He stepped over the candles, leaned his guitar against one of the marae’s central carved pillars, and returned to stand in front of her. Nat’s jagged pulse nearly knocked her weakened knees out from under her. Unless she was way off base, and unless the man was being incredibly dense and a little cruel with his song choice, Isaac was telling her he loved her. And Isaac was neither dense nor did the man possess one drop of cruelty in his body.
“When I met you all those years ago,” he said, “you were already Jackson’s wife, and in my eyes, in my heart due to my relationship with him, that meant you were like my brother’s wife. I smothered the spark I felt toward you, but no matter how many times I did, that spark continued to flare up. I was in love with you, but I couldn’t live with myself being the asshole who fell for his mate’s woman, so I buried it deep.”
“You were in love with me?” Repeating the words didn’t make them seem any more real to Nat, yet a tiny part of her back then had somehow known. And in self-protection, denied, and in turn, burrowed down into her subconscious to hide.
“Yeah.” Isaac linked their hands together and lightly squeezed her fingers. “But for my own sanity I convinced myself what I felt for you was brotherly, and I got comfortable with the self-satisfaction of being the good guy who did the right thing by keeping his hands off his mate’s woman. That night…” His eyes flickered shut, deep lines carving across his forehead. “I’d never been so fucking furious with Jackson.”
When he opened his eyes again, the rawness of the memory in them sliced Nat to the core.
“Chatting up a pretty girl was one thing. All the guys were flattered by the female attention we got in public, and Jackson could be a bloody flirtatious peacock at times. But the gall of hooking up with some girl in a bar, when he had a beautiful, incredible woman at home waiting for him, a woman that I wanted so much I could hardly bear to be around her—” He shook his head, his weight shifting from foot to foot, mouth in a grim line. “I hated him in that moment. And then the accident took away the opportunity for him to realize he was turning his back on the best thing in his life.”
Isaac’s fingers tightened on hers as their gazes met. “I wasn’t entirely honest with you about my motivations for volunteering as a scapegoat. Yeah, I wanted to protect you and Olivia from any more hurt, but it wasn’t the only reason. The selfish reason was it protected me from wanting to be near you, by giving me a solid way to shield myself from temptation. It kept my mana, my pride in myself as a man of honor, intact. Those lies I told everyone and myself worked for a long time, until even I believed them.”
“You ruined your relationship with Emily because of those lies,” she said.
“No one’s heart got broken over the split, and like every couple, we had other issues stirring the pot of discontent.”
Isaac let go of her hands and skimmed his palms up her bare arms, leaving a trail of goose bumps in his wake. He rested his hands lightly on her shoulders and dipped his head. “And maybe I would’ve succeeded living a lonely life of denial, but then you blasted into my life. Suddenly it was real between us, and I was terrified to realize those old feelings were surfacing again, ready to burn my old life to the ground.”
“A phoenix rising from the ashes.” Nat had no idea why that metaphor popped into her head, but it somehow seemed apt. She’d torched her old life when she’d quit fighting her need for Isaac and allowed it to consume her.
The corner of his mouth ticked up. “I was broken, damaged goods in Owen’s kitchen that day. During these past months you’ve picked up all my pieces and given me the glue I need to make myself whole again.” He cupped her jaw, stroking his thumbs along her face. “I just didn’t understand that those broken pieces of myself I’d put back together formed a whole around you. Without you in my life—as my manawa, my heart—for always, I’m nothing. I’m the one who’s invisible.”
Her eyes welled up and he bent to brush the softest of kisses on her lips. It broke the last fragile wall of hurt and resentment inside her, letting a flood of love flow through. She clutched at the lapels of his jacket, but all too soon he pulled back—and oh my God…he sank to one knee in front of her.
“I love you, Nat. And I stake my claim to be the man who loves you always, here, in front of God, my ancestors, and Jackson, the man we both loved. He’ll always be a part of our lives, but I want to make a new life with you.”
“I want that, too,” she whispered. “I think it’s time for us both to let him go.”
The world didn’t stop. She wasn’t struck down by a stray bolt of lightning. And the last remaining ties binding her to Jackson with woven strands of grief, anger, and guilt, finally slid free.
Isaac reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small handwoven flax pouch. From inside the pouch he produced a black cord from which hung a carved pendant made of greenstone.
“This ponuamu I’ll give to Olivia,” he said. “As a reminder that I’ll always love and care for her as if she were my own.” He slid the pendant back into the pouch and then removed a ring, which he held out to her.
A beautiful sparkly diamond-y ring that flashed fire in the candlelight. She was grateful her bare feet were planted on the solid wooden floor of the marae, because her knees began to wobble.
“And this is for you—with input from your daughter—if you’ll wear it,” he said. “Tahu, put me out of my misery. Tell me you love me and say you’ll marry me.”
