Tempting the Negotiator by Zana Bell

Author:Zana Bell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Category
ISBN: 9780373783700
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2010-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

FOR THE NEXT COUPLE

of days Sass made sure she was never alone with Jake. It wasn’t difficult, for the days were very busy as she met with all the different interest groups to get her head around the issues. Jake was pretty busy, too, always off in one direction or another. Of course, they had to see each other in the evenings as, true to her word, Sass took over the cooking, much to the boys’ noisy appreciation. She enjoyed chatting with them when they came home from school, and couldn’t stop herself from checking on their progress with assignments. Her close interest acted as the spur she hoped it would, and they did knuckle down more to their studies—except for Brad. He was charming but slippery when it came to evading schoolwork.

After dinner it was fun to kick back with the guys to watch a movie or play video games. She couldn’t do the racing games, but found she had quite a talent for Guitar Hero. This minor success gave her a peculiarly warm glow.

During this time, Jake never once made a move on her. Had probably thought better of it, she decided. Good. She was acutely aware of him whenever he walked into the room, even felt she could somehow sense him a second before he arrived. But he gave no sign he was similarly attuned to her. Neither he nor the boys could resist giving her a hard time about her American ways. She didn’t mind. Quite the contrary, it made her feel part of the family. Not that they were a family as such, but somehow Jake made them seem as if they were.

Sass was in a good mood when she drove into Whangarimu on Friday morning to meet with the ABORD group. At the town meeting, Manu had impressed her with his intelligence and humanity, and today he’d brought along supporters with their own stories and reasons for being pro-development.

“It’s about jobs,” explained Eloise, a woman in her forties in a twinset and faux pearls. “We have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.” Her eyes dropped to her clasped hands as she added, “My husband killed himself after twenty months’ unemployment.”

Everyone fell silent, digesting what she’d told them.

“If the country doesn’t want me to be a dole bludger,” Neill, a pimply young man, finally said, “then it needs to give me a job. I’ve never had a real one.”

Sass could see his belligerence stemmed from deep-seated frustration, and remembered, with a stab, the same sullenness in her brothers.

Dorothy, at least seventy and a startling sight with bright purple bangs, nodded. “We’re losing too many young people. We need to use what we’ve got—and that’s scenery.” She tapped the tabletop with one purple-tipped finger to make her point.

“We’ve seen what the tourist dollar has done for Rotorua,” Manu continued, “and we’d like to bring some of that cash up here. Give our young folks opportunities.”

“And with the tourists coming in,” Dorothy added, “our arts community will do better.

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