Just My Luck (Escape to New Zealand #5) Read online

  “Twenty-four. Which isn’t that unusual,” he said hurriedly. “The skipper got injured, they popped me in there. Then he went overseas to play, and I hadn’t done too badly, so they kept me on.”

  “Because you’re so . . . serious. So focused. All that’s taken a lot of effort. A lot of strength and determination. Which is the Toro nickname, I’m getting it now. The bull.”

  He shrugged, fully embarrassed now, even as he felt the glow of knowing that he’d finally managed to impress her. Because he’d cried when he was fifteen, and got over it. He didn’t understand women, and that was the truth. “It’s like I said. A lot of this game, specially at test level. At international level, the All Blacks. A lot of it’s mental. Of course you have to be fit, and in form. Not injured. Be the best at your position every year. More than that, every series. Have a rough patch, turn up for the season out of shape, and you’ll be on the bench for your squad, and not selected for the ABs at all. And you have to have the instincts, be able to lift your game to the pace, because everything happens so much faster at test level. But some of it’s just how much you’re willing to flog yourself. How consistent you are. How much it . . . burns.”

  “And it burns pretty hot in you,” she guessed.

  “Well, yeh. It does. It always has.”

  Enjoying It Heaps

  “Maybe we could just try it for a month, see how it goes,” Ally suggested to Mac, trying not to show her frustration. She was standing behind the counter with him, late on a Friday afternoon. An afternoon that should have been a lot busier than it was. She shouldn’t have time for this conversation, but she did, so she’d taken another shot at changing Mac’s mind. With, as usual, no results.

  Mac sighed with exasperation. “I told you already. No. No bloody kids’ birthday parties. This isn’t a playground, it’s a climbing gym. What bloke wants to climb with a bunch of kids running around? Probably why they’re coming to the gym anyway, get away from them.”

  “Sunday mornings, maybe,” she persisted. “That’s always a quiet time. And it’d get women to see that climbing isn’t intimidating too. We could offer some women’s classes during that same time slot. Early, when there aren’t so many people around. Women like to get up early anyway on the weekend and do their exercise. Fit it into their day, get their partners to watch the kids, for the mothers. We could even do a two-for-one special, or just a discount,” she went on, caught up in the idea. “Women like to try new things with a friend, make it not so scary.”

  “Why the hell would I focus my energies on getting more women in?” he asked. “You don’t go after your worst customers. You focus on your target market. We don’t get that many women in because women aren’t interested.”

  “You’re right. You only have twenty-nine percent women right now. I did a quick survey, this past week,” she explained at Mac’s sharp look, his frown. “And that figure’s well below industry standard. I checked. It should be higher. It could be higher.”

  “Do us all a favor,” he growled. “Don’t waste the bloody time that I’m paying you for to do something I never asked you to do. You’ve got a job to do. Do that.”

  “But . . .” she began.

  “You’ve got Nate Torrance coming in today for another lesson, haven’t you?” he demanded. “That’s the market I’m interested in going after. That’s the kind of thing that’ll get the boys into the gym. See if he’ll bring in some more of his mates. That’s who I’ll give a bloody discount to. Meanwhile, you can go check harnesses. That’s your job. Not marketing. Not promotions. And not running the bloody gym.”

  “You’re a bit quiet today,” Nate said when he’d had his lesson and they were sitting over a beer that had been all too easy for Ally to agree to. “Did I stuff up that badly? Are you trying to think of a tactful way to tell me to give it up?”

  “What? No,” she said with a hurried smile. “You’re doing great. You know you are. No, just a conversation I had with Mac before you came in. Still on my mind, I guess.”

  “You having trouble at work?” he asked with surprise. “Should I have a word, tell him what a good instructor you are?”

  She was touched. “Well, I wouldn’t say no, if you wanted to do that. That wouldn’t hurt. But it’s not really trouble. It’s just that . . .” She stopped.

  “What?” he pressed.

  “I feel stupid telling you,” she admitted. “Telling you about how I’m not getting ahead at work . . . well, it makes me feel like a little bit of a loser, you know?”

