Just My Luck (39 page)

“And that’s all right with her? Quite happy to fit herself into those wee spaces in your life, is she? Because, mate, Mel wouldn’t go for that. Not in a pig’s eye, she wouldn’t.”

“I’m lucky that Ally’s good with it, then, aren’t I,” Nate said shortly.

“Casual, is it?” Ned asked, still not letting go. “You seeing other people? Have some kind of agreement? That’s why you didn’t bring her down here with you, eh. I wondered, seeing how often you’ve texted. She’s just for now, is she?”

“Course we’re not seeing other people,” Nate said irritably. “And she wouldn’t have wanted to come. The delights of the dairy farm? I don’t think so.”

“Huh.” Ned didn’t sound convinced, and Nate had a quick flash of Ally’s face when she’d dropped him at the airport, the day after they’d returned from Christchurch. Then thought about Liam taking Kristen to the Gold Coast in Aussie for a beach holiday last week. And taking her to stay with his parents this weekend, his friend had told him.
Had
Ally wanted to come with him? Would he have wanted her here? Yeh, he thought. Probably. Definitely. But that would be serious, and he wasn’t ready for serious.

“I’m not ready for that much complication,” he told Ned now. “Got enough to think about,” he repeated. “I’ll sort it out once the Championship’s over.”

“One thing at a time, eh.”

“Yeh. One thing at a time,” Nate said with relief. “That’s how I work.”

“Pity it isn’t how women work, then,” Ned answered. “But I’m guessing you may find that out for yourself.”

Nate remembered Ned’s words two weeks later, lying in bed with Ally the night after the first game of the Championship. Which the All Blacks had lost to the Wallabies at Eden Park, to Nate’s frustration. It had been close, but close didn’t count, did it? Because they still weren’t firing on all cylinders. Too many mistakes, not enough grunt from the forward pack, not enough impact from their new loosies. And the kicking, which had been shocking. That had been the killer.

“Sorry,” he told Ally again. “I’d like to spend the time with you, you know I would. But I need to spend a fair bit of time tomorrow thinking about Sydney. We don’t have the boot we need at first-five. Nobody we can rely on like we did Hemi, or a game manager as good either. Which means I’m likely to be playing 10 next week, and either Nico or I’ll be doing the goal-kicking. And I need to work on both those things, specially as we’ll be without Koti as well, which is piling it on.”

“Kate told me,” Ally agreed quietly, pulling away from his side. “That Koti would be out for most of the next month. I thought it was really sweet that he was taking paternity leave. I didn’t realize that was an option.”

Nate snorted. “Because nobody else has done it, not for that long. And not while the squad’s in transition like this. Losing one of our impact players when we don’t have to, when he isn’t injured . . . I don’t know how he can do it.”

Ally sat up, reached for her nightdress on the floor where Nate had dropped it. Looking narked with him again, Nate thought with an inward sigh.

“I guess he has other priorities,” she said stiffly, pulling the thing over her head and settling it into place. “That he thinks being with his wife while she has their first baby is important.”

“I’m not saying it isn’t important,” Nate argued. “Just that it’s part of this job to go with the team. Every time, no matter what. It’s what he signed up for.”

“So he loses his spot on the team?” she challenged him. “If he does this?”

“Nah,” he said impatiently. “Course not. We need him there. That’s the point, eh.”

“Well,” she said, “if it doesn’t cost him his place on the team, and considering that he’s played so hard for you guys, and for the Blues too, all these years, maybe it doesn’t have to be part of the job to give up absolutely everything. To give up the chance to be there to support Kate, to give up being there with his baby. I have a feeling he thinks that’s the most important thing in his life right now.”

Nate was losing this argument. He could tell that he wasn’t going to make her understand. And he didn’t, he really didn’t need another loss this weekend.

“Well,” he said, “he’s doing it. Nothing I can say to change it, so all we can do is try to make up the difference. Which means that I need the time tomorrow. So let’s get some sleep.” He rolled over and gave her a kiss and a cuddle that, to his relief, she returned. “So we can make the most of the time we do have. I have an idea about how I want to wake you up, and I’m planning to try it.”

Liam Sings a Song

The buzzer sounded, and Kristen flew to the box on the wall, pushed the button. “Hello?”

“Got time in your life for a lonely hooker?” she heard over the intercom.

