It had sounded like out of the frying pan and into the fire to him, but Ian had been convinced that it was the only way, and the consequences were too dire.
“You need to give a reason for it,” his agent had said. “Some reason. It only has to be for a couple weeks, and then it’s over. A few photos, a few strategic mentions in the press, and you’ve weathered it. Otherwise, you could be looking at playing overseas, and I’m not joking.”
“It can’t be that bad,” Will had managed to say over the pounding of his heart. What had he been thinking? He hadn’t been thinking, that was what. He’d lost his focus, lost his discipline, and look where it had landed him.
“It’s going to be just that bad. You haven’t spent enough time in En Zed, if you don’t know that. In Aussie, maybe it wouldn’t have been. Maybe. In the States, obviously not. They don’t much care what their sportsmen do over there, long as they can play and aren’t actually in prison. You want that kicking job, I can ring them again. Go back over there, and you can pose for all the dirty photos you like. But New Zealand rugby? The All Blacks, especially? Think they’ll want this? Think your selection’s going to stand for the June series? I’ll tell you, mate. It’s not, not without some damage control, not with the reputation you’ve already got. You want to take care of that family of yours? Either I start looking into an overseas club, or we come up with a reason, and a plan.”
“That’s a stupid reason, though. And a stupid plan.”
“Well, then, that’s perfect. Because it was a bloody stupid thing to do.”
An Unexpected Journey
“You’re what?” Bella demanded.
It seemed like that was all anybody was saying these days. Even Montclair had gotten excited. He was turning in circles, yapping at the tone in Bella’s voice.
Faith picked the little dog up, snuggled him into her lap on her mother’s cream-colored couch, and stroked his whisper-soft fur. Snuggling with Montclair looked like all the comfort she was going to get tonight. “I’m taking an unexpected vacation to New Zealand,” she repeated.
“You don’t take unexpected vacations. This is about Will, isn’t it? Wasn’t he from New Zealand?”
“Yes. To both. Yes, he’s from New Zealand, and yes, it’s about him.”
“But you said you hadn’t slept with him, so why on earth would you go visit him?” Bella fixed Faith with her gimlet eye. “Don’t you go chasing after that man,” she warned. “That’s the very last way you’d ever get him.”
“I’m not actually an idiot.” Faith was flushing a little now. “I’m not chasing after him. He’s chasing after me. In a way. Although not that way.”
Her mother continued to stare at her suspiciously. “In exactly what way? Don’t you dare lie to me, because I’ll know. I want the whole story, and I want it now.”
“You know,” Faith couldn’t help pointing out, “I’m twenty-seven years old.”
“And I’m forty-nine, and I’ve known more men than you’ll ever be able to shake a stick at. Your point?”
“All right. I’m sharing. Not because I have to, but because I’d rather you heard it from me. I’m going to New Zealand for two weeks to pretend to be Will’s girlfriend.”
Her mother, for once, seemed lost for words, so Faith continued. “Because of the modeling. He’s in trouble. I didn’t tell you this before, because he asked me not to, and there was no reason to break his confidence. He’s a rugby player, and apparently he’s supposed to behave himself. And he didn’t.”
“He’s a pro athlete,” Bella said slowly. “And it matters that he modeled? Or did he do something else? Is he gay?”
“Gay? No. Don’t be ridiculous. Will?”
“Only thing that makes sense,” her mother said with a shrug. “I didn’t get that off him. I’d have said the complete opposite, but who knows? Sure what it sounds like to me. Why would anybody care about a few pictures?”
“It’s different there,” Faith tried to explain. “That’s what he says. And the site—the pictures aren’t so bad, but the stories—some of them are pretty risqué. And I guess the press is having a field day, and it means he might not be selected for the All Blacks—the all-star team. The international team. Which is a very big deal, money-wise and…everything-wise.”
“And in what possible way does it help that you go over there?”
