Just Once More (Escape to New Zealand Book 7) Read online

  Text copyright 2014 Rosalind James

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9909124-8-4

  The Blues, Hurricanes, and All Blacks are actual rugby teams. However, this is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  New Zealand Map

  Cast of Characters

  In the Tunnel

  Command Performance

  Show Her More

  Here Comes the Bride

  True Confessions

  Finn Gets His Way

  Pak ‘n’ Save

  Madam

  Something of My Own

  Marshaling My Forces

  Back to the Coromandel

  Poetic Justice

  On the Mount

  A Holiday Project

  The Harder They Fall

  A Bit Caveman

  Morning Light

  Meaning It

  Quite the Interruption

  In the Tunnel Again

  Rubbish at Speeches

  Epilogue

  A Kiwi Glossary

  NOTE: A New Zealand glossary appears at the end of this book

  (In order of appearance)

  Sir Andrew (Drew) Callahan (36), Lady Hannah Montgomery Callahan (35). Papamoa (suburb of Tauranga). JUST THIS ONCE. Drew: much-acclaimed longtime captain and No. 6 (blindside flanker) for the Auckland Blues and All Blacks; now retired from playing and head coach of the Bay of Plenty (professional) provincial rugby team. Hannah: marketing executive for 2nd Hemisphere clothing firm. Parents of Jack (4-1/2) and Grace (18 months); new baby due in two weeks.

  Helen Callahan; Sam Callahan, Te Kuiti. JUST THIS ONCE. Drew’s mother and father.

  Liam (Mako) Mahaka (29), Kristen Montgomery Mahaka (32), Wellington. JUST MY LUCK. Liam: No. 2 (hooker) for the Wellington Hurricanes and All Blacks. Kristen: Hannah’s younger sister, and a buyer for a Wellington department store. Parents of a baby due in three weeks.

  Finn Douglas (37), Jenna McKnight Douglas (33), Auckland. JUST FOR NOW. Finn: former No. 8 for the Auckland Blues and All Blacks; now retired from playing and serving as strength and conditioning coach for the Blues. Jenna: former Year 1 teacher. Parents of Sophie (10), Harry (8), Lily (2-1/2), and a new baby due in two months.

  Hugh Latimer (29), Jocelyn (Josie) Pae Ata (31), Auckland. JUST NOT MINE. Hugh: No. 7 (openside flanker) for the Auckland Blues and All Blacks. Josie: TV star. Getting married in a few days; parenting Hugh’s half-siblings, Amelia (13) and Charlie (9).

  Hemi Ranapia (36), Reka Harata Ranapia (35), Papamoa. JUST FOR YOU. Hemi: former No. 10 (first-five) for the Auckland Blues and All Blacks; now retired from playing and serving as backs coach for Bay of Plenty. Reka: former kindy teacher and mum to their four children: Ariana (11), Jamie (9), Luke (6), and Anika (2-1/2).

  Koti James (32), Kate Lamonica James (31), Auckland. JUST GOOD FRIENDS. Koti: No. 13 (centre) for the Auckland Blues and All Blacks). Kate: accountant for the Blues team. Parents of Maia (20 months).

  Dominic (Nic) Wilkinson (Nico) (31), Emma Martens Wilkinson (30), Auckland. JUST FOR FUN. Nic: No. 15 (fullback) for the Auckland Blues and All Blacks. Emma: knitwear designer for 2nd Hemisphere. Parents of Zack (8) and George (11 months).

  Sarah, Motueka. JUST FOR NOW. Finn’s sister.

  Nate Torrance (Toro) (30), Allison (Ally) Villiers (29), Wellington. JUST MY LUCK. Nate: Captain of the Wellington Hurricanes and, for the past two years, successor to Drew as captain of the All Blacks; No. 9 (halfback). Ally: rock climbing and kayaking instructor/guide. Became engaged a week before this story begins.

  George Wilkinson, Tauranga. JUST FOR FUN. Nic’s father.

  Arama Pae Ata, Katikati. JUST NOT MINE. Josie’s mother.

  Drew Callahan sat bolt upright in the dark, his heart hammering, his body wet with cold sweat.

