Just My Luck (38 page)

“And Susan there, back at the guest house,” he added with another smile. “She does massage. A shower and an hour or so with her, and you’ll be a new woman.”

And both of those things
did
help. But when he reached for her that evening, she looked at him in astonishment.

“You have got to be kidding,” she told him. “You have no idea how sore and tired this body is.”

“”Oh, I have a pretty fair idea,” he smiled, leaning over to kiss her. “And sex is a pretty good anesthetic. Come on. Let me make you feel better.”

“You’d better be prepared to do all the work,” she sighed. But her protest was pitifully weak, because his fingers were running softly over the sensitive skin between her breasts in the low-cut undershirt she had worn to bed.

“It could be like having sex with a blow-up doll,” she got out, “because I’m not moving. But if you want a sex toy to play with . . .” She squirmed a little. He was using one finger to trace the outline of her shirt now, and that felt
good.

“I’ll play with you,” he promised. “I’ll do it all. You just lie there and be my toy.”

And she did. He went so slowly, his hands, then his mouth gentle against her sensitive skin until she could swear she was aware of every separate nerve ending. He was pulling the edge of the shirt a bit further down, still concentrating on the tops of her breasts, the valley between them, his touch so light it nearly tickled. And then, when she was moving a little underneath him despite herself, he transferred his attention to her inner thighs, finding erogenous zones she hadn’t even realized she had.

By the time he was slowly pulling up the undershirt, caressing and kissing every centimeter he uncovered along the way, she was moaning. And when he had finally finished playing with her and was sliding inside, beginning his long, slow ride, she really was as limp and boneless as any sex doll. And feeling a whole lot better.

“Goodnight, toy,” he murmured at last with a gentle kiss, pulling the duvet over her.

But she barely heard him, because she was already sinking into sleep.

Ally Gets Her Card Back

“And here we are,” Nate said. They had come down out of the high pass into wide-open expanses of hill shading into river valley, a few sheep the only living things visible for kilometers around. He pulled into a large carpark, populated with only a few cars on this Monday morning.

“Get your climbing shoes and come on,” he told Ally. But she was ahead of him, had already reached back and rummaged them out, was yanking off her shoes and socks.

“Slow down,” he grinned. “The rocks aren’t going anywhere.”

“So many boulders, so little time,” she said happily. “That’s limestone. Oh, wow.”

“Thought you’d like it,” he said modestly, getting himself into his own shoes. “Course, I’ve never stopped here before, but I did a bit of checking around. This was actually the point of the whole journey. Saving the best for last.”

And, he thought an hour later, as she tackled yet another of the weirdly shaped monoliths that studded Castle Hill, the huge gray knobs and pinnacles standing sentinel over the rugged terrain, he might have taken her up Avalanche Peak the day before to soothe his own ego after all, just as she’d suspected. Because he couldn’t believe what she was doing now, how she made those microscopic shifts in balance that enabled her to somehow smear her way up a seemingly sheer boulder with none of the obvious handholds of the climbing gym.

“How did you do that?” he complained when she’d reached the top, a good three meters above him, and then, even more incredibly, had made her way back down again.

“Here,” she pointed out. “Get your toe on this. And your hands here.”

He looked, and could barely see the protrusion. Tried a few more times, and couldn’t even get off the ground.

“Never mind,” she laughed. “I’ll find you something easier.”

“Bit different from the gym,” he admitted as they climbed the hill together. No mist today, not down here, just white clouds scudding across the blue sky in the cool breeze. Gray stones, green grasses, the mountains rising steeply to the west, the sheep grazing in the paddock beyond.

The Mainland, and his heart felt easy, as it always did down here. He liked Wellington, had built a good life there. But this was something else. The peace, the vistas, the endless space of mountain, plain, valley, and sea. This was home, and someday, he knew, he’d be coming back.

“It is,” Ally said, and he had to work to remember what they had been talking about. “It’s so much better, isn’t it? Being here? Outdoors?” She gave a spin, arms flung wide, ponytail flying, her broad smile reaching all the way to those sparkling dark eyes, and his heart filled just a little bit more at the sight of her, the way she fit here.

“Come on,” she urged. “Race you. First one to the top of that big one that’s shaped like an M, there.” She pointed to a stone near the apex of the slope. “First one there wins. Ready, set,
go!”
And before he could say anything, she was running.