“Because then he can say that he did the modeling as a favor to me, because he was going out with me. I’m there two weeks, then I go home again, and everyone finds out we broke up, because that’s the kind of heartless witch I am. I used him for the pictures, and I’m going to dump him. I’m American, of course—from Vegas, even—so that helps with the heartless part.”
Bella snorted. “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Well,” Faith admitted, “I thought so, too. But…” She took a breath, and said it. “He’s paying me. About five thousand dollars’ worth, by the time you count the plane fare, and I can use it. This is my change-my-life move,” she hurried on, seeing her mother’s mouth opening. “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s my big break, and I want to take it. I can still do the Roundup work while I’m there, and I can do the marketing for Calvin’s site, too, even though he’ll have to use another assistant. And I get to go to New Zealand, and I really want to go to New Zealand. I really want to. I want to see the ocean, and…and everything.”
She knew that her mother wouldn’t understand the yearning for space, for the ocean, for peace. For what Will had talked about, that night on the roof. For a lake, and mountains, and a sky full of stars. “I want to go somewhere and do something,” she tried to explain, “and this is my chance. It’s perfect, don’t you see? As long as you can cover the apartments.”
“Paying you?” her mother said in alarm, as if she hadn’t heard anything else. “No. There’s a word for that, and you’re not doing it. If you need money, I’ll give you money.”
“It’s not your choice, Mom,” Faith said with a sigh. “And there’s no sex involved. He told me so. It’s acting, that’s all.”
Which hadn’t been the greatest thing she’d ever heard, Will hastening to assure her that it would only be for show. But it was that much more reinforcement, too, would keep her from wishing for more, or, worse, trying for something he wasn’t willing or able to give. It would be two weeks with him, and then she’d be going home. With an unbroken heart, because she wasn’t stupid. But being cast as the villain? Could she really do that?
Yes. She could. Sure, she liked Will too much for any of it to be completely comfortable. But she’d lived next door to him for weeks already and had kept her head. She could do it again. For three thousand dollars and a trip to New Zealand? You bet she could. She could take Hope and Hemi there after all, because she would have seen it for herself, and what she’d told her mother was true. She wanted to go.
“Why didn’t he ask the girl he modeled with?” her mother wanted to know. “Sounds like a much better cover story to me. He was in love with one girl, so he took dirty pictures with another girl? If a man told me that, it wouldn’t fly for a minute.”
“That would have been a little awkward, seeing as Gretchen’s about six months pregnant.”
“No. Really?”
“Yeah. I’m sure if she hadn’t been, Will would have asked her. But she is, and he didn’t.”
“All right. If you’re going to go, you’re going to go. But I still think,” Bella said, looking shrewdly at Faith, “that you’ve got more feelings about that man than you’re letting on. So if you go, you’re going armed.”
“Armed?” Faith laughed. “What, I’m going to have to shoot him to keep him off of me? I don’t think so.”
“That’s not the kind of armor I mean. You’re halfway there already, but…when do you go?”
“Next week.” The butterflies fluttered low in Faith’s belly at the thought. “Eight days.”
“Eight days,” Bella said with satisfaction. �
��Plenty.”
Family Party
Will’s grandmother eyed the straggle of weary arrivals coming through the big pneumatic doors. “I think they’re starting to come out,” she told her family. “At least those look like Yanks to me. Talia, go over and get your brother.”
Will’s fifteen-year-old sister looked up reluctantly from her ever-present mobile. “What?”
“Go get Malachai,” Will’s mother said. “Your Kuia’s asking you.”
Will’s sigh was lost in the echoes of the Auckland Airport arrivals hall. He hadn’t counted on a welcoming party for Faith, but here they were all the same. His mother, brother, and sister were varying degrees of reluctant, but his grandmother, as always, had carried the day.
Malachai slouched towards them behind his sister, who was already on her phone again. His flat-brimmed hat sat askew on his head, at some angle that was meant to be gangster, and to hide that he was well and truly hung over. As if Will wouldn’t have noticed the bottles in the bin of the front hall when they’d stopped to collect him along the way, or the general state of the flat his brother shared with mates near Auckland University. There’d been a party last night, and last night had been Sunday.
