All Saints: Love and Intrigue in the Stunning New Zealand Wilderness (The New Zealand Soccer Referee Series Book 1) (23 page)

I could’ve
lied just to get the information but I didn’t need to. I wanted a relationship
with the gorgeous cop and decided I no longer cared what it cost me, bargaining
my allegiance for the second time in my life, but this time with a smile and a
kiss.

“Well, you’re a sight for sore
eyes!” Dad grumbled as I pressed my lips to his forehead and smoothed stray
hair back from his downy crown. He slapped my hand away and scowled. “I suppose
you’ve heard about the team,” he said; statement not question. “Bloody idiots!
Five generations of Saints and you lot mess it up for everyone.”

I opened my mouth in surprise and
then closed it. If it seemed easier for my father to blame Pete and the other
captains instead of levelling the blame at Terry, Larry and Mark Lambie, so be
it. I no longer cared. “Yeah, I heard,” I said, keeping my tone light.

Dad screwed up his face and
wheeled his chair towards the kitchen. “I suppose you want something to drink
now you’ve bothered to show up?” He rattled in a cupboard at knee height and
retrieved a mug, reaching up to flick on the kettle. I sat and watched, not
shoving myself forward to take care of him as I used to.

“Where’s May-Ling?” I asked,
casting my eye over the apartment. It didn’t look as though she’d abandoned her
post yet. A pink thong dangled over the back of the sofa and I shuddered and
looked away.

“Gone for a driving lesson,” Dad
replied and grinned. His top set of false teeth clacked down over the lower
set, creating a visual disturbance in my brain. “And yes, I’m still gonna shag
her.”

I shuddered and closed my eyes,
unable to drive out the mental imagery and still not sure whether to barf or
laugh. “I’ve got a boyfriend actually,” I said, dropping it into the
conversation with casual assurance and no longer afraid of my father’s cluster
bombs of misery.

“Who?” He rolled the wheelchair
to the end of the counter and stared at me, eyes narrowed. “Not some bloody
yahoo from that school of yours, is it? Some ponce with a ponytail and a pole
up his ass.”

“No.” I fixed a steady gaze on my
father and saw what everyone else did; a mean spirited, selfish old man who’d
ruled me like a king and threw my life away like a dandelion in the wind. For
the first time in my life I felt grateful for my mother’s premature death;
spared his draining displays of tantrum and bile. “You know him. I’m dating
Foxy.”

Dad’s eyes bulged and his jaw
grew slack as he gaped like a fish. The colour worked its way back into his
complexion, moving through shades of pink and purple and contrasting with the
tufty white hair and pathetic comb-over strands. “This is a joke, right?” he
demanded, getting ready to pitch forwards out of his chair in temper. I
imagined him hurling himself around the tiles in a break-dance of fury and
couldn’t contain my snort of mirth.

“No, it’s not a joke, Dad.” I
stood. “I intend to keep seeing him and you need to live with it.”

“I won’t!” he shouted and jabbed
a sharp finger in my direction. “He’s a shite referee and Saints don’t marry refs!”

“He hasn’t asked me to marry
him,” I said, cocking my head to one side as though just considering the
prospect. “But if he ever does, I’ll say yes so here’s a heads up, Dad. You’ll
give me away and you’ll do it with a grin on your face.”

Jordan Saint’s jaw flapped and he
looked comical. Realising I wasn’t playing his sick game anymore, he clutched
his heart with a wizened hand and slumped in his seat. “My chest,” he gasped.
“I can’t breathe.”

I ground my teeth and kept my
nerve, waiting it out instead of reacting for once. As the act continued I
started to wonder and in the last seconds before I reached for my phone to dial
an alarm, the front door rattled and May-Ling let herself in, looking pleased
with herself. “He say I do test, ole man,” she called, before noticing me. “Oh,
hi.” She halted in the small lobby with a look of distaste on her face and I
kept my expression neutral.

Behind me, my father made a
miraculous recovery, pushing himself upright and jabbing his finger in my
direction. “She’s no daughter of mine!” he screeched and May-Ling jumped in
surprise. “She’s dating a referee!” The veins stuck out on his neck and his
wife turned her slanted eyes to him, then me and back again.

“He criminal?” she demanded and I
shook my head.

“No.”

“He citizen of New Zealand?” She
mangled the name of my homeland with her cute accent.

“Yeah.”

May-Ling turned to my father and
slapped the top of his head as she breezed past and seized the stray mug he’d
got out for me. “Stupit ole man,” she scoffed. She peered into the mug and
waved her spare hand. “She fine. Girl is grown-up lady. Let her live life.”

