Just For You (Escape to New Zealand) Read online

  As she surrendered to it, she could feel him being pulled down with her into the dark, his gasping breaths coming in time with her own, his hands tightening beneath her until she could tell they would leave marks, and he was coming too, hard and fast and, with a groan, pulling her into the grip of one final, highest wave that receded only slowly, left her shuddering in its wake.

  He set her on her feet again, got rid of the condom, and she reached shaking hands to adjust her dress, to try to tidy her hair. Remembered that her undies were on the ground, and couldn’t find them in the dark.

  He crouched down himself, put a hand out for them, handed them to her. “Let’s get out of here,” he told her. “I have a room.”

  He did. And for the rest of the night, he showed her that he knew how to do it more ways than fast and hard. That he knew exactly how to make a woman feel good, and that he was willing to take his slow, sweet time to do it, until she was wrung out, shattered, limp with pleasure.

  Until the morning, when he told her that he had to get back to Auckland for training. When he drove her back to her hotel, kissed her goodbye, told her he’d call. When he’d driven away, and straight out of her life.

  And the whole thing nobody’s fault but her own.

  Well, mistakes happened, and she wasn’t crying into her pillow one minute more over this one. So she walked over to his table, one long year later, gave the rings of condensation from the previous occupants’ glasses a brisk wipe with the wet bar cloth, and asked the two men, her gaze somewhere between them, “What can I get you?”

  She didn’t get an answer, because a voice came from behind her. “Ah. The beautiful Reka. Must be my lucky night.”

  She felt him before she turned, because he was standing much too close, right up in her space. The other man from the ferry, Aaron, she remembered. Another rugby player, and he thought he was playing now. He was already drunk, and he was smiling, too.

  She stepped back a pace and ignored him. “What can I get you boys?” she repeated.

  “How about a bit of you?” Aaron asked. He reached a hand out and grabbed her bum, gave it a squeeze, pulled her towards him.

  She didn’t think, just hauled off and slapped the bar cloth backhanded across his face with as much force as she could manage, straight across his nose and mouth.

  He staggered back at the clammy touch of the wet rag, came up spluttering.

  “Keep your bloody hands off me,” she told him, her voice shaking with rage. “Next time you grab me like that, I’ll have a knife in that hand. Dead hard to catch a rugby ball when you’re missing a couple fingers.”

  He was lunging for her, reaching out to grab her arm, and Fred was at her side.

  “Problem?” the bartender growled, his voice like iron.

  Hemi and the other fella had jumped up as well, though, and Hemi had Aaron’s arm in a grip so hard it must have been painful, had yanked him back from Reka.

  “No problem,” Hemi said. “We’re just leaving.”

  “Too right you are,” Fred said. “I don’t care who the hell you are, that’s not on. You’re out.”

  Reka shot Hemi one more look and took herself on over to the next table. He’d probably told Aaron that she was an easy mark. Heaven knew she had been. He might have had more finesse than his mate, but the idea was the same. Just another sportsman looking to get it quick and easy. Well, he wasn’t going to get it from her. Not this time.

  “Reka working tonight?”

  The bartender continued pulling the beer from the tap without looking up. Hemi was pretty sure the man had heard, so he waited as patiently as he could manage.

  It was the same fella who’d thrown them out the night before. Balding, grizzled, and tough as teak. He finished pouring the beer, put the schooner on the tray with the rest of the drinks, waited until a waitress had hustled up to grab it before he spoke. “Nah. Not here.”

  “Any idea where I could find her, then?” Hemi persisted. “Or when she will be working? Tomorrow?”

  “Look, mate.” The man stopped cleaning the bar with a cloth and looked up. “You want a beer, you’re welcome. But I don’t go around offering up a girl’s whereabouts to every randy fella who wants to know, no matter what kind of boot he’s got.”

  “I knew her before, though,” Hemi tried to explain.

  “Not my business,” the bartender said. “Didn’t get the impression she was too keen on you last night, and I wasn’t either, not on you or your mates. Now, you want a beer or not?”

  “Not,” Hemi sighed, and turned to go.

