Du Rose Sons

by Bowes, K T

  “Have you solved the mystery then?” Hana asked and turned, drying her hands on a dish towel.

  “Na, but we will.” Logan held his arms out to her and Hana snuggled into his chest while he stroked her hair with tender hands. “Alfred apologised to me outside.”

  Hana leaned her head back and looked up at her husband. “Wow.”

  Logan caressed the skin on her chin with his thumb and stared intently at her lips. Then he bent forward and kissed them, his fingers straying behind her head and up underneath her hair. He inhaled like he did before seducing her fully and Hana battled to come up for air. “No you don’t!” she exclaimed crossly. “I need details, you can’t just say something like that and then move on.”

  “I’m not moving anywhere,” her husband said softly and shifted his fingers under her shirt and into the small of her back. Hana pulled on his forearms, baring her chest as she reached back. Logan’s eyes flickered and he focussed on trying to kiss her neck and the flat space of exposed flesh above her breasts.

  “Stop it!” Hana giggled, her hands futile against arms strong enough to crack a bullwhip and halt raging cattle. “I want to know what he said.”

  “What do I get in return?” Logan asked, managing to kiss Hana underneath her jaw. She groaned in defeat, utterly outdone.

  “Whatever you want,” she squeaked. “Oh, hi Tama.”

  Logan whipped round and his grip relaxed slightly. Hana released herself and ducked under his arm, almost escaping but for a slap on the backside. “I’ll just get ya later,” her husband sniffed, pretending not to care.

  “Logan!” Hana complained from the other side of the kitchen island. “Tell me!”

  Her husband stepped forward quickly and Hana squealed and jumped, ready to run. Logan laughed. “Bedroom’s that way, babe. You’re heading in the right direction.” He gave her the sultry look that melted her bones and Hana sighed.

  “Fine. I don’t care anyway,” she said and sat down at one of the kitchen chairs. Logan planted himself in the one next to her and leaned back on two legs dangerously. He looked like a naughty teenager swinging on his chair in the classroom and his wife smirked. “I bet you were a nightmare at school,” she teased him.

  “Na, not me,” he said, his face a picture of innocence as he raised his long arms above his head and stretched with a groan. His tee shirt rode up exposing his gorgeous stomach, toned from sheer hard work and the occasional workout in the hotel gym. Hana reached out and stroked the line of dark hair that plunged invitingly into his jeans. Logan smiled at her and squared his chair back on four legs, patting his knees and holding his arms out to Hana. She moved across and plonked herself on his knees, cuddling into his soft neck. He smelled of hay and horses and she breathed in the comforting scent. “He said he was sorry for being a dick,” Logan coiled one of Hana’s red curls around his finger. “He asked me to start calling him ‘Dad’ again and gave me a hug. He also said he loved me and he’s never said that before.” Logan sounded a little choked as he recounted the conversation with Alfred.

  “Will you?” Hana said sleepily and felt Logan’s body grow still under her. Then he nodded.

  “Yeah. Reckon. Nothing’s really changed has it? He treated me like his son even though I never was. The only difference is that I now know Reuben was my birth father. Reuben’s dead and nothing’s gonna change that. Yeah, I’ll call him Dad.”

  “Good.” Hana closed her eyes and pushed her face further under Logan’s jaw.

  “See what I mean?” Tama’s voice sounded cross and Hana heard his bare feet pad across the tiles. “You’re always at it.”

  “I’m holding my pregnant wife!” Logan was short with the young man, “And I don’t appreciate you blabbing my family business to everyone. We weren’t ready to tell people yet and now everyone will know.”

  “Poppa Alf knew anyway!” Tama argued.

  “Nev didn’t!” Logan’s voice rumbled in his chest, lulling Hana soporifically and she relaxed and let her body go like a dead weight. Logan leaned back and adjusted his legs, wrapping his arms around her.

  “Sorry.” At least Tama sounded a little contrite.

  “Yeah, well, love’s-young-dream, when you’ve got your own house in order, you can go blabbing about mine!” Logan stared hard at his nephew. “Lucy returning your texts yet, boy?”

