“Thanks, buddy. How about if we go to the library after this, guys, let your dad rest?”
“Need a little time in the spa,” Finn admitted.
“Can we come in with you?” Harry asked.
“For a bit,” he agreed. “Help Jenna first, both of you, then get your togs on. Jenna, you go on and do your run once you’re done here, if you like, before the library. I’ll be around anyway.”
“Thanks. I’ve missed a couple days.”
“Thought so. School holidays make it tough. You need to ring Nyree’s cousin, set something up for next week. She can come in and help out a couple days, give you a break.”
“Miriam’s nice,” Harry said, carefully putting the carton of eggs back into the fridge. “Not as nice as you, though, Jenna.”
“Don’t tell Miriam that, when she comes,” Finn admonished his son. “You’ll hurt her feelings.”
* * *
“Well. Wasn’t that fun?” Ashley asked brightly as Finn finished the last bite and set his napkin on the table. “I enjoy cooking so much.”
Finn couldn’t suppress a little smile. Ashley’s cooking was definitely on the low-calorie side, which his children had been decidedly unenthusiastic about. Almost as unenthusiastic, he admitted, as he was himself. Skinless, boneless chicken breasts, a green salad, and steamed broccoli had obviously done yeoman service in maintaining Ashley’s slim figure, but he found himself hoping that there was still some of Jenna’s lamb and roasted vegies in the fridge for a late-night snack. And maybe the vanilla slice she’d made the other day for pudding. He thought there was a bit of that left.
“Thank you, Ashley. That was delicious,” he told her. He fixed his children with his best reminding stare until they echoed his thanks. “Let’s all help clean up. Get it done quicker,” he suggested.
“Can’t we leave it for … Jane?” Ashley asked. “Isn’t she the housekeeper?”
“Jenna,” Finn corrected with a frown. “And it’s her day off tomorrow.”
“Right.” Ashley sighed. “Though I don’t understand the point of hiring help if they won’t, you know, help you. Surely she could do a bit of washing-up before she started her day off.”
“Jenna helps all the time,” Harry said, outraged. “She cooks, and she washes up, and she washes our clothes.”
“And she takes us to school, and drives us,” Sophie added, springing to Jenna’s defense in her turn. “And helps with homework, and everything.”
“Well, since Jenna helps us so much,” Finn pointed out, anxious to placate an increasingly ruffled-looking Ashley, “Let’s help her by doing the washing-up, eh.”
He looked around in shock upon entering the kitchen. The family normally ate at the table set at one end of the big room, but Ashley had insisted on setting an elegant dining room table, including tablecloth and candles. And had excluded him from the kitchen while she “worked her magic.” If “magic” meant “destruction,” she’d worked it, right enough. Every utensil and pan she had used was scattered around, and the stovetop and benches were a sticky mess. How had she managed all this, with her limited menu?
“Right,” he decided. “If you kids can clear the plates, we’ll get started here.”
* * *
Jenna shivered as she ran the last couple blocks from the bus stop. She’d enjoyed her evening out with Natalie, but the rain had started in earnest after the movie had let out. She hadn’t wanted to come back in the middle of the evening, try to steal off to her own room without the kids seeing her. It was after eleven now, though. She was tired and wet, and ready to be home.
She used her key to enter the quiet house, slipped off her soaked boots and coat in the entryway. Finn appeared in the doorway to the lounge, frowning at the sight of her dripping hair. His eyes traveled down to the wet jersey clinging to her body, lingered there for a moment before he brought them hurriedly back up to her face again.
“Forget your umbrella?”
“Blew inside out in the middle of Queen Street,” she told him ruefully. She was surprised to see Ashley appear and slip an arm through Finn’s.
“Don’t let me disturb you,” Jenna told the two of them. “I’m headed to bed anyway, once I wring myself out.”
“I was a bit concerned about you when it started raining so hard,” Finn said. “Next time, you should take a car.”
“I was fine,” she assured him, seeing the impatience on Ashley’s face. “Off to bed now, though. Nice to see you again, Ashley.”
The other woman nodded briefly. “Come on, darling,” she urged, taking Finn’s hand to pull him back into the lounge.
He gave one last look over his shoulder at Jenna, then let Ashley lead him off.
