“We better.”
Isaac’s hooded gaze traveled down her face to linger—she was almost sure of it—on her mouth. He didn’t move, but his charisma, the sheer force of his presence, pushed her back another step. Into the Buffer of Self-Preservation, she told herself as she spun around and quick-marched down the side of the building. Getting that close to Isaac carried the risk of another touch. Of his hand cupping her face. His lips brushing hers, tasting, testing, taking until the Buffer of Self-Preservation was null and void.
No, he wouldn’t kiss her. That was her imagination running amok. Nat waved at the girls and donned her most enthusiastic let’s kick ass smile.
He wouldn’t kiss her, but oh…
Isaac jogged past her and without hesitating in a movement that was both graceful and oddly erotic, scooped up a spare rugby ball and passed it to Olivia—who caught it perfectly.
What if she lost her mind and kissed him?
Chapter 6
“I’m sorry, Natalie. I don’t doubt his qualifications professionally, but personally, I’m just not sure Mel signing up this year is a good idea. He’s got a hell of an attitude, from what I’ve heard, and Mel is quite sensitive.”
Nat pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand, and with the other tried not to crush the cell phone at her ear. Mel’s mum, Sandra, was the last of the parents whose daughter had played rugby last year or had shown interest at the beginning of the year.
“If you and Mel come along on Saturday, you’ll see how positive he is with the girls. Maybe you’ll change your mind.” So Nat better have a come-to-Jesus talk part two with Isaac about toning down his attitude around the girls’ parents.
“I’ll think about it,” Sandra said.
“Great!” Nat forced some false chipperness into her tone. “Really hope to see you there.”
After disconnecting, Nat scanned her list of names and the checks, crosses, and question marks next to them. Thursday afternoon, and so far she’d got a more positive result from five parents but an overwhelming number of Xs and I’ll think about its. To get another ten girls on the field in two days’ time, she needed a minor miracle.
“Any luck?” Olivia wandered into the kitchen where Nat sat at their dining table. She headed for the pantry and a container of cookies.
“Mel’s mum is going to think about it.”
Olivia crinkled her nose. “Whatever. Have you called Rangi-Marie Brown’s mum? If Rangi-Marie comes, her friends’ll come, too. But I don’t think she will because Isaac’s her cousin or second cousin or something.”
“All the more reason to support him.”
Nat had seen Rangi-Marie around the school a couple of times, most notably in the high school’s summer track and field event where the girl—tall and athletic with a killer smile like her extended family—had dominated by coming first in a number of events.
Olivia selected a cookie, carried it to the table, and sat down. “I heard her telling her friends that he went all caveman on her and threatened to kill her boyfriend if he laid a finger on her. She hates him.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t hate him.”
“You do,” Olivia said, and before Nat could object, her daughter added, “Well, you used to hate him after Dad died. I don’t think you do anymore.”
The stomach pang turned into a knot. Things were black and white, often to the extreme, in Olivia’s world. Your dad was alive, and then he was dead. You either liked someone or you hated them. You were either right, or you were completely wrong. There were no shades of gray, no middle ground, and no way for Olivia to understand the tangled strands of Nat’s feelings about Isaac—not when Nat couldn’t understand or unravel them herself.
“No, I don’t hate Isaac anymore. And if there’s any chance of us keeping him as your coach, I need to go and talk to Rangi-Marie in person.”
“She’s got an after-school job at Kauri Whare,” Olivia said. “Another reason why she won’t want Isaac as her coach. Not when he’s already her boss.”
Convincing a teenager to do something they didn’t want to with logic and reasoning? Again, piece of cake. Not. “Are you coming to be my wingman? I might need some backup.”
Olivia shook her head. “Can’t,” she said around a mouthful of cookie. “I’ve got homework due tomorrow. You’ll be fine, Mum. Have fun.”
Right. Because dealing with another branch of the Ngata family tree was Nat’s idea of a good time.
