JUST SAY YES: Escape to New Zealand Book 10

Am I crazy? Maybe I am. Let me explain …

Here I am, writing Escape to New Zealand Book 10. And I could use your help!

I was struggling with this story, and somebody suggested to me–instead of using your usual two alpha readers who read along, why not get LOTS of feedback? Why not share the book, at least the beginning of the book, and have readers say what they think is gong to happen, what they’re wondering, what they’re wishing, what they’re hoping? Why not make it an adventure for all of you, and for the author?

So, because I just can’t help but take risks and try new things: here we go. JUST SAY YES, Chapters 1 through 3. New chapters will come daily, so keep checking back!

What I’m looking for: your questions/comments. “I wonder what his mother thinks about her.” “He must be getting so frustrated.” “I’m wondering of his sister is going to be jealous.” Those are the kinds of questions that really help me. (And I don’t mean those apply to this story–I just made them up.)

I’ll read every comment, and even though I won’t use every suggestion, your ideas will help spark things in me, too. Maybe it’s a bit like seeing how sausage is made, from raw ingredients to something sizzling and tasty, but we’ll get there together.

So…Give me your feedback, and let’s see what kind of book we can build. Ready, set, go!

 JUST SAY YES (Escape to New Zealand, Book 10)

Copyright 2016 by Rosalind James. All rights reserved.

Note to the Reader

For those who have read past Escape to New Zealand books: This story begins about nine months after the ending of the main part of JUST NOT MINE (when Hugh asks Josie to be his neighbor until she’s ready to be something more), three months before the events in JUST ONCE MORE (Hugh and Josie’s wedding), and four months before the start of JUST STOP ME (Iain and Nina’s story).

Prologue

Chloe Donaldson was nervous, so she moved.

From croisé devant, with her right foot pointed to the front, all the way through each precise position until it pointed behind her, á la quatriême derriére. After that, she brought it back through again the way she’d come, and then did the same thing with the other leg.

Her maid of honor, Josie Pae Ata, opened the interior door a crack and peeked through, then closed it and said, “A couple more minutes.”

Chloe nodded and focused on keeping her body aligned to perfection, knowing it would still her mind. She could barely hear the hum of the function room at Orakei Bay from the anteroom where she waited with her dad and Josie, and that suited her. A fresh breeze came through the half-open window and ruffled the stack of extra programs on the table that also held her bouquet. Outside, the sky was an impossible blue, and over the water, a double rainbow, relic of an earlier squall, arched over Waitemata Harbour.

It was, in fact, a glorious day. And a glorious occasion. The happiest day of her life, except for the one that would arrive in a few short weeks. She picked up the yellow bouquet that matched her dress, then set it down on the table again.

Josie said, “All right?”

“Yes,” Chloe said. “Of course.”

She wished, suddenly, that she’d insisted on a white dress. Ivory, anyway, even though her mother had said, “It’d be ridiculous, darling.”

Which wouldn’t have mattered, except that Rich had agreed. He’d said, “Discreet is probably better. You wouldn’t want to imagine anyone laughing, even inside.”

She’d wanted to ask what kind of guest would laugh at a bride, heavily pregnant or not, on her wedding day. She’d wondered whether he’d been the one imagining people laughing at him. But when it had come down to it, she hadn’t really cared about the color of the dress. She’d never played bride as a girl. She’d played ballerina, and the only white costume she’d ever coveted had been Odette’s white swan tutu, with those feathers on it that would make you feel like you could actually fly.

She’d finally worn that costume two years earlier, and if the opening night of Swan Lake had seemed like the best day of her life … well, it was only the best so far, no matter how many butterflies she had right now.

It wasn’t that she was uncomfortable physically. She’d taken company class every day with the Auckland Ballet until the start of her ninth month a week before. An hour and a half of training more rigorous than any sport’s, even if it wasn’t followed by another four to six hours of rehearsal anymore, had kept her supple and energized.

And had kept her believing. That was important as well. Her break didn’t have to last any longer than three months. Only as long as it took her body to recover.

Again.

Outside, the music swelled, and Josie said, “That’s us, love,” pushed the door open, and headed out. Chloe knew Josie would do her part as beautifully as always, however much she’d downplayed her spectacular looks for the occasion, not wanting to outshine the bride.