* * *
“Jenna!” Harry called out, coming in the front door late the following morning. “Are you home?”
“Jenna’s day off.” Finn pulled his son back when he would have dashed ahead. “If she’s here, we need to leave her alone. You can say hello. But then we’re having Dad Time.”
“Jenna!” Harry called out as he ran. “We went to the museum! We saw the moa again! And cockroaches! They were really alive!”
Finn caught up with Harry at the kitchen doorway, then stopped at the sight of Jenna on her knees, halfway inside the oven, the racks leaning against the wall next to her. “What are you doing?”
“Oh.” She shrugged, backing out and pushing her hair back with one rubber-gloved hand. “Just taking care of a spill.”
“The oven.” Finn exchanged a glance with Sophie. “We didn’t think of that.”
“Ashley’s messy,” Sophie explained. “We tried to clean up. But we forgot about the oven.”
“Why are you cleaning it, though?” Finn asked.
“I didn’t want to leave it till tomorrow,” Jenna explained. “As soon as anyone turned the oven on, that spill would’ve become even harder to get off. I wish New Zealand had entered the Age of the Self-Cleaning Oven, but I’ve never even seen one here.”
“Why didn’t you wait for me, or leave a note?” Finn demanded. “I’d have cleaned it. Would’ve cleaned it last night, except I didn’t realize Ashley’d managed to … that there’d been a spill.”
“All right,” Jenna said, surprised but agreeable. “I’m letting you know now. Finn, there’s a bad spill in the oven.” She stripped off her rubber gloves and slapped them into his palm with a smile. “Be my guest.”
He laughed. “That’s told me.”
“Since I’m a lady of leisure, then,” Jenna said to Harry, “I’m going to make a cup of tea and ask about the museum. You guys saw live cockroaches? That sounds very interesting.”
“Very disgusting, is what it was,” Finn said. “A whole colony of them. These gloves are useless. I can’t even get them on.”
Jenna looked over and laughed at the sight of him trying to force the gloves over his huge hands. “I don’t think they make them in Rugby Forward Size. And that cleaner is caustic. Let me finish wiping it out, then you can do the rest, once I’ve got rid of the bad stuff.” She took the gloves from him again, put them on, and dove into the oven once more.
“Jenna, you know what?” Harry said from behind her. “You have a bottom like a wombat!”
Jenna nearly hit her head on the oven ceiling as she pulled it out and sat back on her heels. “What?” she asked, staring at Harry.
“Harry!” Finn barked at his son. “That was dead rude. Apologize to Jenna.”
“Sorry, Jenna,” Harry said, his lip trembling at his father’s tone. “I didn’t know I shouldn’t say.”
“I forgive you,” Jenna told him. “But it isn’t polite to talk to ladies about their bottoms. It isn’t polite to say things about how people look anyway, unless you’re saying something very nice, like, ‘Your dress is pretty.’”
“But I am saying something very nice,” Harry argued, anxious to explain himself. “Wombats have special bottoms. Their bottoms are their superpowers! Remember, Sophie?” he appealed to his sister. “When
Dad took us to Aussie, and we saw them?”
“Hmm? Yeh,” Sophie agreed, looking up from her book. “They looked funny, I thought.”
“You see, Jenna,” Harry went on earnestly, “wombats dig tunnels. They have very powerful legs for digging. And if a dingo comes to try to get into the tunnel, the wombat can back up. It blocks the tunnel with its bottom. The dingo tries to get its face around the wombat. Then the wombat squeezes with its bottom, and it squishes the dingo!”
“Ah,” Jenna said, trying not to laugh. “Superpower bottoms. I see.”
“Even though wombat bottoms may be nice,” Finn put in, a smile attempting to escape his own stern expression, “we still don’t talk about ladies’ bottoms. Not ever.”
“Sorry, Jenna,” Harry said again, looking worried. “Are you angry?”
Jenna reached out to give him a hug, then remembered the rubber gloves. “No. Of course not. Your dad told you, and now you know.” She turned back to the oven again, then stopped. It had been kind of funny, but she wasn’t about to offer Finn another view of her Wombat Bottom.
