Page 71 of Just Say Christmas
“Oh. Well, first, you’re not. And second, if you are, I’m the princess. What’s her name. I can set the record straight on that, anyway. You’re irresistible. If you wonder about me? If I’m not there, and I’m meant to be? You should ask, another time. If I don’t turn up, if something seems off, assume I’ve . . . I’ve . . .”
“Broken your nose,” he suggested, and he was starting to smile. “Got concussion. Knocked out a tooth. You could assume the same, if you like. In my case, it’ll probably be true. Or assume this. Assume I want you with a broken nose and concussion. Assume I want to be there to help.”
“I want to stop and tell you I love you,” she said. “Wait, Iamgoing to stop and tell you I love you. I do. It should feel like a mistake to say it, I should wait for the fella to say it, et cetera. I’m saying it anyway. But I have to say this first.” She was hurrying again, because his face had softened, and she might be going to cry here. She’d better say it first. “Reason Two for our problem? We didn’t see each other enough. It’s too far apart, and you’re gone so much already. We could fix that. I could . . .” Another breath. She was going to hyperventilate here, if she didn’t pass out from hunger first. “I could move. Not move in with you,” she hastened to add. “I could see about Christchurch, though. I grew up there. I went to University there. I could get on with the Crown Prosecutor. I’m a bit of a star, you know. Legally speaking.”
When she got emotional, when she got embarrassed, first her chest flushed, and then her face did. Not in a sultry brunette “her color heightened” way, like in a Regency novel. More of a “the redhead got sunstroke” way. She could tell it was happening now. “And I could get a place,” she added fast. “I wouldn’t buy a house, because the yellow brick and ugly kitchen have convinced me that I’m not good at buying houses. I’m going to give it a rest for a while, think harder another time. I could get a flat, though. If I were there, I could go to your games. I could see you. And we could . . . see.”
She’d run down. She put her two hands up to her mouth, breathed into them, and said from behind them, “I could be hyperventilating here. Yeh. Definitely . . . definitely lightheaded. Could we eat? Please?”
* * *
KANE
He wanted to laugh. In somebody else’s life, some bloke was saying, “I love you,” and a woman was crying pretty tears. In his life, he was jumping up, grabbing a plate of French toast from the oven, burning his hand, swearing, finding a tea towel, and finally bringing breakfast over, plus a glass of orange juice that he put into her hand.
“I don’t like juice,” she said.
“Drink it anyway. Blood sugar.” He piled five pieces of French toast on his plate—Victoria was just about the only woman in the world who knew how much a man his size needed to eat, possibly because she was taking three slices to start herself—poured some syrup on, spared a thought for his hypothetical caramelized bananas and possibly a pan of bacon, reminded himself that if he wanted them, he knew where the stove was, and watched her take a bite before he said, “I love you too, you know.”
She stopped chewing, and started to talk, then put a hand over her mouth and said, “You do?”
“Yeh.” Now, hehadto laugh. “I do. Don’t know why. Because you’re comfortable, and because you’re so much more than that. You fit me, and you surprise me. And you . . . you interest me. You make me laugh, you make me think, and you make me want to be a better man. Not to mention that I love having sex with you, because you’re pretty bloody fantastic there, too, and I love your body. All that’s good, surely, except that I don’t have words for the most important part.”
“How it felt last night,” she said. Her hair in coppery ringlets around her high-cheekboned, fine-as-glass face, her blue eyes searching, and more than that. Honest. In a pretty pink T-shirt and a tiny pair of filmy red-flowered shorts that he thought still had the price tag on, looking like his fantasies and his future.
“Like love,” he said, the tenderness rising to fill his chest, his throat. It had been so hard for her to put herself out there like that. She’d had to be so brave. Not just in her intellect, where she was always brave. In that more fragile place. In her heart. “That’s how it felt. Like love. And I think we should go for it. If you’re going to be that brave, I think I should try, too. You can move to Christchurch, or I can move here.”
“Here? Really? You would?”
“Why not?” He felt like laughing. He felt like jumping. He also felt like eating French toast, so he did. “Play with Marko for a while? Better than playing against him. The bugger tackles like a locomotive. A fella could get up missing part of his spine.”
“You tackle that way too,” she said. “I’ve watched.” She felt exactly like he did, he could tell. Like jumping, and laughing, and running. Well, maybe not running. Maybe dancing, though. Nyree would have dancing at her wedding, he was sure. In Northland or in Tekapo, she’d have dancing, and he wanted to dance again with Victoria. Badly. Joyfully.
“We can talk about it,” he said. “We can work it out.” He leaned over, put his arm around her, and when her forehead came to rest against his, it felt like the most natural place in the world. “And we’ll get a brilliant place,” he promised.
“No yellow brick?” She was still smiling, but there were some tears happening, too, and the ache in his throat had become a lump.
“No,” he promised her. “A view of the sea. A good kitchen, and the biggest bed they make. An office for you with enough room to play the cello, and a shed for me. A house big enough for both of us to make a life in. And no yellow brick.”
35
Easy-Peasy
ZORA
Zora consulted the timetable pinned to the notice board above her worktable. Rhys was out delivering today’s bouquets, thank goodness, and Isaiah and Casey, finally on their long-awaited last day of school before the summer holidays, had got up early anyway and spent an hour sitting on overturned buckets, stripping leaves and clipping stems on anthuriums and sticking them into water. The family, pulling together.
It was ten o’clock in the morning, and she’d been up since four-thirty, but she’d had nearly seven hours of sleep last night, which was enough, no matter how it felt right now, and she was nearly on schedule with the twenty-five centerpieces. The fact that the blood lilies hadn’t come in had thrown a spanner into the works, but she’d found a way around it.
Not at the time, though. This morning, she’d stared at Hughie, her supplier, and said, “I put that order in a month ago.”
“Sorry, love,” he said. “What can I tell you? I’m as sorry as you are. We can do king protea instead, or bougainvillea. Got some lovely specimens here, nearly the same color, that’ll go well with your anthurium. Tell you what—I’ll give them to you for fifteen percent off. Can’t say fairer than that.”
“No,” she said flatly. “That won’t work.” She pressed her fingertips to her forehead and tried to think.
Find another way.It had been her mantra for nearly ten years now. She was so tired of finding another way. A wave of fatigue washed over her that nearly sent her to her knees anddidsend her to the toilets, where she leaned her forehead against the cold cement wall and told herself,Five minutes. Five minutes to fall apart.
It took a few minutes more than that, and when she bashed her fist against the wall, she scraped her hand, which was just stupid and made her cry a minute longer. After that, she stood up, grabbed some toilet tissue and wiped her face, took a few deep breaths, and told herself,It’s a wedding. Weddings can be hard. You can still make it beautiful. Find another way.She left the toilet and walked the chilly aisles of the flower market, opened her mind, and found it. Red ginger. Not quite enough for the look she’d envisioned, but nobody would know but her.
