Authors: Rosalind James
She felt the panic rising at the sensation of being trapped
beneath him. This wasn’t what she wanted. This was too much. Too fast. She had
to get out.
He wasn’t letting her go, though. Or letting up for even a
moment as he continued to kiss her, his mouth bruising hers, his hands moving
over her. Grabbing at her, pulling her against him. He drew back at last to
reach a hand under the hem of her dress, onto her thigh, his knee pushing her
legs apart, and she seized her opportunity. Gave a convulsive heave and slid
out from under him. Crashed into the coffee table on the way to the ground,
bruising her shoulder badly against the edge. She barely felt the pain as she
shoved off with her hands, made it to her feet. Dashed around to put the end of
the couch between herself and Ryan.
“No!” She was trembling, clutching the arm of the couch for
support. “I don’t want this. Stop!”
Ryan was standing himself now, staring at her, fists
clenched. “Then why the hell did you invite me in?”
“Not to attack me!” Was he going to grab her again? She
couldn’t tell. She gave a fast glance around her. She could hit him with the
lamp, if he tried. She reached for it. Just in case. “You need to leave!” Her
breath was coming hard now with effort and fear.
“What kind of a fucking tease are you?” he demanded angrily.
“You dress like that, walk like that, invite me to come in? And then when I go
to take what you’re offering, you change your mind? What the bloody hell are
you playing at?”
“Mum?” The small voice from the doorway. Zack, his hair on
end, the inevitable drooping sleeves and pajama legs puddling around him. His
anxious gaze moving from one to the other of them. “What’s wrong?”
“Baby.” Emma moved swiftly across the room to him, pulled
him to her. “Ryan’s leaving.”
“Too right I’m leaving.” Ryan spat the words, then turned on
his heel, grabbing his jacket from the hook by the door on the way. “Fucking waste
of money.”
Emma ran to the door, locked it after him. Held onto the
handle for a moment before she turned back to Zack, who had followed her
anxiously. She smoothed his hair, unable to stop the trembling in her hands,
before she pulled him close again. She wasn’t sure if she were trying to
comfort him or herself. She’d really thought, for a moment there, that Ryan had
been willing to rape her. She still wasn’t sure what he’d have done, if Zack
hadn’t come in. How could she have been so stupid?
“He was really angry,” Zack said against her waist. “I woke
up, and I heard a big noise. His voice was really loud. I was scared.”
“Oh, baby.” She rubbed his shoulders. “It was OK. He’s gone
now, anyway. It’s all over. Let’s get you back to bed.”
She got him off to sleep again with a glass of water, a
song, and Raffo held snug against him, the hard, lumpy contours seeming to
soothe him as always. But sleep, for her, was a long time coming.
Nothing had happened, she reminded herself again. She’d had
a bad dating moment, that was all. But it would be a long time before she
invited anyone else back to the flat, she knew. That had felt too close.
Emma was thankful, the next day, that she and Zack had
tickets for the semifinal. It wasn’t just that she needed something else to
think about. She’d felt jumpy and tense all day, had found herself double-checking
that the front door was locked. She’d wished she could ring Lucy, but her
sister had gone away for the weekend with Tom, and Emma hated to break in on
that. Nothing had happened, she scolded herself. Ryan wasn’t coming back. It
was all over. But she was still relieved when it was time to leave the flat and
head into the City.
If she’d been looking for something to distract her, the
first half of the game certainly provided it. She let her breath out with a
whoosh
and sat back with a grateful thump as the teams trotted off to the sheds at the
start of the halftime break.
“It’s awfully tight,” Jenna said beside her. Emma had barely
spoken to Finn Douglas’s heavily pregnant wife before. Tonight, though, she’d
chosen to sit close to the kids, and that was where Jenna always seemed to be.
“I’m afraid this one’s going to be close all the way,” Jenna
went on. “There’s a lot of desire out there on both sides, it seems to me.” She
leaned to the left to have a word with her children, then was back with Emma
again. “Sophie’s pretty worried,” she explained. “It’s always such a physical
battle with the South African teams.”
“Well, if that’s the case, the Stormers are living up to
that tradition,” Emma agreed. “I don’t know as much about rugby as you do.
Mostly what Zack tells me, and he’s six, so . . .”