She laughed happily. “I sure do. I’m buzzing you up now.”

“That’s my cue to go to my room,” Ally said, getting up from the couch.

“Oh, don’t go,” Kristen protested. “Stay and say hi to Liam.”

Ally smiled. “Maybe another day.”

A quick flash of concern marred Kristen’s mood for a moment. She wished Nate were here too. If only Ally could be as happy as she was, that would make everything perfect. If only Nate were focusing the kind of attention on Ally that Liam had given her. Instead, it seemed like he’d been spending less and less time with her in the weeks since the Championship had begun, and that it was only getting worse.

But then she heard the knock, and her attention was all for the man on the other side of the door.

“Got a surprise for you today,” Liam told her once he’d finished kissing her hello. “You ready for a surprise? Willing to come along with me for it?”

“I’m ready to go anyplace you take me.” She reached out to hold him again, just to feel those big arms go around her.

“I missed you so much,” she sighed against his cheek, loving the solidity of his back under her palms, his broad chest like a stone wall. “Did you miss me?”

“Is this a trick question?” he asked, giving her another gentle kiss. “Been almost a week, eh. I’ve missed you for, oh, I’d say maybe five days and twelve hours. Somewhere in there.”

She ran her hands under his T-shirt sleeves, stretching her fingers to reach around the heavy muscle, and thought about the tattoo she’d be kissing later. Going slowly, all the way from his forearm up to his shoulder, then moving to his chest. About how she’d be loving every bit of him. And how good it would feel to have her hands on those arms when the muscles were flexed, supporting his weight. When he was lying over her, murmuring the words she loved to hear, moving so slowly, taking exactly as long as she needed, until she was dissolving with the bliss of it.

She couldn’t wait, but she wanted to wait. Wanted to see him smile at her, wanted to tell him how proud she’d been to watch him last night. Wanted to hear him tell her about the game. And
then
feel his arms, and every other part of him too.

“If I’d known how good you were going to make me feel,” she said, wishing she didn’t have to let go of him, “our celibacy wouldn’t have lasted nearly so long. This has been a really, really great couple of months. You should have told me how good you are at it.”

“Yeh,” he agreed. “Because that would’ve worked so well with you, I’m sure.”

She pulled back with a smile for him. “You’re right. Why do you have to be right so often? And OK. I’m ready for my surprise.”

“This is the surprise?” she asked when he parked in the CBD, helped her out of the car, then went to the boot and pulled out a guitar case. “You going to play for me? Or are you in some kind of band?”

“Just wait,” he promised.

He held her hand for the few blocks’ walk to Espressoholic and took her inside, where he propped the guitar case carefully against the window, next to a table at the front. A table with a
Reserved
sign on it. Then pulled out her chair, held it for her with the courtesy he always showed her.

“Trim flat white?” he asked. “Or tea?”

“Tea, please.”

“Anything to eat?”

She laughed. “No. I’m good.”

He came back to the table after placing their order. “I thought about doing this the first place I saw you,” he told her. He was standing opposite her, legs braced, arms relaxed. Strong and broad, solid as a totara tree. Her Liam.

“The climbing gym,” he went on to explain. “Didn’t seem quite right, though. So I decided, maybe use that day when I was walking down the street with Toro. Looked in the window, saw you in here, and couldn’t believe my luck. Still can’t, every single day when I wake up knowing how much I love you, and that you love me too.”

She could feel her eyes misting over already, reached for his hand. He squeezed hers in return, then let it go. And instead of sitting down, reached for the guitar case. Opened it and pulled out the wooden instrument, then set the case back down, moved his chair away from the table, and seated himself with the guitar on his lap, pulling the strap around his neck.

“Now?” she asked, brows raised.

“Now,” he confirmed.

“Wow. Singing in public,” she said happily.

The warmth in his eyes, as always, went straight to her heart. “Listening to Maori sing is the other New Zealand national sport, didn’t you know? On every tourist’s list. Reckon I’ll make it into somebody’s travel diary today.”

Whatever she would have answered was cut off as he began to strum the instrument, the tune soothing, sweet and slow. And then he started to sing, his deep voice filling every corner of the café, his gaze steady on her. The conversations around them ceasing, all action stilling as everybody stopped to listen.

