Isaac couldn’t have asked for a better Wednesday afternoon.

The sun was shining—autumn in the subtropical Far North was still warm—the school playing field beneath his running shoes was firm, the grass freshly mown. He’d timed his arrival to coincide with the last PE class of the day and the kids evacuating the locker rooms in a chaotic rush. Once the last of the students had streamed toward the school buses or to their homes within walking distance in Bounty Bay, Isaac used his newly acquired key to unlock the equipment room.

The well-stocked equipment room and attached male and female locker rooms were housed in a prefab building at the end of the school fields. Back when Isaac had been a student, they’d had to change into their sports gear on the other side of the school grounds in the gymnasium, and then trek over to the fields for outdoor activities. One of the first things he and Jackson had done together for their community as their careers took off was to quietly donate the funds to build a new equipment room and changing facilities. With a roll only averaging around five hundred students, and never enough government funding, Bounty Bay High had appreciated it.

Isaac stood in the equipment room doorway, staring at the nylon bags of rugby and soccer balls, the cluster of hockey sticks, the stacks of marker cones. The air had stilled inside, dust motes drifting down from the high windows and a lingering smell of sweaty bodies and earthy grass tracked over the linoleum filling the small space.

“What do you think about Olivia wanting to play, mate?” he asked Jackson quietly.

But Jackson, as he had for the past five years, kept his own counsel. It still felt unreal. Still felt beyond fucking strange that his mate wasn’t there with a ready opinion, because Jackson had an opinion on everything.

“I like to think you’d be proud. I like to think you’d trust me to be a good coach to her.”

Will you stop being so bloody serious? Jesus, man. Can’t you just YOLO even a little bit?

Isaac shook Jackson’s voice out of his head and picked up a bag of rugby balls. The bulkiness of them bumping against his leg was a sensation he hadn’t felt in a long time. He glanced down at his black T-shirt and black track pants, instantly regretting his thoughtless choice of sportswear for his first practice. An ex-All Black wearing all black. Nice. The girls would think him such a poser.

A scuff behind him in the hallway startled him out of his thoughts.

“Um, need a hand?”

Natalie’s soft voice, with just a hint of sultry blues rasp in it, caused an entirely different visceral reaction than the jolt his heart gave at the sudden interruption. He spun toward her, the ball bag bouncing off the wall and sending hockey sticks clattering to the floor. She stood a safe five steps behind him, then took a further step backward.

“Oops. My bad,” she said.

Nope, it was all his bad. His bad for noticing the light tan covering her long bare legs in her mid-thigh-length running tights and shorts. Definitely his bad for noticing her slim-fitting T-shirt that hugged each and every one of her curves. Obviously she knew enough about rugby practices to wear the correct gear—loose fitting clothes made it too easy for an opponent to snag you—but they weren’t helping his rising blood pressure any.

“It’s fine.” He tossed the bulky bag near her feet. “I’ll grab you some cones to carry out to the field. They’re lighter.”

“I’m quite capable of carrying your balls,” she said, then her brow crumpled. “I mean, the balls. The ball sack”—a pink tinge highlighted her cheekbones and her gaze shot sideways to the hallway wall—“I mean, the sack containing the rugby balls.”

Something fizzed like overflowing soda bubbles in Isaac’s chest and for a split second he didn’t recognize it, until the sensation spilled out of him in a belly laugh. Natalie’s gaze zipped from the wall to him, her green eyes widening and her cheeks now the color of someone who’d run ten laps around the field.

“By all means, don’t let me deprive you of carrying my ball sack. Have at it.” He continued to chuckle as her eyes went from wide to narrow slits.

Nat bent and hauled the bag up, the slender muscles in her arms flexing. She angled her chin at him. “In my experience, playing with balls is never as exciting to women as it is to men.”

Maybe you’ve been doing it wrong, was on the tip of Isaac’s tongue, but he swallowed it.

“Tell that to the girls when they arrive—actually, don’t. We’ll have our hands full with all the giggling without talking about balls,” he said instead.

After a two-second beat her lips twitched into a reluctant smile. “You have no idea. Livvy’s been talking about this practice nonstop.”

