“Why not?” he asked bluntly. “Why don’t you want to make plans? What’s happened during these past weeks, anyway? I know I haven’t paid much attention to you. Is that it?”

  “No. I understand that,” she assured him. “It’s just . . . this whole fame thing. Seeing you in the paper every day. Being with you here, seeing all that attention. Those girls. It’s made me realize that I’m not equipped to deal with all of it. I didn’t mean to say this. Not now. But it’s been there.”

  “So let me understand this,” he said slowly. “You don’t want to go away with me. Because my photo’s in the paper too much, and people recognize me.”

  “I just can’t handle this legend thing.” She struggled to explain. “It’s getting worse and worse. When I flew over here, I had to walk past a life-size picture of you, staring at me, on the jetway. My coffee cup on the flight had your picture on it, for heaven’s sake! It’s all too strange for me. You need somebody more glamorous, who can fit into this celebrity lifestyle. Who can deal with you being that kind of symbol for the country.”

  “Do you see me that way? As some kind of bloody symbol?” he demanded.

  “No. Not at all. But that’s my point. When I met you, I didn’t know who you were. What you meant to everyone in New Zealand. How big a deal it all was. And now I do, that’s all,” she admitted wretchedly.

  Drew stared at her, his gray eyes burning into hers. “I’m not any kind of legend,” he said at last. “I haven’t saved any lives. I’m no hero. I’m just a bloke who plays football. I’ve been lucky enough to play on the best squad in the world. And to play in the professional era, so I get paid well for it. Twenty years ago, I’d have had a regular job, be lacing up my boots in the afternoon to play footy. That’s all that’s changed. And don’t you see, it’s because they make such a fuss about it all. That’s why I need somebody who knows me better. Who knows I’m a pretty simple fella, and who wants to do those simple things with me. Somebody I can relax with, the way I can with you. Be myself with. I know I get shirty when you won’t let me buy you things. But at least I know you’re not with me because of what I can do for you.”

  “I want a simple life,” he went on. “A life like my parents have had. And I’ve been thinking that I’d like to have it with you. I wasn’t going to say that now, either. I know you’re not ready to hear it. Reckon I’d better, though.”

  Hannah drew back, startled. Then focused on the part of his speech she could deal with right now. “But you don’t have a simple life,” she pointed out. “You can’t say that.”

  “Why not?” he challenged her. “So I travel, some weeks. When I come back, though, how is my life not simple? I train, maybe do some publicity. Afterwards, I want to have dinner with you. Sit on the couch and watch sport on the telly. Go fishing, once the season’s over. Have a beer with my mates. It’s a job, that’s all. And I won’t always be an All Black, you know. Somebody else will be wearing the Number 6 jersey in a few years. I won’t be forgotten, maybe. But my photo won’t be in the paper every day either. Kiwis need their sportsmen to look up to. Somebody for the kids to admire. I’ve tried my best to be that person. But it won’t last forever.”

  “And what about after that? When you’re coaching, or whatever? Whatever you say, you’re always going to be an important person, Drew. And that’s wonderful. But it’s what makes me wrong for you. You’re always going to be larger than life. And I’m not.”

  “I’m getting pretty bloody tired of you telling me what I need,” he told her, his anger rising. “Seems to me I know my own mind. But that’s not what this is all about, anyway. It’s not about my being famous. So I’m well known just now. So I make a dollar or two from it. Likely that’ll continue, though I’m no David Beckham. But that’s not what’s bothering you.”

  “What do you mean?” she faltered. “It’s exactly what’s bothering me.”

  “No, it isn’t. It’s that I want you to count on me. That if you stay with me, if you marry me,” he said, overriding her shocked protest, “you’ll have to say yes, Drew. I rely on you. I depend on you. I trust you to take care of me. And you can’t stand the thought of depending on anyone. Because if you do, if you let down your guard, you’re sure I’m going to let you down. That I’m going to leave. With one of those stupid girls, maybe,” he threw out in frustration.

