Just Not Mine (Escape to New Zealand) Read online

  Just Not Mine: Escape to New Zealand, Book Six

  By Rosalind James

  Text copyright 2014 Rosalind James

  All Rights Reserved

  Author’s Note

  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.

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note

  Table of Contents

  New Zealand Map

  The Combat Zone

  A Trained Professional

  Flight of the Hummingbirds

  Getting a Life

  The Black Widow Speaks

  A Positive Role Model

  A Big Night Out

  The Backside of a Bus

  Weeing Round the Boundaries

  Team Effort

  Not Romantic

  Celebrity Gossip

  Role Playing

  The Lucky Country

  Chemistry

  Just Not Me

  Animal Magnetism

  Letting Your Hair Down

  Enough of a Woman

  Not That Kind of Girl

  Wings, or Not

  Dr. Josie

  Star Turn

  All the Live Ones

  Destiny Breathing Down Your Neck

  Method Acting

  Stamping On It

  Over the Fence

  Demon Lover

  Dr. Eva Takes a Turn

  Playing With Fire

  A Maori Thing

  Not Boiling the Bunny

  Complications

  Family Ties

  A Bigger Star

  Ringing the Changes

  Life Happens

  Home Truths

  Ready or Not

  What’s in Front of You

  Epilogue

  A Kiwi Glossary

  Links

  Acknowledgments

  New Zealand Map

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

  The Combat Zone

  Hugh Latimer had his eye on the ball.

  Fifteen minutes left in the deciding game of the Rugby Championship, the score, despite every desperate effort, stuck at 14 to 6 in favor of the Springboks, and the capacity crowd of fifty thousand South Africans at Loftus Verfeld was sniffing victory, baying for All Black blood.

  The noise was a physical thing, an assault, but it didn’t matter. There was no pain, no sweat, no fear. Only one thing mattered. Where was the ball, and how could he get to it and take it back.

  The Boks were moving fast. Jan Strauss, the blazing winger, took the pass and was off with a burst of acceleration. Hugh read the tiny movement of his head that signaled one of his deceptive jukes, saw the line he was aiming for, and was into space in that fraction of a second to cut him off. He brought him down in a bone-jarring tackle a bare five meters from the tryline, sprang to his feet and went for the ball, keeping his balance to avoid the penalty that would put the chance of victory beyond reach. He planted both feet hard and solid, kept his body weight low, and used every bit of strength in his hands, arms, and shoulders to wrest the ball loose from Jan’s grasp.

  He was aware of Liam Mahaka barreling in in support, his ferocity, as always, undiminished by the gash to his head that had sent him to the blood bin for stapling minutes earlier. But Hugh wasn’t thinking about that either. He kept his focus on the ball. That was his target. That was his only goal.

  He felt the moment when he won, began to pull the ball to his side of the line even as he saw all hundred-twenty kilos of Flip van der Jongh bearing down on him in a desperate attempt to wrest it back. Flip’s right eye was nearly closed, the area around it angry, red, and swollen, the injury only increasing his determination. Flip dove, his elbow cracked into Hugh’s left hand where he had the ball in a death grip, and Hugh didn’t let go, because that wasn’t an option.

  He barely felt the impact at all, because the ref was blowing his whistle, and the ball belonged to the All Blacks, and he had won. He sent the ball fast to Nate Torrance for distribution, and saw, as he got himself back into position, that Toro had immediately offloaded it himself to Nic Wilkinson behind the tryline, who got it off his left foot and safely to midfield. The try was saved, the disaster averted. For now.

  Hugh wasn’t celebrating. He was sprinting the moment the ball left Nico’s foot, calculating angles, assessing the Boks’ positions. Jean le Vieux, the centre, was running straight at Kevin McNicholl as Hugh had expected, testing the buggered foot that had been obvious from twenty minutes into the match. Kevin threw himself in for the tackle with undiminished courage, and Hugh was there in support, going for the ball again.

  Except that he couldn’t, because his left hand was crocked. He’d hardly noticed the pain, but he couldn’t move his thumb, couldn’t grab at all, couldn’t tackle. He was useless.

  No hope. No choice. He was jogging off the field, his replacement running on. His game was over, and he was on the sideline with an ice pack strapped to his hand, ten minutes left in the match and the big screen still showing 14 to 6, two scores away from a win, and nothing left to do but watch.

  He had something cheering to watch, for a while. Four minutes out, and the All Blacks were driving. Koti James had the ball, was breaking the line, throwing a head-fake one way, making a couple seemingly impossible changes of direction, drawing three tacklers and offloading the ball at the last possible half-second out the back door, a quick flip from his left hand to Nate. The ball in and out of the skipper’s hands in a flash, and before the Springboks could react, Kevin again, somehow still managing to run on that foot, crashing his big frame over the tryline in the corner, miraculously keeping his left foot off the chalk that marked the touchline, and Hugh was rising with the rest of the men on the bench in exultation, because that was surely a try, and they were in with a chance.