Jenna smiled, and Emma realized that what she had first taken
for standoffishness was probably just shyness. “Sophie’s been my tutor,” the
other woman confessed. “And Finn would laugh at the idea that I know a lot
about rugby.”
“He sure seems like he can keep up with anyone in a physical
battle. He’s been all over the field tonight. Even I’ve noticed that. And boy,
does he tackle hard. I’d hate to be on the receiving end of all that size and
ferocity.”
“He
is
impressive, isn’t he?” Jenna beamed with
pride. “He works so hard out there. But I’m sorry, I’m bragging. I can’t help
it. I love watching him play.”
“You’re entitled. How’re you doing, though? How long to go?”
Jenna sighed. “A week. Or an eternity. Take your pick.”
“Any action so far?”
“Not at all. And it’s getting pretty hard to wait,” Jenna
admitted. “I made a pact with myself not to complain, because this is what I’ve
wanted most in the world. But it’s getting pretty hard to keep it.”
Emma had to laugh at that one. “Zack was ten days late,” she
confided. “Good thing I hadn’t made any pacts. The broken pieces would’ve been
everywhere. Can I do anything, though? Take the kids for you tomorrow, maybe?”
“That’s so kind,” Jenna said, her eyes filling with what
Emma recognized as hormonal tears. “Sophie’s having some special time with her
dad tomorrow, actually. They have a lunch date. Doing a little shopping, too.
Mysterious
shopping. I have a feeling I’m going to be getting a baby present of my
very own. Would you and Zack consider coming over to visit Harry and me
instead? I’d like the company. And the distraction.”
“I’d love to,” Emma said gratefully. More time out of the
house, just what she needed. “They do seem to be getting on well.”
“Six is a nice age. Harry’s surprisingly uninterested in
rugby,” Jenna cautioned, “but he loves Legos, if that would interest Zack.”
“Legos would go over big.”
“Bring your walking shoes, and we’ll take the boys up Mt.
Eden first.”
“Are you up for something that steep?” Emma asked in
surprise.
Jenna laughed. “I said I was trying not to complain. I never
promised anything about not trying to help speed up the process.”
“I still can’t believe you’re doing this,” Emma puffed as
she labored up the steep Mt. Eden hillside the next day behind Jenna, the two
boys having run ahead. Zack was still so pumped up about the Blues’ tough win
in the semifinal, it was good for him to run out some of that energy.
“This is my back garden,” Jenna explained, not sounding
nearly as winded as she ought to be. She really had to increase her aerobic
workouts, Emma decided. She was getting outperformed here by the
nine-months-pregnant.
“And I used to run this almost every day,” Jenna continued.
“I stopped at about six months. Just too much of me bouncing around, and
hitting the ground again. Now I’m mostly swimming and walking, along with some
gym stuff. I miss the running. This walk is good because I get the sweating
thing too, get my heart rate up. I need that.”
“All righty then,” Emma said wryly, regaining her breath as
they reached the summit at last. “I just wanted to float on my back at that
stage, but whatever.”
“I know!” Jenna agreed. “Especially because I feel
huge.
I
tell Finn that’s why I married him. Because no matter how big I get with this
baby, he’s still going to outweigh me.”
“I never thought of that,” Emma laughed. “The hidden benefit
of rugby players.”
“What are you making now?” Jenna asked when they were
sitting in her wonderfully comfortable big kitchen, having a cup of herbal tea
after a lunch of homemade chicken-vegetable soup, salad, and what Emma deeply
suspected had been homemade rolls as well. The boys were happily immersed in
Legos, Zack having been suitably awed by Harry’s collection.
“A jacket,” Emma explained, holding up the black rectangle
on her needles. “I’m just doing the back now, so it’s hard to see. But here.”
She reached down and pulled the drawing out of her bag. “What do you think?”
“Oh, it’s so cute!” Jenna exclaimed at the sight of the
black zip jacket with its multicolored stripes on sleeves, hood, and
sweatshirt-style pockets. “Did you design this?”
“Yeah,” Emma said with her usual mix of embarrassment and
pride. “The big news is, this is the first design I’ve done in CAD. Isn’t that
ironic? I only realized I could do that after Hannah set me up with an
interview at her company. All these years of knitting and designing and being a
CAD operator, and it’s never occurred to me that I could use it that way.”
“She mentioned that to me,” Jenna said. “That she’d passed
your name on, I mean. But I don’t understand what it is. What
is
CAD?”
