Just Once More (5 page)

“Well, I’m not really in that big a hurry to get back,” she told Reka now, her attention back on the group, which, to tell the truth, she’d been more than a little nervous about joining herself. But these were Hugh’s mates, and just because there were going to be
two
All Black captains at her wedding…All right, maybe it wasn’t so mad to be nervous. There was celebrity, and then there was celebrity. But in the end, it had all been easy, because that was how they were. Easy.

“It would just make me jumpy,” she confided to Reka. “Being back at the house. Well, jumpier. Nobody will let me do anything anyway. There’s nothing my mum loves more than cooking for a crowd, and you know all the aunties are so thrilled that I’ve snagged a man at last, they’re all pitching in as well, making sure he doesn’t beg off at the last minute.”

Hugh laughed from his spot on the towel beside her, his eyes more than appreciative. He hadn’t got tired of looking at her, it was clear. She’d brought a cover-up, but she hadn’t put it on, because the heat in his gaze sent tingles through her that told her their wedding night was going to be a special one after all these days apart, her old-fashioned
parents making anything else unthinkable. And maybe they were right at that, because anticipation was definitely doing the business for her. And, unless that look in Hugh’s eyes was deceiving her, for him as well.

Maybe she should be thinking more about love and marriage and less about sex, but she couldn’t help it. Thinking about the wedding just made her nervous, and thinking about sex…didn’t. Anyway, she wanted him, he wanted her, and wasn’t that a beautiful thing?

“So, yeh,” she went on, trying her best to keep it casual, “I wouldn’t have enough to do. And Hugh would be helping my dad cut the grass. Although actually, he’d probably enjoy that. Always looking for an excuse to cut the grass, isn’t he.”

Another laugh from him, and he knew exactly what she was thinking about, she could tell. “Josie sussed that out right away,” he told Reka. “Why I was always so eager to cut her grass. Get in there however I could, that was the idea. Thought I was being subtle. Turns out not.”

Hemi snorted. “An openside, subtle. Yeh, right. You’re about as subtle as a brick to the head, mate.”

“Well,” Hugh said with a satisfied sigh, stretching himself out on the towel and shoving a forearm under his neatly-cropped brown hair, “she’s marrying me in two days all the same, cold feet and all. I’m going to see to it that she does. And by the time she realizes her mistake, it’ll be too late. She’ll just have to spend the rest of her life working on changing me.”

“Nah,” Josie said, but she was laughing herself now. “I like you all right the way you are.”

“She says that,” Hemi informed Hugh, “but she doesn’t mean it. Trust me.”

“I do too mean it,” Josie objected.

“Now you do,” Hemi said. “Let’s have this conversation next year. See if you’ve trained him to put the seat down yet.”

A shout of laughter from Hugh. “Already happened,” he told Hemi. “I can aim and everything now.”

“Convo’s in the toilet already,” Reka observed. “Boys, eh. So how
is
the prep going, Josie? Need me to come over tomorrow and lend a hand?”

It was a serious offer, Josie knew. She hadn’t spent much time with Reka, given the other woman’s move to Tauranga, but she already knew that much. Reka was exactly the same as her, a Maori girl from a Maori family. She didn’t have to think about whether she was comfortable, not with Reka.

“Thanks,” she told her, “but we’re all good. Like I said. Heaps of help. Feels odd not to be doing more myself, but they say I’m the bride, meant to do…bride things. Which for me, seems to be wakeboarding. Could have done the hen party, the male strippers, but I’ve decided a beach full of All Blacks in their togs may just be a wee bit better. Hardly looked at Hugh once, have I. Wondering now if I should’ve been a little pickier, but all this lot’s taken, I guess. Pity.”

Hugh pulled her down with him. “Never should’ve invited you,” he told the other men. “Whatever was I thinking? She keeps looking at Koti, she
is
going to beg off.”

“Another December wedding,” Koti said, ignoring that except for a twist of his beautiful mouth. Because he did have one, and Josie didn’t have to want him to appreciate it. “How many of those every single year? Think everybody here got married in December, didn’t we?”