“Ah …” she looked around. “Why don’t you let me finish up in here? The fumes,” she realized with relief. “I’ll come tell you, Finn, when I’ve got most of the oven cleaner wiped out and you can get in there with the elbow grease.”
“Course. Let’s go,” he told the kids. “Leave Jenna to get on with it.”
He didn’t know much about wombats, Finn thought as he shepherded Harry and Sophie out of the kitchen. He knew a thing or two about ladies’ bottoms, though. Jenna’s may or may not have been able to squish a dingo’s face. But it definitely had some superpowers.
An Elephant Never Forgets
“Explain this loose forward thing to me,” Jenna told Sophie as they watched the telecast of the Blues’ game against the Brumbies in Canberra on Saturday evening. “Why are they loose?”
“We have to wait for a scrum,” Sophie said. “Then I’ll explain.”
A few minutes later, she got her chance. “OK,” she said. “The Brumbies just knocked on, and now our team gets a scrum. Look at how the forwards are lined up. The tight five, the first rowers and the ones just behind them, see how they’re hanging on to each other? That’s why they’re tight. The six and seven in the second row, they’re pushing too, but they’re at the edges. That’s why they’re loosies.”
“I get it. And your dad’s at the back. He’s pushing too. But he’s not … attached. So he’s loose too.”
“Right. He’s a forward, but he kind of works between the forwards and the backs. He works in the scrum and the ruck, and he jumps during the lineouts too. Because he’s so tall,” Sophie said proudly. “But he carries the ball as well. And he’ll help get it to the backs so they can run with it. Daddy has to be strong and fast. He has to understand the game plan, too, and what the other team’s likely to do. He has to study heaps.”
Sophie leaned forward as Finn delivered the ball and the group of backs began to run and pass, working toward the Brumbies try line. “Come on,” she urged. “Go.” She leaped up as the ball carrier went to the ground. “High tackle!” she shouted angrily. “Get him, Dad!”
She was jumping up and down now in her excitement, and Harry looked up from the puzzle he was working on. Jenna watched in confusion as Finn waded through the ruck to grab a Brumbies player by the jersey, pull him roughly to his feet. She could see Finn’s mouth working as he held on, shoving the other man, pushing him back. Several other Blues pulled Finn off, held him as the trainer ran onto the field with his medical bag.
“Wait, wait. What’s going on?” Jenna asked. She watched with relief as the injured player got up with the trainer’s help and walked to the sideline, and the referee held up a yellow card.
“Sent off,” Sophie said with satisfaction as play resumed and Harry went back to his puzzle, unimpressed. “Did you see how that player wrapped his arm around Koti James’s neck when he tackled him? That’s a high tackle. It can be really dangerous. That’s why the ref sinbinned him.”
“But what was your dad doing in there?” Jenna asked.
“I told you,” Sophie replied matter-of-factly. “He’s the hard man.”
“He fights?” Jenna asked, appalled.
“Not fights,” Sophie said. “He didn’t punch him. Then he would’ve been sent off. But if somebody needs sorting, Daddy’ll do it.”
“He doesn’t need to do that, surely,” Jenna protested. “That guy got sent off anyway. He got penalized for what he did.”
Sophie looked at her pityingly. “The ref doesn’t always see. But Daddy always does.”
“Oh. Wow,” Jenna said blankly. “Hard man. Got it.”
* * *
“Wish we didn’t have to go back to school tomorrow,” Sophie sighed the next morning over breakfast. “This holidays was too short.”
“Sounds like we’d better do something fun today, then,” Jenna said. “We’re not going to mope around all day thinking about it.”
“Dad’s coming home from Aussie, though,” Sophie said dubiously.
“Not till later this afternoon,” Jenna reminded her. “I know. We’ll go to Parakai Springs. I’ve been wanting to take you two there anyway. Today sounds like the perfect time.”
“What’s that?” Harry asked.
“A great big thermal pool,” Jenna explained. “Thermal means that the water’s heated by geothermal forces under the earth. The same kind of forces that produce volcanoes. What we saw in the museum, remember?”
“Yeh. Because the lava comes up between the plates,” Harry said.