She didn’t know what most of the words meant, of course, though the poetry of them, the meaning she saw in his eyes was making her melt. And then he began the English verses, and he was calling her his angel, telling her he would love her forever. Singing words she’d never thought she’d hear again, not from somebody who meant them. Somebody she could trust to mean them. “Through sickness and health. Till death do us part.”

And then it was Maori again, and this time, she knew what it meant.

“E ipo,” he finished, drawing it out, with one last strum across the strings. And she knew what that meant too, because she’d heard it before, murmured in the night. “My darling.”

The last note died away, but he just sat. Sat and looked at her.

But she couldn’t say anything, couldn’t answer him, because she was crying. Her hands were at her mouth, her eyes streaming as everyone in the café began to applaud.

He set the guitar carefully against the window. Handed her his napkin with a smile, reached for her other hand across the triangular table.

“I’m a pretty imperfect fella,” he began. “Made heaps of mistakes in my life, as I may have mentioned. But I’ve tried my best to learn from every one of them.”

“And one thing I know for sure,” he went on, the deep voice losing a little of its firmness, his eyes beginning to glisten with unshed tears, “is that when you find something that’s right, you hold onto it with everything you have, and you never let it go. You’re my right thing, Kristen. And I want to be yours.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. His face was serious now. Letting her know that she could trust him. Letting her know that it was safe to love him.

“I’ll never make you a promise I can’t keep,” he told her. “So you know I mean it when I promise you this. Wherever we go, whatever happens in our lives, I’ll never leave you. However long God gives me on this earth, that’s how long I’ll be loving you. I’ll give you everything I have. I’ll give you everything I am. That’s my promise.”

“And maybe you should stop crying now,” he said gently, a smile breaking out at last. “Or everybody’s going to think you’re saying no.”

That surprised a choked laugh from her. “I can’t, though,” she got out. “Oh, Liam. I love you so much.”

“Then we’d better do this next thing,” he decided. He got out of his chair, put one big knee on the floor. Reached into his pocket for a box, opened it to reveal a ring made of . . . bone?

“Not the real thing,” he assured her. “Because I want you to choose exactly what you want. But this is my big moment, so here I go.”

He looked into her eyes, took a deep breath, and said it. “I love you, Kristen. Will you marry me?”

She knew she was still crying. And she wanted to answer him, wanted to say “yes” with every fiber of her being. But she had to ask first. “Can I . . . Can
we.
Can we have a baby?”

He laughed. “We can have as many babies as you like. I’m Maori. But they’ll have me for a dad, you know. Won’t be as pretty as you, eh.”

“They’ll be the luckiest babies in the world,” she said, and she’d never meant anything more. “Because they
will
have you for a dad. Besides,” and she was laughing herself now, “I’m pretty enough for both of us.”

“Yes, you are. And is that a yes?” he prompted.

“Yes.” She couldn’t seem to stop laughing. “Yes. Yes. That’s a yes.”

He slid the ring onto her finger, then stood, took her in his arms, and kissed her. Kristen heard the clapping, the whistling around her. Knew, in one part of her brain, that this whole thing was going to be on YouTube before the day was over. And that she might even watch it herself. Because she’d never get enough of this moment. Or this man.

The End

Kristen hadn’t come back after leaving in mid-afternoon with Liam, which wasn’t much of a surprise. But that left Ally to get dressed to see Nate by herself. She raided Kristen’s closet, as always. Stood daunted by the array of choice, wishing she’d asked Kristen to pick out an outfit for her earlier. Pants? Skirt? Dress? And what kind of shoes?

Well, skirt or dress, she decided. Nate liked looking at her legs, she’d figured that much out. And if she wanted his attention tonight, the shorter and tighter the better.

She was a little nervous about the evening, she thought, fingering a flirty little deep blue skirt with a star-spangled chiffon overlay. More nervous than seemed normal, all these months into a relationship.

It might be better tonight, though, she thought hopefully. The win over the Springboks in Auckland last night should help, surely. The team was playing better, even she could see it, and that must mean that Nate could let up a bit, allow himself more than a night or two a week with her. He’d said he wanted more, and maybe now they could do it. Because she hadn’t seen him really relaxed since the day at the Adrenaline Park a month earlier, before the Championship had begun. Even when he was with her, he’d be spending time with his notebook, preparing for the next game, or watching film. The only time she really felt like she had his full attention lately was in bed.