He made it there first, of course, by a fair margin. And that was as far as he got. Because while he was still struggling to get off the ground, she had caught up, wriggled and stretched her way to the top, following a path he couldn’t even begin to pick out, and was lying on her stomach, peering over the edge at him.

“I win,” she pointed out unnecessarily. “And, yes, I now forgive you for the horrible hike yesterday, which goes down in history as another one of Nate’s Bad Ideas. Do you want some help finding your way up here?”

“Yes,” he was forced to admit. “I do.”

“I even feel better about being your sex toy now,” she said when she’d climbed back down and coached him up the thing, which, thankfully, actually did have a few places where a normal person could put his hands and feet. “I was worried last night that they were going to take away my Feminist Card for all the things I’ve done with you.”

“Nah.” He was looking down at her now. “Help me get down off this, and I’ll personally give you your card back. And as far as the other thing, tell you what. You can be on top tonight, show me who’s boss. I’m putting my hand up here and now to be your sex toy. It’s a hell of a tough job,” he sighed, “but somebody’s got to do it.”

Her eyes were full of mischief as she looked up at him. “I won’t say your idea doesn’t have potential,” she said. “Quite a relief, actually. I was half expecting that I was going to have to pretend to be a maiden while you dressed up as a Crusader. I was thinking that I could get a sword, too, so I could dance around the house for you. Or maybe you’d like to have a sword battle. I’m sure I’d be supposed to lose, right? Would that be some good sexytimes for you? Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’d just laugh.”

He laughed out loud at that himself. “One thing you can be dead sure of,” he promised her, “I’ll never be dressing up as a Crusader. Boots or no.”

Knee-Deep in It

Nate swore as he shoved a recalcitrant cow off the slow-moving rotary milking stand, got spattered with manure again in the process.

“She got you there, mate,” Ned laughed. “She’s a clever one. Knows if she stays on, she gets more treats.” He moved the next batch of Jerseys up, each animal moving obediently into her slot, as familiar with the twice-daily routine as the man supervising them.

“Missing the glamorous life of a farmer yet?” he asked Nate with a grin an hour later, hopping off the ATV in the cold light of a Southland winter morning, opening the back of the trailer to let the dogs out, their morning’s work done after moving the cows to fresh pasture.

Nate pulled his beanie down a bit against the chill, looked wryly down at his manure-bedecked gumboots. “Remembering why I play footy. Allergic to hard work, I guess.”

His older brother shot him a glance. “Nobody thinks that, bro,” he said gruffly. “We all know.”

Nate looked at him with surprised gratitude, but didn’t reply, just nodded.

“Dad’s thinking of selling up,” Ned said abruptly when they were in the house again, showered and changed, and finished with their mother’s hearty breakfast of eggs on toast, ham, and bacon. She’d fed them, then headed out with their dad to pick up a load of hay, and the brothers were sitting over a second cup of tea, relaxing after the morning’s chores.

Nate looked up from his mobile, his attention pulled abruptly from the text he’d been reading.

Haven’t been this deep in bullshit since you read me that Farrell column,
he’d texted.
Can’t wait to stop working hard and come home. Get the sword and boots ready.

To which Ally had just replied,
Dream on big shot,
which had made him laugh.

Now, though, he set the phone down, stared at his brother. “He is? Why?”

Ned shrugged. “Sixty now, says he’s done it long enough, and so has Mum. Thinking of moving into town. And you know he can get a fair bit for the herd, and the place. We’ve got nearly four hundred, and there’s a good market for Jerseys just now.”

Nate was still reeling. His dad and mum off the land that had been his grandfather’s, and his own father’s before him . . . it was too big a change to contemplate. “What about you?” he asked. “You own a good bit of it yourself. Have you thought of buying Dad out? Because if you wanted to, you know, I could help out with a loan.”

He held his breath a little after saying it. He’d never offered money to his brother before, and wasn’t sure it would be welcome. But he needed to do it all the same.

Ned waved a hand. “Nah. Bad enough that you don’t have more of a share.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Nate said brusquely. In fact, he’d long since told their dad to leave him out entirely. That he hadn’t worked the farm since he was fifteen, that he was investing a fair bit of the money he was earning, looking ahead to the days when he wouldn’t be playing. And that he wasn’t entitled to anything, and wasn’t expecting it either.