  He paced the room, came back to confront her. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that I may bloody well need you? That I may need someone to count on too? You’ve said often enough that you understand the pressure this job puts on me. Don’t you understand that I need someone who cares about me for myself, who doesn’t care whether we win or lose the game?”

  “I do understand that,” she faltered. “And you must know how much I care about you. But it isn’t good for me to rely on you. You’re so strong, it makes me want to lean on you. And I can’t do that.”

  “Damn it,” he exploded, “relying on somebody else doesn’t mean you’re not strong! Even I can’t be strong all the time. I need to be able to show you all of me, weakness and all. I need you to know the pressure sometimes gets to me, even if I don’t say it. And I don’t want to see just the pretty pieces of you either. I don’t want to know that you don’t trust me enough to let me see when you hurt, when you’re weak. That you don’t think I can take care of you.”

  “But I don’t want someone to take care of me! I know only I can take care of myself. I’ve always taken care of myself, and I can do it. I can’t rely on anyone else to save me. We’re all alone, in the end. I have to know that. That has to be OK with me, or I can’t survive. And it is. I don’t need to be rescued!”

  Drew pulled his hands through his hair. “Everyone needs to be rescued sometimes. Including me. And we’re not alone, in the end or any other time. Not if we’re lucky, we’re not. We’re in it together. That’s the whole point, don’t you see? But you won’t let me in. You won’t let yourself need me. You have to be so perfect, there isn’t room for anything less in your world. Not everyone leaves, Hannah. Not everyone is going to let you down. You don’t let people down. Why do you expect less from everyone else? Why do you expect less from me? What have I ever done, that you can’t trust me?”

  “Nothing,” she answered, trembling. “You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re wonderful. But don’t you see, I can’t. I can’t. I can’t make that kind of promise to you.”

  “Then that’s no kind of strength,” he told her, his anger replaced by sadness. “Not being able to take a risk. To keep yourself trapped like you do. Not having the courage to show all of yourself, even to me. Even to the man who loves you. You never even cry, do you know that? Women cry, Hannah. I’ve seen my mother cry, and she’s a strong woman. But you won’t even let me see you cry. And you won’t let me love you.”

  “I’m sorry.” She was twisting her fingers together now in her distress. “I care about you so much. But I’m scared. I can’t be all those things you need. I can’t be more than this. I can’t trust someone else to take care of me. It would be stupid, don’t you see? It just isn’t safe. And I can’t do it.”

  “If you can’t need me, though,” he told her in frustration, “that means you can’t let me love you, don’t you see?”

  “I can’t love you,” he repeated slowly. He started to say something else, stopped. Shrugged once in defeat, then turned and left the hotel room, closing the door behind him.

  Chapter 30

  Hannah sank down on the bed and hugged her arms around herself, trying to warm her chilled body. What had just happened? Why couldn’t she be normal? Why did she have to wreck this?

  If only they could have gone more slowly, she thought miserably. She needed more time. She wasn’t ready. Not yet.

  She shook her head in confused distress, her thoughts in a jumble. She couldn’t even figure herself out. She didn’t even understand what she wanted. And she didn’t know how to be what Drew needed.

  In agitation, unable to sit still, she paced the room, her arms wrapped around herself to hold in the pain, to hold herself together, trying to walk off her confusion and the turmoil of her thoughts. But nothing worked. His words kept echoing in her head, and her mind kept replaying the sight of him walking out. Walking away.

  She stopped at last, exhausted from emotion and her pacing, and sat down again in the side chair. Moving woodenly, she opened the minibar and poured a glass from the bottle of red wine there. The first time she had ever used a minibar. She had always resisted the overpriced items, and had wondered why anyone would incur such unnecessary expense.

  Alcohol wouldn’t solve her problems, she told herself. But when the glass was gone, she poured out another one and drank that, and followed it up with the scotch. It might not solve her problems, but it numbed the pain.

  She thought vaguely at some point that she should brush her teeth and change for bed. But the effort seemed monumental, far beyond her. Instead, she sank to the floor with her back against the bed, and stared in front of her. Now she was drunk, she thought fuzzily. Four . . five big drinks. That was just stupid. And she still felt terrible.

