Just My Luck (12 page)

“Which you knew,” she said slowly.

“Well, yeh,” he admitted. “I checked. So, a coffee?”

She seemed to be searching for an excuse, finally shrugged. “We’re on your time, you’re right. Let me grab my stuff, change my shoes, and we’ll go.”

“So,” she said when their coffees had been delivered to the table at the little café ten minutes later. She’d vetoed a beer, no surprise. “This would be when you tell me why you’re doing this.”

“Because I wanted to see you, like I said,” he protested. Then sighed as she said nothing, just kept her gaze steady on his face. “Look. I know I did everything wrong. That I got offside with you in the worst possible way. But ever since then, I’ve been regretting it. I’ve been thinking about you. I thought we could start again, that you might give me another chance to get it right.”

She looked at him warily, still not speaking. But she wasn’t actually telling him to shove off, so he decided to have a go.

“My name’s Nate Torrance. I’m a rugby player, and I’m a clumsy boofhead who spills things on girls, and hits them in the face—accidentally,” he hurried to add. “And says all the wrong things. But I like you, and I want to get to know you better. And I’m prepared to take as many climbing lessons and buy as many coffees as it takes to do that.”

“And that’s it?” she asked, looking at him with a searching intensity that had him squirming a bit.

“Well, no,” he said reluctantly. “But if I were forced to be dead honest, I’d have to admit that I’m desperately attracted to you. That I’ve been imagining you naked since the first time I saw you, and that I want to get you alone, take off all your clothes, and make love to you for hours, every way there is, until neither of us is able to move. And I reckon that would just about spoil my chances for good.”

“Maybe not, though,” she said after a long pause. He’d seen the flush moving up her cheeks, the look of shock dawning on her face. Had heard himself saying those things, half of him wanting to slap a hand over his mouth to stop himself, and the other half wanting to go on. To tell her more, everything he’d imagined doing to her. To reach across the table, take her head in his hands and kiss her until her mouth was swollen with it, until she felt the way he did. And then to take her home, put her on his bed, and do it all.

“You think?” was all he said. All he could manage to say.

“Well, not about the . . . hours deal,” she said, that flush rising a bit higher. “I’m not interested in being another . . . bump in your road. An obstacle that defeated you temporarily, until you won again. I’d have to be sure that isn’t all that’s driving you. And I’m not sure you can even tell the difference yourself. I don’t trust my own judgment that much these days either, to tell you the truth. So you’re going to have to convince me that it’s more than that. More than some conquest.”

“Whatever it takes,” he promised.

“All right, then,” she decided, and he felt a surge of relief. Who knew that honesty could actually work?

“Climbing lessons,” she said, “and coffee. And for the rest of it—we’ll just have to take it slow. And . . . see.”

“You’re from Canada, eh,” he said over their next coffee together. Another late Friday afternoon, the little café crowded with tourists and locals enjoying the summer weather. Nate in T-shirt and shorts once again, bare arms and legs showing way too much tanned skin and lean, defined muscle for Ally’s peace of mind. He’d offered a beer, but she’d decided they were safer sticking to coffee.

“Another conversational topic?” she asked with her best sassy tone.

He laughed. “Too right. I’m trying to stay on safe ground here. And at least ‘where are you from?’ is a bit more personal than the weather.”

She had to smile at that. “Much better than talking about taking off my clothes, too.” Which had given her some sleepless minutes over the nights since he’d said it. And made for some very naughty thoughts.

He cleared his throat. “So. Canada.”

“Yep. Calgary. Cowboy country.”

“How d’you know Kristen, then? Because she and Hannah are from the States, I know that.”

“I was born in the U.S. My dad’s American, my mom’s Canadian.” All right, getting-to-know-you stuff. That was good, right? Starting over, like they’d said. “We moved to Canada when I was little, and I think of myself as Canadian. But I actually have dual citizenship. I went to college in California and stayed on in the San Francisco Bay Area afterwards, working. I met Kristen when she came in to take climbing lessons last year, and we got to be friends.”

“Never known anyone from Canada,” he said. “Well, apart from the rugby teams they’ve fielded for the World Cup. Pretty good blokes.”

“I never even knew we went to the World Cup,” she admitted. “How did we do?”

“Had a good whack at it.”