  “Shit.”

  It was nothing more than an explosion of breath, but it woke Hannah anyway.

  “Drew?” She struggled to heave her body up, and his arm went out reflexively to support her. “Is something wrong?”

  “Nah.” He had himself back under control now, his galloping heart finally slowing. He lay back down, pulled her gently along with him. “A bad dream, that’s all. You OK, though? Baby not coming or anything?”

  “What?” She still sounded sleepy. “Of course not. I’d have woken you up. Why?”

  He shrugged, tried to shove the dream aside. Its dark tendrils lingered despite his efforts, sticky cobwebs of fear and dread brushing across his mind. “Just a bad dream. Sorry to wake you. I know sleep’s coming hard now.”

  “What kind of dream?” She settled herself a little more comfortably on her side, put a hand onto his chest and stroked him there. The touch of her hand, the sound of her voice began to smooth the jagged edges left by the nightmare. His muscles released some of their tension, his body settling into the mattress.

  “People who tell their dreams, gah.” He felt nothing but foolish now. “Anything more annoying than that? Never mind. Doesn’t matter.”

  “Tell me. Because it scared you. Your heart’s still beating so hard.”

  He tried to laugh. “Can’t hide anything from you, I guess. OK. It was…I was in this…tunnel. With you. And somebody was coming. I couldn’t quite hear, but I could tell. Somebody who meant to hurt us, I knew that.”

  Because he had known. He’d known it for sure, and it had scared the shit out of him. Not for him. For her.

  “I was waiting,” he went on. “Couldn’t stand up—too low. Too narrow. In this little space, with somebody coming. Crouched down in the pitch black, listening and waiting, seconds going by, holding my breath so I could hear him breathe.”

  He stopped, forced himself to relax again, but the tension took hold all the same. “And then I felt him come, just this whisper in the air, and I was grabbing for his hair. Stabbing at his eyes, punching at him in the dark as best I could, trying to bang him into the rocks, and he was fighting back. Fighting so hard. He was so strong, and I was scared…” He swallowed, the fear gaining the upper hand again, tightening his muscles, shortening his breath even as he told himself it was a dream. Only a dream. “Scared that I’d lose. Scared that he’d get through me. That he’d get through me to you.”

  “Sounds terrifying,” she said softly. Her hand was still there, stroking over his skin. “I’ll bet you saved me, though.”

  “No.” He felt her hand still for a moment in surprise. “I mean, I did, I guess, because he was gone, and I was lying there, beat to hell from having my head bashed against the rock and that. But I’d had my hands around his throat, and I’d either killed him or he was gone, don’t know which. You know, dreams. But then I was still there, in the dark, in the tunnel, and I couldn’t find you. And I knew you were having the baby. Right there. I knew it, and I couldn’t get there. I couldn’t get to you.” His body remembered exactly how it had felt. Because she was right. It had terrified him.

  “Which has happened,” she pointed out practically. “Twice now. Though without the tunnel, thank goodness. And I’ve had them all the same. I know you think you’re necessary, and no question, you’re pretty important at the start, aren’t you?”

  She was trying to tease him, doing her best to ease his unquiet mind, and he was embarrassed. She should be the one being nervous, and he should be the one doing the comforting, not the other way around.

  “But when it gets to that point, you know,” she reminded him, “I pretty much have to do it m
yself. An anxiety dream, that’s all it was. But it’s all right.”

  “Going to be there for this one all the same,” he told her. “Shouldn’t have missed the last one. Should never have gone, not after the first time.”

  “No,” she said instantly. “How could we have known it would be that fast?”

  Because it had been fast. Too fast. He’d been here, talking to the Bay of Plenty club about the coaching job, and she’d been back in Auckland with their three-year-old. And his mum and dad, thank God.

  “It’s only three hours away,” she’d told him when he’d vacillated about going. “It’s not going to happen faster than that, for heaven’s sake. You need to talk to them, I’m not due for more than ten days, and the midwife says nothing looks imminent. Go.”

  So he’d gone, and once again, he hadn’t made it back in time, because three hours had been too long after all. He’d broken every speed limit to get to her, and it hadn’t mattered. He hadn’t made it.

