Resisting Nick (Wicked in Wellington) (14 page)

“He’s besotted,” Tyler said with a smile. “She’s Daddy’s girl already.”

Sammie tucked her arm through Nick’s once they were walking back along the corridor away from the overheated ward. She hated the troubled expression on his face. Six o’clock shadow darkened his jaw heavily now, and in the subdued light he looked feral and dangerous. “We could call by your parents’ place again,” she offered, not greatly wanting to.

“Nah,” he said. “Bugger them. Let’s grab something to eat and take it back to yours.”

Damn
.
He really needs an answer from them. He won’t settle until he has it. We should at least
try once more.

“They’re not far out of the way,” she said. “We’d be there in ten minutes. It might put your mind at rest if you talked to them?”

He shot her a glance that combined amusement with resignation. “Persistent,” he confirmed. “I said you were persistent yesterday, and here you go again.” He pulled his phone out and punched one of the pre-selects.

Sammie smiled to herself. However much he might claim not to be close to his family they were only one jab away.

“Yeah, it’s Nick. You’re home?” A brief silence. “You weren’t earlier. Uh-huh. Right. Just need to call by for a few minutes. See you.” And he disconnected before there was a chance of being refused.

The rain had stopped but the roads were still slick. Nick retraced their former route and braked too hard outside the house. The fat tires bit into the graveled driveway and stones flew everywhere. “That’ll give the old bastard something to do,” he said with satisfaction. “He can rake the ruts out tomorrow.”

Sammie bit her bottom lip and tried not to smile at his mood. Here was a glimpse back to the surly teenager she’d known at the orchard. The boy who even then must have felt out of kilter with his family.

This time lights shone inside the house, and a blinding security lamp blasted on as they approached the darkened deck. A middle-aged blonde in black leggings and a zebra-striped tunic opened the front door, drink clutched in long-nailed fingers. “Nick,” she said. “Long time no see.”

“Gaynor.” No kiss. No embrace. “Samantha.”

Sammie wondered whether she should shake hands, but Nick’s mother merely nodded and retreated inside, leaving Nick to close the door after them.

She led them into a large room furnished expensively in neutral tones. The news blared from a gigantic TV.

“Turn it down Brian,” Gaynor demanded.

A rumble of annoyance issued from the depths of a tilted recliner chair. “Weather’s almost due,” a hoarse voice declared. A freckled hand grabbed the handle, the chair creaked into an upright position, and Sammie got her first glimpse of Nick’s father. Nick was no spawn of his.
 

Tiny shrewd currant eyes inspected her from a busy network of lines and wrinkles in a hard-lived-in face. A fringe of once-red hair had paled to brassy gold, well threaded with silver. He had huge ears, incongruously long sideburns and a smile that showed no teeth. Sammie couldn’t help wondering if the sideburns were a ploy to disguise the ears.
 

“To what do we owe the state visit?” he asked, waving them to a nearby sofa.

“Drink?” Gaynor suggested, suddenly hospitable. “Beer, Nick? Tea, coffee?”

Sammie shook her head.
 

“Not right now,” Nick said.

“Here we go.” Brian turned the volume up again as the weather started. It seemed they were expected to watch. Sammie caught Nick’s eye and tried to stifle a giggle. The situation was absurd.

Nick leaned forward and planted his hands on his knees. “Dad!” he said, so loudly his father was obliged to kill the volume and pay him some attention. “You can watch the bloody weather update later. This is important. I found out on Friday I’m adopted. I want to know who my birth parents are.”

“Nicky...” Gaynor remonstrated, eyes jerking up from her carmine nails. “What a thing to come out with. And in front of a stranger as well.” She glanced across at Sammie, but didn’t seem able to look at Nick again.

There was a moment of utter silence.

“All right—yes, you were,” Brian barked. “Your Mom was having trouble getting a baby to stick and we had the chance to give you a home.”

“And?”

“And nothing. It was a long time ago.”

“
And?
” Nick said again. The dangerous edge on his voice set the hairs on the back of Sammie’s neck prickling. His temper was barely leashed. His dark eyes crackled with intense emotion and his voice vibrated with fury.

“It’s thirty years ago, son. No sense crying over spilt milk.”

“Fuck you, Brian—I’m not your son. I want to know whose child I am and how you swung it.”