  At some point during the long night, she lay down on the floor, pulled a pillow to her and fell asleep, hugging it to her. She woke in the morning with a headache, an upset stomach, and a memory of confused, troubling dreams. Scratch alcohol off the anesthetic list, she thought. It had only made her feel worse.

  She suddenly realized she was due to spend a morning shift in the VIP tent. She couldn’t do it. It was too much. And so, for the first time in her stellar career, Hannah Montgomery called in sick when she wasn’t. Instead, she took a hot shower and dressed, drank some coffee and several glasses of water, and bought a box of Panadol from the hotel shop for her headache.

  Feeling a bit better, physically at least, she knew she had to get out of her hotel room. Anything was better than that. She didn’t feel up to changing into workout gear and using the hotel gym. So she just walked, all the way to Pitt Street Mall, Sydney’s fashion center, looking dully into store windows at the fabulous clothes and shoes. Partway along the street, she was drawn into the Victorian ornateness of the Strand Arcade, and found herself looking at even more shoes.

  So many shoes. They didn’t even have prices showing. That had to be a bad sign. They were beautiful, though. She began to pay attention, to distract herself from the pain and confusion in her head. She didn’t need new shoes, she reminded herself. But they were certainly pretty. She stopped, looking at a pair of beautifully shaped pumps in a black and brown zebra print. Funky and sexy, they seemed to call to her.

  Ten minutes later, she walked out of the shop carrying a brand-new pair of Marc Jacobs Italian-made shoes in a shopping bag. Six hundred dollars, she told herself dazedly. Australian. That was even more than U.S. dollars, she knew. She would have to take money from savings to pay her credit card bill. But her feet had carried her, and her hands had reached for her wallet and pulled out that card. She hadn’t seemed to have any control.

  Suddenly she stopped, right in the middle of the walkway. Someone bumped into her, muttered an apology. She found a bench in the middle of the crowded arcade and lowered herself into it, holding the bag with her new shoes in her lap and twisting its string anxiously, over and over, between her fingers. Out of control, she repeated to herself. She was out of control.

  She remembered Kristen’s questions. Didn’t she ever get tired of being so responsible all the time? Hadn’t she ever wanted to buy a pair of shoes she couldn’t afford, to drink too much, to sleep with Mr. Right Now, to call in sick to work?

  She had laughed, she remembered. None of those things had seemed even possible, then. But she had done all those things now. Every one of them.

  Well, didn’t that prove that love wasn’t for her? She wasn’t good at it. She couldn’t be enough. And other people wanted too much. That’s why she had always held back. Because she knew, deep down, that when they found out what she was really like, all the pieces she never showed anyone, they wouldn’t want her. And that would hurt too much. She needed to keep her own space around her, her own boundaries. Otherwise she wouldn’t be able to master herself. Wouldn’t be able to cope.

  She could do it, she told herself. She could be strong. She’d always done it. She just needed to get over this, and she could be strong again. But she didn’t feel strong. She just felt confused, and unhappy, and so alone.

  The rest of that day, and the following one, she spent trying to pull herself together. She made herself do a workout at the hotel gym, read a book to take her mind off her tumbling thoughts, eat in the hotel restaurant. She knew she should go back to Auckland, not stay for the game. It would be too hard to watch Drew and know she couldn’t have him. But she couldn’t bring herself to leave. She had to watch him play, had to will him to be all right.

  Perhaps nobody went to that World Cup final with a heavier heart. The excited supporters of both teams turned up prepared to celebrate and, as likely as not, wrapped in their team’s flag. Hannah saw the groups sporting their black clothing, their black flags with the silver fern, amidst all the Australian flags, the fans dressed in yellow and green, and her heart lifted for a minute to see the support for the All Blacks. Faces were painted and team gear was everywhere. Bands played at street corners, and the crowds spilled through the streets. Those who didn’t have tickets were finding spots at the outdoor Fanzones, or crowding into pubs to watch the game.