Right choice on axing his initial response. Her embarrassment was as cute as hell, but Isaac wouldn’t stray into the inappropriate zone and risk shutting her down again. Not when they were starting off this first practice with smiles instead of snarls.

“It’s a stellar day for it.”

And…there went his suave conversational skills. Not that he’d ever had any, and definitely not with Natalie, who was still close enough that he could take two long strides forward and tuck a stray curl from her ponytail behind her ear. He wouldn’t, though. His permission to touch her—the friend-zone cheek-kiss greeting they used to exchange—had been revoked the moment Jackson died and Isaac had returned to New Zealand a broken man.

“It is.” She half turned toward the field, where a group of girls was walking toward them. “I’ll take these out and hurry the girls along to get changed,” she added and lugged the balls out the door.

A Herculean effort was required for Isaac to duck back inside the equipment room for the marker cones and to keep his eyes off Nat’s ass. So sue him, he’d never be able to touch, but unless he was blind and deaf he could still observe that Natalie Fisher was beautiful—with a body built to drive a man wild. Thank God in ten minutes’ time when practice started he’d be too busy to pay attention to his hormonal urges.

Twenty minutes later Isaac leaned against the goalpost closest to the locker rooms and observed something else altogether. He had ten rugby balls in a neat line at his feet, a dozen cones set out on the field for the first drill after warm-up, and one volunteer assistant who continued to shoot worried glances to the playing field entrance.

What he didn’t have was enough warm bodies.

He had Olivia, and Owen’s niece Morgan, and what appeared to be three of their friends. And he had another two circles of chatting girls, each sitting a we’re not with them distance away from each other on the grass. A total of thirteen. And unless these girls were completely clueless—and he had some suspicions there—they, too, would realize they needed a minimum of fifteen players and seven reserves to form a team.

Also conspicuously absent was Rangi-Marie, who’d been on the girls’ rugby team since she’d started Bounty Bay High. Likely his being the new coach had something to do with that, but he’d expected—maybe unrealistically—more from his little cousin.

Whatever.

He stopped propping up the goalpost and crossed the field to stand, arms folded, in front of the chattering girls.

“Looks like this is us, then,” he said.

The group of younger girls, including Olivia and Morgan, immediately stopped talking. A few of the older ones gave him the side-eye, and although they weren’t brave enough to continue talking at high volume, muttered conversations continued. He blew three short bursts on the whistle hanging around his neck.

Thirteen pairs of eyes—fourteen counting Natalie’s—locked onto him, and the chatter ceased completely. Some of the girls had their hands clapped over their ears. Better.

“On your feet,” he said.

Ten of the girls leaped up. Three rose insolently slower.

“You three.” He pointed at the threesome now standing in hip-shot teen arrogance with bored I don’t want to be here expressions. “Ten push-ups. Now.”

“Why?” the tallest of the girls demanded. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

Isaac closed the distance between them, forcing each of the girls to make eye contact with him. “Your attitude is wrong. When your coach says ‘do this’ you do it. No questions, no hesitation. It’s how you learn to operate as a team. As a winning team.”

“This isn’t the army,” said another of the girls, a scowling blonde. “And there aren’t enough girls here for a team anyway.”

“Yet.” Natalie came alongside him. “There aren’t enough this week, but hopefully by next week there will be. Girls who want to represent the school and maybe even the Far North if they’re willing to do the work.”

Isaac glanced down at Natalie in time to see a cheeky smile spread across her face.

“Maybe even win more games than the Bounty Bay boys’ rugby team this year,” she continued.

Giggles and elbow nudging spread throughout the group. The three girls exchanged glances, and the blonde sank down to her hands and knees.

“Bet you can do them faster than Lynda and Casey,” Olivia said.

The other two girls dropped to their knees and the counting and cheering began. Once the push-ups were complete, Isaac led the girls through some stretching exercises and then for a five-lap run around the field.

He had to admit being back on the wide open space of a playing field, sweat pouring off him as he ran, felt good. All the girls and Natalie lapped him on the first circuit of the field, but by the third, over three-quarters of the girls, including Olivia and Morgan, had slowed to a shambling walk, puffing like steam engines. Fitness was obviously an issue to address.