  “It’s going to be me holding your hand this time,” he told her now. “Not my mum. Me. So don’t be thinking you’re going anywhere without me for the next couple weeks, or that I’m going anywhere without you. No arguments.”

  “I’ll be happy to have you there holding my hand, believe me,” she assured him. “I want you there. And meanwhile, I guess we probably shouldn’t go caving for the next couple weeks after all. Better cancel that blackwater rafting booking, you think? Shoot. I was really looking forward to that.” She still had her hand on him, and she was smiling, he could tell.

  He laughed. Reluctantly, but he laughed all the same. “Stupid, I know it. It’s just…” He said it, in the dark. “My biggest fear, isn’t it. That I won’t be able to take care of you. You and the kids.”

  “And you might not be able to, someday, somehow,” she said, no laughter in her voice anymore. “You’re not always here, even now. But I manage all the same. And I would manage. To take care of myself, and the kids too, no matter what. Don’t worry, Drew. It’s all right.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know. It’s just…” He rested a hand on the taut roundness of her belly. “Too close, I reckon. I’m always nervous when you’re this close. It matters too much. And besides, I’m used to being able to do things, to take care of things, and when you’re having the baby, I can’t. So hard to know you’re hurting, and not be able to help.”

  “Somebody said that. That when you have a child, you give a hostage to the world. When you love somebody that much.”

  “A hostage. Yeh.” He felt his son kick under his hand, held safe there under his wife’s heart, and knew how true it was. “You, and the kids.”

  “True for me too, you know,” she said. He’d turned onto his side to face her, and he could see her now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The gleam of her pale hair, her eyes on him, her face so gentle. “True for both of us. Love is a risk. But you’re worth it, Drew. Always.”

  He did his best to speak around the lump in his throat. “Yeh. So are you.”

  Hannah woke to find the room dark, because the shades were still drawn. She could see from the bright December light shining around their edges, though, that it was morning.

  No Drew beside her. She pulled the pillow that had supported her belly out from between her legs, rolled with difficulty onto her other side, and looked at the bedside clock.

  Seven-thirty. She’d slept in, and Drew had let her. She still had more than two weeks to go until the baby, but everybody who’d told her the third was harder had been right, because she was dragging. Or maybe it was just that she was thirty-five now, and pregnancy, never her easiest thing, had got even harder. She couldn’t love her children more, but she sure didn’t love being pregnant. And last night, she hadn’t loved it at all. She’d woken, slept a little, and woken again until the wee hours of the morning. Drew’s nightmare had unsettled her, maybe, or maybe it was just her back. She got up, putting a hand to it as she did, and it was an effort.

  But Drew was on holiday, she had a houseful of guests, every one of whom was somebody she loved, and it was a beautiful December morning. She drew the blinds to reveal a few white clouds in the impossibly clear blue of a New Zealand sky, the grass and flax plant and palms, their fronds waving a little in the gentle breeze. And, beyond, the expansive curve of beach where sand met sea. Papamoa Beach, on the Bay of Plenty. Home.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was down the wide, angular white-walled stairway of the modern house, windows streaming with light, into the gleaming stainless-steel of the kitchen, where breakfast was in full swing.

  Helen, Drew’s mum, had clearly been up and cooking early. Drew, his father Sam, and Hannah’s brother-in-law Liam were finishing off a very full breakfast with obvious contentment. Sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes, potatoes, and all. Helen had really gone to town for “her boys.”

  Hannah was glad she hadn’t had to do it, because even this late in her pregnancy, bacon and sausage—even the smell of them—didn’t sit easily. And that was particularly true this morning.

  “Morning, love,” her mother-in-law said.

  “Morning,” Hannah said, stooping with some difficulty to give her children a somewhat messy kiss that they barely deigned to return, so intent were they on their own breakfasts. “You should have woken me, Drew. Here I am, last one down.”

  “Nah,” he said, mopping up a last bit of yolk with a piece of toast. “Needed your rest, didn’t you. Baby’s going to be more trouble out than in. Rest while you can.”

  “How did you do, Kristen?” Hannah asked. Kristen was due only ten days after her elder sister, but of course she still looked beautiful, because it seemed that Kristen could never look anything else.