  Hannah walked soberly through the crowd, handed her ticket in, and found her seat. At least Reka wasn’t with her, she thought gratefully. Her sharp eyes would have seen too much. Instead, Hannah exchanged pleasantries with the women she knew, envying them their wholehearted devotion to their partners. Then relapsed into a silence that went unnoticed in the tense preoccupation gripping those around her.

  If Drew had been distracted by what had happened between them, she admitted as the team came onto the field, it certainly didn’t show. He led the team out with even more than his usual intensity, radiating determination. In the closeups on the big screen of the haka, his features were contorted with what looked like genuine rage, his performance of the stylized movements of the challenge ferocious and intimidating.

  But from the moment of the opening kick, it became clear that this game wouldn’t be easy. The Wallabies, on their own turf and in a stadium mostly full of their raucous, hugely supportive fans, had come for a fight.

  The rugby was exciting, Hannah could see that. At least, it would have been if she hadn’t cared so much. Both sides put on a blazing display of kicking, passing, and tackling skills. Penalties were few, both teams determined not to lose this game through a lack of discipline. At the break, the score stood at 14 to 10, with Australia in the lead.

  When the second half began, the All Blacks seemed to raise the bar a notch. Drew was everywhere on the field, exploding into the opposition with fierce tackles, barking out orders, forcing a turnover. The score remained stubbornly unchanged, however, as the minutes ticked down.

  With twenty minutes to go, Hemi reversed during a run, stumbled, and went down. Hannah’s breath caught as she saw him struggle vainly to rise, saw Drew standing over him and signaling the medical team. A replay showed the hyperextension of his knee that had brought him down, and she winced, imagining Reka’s distress as she watched from home.

  Hemi was helped off the field, and his replacement ran on. Still the score remained unchanged, as both teams’ defenses held firm, neither side able to gain an advantage. Finally, with nine minutes left on the clock, the All Blacks scored a try in a brilliantly choreographed series of moves that broke the stiff Australian defense, and the supporters in black breathed a huge sigh of relief at the reprieve. The kick following, however, went wide, and the Australian fans cheered wildly as the score sat at 15 to 14 in favor of the All Blacks.

  It was too close, Hannah thought in despair. All the Wallabies needed was a three-point penalty kick, and they would pull ahead again. They hadn’t scored during the entire half, but she could see the All Black defense tiring at the constant assault by the talented Australian backs.

  With just six minutes left to play, the Australians had moved within 20 meters of the New Zealand try line. As Drew tackled the Wallaby player and began to pull back again from the ruck, he seemed to shudder. Then fell to the ground, lying motionless.

  Hannah strained, trying to see. The blood drained from her head, and she felt sick as she searched the big screen overhead for some clue to what was happening. The camera zoomed in on Drew as he slowly pulled his knees under him, leaning on his hands for support, head down. And stayed there as the medical team began to come out onto the field.

  Time froze as she watched him, still down. The stadium grew quieter as he stayed there, unable to rise, on hands and knees.

  “Kneed in the head,” the man next to her explained to his companion. “Got a good knock there. Reckon it may be lights out.”

  “Bad news, eh,” the other man answered. “Don’t know if they can hold, without him.”

  Still on the turf, Drew shook his head as the medical team approached. Pushed off with his hands, and slowly got to his feet, to a roar from the crowd. Moved back into position and crouched, hands on knees, ready for play to resume.

  Hannah sat, her hands over her mouth, her heart thudding, trying to process the fact that he was all right. Seeing him lying on the ground, all his strength gone, something had shifted, changed inside her. She felt as if she were seeing things in focus for the first time. She didn’t care, she realized, what happened in this game. And it didn’t matter what happened in the future. It didn’t matter if she got hurt. Because nothing could hurt more than losing Drew right now.

  All her anguish of the past two days began to make sense. She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t throw away what they had. He mattered too much to her. She loved him, and she needed him. She needed him to be safe, and she needed to be with him, be there for him. Nothing else mattered, not any more.