“Look! They’ve got blue eyes.”
Sam was leaning in, checking each of the little bundles of fluff. The minute he and Danielle had arrived, he’d made a beeline for the kittens, and discovered that two of them had opened their eyes. Now they were taking their first blurry looks at the world, blinking in the morning light. Jacinda smiled as they wobbled around, mewing and trampling on their siblings. With their tiny, softly folded ears and skinny, perky tails, they were ridiculously cute.
“You’re the first one to see them with their eyes open,” she told Sam, and he swelled with pride.
“Do they have names?”
It hadn’t occurred to her to name them—that seemed like Nana Mac’s job. But she knew that Nana Mac would give Sam the honor, if she was here.
“Why don’t you name them?” she suggested.
“Really? Okay.” He tapped his chin, considering. “Maybe a Minecraft name…or Marvel.”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something,” she said. “But we’ll need four.”
He peered into the kitteny pile, where the tabby was lying on top of Velvet’s head. “Are they boys or girls?”
“Oh…I don’t know. I had a peek, but I couldn’t really tell.”
Hell, she hadn’t been a very good cat sitter. Velvet seemed to know what she was doing, and they all looked healthy, but she’d better take them to the vet for a check-up before she left, and find out who was who. She was one hundred per cent in favor of gender equality, but she didn’t want Nana Mac to end up with a female Captain America.
On the other hand, that would be pretty cool.
“Maybe you could help me take them to the vet this afternoon, so we can find out,” she said.
Sam nodded, serious. “I can do that.”
She left him sitting next to the cat bed, picking up and putting down kittens as he tested out possible names. In the kitchen, Danielle was putting the groceries away.
“He’s a cutie,” Jacinda said.
Danielle smiled. “Thanks. He’s coping really well so far.”
“Have you seen much of his dad?” she asked quietly, putting a carton of juice in the fridge.
“Andy? A bit. Sam’s used to him being unreliable, so…you know.” She shrugged, and looked toward where Sam was sitting, her blue eyes cautious. “I’ll tell you later, anyway.”
“You don’t have to.” She didn’t want to drag up things that Danielle might not feel like talking about.
“It’s fine,” she said quietly, tucking a strand of curly hair behind her ear. “I had to start getting over him while we were still together, anyway.”
“I’m sorry.” She glanced over to Sam, then flicked the kettle on. “Would you like coffee?”
“God, yes. Thanks. We left really early, and we didn’t stop on the drive here at all, except at the supermarket in Lancet Bay.” She held up a packaged chicken. “Family dinner tonight? We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”
Jacinda spooned instant coffee into mugs. “Actually…now that you’re here, I’m going to go. Sam seems like he’ll be a great kitten sitter.”
“What? You can’t go yet,” Danielle said. “We only just arrived, and it’s been years since we saw each other. Can’t you stay one more day, at least?”
“No, I’m sorry, I really have to go. There’s a late flight to LA, so…”
Sam’s voice came from behind them. “Why do you have to go?”
They turned to see him frowning, his eyebrows furrowed and his cowlick sticking up like a cartoon kid. Danielle pulled him close and rumpled his hair.
“Well, what time is the flight?” she asked Jacinda.
“Uh…just after eleven? I don’t actually have a ticket yet.” She’d planned to buy one online yesterday morning, but when Riley and the girls arrived, she’d gotten distracted. And then later…distracted again. She batted away the memory of Liam in front of her in his living room, and the way her own knees had buckled when he fell to his.
So yeah, she’d been…waylaid. But if tonight’s flight was full, she could kill a night at an airport hotel.
“You have to stay,” Sam said. “I might need help thinking of names for the kittens.”
They both looked at her, expectation heavy in the air. She hesitated. It would be kind of rude to leave the minute they arrived. Nana Mac would be disappointed too, when she heard. And even though Jacinda and Danielle were cousins, they didn’t really know each other at all. This was quality family time—one thing she’d always wished for.
“Okay. One more night.”
“Good.” Sam nodded, satisfied. “Now I have to get thinking.”
As they watched him go, Jacinda decided not to think about why she hadn’t actually gone ahead and bought herself a ticket, even though she was so determined to leave. But she was only delayed a day, that was all. Just one more day.
They went in Danielle’s car to the vet in Lancet Bay that afternoon, with Velvet and the kittens tucked into a cat carrier. He pronounced them all healthy—three girls and one boy.
“Have you got any ideas for names now?” Jacinda asked Sam as they sat down for dinner.