  “You’re not a loser,” he promised. “You just haven’t found your focus yet, maybe. Tell me what happened.”

  She sighed and repeated the gist of the conversation to him.

  “We ought to be doing everything we can to get more women in,” she finished, “but Mac’s too fixated on men. He doesn’t realize that women climbers are what really put a gym over the top. Couples climbing together, men coming in to meet women.”

  “Hmm,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Because I know you don’t have any problem meeting women,” she went on. “I’m sure all you have to do is show up. But for the average guy, his chances in a bar? Not that good. And who wants to meet their next partner in a bar anyway? People say the grocery store, but really, what are the chances of picking up a woman there? When they ask you how to tell if the cantaloupe’s ripe . . . How often do you think that works?”

  He laughed, and she realized all at once how much she’d come to enjoy being with him. That sitting across from him at an umbrella-shaded table in the pub’s busy outdoor seating area, the cold beer sliding down her throat, the relaxed crowd around them in a festive summer Friday-afternoon mood, the blue sea sparkling just a few meters away, was so very much the best thing about today. When had that happened?

  And looking at him . . . The way he was sitting back, one arm hooked over the back of the chair, showing off all that bicep, the vertical ridges of muscle down his forearm. The other sinewy, oversized hand caressing his beer glass in a way that had riveted her when she’d first noticed it, then made her look hastily elsewhere. His amused gaze on her, the smile that cocked up at one side of his mouth.

  “No idea,” he said, and she had to wrench her mind back to recall what they were talking about. “Never thought of that one.”

  “Yeah,” she said, smiling at him in her turn, seeing his gaze sharpen, watching him sit up a little straighter. “Because you don’t have to.”

  “Well, not so far,” he admitted. “Never done much lurking round the vegie aisle, anyway.”

  “I’ll bet you haven’t.” Even if he hadn’t been a rugby player. But since he was . . . No. He wouldn’t have been resorting to the grocery store.

  “But for normal men, men who aren’t you,” she went on, forcing herself to keep to the topic, “a climbing gym—that’s just tailor-made as a place to meet women. Or for women to meet men, for that matter, since you need a partner to do anything but bouldering. What better way to get to know somebody? She gets used to seeing you around, you offer to belay her? Start a little chat, ask if she wants to meet you there again tomorrow?”

  “That’d work,” he agreed. “Least, I’m hoping it does.”

  “And people look more attractive doing athletic things, right?” she asked, deciding to pretend she hadn’t understood his meaning.

  “So they say,” he said with a crinkle around his eyes that she could tell meant he was trying not to smile.

  “All right,” she said with a laugh of her own. “I get that women think you’re attractive doing athletic things.” She sure thought so, anyway. Or not doing athletic things. He was looking pretty good just sitting there.

  “Nah, that isn’t what I was thinking of,” he protested. “I was thinking about how attractive you looked doing them.”

  “Oh.” She stopped, took another sip from the tall glass just to buy a little time. “Well. OK. So we agree, right?”

  “Yeh. I’d agree with you, all good ideas. Don�
�t think anybody ever went broke overestimating men’s desire to get sex.”

  “I wouldn’t have put it quite like that.” She could tell she was smiling like a fool, but couldn’t seem to help herself. She forced herself to continue the conversation. Pretended they were talking in the abstract, even as the tingles she was feeling in all the right places were letting her know that this conversation was happening on a whole different level. “But that’s the basic idea. And women want to meet men, too. Or to do something fun with their boyfriends. It’s a great couple activity, don’t you think?”

  “I do,” he said solemnly.

  She cast a sharp look at him.

  “Oi. Why d’you think I’m doing it?” he asked plaintively, that grin showing up again, showing her that he knew exactly what they were talking about. “I told you.”

  “OK, but admit, you’re enjoying it.”

  “Oh, I’m enjoying it,” he assured her. “I’m enjoying it heaps.”