  But both men had paid the price. Koti had been hit so hard his mouthpiece had gone flying, he’d crashed to the turf in a heap and hadn’t risen again, and Kevin had pounded that foot once too often and was hobbling up now, trying to get back to midfield, but he wasn’t going to make it. The trainer was bent over a still-prone Koti even as Nico was nailing the kick and making the score 14 to 13, which was so close, but Koti and Kevin were gone too, and the chances had just got even slimmer.

  Every man on the field was digging deep, giving everything he had, but there wasn’t enough time, and nothing the All Blacks could do to knock the ball loose from the Springboks’ grip as they held on, this match as important to them as to their New Zealand counterparts, because if New Zealand’s blood ran black, South Africa’s ran green.

  Three minutes. Two minutes. Sixty seconds. The clock ticked down, and still the Springboks held the ball. The hooter sounded, a Bok kicked the ball into touch, and the game was lost, and so was the Championship.

  You played the match you got on the night, played what was in front of you with all your heart and all your passion and every last bit of drive and determination and strength you could screw out of your body and your soul. You played for your teammates, and for the jersey, and for your country, and for mana.

  And sometimes, it wasn’t enough.

  A Trained Professional

  Dr. Eva Parker opened her white lab coat to reveal what she was wearing beneath it, smiled in slow satisfaction at the reaction in the shocked eyes that were definitely not staring into her own.

  Her outfit matched the coat, if sheer white lace could ever be said t
o match starched white cotton. A hard-working, low-cut demibra offered up her full, round breasts like treats on a shelf, while the tiniest thong curved over the perfectly smooth, perfectly moisturized skin of her rigorously-dieted hips, highlighted her absolutely, positively flat stomach. A diamond winked from the concave slit that was her navel, and a suspender belt kept her stockings clinging to the endless legs that tapered to the exclamation point of the killer black heels she always wore at work. Unless she was in the operating room, of course.

  “Eva.” Bruce Dixon, the hospital’s administrative officer, groaned out the word. “I’m a married man.”

  “My favorite kind,” she purred. Her fingers worked through his neatly combed blond hair, lingered on his smoothly shaved cheek, then traveled downward to splay against his chest. But not for long, because her hand was on a mission now, a heat-seeking missile homing in on its target, stroking down and down as she watched his eyes glaze, as she touched his abdomen with the lightest of caresses, landing at last on his belt buckle, her long, slim fingers with their red-polished nails playing with the leather strip, letting him know that she was more than ready to take it off, that he was well and truly hers.

  “Ah, yes. My very favorite kind.” Her voice was low, sensuous, full of promise. “The talented kind. Because I can tell you’ve got a major talent right here. Talents are meant to be used, you know. I can’t wait to see how you’ll use yours. I plan to use it myself, too, be warned. And be afraid.” She smiled, a red-lipsticked thing that was pure predator. “Because I plan to use it, to use you, until you’re begging for mercy.”

  “I can’t just make ethics charges go away,” he protested, sounding weaker by the moment.

  “Of course you can.” She took hold of his necktie, leaned against his desk, and pulled him into her. She gave him a long, slow kiss, saw his eyes closing, felt every lingering bit of his reserve weakening, and smiled again. She was seductive, oh, yes, she was. She was deadly. She was a man-eater, a Black Widow, and she loved it.

  “A man as powerful as you,” she told him, sweeping an arm behind her to send his pile of files tumbling to the floor, “can do anything. Anything you like.”

  “And … cut!” Mike said with satisfaction. “That one’s in the can.”

  Josie sat up, let go of Clive’s tie, and grinned at him. “Got you going there, didn’t I?”

  “I am a trained professional,” he said, grinning back at her. “Just like you.”

  Flight of the Hummingbirds

  The Dance of the Ladybugs was cute enough. Six or seven three-year-olds wandered around the stage seemingly at random, bumping into each other to the accompaniment of clearly audible hisses from the wings. By the time the Waltz of the Butterflies came around, though, Hugh was bored. And endless minutes—or hours—later, when a bunch of little girls in pink tutus were earnestly performing the Flight of the Hummingbirds, he was just about catatonic.

  “How long till Amelia’s?” he muttered to his Aunt Cora under cover of the applause as the latest group trooped off the stage.

  “Next but three,” she told him. “Takes a while to get to the twelve-year-olds.”

  “I’ll come back for that,” he started to say. “Sorry, but I can’t take much more of this.”

  The brunette in the row ahead of him turned around, a frown drawing her dark eyebrows together, and he shut up and looked at her.

  She was lost from sight, unfortunately, because sure enough, the music had started up again, and the lights were dimming. Hugh sat back with a sigh. More tinkly music, more birds, or bugs, or some damn thing with wings. Again.

  There was normal time, which was … normal, he decided as girls came on and girls went off, as somebody lost her place and ran crying into the wings, as the music stopped and started. There was rugby time, which was fast. And there was Dance Recital time. Which was endless.

  “This is it,” Charlie told him from his other side. “This is Amelia’s.”

  Hugh looked down at his half-brother. Leaning forward, every line of his eight-year-old body straining, that intense look on his finely-carved features. He could feel the tension from Charlie, sense his toe tapping out the rhythm as the music swelled, the girls danced onto the stage. He cared.