He got nods of agreement in response, went on. “Rugby wedding season. And baby season following straight away, like clockwork. Who had their first one less than a year after the wedding?” he demanded, and most of the hands went up. “More like ten months for most of you randy buggers, the way I counted. Better look out, Josie. I know I was a poor performer in that regard, and Nico was pretty shocking too,” he added with a dig in the ribs for his roomie. “The forwards probably have a theory about that that I’d just as soon not hear. Something about testosterone levels. I’ll just state for the record here that it wasn’t my fault. Some people needed a little…convincing to take the leap.”

“Uh-huh,” Kate said. “Blame it on me, go ahead. Because it’s true,” she admitted. “But all it took was one more northern Tour away from you, another romantic wedding, and I was toast, wasn’t I? Or maybe that was just the Maori influence. I’m sure Josie will make sure Hugh’s keeping the forwards proud.”

“And as for me,” Nic put in with exaggerated dignity, “I’d already made one, remember? Did it in a week, as everybody is now fully aware. And I’ll have you know that I tried my hardest on the honeymoon, too.” He would have said more, but Emma was
laughing, blushing, pulling him down on the sand with her, and he grinned up at the assembled company from his prone position. “Never mind. We’re not sharing, I guess. Think what you like.”

Josie had seen Hugh sit up, had felt his hand come out for hers even as her heart had sunk, the familiar pain twisting in her chest. She looked at him, saw the acceptance in his eyes, and knew that whatever she said or didn’t say would be all right with him.

She went with honesty, because she didn’t want to hide this. It was too big a barrier, would sit like an invisible elephant in the room between her and Hugh’s other family, this rugby family, and that meant not telling would be worse than telling.

Harden up
.

“That won’t be happening for us,” she told Koti. “I can’t have children. So…” She lifted her chin, put a brave face on it. “It won’t be on Hugh.”

Reka was the first to break the silence that fell at her announcement. “I’m sorry,” she said gently, and Josie choked up a bit despite herself. Reka, of all people, would know exactly how much this admission had cost her. “We’ve been insensitive. Not thinking that it doesn’t happen that easily for everybody.”

“No,” Josie said immediately. “Of course you haven’t. How could you have known?” She was so grateful that Hugh hadn’t told his mates, or that, if he had, they’d kept the information to themselves.

Jenna, quiet until now, took her hand on her other side. “I thought that might be true for me too,” she said, her gentle face conveying nothing but sympathy. “I had some problems myself. Are they…sure?”

Josie nodded. This was just about as awful as she’d expected, but it was such a relief to get it out there. “Don’t have the equipment,” she said, and left it at that. She felt the press of Jenna’s hand, though, and knew that she really did understand everything that meant.

“Yeh, you do,” Hugh said, his arm going around her. “Got the heart, haven’t you. Got everything it takes to be a mum to our kids. Got everything I need.”

Finn nodded soberly from Jenna’s other side. “Hugh’s right. A mum’s a mum, and your family’s your family, however it comes about. Parts or no. Jenna is Sophie and
Harry’s mum every bit as much as she is to the others. That’s the way I see it. Seems to me you’re going to be exactly the same.”

“That makes it sound easy, though, Finn,” Jenna said. “And it isn’t easy. You don’t just…adjust like that. It’s so hard, when you’re dealing with that. When it matters so much to you. At least it was for me. Being around babies, pregnancy. We don’t have to talk about it, at least. We can stop right now.” She looked around, got nods of agreement from the other women, and Josie really had put a damper on the day.

“No,” she said. “No, please. Talk about it. I want to be…part of it. If it’s hard—well, some things
are
hard. Everybody here probably knows that. That doesn’t mean I have to run away, or that I can’t enjoy myself. That I can’t enjoy being here with all of you.” She tried to mean it. She
had
been enjoying it, but there was no escaping the pain, either. Still. Always.

“No worries,” Reka said. “You’re part of it. No escape. Marry this bad boy, and you’re part of us.” Her nod was as firm as her voice, and Josie thought she was surely going to cry now.