  Tama darted a nervous look at Hana and then he changed the conversation quickly. “Wanna watch a movie with me?”

  “Dunno,” Logan kissed the side of Hana’s face. “Hana?”

  Hana sat up and inhaled, shaking her head. “No thanks. I’m too tired. You two spend some time together. I’m going to bed. I need a cup of tea so you just go. I’ll sort myself out.” She yawned and slithered off Logan’s legs. He watched her go to the kettle and fiddle around. The boys shuffled off to the big lounge and set up the theatre system. They started looking through the DVDs in the cabinet and trying to choose something. They argued like school children.

  Hana took her hot drink over to the double doors. She needed to tell Logan to shut the curtains in case their ‘watcher’ turned up again. She heard the rumble of the men’s voices and saw them through the gap between the closed doors. They sat with their backs leaned against the sofa, DVDs scattered around them like wreckage. She turned away, leaving them to their choosing. It would only get them riled up again if she mentioned the voyeur. She was about to walk away when she heard Tama ask his uncle a question. “So what’s with all your gear in the spare room?”

  Hana froze in place and listened with her father’s adage in her ears. Those who listen at doors never hear good of themselves.

  “I behaved like an idiot and Hana moved me out.”

  “Really?” Tama laughed. “Respect! Good on her. What did you do?”

  There was a silence and the sound of someone’s jeans moving against the carpet. “You mean, what did I do to get thrown out or what did I do after she threw me out?”

  “Both,” Tama replied.

  “Well, to get thrown out, I let this stupid English woman make me believe that if I wasn’t nice to her, I wouldn’t get the chance to see Ryan, who she told me was my son.”

  “Hmmn. He looks like one of us. Do you think he is your son?” Tama sounded guarded, but then he would. He was currently the resident son and his place could be in doubt.

  “I dunno. I don’t remember her but he looks like us. I just don’t know.”

  “So how come she manipulated you so easily?”

  “It was a bloody shock, having some stranger turn up and claim that we were an item. Everything was going so well with Hana at the time and all I could think was, why me and why now? She turned up one night and asked for me and my life turned to crap straight after.”

  “Did she ask for you by name then?”

  “No, Tama. She asked for Elvis but he wasn’t available.” Logan mocked Tama as though he was thick.

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant did she specifically say Logan Du Rose?”

  “What does it matter?” Logan’s patience was running out. “Leslie said she wanted Mr Du Rose, so she got me.”

  “Is she hot?”

  “What?”

  “Is she hot, Logan? Would you have fancied her however many years ago?”

  “Sixteen years ago, plus nine months or so. I don’t know, Tama. I honestly don’t know. Everyone I went out with, apart from...Caroline, was a redhead because I was looking for Hana. So no, she isn’t and wasn’t my sort at all. But then I look at the kid and he’s pure Du Rose.”

  “So you still haven’t told me why Hana chucked you out. I got a few texts from the boys saying you were messin’ around with some English bird and Hana looked like she’d been kicked in the guts. That’s why I’m here. I had time off, but I wanted to see if youse two were ok.”

  Logan’s sigh was massive. It was unlike him to be so candid with anyone and Hana found it impossible to drag herself from the door, even though she knew she might hear something she didn’t
like. “I was so dumb,” Logan said. “All I could think about was that I had a son and Sylvia, the mother, she dangled him in front of me like bait. She came on her own and didn’t send for him until after she arrived and he came on the first plane out. But it took him a few days to get here. I felt trapped, like if I didn’t tolerate her then she would call it all off and I would never get to meet him. The trouble was, she told Hana stuff behind my back and made her think I didn’t love her anymore and wanted to set up with her and my new son.”

  “And Hana believed that of you?”

  “Oh mate, it was awful. I came around the corner into the stable yard with Sylvia clinging to my arm and kissing my cheek and there’s Hana and Phoe. I tried so hard to keep her out of the way so that she didn’t see and there she was just standing there looking at me. I’ve never felt so crap in my whole life.”