“Computer-Aided Design,” Emma explained. “It’s how all
engineering designs are done now, of course. But it turns out it’s how you do
clothing design as well.”
“So did the interview go well? If you’re practicing?”
“Fingers crossed. So yeah, I’ve been studying up. It wouldn’t
pay as well, and I wouldn’t have been able to consider it, before. But now . .
.” Emma stopped. “My situation’s got a bit better recently,” she went on.
“Which makes it possible to take a pay cut, especially if it means I’d enjoy
what I did. And if I could help with designs . . . Boy,” she sighed, “I’d
love
that.”
“It sure sounds like more fun to me,” Jenna agreed. “Cute
little-girl clothes instead of, what? Buildings?”
“Oh, not just
buildings.
You’ve got your sewer
tunnels, too,” Emma said seriously, prompting a laugh. “Oh, yeah. Plus, the
idea of working with people who like clothes. And . . .” she hesitated again,
wondering how much was all right to share. “Being taken seriously,” she said
cautiously.
“Which doesn’t happen now?” Jenna asked, reaching to refill
Emma’s cup.
“No. I’m too . . . female, I guess.”
“Too pretty,” Jenna translated. “And they can’t see beyond
the way you look.”
“That’s how it seems to me, anyway. I’m girly, I know it. I
guess I could get some glasses I don’t need. Cut my hair short. Wear more
black.”
“Heaven forbid. That’s the last thing Auckland needs, another
woman in black. And what is this, 1980? You shouldn’t have to wear pinstriped
suits with shoulder pads to be taken seriously.”
“Anyway.” Jenna lifted her teacup and clinked it against
Emma’s. “Here’s to knitwear, and knitwear jobs. And to being a woman. And I
wanted to tell you, along those lines, that you’ve done such a good job with
Zack. He’s a really nice boy.”
“Thanks. I’ve done my best, but it hasn’t always been easy.”
“You’re a single mum, I think,” Jenna said hesitantly.
“Since the beginning.”
“That
isn’t
easy, I know it. I was raised by a single
mum myself, since the beginning. Who
didn’t
do all that well, so I know
the difference.”
“Yeah. We lived with my sister till Zack was almost four.
That was better, but it’s still not quite the same. Lucy’s great—better than a
lot of actual partners, I’ll bet—but Zack isn’t her kid, bottom line.”
“It’s hard to have all that responsibility on your
shoulders,” Jenna said. “Sometimes, when Finn’s gone for a long stretch, and
I’m feeling sorry for myself, I think, this is like being a single mum. And
then I realize that it isn’t even close.
Because I have his support, and
I know he’s coming home to me again. I’m not in it by myself.”
“I’m sorry. That was insensitive,” she realized in horror.
“Blame the overemotional pregnancy thing. I keep blurting out things I
shouldn’t say at all.”
“No,” Emma protested. “There’s nothing wrong with saying
that. Because that’s
exactly
it. How much the . . . the last resort you
are. It’s a relief to have somebody understand. And I’m happy for you. I really
am.”
“But I’d better round Zack up, and get on with our errands,”
she said, finishing her row and shoving her knitting back into her bag. “We’re
stopping by the Warehouse, since we’re over here. High-end shopping,” she
smiled ruefully. “At least I know I won’t be tempted by any fabulous clothes.”
“Thanks for coming to visit,” Jenna said. “I appreciate your
hauling Zack all the way over here.”
“Thank you for inviting me. I was surprised, actually,” Emma
confessed.
“It can be a little intimidating,” Jenna said. “Sitting with
the wives and girlfriends. Even though they’re great,” she hastened to add.
“But it can still be awkward. Not knowing if you fit in. If they’ll accept you.”
“Exactly!” Emma exclaimed. “That’s exactly it! How did you
know?”
Jenna smiled a bit sadly. “Oh, I learned that the same way
I’ve learned everything else in my life. The hard way.”
She gave Emma a warm hug at the door as she saw the two of
them out. “I’m so glad you came to visit me,” she told her. “And that I’ve had
the chance to get to know Zack. Come back and see me again, when I have a baby
to show you. Because I have a feeling that we have a lot in common.”
“Ready for a hot chocolate?” Nic asked Zack as they
changed out of their rugby boots on Monday afternoon.