“Maybe. But I wasn’t expecting so many girls,” Sam said, his face scrunched up.
“Sam!” Danielle said, but she and Jacinda both had to laugh.
“I don’t mind that they’re girls,” he said earnestly. “But I was thinking about superhero names, and I don’t know many girl ones.”
Jacinda and Danielle looked at each other across the table. “Yeah, that’s a whole other issue,” Jacinda said.
“You’ll think of something,” Danielle told him, putting a chicken drumstick on his plate.
He nodded. “I’ll google it. Mum, can I use your computer?”
“Yes, later,” she replied. She passed the dish of broccoli and beans to Jacinda, and Sam held his nose as they went past. “So we heard that you’re a bit of a star,” she said.
Jacinda shrugged as she took the dish. “Not really.”
“Really? What would you call it then?”
“I’m trying not to call it anything at the moment,” she said. “I’m kind of…reassessing.”
“Mum said you’re a ROCK STAR,” Sam said, breaking out an imaginary riff on his drumstick. “That’s awesome.”
She laughed. “Thanks.”
“Can you teach me to play guitar?”
“I would, but I didn’t bring mine with me. I bet you’d be good at it though.” Then she looked at Danielle. “I haven’t mentioned anything about it here. Not to anyone. I just needed a break.”
She nodded, understanding in her expression. “Got it.”
But Sam was listening. “A break from what?”
“Um…” How could she phrase it so a nine-year-old would understand? “Some people want me to do stuff I don’t like. Sometimes it doesn’t make me happy.”
“Ugh, I hate that,” he said. “Like when we’re at school and we have to do everything the teacher tells us.”
“Kind of like that, yeah.”
He frowned. “Don’t you like being a rock star?”
“Mostly. But I’m undercover right now.” She looked over one shoulder, then the other, and leaned in. “Don’t blow my cover, okay?”
He looked around too, then nodded. “Okay.” He mimed zipping his lip, and Jacinda gave him a thumbs-up.
Then she spooned a helping of vegetables onto her plate, and held the dish out in his direction. “Vegetables?”
He made dramatic gagging sounds. “Are you trying to poison me? Yuck!”
Danielle sighed, and Jacinda laughed. “I guess that counts as people wanting you to do something you don’t like.”
“Ex-act-ly.” He bit into his drumstick.
Jacinda put the offending dish down at the far end of the table. “I hear you.”
Later that night, when he was tucked up in bed, she and Danielle sat on the living room floor with the kittens, drinking wine and reacquainting themselves.
“It’s so nice to be away at last,” Danielle said.
“You’re coping really well,” Jacinda said. “Was it a tough break-up?”
She pursed her lips, looking into her glass. “In some ways. The actual process, you know. Finally making the call to end it, and then telling Sam—that was horrible. And then the logistics of dividing everything up, sorting out the house…” She lifted her chin. “But it had to be done.”
“Nana Mac said maybe it was for the best?” Jacinda chose her words carefully, just in case she had it wrong. But Danielle nodded.
“Oh God, it totally was. Absolutely. I don’t even know why he thought we should get married in the first place. You know how some people are just meant to be?”
“Not personally. But yeah.”
“Well, that wasn’t us.” She gave a short laugh. “I realized pretty early on that we’d made a mistake. And Andy helped me with the realizing, by staying out late as often as he could, and deciding that maybe he wasn’t completely over his high school girlfriend after all.”
“Oh, shit. Did he cheat on you?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. He says not, but it’s hard to keep secrets in a small place like that. A couple of people came and said something to me, just quietly. But we had Sam by that time, so I couldn’t just walk away. I felt like I should try a bit harder, a bit longer.”
Jacinda reached out and put a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry. That must have been tough.”
“Yeah.” She scrunched up her nose. “But now it’s done. And it’s better for both of us this way. The main thing is to make sure Sam comes through okay.”
“You’re doing great so far. He’s so sweet.”
“Yeah, sometimes.” She rolled her eyes, but a smile lit up her face. “He’s a good kid. I hope he’ll make friends here—he needs someone to play with. He had tons of friends at home, and all the cousins too.”
“Riley said there are markets this Friday night, on the main street,” Jacinda said. “It sounds like everyone goes—maybe he’d meet some kids there.”
“Oh, I love night markets. We should definitely go.” She nodded. “Now, speaking of cousins, I’ve got some photos to show you. I can’t believe how much you look like our cousin Mandy. And Justine. Hang on, let me find my phone.”
