Contemporary
Romance
Escape to New Zealand #4
Date Published: 12/8/12
Synopsis:
What if the person who broke your heart turned out to be the
only one who could mend it?
Nic Wilkinson is a responsible, organized, disciplined rugby
player at the top of his game. Emma Martens is a sometimes-scattered,
often-emotional, and always-broke would-be designer with a big chip on her
shoulder where Nic’s concerned.
They have no history together, except one perfect week. Nothing
in common anymore, except the most important thing of
all.
Getting together again would be messy. Complicated. Scary. And,
just maybe, worth every risk.
EXCERPT
“Mum!”
Zack burst in through the front door. “It was brilliant!” He kicked his shoes
off impatiently, dropped his rugby boots next to them before struggling out of
his jacket. Nic followed him in, grabbed the jacket and hung it on the brightly
painted rack next to the door when Zack would have dropped it on the
floor.
Emma
reached out for a hug that, Nic saw, the boy was still willing to give his
mother, at least here at home. Her eyes met Nic’s as she looked over her son’s
head. How did she always look so soft? So . . . pettable? She was wearing
another sweater, that was all, he told his troublesome libido. Another light,
lacy one, prettily trimmed once again. A pale pink cardigan with pearly shell
buttons, edged in cream, over a long stretchy top and leggings. She looked like
an invitation to cuddle. Like the best blankie ever.
“Can Nic
stay for dinner, Mum?” Zack asked excitedly, offering a welcome distraction
from his wayward train of thought. “He could help me tell you all the things we
did. We’re having spaghetti!” he told Nic. “It’s really
good.”
“Can’t,
mate. Sorry,” Nic put in hastily at Emma’s instinctive shake of the head. “But
I’ll have a glass of water, if one’s on offer.”
“Sit
down,” Emma told him. “Please.”
Nic
slipped off his own shoes before heading to the couch with Zack. “Cheers,” he
said as she came back from the kitchen to hand each of them a glass, then took
her own seat in a small armchair next to the couch, the only other option the
little room offered.
“You look
tired,” she said abruptly. “And bruised. Are you OK?”
“Just a
bit confused on the sleep schedule, still,” Nic admitted. “I took a wee pill on
the flight home, but it never works that well.”
“It’s a
long way, Mum,” Zack put in. “South Africa’s really
far.”
Nic took
a long drink of the cold water, looked around for something to set the glass
on. “Coaster?”
“Just put
it down,” Emma told him.
“Don’t
want to spoil this,” he said, looking more closely at the coffee table. The
simple rectangle had been transformed into a forest of ferns, with native birds
peeping out from underneath fronds, perched in trees. The parson-throated tui
making a meal of red fruit, the colorful, stumpy takahe on the forest floor,
tiny fantails darting overhead.
“You
can’t,” Emma assured him. “It’s all enamels. Everything in this house is pretty
indestructible.”
“Did you
find the ruru yet?” Zack asked him, leaning forward.
“Don’t
tell me,” Nic said. “Let me look.” Zack watched him eagerly as he searched and
finally pointed triumphantly to a notch in a tree where the owl blended into
the bark. “There.”
“You did
this too, eh,” he asked Emma. “Nice.”
“I did
everything. That’s my decorating theme. Things I
made.”
“I like
it,” he assured her. The warm colors of the lounge seemed to cocoon them. Two
walls were a rich caramel, the others a warm yellow. She didn’t even paint
every wall in a room the same color, he realized. Well, at least in the kitchen
it was all the same. Purple. He wondered what color her bedroom was. How it
looked. And found himself wishing, against every better impulse, that he could
see it.
Rosalind James is the author of the Kindle bestseller Just
This Once and the three subsequent books in
the Escape to New Zealand series. She is a
former marketing executive who has lived all over the United States and in a
number of other countries, traveling with her civil engineer husband. Most
recently, she spent several years in Australia and New Zealand, where she fell
in love with the people, the landscape, and the culture of both
countries.
Visit www.rosalindjames.com to listen
to the songs from the books, follow the characters on their travels, watch
funny and fascinating New Zealand and rugby videos, and learn about what's
new!
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