Just for Now (7 page)

“Would you like to be able to do that?” Jenna asked him. She
was stretched out on the top step of the spa with Harry and Sophie while Finn
sat further down, enjoying the warmth on his bruised body.

He nodded vigorously. “It looks hard, though.”

“Not really,” Jenna said. “You have to learn, of course, and
then practice. Just like everything else. I could teach you, if you like.”

“OK!” He jumped up.

“Not right now,” she laughed. “But once it gets closer to
summer, and more pools are open, we can work on swimming and diving some more.”

“Book them in for more lessons, d’you reckon?” Finn asked
lazily.

“I can do it for now,” she told him. “I taught kids to swim
and dive every summer during high school. You have me anyway, might as well
take advantage of it.”

He turned his head to look at her. That had been a bit provocative.
She clearly hadn’t meant it that way, though. Pity.

“Can I learn too?” Sophie asked.

“Of course,” Jenna said. “You’re both pretty good swimmers
already. By the time I leave, we’ll have you swimming like fish, and diving
too.”

“Do I have to dive off the high board?” Harry asked
dubiously. “It’s a bit scary.”

“Not if you don’t want to,” Jenna assured him. “We’ll do a
little at a time. If you dive off the high board someday, that’ll be wonderful.
And if you don’t, that’ll be just fine too.”

“Can you do it?” Sophie asked.

“Sure. I wouldn’t be much of a teacher if I didn’t know how,
would I?”

“Would you show us?” Harry begged, and Sophie immediately
added her entreaty.

“OK to leave them with you?” Jenna asked Finn.

“Good as gold.”

“OK, then. I haven’t done this in a couple years, but you
know what they say. An elephant never forgets.” She winked at the kids, then
stepped out of the hot pool and walked to the diving area.

Not so much of an elephant, Finn thought, watching her sway
across the pool deck in those tiny shorts. More of a . . . His mind blanked.
What was a sexy animal? He couldn’t think of one. Except for Jenna. She was a
sexy animal, and no mistake. He watched as she climbed to the higher board,
walked to the end and looked down. Then turned back.

“Isn’t she going to do it?” Sophie asked in disappointment.

“Watch,” Finn commanded.

Jenna ran to the end of the board, bounced once, sprang from
her toes and dove off, executing a perfect jackknife in the air and hitting the
water dead straight.

“Yay!” Harry and Sophie applauded as Jenna approached them
again, one hand going up to slick her wet hair back from her face.

She laughed as she slid back into the warm water to join
them. “That was great,” she said with a satisfied sigh. “I’d forgotten how much
fun it was to do that.”

“Very impressive,” Finn said approvingly. “Reckon you’ll be
able to teach these two to dive, at that.”

“Reckon I will,” she teased. She winked again, slid down to
the next step and leaned back in the warm water.

Crikey. This was turning out to be so much more than he’d
bargained for.

“And that’s another term begun,” Finn said the next morning
as he came back into the kitchen after walking Sophie and Harry to school.

“Much to Sophie’s disgust.” Jenna fixed herself a cup of tea,
then picked up some papers from the computer desk set into one end of the kitchen
bench and went to sit with him. “It’s interesting that she’s so unexcited about
it, despite being such an avid reader.”

“I was never keen either,” he admitted. “How about you?”

“The opposite,” she said wryly. “School was the best part of
my life. I spent summer vacation longing to get back. If they’d said I could go
all year, believe me, I would have. I remember what a disappointment it was
when I figured out that the teachers didn’t actually live at school. I think I
was hoping to live there with them.”

“Home life that good, eh.”

She smiled. “Yup. But my loss is your gain. Because that’s
why I’m so big on providing structure. Life’s hard enough. Kids need a calm,
orderly place where they can recharge.”

“Reckon everyone needs that, but they don’t always know how
to do it. You make it look so easy.”

“Well, to be fair, it’s a whole lot easier when there’s
plenty of money to hire somebody like Nyree or me to help provide it, not to mention
the housecleaners. If you were a single dad trying to do this on a limited
budget, and on your own . . .”

“Still. You
are
good at it. And I appreciate it.”

“Thanks. And on that note, do you have a few minutes to go
over the schedule for the next few weeks, before I leave for the day?”