Her father stood up at last. “Ready, kitten?” he asked. “I think this is us.”

She smiled at him. He didn’t call her by her pet name often anymore, and he never said much at any time. But it helped to have him here, and it helped more when she tucked her hand into his arm and felt his hand close over her cold one.

He took one step toward the door, then stopped, looked down at her once more, and asked, “Are you sure?”

She honestly thought her heart had skipped a beat. “Why?”

“If you love him,” her dad said, “then you’re all good.”

“I love him,” she said, and he nodded, pulled the door open, and escorted her through it.

Rich was there. Of course he was. Dark suit, dark hair, yellow rose in his buttonhole, standing beside his brother. Looking at her, his dark-brown gaze intent. Handsome. Serious. A man on the way up through the ranks of the Crown Prosecution Service, and with a pedigree as polished as her own, not that she cared about that. Most importantly, a man who appreciated ballet and accepted the sacrifices it required. Even this one.

As always, once she was on stage, it got easier. She moved to the music, let herself be carried in the moment. The music, the sky, the day. The audience didn’t matter. It was about expressing what was inside.

Closer, and closer still, her still-slender legs moving precisely and lightly under the yellow gown that had been cut in a Grecian style to emphasize her long limbs and delicate proportions while allowing for the bump that was her baby boy.

As if he knew that this was the day his parents were making it official, he moved inside her, so suddenly and strongly that she nearly gasped. And then she was there, standing before the celebrant. The music had stopped, and her father was taking her hand and putting it into Rich’s.

It was here. It was now.

“Dearly beloved,” the celebrant began, “we are—”

Rich cleared his throat. Loudly.

The celebrant stopped and raised his white eyebrows.

Rich said, “I can’t.”

There was a noise from the guests—the congregation—whatever—like the intake of eighty breaths, but Chloe barely heard it. She looked at Rich and said, “What?”

“I don’t want this,” he said. “I can’t do this. Husband, father … I’m not ready.”

Something hot was happening, down low in her chest. It wasn’t tears. It was rage.

For one instant, she thought, Dignity. Grace. And then she thought, No.

“You wanted it,” she said, “when I was dancing. When I was a principal. You asked me twice. Twice. On a knee. With the ring.” The one she was wearing on her right hand today, because her left hand was supposed to be free to receive that other ring. That plain platinum band that hadn’t been her favorite, so cold and hard and impersonal, but you didn’t get to choose everything.

You were grateful. You were gracious.

The hell with that.

“I’m sorry,” Rich said. “I can’t. It’s different.”

“Because you don’t know if I’ll still be a star.” Somehow, she knew. No. She’d known. She just hadn’t let the thoughts in. “Because it’s been too long. I’m not on stage, and that’s not good enough. What if I can’t get back? What if I’m not on the billboard? What if you can’t introduce me the same way? What use will I be to you then?”

“It’s not that.” He cast a wild eye at the silent company beyond, then continued in a stage whisper, “I didn’t sign on to be a father. Neither of us wanted this. We were meant to be free for years yet. Ten years. In ten years, I’d have been ready. I’m not ready now.”

The baby kicked again, and she said, “You don’t get to choose. The baby’s here now, and I didn’t do this myself.” She wasn’t whispering, either.

“We discussed it. That we could … take care of it, instead, and wait.” His voice was even quieter now. “Wait for the right time.”

“And I said no.” Dancers had babies and kept dancing, she’d told him. She could do it too. It would take his support, but wasn’t that what marriage was about? “I said this was our baby, he was here now, and when would be the right time? Not everything can be planned. This is our life, here hitting us in the face. This moment here. This moment now. This is our baby.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not mine. I’ll do what I have to do, but I’m not … it’s not mine.”

Another intake of breath from the assembled group, and her father had sprung up, her mother right beside her. “Hang on,” her father said, not one bit quietly. “What the bloody hell—”

Chloe knew what Rich meant. He wasn’t accusing her of infidelity. He was saying that he hadn’t wanted this baby, and he didn’t want it now. And that he didn’t want her. He was changing his mind.