  It was true, Nate thought, although every time he’d seen her, his body had urged him to speed things up, was fairly shouting at him by now. The season was starting, and soon he’d be spending half his time on the road. And there were plenty of blokes in Wellington better-looking than him. Blokes who’d be here while he was gone. Who’d never spilt a beer on her, or given her a black eye, or been caught discussing their plans to have a quick fling with her. He’d never worried about competition before, had always known, much as he hated to admit it, that he was a desirable commodity. That most women would queue up for the chance. But Ally wasn’t one of them, and that worried him.

  He couldn’t rush it, he reminded himself, or he’d lose the one chance he had. All he’d be doing then was proving to her that what she’d heard had been a true statement of his intentions. Which, to be fair, it pretty much had been at the time, but there was something else there now.

  He still wanted to take her to bed, wanted it more than ever, in fact. Was spending far too much time imagining it, time he should’ve spent thinking about the team, the season ahead. But it was more than that. He was actually looking forward to the climbing, even getting a bit better at it now that some of his fear had left him. And enjoying the time afterward, talking to her, more than he’d ever enjoyed being with a woman he wasn’t sleeping with.

  And she was relaxing with him too, he could tell. He was making progress, he was sure of it. The way she was looking at him right now . . . He was sure of it.

  Ally Takes the Plunge

  Ally shifted her balance a fraction, stretched again for the next handhold. And once again, came up short.

  She sighed in annoyance. She’d started working on resetting the route as soon as she’d come in this morning, but clearly hadn’t been focusing hard enough, had placed this hold a few critical centimeters too high. The worst part was, she couldn’t say whether it was the conversation with Mac, her frustrated career ambitions that had been distracting her, or yesterday’s outing with Nate.

  Well, yes, she could. It was Nate. It was all Nate. He was the reason she hadn’t slept well the night before, too. The incident with Devon might have shut her down for a while, but oh, boy, was her body ever awake now. Awake, and clamoring for something she couldn’t even quite define, because she’d never had it. But she had a feeling that Nate could provide it.

  Quit thinking about sex. Quit thinking about Nate and FOCUS, damn it!

  There was no hope for it. She’d put the handhold too high. She looked to the side, her hands cramping a bit now, stretched as far as she could to get her right foot onto the adjacent climb so she could reach the offending handhold, reset it. Felt her left hand slip on the tiny protrusion, tried to adjust, and lost her hold entirely.

  A frantic millisecond where she continued to grip with her right hand, her left foot, and then she was off, falling awkwardly to her right, all three meters down, swinging below her final anchor point. Unable to avoid the crash into the vertical wall, even as she blindly thrust a hand, a leg out to cushion herself. She felt her right forearm and shin knock against the rough concrete, the impact yanking her body to the left again, her forehead making jarring contact with a fair-sized handhold as the rope jerked and held.

  She lay against the wall for a moment, stunned and limp. Heard the commotion around her, struggled to focus against the pain in her head.

  “Ally!” It was Robbo, underneath her, his voice sharp with fear. “You OK? Ally!”

  “OK,” she got out. “Just a knock.”

  “Lowering you,” Robbo said.

  She reached shaking legs out automatically to avoid twisting on the rope, and was down within seconds. On her feet, reaching for the wall to steady herself. Fumbling to unclip the carabiners attaching her harness to the rope, her rope to the harness. Robbo’s hands pushing hers aside, doing it for her. Pulling her to sit on the mat at the base of the climb as the others crowded around.

  “Bloody hell.” That was Mac, sounding, if anything, angry.

  Ally reached a shaking hand up and felt her forehead, the lump rising already. Glanced down at her shin, exposed in her capris. Exposed, bruised, and abraded. She lifted her arm, saw that the underside of her forearm was in even worse shape.

  “I’m OK,” she said again. “Just a little banged up, that’s all. No big deal.” Except for her head. That really did hurt. She put her hands down, tried to push herself to stand, but Robbo was there again, shoving her back down. And Mac was crouching next to her now, looking at her injuries in his turn, his expression holding annoyance, but also concern. Whether for her or the gym—or just his Saturday staffing—Ally couldn’t tell.

