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

  “Preseason training for most of the boys will have started already,” Drew said. “Mid-December now. But the All Blacks don’t have to turn up to their teams till the first of February this year, though some of them’ll start sooner. So, yeh. Long break. Gives them time to take a real holiday, let all the niggles settle, get fired up to go again.”

  “It must feel strange not going back,” Kristen put in. She still sounded a little shy with her brother-in-law, Ally thought, even after all these years.

  “It does, a bit,” Drew admitted. “I keep having to remind myself that I’m not doing this anymore. It’s all good, but it’s a bit odd. I won’t be turning up at many of these things. Need to back off, let the new skipper take the reins. And the spotlight. He’s welcome to that. But as we’re down here, I thought it’d be a chance to have a chat with a few of the boys, introduce you two around.”

  That had been Hannah’s idea, Ally suspected. The visit to Wellington, and the party tonight too. Making sure her beloved sister was settled, even if it meant leaving their two-year-old with his grandparents up north for the week.

  She felt another flutter of nerves as they made it to the top of the steep walkway, went through a gate and up a flight of steps to the front door of the brightly lit house.

  It’s this or the cats and game shows, she reminded herself, taking a deep breath and putting on her Party Face.

  Which was wiped clean away as soon as they walked through the door and she recognized the man coming forward through the chatting knots of people to greet them, shaking Drew’s hand and giving Hannah a kiss on the cheek as Ally and Kristen stood behind the pair. The jerk from the climbing gym.

  She saw the moment when he recognized her in his turn, the blink of surprise, the expression of discomfort almost immediately replaced by a polite smile.

  “Kristen and Ally,” Hannah said, turning to them, “this is Nate Torrance. Nate’s the Hurricanes captain, and even though this is a hard thing for me to say,” she added with a laugh, “he’s the captain of the All Blacks too. How does that sound, Nate? Pretty good, I’ll bet.”

  “Pretty good,” he admitted with a sheepish grin. “Bit intimidating, following a legend like you-know-who. Got some big boots to fill.”

  “You’re all right,” Drew said confidently. “They wouldn’t have chosen you if they hadn’t thought you were the right man for the job. It’ll be your team in no time.”

  “You’ll be getting a knighthood soon, I hear,” Nate said, obviously turning the conversation. “Figured it’d be happening, of course, but congrats on that.”

  This time Drew was the one who looked sheepish, merely muttering a quick “Cheers” in response.

  “You’re kidding,” Kristen said. “You’re going to be a knight? Sir Drew? Sir Andrew, I guess. What does that make you, Hannah? And why didn’t you tell me?”

  “A Lady,” Hannah said with a happy smile. “Lady Callahan. Doesn’t it sound funny? Not that anybody will ever call me that.”

  “And oh,” she realized. “Sorry. I got all carried away with my elevation to the . . . whatever it is. Well, Drew’s elevation, and my being along for the ride. But let me finish my introduction. Nate, this is my sister Kristen Montgomery, and her friend Allison Villiers.”

  “Ally,” Allison said, putting out her hand to shake Nate’s, unable to keep the mischievous smile off her face. “So your nickname’s Toro, I guess. The bull. Hmm. And we’ve already met.”

  “We have,” he said, looking embarrassed. “Today,” he explained to Drew and Hannah. “Mako took me to the climbing gym to show me what it was all about, and I met . . . I had a . . . er . . . I had an encounter with Ally here.”

  “That sounds like a story,” Drew said. “Let me guess. You have a problem with women instructing you.”

  Nate looked thoroughly discomfited now, Ally saw. “Never mind,” she told him with another smile. “I’m sure you’re much better at playing rugby than you are at climbing.”

  “I’d better be, hadn’t I,” he said, clearly rallying his forces. “Because I was rubbish.”

  “Most people wouldn’t even have tried that climb,” she said more seriously, deciding to let him off the hook. “It takes some getting used to, trusting your harness and your climbing partner.”

  He nodded briefly, and she realized with another inward sigh that he felt patronized. He obviously had to be the best at everything. Oh, well. There had to be fifty people here. Surely there was somebody amongst them who would actually want to talk to her.

