Page 3 of Just Say (Hell) No
She’d parked at the side of the road, in a yellow VW Beetle that had to be fifteen years old. A slam of the door, and she was off. Close to two blocks ahead of him, but you could say she caught his eye.
Why? Couldn’t be the body. He went for tall, tanned, athletic blondes, and she was the last thing from any of it. She was running as slowly as a person could go and still call it jogging, in fact. Call it “walking while jumping.” She was far too short for a six-foot-four-inch man, her skin was nothing but pale, and her hair was black and messy.
He passed her car, realized with relief why he’d noticed her—he hadn’t gone mad after all, knitting bag notwithstanding—and ran a bit faster.
It wasn’t much effort to catch up. His legs were about twice as long as hers. She was all the way into the reserve, though, by the time he got close on the shadowy path. A tui called from somewhere to the left, the liquid notes answered by another bird on the right. A mate, or a rival, because this one was showing off. Clicks, then cackles and groans, the sound nearly eerie here amongst the fern trees and palms that draped the reserve in cool shade.
Ahead of him, the girl looked tense. The running was new, probably. Felt too hard. That had to be it, considering the speed she was going. He caught up and said, “Excuse me.”
She whirled on him so fast, he started running backward out of habit.
“I have Mace!” she announced, all but baring her teeth.
Oh. She’d heard him coming up behind her. He blinked, realized he was still jogging backward, stopped, and said, “Uh… no, you don’t. But no worries. You don’t need it.” There wasn’t room to conceal more than a car key in that kit she was wearing. A flippy little zebra-print skirt, and a black sports bra that dipped low enough in front to show some cleavage. She was a curvy little thing and no mistake. Not that he was looking. She was advancing on him like the stroppiest terrier in the litter, and despite her aggression, he could see the fear underneath.
First the pub, and now this. He didn’t scare women. He wascareful.He put up both palms and said again, “No worries.”
She seemed taken aback for an instant, but recovered fast. “I’m not worried,” she said. “But maybe you should be, eh.” A hint of a Maori accent there. He considered explaining that he liked blondes, but she opened her hand, and bloody hell, but shedidhave a tiny metal canister laced between her fingers, together with her keys. An older couple was coming towards them with a Golden Retriever on a leash, and Marko had a sudden flash of his photo in another newspaper. Staggering around, tears streaming from his eyes, Maced on a bush track after attacking a jogger. That would be a good look.
Brilliant.
He said, “Gidday” to the couple, who nodded back at him with a “Morning” and a curious look at his new non-friend, who was on her toes, like she was deciding whether to stand her ground or make a run for it.
She apparently decided, because she told him, “Make it easy on yourself. Keep running.”
The older couple hesitated, then turned back. Wonderful.
Marko said, “Don’t flatter yourself. I caught up with you to tell you your lights are on. On your car. You can go back and turn them off, or you can let your battery run down. Your choice.”
“Oh.” She looked disconcerted, as well she might. Then her pale face tightened again. “That can’t be. When you set the parking brake, it automatically disables the daytime running light switch, and I always set the parking brake. It’s an old car.”
He said, “Right, then. Suit yourself.”
He would run on, that was what he’d do. No point in this, no matter how much he wanted to stay and… what? Get Maced?
It was her face. And, yes, the rest of her. Hecouldsee cleavage in the vee of that black sports bra, and it was pale and perfect. Those bras were meant to be unsexy. He’d been told so. This one was sexy, no matter what anybody said, or maybe it was the body beneath it. And then there was that little skirt.
She wasn’t any hardbody. She had curves a man could cuddle. Which wasn’t what he looked for, so what did he care?
That wasn’t it, either, though. It was the story, one of many his mum had read to him and his sisters every night before bed. Fairy stories as often as not, to his male disgust. The stories must have sunk in, though, because he remembered this one.
The queen was doing her needlework by the window one winter’s day when a raven flew by, startling her so that she pricked her finger. A single drop of blood fell onto the snow outside, and as she looked at it, she said to herself, “How I wish I had a daughter with lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow, and hair as black as a raven’s wing.”
Remembering it, he thought,Wait. Why was the queen sitting by an open window in winter? Stupid, especially with no central heating.But still.
Snow White. This girl’s skin was pale, her lips were rosy and all the way full, taking up too much space in her square little face, and the hair pulled back into the messy ponytail shone blue-black and wavy, shiny as a… tui’s wing, more like, with that blue in it.
It was her eyes, though, that held him fast and sent… something… down his spine. A chill. Or a thrill, like someone you remembered from a past life. His mum would’ve had something to say about that, no doubt. The Six of Cups crossed by some Major Arcana card. He wasn’t proud he knew that.
Those eyes, though. They weren’t the brown ones he’d have expected. Instead, they were a pale sea-green with darker flecks, fringed by sooty black lashes. It wasn’t mascara, because this girl wasn’t what you’d call “ornamented.” She justwas.Even her hair seemed to be crackling with life, like you couldn’t contain her.
Was she beautiful? Probably not. Maybe she was just different. He couldn’t decide. He knew for sure that she wasn’t blonde and athletic. Also, the brows above those startling eyes were straight and black, sending a completely different message from her lush mouth. She had something brown smeared along her neck, too, like she’d been careless with the chocolate. Messy all the way around.
Snow White? Not so much. He didn’t think she’d be singing to any animals. Or doing the housework for seven men, either. This one would put you through your paces and no mistake, and he didn’t have time for difficult women.
Not that she was asking him to. Those eyebrows were practically drawn into one long line across her face, and he said, not knowing quite why he was doing it, “I’ll run back and switch them off for you if you like, so you can keep doing your run. Take me five minutes.”
The bloke with the Golden Retriever said, “Marko Sendoa, isn’t it?” Probably clued in by the dark bruise on his right cheekbone and the matching ones on his arms, or maybe the taped-together fingers and the Adidas singlet. He’d gone with the sponsor today.
