“Good idea. How’s the new place working out?”
“Well…I’d invite you round, but you’d expire from estrogen overload.”
“I’ve got a wife and one-and-a-half daughters,” Solomon reminded him. “Is it that bad?”
“Not if you like flowers.”
He heard the deep chuckle. “Sounds like a much safer spot for you. Well, not necessarily to me. But Lelei also thought you’d fall into bad company at the hotel. Lelei thinks about you too much, in fact, if you ask me. Hmm. Maybe it’s good that you can’t come to dinner.”
“Bad company’s my favorite kind, though.” Will cradled the phone between shoulder and ear as he pulled on black boxer briefs, then a clean pair of jeans.
“Yeah. I just barely remember about that. That model looked like she could work out to be some bad company of the very best kind, especially if you’re getting naked with her every day.”
“I’m not getting naked, remember? I haven’t even got down to my undies yet, although she has, because life’s unfair to women in the stripping-down department, I guess. I think she’s going to be able to resist me, too. And I may even be able to resist her, undies or no.” Which was quite the surprise, wasn’t it? Gretchen was pretty. She was very pretty. But she wasn’t the one his eyes had kept straying to today.
“She know who you are?”
“Nah. Nobody does, because I didn’t sign my real name to the release.”
“Makes it not legal, then.”
“Who cares? And, all right, one person knows. Faith knows. Because she’s a bloody stickler, isn’t she. I handed over the money to rent the apartment for three weeks up front, no fuss, no muss, and what does she do but ask for my passport all the same? Told me I could be running from the law, for all she knew. Me.”
“Imagine that.”
“And I wouldn’t put it past her to do her research, because she’s just that way.”
“She could be publicizing you, then, for that site. Her very own New Zealand rugby star. Step right up and see him up close and personal, girls!”
“Not exactly a star in the States, though, am I. I don’t think anybody here even knows what rugby is. They probably think it’s a type of carpet or something. Anyway, I won’t be a rugby star at all if this deal works out, and who’ll care what I do then? It’s a whole new, free world. Anyway, Faith’s not like that. She’s…she’s straight. She’s—she’s good, I guess.” He got a little embarrassed, and went on hastily, “But yeh, it’s a gamble. When in Vegas, eh. Besides, I love to live dangerously.”
“So you’re working with her, and living in her place? That’s some fast moving, brother. How long did that take, a day?”
“Well, she is my dinner date tonight. Her and her mum, because her mum owns the building. So she can vet her new tenant. I’m not moving that fast at all, but I got dinner all the same, and I’ll be working on the rest of it, no worries.”
“You’re meeting the mom? Sorry to tell you this, but that doesn’t usually translate to, ‘Hey, baby. Let’s do it quick and dirty and move on.’”
“Don’t remind me.”
When Faith had come back over to Mrs. Ferguson’s apartment with the rental agreement and the keys that first day, it had been a real struggle not to betray the anxiety attack she’d had in her bathroom in the interim. What had she been thinking, suggesting that he live next door to her, after looking at him half-naked in the studio? Especially after that little scene in his own bathroom. He was looking for some easy companionship during his holiday, it was clear, and what could be more convenient than getting it from his next-door neighbor?
She knew all that. She did. And she wasn’t stupid. She knew what he was offering, and that it wouldn’t be enough for her. She’d only end up feeling used, because she couldn’t do casual sex. She just wasn’t built that way. And she especially couldn’t do it with Will. The exact thing that made it so hard to say no—that was the reason she had to say it. Because he didn’t just make her heart beat faster, he made her laugh, too. Because he’d been so sweet about Mrs. Ferguson. Because his hand had felt so good around hers, and when he’d asked her to be his friend, had smiled at her like that, she’d melted a little.
She’d checked him out online that same evening, of course, once she’d seen his passport and found out his real name. She didn’t know anything about rugby. She didn’t even know anybody who knew anything about rugby. But it was easy to see that he was a star—and not just in New Zealand. He was, in fact, the brand-new starting “Number 10” for a New Zealand rugby team, and before that, he’d been the starter on a top Australian team. A little more research had told her that the 10 was the director of the offense. The quarterback, in other words, although not the captain.
