Just Once More (11 page)

“But it’s
not
easy,” Hannah said. “Of course it’s not.”

“Which is great to hear,” Ally said. “That it’s not easy, but you make it work. Because I’ve got some things I want to do myself too. I’m awfully glad I’m not the only one who thinks that’s important.”

“Nah. Kate’s the other one,” Koti said, and everybody laughed.

“Well, WAGs are people too,” Reka said staunchly. “And we don’t spend our days at the spa, no matter what some people may think.”

“So we good?” Drew demanded of Hannah. “Before Kate gets out the placards and organizes the march? We got this sorted? We’re going to get somebody set up to come in here every day so you can get back on your feet again, and eventually get back to work, when you’re ready? Make it look easy for everybody? Because you just heard them. You’ve got a reputation to live up to. That’s your…your thing. What you’re selling.”

“That’s my brand?” she asked. “Being superwoman?”

“Well, yeah,” Kristen said. “One half of the Superpower Couple. Sir Andrew and Lady Callahan.”

“If that’s your brand,” Drew said, “can’t tarnish it, can you? Can’t have you looking all tired and frazzled during that interview, or having you miss a deadline on one of those launches. We’d better get somebody hired before my mum goes home, I’d say. I’ll do the interviewing myself. Whatever it takes.”

“Scare them to death,” she said.

“Told you. I don’t use the Laser Eyes on women. So we good?”

“Single-minded, that’s what you are,” she sighed. “In front of everybody, too.”

“Marshaling my forces,” he agreed.

“When you put it like that, it sounds silly,” she said. “It’s real, the pressure to do it myself. But…maybe you’re right.”

“We know you’ve all got dreams too,” he said. “You girls support us in ours. Why’s it so hard to believe we want to help you do the same? What’s wrong with getting you the help you need to do it?”

“All right,” she said. “You’re
definitely
right. Is that what you want to hear? And yes. Let’s do it. Because how can I argue with that?”

He sighed with satisfaction. “I’m right,” he informed the table. “I’m
definitely
right. And we’re doing it my way. You can all leave now. We’re done here.”

“Drew!” She laughed. “No.”

“When we met Hannah, mate,” Hemi informed him, “that first time, Reka and me? We wondered if you could do it. Well, she wondered. I know you better. Now we’ve all seen how, I reckon. And we’re all impressed.”

“Wasn’t easy,” he said.

“So let’s hear it,” Reka said.

“Let’s hear what?” he asked cautiously.

“We heard Finn and Jenna’s story today,” she said. “And we all know Kate and Koti’s, since Koti, as usual, managed to perform for an audience. Some of these fellas even got themselves on tape doing the deed. Including Hemi,” she said with a laugh. “At least, I’m pretty sure there were some photos taken. And Liam, and…wait, Koti too. That
was
you carrying Kate down Queen Street,” she told Koti. “We weren’t surprised at
that
. Not a bit.”

“She had a blister,” he said, his grin flashing through the gloom. “I parked too far away, and that ring wasn’t going to buy itself. No choice.”

“Hmm. We’ve got a bit of a Maori thing going here,” Reka said. “You Pakeha boys need to step up your game. Guessing you didn’t carry Hannah through the CBD, Drew, or sing her a song in a café either.”

“Nah. It was a café, actually. But a bit more private, you’re right.”

“And?” she prompted.

“What? You want me to tell all of you? Why would you be interested?”

“I’m not,” Koti said. “If we’re voting.”

“Be quiet, Koti,” Reka said. “I am. All us girls are. So come on.”

“All I’d do is make every other fella here feel good that at least he managed it better than I did,” Drew said. “You know I’m rubbish at speeches.”

“You are not,” Hannah said indignantly. “You make wonderful speeches.”

“Well,” Hemi conceded, “maybe a bit boring.”

“They are not.” That was still Hannah, of course.

“All right,” Reka said. “You tell us, Hannah.”

Hannah looked at him. “All right with you if I do? Because it was
wonderful.”

He sat back and sighed. “Of course. If you want to.” He tried to remember what he
had
said. Truth was, he’d been so nervous, he couldn’t even remember. He
was
rubbish at speeches, when they mattered. He knew his heart well enough. He just wasn’t too good at speaking from it.

“It was a year from the day I met him,” she said. “He remembered the day, and the place.”

“There you go,” Reka said. “That’s not rubbish. That’s romance. Romance is remembering, because it made an impression. Because
she
made an impression. Romance is remembering, and showing her you do.”

“She made an impression.” He laughed a little. “She made one hell of an impression. And I didn’t say I didn’t know what to do. I said I didn’t know what to say.”

Because, yeh, he’d known what to do. He’d known exactly what to do.

It had been ten days since that grueling World Cup victory, since that night when nearly every man here had dug deeper than he ever had, to win a match they should by all rights have lost.

They’d held, and held, and held some more, all their strength long since expended. They’d reached down to the darkest places, found that final reservoir of will, and kept holding. Until the final whistle had blown and they’d been able to stop.

The stadium had erupted. Exploded. And Drew had stood, hands on hips, head down and fighting for breath, and had felt…nothing.

He’d seen Finn embracing Nico, Mako, more players joining the happy mob. The big man sinking to the turf, the tears flowing unchecked and unashamed. The emotion coming so easily to him, always, joy or anger, pain or loss.

