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He was halfway to the practice facility when it hit him. He had to pull off into a side street, through the mad traffic, and sit, after a hasty check of his watch. He had eighteen minutes. Three minutes to work through this. Four at the outside.
His stepsister Nyree was getting married in less than three weeks, and he’d made no plans to be there, just gone along in this … fog. She was marrying Marko Sendoa, though, which meant that Luke’s father, Grant Armstrong, would be filthy. It was no secret that Grant loathed Marko, or that the feeling was mutual, despite Marko having played for him for years. Marko was playing for the Blues now, and that would’ve made Grant even filthier. Luke knew all about that. He’d left the Highlanders himself twelve years ago so he wouldn’t have to play for his father anymore.
He couldn’t leave Nyree to face Grant alone. Not at her wedding.
He couldn’t go on like this.
He couldn’t keep running. He’d run to Christchurch to play for the Crusaders. When that hadn’t been far enough, he’d run to Racing 92, all the way to Paris. Nearly ten years ago, and what was he doing? Still running.
Nowhere to run anymore. He’d run out of world, and he’d run out of excuses.
Time to turn and fight.
CHAPTER 2
Nowhere to Hide
It’s not every day you meet the man of your dreams while painting bunnies.
Hayden wasn’t actually painting bunnies, of course. It just sounded funnier. He didn’t have the skills for bunnies, according to Nyree Morgan, the artist who was transforming this formerly white-walled bedroom on Auckland’s Scenic Drive into a little-girl version of a magical wonderland for the benefit of one Casey Fletcher, Hayden’s newly-discovered niece-once-removed and the reason he’d taken the day off work to help.
It was all hands on deck, because Nyree was meant to be marrying Marko Sendoa on Sunday, which was exactly four days from now, and she’d gone overboard in her enthusiasm for this bloody mural, which Casey apparently absolutely needed for her first Christmas with her new family. Casey was about to be Hayden’s step-niece, and his sister Zora’s problem was Hayden’s problem, because there was no other way his life worked.
Also, Nyree was pregnant, in addition to the imminent-bride thing, and her energy apparently didn’t match her enthusiasm anymore. So he was helping.
He was a good brother, and a good uncle. He hoped. He’d been there for Zora and her son Isaiah at their hardest times, and Zora’d been there for his. Zora didn’t need him that way anymore, though, because she had Casey’s dad, Rhys. Zora had found a way to get loved back.
Hayden? Not so much, other than George the marmalade cat. But he was here for Zora anyway. Old habits died hard.
All he was really doing, of course, was painting the blades of grass around some bunnies. Blades that Nyree had helpfully pre-drawn onto the wall with colored pencils, so he’d know which shade. It was paint by numbers, was what it was. Artistically, Hayden was apparently eight years old.
He was thinking about all that, because you had to think about something when you were sitting on the floor painting blades of grass, and bunnies and little girls were a better spot than most. Besides, Nyree was concentrating too fiercely for conversation.
He wasn’t the only one helping today. There was some New Zealand rugby talent around that, as always, made Hayden feel seriously undersized, not to mention desperately unfit, including Nyree’s enormous stepbrother, Kane Armstrong. Kane played for the Crusaders, and Rhys Fletcher, the owner of this bedroom, was the coach of the Blues, but love conquered all, apparently. Especially as Nyree’s own stepfather, and Kane’s father, was the former coach of the Highlanders, which meant that three of the five New Zealand Super Rugby teams were more-or-less represented here today.
Of course, Grant Armstrong hated Nyree’s fiancé, Marko Sendoa, and vice versa. On the other hand, Rhys Fletcher, the aforementioned homeowner, was Marko’s coach now—and Hayden’s soon-to-be-brother-in-law—so … here Nyree was. Here Hayden was. Here they all were.
It was all very incestuous and tortured, before you even got into the fact that Zora was also marrying her late husband’s brother, who’d also been a rugby player. New Zealand was a small country, but not this small.
He was thinking that, and then he wasn’t. Somebody else had walked into the room, somebody big and stolid and unsmiling and still, and Nyree was talking.
“Everybody who doesn’t know him—wait, the rugby boys will know him, obviously, so it’s only Hayden—this is Luke. Armstrong. My brother. Well, stepbrother. Son of my stepdad, again obviously, but we can’t hold Grant Armstrong against anybody, or I’d have to hate Marko, since he played for him for yonks. Also my mother.”
“And you’d have to hate me,” Kane said. “I played for him myself, and was raised by him. That’s exposure. Hi, Luke. Sorry I didn’t ring you yesterday. I was—”
“Yeh,” Nyree said, a little absently, since she’d begun to paint what seemed to be a fairy riding a bird, sketching in a pointed chin, a wide forehead, with a few swift strokes. Nyree could make anything have a personality. “But you’re both OK anyway despite the parentage. I’d give you a cuddle, Luke, but I’m too painty. Do my trees over there on the other wall, please, since you actually have talent.”
“Oi,” Kane said mildly, because Kane said most things mildly. Hulking as he was—Hayden didn’t think he could count as high as Kane was tall, and at this moment, he was painting clouds onto the ceiling without a ladder—Kane didn’t radiate much but good humor off the pitch.
Unlike Luke. Hayden couldn’t get a read. He could get gooseflesh, though, and it was happening.
He wasn’t attracted to rugby players, possibly because rugby players weren’t attracted to him, and he refused to be that needy.
Normally.
No.
“Well, he does,” Nyree said, painting in the suggestion of feathers on the bird’s blue wings. “He’s got fingers like sausages and knuckles like ping-pong balls, but he used to draw wicked cartoons of our weird family to make me laugh when I was an awkward teen, with the specs and the brace on my teeth and all. Oh—Luke, Hayden.” She jerked her chin in Hayden’s direction and kept painting her bird. “Zora’s brother. Lawyer. Luke’s a rugby player.”