  “Geez Loge. You sure know how to make life hard for yourself!” Tama exhaled loudly. “And don’t say it. I know what I did with Anka and I really wish I hadn’t. But all those years wanting Hana and then you get her and screw it up. Have you got rocks in your head?” Hana saw her husband tug at a tuft of the rug underneath him, his clever fingers twisting the red threads. “So what happened next?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Logan’s voice was insistent. “It’s been the worst few weeks of my life. I don’t want to think about it.”

  “So Hana threw you out of the bedroom?” Hana heard Logan sigh deeply and Tama continued. “I know she did Loge. And why’s all your crap still in the spare room? You look ok together now so why haven’t you moved it all back in?”

  “I don’t know. I feel like I have to earn her trust back and I haven’t quite managed it yet. I’m waiting for her to say that it’s ok.”

  “What will you do if she never asks you to move back in properly?”

  “I don’t know! At the moment I’m just grateful for what I do have, can’t you see that? I nearly screwed up my whole life!”

  “You definitely did that, bro’. Talk about complicated! Why didn’t you just tell her the truth from the start?”

  “It...I don’t know that either. I wanted to but when I got home she’d cooked this gorgeous meal and she looked so beautiful and...I couldn’t do it. I was so angry with myself that I took it out on her. I’m an idiot.”

  “So how come you’re back on track now?” Tama sounded strangely over eager. “How do you mend something that’s so broken?”

  “We had this awful argument. I kept her up here and told her that if she left she couldn’t see Phoe again.”

  “Bloody hell!” Tama sounded angry. “That’s what they did to my mum. How could you do that?”

  “I know, I know. She had this hospital scan and was so scared to go, she got Flick to take her. It must have killed her driving out of those gates after what I said, but I get why she had to go to the hospital. I did that to her, I made her choose between our daughter and our son’s safety and I will never forgive myself for that. Jack found the appointment letter in the stable yard and brought it to me. He hit me in the nose!” Logan sounded almost offended. “I forgot how hard he could hit. Bloody hurt. He told me to get after her so I did. We had this massive row in the motel room and she said she was leaving me and taking both kids and she would make sure they hated me...something like that. I felt like I broke.”

  “I don’t think Ma would ever do that though, do you?”

  “You didn’t see her. I believed her when she said it. I told her I’d let her go but asked her to let me still see my kids.”

  “You caved?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I just bloody told you!”

  “Yeah but why? You can talk anyone round. Why give up?”

  Hana had to strain her ears and concentrate hard to hear Logan’s lowered voice. His unusual conversation with Tama had made her unutterably sad. Logan had never talked like this, not before the awful night in the motel. Her tea cooled in the mug.

  “I made her a promise,” he said, his voice laden with sadness. “About a year ago when we lived on the school site. I said that maybe if Alfred had let Mum go when she was so unhappy, she might still be alive now. I said if Hana ever got that desperate to leave me, I wouldn’t hold on to her.”

  Tama swore, an unrepeatable word. “I feel for you mate. You’re definitely a man of your word.”

  “But I’m not, see.” Logan’s voice cracked and Hana held her breath. “I’ve only ever told my wife one lie in our marriage and that was it. I’ve dodged stuff and omitted to tell her things but I’ve never outright lied to her face. Apart from that one time. I said it but I knew I would never be able to just watch her walk away from me. Then I sat in that motel room and those words came back to me and it’s possibly the worst moment of my whole life. I bargained and begged for my kids and it was like I was emptied out onto the carpet. I felt like nothing.”

  Tama sighed. “Sorry Loge. Sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

  “It’s ok. I’m workin’ it all out slowly.”

  “She didn’t follow through; she didn’t leave?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What? You think she still might?”

  “I don’t know, Tama. I’m terrified. I walk in the front door and I’m thinking, please God let her still be here. Everything’s fragile. I never thought I’d turn into a praying man but I bloody have recently. I feel like I need to be here all the time. Just in case. I really don’t need all this crap with the property and the damage. Not now.”

  “What exactly did you say to Ma, you know, when you gave in?”

  “Tama, I’m not going over it again. Are we watching a movie or not?” Logan sounded angry but something in Tama’s voice arrested Hana’s eaves dropping attention while a skin formed on the top of her tea.