  It wasn’t turning into the holiday of his dreams. The fishing charter had been hampered a bit by Aaron spewing over the side for half the journey, a hangover giving some extra punch to a pretty spectacular bout of seasickness. They’d gone out blue-water fishing for hapuku anyway without a bit of success, had contented themselves at the end of the day with a few snapper, which they’d barbecued and shared with a family of tourists picnicking at the Reserve, because that had been a fair bit of fish.

  Which was all good, all very relaxing for his holiday, all part of the plan. And right now, Nikau and a somewhat sober Aaron were at the Wharf, having a beer and no doubt meeting girls, which was the other point of the holiday.

  Aaron had been pretty cavalier about the whole Reka episode once he’d got over the initial flash of anger, which had enraged Hemi at the time. But then, that was Aaron, and Reka had been just been another girl to him. Just another girl.

  When Hemi had seen him grabbing her bum, though…he’d wanted to hit him himself, only Reka had beat him to it. He hadn’t been able to stomach any more of him that night, but it had passed, because Aaron was a teammate, and a mate as well, and he’d been pissed, and he hadn’t known.

  Hadn’t known what, Hemi wasn’t sure. Not that any of it mattered, because there the two other boys were, having a good time, and here he was, trying to find a girl who, the bartender was right, hadn’t seemed any too keen on renewing his acquaintance.

  “Oi. Mate.”

  Hemi turned. The speaker was an older man, perched on a stool at one end of the long wooden bar as if it were his habitual spot, which it probably was.

  “She’s helping out her auntie tomorrow at the Vortex Training Café,” the man told him. “Heard her say so, last night.”

  “Where’s that?” Hemi asked.

  The man snorted. “Where? Up the road a bit. It’s bloody Russell, mate.”

  “Cheers,” Hemi said, and took himself off. To the Wharf, where he did have a couple beers, and did meet girls, because Nikau and Aaron had found themselves a lively group of backpackers and were chatting up a couple of fit Germans and a pretty spectacular Swede. And Hemi, who had spoken a grand total of two sentences to Reka that she’d barely deigned to answer, was the only one who went back to his room alone, which didn’t make any sense at all.

  “Haere mai,” the middle-aged woman behind the counter said, the next midday.

  “Kia ora.” Hemi stepped aside to let a curly-haired toddler dressed only in a nappy march out with a determined waddle from behind the counter to a table where two young women were sitting.

  A couple teenagers wandered through next with a nod to the woman, so casual that Hemi couldn’t tell whether they were family or staff, and he had to smile a little. It was good to be in familiar territory. He looked at the menu printed on a blackboard behind the counter. “What’s good?”

  “Hamburger and chips,” the woman said with a smile of her own. “Best to stick with the basics. It’s a training café, eh.”

  “I’ll have that, then,” Hemi decided. “And a beer.”

  As he pulled out his card to pay, he asked, as casually as he could manage, “Would you be Reka’s auntie, by any chance? Is she about somewhere?”

  The older woman’s gaze sharpened a bit. “I would be. And who would you be?”

  “Hemi Ranapia.”

  “Thought you looked familiar. Here on holiday?”

  “Yeh.
” He saw her waiting expectantly, and went on. He wouldn’t even get his beer, much less a chance at a chat with Reka, he got the feeling, until she got her answer. “I saw Reka the other day, when I was arriving on the ferry. I’d met her before, as it happens.”

  “On the ferry? Oh, when she was coming back with my daughter. They had to take that scamp Tai to Kawakawa to get his cast off.” The woman’s posture suggested that she could chat for any length of time. “That boy’s capable of breaking an arm again just walking down the surgery steps. Decide to come down it on his skateboard on his belly, like as not. That’s how he did the arm, on the skateboard. You never know what’s next. And with the baby and all, Ana needed the help.”

  “Yeh, saw that,” Hemi said, trying to stay patient. “Her holding the baby, I mean. I was hoping I’d see her again today.”

  The woman’s glance was shrewd. “I’ll see if I can find her,” she said, although Hemi suspected that, if Reka were on the premises, that wouldn’t be too difficult. It was a pretty tiny place.

