Just My Luck (7 page)

“I wouldn’t say
no
skills,” he protested, starting to walk again, realizing that he had a goofy smile on his face. Geez, she amused him.

“Really? I have skills?” she asked, sounding ridiculously pleased.

“Well,” he conceded, “you’re not much on the flattery, and your style’s a bit unorthodox. But you look good. That’s a fairly important skill.”

“Look pretty, and shut up. Gotcha,” she said gloomily.

He laughed. “Nah. I’ve decided I like the honesty thing too. Women usually . . . perform for me. It can be a bit exhausting.”

“Perform? Like a stripper pole?”

He smiled again. “Nobody’s tried that. That one might actually work. But you know, being a sportsman and all, they . . . turn it on.”

“Being the new captain of the All Blacks,” she guessed. “Bet that helps.”

“Yeh. But that’s not me, is it? It’s just what I do. So even though you aren’t always flattering, at least you’re . . . real.”

“Oh, I’m real all right. OK. Your turn. Tell me something fascinating about yourself.”

“You already know it. I’m a rugby player. That’s about all I’ve got, fascination-wise.”

“And it usually works, I’ll bet.”

“Well, yeh. Usually.”

“But you went to University too. I know that,” she pressed. “So what did you study?”

“Law.”

“Law?”

“What did you think? Physical education? Basket weaving? Yeh. Law. I’m a rugby player, and I’m a lawyer as well.” He knew he sounded a bit defensive, but geez.

“You’re a
lawyer?”

He sighed. “There’ve been All Blacks who’re doctors, lawyers, engineers. All the professions. You do have to have a reasonable brain to do this job at a high level, you know. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t all physical.”

“OK. Sorry,” she said hastily. “Reassessing here.”

And here they were, at the end of the track. “Careful,” he said, putting an arm out across the path, the brush hiding the edge of the hole. No matter how independent she wanted to be, he wasn’t going to let her fall in. “Fatal drop if you step too far.”

“Oh!” She stood back hastily. “What is it?”

“It’s a blowhole. Wait a sec.”

Within a minute, he felt the ground shake. Heard the rumble, the
boom,
and felt the spray coming up out of the deep chasm below them. He’d judged the tide right, then.

She laughed. “Wow! It really is! And no guardrail, either. Has anyone ever actually fallen in?”

“Don’t think so. Not too many people up here anyway, from the looks of that gorse. And you get the idea pretty quickly round here that you’d better look where you’re going. Not too many guardrails in En Zed, other than the big tourist spots.”

They stood a few more minutes, watching the spray, feeling the power, the force of water hitting rock through their bodies. Then turned to retrace their steps.

“You want to lead this time?” he asked. He’d automatically walked in front of her the entire way out here, he realized. Another point lost.

“Sure.” She sounded pleased, and he sighed with relief at getting it right. And this was a much better idea anyway. Because now he got to look at her. And she looked so good. Her snug black shorts were . . . short, and her slim legs looked just as good in them as they had the day before. Although a bit scratched up from the gorse, which still made him wince. But the way they curved out from her trim waist, and over that round little backside . . . that was something he could look at all day. Maybe he should have put her in the water yesterday after all. He’d like to see her wet again. He’d like to
get
her wet. All that honesty in bed . . . that would be a novelty. She was flexible, too. He’d seen that when she’d been climbing. He had a sudden vision of pushing those legs up over her head, and had to pull himself back fast. Getting way ahead of himself here.

“What are you thinking about back there?” she asked.

“Uh . . .” His mind blanked.

She turned on the track to smile at him. A smile that faltered as she looked at him, read something of his thoughts on his face.

He schooled his face quickly into a neutral expression. “Sorry,” he said. “Off someplace else for a moment there.”

She nodded and turned back, the silence getting a bit awkward. They reached the steep section again, and she headed uphill at a good clip. He watched her climb, tried without success to keep the image of his hands yanking those shorts down, of a bit of athletic outdoor sex—somewhere with less gorse, obviously—from entering his unruly mind, and followed after her.