  “Please tell me. I need you to help me.”

  “Bugger off.”

  “Please, Logan?”

  “Why?”

  Tama sighed. “You know all that stuff about Lucy coming to stay here for a few days and everything being ok?”

  “Yeah. Well, no actually. Hana might have swallowed that but I know she’s not answering your texts.”

  “How do you know that?” Tama sounded cross.

  “Because you keep looking at your phone, idiot! You’re sending texts but it hasn’t once beeped to receive one.”

  “Oh. Well, no she isn’t talking to me, but I don’t know why. Before I found out about you and Ma having problems, I was meant to go straight to Hamilton. I think Lucy might have dumped me.”

  Chapter 25

  “Ryan’s a great little worker.” Hana smirked inwardly and tried to press down the warnings from her conscience which whispered that her behaviour was un-Christian. “They really love him in the kitchen. I’ve never seen anyone chop that fast.”

  Sylvia laid the cutlery down on her plate and glanced around the formal dining room at the other guests before hissing, “He’s not here to work!”

  Hana shifted her weight on the chair and pulled her little girl’s pram towards her, so she could peer in at the sleeping pink-cheeked face. Phoenix lost her thumb and rooted for it, clutching Fluffy in a bear hug against her shoulder. She seemed fractious and disturbed.

  Helena ventured over to the table, straight backed and attractive with her blonde hair pulled neatly into a bun. She looked demure and suitably maitre d’ like until she turned so that only Hana could see her and beamed, giving the other woman a thumbs up. Hana smiled openly at her childishness. They had waited on tables together during Hana’s last pregnancy, under the auspicious gaze of Logan’s mother. It had been fun. Helena replaced her elated face with the demure one again. “Would Madam care for dinner?” she enquired, a picture of polite deference.

  “No thanks, I’m all good. I only came for a visit and shouldn’t really be in here dressed like a tramp. I ate with my nephew earlier. Congratulations on the promotion though. It’s awesome.”

  Helena�
�s eyes flashed out a coded message of bursting glee and then asked, “Is Tama back? I haven’t noticed the young girls get that glazed-over look yet so he must be hiding his muscles somewhere.”

  “Not Tama, no. I ate with Ryan.”

  A look of consternation plastered itself over Helena’s well-bred Swedish face and she nodded once and left, knowing better than to pry. Her new position also prevented her from adding to the cauldron of gossip and Hana’s revelation burned like charcoal in the pit of her stomach, just as the cunning Hana Du Rose had known it would.

  “Why are you telling people that Ryan’s your nephew? You know damn well he’s Logan’s son!” Sylvia glared at the woman who stood in the way of affluence and rescue.

  “Oh well, the DNA testing Logan’s arranged for the end of the week will prove or disprove that, won’t it? That’s what the trip to Auckland is for.” Hana rose to leave the small table and retrieved her pram from next to the wall. Phoenix stirred and sat bolt upright with staring eyes like something from a film about the undead, before laying back down and snuggling her soft toy harder into her stomach. The smile that the mother bestowed on her baby girl was maternal and loving and Hana’s hand went instinctively to her stomach, smoothing the cloth over her son’s firm outline. She hadn’t meant to play her hand quite so quickly but it was too late now and she fixed her emerald eyes on Sylvia’s face, noticing how sculpted with make-up it was. Dear God, please forgive me in advance for cussing and being nasty.

  Sylvia’s complexion had mottled with the realisation that Hana was pregnant with another of Logan’s children and felt her claim on the handsome olive-skinned man diminish. What thread of hope remained, Hana smashed with all the grace and poise of Jack’s old red Jeep going through a car showroom window. “Logan’s never been a student in England, but I understand his brother, Michael was. He did an internship at a London hospital and the timing fits with your pregnancy. You can try tracking him down at Auckland General if you still want to seek paternity, but he’s probably got more unclaimed offspring than a randy sailor. He’s also an asshole, so you won’t get anything out of him.” She calmly turned to leave but Sylvia hadn’t completely let go of her tenuous hold on Hana’s branch of the Du Rose legacy.