Will Tawera—because that was his real name—was, in fact, a very big deal back home, and in some other parts of the world, too. And for some odd reason, he was modeling for what must be peanuts to him, and living in Mrs. Ferguson’s apartment. She’d love to think that had something to do with her, but it seemed awfully unlikely. And anyway, she wasn’t going to be some incognito star athlete’s Part-Time Good Time. She had more self-respect than that.
Well, once he met her mother, she probably wouldn’t have to worry about him trying again, because Bella Goodwin had a tendency to come on strong.
“I want to meet him,” her mother had said when Faith had called her with the news that she’d rented the apartment, and her mom, of course, had pried out all the details. “A hot model? From New Zealand? Bring him over.”
“Mom,” Faith had sighed. “He isn’t going to want to come to dinner with my mother. I’ve known him for one day.”
“You could be in over your head,” her mother had insisted. “I’m getting a vibe, and you know I trust my vibes. If I’m wrong, he’ll say no to the invitation, and I’ll be satisfied. If I’m right—and honey, if he’s renting Mrs. Ferguson’s apartment, he’s doing it for a reason—I think he’ll say yes. And then, we’ll see.”
And her mother had been right. He’d said yes.
It didn’t take long for things to get out of hand. In fact, it took about five seconds.
Her mother came to the door of the modest ranch house at Faith’s knock, preceded by a cascade of yapping—Montclair, her little poodle, on the job.
“Hi, Mom.” Faith gave her mother a hug that was returned with interest. “This is Will.”
“Bella Goodwin.” Her mother held out a hand to Will, looking as neat and pretty as always in a pale-blue sweater and cream pants, both of which showed off her still-excellent figure. She cocked her head of neatly bobbed platinum hair at an angle and smiled up at him. “Now, aren’t you just the nicest surprise?”
Which sounded pleasant enough, but Faith wasn’t relaxing. Her mother’s ways were devious.
Will laughed, the easy, rich sound filling the little hallway, an influx of testosterone into Bella’s feminine surroundings. The half-circle of mahogany table was set with a vase of calla lilies tonight, the crystal chandelier sparkled overhead, and Will stood, big and brown, in the center of it all, flashing a smile that competed with any chandelier.
“Didn’t think I was a surprise, but we’ll hope it’s nice. I’ll do my best. And who’s this wee fella?” He crouched on the oriental hallway rug to give Montclair’s fluffy gray head a rub, sending the little dog into a frenzy of tail-wagging ecstasy.
“That’s Montclair. Oh, my, the accent,” Bella said. “That’s just the cherry on top of the ice-cream sundae. I do like some decoration at my dinner table.”
“Mom,” Faith said, “you’ll embarrass Will.”
“Oh, I don’t think Will’s easily embarrassed,” Bella said. “I think Will’s heard it all before.” And there she went, X-ray vision at work.
“Now, that’d be telling.” He rose to stand with another grin. “And I’m thinking you’ve heard it all before yourself, because if I’m decorative, I’m not the only one here. I’ve been trying to get Faith o
ut with me for days, and now I get a double dose of Goodwin girls? My mum always did say I was born under a lucky star.”
“You have not been trying to get me out with you for days,” Faith said, feeling the treacherous color rise in her cheeks. Her mother never blushed, and Faith never failed to.
“No?” he asked. “Who asked you out for coffee yesterday? And who said no?”
“Ah…I had work to do.”
His smile was all for her now, those eyes gleaming. “Yeh. I remember. Work. But I’m here now, because I am a lucky man.”
“Oh, boy,” Bella said. “Come have dinner. It’s getting too warm in here for me.”
A break, then, that Faith sorely needed, while she helped her mother dish up, and then they were sitting around her round oak dining table, set with pretty lace placemats, having dinner. Dinner, and that was it.