He nodded, and she pulled forward the calendar printout. All
his games and the children’s activities were on there, he saw, as well as her
own days off. He went through it with her, answered her questions about his
travel schedule, watched her taking notes in her neat schoolteacher’s hand.

“Any evenings you’re planning to be out, that you know of?”
she asked, prepared to note them down.

“None. No plans, anyway.”

She shot him a glance, and he added, “Ashley and I broke up last
week. After that dinner she cooked.” He chuckled. “Sounds wrong. Not because of
the dinner. Though it didn’t help.”

“Sounds like condolences aren’t in order.”

“Nah. Mutual, I reckon. We weren’t suited after all. Turns
out I wasn’t the glamorous international sportsman she was expecting. Story of
my life. I’m a country boy, and a family man. Not too exciting for someone like
Ashley. And she . . .” He stopped. “I didn’t share her values. Put it that way.
And she didn’t share mine.”

“Good to find that out sooner rather than later,” Jenna
offered. “I’m glad you’re not hurting about it.”

“Not hurting, trust me.”

He sat for a minute, took a sip of tea. “Oh, about the swim
lessons,” he remembered, “since we’re talking about schedules. Meant to tell
you that I appreciate that, but you’re not obligated. If it’s too much, just
book them in somewhere.”

“I’d like to do it,” she assured him. “And I think it would
be especially good for Harry. He isn’t as physically confident as Sophie, and
I’d hate to see somebody pushing him too fast and scaring him. He actually
swims very well for a five-year-old. I think it might be a sport he could get
good at.”

“He’s not very sporty, in case you haven’t noticed,” Finn said
doubtfully.

“Team sports, and spectator sports, you’re right. But
sometimes kids like him enjoy individual sports much more. You don’t have to be
aggressive as a swimmer. You don’t even have to compete, unless you want to.”

“Unless you’re a water polo player,” he pointed out.

She laughed. “I think we can safely rule that out as a
career for Harry. It’d be good for him to get the exercise, though. And to know
that he can excel at something athletic, even if it’s not what you do.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Does that matter? I don’t
care if he does what I do. I love footy, always have. I’d play even if they
didn’t pay me. But I don’t expect him to.”

“You might want to make sure he knows that,” she suggested,
her gentle tone taking any sting out of the words. “You’re a lot to live up to,
you know. Especially in New Zealand, where everyone’s so focused on rugby, and
being an All Black is the ultimate goal. And also because Sophie
is
such
a good athlete.”

“Reckon she’ll end up as a Football Fern, as much as she
loves soccer.”

“And as good as she is at it,” Jenna agreed. “I’ve seen how
you encourage her. Not all dads care so much about their daughters’ athletic success.
That’s great. But it could also leave Harry out in the cold. If he had his own sport,
it would help.”

“So, swimming lessons. With the best teacher.” He grinned.
“You.”

“Me,” she agreed, smiling back at him.

“Can I ask you a question?” she went on hesitatingly.

He lifted his eyebrows inquiringly.

“When Sophie said you were the . . . hard man,” she began.
“I wasn’t sure what that meant. But the other night, when you went after that
guy, I figured it out. You’re the one the other team’s a little nervous about
going up against. Because they might get hurt.”

“I reckon. One of them, anyway. Why?”

“Well,” she said slowly. “It just seems . . . odd. I mean,
you’re, like you said. A family man. I’d think somebody like that, the hard
man, would be more of a hothead. A jerk, frankly. But I don’t see that.”

“Glad of that, anyway. I have a bit of a temper, it’s true. You
have to have it under control, though. Use your fists, and you’ll be suspended.
That doesn’t do you or the team any good. And yeh, I tackle hard. Not always too
careful with my hands and feet in the ruck, either. I may look a little scary
out there. But I’ll have a laugh with the boys on the other team after the
game. I leave it on the paddock. Don’t need to bash my kids to prove I’m a man,
if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I wouldn’t say you have a lot to prove in that
department,” she agreed. “I think it’s fairly clear.” She smiled at him, saw
the answering smile start in his eyes, spread over his face.