“Uh-huh. In other words, we stunk.”

“Well . . .” He grinned back at her. “Reckon we wouldn’t do too well at hockey either. Couple of those boys had the biggest beards I’ve ever seen, though. If it’d been the World Cup of Beards, now, you’d have taken it.”

“Sounds like Canada,” she said. “A little of that frontier mentality.”

“Not so different from En Zed, then,” he offered.

“You’re right. That’s occurred to me more than once since I’ve been here. Lots of open space, lots of outdoor activities. But more ocean here, and you have better weather.” She smiled at him. “And now you’ve got me doing it.”

He smiled back, but persisted. “Surprised you didn’t stay there, then. Since outdoor activities are what you do.”

“There seemed like more opportunities in the U.S.,” she explained. “My parents thought so too. And, of course, the relationship I was in, that’s another reason I stayed in the Bay Area. Besides, I didn’t think at the time that I was going to do this kind of thing, the outdoor stuff, as a career. I just thought it was fun, and it turns out that I’ve never wanted to do anything else. And I want—” She stopped herself. “I thought it was fun,” she repeated.

“What? What do you want to do?” he pressed.

“Never mind. You don’t want to hear about my hopes and dreams.”

“I do, though,” he protested. “But we can save it for next time, if you’d rather. Conversational topic, eh.”

Yeah, right. She was going to confide her ridiculous career ambitions to somebody who’d achieved the pinnacle of his by the time he was in his late twenties.

“So,” he prompted. “Calgary.”

She shrugged. “It has a huge statue of a bull in the middle of it. That’s about all you need to know. That pretty much sums it up. How about if we talk about you instead?” He had to be a more interesting topic than her unexciting childhood. She might not know much about dating, but she had a feeling it was better not to actually bore the guy to tears. Besides, you were supposed to ask them about themselves, weren’t you?

“Hannah told me that lots of New Zealand rugby players play their whole careers for the team closest to where they’re from,” she went on. “Drew’s only played for the Blues, I know. Which surprised me, because U.S. athletes move around a lot. Every year or two sometimes, I think. There’s usually no local connection at all. Which makes it a little harder, I think,” she mused, “for fans to feel that sense of loyalty to a team. When the guys come and go so much.”

“Anyway.” She’d drifted away from the original topic, she realized. “Did you grow up in Wellington? Or someplace close by?”

 “Nah. Pretty far away, in fact. In Gore. Well, outside Gore. Which is in Southland,” he added at her blank look. And when she still looked lost, elaborated further. “The bottom bit of the Mainland.” He sighed. “The South Island. Of New Zealand. Which is where you are now. I could draw you a map, if you like.”

“The
Mainland?”
she asked, trying hard not to laugh. “The South Island’s the Mainland? I thought hardly anyone lived there.”

“Oi,” he protested with a straight face. “It’s heaps bigger than the North Island. And we have twenty percent of En Zed’s population. Not to mention half the sheep, and almost all the mountains. And don’t get me started on our sandfly advantage.”

“Oh, excuse me,” she said with exaggerated politeness. “I stand corrected. I’m sure that . . . Gore . . . is quite the metropolitan center.”

“Oh, yeh. I’ll see your bull statue and raise you a sheep.”

“You have a statue of a
sheep?”
She lost the battle and started to laugh. “Where?”

“At the entrance to town,” he admitted, beginning to chuckle himself. “And that’s not the only decorative object. There’s a trout sculpture down the other end, not to mention a pretty massive chainsaw on top of the farm equipment shop. All the Kiwi essentials, and all on the one street too. It’s a regular cultural wonderland, Gore.”

“Actually, that’s not true,” he corrected himself. “It’s also the country music capital of New Zealand. So there you go.”

“Sounding more and more like Calgary all the time. And I still think my bull wins,” she said sternly. “It’s a very
big
bull. A rodeo bull.”

“Nah,” he said. “My sheep and trout win. Because a bull’s actually exciting. Not too many sheep rodeos around. Sheep riding, now, that’d be a boring event. And there you go again. You have rodeos, and we have Farm Days. I win right there, even without the sheep statue.”

“Well, mutton-busting,” she pointed out.

“Huh?”

“Riding sheep. In rodeos. Kids do it.”