  But to her surprise, Nate stayed with her when Drew and Hannah were inevitably swept up in the crowd of guests, Kristen moving with them.

  “I wanted to tell you,” he said determinedly, “thanks for trying to put me right on the climb today. I was in a bit over my head. I didn’t realize it’d feel so . . . high. Used to having my feet on the ground.”

  “It’s different,” she agreed, warming to him a little. “That’s one of the few instinctual behaviors babies are born with, actually. The grasping reflex, where they grab hold. It comes from our distant ancestors hanging onto their mothers as infants, being afraid to fall. So you could say that fear of falling is ingrained. Which automatically makes climbing scarier than other things.”

  “Sounds like you’ve told people that more than once. Reassuring the timid. And I didn’t know that. I don’t know much about babies’ instinctual behaviors.”

  “Yeah, except for the suckling reflex, grasping is supposed to be the strongest,” she assured him.

  “Well, I do know a bit about that one,” he said with a smile. “If it means what I think it means.”

  Oh, great. She’d barely met the guy, she still wasn’t sure she liked him, and he already thought she was talking dirty. This was so not the signal she wanted to send him.

  He cleared his throat at her silence. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Please,” she said with relief.

  “Beer? Wine? Something fizzy?”

  “Beer would be great.”

  He turned to leave her, and Ally took the opportunity to look around. The house might be traditional in style, but the décor was most definitely modern, much like Drew and Hannah’s fairly dazzling Auckland home. She was beginning to realize that New Zealanders favored up-to-date styles. Maybe because it was such a young country, but she was still surprised. If she’d thought about New Zealand at all before coming down here with Kristen, she’d considered it a backwater, a quiet, traditional place. Instead, Wellington seemed almost resolutely trendy. And this house was no exception, with its stark white walls, the leather and glass furnishings relieved by the warmth of the polished hardwood floors, the huge wooden beams across the ceiling. A lot of house for one person, and she hadn’t heard any mention of a partner.

  She wandered further into the spacious lounge, seeing Kristen still standing near Drew and Hannah, in the middle of several men who must have been rugby players, from the look of them. She moved closer, feeling self-conscious standing on her own, and caught the eye of the man who’d been with Nate at the gym, just entering the room now. That one had to be a rugby player. Not overly tall either, but almost square with muscle. He smiled in recognition, moved to approach her as Nate reappeared with a couple glasses of beer.

  “Nate!” A young blonde on heels even higher than Kristen’s whirled at the sight of him, pink lips stretching in a delighted smile, eyes avid. She rushed forward, and Nate turned to greet her. The blonde reached up to kiss him, and he turned his body to avoid spilling the beer just as his friend was arriving at Ally’s side.

  Ally watched the glass in Nate’s right hand making contact with his friend’s swinging arm, the beer flying from the glass, as if it were happening in slow motion. Saw the golden arc landing in a sudden, drenching shower across the front of her thin sweater, and a moment later, felt it too.

  She gasped at the shock of the cold liquid. Looked down at herself, and immediately wished she hadn’t. And that she hadn�
��t worn the nearly transparent bra. She’d always scorned any kind of padding. She might not be huge on top, but she thought her breasts were kind of . . . cute. Well, they were sure putting themselves on display now as the frigid beer soaked through the layers of clothes and reached her skin. She stared at Nate, and saw him staring back. And not at her face.

  The girl was babbling an apology, and Nate was handing both glasses to his friend, who was shaking his head and trying to hide a smile.

  “Sorry,” Nate said. “Let me . . .” He reached his hand out as if, Ally thought wildly, he was going to wipe her off. Yeah, that was happening.

  He pulled his hand back again, looking completely rattled. “A towel,” he decided. “A tea towel. I’ll get you one.”

  “Never mind,” she said, fighting the urge to giggle at the ridiculousness of it. “Just tell me where the bathroom is, and I’ll go dry myself off.”

  She doubted she’d find a hairdryer, alas. She was fairly sure that this guy was single. And no matter what she did, she was going to spend the rest of this party smelling like a brewery.