I smiled and waved as I let
myself out of the apartment, closing the door behind me with a gentle click.
May-Ling could have my father’s dwindling stores of cash; it no longer bothered
me. As far as I could see, she’d earn every last cent of it between now and the
end. I’d put money on the poor woman dying first. Dad had the genes to go on
forever, like bacteria. He’d paid off Pete’s loan and bought me a car and I
felt satisfied with my lot. I wished I’d got the chance to kick him in the guts
with the knowledge that not only did Teina Fox referee; he was also a cop.

I sniggered to myself in the lift
and ran a hand over my aching guts. Period pain still sucked at thirty, only
this time it bought relief. I wasn’t ready for a baby and probably never would
be. It didn’t seem so important anymore and a new wholeness enveloped me,
self-reliant and couched in a surety of who I was.

Teina waited by my car, his neat
bum leaned against the cornflower blue paintwork. He held up the tiny fire
extinguisher from my tool kit. “Need help putting your tail feathers out?” he
asked and I laughed.

“Na. I think I’ve learned to be
immune to his fire breathing. It’s taken all the fun out of life.”

Teina fixed his arms around my
waist and kissed me, his lips soft and tender. “Are you ready, Ms Saint?” he
asked, searching my face for signs of nerves.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I
conceded, slipping my fingers beneath his tee shirt and enjoying the contact
with his olive skin. “Am I allowed to date the teacher?”

“I’ll make an exception.” He
grinned. “It depends how you plan to buy me off.”

I slapped his chest. “Not funny!”
I leaned my breasts against his pectorals and looked up into his eyes, putting
on my best seduction face. “What would it take to get full marks?”

He snorted and kissed me again,
his eyes losing their humour as he glanced up at my father’s window, five
floors above the car park. “Your dad’s rubber necking down on us.”

I tutted. “Amazing. He must’ve
finished his heart attack quicker than planned. What’s he doing?”

“Eyeballing me.” Teina glanced up
again and bit his lower lip. “And shaking his fist and, yeah, I probably won’t
replicate that hand gesture.”

I lifted my lips to Teina’s and
gave my aged father a show of real passion, hoping it made him want to jump out
of the window. Teina spoke with his lips resting against mine, his eyes
laughing. “He’s gone a weird colour. Do you want to go back up there?”

I shook my head and turned,
waving to Dad. I pointed at my ring finger and watched his eyes pop like boiled
eggs in their sockets as the full horror hit home. I shouted up to him, knowing
he heard through the open window. “Forgot to mention it, Dad, I’m off to
referee training now. With Teina.”

Jordan Saint hammered on the
window with his fists and I watched as May-Ling pressed her face against the
glass and then shrugged without caring.

“You told him I’m a cop?” Teina
asked and I shook my head and grinned. “No, I’m saving that one.”

He laughed and opened the
passenger door for me, pinching my bum as I shinned into the seat. Jangling the
keys to my car, he rounded the bonnet and looked up at the window, through
which my father yelled obscenities. He gave a small salute with his right hand
and I watched Dad’s eyes widen in disbelief. He recognised the New Zealand
Police salute and pitched himself at the glass in fury.

“Oops! That’s gotta hurt.” Teina
climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine, gunning my car out of
the car park. Behind us, Jordan Saint raged about Saint rules in his insular
Saint world, surrounded by bitterness and self-made Saint misery.

I sat the Level 1 test for New
Zealand referees and passed with top marks, celebrating with a trip to church
to confess my many sins. The sweet vicar didn’t care, embracing me like an old
friend and praying a blessing over me with shaking, elderly hands. “What have
you been up to, Ursula Saint?” he asked me with a smile.

I stared at him for a moment and
decided on the truth. “This and that, vicar. This and that.”

K T Bowes worked in
education for more than a decade, both in New Zealand and the United Kingdom
and has been writing since she could first hold a pencil. Now she works part
time as an archivist maintaining a private collection. She believes in God,
which is just as well because the situations she gets herself into often
require His assistance. Surprisingly happily married despite her crazy
escapades, K T Bowes still hankers after another parachute jump but hasn’t
convinced her husband to join in. Her four beautiful children are all now
making their own way in the world and finally eating salad and vegetables. She
lives in the North Island of New Zealand between the Hakarimata Ranges and the Waikato
River with a mad cat and often a few crazy horses. Horse riding is her passion
but unfortunately she keeps falling off and breaking bones, so has gone back to
road running instead. She can’t be seen pacing the streets of Ngaruawahia
because she runs in the dark, convinced people will laugh. Often accompanied by
one of her characters complaining about something, the author appears to have
mental problems as she frequently answers back, which is another good reason
for running under cover of darkness.

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