Pity his mum wasn’t hung over. She had her arms crossed against her chest, spelling nothing like welcome.
When he’d rung her the previous week to explain about the photos, he’d faced a deafening silence, and when he’d told her about Faith, it had stretched out for so long, he’d had to say, “Mum? You there?” He wasn’t doing too well with the women in his life, and that was the truth.
“You’re telling me,” she said slowly, “that you’re in love with some Yank girl you knew for a few weeks, who got you to pose for dirty photos.”
“Aw, see,” he said, trying to laugh, “when you say it like that, it sounds bad. She didn’t ask me to. It wasn’t her fault. It was my idea. Her job depended on it, you could say. And it wasn’t so bad. All pretty tame, really.”
“I saw them. They’re not that tame. Not tame enough to keep you out of the naughty chair. What were you thinking?”
A question for the ages. “I guess it’s just love,” he tried. “Which is why she’s coming out.”
The frost down the line was so clear, he could swear his phone was turning cold in his hand. “She may be coming out,” his mother said, “but don’t think we’re going to come running to meet her with open arms, because she sounds like nothing but trouble.”
And yet here she was. Here they all were, but that was her own mother’s doing, of course.
“It’s not necessary,” Will had told his grandmother when she’d rung the day before to tell him they were all on their way to Auckland and would be joining him to meet Faith. Including his sister, who was meant to be in school today.
“Too right it’s necessary,” she’d answered. “Showing that your family’s supporting you, that we understand? We’ll be there. Pity we can’t get Caro and Hine and the rest over from Aussie for it, but they say they can’t, not with the kids and all.”
That would have been all he needed—his two other sisters, their partners, and their four kids, an entire Troupe of Traveling Taweras turning up to stage Will’s rehabilitation with the New Zealand public. Fortunately, it was only four of them here, but four was more than enough.
It was only for the day, though. They’d all be gone tomorrow. He’d hold that thought.
“Who are we looking for?” his grandmother asked now. Her dark eyes, still eagle-sharp at seventy-five, searched the monitor overhead, scanning the passengers straggling out one at a time pushing luggage carts piled high after the twelve-hour journey from LA.
“Blonde,” Mals said laconically from under his hat, leaning against the barrier and looking like he needed to lie down. “Hot. Bound to be. That her?” he asked as a—yes, a fairly hot blonde came into view on the monitor, all hair and long, slim legs, and totally Will’s type.
“She’s not blonde,” Will said. “She’s not exactly hot, either, not the way you’re thinking. I mean, she is, but not made up or anything. She’s attractive,” he added hastily. “Obviously, I think so. But not like that, eh. It’s more of an…emotional connection.”
He sounded like a bloody greeting card, and he was sweating a little now. He’d known this was a horrible idea. They were going to see straight through him, and so was everybody else.
“You’re joking.” Mals looked interested for the first time, although Talia didn’t even look up. “You went for a girl who wasn’t hot? Since when? Bro, you could get anybody. If I could hook up like that—”
“You’d what?” his mother demanded.
“What? Not like Will doesn’t,” Mals said. “Not like everybody doesn’t know it. Course, he didn’t always have a photographer recording it.”
“It wasn’t real,” Will said in exasperation. “It was modeling. Why can’t anybody get that through their head? And I didn’t say she wasn’t hot, exactly. And whatever I did before, I’m not doing it anymore, because I’ve got somebody special at last, haven’t I.” There he went with the greeting card again.
Then he got distracted, because there was another pretty girl on the monitor. Head down, pushing a cart, her hair swinging around her face, wearing a short skirt and jersey that, even on the fuzzy black-and-white monitor, were showing off a figure that was keeping him looking.
Then she rounded the corner and was there in person, and it was Faith, and Will was standing there, gobsmacked.
She saw the group behind the barrier, and her hand came up in a tentative wave and fell again.
“That’s her?” Mals asked. “That’s not hot? You’re joking. A bit old, maybe, but that girl is a stone fox.”
