She took the baby from Koti’s arms. “You’re going to be toast,” she told him.
He grinned. “Pushed around by strong women. It’s my curse.”
So there he was, Hugh thought as he did the fifteen-minute drive down the North Shore to Devonport after a grand total of two and a half beers over four hours, two sleepy kids in the back seat, barely nine-thirty and his evening, such as it was, over, and what lay ahead not looking much better.
He’d go to training with the others for the bare week they’d put in before the squad left for Europe, offer what help he could, and then they’d be gone, and he’d be spending an unaccustomed and most unwelcome November in New Zealand. The team, some team, anyway, had been his real family for his entire adult life, and missing a tour, particularly such an important one, being left behind, was going to leave a hole that he didn’t want to examine and didn’t know how to fill.
He knew how he wasn’t filling it, anyway, and if this were going to be his life, he might as well be married after all. Will was right, it was hard to imagine one woman for the rest of it, but at least he might get lucky now and again. Because unless somebody actually came to his door and invited him to have it off with her then and there, or had her way with him in the vegie aisle of New World, it didn’t look like happening. How did single dads do it?
He needed a babysitter, that was all. Then he could try chatting up Chloe again after Amelia’s next lesson, invite her for a drink. Or a coffee first, maybe. Take it slow like Finn had said, loosen up a bit of that reserve. If he still remembered how to be charming, which he doubted. He wasn’t feeling too charming. He was feeling decidedly grumpy, what with the injury, the kids, and the lack of sleep. Not to mention the lack of sex.
Yeh, a babysitter would help, he thought with more optimism. Maybe the mysterious Josie. Soft, jolly, and Charlie’s kind of woman? She’d do.
His more cheerful mood was immediately put to the test when his mum called the next morning and he was forced to explain his new circumstances to her.
“What?” she asked, the outrage coming straight through the phone. “How could she possibly expect that of you?”
“Well, she has a point.” And here he was, in the middle once again. He stepped out onto the patio so the kids wouldn’t hear, because he had a feeling this was a conversation that wouldn’t do Charlie any good at all. “She has been here doing this for eighteen months, and she probably does need a break.”
His mum snorted. “A break from what, I’d like to know. Some of us manage to raise children on our own while we work more than full-time, with a man who can barely be troubled to send a check, much less lend a hand or, God knows, get involved. And there she’s been, not a single thing in the world to do except look after two nearly-grown kids and a bit of housework and cooking, with you paying all the bills, and now even that’s too much to ask and she can just waltz off for three months, while your hand’s broken? It’s just so typical of that whole family to leave you holding the bag for everything, it makes my blood boil.”
“Mum,” he cautioned her. “This doesn’t help.”
She wasn’t listening, though. “I thought it was bad enough when you moved. What obligation did you have? How much was your dad there for you?”
“Not much,” he said. “Maybe that’s why I had to do it. And it hasn’t been so bad.”
“It hasn’t,” she said flatly. “Twenty-seven years old, your whole career, your whole future ahead of you, making a change that did nothing but set you back, sacrificing everything for a couple of kids who aren’t yours, who’ve barely been part of your life, because your dad couldn’t be bothered to have you around more than a couple weeks a year? Doing all that for the kids who had everything you didn’t?”
“If they did,” he said, “they don’t have it now.” He’d heard it all before, and it was more than time to shut it down. “And the other isn’t true either. The move’s given me a chance to make a real impact. I’ve got the opportunity here to help turn a team around. I believe in what we’re trying to do, and I’ll be in there playing my guts out to make it happen next season. That’ll be good for my career, no worries. There’s more to this game than winning the championship. There’s being a winner when you’re losing, too. And that’s what the All Blacks are for, anyway,” he said, trying to joke. “To give you more of those wins.”
She snorted. “And how’s that been going for you?”
“Grinding out the tough wins,” he said, “coming back strong from the losses, that builds a team too. We’re getting there, wait and see. You’re going to have to trust me on this one, Mum. I don’t need any sympathy, and I’m well suited where I am.” Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t, but whingeing about it to his mummy wasn’t going to help one bit.