  “Pas de bourré, pirouette,” he heard Charlie mutter. “Too stiff, though.” And indeed, Amelia’s arms weren’t curved into the graceful lines some of the other girls had achieved, even Hugh could tell that. The music picked up, and the girls started leaping about.

  “Aw, she’s wobbled,” Charlie said. Sure enough, the sturdy figure of Amelia, her dark hair scraped back like the other girls’ into a painfully tight knot at the back of her head, was losing its line, her pink-clad leg showing a distinct tendency to tremble as the girls stopped leaping and ended with a foot stuck out behind them, and Hugh watched his half-sister set her errant foot down a full second ahead of the other girls.

  He sighed with relief when the piece was over, began to stand up.

  “Still four more to go,” Aunt Cora told him.

  “I could come back and meet you,” Hugh suggested. “After.”

  The brunette from the row ahead turned around again, Aunt Cora looked at him reprovingly again, and Hugh sat back again, sighed, closed his eyes, and surrendered to the inevitable.

  When the thing was over—he looked at his phone afterwards and was astonished to see it had actually only been a couple of hours, during which he may or may not have fallen asleep, because he wasn’t telling—he wasn’t quite so sorry. The little bunches of teachers, parents, heroic family friends, and excited girls were mingling in the church hall housing tonight’s performance, drinking tea and eating biscuits that some of the mums had provided, and Amelia’s teacher was pretty.

  “Oh,” Aunt Cora said. “You won’t have met Chloe Donaldson, Hugh. My nephew Hugh, Amelia’s brother. Chloe owns the dance studio, Hugh. Hasn’t she done a good job tonight?”

  Hugh waited for a look of recognition that didn’t come, uttered a few words of congratulation, and shook hands with the petite brunette as she smiled politely back at him, nothing but wariness in the dark eyes. Her hair was a sleek cap, cut a little—raggedly, although he didn’t think that was the right word, her figure was willowy, her features were fine, and she looked more like a wood elf than any woman really had a right to look. She looked like she should be wearing a green tunic and pointed shoes, and all her movements were graceful.

  “How’s Amelia getting on?” he asked her.

  He could sense the hesitation. “She’s a good hard worker,” she said, and Hugh knew what that meant.

  She smiled briefly at him again, turned for another introduction to a dad, and Hugh hadn’t met many women who’d been as unimpressed by him as that. Oh, well. Probably had a partner.

  He spotted the other woman, and forgot about the ballet teacher. Her face had looked good, even frowning over the back of her seat at him. Now, though, he was treated to the full picture, and it was a sight to see, even though he wouldn’t have called her presentation anything spectacular. Black leggings and boots, and a dark blue knit dress over them. She was completely covered, completely sober, nothing flash, her hair pulled back into a knot. But she couldn’t hide the flash of that figure. She was slim to the point of thinness, but not every part of her was thin. Not at all. Some Maori there, clearly visible in the golden-brown skin, the aristocratically carved features. And all those curves, the dress working hard to accommodate them. Yeh, she was golden, all right.

  She was in the middle of a fairly sizable group of women, a few men, too, and he sighed. Somebody’s mum. This was clearly not his night.

  She glanced at him across the gray head of a shorter woman, because she was tall. Her eyes widened for just a moment at what he realized was his stare, then her face went blank and she looked away, the dismissal clear.

  She was the only one who wasn’t interested, though, because one of the fellas with her looked over, nudged somebody else, and now the men’s a
ttention was divided between the brunette and Hugh, and Hugh braced himself.

  Luckily, Amelia turned up with a couple of friends just then, Amelia whispering, the others giggling, arms wrapped around each others’ shoulders, the stiff net of their tutus shoved up against each other. Their scraped-back hair and heavy makeup made them look oddly like very young … models, to put it politely, which wasn’t a look he cared for much at all, not on his little sister.

  Amelia detached herself from her friends. “You need to tell Aunt Cora that it’s time to go,” she informed her brother. “It’s past Charlie’s bedtime.”

  He’d seldom heard more welcome words. “Why don’t you tell her?” His aunt was in a group of her friends, and if there was a way out of having a chat, he’d welcome it. He was knackered, and his hand was throbbing in its sling.

  She sighed with the patronizing exasperation that was something new, but that he’d seen more than once in the short day and a half since he’d come back from South Africa. “Because it’s not polite to interrupt. You need to tell her.”

  “Why’s it polite for me to interrupt, then?”

  “Because you’re grown up, and I’m a child,” she said, one hand on her pink-leotarded hip.

  “Beginning to wonder about that,” he muttered, but he went over and put a hand on Aunt Cora’s elbow, smiled at the older ladies and a few men who had immediately drifted over to join the group at his approach, answered a few questions, accepted the bitter disappointment and galling commiserations over the loss of the Championship with as much grace as he could muster, and tried his level best to convey that he was teetering on the verge of leaving.

  “Past Charlie’s bedtime,” he murmured in Cora’s ear, gave another smile all around, and they were finally done.

  Family obligations: complete. Progress toward female companionship during his enforced holiday: zero.

  Getting a Life