  “Need to get that head checked out,” he said gruffly. “I’ve rung 111. Stay there, Ally. Robbo, stay with her till the ambos get here. Lachlan, get her a blanket from the back. And a bottled water, sharpish.”

  “That’s it,” he told the interested onlookers. “She’s all right. Back to what you were doing.”

  “Goodness,” Nate heard his mother exclaim. “You wouldn’t think she should be out and about, would you, Lil?”

  Nate looked up from where he’d been ostensibly studying the roses. And really thinking about the Captain’s Run yesterday. He was a bit concerned about the clearances. The backline wasn’t everything it should be, and the Bulls would be onto that straight away. He’d have another go at getting that sorted during the walk-through this afternoon, he decided.

  But all that went straight out of his head when he saw what his mother and aunt were looking at. Who they were looking at. Because it was Ally, walking—limping, really—round the circular rose garden, and looking like she belonged in the casualty ward.

  He was at her side in a moment.

  “What happened?” he asked in alarm. “Here, let me help.”

  “What?” she asked, startled. Then laughed, though the laugh didn’t sound any too steady. “No, I’m fine. All this was yesterday. I’m in recovery mode now. And hey, you should see the other guy.”

  “What? Somebody did this to you?” he exploded. The left side of her forehead sported a truly nasty bruise in glorious black and purple. And her right shin, exposed beneath her usual short shorts, looked just as bad.

  “No, of course not. Just a joke. Just a saying.” She brushed the explanation away. “I’m fine, really.” She glanced at the two women who, Nate saw, were watching the two of them with frank curiosity, moving to join them now. “Don’t let me interrupt your day out. I got sick of sitting on the couch, decided I needed to walk, try to loosen this leg up.”

  “You didn’t walk from your flat,” Nate said, his frustration building by the moment.

  “Well, yeah,” she admitted. “Which was maybe a little ambitious. I’ll get the bus back.”

  “Nah, you won’t,” he said firmly. He could help with that, at least. And she looked pretty shaky to him, no matter what she said. “I’ll drive you home. But come sit first. We were just going to have a coffee, eh, Mum.”

  “Is this your mom?” Ally aske
d, looking interested. “No, really, Nate. Go do your family stuff. I’m good.”

  “Like hell you are,” he growled. “Quit being so bloody stubborn.”

  “Nate!” his mother exclaimed. “What a way to talk!”

  “You don’t know her, Mum,” he tried to explain.

  “Well, no, I don’t, do I?” she responded tartly. “I’m Georgia Torrance,” she said to Ally, putting out her hand. “And I know it’s hard to believe, but I actually did try to teach this shockingly rude young man some manners, once upon a time. Oh, and this is my sister Lillian,” she added.

  “But you poor thing, come sit down over here.” She indicated the nearby café with its plentiful array of outdoor tables. “Nate can make up for his shortcomings by buying us all a nice coffee. And get some scones as well, darling,” she decided. “Go on, now.”

  Nate looked at Ally, saw her laughing back at him. Shrugged, grinned, and turned to obey.

  “At least I didn’t do it this time,” he told Ally when he’d returned from placing their order inside the café. “And here.” He shifted the umbrella overhead. “Give you a bit of shade.”

  “Thanks,” she said, smiling at him. It was gratifying, she had to admit, to have him make a fuss over her. That was the worst of getting injured in a foreign country. There were so few people around who cared what happened to you. Kristen had been suitably horrified, of course, but Ally had forced her to go ahead and go to breakfast with Liam, and then, finding it too boring and depressing to hang around the flat by herself, had embarked on this admittedly overlong outing.

  “What d’you mean, this time?” Nate’s mother asked. She didn’t miss a trick, Ally was already beginning to realize.

  Nate rubbed his nose, looking sheepish, and it was suddenly possible to see the six-year-old boy he had been. “I, ah, caused Ally a bit of damage myself once. Not too different from this.”