“Do you want me to come up and help?” she asked.
“Uh . . .” That one took him by surprise. “Would you be able to?”
“Well,” she admitted, “it’d be tough. I just got a big commission to do a group of model homes, and they’re on a timetable. But I could do some juggling and carve out a few days, maybe even a week.”
“No,” he decided, “thanks anyway, but I’m here, they’re in school, and we’ll get through it, one way or another.” And he didn’t trust the way she’d treat the kids. She wouldn’t be unkind, no. She’d be brisk, and managing, and impatient. He wasn’t at all sure he knew what Charlie needed, but he could tell he didn’t need that. “It’ll be three months. May as well start as we mean to go on.”
“You could get a nanny,” she suggested. “Or even just a housekeeper.”
“There’s a cleaning service coming in already,” he said. “Every week, so that’s not too bad.”
She snorted. “Of course there is. Why am I not surprised? But still, darling. Hire a housekeeper, somebody to look after them. It’s not your job, and really, how fit are you to do it?”
He didn’t know if it was the assumption that he was incapable that aroused his admittedly fierce competitive instincts, or something deeper, but he found himself making a hundred-eighty-degree turn from his feelings of the night before. “No,” he said. “I’m pretty sure it’s better if I’m … well, here, at least, while Aunt Cora isn’t. And if they see that I am, too. We’re getting the hang of it, anyway. How hard could it be? But maybe I could bring them down at Christmas.”
“Oh, dear,” she said, and she did actually sound distressed. “I was planning to treat myself to a Samoa holiday this year, and I already booked it, leaving just before the holiday. Maybe just after that. I don’t have room for the kids here, as you know, but you all could do a hotel. Or you could come after Cora got back, give us a real chance to catch up.”
Without the kids, he didn’t need to hear. He couldn’t imagine them on her pristine white couches and cream carpets anyway. Every silk-covered cushion in its place, a disaster waiting to happen. The décor had been a bit more child-friendly when he’d been growing up, but the posh new City pied-a-terre she’d bought once her career had blossomed was anything but.
“All right, then,” he said. “We’ll plan on catching up after the holiday.”
“Call me if you need advice, though,” she hastened to say. “I’m always here for you.”
“Yeh,” he said. “Thanks. Talk to you soon.”
The Backside of a Bus
He was hearing music in his dream. A beautiful Maori woman wearing a flax dress was singing a waiata, bare shoulders and a delicious swell of breasts above the low neckline, appearing and disappearing coyly through the waves of rich, dark hair as she went through the movements of the dance. Her hips were swaying, her rounded arms were swinging the poi, making intricate patterns in the air to accompany her song. She was looking at him, lips curving, eyes beckoning him as she sang and moved so gracefully, yet with so much seductive purpose. It was a good dream.
And then the music changed, and she was singing, for some bizarre reason, “I’m Your Man,” by Wham!, and it jarred him out o
f sleep.
There really was a woman singing, he realized, and, yes, she was singing “I’m Your Man.” Why? His window was open, and it sounded like she was singing it in his ear. He struggled up in bed, shut the window, tried to go back to sleep and failed, because he could still hear her, and she wouldn’t shut up.
Bloody hell. Devonport, at—he glanced at the clock—five o’clock Monday morning. Of all the boring, decorous, ridiculously charming villages in New Zealand, he lived in the most boring, decorous, ridiculously charming one, and yet some drunken woman was singing in the street.
When it didn’t stop, when she went straight into “Waterloo,” a song he loathed with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns, and that he knew would now be stuck in his head all day, he swore aloud, threw the sheet back and swung his legs out of bed. He’d been sleeping in his boxer briefs, as usual, and he struggled to pull a gray T-shirt over his head with one hand, grabbed a pair of navy-blue rugby shorts and yanked them up, thought about jandals and his sling but decided not to bother, and left the room.