“Yeh,” Will said absently through a mouth that had gone dry. He was still just standing there, but so was she, her cart not quite out of the egress lane, the other passengers diverting around her.
He’d forgotten how she looked, maybe, but he could swear that she’d never looked quite like this. Her hair fell in wispy strands around her face, then to her shoulders, with a sexy fringe that fell below her eyebrows. That hair was glowing under the fluorescent lights, too, because there was some blonde in it now.
It was makeup, he realized, that made her eyes appear even larger, her mouth even lusher. She didn’t need any makeup, though, for that tiny little mole above her lip, and he remembered with a jolt of recognition how much he’d always longed to kiss that mole. And as for that body—he remembered that, too, although surely it looked even better now. She was hot. Yeh. Or he was. He was, for sure.
“What are you waiting for?” his grandmother said. “Go get her.” She thrust the flowers she’d insisted on stopping to buy into his hands and shooed him on. “Go.”
Will stepped forward, because Faith still wasn’t moving. He was conscious of the eyes on him, and not just his family’s. He’d been recognized.
Faith seemed to realize she’d stopped and began shoving her cart again, coming to meet him. She reached a hand up and pushed her hair back as if she still wasn’t used to having it around her face. Or as if she didn’t know what to do with her hands.
“Hi,” she said, and she wasn’t smiling, but then, neither was he.
“Hi,” he managed. “You changed your hair.” Well, that was lame. He realized he was still holding the bouquet of lilies and shoved it hastily at her. “Here. Flowers.”
“That’s how you say hello?” his grandmother demanded from behind him. “The poor girl doesn’t even get a kiss?”
Faith’s eyes widened and flew to his. “Sorry,” he said softly. “That’s my family. Got to be convincing.” He put his hands on her shoulders, felt the tension in her, and knew that, however different she looked, she was still the same Faith. Still not taking it lightly.
He’d meant it to be quick, just a peck. But as soon as he felt those soft lips under his own, the current was leaping between them again, and her eyes were opening wide, then fluttering closed. Her bo
dy softened, swayed into him a little, her hands had come up to his own shoulders, the tissue-paper wrapping for the flowers brushing against his back, and he was holding her more tightly, pulling her into him. His mouth was moving over hers, and he was kissing her harder, because it seemed he had no choice. Just like the last time, on the roof.
He stepped back at last, a little shaken, and she didn’t look any steadier than he felt. “Hi,” he said again. He reached for her cart, because he needed to do something, or he was going to kiss her again. “My family’s here.” The phones were being held up now, the cameras clicking away. Well, that was the point, wasn’t it?
They had reached his family, and Talia was looking up at last from her ever-present phone. “Kuia,” Will said, “This is Faith. Faith…” He stopped, horror-stricken, because he was so rattled, he’d forgotten her surname.
“Faith Goodwin.” She put out a hand to his grandmother. “It’s…Kuia? Or…Mrs.?”
“Miriama Johnson,” she said. “Will’s mum’s mum. ‘Kuia’ means ‘grandmother.’ But you can call me Miriama.”
Faith blinked a little. “Johnson?”
Miriama laughed. “You’re thinking it doesn’t sound too Maori. That’s all right. Emere’s always telling me I’m not Maori enough.”
“Mum,” her daughter protested. “That’s not what I say.”
“And I say,” Miriama went on, “what’s the point of being alive if you never color outside the lines? Where’s the fun in that? But I guess that skips a generation, doesn’t it, because here Will is, doing it his own way as well.”
Will’s mum wasn’t looking too rapt about that line of chat. “And how’s that working out for him?”
“Well,” Miriama said serenely, “that’s why Faith’s here, isn’t it?”
Will’s heart stopped for a moment. Could she know? She went on, though. “It hasn’t worked out so badly for him, all in all, seems to me. And nobody’s welcomed you yet, Faith, though Will didn’t do so badly once he got over his stage fright. Haere mai. Welcome to Aotearoa.” She reached out for Faith and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
Just in Time (Escape to New Zealand Book 8) Page 12