She knew what he meant, yes, and she didn’t care what anybody else thought he’d meant. She only knew what she thought. What she felt.

She transferred her bouquet to her left hand. And then, with the precision of twenty years of ballet training and the fury of a nine-months-pregnant bride left at the altar, she hauled back and slapped him hard across the face.

There was dignity. There was grace. And there was this.

Her voice rang out across the gasps and murmurs of the congregation. “You’re not a man. You’re a worm. You go to hell.”

She dropped her bouquet at her feet, wrenched the ring from her right hand and dropped it as well, not caring where it landed. And then she turned and left.

Ch. 1 – Ballerina Style

Change seemed to enjoy arriving in Chloe’s life as suddenly and devastatingly as a New Zealand earthquake. On an early September afternoon two and a half years after her wedding day that wasn’t, it took the form of far too much muscle, hair of a shade much too uncompromisingly red, and intentions like no prospective partner ever.

He wasn’t even a ballet dad.

Outside the Takapuna Arts Centre, Auckland’s North Shore was strangely serene, the unseasonably balmy late-winter day suggesting that spring was just around the corner. Even the traffic on the road beyond sounded softer than usual. It was almost six o’clock on Monday afternoon, her work was done, and she was nearly ready to go home.

Monday didn’t have to mean anything negative to her, she told herself. She had the job and the life she wanted, or at least the best she could make it. She’d collect Zavy from the babysitter’s and have a relaxing evening, and it would take her mind off … everything. Or call it “the fear of everything,” which was pointless indeed.

She’d take her son home, feed him baked beans and toast for dinner, put him to bed, take a lovely bath herself, and put her feet up with a Fred Astaire movie and a cup of tea until she fell asleep on the couch.

Bliss, solo-mum style. But first, she’d give herself a barre. The nagging thoughts about her living situation wouldn’t leave her mind, no matter how busy she stayed. She didn’t want to carry them home with her.

Feelings were confusing. They didn’t have enough rules. Dance was clear. She’d give herself a barre.

* * *

Kevin McNicholl pulled his Ford Territory into the carpark of the Takapuna Arts Centre in the dusk, then sat with his hands on the wheel for a minute and thought, Right. Right, then. Right. And then, since that didn’t seem to be getting him anywhere, he got out of the car and headed for the building’s entrance.

An enormous, graceful structure, and an old one for New Zealand. Surrounded by palms and fern trees, and about as far from a rugby pitch as it was possible to get. He pulled the door open and walked past a notice board pinned with reminders, down an echoing hallway, past a quiet room full of concentrating teenagers behind easels, and nothing much else. The building was nearly empty, and so still, except that there was music coming from somewhere. Piano music, tinkling away like the last dying notes of summer.

It was all so peaceful, you might go to sleep. Dust motes floating on beams of sunlight, and that piano.

Then he found the room, and it wasn’t peaceful at all.

It was Chloe Donaldson, in fact. A woman he’d only met once, months earlier, in a restaurant. When she’d been out with somebody else. And what was worse—when she’d been out with his teammate. He’d liked her too much, in the circumstances, and she wasn’t going to like him one bit after today. He didn’t need a crystal ball to figure that out.

She didn’t see him standing in the shadows by the door. She had one hand on the wooden bar that ran the length of the hall, and was watching herself in the wall of mirrors opposite. Checking her form, not admiring it. The difference was clear, the same way you could see it in the gym. This was serious business.

She was wearing a plum-colored leotard that scooped low in front and back, a matching skirt made of some fluttery material, and pink tights, and the way they showed off her slim figure had him looking. As he stood and watched, she put her willowy form through a set of motions as stylized as … well, as ballet.

A leg rising high in front, then straight up to the side, impossibly far over her head. Then her leg went to the back, and she was dropping down on the movement, her head ending up near her standing foot, with her impossibly long, slim, sculpted leg almost straight overhead. Coming up, then, her arm moving with her leg and body, her leg bending in, the toes pointed perfectly. And then she was rising on the toes of her standing foot, turning to the other side, and switching legs as gracefully as she’d done everything else.

She didn’t even look real. Nobody had legs that long. Nobody could move that way. Nobody.