No sound from the kids. They were asleep in their lovely quiet rooms at the back of the house. Lucky them. He opened the front door, looked out. The street was empty, the dairy across the road still dark as well. But the singing was still going on, although fainter here, and he realized it was coming from the house next door. Mrs. Alberts’ house. Since when did Mrs. Alberts belt out bad eighties pop at five o’clock in the morning?
He hesitated, but he was annoyed now. The jet lag had got him again, that and the ache from his hand. He’d tossed and turned half the night, started worrying, despite his words to his mother, about how he was meant to cope with the kids until Aunt Cora came back, especially if Charlie was going to be so withdrawn and Amelia so downright snotty. Then he’d got onto what Luke Hoeata was going to be doing to contest the starting No. 7 spot while Hugh was out of it, and that had chased the sleep away for good, the troubles, as always, seeming insurmountable in the dark of night. He’d finally fallen into a deep sleep only what had felt like twenty minutes ago, and now he was awake because Mrs. Alberts had to sing?
He debated waiting until later, having a civil chat, but she wasn’t singing later, she was singing now, and he didn’t appreciate it. He made up his mind, trotted down the steps, across the narrow drive that separated the villas, and up onto the porch of the house next door.
Mrs. Alberts needed to paint, he reflected as he rang the doorbell. The frame was flaking a bit, he could see in the gray light of dawn. Didn’t she have kids, grandkids to see to that? He probably should’ve been paying more attention.
No answer, and he rang again, knocked for good measure.
Footsteps on the other side at last. “Who is it?” He heard the muffled voice, sounding warier than seemed necessary in Devonport.
“Hugh.” He waited, then added, “Your neighbor.” She’d been living next door since well before his dad had bought the house, had always looked old enough to have been there since her own tiny villa was built. She ought to know who he was. Had she got senile while he’d been on tour? Was that the reason for the newly acquired musical habit, and the odd hours?
The door opened a cautious crack, the chain on, but he couldn’t really see beyond it, because he was standing in the porch light, and the hall behind the door was dark.
He tried to look less thunderous than he felt. Abusing elderly ladies wasn’t really on, and he felt a little embarrassed by his temper. “It’s your neighbor Hugh,” he said again. “I just thought … something might be wrong.” He tried a smile. “That you were calling for help.” Or wailing like a banshee.
The door shut. Oh, no. She really had gone senile. Completely round the bend, singing at the top of her lungs in the middle of the night, forgetting who he was, slamming the door on him. Wonderful. Another thing he would probably have to do something about.
He heard the rasp of the chain sliding through the groove, and the door opened fully, and he forgot all about Mrs. Alberts.
Because standing on the other side of the door, still holding the knob, was somebody who most definitely was not Mrs. Alberts, and couldn’t possibly have been a relation, either. Because she was the woman in his dream, pretty much. The woman, his befuddled mind realized, whom he’d seen at the dance recital the other night. Dark hair falling in tousled waves down her back, glowing, glorious golden skin, huge, wide-set brown eyes and a long, straight, perfectly carved nose, a pair of aristocratic cheekbones that looked like they could slice a man in two. And a wide, lush mouth that conjured up every inappropriate image it shouldn’t, all in one single, powerful moment that got a response from his body that Mrs. Alberts had definitely never aroused.
And that was just her face. She was wearing a short, silky robe that stopped at the top of her slim thighs, her legs were long, the sash was pulled around a narrow waist, and there was a fair amount of cleavage revealed in the vee where the two sides of the robe came together. Until she saw the direction of his gaze and yanked the sash a bit tighter, that is.
He jerked his eyes back to her face, shut the mouth that he was very much afraid had been gaping. “Uh … sorry,” he said. “I thought you were Mrs. Alberts.”
One hand was on her hip now, and the exotically tilted brown eyes were cool, the smile curving the unpainted mouth a bit mocking. She wasn’t wearing any makeup at all, he realized, and yet she looked like that. “Well, I’m not. As you see. Can I help you?”