Twenty minutes later, Nat walked inside Kauri Whare. Rangi-Marie and an older woman were behind the sales counter, the older woman ringing up a customer’s purchases. A packed tour bus had just left the parking lot when Nat arrived, and the showroom only had a couple of people still browsing. Nat approached the counter when the customer moved away.
“Hi,” she said to the older woman, with a quick smile at Rangi-Marie. “I’m wondering if I can steal Rangi-Marie away for a quick chat?”
The teenager’s eyelashes slitted over her dark eyes as she sized up Nat. Suspecting, probably, what she was there for. Word got around in Bounty Bay.
The older woman’s face creased into a huge smile and she hurried around the counter.
“Oh, kia ora, Natalie. Do you remember me? I’m Raewyn, one of Isaac’s aunties—so we’re practically whānau.”
Raewyn wrapped her arms around Nat and squeezed her tight, pulling away after a beat to kiss Nat’s cheek before letting her go. It’d been a long time since Nat had experienced the warmth and inclusion of the Ngata family and their many aunties, uncles, cousins, and second cousins. When Jackson had been alive they’d gone to a number of barbecues and hangi with Isaac and Sam’s parents, often with other relatives dropping by unannounced and staying to enjoy the food and friendship. But whānau—family? Nuh-uh. That implied a relationship that just didn’t exist between her and Livvy and Isaac.
“I, uh—”
Raewyn chuckled, and squeezed Nat’s arm. “Course you don’t, do you? There are so many Ngatas in Bounty Bay it must be hard to keep us all straight.” She turned and crooked a finger at Rangi-Marie. “C’mon then, girl. Don’t keep Mrs. Fisher waiting. You can take your break now and make her a nice cuppa while you’re at it.”
Rangi-Marie’s gaze seemed to say that spending her break with Nat was a pretty crap deal, but the girl came out from behind the counter.
“This way,” she said without making further eye contact with Nat, and walked toward the same Staff Only door that led to Isaac’s office.
And Isaac.
Pull up your big-girl panties, Nat ordered herself, and followed her through into the corridor. She did let out a sigh of relief, though, as they passed by Isaac’s empty office.
“Tea?” Rangi-Marie asked as they walked into the staff room. “Or one of Isaac’s fancy coffees?” The girl angled her chin toward the espresso machine in the staff room’s little kitchenette.
“Nothing for me,” Nat said. “I won’t keep you long.”
“This is about the rugby team, isn’t it?” Rangi-Marie slumped onto one of the chairs surrounding a newspaper and magazine strewn dining table and folded her arms. “You’re helping him coach.”
Him was said in the same tone as one would say Satan.
“I am.” Nat slid into a chair opposite the girl. “We’re really down on numbers and could use you at practice Saturday morning.”
“I’m not playing this year.”
There was a note of finality in Rangi-Marie’s voice, but also an unhappy undertone. Rangi-Marie’s name had cropped up in her conversations with some of the other girls’ mums. She was one of the strongest and most dedicated girls in the team, playing since she’d first started at Bounty Bay High three years ago. There was talk of an opportunity for the girl to take part in a rugby exchange program, where she’d train in France for six months. An opportunity she’d blow if she quit now.
“Why?” Nat asked.
The girl’s gaze shot left. “I don’t want to.”
A long beat p
assed, as if she were hunting for a plausible excuse.
“I’ve got loads of school stuff on this year. I’m too busy,” she added.
Nat leaned forward and gentled her voice. “Or is it because Isaac is coaching this season?”
“Any idea how much it sucks to have a former All Black as a cousin? At least my last name isn’t Ngata, but everyone knows we’re related and everyone knows how screwed up he is. It was okay when Ms. Pierce was coaching, but with Isaac taking over, everyone is going to have massive expectations of us—of me—to win.”
“They’re going to have massive expectations of him, too, and of my daughter, Olivia. But no one will try harder or care more about making sure you girls are trained and ready to play.” Nat said it with absolute conviction, because she now believed it was true. Given a chance, Isaac would give these girls everything he had to give, because she knew he, too, loved to win.