As she went to get her bag, she started talking about the family—who was who, and what they were like. The people she talked about were just names to Jacinda, having grown up far from her mother’s family, with so few visits back to New Zealand. But then, as they scrolled through the images on the phone, she recognized a few faces. And some of the ones she didn’t recognize had a look about them—the family resemblance that she’d never seen until now, apart from in her mom.
“You look like us,” Danielle insisted.
“I kind of do. It’s weird.”
She laughed. “Not weird. Just family.”
Jacinda looked at a photo of everyone posing on the farmhouse lawn. Behind them was the wide green countryside, and in front, laughing children were rolling on the grass. It was chaotic and idyllic at the same time.
“Do you think you’ll go back there?” she asked Danielle.
“I don’t know.” She leaned back against the sofa and sighed. “I spent my whole life there, married a guy from down the road, worked in the family business…it feels like it’s time for something else.”
“I know that feeling.” Jacinda’s tone was heartfelt.
“Why are you going back then?”
She stroked one of the black kittens—the boy—who had set off on a big adventure of his own across the rug. Why was she going back? Things with Liam had gotten really complicated, really fast…but after his walkout, maybe it wasn’t her who should be thinking about leaving. Anyway, she wasn’t going to share that story with Danielle. She didn’t know anything about the history between Jacinda and the Ward family, and Jacinda would rather it stayed that way.
“There’s just a lot going on back there, so…”
“I got the impression that was why you left the States in the first place.”
Oops. “Um…it was. I did plan to stay here longer, but…” She let the sentence trail off.
“I can’t even imagine what your life is like.” Danielle refilled her glass and passed the wine bottle over. “What about guys? You must meet some insanely hot men in your world.”
“Yeah. Insane, and hot.” She rolled her eyes and tipped the last of the wine into her glass.
“So you’re not rushing back for love,” Danielle laughed.
She snorted. “No. Other stuff.”
Hannah had texted during the day with an update. Todd wasn’t home from Austin yet, but he was still negotiating the tour. Lainey Kingsley had been unimpressed about the interview being cancelled again, but Hannah had promised to reschedule as soon as Cin was back—even though Jacinda couldn’t say when that would be. She’d been so tempted to tell Hannah about developments with Liam…but she knew Hannah would ask a bunch of questions she had no answer for. Like, how Jacinda felt. What it all meant. And what would happen next. She didn’t know. And he’d said it himself—he had no fucking idea what he was doing.
Except he did. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he was very, very good at it. A smoldering heat started up low in her belly as she remembered what an extremely hot complication he was, inked and muscular and hungry. Hungry for her, apparently…at the same time as he hated her for ruining everything.
She sighed and stroked the fuzzy black kitten as he wobbled closer, then picked him up and snuggled him close. He meowed, a tiny squeaky pronunciation that made them both laugh—and then rewarded her by peeing on her shirt.
“Hey!” She set him down carefully, and pulled the damp shirt away from her skin with a grimace. “At least it’s warm, I guess.”
“Men,” Danielle said, laughing again.
“Right? You show a little affection, and that’s how they repay you.”
Velvet came and picked him up by the scruff of the neck and carried him back to the cat bed, ignoring his protests as she dropped him in with his sisters. Then Jacinda went upstairs and grabbed a clean t-shirt. When she came back, Danielle had opened another bottle of wine, and was looking uncertain. Jacinda sat back down, wondering what was on her mind.
Danielle cleared her throat as she refilled both their glasses. “So I can’t even imagine what your ‘other stuff’ might be, either,” she said, getting back to their conversation. “And I know you must be busy. But…is there any way you could stay a while longer? To be honest, I was going to ask for your help. School doesn’t start for a few more weeks, and I have to look for a job. I need someone to watch Sam while I go for interviews. Nana Mac said you were here for the summer, so I was kind of hoping…” Her voice faded, and she looked embarrassed to be asking.
Jacinda took a slow sip, thinking. Danielle needed her. Sam needed her. And Danielle was making a new start, just like she’d done herself a dozen times over.
How could she say no?
“Okay. I’ll stay a little longer.”
“Thank you! Oh God, that’s such a relief.” She shuffled over, trying not to spill any wine, and gave Jacinda a one-armed hug, a wayward curl tickling her face. “Thank you, seriously.”
Jacinda hugged her back. “You’re welcome. It’ll be fun.”
It would be. If she crossed paths with Liam again, he’d just have to deal with it, like she would. And he knew where the airport was.