Next he took them through some simple ball passes, splitting them into two groups with Natalie evening up the teams. Ball carriers passed to receivers, concentrating on distance, speed, and accuracy. Isaac’s gut clenched as balls were constantly dropped or thrown in wobbly, inaccurate passes. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it was like herding unmotivated cats trying to focus their attention on his demonstrations and instructions, when they were so easily distracted by laughter and ribbing when one of them once again screwed up and dropped the ball. By the time he blew his whistle and told the girls to take a break and hydrate, his throat was raw from yelling, and the tension in his muscles felt tight enough to snap.

The touch of Natalie’s hand on his forearm was like a firecracker shoved under his skin.

“What?” He jerked his arm away.

“Drink this.” She held out his water bottle, her mouth set in a terse line. “I want to talk to you privately behind the locker rooms while the girls are resting.”

He drank half the water, dropped the bottle by the goalpost, then followed her across the grass, suspecting the bristling woman leading the way was about to cut his five-inch height advantage down to her level. And enjoy doing it.

* * *

Behind the changing rooms wasn’t Nat’s best location idea for a come-to-Jesus chat with Isaac. It was a little too private. And cramped. With the school’s boundary fence a few feet away from the building, it forced her to be closer to him than what was comfortable. But with the girls going in and out of the locker rooms, she couldn’t risk them overhearing their conversation.

She leaned against the fence, each heartbeat a donkey-kick inside her chest—and not solely due to the nonstop drills—and waited. Isaac appeared around the building’s corner, all big and broody and hot. Sweaty hot, not hot hot. Though he was. Hot. With a black T-shirt molded to his impressive chest, and his biceps looking as if they were carved from one of Sam’s kauri slabs. And, oh God, the pheromones pouring off him as he strode toward her.

Gone was the glimmer of humor she’d inadvertently caused with her earlier brain-edit-fail comment about ball sacks. His laughter and the glimpse of a grin she hadn’t seen for years had thrown her off guard, and because of the physical intensity of the drills, she hadn’t had time to wrestle that guard back in place. Now with his resting bitch face back in position, Isaac mirrored her stance by leaning against the building opposite.

“Last time a girl invited me behind the locker rooms, she had things on her mind other than a lecture,” he said.

Nat just bet the girl did, but she wasn’t going to take that bait today. Bad enough she’d already fumbled onto the topic of testicles today, she wouldn’t lead this conversation in the direction of teenage make-out sessions. Or adult make-out sessions. Because she definitely wasn’t considering the firm shape of Isaac’s mouth and whether or not it would soften at the caress of a woman’s lips.

She fisted her hands, folding her arms high across her breasts. “How do you think the practice is going?”

His mouth twisted. “Yeah, not good.”

“The girls are trying.”

“They’re not trying hard enough. If they spent more effort listening to instructions and concentrating on hand-eye coordination, and less on making sure their hair looks good and swapping gossip, maybe we could’ve made some progress today.”

“That’s a harsh expectation for a first practice. And the girls are listening to you. It’s just that you’re…” She waved a hand in his direction, taking in all the height, muscle, and bad-to-the-bone ’tude.

“I’m what?” His eyebrow lifted in challenge.

“Unintentionally intimidating.”

“I can’t help my size.”

Or being buff as hell. Stop it, Nat. “It’s not only your height. It’s the whole Isaac Ngata, former Blues, former All Blacks superstar.”

One of his carved-from-kauri biceps twitched. “I can’t help that either. But I’m not that guy anymore.”

Against her will and all reason, she crossed to lean beside him. Far enough away to keep an invisible buffer between them; close enough to show a gesture of empathy. Like Isaac, she kept her gaze locked on the boundary fence.

“To those girls, you are,” she said. “How would you have felt aged thirteen or fourteen if Jonah Lomu or Sean Fitzpatrick had taken over as coach?”

A gruff, gravelly sound from beside her could either have been a rumble of amusement or disagreement.

“I would’ve shit myself, then pulled out all stops to impress them,” he admitted.

“The girls are still in the shitting themselves phase, and the more frustrated you become with them—and it shows, you know—the more it’ll chip away at what little confidence they have.”

Isaac raked both hands through his hair and thunked his head back against the wall. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m the worst possible guy for the job. I’d just be getting the girls’ hopes up when we haven’t enough players to even form a team.”