“Whatever.” Rangi-Marie rocked back on her chair and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “And please don’t say ‘it’s not all about winning,’ because it is, and we won’t.”
At least the girl was thinking in terms of we. “You’ll never know if you could win, unless you came along to practice and gave him a chance.”
Rangi-Marie’s lips twisted and she kept her gaze locked upward. “He’s my boss, and he’s a grumpy pain in the nono—so why would I want to spend even more time with him?”
Nat forced a smile off her face at the Māori word for ‘bum’ comment and pressed her lips together until she’d regained her composure.
“Because I think he needs this,” she said finally. “And you definitely do. You have the chance for some amazing opportunities, like going to France to train for six months. How awesome would that be?”
“Yeah. It would be pretty cool.”
“And Isaac won’t be such a grumpy pain in the nono if he has a certain family member on board. We haven’t got enough girls for a team, and if you came, your friends and their mums would see he wasn’t so big and scary and come, too.”
The girl snorted and lowered her chair back on all four legs. “Scary?” she said. “The girl’s aren’t scared of him, and the mums…”
Rangi-Marie dug into her skirt pocket and tugged out her cell phone. She tapped the screen a few times and then turned it to show Nat. On the screen was a photo of Sam and Isaac and a few other men playing volleyball on Bounty Bay beach. Both brothers were shirtless and the phone had caught Isaac lunging sideways for the ball, his chest and ab muscles—and Lord, there were a lot of muscles—ripped and gleaming bronze in the sunshine.
“This is from last Christmas,” Rangi-Marie continued. “Show the mums this photo and they’ll be dragging their daughters down to training just so they can drool over the coach. Which is kind of ewww, because he’s like, ancient, and my cousin, but whatever works.”
“He won’t be coaching with his shirt off.” Blame it on the muscle visual causing Nat’s brain to short-circuit the connection with her tongue. “I know right now the worst thing you can imagine is dealing with Isaac when things are tense between you, but trust me, life will deal you out a crappy hand at times, and if you buckle, if you don’t fight for what you love and grab hold of opportunities when they arise, they will be regrets you live with forever.”
Rangi-Marie’s dark eyes met Nat’s across the table. “You’re saying I should play this year, even though being coached by Isaac will suck?”
“Most of my life I had people telling me what I could and couldn’t do, and how I should be satisfied with what little I had.” Nat reached out and squeezed the girl’s hand, which rested on the table. “You have oceans of possibilities and a family who have your back no matter what choices you make. Coming to practice or not on Saturday is a choice—your choice—but it’s one that’ll directly influence your future.”
Rangi-Marie huffed out a sigh, her fist bunching under Nat’s hand. “You still don’t have enough players.”
“That’s true,” Nat said. “But can we count on one more?”
“Yeah.” She slid her hand out from under Nat’s and folded her arms again. “But Isaac’s gonna make training a living hell for everyone.”
Everyone, but most of all Nat. Every excruciating minute of it.
Friday evenings after work Isaac had a set routine. Get home, get changed out of his button-down shirt and work pants into his oldest jeans and a T-shirt, get a beer, and get his tired ass stretched out on his living room sofa.
Mission accomplished.
He was about to crack the seal on his beer when his phone buzzed. He glanced at his brother’s name on the screen and hit talk.
“What’s up?”
“Got a minute?” Sam asked, with a background noise of laughter and rumble of conversation.
His brother entertaining the masses at the local pub during happy hour, no doubt.
“Yep.”
“You sure? Not too busy manscaping your chest hair and taking selfies in the mirror?”
What the—? “Has someone slipped LSD into your beer? What are you on about?”
Sam’s chuckle rumbled in Isaac’s ear. “You haven’t seen it?”
“Seen what?”
“Hang up and check your email, but don’t kill the messenger, okay?”
Isaac didn’t bother with any more sibling niceties and disconnected, quickly opening his email app and scanning until he saw Sam’s appear. He tapped it and read:
A mate stopped in to see me after you’d gone and dropped this off (see attached photo). Said his daughter came home with it from school. Bro, great publicity idea. ROTFLMAO.