She blushed as she replayed her words in her mind. “Time for
me to get going,” she decided, rising and carrying her mug to the dishwasher.

Finn’s praise of her abilities gave her a glow of
satisfaction that stayed with her as she began the long run that would take her
through two domains, then on to the Central Business District and back. It was
true that her own childhood hadn’t featured much order or warmth. Which was,
she knew, why it gave her so much pleasure to provide those things for these
children. For this family.

In fact, living here was just about as complete a change as
possible from the mobile home park where she’d grown up. The trees, ferns, and
flowering plants of the lush gardens in the Mt. Eden neighborhood were a stark
contrast to the few oleander bushes that had provided a touch of color here and
there in the park, not to mention the border of white gravel surrounding the
modest mobile home she’d shared with her mother. Nothing survived in the Las
Vegas heat without care and water, and her mother had never been a gardener. Or
a housekeeper. And Sherri McKnight had had only contempt for Jenna’s
housewifely impulses and attention to her schoolwork.

“If you’d spend half the time on your appearance that you do
on all that crap, you might be able to get a boyfriend,” her mother had snapped
one Saturday morning. Sherri had come home from her overnight “date” to find
Jenna vacuuming, ponytail hanging down her back, baggy shorts and T-shirt
concealing the puppy fat that hadn’t melted away, even though she had ceased to
be a puppy some time ago. “Look at you. You’re a mess.”

“I’m only sixteen, Mom,” Jenna answered defensively. “Lots
of girls in my class don’t have boyfriends.”

“You’ve never even been on a date, though, have you?” Sherri
pointed out. “I had boys asking me out from the time I was thirteen. You aren’t
even trying. You need to go on a diet. I can give you some pills.”

“Those pills aren’t healthy,” Jenna told her. “And I am
trying. I’m doing my best to eat right.” Except when she was feeling bad, she
thought guiltily, and bought bags of cookies or candy bars with the money she’d
earned babysitting for the other families in the park. Food that she hid in her
underwear drawer to escape her mother’s criticism.

“Joe told me last night that I had the body of a
twenty-five-year-old,” Sherri told her daughter complacently, turning sideways
to look at herself in the full-length mirror on the wall of the tiny living
room. “I look ten years younger than my age, and you look ten years older.”

Her mother was thirty-nine, not thirty-five, Jenna knew, but
she didn’t correct her. “Remember, Mom, I’m teaching swim lessons this morning,
so I need to borrow the car. I got an extra class added, the three-year-olds.
That’ll be fun. But it means I won’t be back till one or so.”

“Mm-hm,” her mother answered, picking up the remote and
turning the TV on before sitting down on the couch and beginning to flip
channels. “I’ll be in bed. I need a nap before work. Be quiet when you come
in.”

 “I was going to make a chicken salad for dinner tonight
before I babysit for the Rosses,” Jenna offered. “Do you want me to leave you
some for after work?”

“No. I’ll have a Lean Cuisine,” her mother told her,
lighting a cigarette. “You should have one of those instead too. Less than 300
calories in the chicken stir-fry, and you don’t have to go to all that trouble.
Heat it up and you’re done.”

It was good to know, Jenna thought now, that nobody here was
ever going to suggest that a frozen dinner would be preferable to her own
efforts. And it was gratifying to feel that her hard work was appreciated, and
that she was helping to make this home a warm, happy place. Even if wasn’t
actually her home. Or her place.

“I need to find something else to do,” she told Natalie that
evening over a dinner of boneless, skinless chicken breasts she’d first pounded,
then dredged in beaten egg and dukkah, the Turkish mix of finely chopped nuts,
herbs, and spices, and finally pan-fried. She’d sliced carrots into matchsticks
and cooked them with dill, and served a baby spinach and microgreens salad and seeded
Turkish flatbread as an accompaniment. The result had been a quick winter meal
that, she thought, she’d be trying out soon on Finn and the kids.

She’d been going to Nat’s flat every Monday since she’d
started the job to fix supper for the two of them. A bit of a busman’s holiday,
but she hadn’t been able to face the prospect of going out to dinner alone
every week. Instead, she’d begun trying new recipes on Natalie, who was more
than willing to accept the personal chef service at the start of her workweek.