Tempting the Negotiator

Jake still believed that Aroha Bay was what the boys needed, but Janet, their social worker, seemed unconvinced a single male was the best guardian for them. She’d been clearly unimpressed by the state of the house the last visit, and had said she’d drop by again soon. Despite her smile, it had sounded like a threat, and he knew she’d be along any day now. He really needed to clean ASAP, stock the fridge with fresh salad, that sort of thing. That’s what she’d be looking for. He could lose the boys otherwise. As he could lose the battle for Aroha Bay and the fairy tern.

Jake hated the mere thought of losing.

As he swung down the driveway to the house, his stress levels mounted. What he really craved was a surf but instead he’d have to cook dinner and sort through some of the bills that were cluttering the table. He probably also ought to entertain the American, though how, he couldn’t imagine. Well, he could. But that image was sharply repressed.

The first thing he saw, sitting jauntily next to the sleep-out, was the car. A red convertible. Bloody typical! He might have guessed she’d get something like that. He was amazed the boys weren’t all standing around it, tongues hanging out and begging for rides. Brad would be itching to drive. Oh, man, yet another battle Jake simply didn’t need. He pulled up next to the convertible and jumped out, slamming his door. There was no sign of Sass, but music was pounding out of the house. No guesses where the boys were, then. Delicious smells wafted across the grass. Cooking? No one in the house cooked. Jake bounded up the deck steps, then stopped short in the doorway. For a second he thought he must have the wrong house. The wrong boys.

“Hi, Jake,” Paul said with one of his shy, sidelong looks that substituted as a smile. He was polishing the glass of the bay window.

“Did you bring a game home?” Mike asked. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, putting all the loose DVDs and Xbox games into the right cases and stacking them.

“We were hoping you might pick up that new racing one,” Mark added from his perch on top of the sofa, where he was cleaning the cobwebs from the corners.

“Oh, you’re home,” Brad said as he passed through the lounge, lugging a vacuum cleaner. “Did you see the car? Isn’t she a little beauty?”

“What the hell is going on?” Jake roared.

The boys all paused.

“We’re cleaning,” said Brad in a “well, duh” tone. “But you guys don’t clean. You are the worst pigs I’ve ever met. If I tell you to put something away, you act like I’m the most unreasonable brute in the world.”

Brad grinned. “Ah, but that’s because you’re a crap cook.”

Jake shot him a look.

“Sass said she’d make Mexican if we cleaned the house. It’s got to be spotless. She’s an amazing cook,” one of the twins elaborated.

“How do you know?”

“She made us Texan burgers when we came back from school this afternoon. Said her brothers were always starving when they were our age. You’ve never tasted anything like these burgers. Then she offered us a deal. She’ll cook while she stays here so long as we keep the place clean.”

Jake couldn’t begin to untangle his thoughts and feelings on hearing that. Of all the managing, bossy, conniving… As for the boys, what a bunch of mercenary turncoats. At the same time, something did smell fantastic.

“Where is she?”

“In the kitchen.”

Jake went through and there, sure enough, was Sass stirring a pot. She was humming, her back to him, and looking like every man’s fantasy in a short denim skirt and a clinging white tee. Her blond hair was pulled up in a ponytail and a big Texan belt was slung around her slender hips. She didn’t hear him come in and he took a minute to look around the kitchen. Everything had been scrubbed, polished and put away. Every surface gleamed. He didn’t know that things on the stove could smell so good, either. He was not, however, so easily bought as the boys.

“What the hell is that?”

Sass turned. “Oh, you’re back.” It was a statement of fact, not a welcome. “That’s an espresso machine.”

“I can see that. Where did it come from?”

“A shop called Brisket or something like that.”

“Briscoes. What’s it doing here? I don’t drink coffee.”

“But I do.”

“You’re only here for a week.”

She leaned against the counter and folded her arms across her chest, as calm and cool as ever, despite the heat of the kitchen.

“Trust me, you don’t want to be around if I don’t get my daily caffeine fix. I’ll leave it for your next guests. How’re the boys doing? Dinner’s nearly ready.”

“I guess I should thank you.” He didn’t feel in the slightest bit grateful.

“No need, I didn’t do it to please you. Would you like to go and wash up? I’m serving in ten.”

INSTEAD OF EATING with plates on their laps, as was their custom, they sat at the cleared, cleaned table. When Jake came through, the boys were already there, looking surprisingly civilized and decidedly hungry.

“Flowers?” he said, with a nod to the vase of yellow roses. “A bit of a waste on five blokes, isn’t it?”

Sass blushed, but before she could reply Paul said softly, “My mum used to put flowers on the table.”

Jake and the other boys stared at him. He never spoke about his mother. She’d died eighteen months earlier.

“Did she?” The annoyance on Sass’s face disappeared and she smiled at Paul. She began handing out plates for the boys to help themselves. Jake saw from her eyes that she’d registered Paul’s use of the past tense, but her voice was light when she asked, “Did she enjoy gardening?”

Paul gave her a hesitant smile. “Couldn’t get her out of it—especially in summer.”

“I bet. A garden’s the one thing I’d really like in New York.”

Jake was impressed, despite himself. Paul wasn’t one to volunteer information, and he almost never smiled. There was something in Sass’s manner that the boys were instinctively turning to. It wasn’t that she was motherly—more like a big sister. She must have been great with her own brothers.

“It looks good,” he said, prepared to have a truce with a person who could tame this brood.

Brad grinned. “It tastes even better. Oh, and you owe Sass three hundred and forty-eight bucks.”

“What?”

Sass threw Brad a reproving look. “I told you not to mention it. It’s not a big deal.”

“What three hundred dollars?” Jake demanded.

“For the electricity,” Brad continued, ignoring Sass. “They cut the power off this morning.”

“Bastards!” Jake was mortified that Sass should see he wasn’t coping.

“We found the bills in the pile of shit over there—” Brad waved toward the overflowing in-tray on top of the piano “—and Sass rang and paid over the phone with her credit card. Man,” he continued admiringly, “you should have heard the way she sweet-talked the guy into reconnecting us immediately. Tell you what, you’re going to have a fight on your hands if Sass decides against you guys.”

“Can it, motormouth.” Sass glared at him, then looked at Jake. “It’s not an issue. I’d have been paying to stay in a hotel. Consider this my contribution to staying here, instead.”

“Thank you,” said Jake stiffly, “but I won’t hear of you paying my bills.”

They locked eyes. Sass’s head tilted before she shrugged and smiled. That polite smile of hers, not the real one she kept for the boys, for Rob and Moana—for everyone except him. “Sure, pay me back whenever.”