“Careful,” he couldn’t keep from saying, just as she stepped on a loose rock that rolled under her left foot, and he saw her start to fall. He lunged, grabbed for her. And pulled her further off balance. She twisted as she tried to regain her footing, her right foot sliding off another slippery rock, and she toppled. He felt the
thunk
as her face made solid contact with his elbow on the way down. She let out a little yelp, fell to her knees, put her hands out to catch herself, not quite quickly enough.

“Ally.” He grabbed her, pulled her upright again. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” she said with a shaky laugh. “After all that telling you I didn’t need help.” She put a hand to her eye. “Ow.”

He helped her up the track to a level spot. “Let me see.” He took her face in his hand. “Bloody hell. I’ve punched you in the eye.” The red bruising was already apparent, her eye starting to swell a bit too. He’d thought he couldn’t cock things up with her any worse than he already had. And now this.

She looked up at him and started to laugh, then winced at the motion. “Ow. It really hurts. I hope this is a first. That you’ve never given a woman a black eye before.”

“Bloody hell,” he said again, feeling horribly responsible. He looked down at her knees, the cut that had opened up on one of them, the bruising from her fall onto the rocks. “Your leg too.”

He pulled his water bottle from his pack, bent to squirt the clean water over the spot. “We’ll wash a bit of the dirt out of it, anyway. It’s not bleeding too badly. Are you OK to walk back?”

“Well, yeah,” she said with another laugh. “What are my options? You going to helicopter me out?”

“I could run back for the ute, drive up the farm track,” he suggested. “Get closer, anyway.”

“No. It’s less than an hour, isn’t it? I’m fine. I can do that.”

Still, by the time they were back at the ute, she was limping pretty badly, and that eye was puffing up even more. He was going to have some interesting questions to answer from Drew, Nate thought suddenly. He knew the other man wasn’t his skipper anymore, but he couldn’t help thinking of him that way. And punching his houseguest in the face . . . that probably wasn’t on.

“We’ll go sit in the café for a bit, get some ice on your face and your knee,” he decided as he put the ute in gear and pulled off the verge.

“You don’t want to do that,” she objected. “You don’t want everyone to see me with you like this. They’ll take your picture, you know they will. And then there you’ll be, sitting with a woman with a black eye. I’ve spent enough time with Drew and Hannah to know how interesting that’ll be to your eager public.”

“What? That doesn’t matter.” He brushed the objection aside. “It’s a good twenty-minute drive back to Drew’s place. We need to get ice on that straight away. And get a sticking plaster for that knee.”

He really hadn’t seemed bothered by the obviously raised eyebrows, the not-so-discreet cell phone cameras, when he’d been sitting in the café with her, her injured leg propped on a chair, a bag of ice on her bandaged knee, another bag pressed to her eye. And that had impressed her. It certainly wasn’t the worst injury she’d ever suffered. A bit ridiculous, really, that somebody who’d climbed so much would have hurt herself falling on a perfectly easy trail. But no more ridiculous than climbers she knew who’d slipped on the bathroom floor, or banged themselves in the knee with the car door on the way to a climb. When you were climbing, you were paying attention, looking out for the dangers. And when you weren’t . . . Well, she’d been paying attention to Nate, all right. That’s how she’d got distracted in the first place. By the look she’d seen on his face when she’d turned around, especially. That look still had her steamed up, two hours and a couple of pretty good bruises later.

She was lying on her bed now, another pair of icepacks having been hauled out of Hannah and Drew’s freezer, which, not surprisingly, held a pretty good supply. Hannah had made a comforting fuss over her for somebody who, Ally knew, had seen more than her fair share of bruises, most of them a whole lot more spectacular than her own. Drew, meanwhile, hadn’t looked pleased at all, had given Nate a long, frowning look. As if it had been his fault that she’d fallen. Drew was a throwback, no doubt about it.

Her attention was gradually pulled from the book she was reading by the sound of voices outside her window. Nate and Liam, she realized, standing in the driveway. Liam had come by to help Kristen take Jack to the playground and for a picnic lunch while she and Nate had gone on their hike. Giving Drew and Hannah some time, he’d said. But he’d really come to see Kristen, Ally knew. He was going about it the right way, too, allowing Kristen the safety of their pint-sized chaperone, not rushing her or asking too much. Maybe the shark thing really
was
just about rugby.

She didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Really, she didn’t. But what could you do when people insisted on talking outside your open window? They must not have realized her room was back here. Everyone else was in the lounge at the other side of the house, she knew.

She started off amused at their conversation. And then it changed to something much less comfortable.

“I’m just saying, be careful,” the voice she recognized as Nate’s was saying now.

“I wouldn’t do anything else,” Liam growled. “I need to be careful, don’t I. Because she’s fragile.”

“That’s what I mean,” Nate said with obvious exasperation. “That’s one high-maintenance woman. And an expensive one, too. She’s already got one failed marriage behind her, from what I hear. How d’you know she’s not over here hoping to bag Number Two? And finding an All Black, first time out of the gate, ready to get soft about her?”

“You’re dead wrong about her. And there are two of us over here today,” Liam pointed out. “I could say the same to you.”

“Yeh, but I’m not the one flirting with career suicide, looking to mess with Drew’s sister-in-law,” Nate said, keeping his voice low. But not low enough. “And I’m not about to get trapped either, or get myself off track. I know how to keep them from expecting too much. Look, it’s one thing to have a bit on with a pretty girl when you see something you want. Have some fun, no strings attached. That’s what
I’m
doing here. But it’s another thing entirely to strap that dynamite around your neck and light the fuse.”

“We’ve been mates a long time.” That was Liam, the edge in his normally soft voice evident even to Ally. “And I control my temper these days. That’s why I’m giving you fair warning. Shut up about Kristen. You’re wrong, and you’re out of line. And as for you . . . Well, I’m sorry for you, Toro. That’s all I’ll say. One of these days, you’ll find out what it’s like to care about something besides footy. When you do fall, you’re going to fall hard. And I reckon it’s going to take a lot for you to bounce back.”

Silence, then, followed by the sound of car doors slamming, the ute reversing out of the driveway. And Ally, her book forgotten in her hands, doing a complete reassessment of her big day out. And taking a good, hard look at her spectacular lack of judgment, out here in Dating World.

Something More Special

Nate pulled into Drew’s driveway again the next morning, stepped out of the car. His program for the day had begun as planned, with a visit to the gym. But afterwards, he’d found the car seeming to steer itself here. Well, of course he was popping by, checking on Ally after yesterday’s disaster.

He didn’t have to explain his presence to everyone, he found to his relief. Ally was sitting out on the deck reading a book, an icepack on her knee again, sporting a pretty fair black eye. And looking at him without any enthusiasm at all, to his surprise. Had she decided to blame him after all, then?

“Hi,” he said, taking the seat beside her. “Came to see how you were feeling today. Thought you might like to go for a coffee.”

“No,” she said. “Thank you,” she added after a noticeable pause. Then turned her attention ostentatiously back to her book.

“Uh . . .” He scratched at the stubble on his cheek. “I was thinking, you said you wanted to give Drew and Hannah some space. Maybe I could help you do that.”

“I don’t need your help.” She actually looked angry now. “I wouldn’t want to
trap
you, after all.”

“Huh?” What was she talking about?

“Go on down to the beach, is my advice.” She was closing her book at last. And glaring at him. “I’m sure you can find a girl to
perform
for you. And hey, she might already be half-naked. That’ll save you some time. You can get right into it, have a bit on, no strings attached.”

“Oh, bugger,” he breathed. This was all sounding much too familiar.

“Oh, and another word of advice?” she continued, her color high, her breath coming hard now. “Next time you’re talking about a potential conquest, not to mention belittling her best friend, maybe make sure she’s not
six feet away.
Because it tends to put a little damper on the romance, if you see what I mean.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said, knowing how lame it sounded. “Bloody stupid of me. I didn’t mean you to hear that.”

“Well, obviously. But I should really be saying thanks, shouldn’t I? Because as you know, I’m out of practice. And my dating radar’s obviously completely off. I was actually liking you. How stupid is that? I thought you were being honest with me. I thought you
liked
me. I clearly don’t know how to recognize somebody who’s just out for his own gratification, and doesn’t care about anybody else. Even though Devon told me. Even though he warned me about you.”