fred as she collected her coat and purse.
Fred narrowed her eyes. “Seriously? Ginger, come on. I can’t believe you won’t even stay and congratulate him.”
“It’s not that.” She almost retched. “I have to go...” Turning, she pushed her way through the crowd and headed for the exit.
She just made it outside and ran across the path to some bushes before she vomited. Cold rain sliced through her, but she had no option except to wait until her stomach had emptied. Luckily, there was nobody around to see. It was hammering down, and anyone who was unfortunate enough to be outside was running to or from their cars to the exhibition center.
When she was finally certain she wasn’t going to be sick anymore, she stumbled across the car park, splashing through the puddles, to her car, fumbled with the keys, and got in. Then she sat there for a long moment, her head on the rest and eyes closed, waiting for her heart to stop pounding.
Everyone, including Sam, would think she’d run out because she couldn’t bring herself to congratulate him. They would think she was just being a bad loser. She should go back in there now and apologize, and tell him he thoroughly deserved to win.
Her stomach clenched. She couldn’t look him in the eye—she was too ashamed. She wasn’t going anywhere except home.
In the end, it took her nearly an hour to get back to Russell. They’d already stopped all the ferries from Paihia because of the bad weather, and they were talking about stopping the car ferry from Opua, but luckily it was still running when she arrived, although there was a long queue. She hoped the others would make it in time, otherwise they’d have to go the long way around and drive all the way to Kawakawa and up the finger of land to Blue Penguin Bay.
By the time she pulled up outside her house, the light was starting to fade. She was amazed that it could rain so hard for so long—it just kept coming, thick and heavy, straight down out of the sky without a breath of the wind they’d promised. As she crossed the road to her tiny cottage, she splashed ankle-deep through rivulets of water. Luckily, she was high on the hill, so there was little chance of flooding. Under the dubious shelter of an umbrella, she walked to the end of the road to look at the river that ran there, and was shocked to see how far it had risen. It had been clear and sparkling—now it was a dirty brown, like thick treacle. A little frightened at its thundering power, she made her way quickly back to her house.
Once inside, she sat on the lone chair in the kitchen dejectedly for a moment, dripping onto the floor. She should make herself some dinner, have a glass of wine, and sit and think logically about what had happened today. She needed to remove her emotions from it all, and to separate it from what had happened in the U.K. Yes, she might have been a bit arrogant in telling Sam she was going to win, but it wasn’t the same as London, not at all.
Her shoulders sagge
d. The situation might not be the same, but her attitude had been—that was the problem. She winced now as she thought about how she’d lectured Sam on his business and told him he needed to drag it into the twenty-first century. She hadn’t given any thought to the fact that he might have to take his father’s feelings into account, or that he just liked his business the way it was. She always assumed she knew best.
She had no energy for making dinner. Tired and depressed, she dragged herself into the bedroom, stripped off her wet clothes, and collapsed onto the bed. The tears came easily, flowing as fast as the river to the east, the emotion behind them just as powerful. And then, as quickly as they’d appeared, they vanished, leaving her exhausted.
Before long, she was fast asleep.
WHEN SHE AWOKE, IT was completely dark. She blinked several times and looked toward the window, but there was no glint of moonlight, nothing except the sound of the rain, beating against the tin roof. She tried the lights, but they didn’t work. There must be a power cut, she thought. What did they call it here? A power outage.
What time was it? She found her phone and turned it on—10:17pm. She’d slept for nearly four hours.
What had awoken her? Stiff and cold, she pushed herself up, only then hearing voices outside. She rose and dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and a sweater, scraped her hair into a rough bun, pulled on a raincoat, picked up an umbrella, and made her way out.
Jesus, it was dark. She went back in and found a flashlight, then came back out again. The rain was still falling, like an icy metal sheet, and the beam from the flashlight highlighted the drops that looked like nails, long and sharp.
A light bobbed toward her, and she moved out to meet the person, a man, with a raincoat and a hat pulled well over his hair. “What’s going on?” she yelled as he approached, jogging along the path.
“A fallen tree trunk has lodged across the river,” he shouted back. “The river has burst its banks and it’s flowing west of the hill, straight into The Strand. It’s washed away half of the shops there.” He didn’t stop but continued running down the road.
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