  There were a couple groups queueing behind him, though, so he headed out to the umbrella-shaded patio with a final “Cheers” and hoped for the best, stepping around the toddler again along the way, since the little fella had decided to sit himself down in the middle of the doorway.

  He amused himself by watching the parade of tourists along the footpath lining the grandly named but ridiculously narrow York Street. The more conscientious, consulting guidebooks or signs, seemed to be heading for the museum and the Anglican church that, he knew, was New Zealand’s oldest. Pretty ironic, considering that this was the town once known as the “Hellhole of the Pacific.”

  Times had changed since those early roistering whaling days, though, because now, it was anything but. An idyllically pretty—and incredibly sleepy—seaside village with not much to offer beyond beach, fishing, and gift shops.

  He looked up as a plate holding a moderately acceptable hamburger and pile of chips was slid in front of him, and saw Reka setting down his beer and a glass to go with it.

  “Cheers,” he said. “I was hoping to find you here.”

  “That’s what Auntie Kiri said, though I can’t think why,” she answered. “Didn’t exactly try to find me before this, did you?”

  “Could you…” He paused a moment. She was here, so what did he do now? “Could you sit with me, have a beer?”

  “I’m working.”

  “A fizz, then. A cuppa. A coffee. Whatever.”

  “No, I mean I’m working, and it’s lunchtime, and it’s summer. I can’t have a chat even if I wanted to.”

  “Right, then. Dinner?”

  “Don’t think so.” She picked up the tray she’d set on the table and turned to go.

  “Reka, wait.” He put out a protesting hand, but he didn’t touch her, because he was getting the picture. “I’m trying to ask you out. Properly.”

  “Good of you, but I’m not interested.”

  She walked away, and he turned in his seat to watch her go. Another skirt, jandals, a sleeveless turquoise blouse, all of it showing off her firm, shapely arms and legs, her spectacular curves. Her hair knotted at the back of her head. Hair that, he knew, reached to her waist in thick waves of the darkest brown when she took it down. Or when he did.

  He’d stood behind her in the hotel room on that warm summer evening, had slid the zip of that red dress slowly down her back, had watched it fall to the floor in a crimson pool, leaving her standing in nothing but high heels and a pair of undies that he’d already taken off once and couldn’t wait to take off again, and he’d held her by the shoulders, bent to kiss her neck from behind. Had pressed up close behind her, a hand going around to cup a full, round breast as if he couldn’t help himself, because he couldn’t. Had felt her shiver under his mouth, his touch, feeling her as attuned to him as he was to her, like they were connected, like he was in her skin and she was in his.

  He’d pulled the pins out of her hair, then, one by one, watched the dark, curling mass fall down her brown back until it reached the devastatingly deep curve of her waist, and he’d plunged his hands into it, pulled her head gently back by it and kissed her neck again, and that had been the start of their second time.

  Not their last time that night, but the last time he was likely to see, at the rate he was going. He sighed, picked up his hamburger, and asked himself why it mattered. He’d thought in the past that the first time was the best, or the second at most. The excitement of the hunt, the chase. But he’d already done that, with her. He’d caught her, he’d had her, and he’d let her go.

  The problem was, he wanted to catch her again, and this time, he wanted to hold her. But she wasn’t playing anymore.

  He woke early the next morning because, once again, he’d gone to bed early, sober, and alone. He rolled out of bed in his boxers, opened the curtains to another crystalline Northland day, heard the tui offering up their melodious calls in the red-blossomed pohutukawa trees, and decided that he wasn’t going to spend another minute of this last day of his holiday in this pokey room. So he pulled on togs and a T-shirt, shoved his feet into jandals and grabbed a towel, thought about taking the car, and decided to walk.

  Well, jog, because somehow he always ended up jogging, even in jandals. Walking was so slow. Ten minutes over the hill, seeing a few early-morning drivers, a dog-walker or two along the way, and he had turned down the steep track through the bush to Long Beach. A few more quick steps, a hop down the bank, and he was kicking off the jandals and dropping the towel onto the beach, only a couple holidaymakers visible in the distance, a single swimmer in the water making pretty good progress toward shore.