“I know about that, too, wanting to be part of it,” Jenna said. Josie could tell from the look Jenna shot her, the final press of her hand, that she was taking the spotlight off her, and she was grateful.

“I had the opposite thing, you know,” she told Josie. “I wasn’t sure if…everyone would accept me either, because I was different too. In a different way. I wondered if they’d think that Finn married me just because I was pregnant.” She had a couple spots of color on her cheeks now. “True confessions, except it isn’t, because everyone here knows it, except maybe you. It’s no secret that we didn’t have Lily after ten months. We had her after six. And I wasn’t sure how that would go over. With anyone. I know it was tough at the school dropoff, because I was Finn’s nanny. Guess everyone knows that too. All the mums sure did. When I turned up that first day with the kids, after the holidays, with the ring, and the belly…”

“And with me,” Finn put in, his face set in the hard lines that showed exactly how he’d earned his fearsome reputation. “And nobody said a bloody thing, did they?” He looked like he wanted to punch somebody right now, and Josie’d have bet that nobody had
ever
said a thing, not when he was around.

“Not to you,” Jenna said, echoing Josie’s thoughts. “And not to my face. But I knew what they were saying behind my back. And I was so afraid that all of you would be saying the same thing,” she told the others. “Since I’d only met any of you as Finn’s nanny. That first barbecue, at your house,” she told Drew, “that was rough.”

“Nah,” he said with the gentle smile that had come as a surprise to Josie. “No worries.”

Reka snorted. “Oh, yeh. You should have told me this sooner. I could’ve set your mind at rest. Think we knew you were more than the nanny a good long time before that.”

Jenna looked startled. “You did? But you couldn’t have. We didn’t even…we weren’t even…”

She was redder than ever, and Finn chuckled, his expression having lost the frost. “You’re reckoning without Reka’s magical powers.”

“Such a thing as chemistry,” Reka went on, ignoring him. “And we’re not blind. So tell us. What did happen, with the wedding and all? All we knew was, Finn was at Koti’s wedding alone one month, as usual, and the next thing we knew, Hemi tells me he’s turned up at training the next month with a shiny ring on and his mouth shut, again as usual. Or else Hemi just didn’t ask,” she said with a reproving glance at her husband, who was laughing now. “All I got was that Finn was married, and who he’d married, which wasn’t exactly an earthshaking surprise, like I said. But seems Hemi didn’t bother to get any more info than that. I didn’t know about the baby until you turned up at that first game.”

“Imagine depriving you like that,” Hemi said with a shake of the head. “All that time wasted, when you didn’t know the whole story. What was I thinking? I know you’ll be shocked to learn this, but we don’t actually sit around the gym and open our hearts to each other. I didn’t know because Finn didn’t tell me.”

“Really?” Jenna looked at Finn, who was smiling now along with the rest of the men. “You didn’t tell them?”

“Of course I didn’t tell them,” he said in exasperation. “Not their business, was it. It was your story to tell or not, anyway, not mine.”

“Well, since Finn deprived us then,” Reka urged, “tell us now.”

Jenna looked around. It felt…bare, to share this with them. But look at what Josie had shared. There were no real secrets here. They all knew she’d been the nanny, and unless their math skills were seriously deficient, they all knew when she’d got pregnant.

“When we got…engaged, I guess you’d call it,” she said slowly, “we were in Motueka, near Finn’s family. And we didn’t have anything. Any friends around. Anybody but his family. Any plan, any way to do it. I mean…” She looked at Finn for help.

“Any clothes,” he put in helpfully. “No clothes to get married in. And Jenna didn’t have many clothes left at all, by the time I got through with her. And what d’you mean, ‘I guess you’d call it?’ I did my best. Got down on a knee and all. I did the business.”

She laughed, even though she was embarrassed, and everybody else lost the slightly shocked expression and laughed along with her. “Except that you were down there already. And it wasn’t…like that,” she explained, flustered, because, well, it
had
been a bit like that. “With the clothes, I mean. It’s just that it was all a bit of a surprise.”