Just for Now: Escape to New Zealand Book Three

by Rosalind James

  Just For Now

  By Rosalind James

  Text copyright 2012 Rosalind James

  All Rights Reserved

  Author’s Note

  The Blues and the All Blacks are actual rugby teams. I have attempted to depict the illustrious history of the All Blacks in an accurate manner. Sadly, however, the characters in this book exist only in my own mind, and are not intended to resemble or represent any actual individuals, living or dead.

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note

  Table of Contents

  New Zealand Map

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  The Recipes

  A Kiwi Glossary

  Links

  Just for Fun—Chapter 1

  New Zealand Map

  Prologue

  Well, that had been a waste of an hour.

  Jenna switched her car off in the underground garage, then reached into the back seat to pull out the large messenger bag holding her student files. If she’d seen Richard’s text before setting out, she’d have realized the meeting had been canceled and could have saved herself the trip. Oh, well. It was still only seven forty-five. Plenty of time to bake some cookies to take into the teachers’ lounge tomorrow.

  By the time she entered the black-and-white-tiled foyer of the modern flat overlooking Wellington Harbour, she had added a bread pudding to the list. That would give her a jump on tomorrow night’s dinner. Jeremy wouldn’t eat it, of course. He was watching his diet more carefully than ever these days, and spending more time in the gym too. But it was one of her own favorites. And it was just bread, eggs, and milk, right? That was healthy, surely.

  “I’m home!” she called. That was odd. Jeremy hadn’t said he was going out. She dumped her purse and bag and made her way to the back of the flat. Maybe he’d gone to bed early. He’d seemed a little quiet earlier that evening, and she’d wondered if he were under the weather.

  She got as far as the bedroom doorway. And froze. She saw the two figures on the bed, but her mind refused to acknowledge the truth of the scene unfolding so clearly before her. She stood rigid, mouth half-open in shock. Until Jeremy looked up and froze himself.

  “Jenna. What . . . why are you home?” He scrambled to his feet, grabbed a shirt from the floor and held it pathetically, ridiculously, in front of himself.

  Jenna held her hands out in front of her, backed away. “Sorry. Sorry. I’m just . . . I’ll . . . I’m going.”

  She ran down the hall, back to the foyer. Grabbed up her bags again, looked around wildly for her keys. Why weren’t they on the hook? She needed her keys. She needed to leave.

  Jeremy hurried down the hall towards her. He’d managed to pull his pants on, was struggling to zip them as he ran. “Wait, Jenna. I can explain. Hang on.”

  Her keys were in her hand, she realized through her fog of panic. Purse. Bag. Keys. Out the door. She stood in the passage, punching the button for the lift. Jeremy was there with her now, still barechested, reaching for her arm.

  “Don’t leave. We need to talk about this. Jenna, come on. You must have known.”

  She stared at him. “No. No.”

  Finally, blessedly, the ding that announced the arriving lift. And the brushed steel doors sliding smoothly open, letting her in. Letting her escape.

  Chapter 1

  Twenty months later

  “I like your dog.”

  Jenna looked down at the little boy, short blond hair rising in a comical double cowlick, blue eyes bright behind steel-framed glasses, who had come up to join her. “He’s nice, isn’t he? Do you want to throw the ball for him?”

  “Yeh,” he breathed. “Will he chase it?”

  “That’s his very favorite thing,” she assured him. “Oscar! Come!” The Golden Retriever bounded over from where he’d been distracted by a friendly Labrador.

  “Sit,” she told Oscar firmly, before handing the ball to the boy. “Here you go. It’s a little slobbery. But if you don’t mind that, give it a throw.”

  The boy laughed with delight as the dog twisted to catch the ball in mid-air, then bounded back with it, dropping it at his feet.

  “Throw it again, if you like,” Jenna urged. “He’ll do it over and over. He loves it.”

  “That’s because he’s a retriever,” the boy told her knowledgeably as he gave the ball another awkward toss. “That’s his job.”

  “You’re right. You know about dogs, huh? Do you have one yourself?”

  “Nah,” he said sadly. “Dad says Nyree has enough to do. And he says I’m not old enough to be responsible. I am, though. I’d be very responsible.”

  “So you’re just here looking at the dogs today?”

  He nodded, threw the ball again for an eager Oscar. “Nyree said a few minutes.” He looked up as a comfortably built Maori woman approached, together with a girl who looked to be seven or eight.

  “Can I stay a bit longer?” he pleaded. “I’m throwing the ball. And Oscar likes it. He wants me to throw it.”

  “Time to go,” the woman said. “Sophie’s not as keen on watching the dogs as you are. Not fair to keep her hanging about any longer. Besides, you want to climb to the top, don’t you?”

  “Yeh, I s’pose,” he said reluctantly.

  “Hi.” Jenna put her hand out to the other woman. “I’m Jenna McKnight. You must be Nyree.”

  The older woman smiled. “Nyree Akara. Harry and Sophie’s nanny.”

  “I’m guessing you’re not Harry,” Jenna said to the little girl, her brown hair touching her shoulders, large brown eyes serious in her heart-shaped face. “So that leaves Sophie.”