He didn’t have to interrupt her. He could watch until she was done. It was only polite. She kept on, and he recognized the movements for what they were, although they were completely alien to anything he ever did. They were the same training he performed every day. Basic skills, basic steps. A warmup, but more than that. Body learning. Body memory. Training that went so far beyond what you knew in your head that the moves felt instinctive, so your body knew what to do before your brain had worked it out.

Ten minutes, nearly fifteen, and still she . . . danced. They were exercises, he guessed, but they were dance. And surely nobody’s arms worked that way, as if they were formed differently from other people’s. As if they were birds’ wings, full of tiny muscles and bones, every movement precise, delicate, and complete, from her shoulder blades to the tips of her slim fingers.

It wasn’t possible to be that strong and flexible, and that soft at the same time. Except that she was.

Pink and plum. Grace and steel. Effortless beauty that wasn’t effortless at all. And, always, fierce concentration. Absolute focus. She danced, and he watched.

Until she finished, stood and breathed a few times, walked forward to shut off the music. And saw him.

Ch. 2 – Not What I Expected

When Chloe turned and saw him in the doorway, she stopped moving.

At first, she thought it was some dad collecting his child from art class and finding a more appealing way to spend his waiting time. Annoying, but not as bad as when she had to chase them away from a class full of teenaged girls. She always wanted to send those blokes home with a note pinned to their shirt.

Then he moved a step into the room, and she realized she knew him.

It was the size of him, for one thing. Not just his height, but the breadth of his shoulders and chest. He looked like a battering ram, and like no dancer ever. And then there was the dark red hair cut short and neat, the dark eyebrows that formed an uncompromising line straight across his face. And the broken nose with its hump at the bridge, hinting at a less friendly side.

It should have been a good-natured face. It almost was, except for those eyebrows and that nose.

He spoke, then. “Chloe.” Calm and level, not like a redhead at all.

She said, “You’re Hugh’s teammate. Aren’t you? The rugby player?” Seen once for a brief time in a restaurant months ago. And if she’d thought she’d see him after that—well, she’d thought wrong. Except that she was seeing him. He was here.

He smiled, and the furious line of his eyebrows gave way to something softer. “Kevin McNicholl. I may cry myself to sleep tonight that you didn’t remember.”

She walked over and bent at the waist to switch off the music, taking the opportunity for a quick hamstring stretch while she was at it, head all the way to her knees. “I remember meeting you,” she said as she came up. “You were on crutches.”

“Yeh. It happens.”

“Some people,” she said, unwrapping her skirt, pulling off her ballet slippers, and reaching for the warmup pants and sweater in her dance bag, “ask for a woman’s number instead of looming in the doorway.”

He seemed to be distracted. By her putting on her sweater. But if the intensity in his eyes was real, why had he waited so long to look her up? After a moment, he said, “Instead of perving at her while she dances and scaring her to death, you mean? Could be.”

“I’m not scared to death.” She tied a bow at the side of the pink wrap sweater and began to pull on her pants. “There’s an art class going on just down the passage. And I’m very strong.”

He smiled at her again. Nothing like seductive. Everything like amused. She said, “Would you like me to show you how hard I can kick? Or how fast I do it?”

“Yeh, no worries. And you’re right, I could’ve asked for your number.” He was watching her pull on her trousers now, and she wasn’t imagining the heat in him. When she tied the bow, he sighed and said, “But this isn’t precisely a social call.”

“Oh.” She ignored the stab of disappointment. What, she’d thought she was irresistible to rugby stars? No evidence of that so far. “If you want to enroll your daughter for class, there’s a number to ring. And office hours as well.”

There was a spark, no doubt about it. She remembered it from the first time she’d met him. He’d smiled at her then in exactly the same way, as if she’d been the only woman in the room.

He’s smiled that way when she’d been out with somebody else. With his mate. He clearly wasn’t too discriminating with the sparks he struck. And she might not be looking for forever, but she didn’t want another woman’s man.

“D’you always show this many prickles?” he asked. “I didn’t remember that. Could be challenging.” He’d come fully into the practice space now and he wasn’t any kind of polished gem. T-shirt, hoodie, track pants, and jandals, but that wasn’t all. It was the slabs of muscle clearly evident under them, the whole presentation about as subtle and sophisticated as a wrecking ball.