“Never mind,” she said as he continued to look puzzled. “I guess you don’t do that. But what about sheepdog competitions? Those are
fun
. I saw
Babe,
and I know.”

“One event.
One.
Everything else? Dead bore. Besides,” he went on when she would have argued further, “I’ve actually heard of Calgary. I could even have told you it was in Canada. How many people does it have?”

“Not that many. Maybe a million.”

He pointed a triumphant finger at her. “Ten thousand. I win.”

Motorcycle Boots

“D’you want to stop and look?” Liam asked, the third time he saw Kristen’s eyes stray to a shop window. They’d finished their climbing already on this sunny Saturday, their fifth time together. Had already knocked another few weeks off her seven months. Pity there were still six long months to go. He’d suggested they take a stroll up Lambton Quay, have lunch there for a change. He’d had a hunch she’d enjoy window-shopping, and he’d been right, he saw with satisfaction.

“Oh, no,” she said hastily. “No, that’s fine.”

“Because I don’t mind,” he insisted. “Come on. Show me what you like.”

“Do you really want to know?” she asked doubtfully.

“I really want to know,” he assured her. He stopped on the busy pavement, forcing the passing pedestrian traffic to veer around the pair of them. “That shop back there. That was the most interesting one, eh.”

“Well, yes, it was,” Kristen admitted, looking back. “I shouldn’t want to look at clothes so much, I suppose, since I do it all day for work.”

“Why not? Just means you’ve found the right job for you. How much rugby d’you think I watch? Heaps.”

“But you probably have to do that,” she said, moving back toward the windows of that shoe shop all the same, as if irresistibly drawn there.

“I’d do it anyway. Because I love footy, just like you love fashion. It’s work, and it’s fun. Neither of us is performing brain surgery here, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with what we do, or what we love.”

They were in front of the shop now. Mi Piaci, he saw. Shoes.

“Which d’you like best?” he prompted. “Those purple ones,” he suggested, pointing to a pair of high suede heels, “they’d go with those lace things you were wearing at Toro’s party, eh.”

“Mmm,” she said dubiously. “I probably wouldn’t do that. Too matchy-matchy.”

“Really,” he said in surprise. “I thought matching was the point.”

“It makes an outfit a little boring,” she explained. “It’s a lot more fun to have a little surprise, a little contrast. A little . . . funk.”

“So which of these would be a better choice? What would be funky?”

“Hmm,” she considered, studying the colorful array in the window carefully, then nodding with decision and pointing. “Those. Yeah, those would be super fun.”

“Right. Let’s go, then,” he said, indicating the shop door.

“What?” she laughed. “You mean, try them on?”

“Well, not
me,”
he said with a grin of his own. “I was thinking you. Why not? You have something better to do today?”

“No,” she said slowly. “If you’re sure you want to.”

“I’m sure.”

Watching Kristen put shoes on and take them off, he thought a few minutes later as she slipped the studded, buckled motorcycle-inspired black boots on, stood and walked to the mirror with that unconscious sway that came from a body put together absolutely perfectly—well, it wasn’t the very best thing he could imagine. But it wasn’t too far off.

“So fun,” she said wistfully, turning and posing, looking back over her shoulder at herself in the mirror, lifting one foot to stand on a toe, smoothing both hands over her hips. And making Liam seriously doubt, all of a sudden, that this celibacy thing was going to work after all.

“What do you think? Cute, huh?” She pivoted, peered over her other shoulder at him with a smile, then turned again, struck a pose, and did a model-glide across the floor to him. Just having fun, he knew, and was glad of it, though it had steam all but coming out of his ears.

“Yeh,” he said, smiling up at her from his spot in the chair. “Cute.”

She laughed. “I meant the
boots.”

“Yeh, those are cute too,” he agreed.

“Lovely on you,” the saleswoman put in. “They go a treat with those skinny jeans, but they’d be awesome with a short skirt too, for a fun look.”

“Exactly what I was thinking!” Kristen said with delight, giving the woman a warm smile.
“So
funky and fun.”

“But,” she sighed, sitting down to take them off again, “not in my budget, I’m afraid. Not today.”

“Nah,” Liam protested. “We’ll take them.”

Kristen looked up at him sharply, arrested in the act of pulling a boot off her foot. “What? Liam . . .”