Nat turned toward him, tiny prickles of awareness racing over her bare arms. “Next practice will be better.”

He kept his big hands locked in fistfuls of his thick dark hair. “Why? Because suddenly the girls or the girls’ parents who were put off by their shit perception of the new coach will suddenly change their minds?”

“I changed my mind.”

Isaac released his hair and lowered his arms, rolling his broad shoulder to the side so that he faced her. “About me? Or about me coaching Olivia?”

Had she changed her mind about him? Her reaction to being this close—the racing heart, knotted stomach, jellied leg muscles, and feeling that the slightest breeze could send her spinning away like an autumn leaf—was just leftover grief, anger, and a weird sense of betrayal. Wasn’t it? Or were the little twinges caused by a normal female reaction to an attractive male? A female who hadn’t been intimate with a man in a long, loooong time. A veritable dried-up raisin of a female.

Nat cleared her throat. “I believe you’ve got what it takes to be an incredible coach, and I’ll make it my mission to get you more players by Saturday.”

“Great.” His gaze caught hers and sucked her in. “But you didn’t answer the question. Have you changed your mind about me, Natalie?”

The sound of her name on his lips did disturbing things to her insides, but she held her spine straight even when her vertebrae threatened to collapse like a condemned building.

“You were one of Jackson’s closest friends, and while you knew him in ways I didn’t, I didn’t really know you at all. You’d show up at our house to hang out with him, usually to talk rugby. You’d send presents for Olivia at Christmas and for her birthday, and you’d make a point of talking to me at official functions because you knew I hated them.” Nat pressed her mouth together, jerking her face away from his intense gaze and widening her eyes to try to ease the prickle of hot tears gathering in the corners. “You’re also the last person to see my husband alive.”

Isaac sucked in a breath, his chest expanding under his folded arms. He released it in a huff and shook his head. “I’m the person who went from being Jackson’s friend to the man you hate.”

The utter lack of bitterness or self-pity in Isaac’s voice curled around her throat and squeezed. Isaac thought she hated him? That she was so screwed up by grief after all this time that she’d let bitterness and resentment eat away at her soul?

“Isaac, I don’t hate you.”

Their gazes met. Dark to light, pain to shared pain—and something more. A connection, tenuous and new, that had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the past.

“Please believe me, I don’t,” she repeated and swayed forward, closing the short distance between them.

She gripped his forearm, and his smooth skin shifted over the corded muscles beneath. Her breathing hitched, brain firing off let go messages. But her body rebelled, denying a direct order not to transmit a low buzz of sensation through her fingers. One particularly wild fingertip stroked back and forth on his arm, bumping over the raised ridge of a vein.

She’d never touched Isaac like this, not in all the years she’d known him. She wasn’t a natural-born flirt who would brush against a man in casual conversation as if it were no big thing. And she’d certainly not touched another man, other than a handshake or platonic hug, since the moment Jackson Fisher walked into her life fifteen years ago.

Nat’s fingers sprung open, her palm heated to such a degree she expected to see flames flickering up from her fate line. Or heart line. She stepped backward, folding her arms across her chest again.

“So in recap, I just wanted to ask you to be patient with the girls and let them get to know you.” Oh God—her voice was shaking as much as her knees. “And I’ll try to get some more girls here on Saturday and, um, we better get back out there.” She finished in a rush.

“We better.”

Isaac’s hooded gaze traveled down her face to linger—she was almost sure of it—on her mouth. He didn’t move, but his charisma, the sheer force of his presence, pushed her back another step. Into the Buffer of Self-Preservation, she told herself as she spun around and quick-marched down the side of the building. Getting that close to Isaac carried the risk of another touch. Of his hand cupping her face. His lips brushing hers, tasting, testing, taking until the Buffer of Self-Preservation was null and void.

No, he wouldn’t kiss her. That was her imagination running amok. Nat waved at the girls and donned her most enthusiastic let’s kick ass smile.

He wouldn’t kiss her, but oh…

Isaac jogged past her and without hesitating in a movement that was both graceful and oddly erotic, scooped up a spare rugby ball and passed it to Olivia—who caught it perfectly.

What if she lost her mind and kissed him?