Bloody hell, yes, you can help me. He didn’t say it, of course. “Are you … visiting?” he tried next. “Oh. I’m Hugh, from next door.” He jerked his head to the left in mute explanation, then realized it was the third time he’d introduced himself, and felt like a fool.
She looked a bit confused herself now. “I thought Cora Middleton lived next door with a couple of kids.”
“My aunt,” he explained. “I’m those kids’ elder brother.”
“Ah. Which explains your reluctant presence at the recital.” So she remembered him too, though not in the way he could have hoped.
“That’s it.”
“Well …” She put out a slim hand to him and he took it reflexively, felt her give his a brisk, businesslike shake. He wanted to hold on, but he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. “Josie Pae Ata,” she said, glancing quickly up at him—not as far up as most women, because, as he’d noticed the other night, she was tall—her shoulders relaxing fractionally, for some reason, when he didn’t offer whatever reaction she’d evidently been expecting. She probably had expected him to keep holding her hand. Probably happened to her all the time.
And she didn’t know who he was, he realized. That was unusual.
“Mrs. Alberts moved,” she said now. “I bought the house. If you live next door, I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”
She didn’t believe him? “I’ve been away for a bit,” he tried to explain.
“Must have been quite a bit. I’ve been living here for weeks.”
“It was. Quite a bit. Wait.” His sluggish mind finally made the connection. “You’re Josie? Charlie’s Josie?”
Her smile wasn’t mocking now, it was genuine. “Oh. Charlie’s your brother. You really do live next door, then.”
“Of course I live next door.” The backside of a bus, he remembered. This was Charlie’s idea of “a jolly face?” Not to mention “big” and “soft-looking.” His brother needed to work on his communication skills.
“And much as I’d like to stand here chatting with my new neighbor,” she said, the cool dismissal back on her face, “it’s not precisely visiting hours, so maybe you could move this conversation along a bit.”
“Uh … yeh.” He tried to remember why he was here. “I heard you singing.”
“And you thought I was calling for help,” she said, and the smile was definitely mocking now.
“Because … five A.M.”
“Oh. Sorry.” She looked a bit chagrined. “I’m used to soundproofing, I suppose. Did I wake you?”
“Well, yeh. Because my bedroom must be straight across from yours. Not your fault.” It wasn’t? It had felt like it.
“It’s just … that’s how I wake up,” she explained. “Singing, and stretches. I’ll remember you’re listening, do my best to keep it down from here on.”
“Got the early shift, eh,” he said, not wanting to let her go. Stretches? He’d like to see the stretches.
“Something like that.” The cool smile was back, and the door was closing. “And I’d better get on with it. Nice to meet you, Hugh.”
Weeing Round the Boundaries
“Morning, Josie-Girl.” Clive breezed into the makeup room, gave her a kiss on top of her head, careful not to disturb Gregor, the makeup artist who was brushing the heavy foundation onto Josie’s face. “Looks like you’re torturing me again today. But I am, of course, resisting heroically.”
She smiled. “I’m counting on you to put up a gallant fight against being pulled into my web. For as long as the writers can drag it out, anyway. You know I’ll have my wicked way with you eventually. Want me to run lines with you later?”
“Yeh. Got yours sorted already, have you, Encyclopedia Brain?”
“My superpower,” she said modestly. She’d always been able to memorize quickly, and in the world of daily television, it was a precious talent to have.
He laughed and flung himself down beside her. “Thanks. You’re a love. We’ll steam it up, and before you know it, we’ll be making Derek jealous, get him coming back across the Ditch to defend your honor.”
Josie laughed. “I think he’s well beyond jealousy by now. Let’s hope so.”
“How is Australia’s newest and finest talent?” Clive asked.
“Run off his feet, he says,” Josie said, careful to move only her lips as Gregor brushed shadow onto her eyelids, blended it with his usual quick expertise. “Fourteen-hour days, already hotter than your dad’s cowshed in January on the set, even though it’s nowhere near summer, and he said there was a bit of an episode with leeches. Had him shuddering on the other end of the phone, I could tell.”
Just Not Mine (Escape to New Zealand) Page 4