“I didn’t ‘swing’ anything,” Brian rasped irritably, turning to look at Nick full-on for the first time.

Sammie couldn’t help but compare them. Brian with his pasty debauched face and pale hair; Nick with his passionately alive features and vivid coloring.
 

Gaynor took a swig of her drink and went back to inspecting her nails. She scraped at a corner of the glittering varnish, obviously on edge.

“Was I born in Hastings?” Nick demanded.

“Maybe.”

“Was I born in Hastings?”
 

“Geez, I don’t know—probably.”

“And why did you send me out to Svenson’s orchard every school holiday?

“That’s nothing to do with anything,” Brian blustered.

“I think you’re wrong. Samantha is Erik Svenson’s grand-daughter and she thinks you’re wrong too.”

Brian and Gaynor immediately swung accusing eyes on her.

“Well, well, well. Old Erik,” Brian muttered. “You used to like your holidays with Uncle Erik and Auntie who-was-it?”

“Felicity,” Sammie supplied.

“They weren’t my aunt and uncle,” Nick snapped. “I have Sammie to back me up on that.”

“Not your real aunt and uncle maybe, but as good as.”

“So who were my parents?”

Brian now looked as though his patience was at an end. He dragged in a deep exaggerated breath. “Some little fruit-picking student girl,” he ground out. “That’s all I can tell you—okay?”

“From my grandfather’s orchard?” Sammie asked. “One of the seasonal pickers?” She looked across at Nick with anguished eyes. It sounded like a horribly dead end. “Why did Nick come and stay with us for holidays then?”

“You’ll have to ask your grandmother that,” Gaynor said with sudden bitterness. “She insisted. To make sure we were looking after the boy properly. As if we wouldn’t.” She gulped the final mouthful of her drink. “I’ve had enough. This is very upsetting. You shouldn’t just spring things on people, Nick. I’m going to bed.”

“It’s not even eight o’clock,” Brian objected.

“So?” She banged her glass down and hot-footed it away over the tasteful beige carpet.
 

“Spring things on people?”
Nick bellowed. “How the hell do you think I felt when it was ‘sprung’ on me?”

“Who told you?” Brian’s eyes glittered sharp and vengeful. Sammie couldn’t suppress a shudder of unease. He was a piece of work for sure.

“You’re the one who knows everything,
Dad.
Work it out. How did you fake the paperwork anyway?”

“Work it out,” Brian muttered in return.
 

A short thrumming silence surrounded them all.

“She was a little foreign girl,” Brian added, apparently feeling some small shred of remorse. “Dark-haired like you. Can’t you just be grateful you were given a good home and leave it at that?” He swiveled back to the TV and blasted the volume on again.
 

Sammie slipped her hand into Nick’s, feeling his rage in the deep trembling that wracked him. She stood and pulled him up. They walked wordlessly to the front door and left. The sharp odor of bruised dahlia foliage hung in the drenched air on the deck, and she was glad once they were enclosed in the car again, away from the smell.

“Some ‘good home’ I got,” he needled, tipping his head back into the headrest, and making no attempt to start the engine. Gaynor and Brian’s harsh security light caught the aggressive bristles on his up-thrust chin, making them sparkle like a forest of tiny cut-down tree trunks.

“Nick, I hate to say it but if she really was a foreign student who was fruit-picking...?”

“Yeah—instant dead end. I know. She could be anywhere.”
 

She hated hearing him so defeated and bitter. Where had the energetic optimist gone? Not that she blamed him.
 

If only Brian had said Nick’s mother was a Hastings girl, they’d have a place to start; could maybe interest the local paper in running a reunion search story, or failing that, advertise with a photo of Nick and see if anyone came forward with memories of a young man who resembled him. Best of all, a response might have come from the girl herself. A tentative reaching out toward the son she’d given up.
 

But a foreign student passing through for a few weeks of casual work? No wonder his hopes were dashed.

The security light snapped off, leaving them in sudden darkness.

“Thai or Indian?” she asked. “I don’t mind which.”

“Thai for choice.” He started the engine. “I’ve got that flight to Auckland early tomorrow.”

“Then I’d better get you into bed as soon as,” she said, cursing herself for offering, but wanting to comfort him so much that surely just once more wouldn’t matter?