  Anxiety Attacks

  “Good one, mate,” Liam congratulated Nate as Ally took herself off and the blonde retreated in confusion. “Talk about your bull in a china shop. Here,” he said, handing his friend both glasses again. “You could probably use these.”

  He watched as Nate set them down, wiped his wet hand absently on his slacks.

  “Geez,” Nate sighed. “Could I have mucked that up any more?”

  “Maybe if you hadn’t stared at her tits as well,” Liam said helpfully.

  Nate groaned. “Go on. Rub it in.”

  “She doesn’t seem impressed with your smooth technique so far,” Liam said. “Maybe try spilling food on her next.”

  He was still chuckling as he turned away. Toro might be his skipper and his best mate, but no question, he took things much too seriously these days. It was good for him to get shaken up a bit. And Liam had a feeling that girl had started the job already. If Toro wasn’t careful, she was going to turn him right around. Chew him up and spit him out.

  He stopped thinking about his friend, though, when he saw the other one. The blonde he’d stood next to at the gym this afternoon. The one who had barely noticed him beside her, so fiercely had she been concentrating on belaying her friend, on getting it right.

  Liam had thought she was gorgeous then, without any makeup, her golden hair pulled into a high ponytail, her tall showgirl figure rocking the simple T-shirt and climbing pants, not to mention the harness. Yeh. The harness. And now, in those lace clothes that made him think immediately of lingerie, the high heels making her endless legs appear even longer, the waves of golden hair falling around her face, down her back, she was nothing short of spectacular. The skirt was long enough. At least it would have been on somebody without all that leg. And nothing was all that tight. It was just . . . her.

  But something was wrong, he realized. She stood a couple meters away, facing him, several of Liam’s Hurricanes teammates surrounding her, doing their best to chat her up. It couldn’t have been a new situation for her, somebody who looked like that. She had a glass in her hand, a smile on the beautiful lips. But the smile was frozen, and the sapphire-blue eyes had a desperate look to them that he recognized. She was doing her best to maintain, but for some reason, she was overwhelmed.

  Kristen tried to overcome the feelings of panic. Breathe through it, she told herself desperately. Ride the wave. But nothing was working. She felt trapped, and she was going under.

  She’d tried to find some women to talk to, but somehow had never been able to join the group, hovering at the edge until she’d given up. She wasn’t sure where Ally was, and Hannah and Drew were in the midst of a group of people in the far corner of the room. So here she was, standing in a group of men, all too big, too tall, too avid, while the familiar coils twisted in her belly, rose through her body.

  She started at a touch on her arm. It was the man from the gym, she realized. The one who’d stood next to her, belaying his friend while she had been doing the same for Ally. She’d noticed him because he hadn’t tried to talk to her. Had just smiled at her, and she’d thought at the time that he had the kindest eyes she’d ever seen. Now those eyes held a look of concern, and the smile was missing.

  “All right?” he asked her quietly, his deep voice still audible over the hum of voices, the pulsing background music.

  “I’m . . .” She started to say she was fine, changed her mind as the anxiety spiraled higher. “Is there a quiet place?”

  “Yeh. Come with me.”

  She cast an automatic smile around the group, then followed the solid, thick figure leading the way. He stepped through the lounge doorway into a passage, and she worried for a moment that he’d misinterpreted her question. But he was walking into a big, modern kitchen now, where he stopped at the breakfast bar and turned to her.

  “Sit down,” he told her. “Glass of water?”

  “Please,” she said, her breath still feeling too shallow. She hopped up onto a stool and hooked her high heels over a rung, pressed her hands between her knees for warmth.

  He nodded, turned to a cupboard, seeming to know his way around perfectly. Pulled out a couple glasses and filled them from a bottle in the fridge, handed one to her.

  “Cheers,” he said, a smile lightening the effect of the much-broken nose, the misshapen ears and close-cropped, wavy black hair over a neck that was so thick, it was almost a continuation of the head above. Then he looked at her more closely.