  “Hello,” Sophie said, shaking Jenna’s hand politely in her turn. “Harry’s my brother.”

  “The dog lover. Oscar and I need to go too. We’ll walk out with you.”

  “He isn’t actually my dog either,” Jenna confessed as she attached Oscar’s lead and accompanied the others out of the fenced area. “I’m just like you, Harry. I’d love to have a dog, but I can’t manage one right now. Your dad’s right, it’s a big responsibility. So I borrowed a friend’s today. Thanks for helping me give him some exercise.”

  She smiled at the group and said her goodbyes, then began to jog down the road. It was a four-kilometer run back to Natalie’s flat, and she’d told Nat’s neighbor Eileen that she’d have Oscar back by five.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Jenna said that evening over the quick dinner she’d prepared for her friend. “I was planning to look for another café job. But I don’t know. I really miss working with kids.”

  “Hard to find a post in the middle of the school year,” Natalie pointed out.

  “I know. But I might at least check out possibilities in Au
ckland for next year. And maybe look into substitute positions for now. Because I do like it here.”

  “What I told you,” Natalie agreed. “Much warmer than Wellington. Less windy, too. You need a change anyway. More of a change. You’ve already done the physical bit. I was gobsmacked when I first saw you. I’d hardly have known you.”

  Jenna shrugged. “The Divorce Diet. That’s what they call it. A decidedly mixed blessing.”

  “It wasn’t just the dieting, though,” Natalie said. “It was more the running, I’m thinking. What made you start with that? Last thing I would’ve expected from you.”

  “It was after you moved up here,” Jenna explained. “After the separation. It wasn’t part of any grand life plan. More running away, really. Literally. I’d leave school and I’d think, go home and sit watching telly with my flatmate, or get out? And I had to get out. The worse my life looked, the more I ran. And the more I ran, the more I liked it. It made it easier to eat better. And then I started to look different, and . . .” She shrugged. “It was like there was this one thing that was actually improving. My life was a mess, but hey, something was working.”

  “Maybe I should give it a go, d’you reckon?”

  “What, running? Or getting your heart broken?” Jenna smiled wryly. “I recommend the first. But I can’t say much for the heartbreak thing.”

  “Jenna!”

  She turned, Oscar on the lead this time, to see Harry running up the final bit of the path to the observation area at the edge of the enormous volcanic crater that was Mt. Eden. Nyree puffed up the slope after him with Sophie following behind, dribbling a soccer ball.

  “Hi, Oscar!” Harry thumped a willing Oscar vigorously on the shoulder, then laughed as the dog swiped a tongue over his cheek in welcome. “He remembers me!”

  “He sure does. You’re his friend for life, now that you’ve thrown the ball for him. You guys are playing soccer today, huh?”

  “Just Sophie,” Harry said dismissively. “Nyree kicks it with her, not me.”

  “I see that,” Jenna watched Sophie execute an intricate dribble, followed by an accurate kick to Nyree, who trapped it neatly with a foot and sent it cleanly back to the little girl. “You don’t like soccer?”

  “Nah. It’s boring. I like animals best. D’you like animals too? Besides dogs?”

  “I do. All kinds. Even extinct ones. How do you feel about dinosaurs? They’re some of my favorites.”

  Harry stared at her, awestruck. “I love dinosaurs,” he breathed. “But there are hardly any dinosaur fossils in New Zealand, did you know that?” He sighed. “I saw a bit of a foot in the museum once. But that was all.”

  “That is a little disappointing. On the other hand, New Zealand was the only place that had moa. And moa were very cool. It’s hard to imagine a bird that big, isn’t it? Twice as tall as an emu. Have you seen emu?”

  “Yeh,” he brightened. “Dad took us to Aussie, and we saw heaps. Sweet as. I wish the moa hadn’t all died off, though. I wish I could see one.”

  “You’ve seen the models they have in the Auckland Museum, I’ll bet,” Jenna guessed. “I like to imagine walking around here when it was still native bush and meeting one. That would’ve been a bit of a surprise, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t even have come up past the top of its legs.”

  “Yeh! And imagine if you saw a Haast’s Eagle attacking a moa!”

  “I’d want to hide, if I saw that,” Jenna said. “That would be pretty scary. I’d be worried it would carry me away.”

  She stopped to greet Sophie and Nyree as they approached. “You’re a pretty good soccer player,” she told Nyree admiringly. “You must have played at school.”

  “And practiced with my own kids, when they were growing up,” Nyree said. “I’m too old and fat to run anymore. But as long as Sophie kicks it to me, I can send it back to her.”

  “That’s good,” Sophie told Jenna seriously. “I have to practice my accuracy. And Nyree helps.”

  “Sophie practices all the time,” Harry complained. “We have a goal set up in the garden at home. All she ever wants to do is practice kicking, and read. Bor-ring.”

  “I’ll bet when you learn to read, you’ll be doing it a fair bit yourself,” Jenna suggested. “There’s so much cool stuff to find out about. Are you Year One?”

  Harry nodded. “I haven’t learnt to read yet, though.” He gave another gusty sigh. “I thought we were meant to learn in Year One. But all I can read are little words. And baby books.”

