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He swallowed at that. “Well, so you know—If you said those things to me, they’d make my heart swell, too. And you already made me cry.”

“Mmm.” She snuggled closer, put an arm across his chest, and he got an arm under her so he could hold her. “So it was good, huh?” she asked again, as if she couldn’t help it.

“Yeh,” he said. “It was bloody good, and I’m so proud of you. My brilliant partner. But maybe what I’m offering this weekend isn’t quite enough. Should I have brought you a necklace instead?”

She levered herself up to kiss his cheek, then settled down again. “No,” she said tenderly. “That’s fiction. I love what you’re offering. Because mostly, what I want is you.”

It wasn’t her story, now, that was making him choke up, and he pulled her a little closer and bent to kiss her himself, because unlike Hemi, he didn’t have words for this.

He had the right place, though. They were anchored off Tiritiri Matangi in the outer reaches of the Hauraki Gulf, the gentle slap of the waves against the hull the only sound breaking the winter silence. A bit chilly, of course, but they were cozy all the same in their sleeping bag, and if she got too cold, all he had to do was take her to the berth in the cabin below. There was nobody else around, not even another boat, on this early-September Sunday. Nobody to keep them company but the handful of visitors bedded down in the bird sanctuary’s bunkhouse, the little blue penguins, and the kiwis, and that was fine by him. That was perfect.

“I promised you a sky full of stars once,” he said at last. “Took me a while, but I got there in the end. I may not have brought you diamonds, but I brought you these. Or at least I brought you to them.”

“You did.” Her satisfied sigh came to rest somewhere deep in his soul. “And they’re exactly what I wanted.”

They lay a minute more in silence, the black night around them broken by a million tiny pinpricks of stars, and best of all, the broad swath of creamy light that was the Milky Way. He heard her intake of breath, and a split-second later, saw the reason for it. A meteor arcing its way across the vastness of space, trailing a cloud of white behind it.

“What is it to the Maori, do you know?” she asked, sounding dreamy. “A shooting star. Does it mean something?”

“It’s a Raririki. A little shining one. One of the children of Rangi, the Sky Father, playing across his father’s robe, tripping and falling.”

“A good thing, or a bad thing?”

“A bright one like that? Good thing. Good omen.”

“Good.” She snuggled closer, and he held her just a little bit tighter.

“What does it mean to you?” he asked.

“Well, when I was a little girl, I read that it meant you got one wish. But I’ve never seen one before, because I haven’t seen the stars enough. This is my first.”

“So what’s your one wish?”

Silence, and then a sigh. “If I tell,” she said, “it doesn’t come true.”

“Ah. Scared to trust it, are you, even after everything we’ve been through. Scared to think it could last. Or that’s wishful thinking of my own, maybe.”

“Not—no. Not wishful thinking.” Her voice was so tentative. As if she didn’t dare believe it. As if she hardly dared even wish for it. He knew exactly how she felt, because he felt the same way. But it was time to go ahead and speak the wish aloud. There was a point when you had to put it out there, and it was now.

He waited a moment, trying to think how to say it, and then decided there was no perfect way. There was only doing his best, and hoping it was enough. So he took a breath and did it.

“It’s hard, isn’t it, to take that leap,” he said. “To close your eyes and step out into space, and trust that I’ll be there to catch you. Even that you can say it, that you can tell me what you wish for. But you can, you know. I’m standing right here with my hands out to pull you in, and I’m going to stay here. And I’ll be counting on you the same way, because it’s exactly the same leap for me. Nothing to hold onto but you, nobody but you to catch me if I fall. It’s a leap of faith, is what it is, and the only way to take it is together.”

“Oh. That’s…” She had turned onto her side, not looking at the stars anymore. She was looking at him instead.

“Solomon rang me the other day to tell me he’s got that spot at last,” he told her. “That he’ll be on the squad for the Outlaws, and not the practice squad. He may be a starter and he may not, but he’ll be digging deep for it. If he doesn’t make it, it won’t be because he didn’t try.”

“That’s…that’s great news.”

“And you’re wondering why I told you that at this particular moment. It’s because of this. Because that last day, when I was leaving Las Vegas, he and I were talking about this mad life we’ve got, about how much he’s had to move, all the teams. About all the travel you do when you’re a sportsman. And he said something to me, talking about Lelei. He said, ‘Home is where she is.’ I wondered how that would feel, and I knew I didn’t have a clue. And now I do. I know that these past couple months, when I’ve been gone, when I’m flying home…I’m coming back to New Zealand, yeh, and that’s home, and that matters. But I’m also coming home to you. I know it’s home, because you’re there.”

He thought she might be crying a little. He put a hand out and found he was right, wiped the tears from her cheek with a gentle thumb. “Dunno if crying’s a good thing right now, or a bad one,” he said, trying to laugh and failing. “I’ve got my heart in my throat here. Or maybe I should say I’ve got it in your hands. Maybe you could give me a hint.”

“It’s—it’s a good thing,” she said. “Because this isn’t my home, but it…it is. Because you’re here. Because when you come home, it’s the day I’ve waited for.”

No woman whose eyes are lighting up because you’re home, and this is the day she’s had circled on her calendar.

He heard Koro saying it, and he looked out beyond Faith to the stars overhead, and knew that he was up there, and that somehow, he knew. That his wayward grandson had found it at last, and that, most of all, he’d been able to recognize it. Because of everything his Koro had taught him about living his life like it mattered.

You can stay. You can stick. Your choice. Your life. You can run away from it. Or you can run towards it.

He was going to run towards it. Starting right now.

“Your tourist visa’s almost up,” he told her.

“Uh…I know.”