  “Not too badly,” Kristen said, and if a pregnant woman could truly be said to glow, she was glowing. And even that irritated Hannah this morning, which was just wrong.

  “Sit and have some breakfast, love,” Helen said. “Eggs? Toast? More?”

  “I can get it,” Hannah said automatically.

  “Oh, let me spoil you, my darling,” Helen said. “You know how much I enjoy it, and I’ll be back with only Sam to see to soon enough.” Which made Hannah a little weepy. Her emotions were out of control today, and that was the truth.

  “Though I’m more trouble than three,” Sam Callahan, an older and even broader version of his much-decorated son, said. “So it’s not really a fair comparison.”

  “Rubbish,” Helen said. “A bit mucky from the animals, maybe.” She gave Hannah a wink.

  “So,” Hannah said, taking a cautious nibble at a triangle of toast from the rack, a sip of the herbal tea that Helen put in front of her. Spoiling her, as always, just as she’d said. She took a breath, another sip of tea, tried her best to sound cheerful. “We’ve got a big day today, don’t we?”

  “Yeh,” Drew said. “Mako and I thought we’d start it with a visit to the gym.”

  That made her smile after all, her first truly genuine one of the morning. “Oh, because you need to work out. Before you go water skiing and swimming and whatever else you’ve got planned for today.”

  “Aw, that’s just a bit of larking about,” Liam said. “Not a real workout.”

  “Uh-huh,” Hannah shared a look with her sister. “If you say so.”

  “I thought we’d take the kids,” Drew said. “The other boys are bringing theirs too. Drop them in the childcare there, give you girls a break before everyone gets wet and sandy and noisy. Right, you two?”

  “Yeh, Mum,” Jack piped up. “We’re going with Dad! And then the beach!”

  “Really? Who all’s going?” Hannah asked.

  Drew shrugged. “Everybody. All seven of us. Toro’s not arriving until later today,” he reminded her, referring to his successor as captain of the All Blacks, coming in for the wedding that was the excuse for this gathering of teammates past and present.

  “And everybody’s bringing their kids?” Hannah asked. “Drew, the gym isn’t going to be able t
o handle that. That’s…” She paused, tried to count in her head, gave up.

  “We won’t take the big ones,” Drew said. “Just the littlies. Only seven of them. And I already rang up,” he said, cutting her off. “It’s sorted. Besides, Jack’s going to help look after Grace, aren’t you, mate?” He gave his son’s hair a rumple.

  “Yeh,” Jack said with enthusiasm, looking up at last from his oatmeal. “Grace and I like to play at the gym, and I’ll look after her, Mum. I’m very good at looking after. Want to play in the ball pit, Gracie?” he asked his eighteen-month-old sister.

  Grace, all pink cheeks, blue eyes, and pale blonde curls, looked up from the cereal she had been shoveling into her mouth with all her father’s famous single-mindedness. “Play ball!” she pronounced.

  Drew laughed, leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek, got a messy pat from an oatmeal-smeared hand on his own chin for his trouble.

  “That’s my girl,” he said, sitting up and wiping his face with a napkin. “Knows what’s important. You and Kristen have a…a rest or something, sweetheart. Have a nice catch-up.”

  “A rest?” Hannah knew she shouldn’t be grumpy, but she was all the same. “I just got out of bed, Drew. I don’t need a rest.” She saw that Drew was showing her his Patient Face, and forced herself into a cheerfulness she didn’t feel. He was doing his best to help out. Time for her to do her best too. “We’ll go for a walk, Kristen, before it gets too hot? Want to?”

  Kristen sighed. “She’s making me exercise again,” she complained to Liam.

  “Good for us,” Hannah said. Good for her, she hoped. She had to shake herself out of this, because she had twelve people coming to the house for dinner tonight, and even though she wouldn’t be doing much of the work, the idea of it was making her feel nothing but tired and cross.

  “Don’t wear yourself out,” Drew said, reading her mood. “Because we wouldn’t want you too tired to get up on your own water skis.”

  “Drew, you’re such a tease,” his mother said fondly.