  “You have to keep trying,” Sophie said. “I told you that. It’s just like soccer and footy. Like Dad says. You have to practice hard to get better.”

  “Can you play soccer?” she asked Jenna. “Because you can run. I saw. Can you practice with me?”

  “I can try,” Jenna said doubtfully. “Do you and Harry mind holding Oscar?” she asked Nyree.

  “We’ll take him to the dog area, let Harry throw his ball,” Nyree said. “There’s a bit of an open area near there where you can kick the ball till you’ve worn this girl out, if you really don’t mind. Then come find us.”

  Jenna did her best, but her inaccurate kicks kept Sophie running, while her inept stops had her scrambling after the ball herself. She called a laughing halt after fifteen sweaty minutes.

  “I don’t think this is my game,” she apologized to Sophie. “I’m afraid you’re the one wearing me out. Let’s go rescue Nyree from the dog park, all right?”

  “You tried hard, though,” Sophie said encouragingly, finally displaying her seven-year-old gap-toothed smile.

  Jenna laughed. “That’s very nice of you. But I think you’d better stick to practicing with Nyree.”

  “Jenna! Oscar comes when I call him!” Harry told her excitedly when they joined the others inside the dog park. “Watch this!”

  “You’re a Dog Whisperer, that’s for sure,” Jenna told him approvingly as Oscar came running at Harry’s enthusiastic shout. “Someday you’re going to be a really good dog owner. What kind of dog do you want, have you thought? A retriever, like this?”

  “Nah,” Harry said confidently. “I want a plain dog. Loads of dogs get killed, did you know that? Because there aren’t enough homes for all of them. I think that’s sad, don’t you?”

  “I think it’s very sad,” Jenna agreed. “And it’s wonderful to adopt a dog from a shelter.”

  “Maybe when I get it, I can walk it with you and Oscar,” Harry suggested.

  “Hmm. We’ll see. For right now, though, why don’t you give Oscar’s ball one more good toss? Then I need to be getting him back to his owner.”

  Chapter 2

  Jenna put a hand up to her auburn hair and verified her suspicions. Her carefully blow-dried waves had become corkscrew curls, even under the shelter of her umbrella. So much for a polished, professional appearance. Giving herself a time cushion had meant walking in the rain for twenty minutes before the appointment, but she hadn’t wanted to risk a late arrival.

  She looked up at the imposing villa set against the hillside of the Mt. Eden Domain, squared her shoulders, and made her way through the wooden gate set into the stone wall and up the front steps to the polished wood door. She reminded herself that the job was a long shot. But she couldn’t help being excited. When she’d seen the ad, it had seemed tailor-made for her. The six-month post as a nanny and housekeeper would end in mid-December, giving her a chance to get settled before the new school year started at the end of January. It was live-in, which meant she wouldn’t have to find a place here in Auckland right away, and could save most of her salary as well. She’d enjoyed staying with Natalie for the past couple weeks and catching up on their friendship, but she needed to move on before she wore out her welcome.

  “Hello,” she smiled up at the tall man who answered the door at her ring. “Mr. Douglas? I’m Jenna McKnight. I think you’re expecting me.”

  “Come in. And call me Finn, please.” He took her umbrella from her with a raised brow. “You got pret
ty wet. Couldn’t you find a parking space?”

  “No car. Shoes off?” she asked, glancing at his stockinged feet.

  “If you don’t mind,” he agreed, and watched as she bent to pull off her boots. “You’ve learnt Kiwi ways, obviously.”

  “I’m a permanent resident, actually. I may not sound like it, but I am pretty much a Kiwi at this point.”

  “You do know that this job involves driving,” he commented as he led the way into a spacious lounge, its original rimu flooring polished to a high russet gloss and covered by a large Oriental carpet.

  “I can drive,” she assured him. “And I have a clean record.”

  “Yeh,” he said absently, gesturing her to a seat on the big leather couch and picking up her CV with a frown. “You have good qualifications. Six years teaching Year One. You’re not . . . exactly what I was hoping for, though. This is a temporary job, but it’s a serious one. You’d have a couple days off each week, but otherwise you’d be here with the kids. Twenty-four hours a day some of the time, though there’s additional help you could call in. I travel a fair bit, as I’m sure you know.”

  “Did you say that on the phone? I don’t recall that. But of course it’s a serious job. It’s taking care of your children, after all, and that’s serious business. I wouldn’t have applied if I hadn’t been prepared to do that.” He didn’t seem to be warming to her. Was it the hair? She put her hand up to it again, then pulled it away quickly. Tried to project more calm than she was feeling.

  “You don’t know who I am.” It was a statement, accompanied by a piercing stare from his light blue eyes.

  “Should I know? Are you an actor or something?” She looked at him doubtfully. He was certainly striking, with his height and powerful build, but his features were much too rough-hewn to be called handsome. And that gravelly voice—he could play villains, she supposed. He must have some kind of lucrative career, anyway, to be able to afford this house, in its exclusive neighborhood. He looked young to be a successful businessperson—early thirties, maybe.