“Another thing you’re wondering why I’m saying. I’m saying there’s another kind of visa you could get, so I can keep coming home to you. If this is a life you think you can live, and if you want to live it with me. And it’s a…” He breathed deep, felt all those old shackles falling away, and said it. “It’s a fiancée visa. And if it’s too soon,” he hurried to add when she didn’t answer right away, “we can wait as long as you like for the wedding. We can wait a year, if that’s how long it takes you to be sure. But I can’t let you go home, not without trying to keep you. I’ve got to try. I’ve got to take the leap. I’ve got to hope that you’ll be there to catch me.”

“Oh, Will.” She was crying for real now. “Of course I’ll catch you. I’ll always catch you. And how can I go home?” She laughed a little, and it wasn’t steady at all. He could feel her shaking, and he needed to hold her so badly.

“I’m already here,” she told him, her voice so tender, “because that’s what love is, isn’t it? I’m already home. Because I’m with you.”

***

The End

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Escape to New Zealand episode. Want to hear about new releases, sales, and preorders—plus receive a FREE Escape to New Zealand book? Sign up for my
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My thanks as always to my awesome critique group: Barbara Buchanan, Carol Chappell, Mary Guidry, Kathy Harward, Bob Pryor, and Jennifer Spenser; and to my editor, Charlotte Herscher, for helping me make this book the best it could be.

Check out more sweet, sexy rugby players in the Escape to New Zealand series

Learn more about the places from the book, listen to Maori songs, watch the All Blacks doing the haka, and more on the
Rosalind James website
.

Read on for an excerpt from
JUST THIS ONCE: Escape to New Zealand, Book One
, and follow the adventure from the beginning.

Just This Once: Excerpt

“Wow. Welcome to New Zealand.”

Hannah said the words aloud. There was nobody around to hear her, after all. Despite the chill lingering in the morning air, she stood where she was for a few seconds more. The turquoise sea beckoned, its border of golden sand strewn with pale scallop shells left behind by the receding tide. It was exactly where she’d longed to be, these past weeks. And it was everything she’d hoped.

She dropped her towel and sandals and stepped into the cool water. Aiming towards the point at the far end of the bay, she delighted in her steady progress. Her mind settled down into the familiar rhythm, focused only on her strokes and her breath as the minutes went by.

Looking up at last to check her position, she felt a twinge of alarm. Had she not been swimming straight? The point was in the wrong place, wasn’t it? She treaded water, turned in a circle. Realized with shock that she’d come much farther than she’d expected. What had felt like her own fast pace had in fact been a powerful current in the outgoing tide. One that was doing its best now to pull her out to sea.

No need to panic, she told herself firmly. All right, she was in some kind of rip tide. Now that she had stopped swimming, she could feel its strength. But she knew what to do, didn’t she? She had to swim across it, that was all. This happened to people all the time. She would aim for a course parallel to the shore rather than trying to force her way directly back against the current’s full power. Once she escaped the band of rip, she could turn back toward shore again. Back to safety.

She changed directions deliberately, swam strongly and steadily, working on maintaining her parallel course. Her progress, though, seemed discouragingly slow. The rip was wider than she had anticipated. It might even have shifted, a nervous little voice whispered in the back of her mind. She had heard that could happen.

She forced that treacherous voice back with an effort. She couldn’t do anything about it now, other than what she was already doing. Keep swimming parallel, she told herself fiercely. She could swim for an hour without stopping, she knew. That meant she could swim even longer if she had to. Eventually, she would get out of this. Willing herself to stay calm, counting her strokes, she made it to one hundred, then two hundred.

And felt the change as she was caught by another, stronger rip. She had swum straight into it, and was once again being pulled out inexorably with the current.

The first stirrings of real panic shortened her breath. She forced the fear back, focused on breathing with her strokes, and began to count again. One hundred strokes, she told herself. Count. Breathe. But as she counted off sixty, then seventy, she could feel herself tiring, and knew she was losing the battle.

Where were the people? She hadn’t seen a soul when she entered the water. Nobody knew where she was, and there was nobody to see her struggling. Nobody to help her. Nobody to save her.

How could this be happening?

All she had wanted was a vacation.

Hannah and Drew’s story: JUST THIS ONCE: Escape to New Zealand, Book One

CHAPTER ONE

As soon as Elli Eversol pushed her toes into the gritty sand on the beach, wonderful memories swept away the stress she’d carried on the five-hour drive from Charlotte. Temperatures were already hovering in the sixties, unseasonably warm for March on the North Carolina coast, especially for this early in the morning. With her shoes and socks in hand, she walked down to the pier, her footsteps leaving clear imprints in the crusted top layer of sand.

Filling her lungs with ocean air, the only thing missing from her memories of the beach was the scent of suntan lotion, but summer was just a few months away.

Sand Dollar Cove still held a special place in her heart. Every summer for as long as she could remember, she’d stayed here with Nana and Pops at their beach house. The Sol~Mate had been her home away from home on summer breaks until she’d gone away to college. Her plan had been to move here once she graduated, but Dad had made her promise that she’d work in a city for two years before making a decision to settle in Sand Dollar Cove. He’d grown up here and, according to Nana and Pops, Daddy couldn’t wait to get out of the small beach town. She’d never understood it, but he must’ve been onto something: Even though she’d moved to Charlotte with the plan to get some experience under her belt just to make him happy, she’d been there ever since. Two years turned into five, and she stayed so busy she hadn’t even had the time to think about moving since.

Waves crashed against the pier, filling the air with a misty spray. The seagulls above seemed to laugh at some inside joke between them. At least at this time of the year the sand was cool. In the summer there were days you were forced to use your towel and shirt as stepping stones to get back to the parking lot or else burn your feet. After a winter of closed-toe shoes, it sure felt good to walk the beach again.