Spidery prickles raced up Isaac’s spine and across his scalp as he tapped to open the attachment. It was a photo of a printed flyer, the headline in huge font.
Meet the new girls’ rugby coach, Isaac Ngata.
Below the text were two color photos. One was a publicity shot taken of him for an underwear advertising campaign that Isaac still, to this day, cringed about. The other was a shot of him playing beach volleyball last Christmas with his brother and cousins. Heat flooding in a lava-like tide down his body, he skimmed the text below the photos, which was a basic invitation to join a ‘former All Black who’ll take the girls’ rugby team all the way to the finals blah-blah-blah’ and ended with Natalie’s name and phone number if you required more details.
Nat had been passing this shit out to drum up more players by tomorrow morning?
Isaac swore and rolled off the couch, beer forgotten.
Twenty minutes later after he’d printed off a copy of the flyer and fired up his truck, he pulled into Natalie’s driveway. The slam of his truck door had Natalie’s head popping out from around the farthest corner of the house, her mouth parting in a soft O shape as she spotted him.
She stepped out from behind the house, brandishing a paintbrush in her hand. “What are you doing here?”
Her voice came out in breathy little gasps, her chest rising and falling rapidly beneath her paint-splattered T-shirt. Either the expression on his face gave away his mood, or that he bore down on her like a dump truck, or maybe even that he hadn’t visited Jackson and Natalie’s house since the accident—any of those things could explain the wariness in her wide green eyes.
He stopped in front of her, close enough to see the tiny flecks of pale green paint speckling her face. Close enough to catch the trace of her perfume under the paint fumes. The last bright rays of afternoon sun streamed through the trees lining her driveway and dappled golden blotches on her bare arms. Goose bumps rose on her skin, and she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear that’d escaped from the messy knot on her head.
“I mean, hi,” she added in a friendlier tone, but she kept the brush in place like a shield.
He dragged the folded A4 sheet out of his jeans pocket and opened it carefully, shaking out the creases and then holding it out toward her at face level.
“This is your idea of helping?” he asked.
She skimmed
the page, mouth pinched shut, her gaze going from wide, to wider, to almost popping out.
“I don’t see the problem,” she said. “It clearly lists the details of the next training session and your, um, qualifications to measure up as the girls’ coach…”
Her cheeks sucked in, her eyes doing that sparkly glistening thing that made a man’s heart rate speed up.
“But what will the girls’ parents be measuring?” he asked. “The size of my junk in those black boxer shorts?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I didn’t notice.”
She darted another glance at the paper, the tinge of high color deepening on her cheekbones calling her out. Shut it down, he ordered himself. Keep it about having embarrassing photos—the beach one he was sure came from one of his relatives—distributed around Bounty Bay to recruit players. Just don’t go anywhere else with Nat, just don’t—
His mouth dropped open and his tongue started flapping. “If I didn’t know better,” he said, “I’d think you’re attracted to me.”
Nat went hands on hips, then squawked when the brush connected with her jeans. Her eyes tapered into slits, as if he were to blame for the stripe of wet paint on her thigh.
“Well, you should know better, and this conversation is over.” She spun a one-eighty and stomped back along the driveway.
Which wasn’t exactly an admission or denial, more of a challenge thrown down between them. This conversation definitely wasn’t over.
Isaac stuffed the paper back into his jeans pocket and took two strides forward, then paused as the clang of warning bells sounded in his head. He never walked away from a challenge, not on a rugby field, nor off it either. But this wasn’t a game where he had to prove to himself he could win over and over, that he could be the best if he worked hard enough, wanted it badly enough.
This was Natalie.
And no matter how hard he worked, how much he wanted her—and he wasn’t admitting that he did want her—if there was an attraction between them, it couldn’t be acted on.
He sucked in a deep breath. He thought back to earlier in the year when he’d done his friend a favor by chaperoning a high school dance so Owen could propose to Gracie.
Mend Your Heart (Bounty Bay Book 4) Page 7