“Yes,” she said. “I think it’d be fair to say I do. I also need to go home.”

“That’s why I’m here. About that home.”

Somebody had punched the air out of her lungs. She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She just looked at him.

“You’re joking,” she said after a minute.

He rubbed a hand over the back of his head and grimaced. “I was hoping to lead up to this better. I came to talk to you about it here, because I didn’t want you to get the notice in the post and be hit with it like that. And I didn’t want to barge into your flat like I, ah . . .”

“Owned it.”

“Well, yeh. I do. I guess I’m your new landlord. And I need you to move.”

Yes, you could call it Another Fabulous Monday.

* * *

Wait, Kevin thought. That hadn’t come out quite right. He had meant to lead up to it. That was why he’d come—to get started. Before he led up to it over coffee. Or a glass of wine. Or dinner. Or a long, slow, sweet kiss at her doorway—their doorway—after dinner, with his hand at the back of that graceful neck.

He may not have been keeping his mind on the program.

He’d seen her exactly once. It was fair to say she’d hit him like a ton of bricks, and he hadn’t even seen her dance then. Which wasn’t—he knew it wasn’t—meant to be sexual. If there was anything more sensual, though, or more feminine than the flowing lines of her body, the delicacy of her curves, the way she moved, the way she took off her skirt, he couldn’t imagine it. Absolutely different from the way he was made. Absolutely perfect.

She lit him up. Pity the feeling wasn’t mutual. Also a pity he hadn’t acted on it at the time. But he’d been seeing somebody else, and you couldn’t dump your girlfriend because you’d seen another woman out with one of your best mates and … been hit by a ton of bricks.

Still. He could have done this better. He cast about for a way to retrieve the situation, but as he was groping for it, she said, “You bought the house. And you want all of it.”

“Well, yeh. I did. And I do.”

“Congratulations. So what do I have? Forty-two days?” He must have looked surprised, because she said, “I know what the law says. I checked when the Campbells put it up for sale. You’re telling me you’ve settled on the property, you’ve decided you want me out, and the forty-two days start now.”

“I could give you more,” he found himself saying. “Not easy to find a place to live in six weeks, not in this market. I need space for my brother and his family, that’s all. But you know . . .” He smiled at her again, trying to make it better. Trying to get back to where he could swear they’d been for a moment there. Which, considering that he was the villain turfing her out of the flat she’d been renting for more than two years, maybe wasn’t reasonable, but just now, he didn’t much care about being reasonable. “My brother’s got a wife and baby and all. Could be I’m not rapt about him being there this minute. Noisy things, babies.”

If he’d been trying to ease the mood, it hadn’t worked. She went poker-straight, and he wasn’t getting “cool” from her anymore. He was getting heat, and not in a good way. “I guess you don’t know,” she said. “I have a baby.”

“Oh. Maybe I could I get a re-do on that last one, then. Ah . . . I’m sure yours is a much nicer baby? A sweet wee girl, maybe?” Oh, wait, he thought, too late. Partner? Please, no. Wait again. She has a baby? What?

“No,” she said. “A boy. And he’s two. He could pound on the floor with his bricks from time to time. He might even cry occasionally. You’d better call it forty-two days. We wouldn’t want to disturb you. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to finish here and go get him. Babies tend to need that kind of thing.”

“I’ll be moving in tomorrow,” he said. “With my sisters. I won’t expect a welcoming committee. And you have ninety days.”

“So glad to know I won’t be disappointing you.” She picked up her bag with the same grace she’d showed all along. She was a nymph, still. An angry nymph. A nymph chasing you out of her pool for seeing her bathing, maybe, when all you wanted to do was stay. “And forty-two will be enough, I’m sure.”

“Chloe . . .” he began.

She put up a hand. “No. Just no. You’re within your rights. Of course you are. It’s your house. Life happens, but I don’t have to like it. This isn’t your studio, though. It’s mine, and I’d like to lock it up. Excuse me.”

Comment away, and keep checking back for more chapters. Thank you for your help!