Just My Luck (2 page)

“No.” As always, Kristen sounded much more sure of herself when she talked about fashion. “You cannot wear your ugly, boring,
flat
shoes to a party. You’re as bad as my sister.”

“Who doesn’t seem to have done so badly for herself,” Ally pointed out. “Something worked for her, and it’s still working, judging by the way Drew looks at her. And I haven’t seen her in a pair of do-me-now shoes yet.”

“Hannah’s . . . I don’t know. Extra-lucky. Extra-good at making her life work out. And it’s not about attracting men,” Kristen explained patiently. “I’m not trying to do that either, remember? It’s about looking your best, so you feel confident.”

“All right,” Ally grumbled. “I’m confident. But I’m not sure I want to go to a party with a bunch of rugby players.”

“It won’t only be rugby players, Hannah said,” Kristen reminded her. “There’ll be women there too. And we both need to meet some people. Having Hannah and Drew in Wellington to introduce us to everyone is our perfect opportunity. Unless you
want
to sit in our flat with me, night after night. We could get a bunch of cats, I guess, and watch game shows on TV. Or we could go to this party, meet some people, and who knows? Maybe even have fun.”

It started out well enough. Ally was glad that she and Kristen didn’t have to show up alone, or even navigate their own way through the winding, steep streets of Kelburn, the glamorous inner suburb that bordered the sprawling green space of the Wellington Botanic Garden. Ally had a good sense of direction, but she wasn’t familiar enough yet with the city to feel confident getting around. She was just as happy that Drew was driving, and that, as always, he seemed to know exactly what he was doing.

She and Kristen had stayed with Kristen’s sister and brother-in-law during their first few nights in New Zealand, before driving down the North Island from Auckland to Wellington to start their new lives, and Ally had to admit that Drew was nothing like her preconceived notion of a star athlete in one of the roughest sports going. The retired captain of the All Blacks might be the best-known—and undeniably the most popular—person in the country, but there was no celebrity attitude there. Pretty quiet and unassuming, in fact. If big. She shifted her feet again. There wasn’t that much room for them, not with his seat pushed all the way back. Which was why long-legged Kristen was sitting behind her sister.

 “Kristen told me you’d found a job, Ally,” Hannah said now, turning around in her seat to smile at her. “That didn’t take too long.”

Hannah’s dress was simple, Ally had already noticed, her heels decidedly low. Nothing like Kristen’s flirty, deep purple—Oh, whoops, amethyst, Kristen had corrected her—lace skirt and top, accented by a funky black metal-studded belt and stiletto-heeled ankle boots. Ally would have been more comfortable if she’d left her dress choices up to the older sister. At least her feet would have been.

“I got it sorted out within a week or so,” Ally agreed. “Which was good, because my savings won’t last long. I’m not scheduled for too many hours yet, but I’m supposed to start for real on Monday, though things won’t really heat up till after the New Year, they said. I was afraid I was going to have to work in a café all year, but turns out they were glad to have a woman at the climbing gym. They don’t have any now, and women tend to like female instructors better, find them less intimidating when they’re learning. Although male clients can sometimes be a different story.”

“The boys don’t like you to know more than they do, eh,” Drew put in with amusement, negotiating another tight corner.

“No,” Ally answered with a secret grin at Kristen. “Some of them can be downright rude about it.”

“I’ll have to come down and have a go while we’re here,” Drew decided. “I don’t mind being instructed by a woman. Maybe I can get you to do it with me,” he suggested to Hannah. “I’m sure the three of you girls could outclass me pretty thoroughly. Good for me to struggle a bit, I’m sure.”

“You never struggle at all,” Hannah said fondly.

“I’ve struggled heaps,” he protested, reaching out to give her hand a quick squeeze. “Struggled to get you, didn’t I. And it was well worth it.”

He pulled into a parking space on a street overlooking the lights of the Harbour below. “Bit of a climb up the hill here to the house,” he told the women. “Hope everyone’s shoes are OK with that.”

“Who is this person whose party we’re going to?” Ally asked as she slammed the car door. “This Toro guy? I guess with a name like that, he’s a rugby player. Good thing, because carrying groceries up here must be a major challenge.”

“The new All Black captain,” Hannah explained. “Captain of the Hurricanes too, Wellington’s Super 15 team. You’ll be hearing more about them pretty soon, once the season starts. It’s been an extra-long offseason, since they played the World Cup in October. Are they training already, Drew?”

“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.”