“You know, I can’t believe it,” Bella said, taking a dainty forkful of, yes, eggplant casserole. Which Will was eating, too, because he was polite. “Here’s Calvin getting back into the skin trade again, after going respectable for so many years, just like me. Makes me think that I should see if I’ve still got it.” She gave her hair a little pat. “Nah. I know I’ve still got it. But maybe not with my clothes off.”
Faith concentrated on her chicken medallions. “My mother was a showgirl,” she told Will with resignation. How long had that taken? Fifteen minutes?
“Seriously?” Will asked. “Awesome. With the…” He gestured towards his own head. “The feathers on your head and all?”
“That was me. And those headdresses weighed a ton, I’ll tell you. Calvin started out as a photographer for the casinos himself. That’s how we met. He’s known Faith since she was a little girl. And the two of us—we had a good time together, back in the day.” She sighed. “We both had our share of adventures, but we were each others’ go-to, when we needed a friend. He’s never been a smooth talker, but that’s overrated. Always good for a nice, comforting—”
“Too much information, Mom,” Faith put in hurriedly. “Will does not need to know that.”
“Well, it’s all a good twenty years ago anyway.” Bella shrugged and took another ladylike bite. “And if I’ve shocked Will, let’s say I’m surprised. He’s a model himself. He’s been around the block.”
“Well, I’m not quite a model,” Will said. “But I’m not too shocked, no.”
“Mm-hmm.” Bella nodded. “Just breaking into the business, are you?”
Will seemed to be having trouble keeping a straight face. “You could say that.”
“Then you should know that Faith’s the one who really gave you your big break,” Bella said. “And that she’s got more power there than you probably realize. Assistant? Maybe so and maybe not.”
“Mom—” Faith said again.
“Oh, shush, honey. I’m proud of you. Calvin was just thinking about taking some stock photos,” she explained to Will. “Dime a dozen. The rest of it—that was all Faith.”
“Ah,” he said. “The website. And the writing contest.”
“Well, yes.” Faith needed to change the subject. She’d known bringing him to dinner would be a bad idea. If her mother pulled out the album with her publicity photos, Faith didn’t care, she was hauling Will off pronto. Bella was trying to get a rise out of Will, or expose him, or warn him off, or something. Faith couldn’t tell what she was trying to do, but it was making her more than a little nervous. “I thought, if Calvin was going to be taking pictures for stock photo sites anyway, we’d try something new with it, hopefully something more lucrative. Especially for me, since I’ll be managing it. If it works, I could get a full-time job out of it. That’s the point. And it’s not the skin trade. Really, Mom. The skin trade?”
“I’m beginning to see what you meant about being very busy,” Will said. “What with the erotica management and all. Nightmare, thinking all that up, eh.”
“Would you stop—” she began, and broke off.
“What? Teasing you? Nah. Sorry. Can’t. Too easy.” His smile was slow, and now she was nervous for more reasons than one, because that smile was sending tingles down her spine. And more than her spine.
“Oh, honey, the whole thing was her idea,” Bella assured him. “My hard-working, proper daughter. My naughty side is coming out in her at last, but in a whole lot smarter kind of way. She’ll never let it get the better of her. The erotica contest, the special website, even the idea of the big Polynesian warrior and the little blonde girl? Beauty and the Beast, because she knows that never gets old. That was all Faith. You’re just part of the plan.”
Will was still looking at Faith. “Beauty and the Beast.”
“Of course not.” Faith tried to ignore the warmth that she could feel creeping up from the all-too-wide boat neck of her sweater. Her chest was heating, and her cheeks were glowing, too, and he was watching it happen. “That sounds terrible. I was just trying to think of something more interesting, something that would make it…work. Which, yes, was out of self-interest. My job with Calvin’s only half-time, but if this takes off, with me handling the marketing end, I could drop my other job.”
“Oh, no,” Will said. “And me getting so attached to my apartment manager. What if I have a power failure in the night? Who am I going to call?”
“I told you.” She was trying not to smile, but she couldn’t help it. She knew he was just being smooth, just flirting, but he was so…so tempting. “I’m very busy. I wasn’t talking about the apartment management. I also work in marketing communications for the Roundup. The casino. Very, very busy.”