“I love you, and yes, I’ll marry you.” She held out her left hand and he slid the ring onto her finger. The strange but oh-so-right weight of gold and diamonds made her want to burst into happy tears.
He stood and reeled her in, once again cupping her jaw in his big hands. He bent, briefly pressing his forehead and nose to hers in the age-old hongi, a traditional Māori greeting.
“Māori legend says that the creator god, Tāne, performed the first hongi when he breathed life into Hineahuone, the first woman,” he said. “You breathe life into me, Natalie.”
Then he took her mouth and stole her breath with a kiss that would’ve knocked her out of her sexy-mama heels had she still been wearing them.
When they finally drew apart, Nat twined her arms around his neck and luxuriated in the warmth of being his. He smiled down at her, and her heart gave another flip-flop, even though it was still racing. She’d never, ever get tired of seeing Isaac’s smile.
“Hey,” she said. “Just how much do you love me?”
“You’ll find out in the next sixty years or so.”
She pretended to frown. “How about something more concrete? Like, do you love me more than rugby?”
“Let’s not get crazy.”
She laughed. “Okay, what about coffee? Do you need me more than coffee?”
He sighed. “Yes. I need you more than the dry-roasted, organically grown ground coffee that I’ll make for you every morning for the rest of our lives. Is that enough? Do you want anything else, birthday girl?”
“Nope.” She gave a little jump and wrapped her legs around Isaac’s hips. “Now that I have you, I have everything I want.”
“We both do,” he said and kissed her again.
And as he swept her away, she knew that in this instance, the Rolling Stones had been both right and wrong. They had each got what they wanted, but more importantly, found in each other what they truly needed.
Epilogue
Two months later…
Isaac paddled hard, the wave’s power swelling beneath his surfboard as he took his last run in of the morning. Above the hiss of Bounty Bay’s surf, his mates, looking like seals in their black wetsuits, waited on boards for their turn, hollering both encouragement and the usual male put-downs that were more a sign of long-standing friendship than any real negativity.
“Go, you bad thing,” Todd shouted to Isaac’s left.
“Don’t wipe out and crack your thick skull, asshat.” Sam’s voice came from somewhere behind him. “Nat’ll kill me.”
/>
Isaac nearly laughed, though it would’ve meant a mouthful of salt water. He’d been dragged out of his bed by his brother and four of their mates at dawn. They’d loaded up his truck and Glen Cooper’s with their boards—Isaac’s had seen a bit of action in the last couple of months for the first time in years—and headed to the beach. Nate had piled into Glen’s truck along with Nate’s brother-in-law, Todd Taylor, whom Isaac had known for years since he was the husband of one of Isaac’s cousins.
Owen had hitched a ride with Sam, cracking the joke that as an emergency room doctor, he’d patch up Isaac if need be. The same joke he’d told the previous times Isaac had joined the guys for a surf—something he’d refused to do for years because of his knee. No longer as graceful as he had been before the accident, he was still improving every time he donned a wetsuit and challenged himself.
The ocean surged beneath his board and propelled a rush of adrenaline—the good kind—through his body. Then he was on his feet, wind whipping past his face as the years of practice reawakened skills he’d once thought forgotten. There were only two things that beat the head rush of sun, sand, and surf: rugby and Nat. And it sure as hell wasn’t rugby he was thinking about as he lost his balance and majestically wiped out.
Cool water closed over him and bubbled around his face. He opened his eyes in the churning surf and stayed under a moment longer, just enjoying the power of the wave tossing him around. Sometimes it felt good just to let go, to submit to that stronger power.
Like the love he had for Natalie, and in turn, Olivia. His whānau now.
Isaac rose out of the water, close enough to shore that he could easily stand, and ignoring the heckles from behind him, grabbed his board and waded onto the shore. Glen and Nate sat nearby, stretched out on the wet sand, watching Owen, Todd, and Sam who were still out on their boards.
“Hey,” Glen said as Isaac approached. “Pretty good form up until you took a dunking.”
Isaac grinned, swiping his palm over his dripping face. “Coming from a guy who’s better off surfing the web than surfing for real.”
Glen laughed, elbowing Nate next to him. “Told you he had a sense of humor.”
Nate cupped a hand over his eyes and looked up at Isaac. “You got time to sit a while and watch the guys show off like there are girls watching?”
“Nah,” Isaac said. “Sam’ll be out there for hours. I’ve got stuff to do.”
Isaac caught the flash of Nate’s sharp smile.
“Or someone to do?” Nate asked.
Glen chuckled. “Ah, the sex of the newly engaged. Nothing like it. Except, perhaps, the sex of the newly wed.”
“Or the sex with your hot baby-carrying wife,” Nate added.
Isaac rolled his eyes. “Tell me again why the six of us are out here getting water up our noses and sand in our ass cracks when we could be home in bed with our women?”