“Still my son, aren’t you,” Frank Torrance had said. “You’re due your share.” And that had been that. There was no arguing with his dad.

“I’m happy to do it,” he told Ned now. He’d press a little more. He knew that his brother, like their father, was a proud man, that he wouldn’t want Nate’s money. “It wouldn’t be a gift. Just a loan. Business. You’re a pretty good investment.”

“I’ve got plans, tell you the truth,” Ned said. “Time to settle down, you know.”

“Settle
down?”
Nate asked blankly. “How could there be any way you could be any more settled?”

Ned looked at him with some exasperation. “Well, let’s see. I could be married and have some kids, couldn’t I. You may not’ve noticed that I’m still single. I was thirty last year, and Mel’s going to get tired of hanging about, if she isn’t already. And she doesn’t want to be married to a cow-cocky. She’ll do it if that’s what I want, but I know she doesn’t want the life.”

“You’d do that for her?”

“Not much I wouldn’t do for her,” Ned said, then cleared his throat, looked down at his cup, and took another swallow. “Besides, I’m a bit tired of it myself, tell you the truth. Tired of smelling like shit all the time, of getting up so early. Doing something else would feel like a holiday, I’m thinking. And I’ll get a fair bit too, when Dad sells. Enough to set up in something new. Something in town. I’ve got an idea, truth be told, wanted to talk to you about it.”

Ned wanting his advice. That was a role reversal, and one Nate wasn’t sure he was comfortable with.

“Course,” he said. “What’s the idea, then?”

“Ian McGregor, in town,” Ned said. “He wants to sell the feed business, retire himself. None of his kids want to take it on. They’re all in Dunedin, you know.”

Nate nodded. He knew. Southlanders were a hardy breed, but not everyone wanted the rural life. He knew he hadn’t.

“And I thought,” Ned went on, “as I’ve done the business end of this ever since I came down from Uni, that I could manage. And Mel’s a bookkeeper, you know,” he added with a smile. “Dead clever of me, wasn’t it?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Nate agreed.

“So I was thinking,” Ned said, “maybe you’d go round there with Mel and me tomorrow. Have a chat, look at the books. Just a preliminary meeting, but you may think of questions we wouldn’t. Ian’s a good bloke,” he hastened to add, “and he wouldn’t cheat me, but it never hurts to ask the hard questions, eh.”

“Course,” Nate said automatically. “Though what I know about the feed business would fit on the head of a pin, with room left over.”

“Never mind,” Ned said with a quick grin. “Just give him that stare you do, and you’ll have him babbling everything he’d meant to leave out.”

“I’m the intimidation factor, am I,” Nate grinned back.

“That’d be you,” his brother agreed.

Nate thought it over again on the quick flight back to Wellington three days later. His parents and Ned off the farm. He still couldn’t get used to it. Time moved on, he knew that. They were moving with it, that was all.

“What about you?” Ned had asked during the ninety-minute drive that morning to the airport in Dunedin. “Any plans for settling down? You aren’t getting any younger yourself, you know.”

“Twenty-eight,” Nate protested. “Not quite tottering towards the grave yet. Just getting started.”

“Not serious about that girl you’re seeing?” Ned pressed. “It’s been a while now.”

“Haven’t thought about it,” Nate admitted. “I’m focused on the footy just now, you know that.”

Ned nodded. “I can see that. But she’s, what, American?”

“Canadian.”

“Working holiday visa, then?”

“Yeh. I s’pose. Never thought about it. Why?”

“Because,” and his brother sounded a bit exasperated now, “that’s only good for a year. We get a fair number of kids through on their OE, helping out. It’s one year, mate. How long has she been here?”

“Uh . . .” Nate tried to think. “Came at the beginning of December, I guess.”

Ned nodded. “August now. So, what? You go off on the European tour, end of October, wave goodbye to her, she goes merrily on her way? That the plan?”

“I don’t know what the plan is,” Nate said in exasperation. “How’m I meant to know that? Got enough to think about with the Championship coming up. I can’t be worrying about Ally as well. I’ll think about her, about us, when that’s done.”