  The swimmer’s strong crawl brought her closer, and he stopped walking. She stood up in the water that reached just above her knees, and it was Reka.

  Reka, in a bright yellow bikini that was doing some hard work to keep her naughty bits covered, and Reka had some very naughty bits. Her hair in a long braid, the water glistening on her brown skin, the wet fabric clinging, and he stood for a moment and just looked.

  Finally, though, he walked towards her, and she saw him and stopped where she was, at the edge of the water.

  “Morning,” he said. “I was just about to have a swim myself.” Another bloody brilliant opening line.

  She glanced at him, then turned away, headed up the shore toward her things. “I see that.”

  “I could miss that out, though,” he said, keeping pace with her, “if you’d like to go for brekkie with me, as we’re both here. You’re an early riser too, eh.”

  “Thanks,” she said, “but no. I meant what I said yesterday. Not interested.”

  She bent to her towel on the beach, and despite his frustration, he couldn’t help noticing that Reka bending down was a sight for sore eyes. A sight he’d seen before, without the bikini, and a rush of heat filled him at the memory. Reka from behind, bent over the bed, holding on…that had very nearly been his favorite.

  But just now, she wasn’t bending over anymore. She wasn’t trying to show him anything at all. She was drying off with her towel, which he’d have liked to have been helping her with, and then, to his disappointment, she was taking a dress from her bag and pulling it over her head, and all those lush curves were covered again.

  “Do you have a partner now, is that it?” he asked. Why hadn’t that occurred to him? Because he hadn’t wanted to think about it, that was why. And because it didn’t even matter now that he had thought of it, which was wrong of him, maybe, but true all the same.

  “It couldn’t be,” she said, facing him again, “that I just don’t want you? Am I the only girl who’s said no, then? Bit hard to believe.”

  He felt the flush rising. “Of course not. But you wanted me once, and it was good. It was bloody good, and you know it.”

  “One time,” she said.

  “More than one time,” he pointed out.

  “One night,” she amended. “And, what? You want one more night? Here you are on h
oliday again, and here I am, still looking good and so convenient?”

  Which was the truth, but somehow not all of the truth. He was struggling to answer that, but she wasn’t done.

  “I don’t think so,” she told him. “I’m not interested in being your bit of holiday fun. Again. Shouldn’t have done it the first time, but I reckon a girl’s allowed one mistake, and you were mine.”

  He did his best to rally. “That’s what it was? A mistake? Seemed to me it was more than that. Felt pretty good, for a mistake.”

  She looked at him, the scorn coming off her in waves. “Haven’t you learnt any more than that, then? Mistakes can feel good. At the time. It’s what comes afterwards that lets you know if it’s a mistake or not. And what came afterwards between us?”

  “Nothing,” he admitted. “Nothing.”

  “Too right.”

  “Because I didn’t call.”

  “You’re quick, aren’t you? Yeh, because you didn’t call. I can’t exactly whinge about that, though, can I? I let somebody shag me against the wall a couple hours after I meet him, and I think he’s going to be sending me flowers the next day? Like I said. My mistake, which I’m not interested in making again.”

  “But I’m…I’m different,” he tried to explain. “That was before. That was that first year.”

  “That first year of what?”

  “When I was first selected for the All Blacks. When I was first getting a bit of notice, and everybody wanted to be with me.”

  Now she was the one flushing. “Like me.”

  “Nah. Not like you. With you, it was…it was me. I got that. And it was you.” He wasn’t explaining himself well at all. “I mean, it was special. It wasn’t because of the footy thing. It was because it was so good to dance with you, and there was something there, with us. I know there was.”

  “Huh.” It was very nearly a snort. “Pretty bloody special. Here’s what actually happened. You’re on holiday for a few days. You’re leaving, what, today? Tomorrow? You saw me, and you remembered that you had fun, because I’ll do anything, and you want to have another ‘special’ time before you go. And that’s all.”