“Damn,” said Glen. “And I thought I was supposed to be the smart one of the group.”
Nate rose to his feet and clapped Isaac on the shoulder. “You make a bloody good point, mate.” He turned toward the water, stuck two fingers in his mouth, and whistled. Then he waved a get the hell in here arm to the three surfers.
Out beyond the breakers, Sam returned the gesture with a middle finger before paddling to catch the next wave.
“You want to leave those guys to it?” Nate asked. “I’ll give you a lift back home and Sam can drive your truck back later.”
“Yeah. Let’s hit the road,” Isaac said.
Fifteen minutes later, Isaac had stowed his board in the garage and hit the shower to scrub off the sand and salt. He wrapped a towel around his hips and headed to the kitchen.
“Morena,” he said to Olivia, who sat dressed in her sports kit already, yawning at the breakfast bar, one finger swiping down her ever-present phone.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You promised to take me surfing, remember?”
He lifted an eyebrow at her, then collected two cups and crossed over to the coffee machine. “You wanna get up at six on Saturday morning for a surf lesson, and then go to practice at eight?”
She huffed out a painstaking trying to be patient sigh. “Practice doesn’t start until eight thirty.”
He sent her a sharp grin. “Not anymore.”
“Mrs. Crawford should never have offered you a permanent part-time coaching position,” Olivia said with a hair toss that was so much like her mum’s it made Isaac grin harder. “You’re obviously power-tripping on it.”
“Like, totally,” Isaac teased in a falsetto voice.
Olivia giggled. “You’re so embarrassing, Isaac.”
“Embarrassing, but ready to whip you girls into shape in forty minutes’ time on the field.”
“Whatever.”
Olivia ducked her head, but not before Isaac caught a glimpse of her smile and a conspiring sideways glance.
“Mum’s gone back to sleep,” she added. “I heard her snoring when I got up.”
“I’d keep that little bit of information to yourself if I were you.” Isaac finished making the second coffee and set it on the saucer next to the first. “I’ll go wake her up, eh? Coffee and then we’ll pour her into her shorts and T-shirt ready to go.”
“’Kay.” She hesitated for a moment. “Isaac?”
“Yeah?”
“How many bedrooms is the new house gonna have?”
As an early wedding present, Isaac’s parents had offered him and Natalie a section of family land on the farm. Situated on a low rise, it had an incredible view over Bounty Bay and would be perfect for building a big, sprawling house. A new start for the three of them.
Isaac left the coffees on the countertop and came over to lean against the breakfast bar. “How many do you think we should have?”
Olivia flicked her gaze to the ceiling and counted on her fingers. “One for you guys, a big bedroom with an en suite for me, a couple of guest rooms so we can have friends to stay…” She paused, dropping her gaze to his face, her eyes crinkling with mischief. “And probably another two or three bedrooms for my future brothers and sisters.”
“That’s a helluva big house,” Isaac said. But his heart gave a huge galloping stride in his chest at the thought of Nat carrying their child. “I hope you really haven’t got designs on playing for the Black Ferns since you’ll be spending all your spare time cleaning this big house, plus changing dirty nappies and babysitting.”
“Eh,” Olivia said with a shrug. “We’ve got plenty of friends and whānau to help with that.”
Isaac squeezed her arm. “We have at that. Better go and deliver your mum’s first caffeine shot for the day.”
He picked up the two cups and carried them down the hall toward his and Nat’s bedroom. Their bedroom. She and Olivia had moved in with him a couple of weeks after they got engaged. They liked to pretend it was at Olivia’s insistence, saying Isaac’s house was “awesome and had faster Wi-Fi and a bigger bedroom for me” but the truth was neither Nat nor Isaac could stand to spare another moment apart.
He nudged the bedroom door open with his foot and stepped into the room. Sunlight sneaked through a crack in the drapes and cut a swath to his big bed where Natalie had rolled over from her side to his, her face buried in his pillow.
Isaac set the coffees on her nightstand and crawled into bed beside her, wrapping his body around hers. She sighed, nestling her bottom against his hips and pulling his arm tighter across her body and holding it there. He pressed his lips to the curve of her shoulder and closed his eyes, letting the steady beat of his heart, once damaged beyond repair, beat only for her.
“I love you, tahu,” he whispered.
“Wuv you, too,” came her muffled reply.
He smiled so hard he thought his face would crack from the force of happiness bubbling through his veins.
This.
This life of surfing with his mates, training with his girls, Sunday lunches with his family, and a woman whom he loved more t
han he loved anyone in the world—this was sweet. Sweet as, as the Kiwi saying went. Any chaos in his world became ordered and so simple when he was with Natalie.
He was hers. She was his.
Mō āke tonu atu. Forever and a day.
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