  “Breathe,” he told her, taking the glass back from her and setting it on the bar again. “Deep breaths.”

  Tears came to her eyes as she obeyed.

  “You need a paper bag?” he asked. “Hyperventilating?”

  She shook her head wordlessly.

  “Cup your hands over your mouth,” he directed, demonstrating for her. “Deep breaths, in and out.” He kept his intent gaze on her, his scrutiny oddly comforting, as she followed his instructions.

  “Thanks,” she said shakily when she was feeling more herself again. She reached for the glass of water, took a drink. “How did you know?”

  “Anxiety attack, eh,” he answered. “I know the look of it.”

  “Did you know somebody who had them?” she asked, wanting to hear him talk some more, the rumble of his voice soothing the remaining jitters.

  “Yeh. Me.”

  “You?”

  “I guess you know by now that anxiety doesn’t discriminate,” he said, taking a seat on the stool one over from hers. Not getting too close. Not crowding her. “Or that how you look on the outside isn’t always how you’re feeling on the inside.”

  “You’re right,” she said, still shivering a little with nerves. “I should know that. I’m sorry.”

  He got up again, opened a door leading to a back porch, came back with a flannel shirt that he draped over her shoulders without touching her, before going back to sit on his stool. “There. Warm up a bit.”

  She pulled the heavy thing around her gratefully. “Thanks. I’ll be all right in a minute. I thought this was going to be fine. I thought it might be fun. A chance to get back out into the world a little.” She felt herself choking up again, blinked the tears back. “But I don’t really want to be back out there after all, I guess,” she said, hating how forlorn she sounded.

  “Bad breakup?”

  “Divorce,” she sighed. “It’s been final about four months. That’s why I’m here. A change.”

  “The New World,” he agreed. “The new New World.”

  “That’s right. New job, new name . . . Well, the old name back. New me.”

  “I don’t know the new name,” he said. “But I’d like to. I’m Liam Mahaka.”

  “Ma . . . Sorry. I didn’t quite get it.”

  “Mahaka,” he repeated, putting the accent strongly on the first syllable, the second one almost disappearing.

  “Kristen Montgomery,” she sai
d. “And I’d better let you get back to your party, and get back myself before Hannah gets worried and comes looking for me.”

  “Hannah,” he said slowly, speculation dawning in the brown eyes.

  “My sister.”

  “Then you have nothing whatever to worry about out there,” he told her with a rueful grin. “I’m going to take a guess here that those boys don’t know yet that you’re Hannah’s sister. Do I take it you’re not interested? That you didn’t come here tonight looking for . . . love?”

  “Not love, not an imitation either,” she sighed. “I was thinking, maybe meet some people. Start making some friends. Women too, I hoped. But I don’t know. That’s always hard. I haven’t found any friends here yet, not at my job either. I’m sure glad I have Ally. And I’m sorry.” She brought herself up short with a little laugh. “Why am I telling you all this?”

  He ignored the question, focused on what she’d revealed. “Because you intimidate them,” he guessed. “Because they make assumptions about the kind of person you are.”

  “How do you know so much?” she wondered. “I wouldn’t think . . .”

  “That I’d care about people, because of how I look,” he finished for her with a gentle smile completely at odds with his appearance. “See how easy it is to do?”

  She laughed, feeling a whole lot more cheerful than when she’d come in here. “Guilty.”

  She slid to her feet, took off the flannel shirt with regret and handed it back to him. “And thanks. I’m going to go back out there again now, and soldier on.”

  Chance Encounters

  “I need to stop going for coffee,” Ally said the following Friday afternoon. “It’s just way too tempting a habit.”

  She was sitting across from Kristen at one of the little triangular tables of Espressoholic, the explosion of funky art and color around them a perfect backdrop, she thought, for Kristen in her simple work outfit of cream silk shirt and fawn trousers. Kristen was always so accessorized, too. Belt, bag, earrings, the works, all looking like she’d just happened to throw them on and they just happened to look perfect. Whereas Ally felt like she was doing well if her socks matched. She sneaked a peek down beneath her climbing pants. Yep. Match. Score.