“Well, then,” Will said, “I’d better do my bit, I guess, to help you on your way. Be the very best Beast I can be, inspire as many dirty stories as I possibly can. As it’s for such a good cause.”
He sat, watched the tide of pink creep up the porcelain skin of her chest, her throat, into her cheeks, and felt the heat rising in himself right along with it. Even as she tried to be matter-of-fact, tried to pretend that all those dirty thoughts, that entire shot list hadn’t been hers, when he knew they had been. He was looking at her, and she was looking straight back at him, her blue eyes caught in his gaze, and she seemed to have forgotten that she was holding her fork. He was ready to lay her right down on this table, and she could see it. Never mind what he’d told Solomon. Never mind what he’d told Faith. He couldn’t help himself.
“You know,” Bella said after a minute, “I’m the last to be prejudiced because somebody’s in the business. How could I be?”
“Looks like you still could be in that business, too, whatever you say.” Will tore his gaze from Faith and concentrated on Bella. “Easy to see where Faith gets her good looks. Although,” he added with his best smile, “I won’t go any further with that. Such a thing as dinner table conversation, at least that’s what my own mum tells me.”
Faith passed him a dish. “More green beans?”
“What, nobody’s ever told you that you’re as pretty as your mum?” He took it from her and served himself up a few more vegetables. At least it wasn’t eggplant—which had sounded terrible, and turned out to be aubergine. But then, he didn’t care for aubergine, either. “Hard to believe.”
Bella laughed. “You are so good. You’ve really got the gift, haven’t you?”
“I have?” Not quite the reaction he’d expected, because there was a cynical gleam in her eye.
“In fact, you’ve got more than that. You weren’t standing behind the door when anything was handed out, that’s obvious. Good thing you brought him over tonight, honey,” Bella told Faith. “Because this one…” She shook her head. “I could have given you a run for your money, back in the day. But Faith? No. She’s not up to your weight.”
“Mom.” Faith’s color was even higher now. “Please. We talked about this.”
“Men like you…” Bella sighed. “You’re like that chocolate cheesecake going around and around in the display case at the diner. It looks so good, you just can’t he
lp yourself. It tastes just that good, too. You’re taking that first bite, and you’re thinking, oh, yeah, this is delicious, and I’m not sorry. And then it’s gone, and, yep, you’re just that sorry.”
“Uh…” Will sat, at a loss for once.
“Thanks for the tip, Mom,” Faith said. “Please stop.”
“Hope I’m—” Will began, then broke off. “Hope I’m a bit more than that,” he managed. “More than…ah….chocolate cheesecake.”
“You’re thinking I’m racist,” Bella said calmly. “But I’m not. Chocolate cheesecake’s delicious. So is regular old white cheesecake. So is…lemon cheesecake. But it’s all the same in the end. A real nice moment on the lips, and a lifetime of regret on the hips.”
“All right,” Faith said. “We get it.” The color was all the way there now. Will didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman blush as much as she did, and he was embarrassed himself, and a little offended, and turned on as hell by her all the same. But however embarrassed he was, she was more so.
“So I’m not specially bad for her because I’m Maori,” he said. “Just because I’m…”
“Yeah. Because you’re that,” Bella said. “Too good-looking. Too used to getting it easy. And, honey,” she told her daughter, “if you have to take a number, take a pass. I’m just telling you for your own good,” she said as Faith uttered a choked little sound of protest. “We can all see it. Not like he’s hiding it. I’m just putting it out there.”
It was out there, all right. It was right out there. And whatever his chances had been, they were that much less now.
“I’m sorry,” Faith said when they were in her truck again, driving back to her place. Their place. “I didn’t know that would happen. But she’s protective.”
“I managed to suss that out, yeh. Reeled me in, didn’t she. And then she got me straight through the gills.” He didn’t think he’d ever been so thoroughly dismissed.
Just in Time (Escape to New Zealand Book 8) Page 5