“I...thought that wasn’t on the menu?”

“After news like that I think you need a treat.” She reached over and touched his chin. “I might try shaving you first or I’ll end up with whisker rash.”

His teeth glinted briefly. “All over the place.”

Just the thought of it made her prickle everywhere in the most amazing way. “Hmmm,” she managed, imagining where.

“How are you going to shave me, Sammie?” His voice taunted her in the darkness. The security lights blasted on again as he started reversing down the driveway.

“With the razor I use under my arms.”

“A little pink girlie thing, I bet? Might do for your soft female fluff, but not for what I grow. I need a triple-head top-of-the-line electric.”

Sammie hoped he was wrong. “We could do it in the bath,” she said. “If it takes more than one go over I can rinse you off and try again.”

Nick groaned—a long deep rumble of frustrated anticipation—as he switched the headlights on and accelerated into the street.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They ate hurriedly, both much hungrier for each other than for the excellent Thai takeaways they’d collected on the way to the apartment.

“Can you help me with one thing first?” Sammie asked, laying down her fork. “I have some boxes on the back seat of the car. If we carry them up together it will probably only be one trip. I meant to do it last night, but...”

“But you were all sexed out?”

“Mmmm. They were the last thing on my mind.”

“Good to know.” He sent her a grin, and bent to scratch Zorro’s furry head as the little cat wreathed herself around his legs in the hope of more dinner. “Let’s see if I can distract you just as well tonight.”

Sammie already felt thoroughly distracted. Watching Nick across the table, and imagining what they’d soon be doing, had her switched to nicely warm, and she knew ‘hot’ would happen
 
seconds after he touched her. “The boxes have everything I own in the world,” she joked as she divided the start of another bottle of wine between their glasses. “I sold off or gave away Grandpa’s furniture and other things. No point keeping it since I’m leaving the country. This is just some personal stuff and books. Memories. Ray can stow the boxes in his big garage while I’m gone. I should have offloaded them there before I left.”
 

She took a nervous gulp of wine. Last night they’d spontaneously combusted and ended up in bed within minutes. Tonight was premeditated—she’d been anticipating making love ever since they left Brian and Gaynor’s.
 

Be honest, Sammie—ever since you left work. Or ever since you had lunch with him?
 

And they’d talked about it on the way home, deliberately winding each other up. She had no idea how they’d managed a civilized meal without ripping each other’s clothes off.
 

Nick had already removed his leather jacket, but she itched to peel up his thin black Merino jersey so she could stroke and kiss his chest and shoulders. And to unzip his blue jeans and work them down his long legs...

“What’s your itinerary?”

She dragged her mind back to their recent topic of conversation. “I haven’t booked anything yet because I’m waiting for my passport, but you can get round-the-world air tickets that let you stop off lots of places. I thought Hawaii to start with. Somewhere English speaking but way different from here. Then Hong Kong. With a side trip to China—even if it’s only a few days.”

“Outer Mongolia?”

Sammie had no idea whether he was poking fun at her or not. “Maybe,” she agreed. “There are so many places I want to see.”

“And you’re going on your own?”

“You sound like Grandpa. But I’ll meet people and make friends and take temporary jobs sometimes. I won’t be lonely.”

He shook his head but made no further comment about traveling. “Keys?” he suggested.

It took a moment for her to remember. Car keys. The boxes. “Oh, right.” She found her bag and dug them out, then they took the elevator down to the parking basement.
 

“Two for me, one for you,” Nick said, hefting the first box out and setting it on the concrete floor.

“That still leaves another.”

“I’ll come back for it. You clear the table.”

But when they returned, they found Zorro was doing an efficient job of that. She’d licked the smears of sauce from their bowls, and one furry paw had hitched the last few Pad Thai Noodles out of the container. Golden eyes beseeched them to allow her to enjoy the delicious fishy sauce and remaining shrimp off the tabletop.

“Puss!” Sammie exclaimed, setting down her heavy box.

“Leave her,” Nick said as he lowered his own two to the floor. “Let her have her treat. We’ll soon have ours.” He reached out and drew her into a slow embrace, fitting the bulge of his groin into the notch of her thighs, lifting her arms and linking them around his neck, cupping her breasts in his hands, and finally settling her mouth over hers.