“That’s it. You know how hot lava is, so you can see why it warms up the water. And it isn’t only warm water. They have water slides and a fountain, too, that you can play in. Your dad said that you two swim pretty well. I’d like to see that for myself.”
“Isn’t it too cold for swimming?” Sophie wondered.
“Nope. It’s just right. The warm water is going to feel so good. Go on and find your togs and jandals, and I’ll get some towels and snacks for us.”
“What if Daddy comes home and we aren’t here, though?” Sophie worried again when she came back into the kitchen holding her swimming costume and flip-flops.
“I’ve written him a note,” Jenna promised. “Telling him where we are, and that we’ll be back soon.”
* * *
“Swim to me,” Jenna encouraged Harry as Sophie watched. “You’re doing great.”
“Dad!” Sophie cried, launching herself through the water. Harry reached Jenna, looked up, and was hard on his sister’s heels.
Jenna turned in surprise to see Finn wading across the pool, picking up a child in each arm along the way.
Wow. That was the only word that came to mind. Despite their close quarters, she’d never seen him this closely without his shirt before. There was a lot of chest and shoulder there. A whole lot. He held both children easily, biceps and forearms bulging with their weight, thighs flexing beneath his swim trunks as he moved through the water. Once he reached her, though, her attention shifted to the liberal pattern of bruises and scrapes showing clearly even through the light furring of hair on arms and chest.
“Hi.” He set the kids down, watched them heading for the side of the pool and hopping out again. “Thought I’d join you. Bit cold for swimming, isn’t it?”
“Maybe for you and me,” she said. “But the kids are moving around so much, they’re fine. They needed to get out, and I thought you’d be home later. Were you upset not to find us there when you got in?”
“Nah. I got an earlier flight. No worries.”
“Watch me, Dad!” Harry called from the top of a slide.
“Watching,” Finn called back. He glanced at Jenna again, then looked away and cleared his throat. “Are you sure that costume is … right for you? For here, I mean.”
“What?” Jenna stared at him, then turned back hastily to check on the kids. “Sophie! Walk walk walk.”
Even as sh
e called out, she felt the slow burn starting. “Sorry I don’t look like Ashley,” she snapped, anger and humiliation warring for pride of place within her. She pushed the humiliation aside, focused on the anger. “This is how a real woman looks, one who actually eats and has a normal body type. You don’t have any right to criticize my costume, or my body. I don’t get paid enough to put up with that.”
She moved away from him. “Come on, Harry. Show me your crawl. Swim to me.”
“Hang on,” Finn protested. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Did you see me, Dad?” Harry asked eagerly. “Were you watching me swim?”
“Well done, mate,” Finn told him. “Can you swim back?”
He waited a moment, watched Harry make his way back to the edge of the pool. “Aw, geez,” he told Jenna. “Did you think I was saying you were fat?”
“Of course I did. Because that’s exactly what you were saying.”
“Nah. It wasn’t. Not at all.”
“What, then?” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him suspiciously.
He gestured at her bikini top and the boy short-style bottoms. “It’s a bit sexy, isn’t it?”
She looked down at herself. “This? Next to all these teenage girls in their tiny bikinis? I don’t think so. Nobody’s looking at me.”
“You’re joking. It’s … the way you fill it out. You must know that. Look at that poor bloke.” He gestured in the direction of the teenage lifeguard. “Hope nobody drowns anytime soon, because he’s bloody useless, the way he’s staring at you. If he has to get down off that stand, he’s going to embarrass himself.”
“Really?” She turned to look, gave the boy a wave, watched him turn hastily away. “Wow. Cool. Although actually, you know, he’s probably a rugby fan, looking at you.”
Finn laughed. “Trust me. He wasn’t looking at me. I don’t have what he likes. And you do. So much of it, too.”
“Again, inappropriate. Not as bad as I originally thought,” she admitted. “But still. And I’m not going to wear some matronly one-piece with a skirt, just because you think I have too much …” She broke off.
“Too much going on,” he said helpfully. “No, not too much,” he corrected. “Just … so much. You’re right, though. Stupid thing to say, and I shouldn’t be talking to you about it anyway. I never realized, that’s all. You wear your clothes so loose.”
Christmas Down Under: Six Sexy New Zealand & Australian Christmas Romances Page 56