Drew had stood alone and felt only relief. That he could stop. That it was over.

It had been the toughest battle of his life. Not just because of the game, but because he’d had the loss of Hannah weighing him down, a dark, cold hole low in his gut. And instead of feeling it, of hurting, had had no choice but to use it to fuel his resolve, his burning need to win. To win this. To win one.

He’d won, in the end. But it had cost him almost everything. And now, he was empty.

Then he’d looked up, had seen her leaning across the barriers to him. Crying. Reaching for him.

A second before, he’d been numb. And then he’d felt so much. So much that, if he’d been a different man, he’d have been on his knees, exactly like Finn. But he wasn’t that man. So he’d held her, and laughed, and watched her cry, and had gone off to celebrate with the team. And had come back to her, and known she’d be there.

He’d woken up with her on the first day of their Coromandel holiday, the day he’d scheduled so carefully. The team celebrations over, the Cup shared with an exultant nation on a victory tour from the Bluff to the Cape. And now, released from
responsibility, knowing he had eight days with her. Knowing exactly how he wanted to start them. If she said yes.

Of course she’ll say yes
, his logical, practical side had scolded again on that November morning, the sun already making its presence felt. Hannah was turned away from him in bed, her pale hair streaming across the white pillowcase, a mermaid washed ashore. Her bare foot lying lightly against his calf, because even in sleep, some part of her always seemed to seek him out, to need to touch him, her body and her heart knowing what her mind kept shrinking from. But it was her mind he needed to win. He’d won her heart, he was pretty sure of that, and she’d given her body to him a long time ago. Time to go after that final barrier, bring it crashing down.

She stirred as if she could feel him watching her, rolled over, opened her blue eyes, and smiled, a wide, sleepy, glorious thing. “Morning.”

He smiled back, hope surging. “Morning.”

He took her kayaking, because that was Step One of his plan. Launched from the golden sand of the beach, pushing her boat off first, then following her. Paddling with easy strokes until they neared the point that marked one end of the curving bay.

A calm sea today, gentle swells taking them for a pleasant, rocking ride. Seabirds flying overhead, a pied shag breaking off, dropping from the sky like an arrow, coming up with a flash of silver in its beak. The sun sparkling on the water, thousands of tiny diamonds against the blue. The sky a paler shade, clear as crystal. A mild breeze caressing his cheek, the water sliding down the paddle onto his hand, cooling his skin.

And the treacherous, deceptive current pulling them inexorably out to sea, just as it had done on that day.

“Stop paddling a moment,” he told her.

She lifted her paddle, and he moved his own kayak close to hers with a few draw strokes, then reached for her boat and pulled it next to his. “Grab hold.”

“Something wrong?” she asked, doing as he asked, setting her own paddle next to his across the front of their boats, and feeling that current taking them.

“Nah.” His throat worked a bit. “Just that this was it. A year ago today. This is the spot where I found you.”

“I remember,” she said quietly. “I remembered this morning, when you wanted to do this. And when we got in. My first time stepping in the water here since that day. Is that why we’re doing it? And was it today? Really?”

“Yeh. It was today. And that’s why. Bad idea?”

She looked out past the point, to the Pacific, the vast expanse of blue that stretched all the way to the Americas.

“No,” she finally said. “I guess not. Probably good. But hard, remembering. I’ve been thinking about it. I haven’t been able to help it, ever since we got in. I almost asked you to turn around,” she confessed. “Because it’s hard to remember.”

He sat, waited for what she’d say next.

“I was so afraid,” she went on at last, “and trying so hard not to be. Trying to believe I’d make it, and knowing somewhere down deep that I wouldn’t, but that I was going to keep trying until I couldn’t anymore. Wondering how much longer I could struggle, and when I wouldn’t have a choice. When I’d have to stop, because I couldn’t go on. Trying not to imagine what it would be like to drown. But I knew. I knew it would be…horrible.”

“It would have been,” he said. “But it didn’t happen.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “Know what else I thought, afterwards?”

“No, what?”

“I thought, what if it
had
been over? What if that had been my life?”

“And what did you answer?”

She looked out to sea again, the sea that had almost claimed her that day. Had so nearly taken her from him before he’d even had the chance to know her. To love her.

“That I’d spent half my life afraid,” she said. “Feeling just like that. I thought I was brave. And I was so wrong.”

“You
were
brave,” he said. “You
are
brave. You got in the water today. You did that. Didn’t even say anything to me. You thought, this is hard, and it’s a good thing to do. So you did it. That’s courage. And that’s you.”

She shook her head. “No. I wasn’t brave, not then. I hid. I hid behind work, and being right, and being in control, and never taking a chance.”

“You came to New Zealand alone,” he said. “I’d say that was a chance. And then you took a chance on me.”

She turned to him, smiled. “Do you know why I love you?”

He laughed in surprise. “No, but I’d like to. Why?”

“Because you know me so well, and yet you still think that well of me. You think better of me than I do of myself.”

“And that’s why I love you too,” he said. “One of the reasons. Come on. Let’s go around the island, ride the waves a bit. Since we’re both alive, let’s live. Plus,” he added practically, “work up an appetite for breakfast.”