by Bowes, K T
“How do you know what the developers offered Dad?” Anahera fired the question at her son and a red rash began on her neck, spreading outwards until it blemished her jaw and chin as well. “Who told you, Asher? Is it whoever’s making you do this to us?”
Asher blanched, his olive skin paling on his lovely features. Hana struggled to catch up, knowing she had just missed something fairly major. “Sod off, Mum!” Asher shouted at the woman who had birthed and raised him in a warzone, without thought for herself. “Just shut up. You’re useless!”
His mother’s face crumpled in grief and Hana was instantly appalled. She had worked in an all-boys school for sixteen years and the angry young man reduced himself to the level of a mardy fourteen year old in her eyes. Hana’s face burned with righteous indignation. “Don’t you dare speak to her like that! Who do you think you are?” She faced him down, a furious banshee with flame red hair and eyes the colour of emerald gems. Asher was tall like all the Du Rose men. He turned his spite and sense of injustice fully on her instead.
“Who do I think I am? Oh, I know who I am, lady. I’m the rightful heir and you’re a bastard’s wife.”
Before even considering her actions, Hana slapped him straight across the face. He recoiled with a sneer on his lips and worked hard not to touch his bristled skin to check for damage. Hana’s palm stung from the action and the scratchy sensation from Asher’s beard.
Idiot! Her inner voice reprimanded her. Hana’s pounding heart ached in her chest and she touched the pacemaker under her left collarbone with the tips of her fingers. Her right hand shook as she rested it on her blouse, feeling the comforting bulge under her skin. Asher’s jaw worked furiously in his face, the bone appearing and disappearing through his stubble. “You’re a bitch!” he said but his tone was less frightening and his eyes held a flicker of respect for Hana. Something inside her head snapped with the increased blood pressure and she sought an end to the awful situation.
“You know what?” she bit at him. “If my husband’s so distasteful to you, why don’t you just leave like Kane did? Why are you sticking around? Go and make your own life, do your own thing. You’re big enough and ugly enough to make your own legacy and do a better job of it than us.”
“What?” Asher’s jaw dropped and his mouth hung slackly open. Anahera’s eyes bugged as though they were going to pop out of her head and Hana gulped. She had just done exactly what they expected. Inwardly she kicked herself for her own poor judgement. She had forced herself into a corner and didn’t know how to extricate herself from the situation without doing more damage. She was like a serrated knife, plunging herself into a crisis and turning it into a tragedy on her way out.
Without losing any of her credibility, Hana shook her head and smiled sadly at the conflicted young man, softening her tone. “What do you want from me, Asher?” She opened her arms, palm up in a gesture of exasperation. “Do you want me to tell you to leave? I can do that if you want and my husband will back me up, whether he agrees with me or not. What do you want?”
The young man’s jaw worked some more, grinding his nice teeth without mercy. Hana waited and then shook her head at his lack of reply. “Whatever,” she said dismissively. “You think what you like. My husband paid a fair price for this land and cleared other debts you probably weren’t even aware of. He gave your father the opportunity to stay on whānau land and work the whenua as he always wanted.” Hana turned to leave, the destruction already complete. “I’ll give you two choices, Asher. Change your attitude around my family and stop bad mouthing my husband, or you can go. Personally, I don’t care which you choose. It’s entirely up to you, but if I ever hear you use that word for my husband’s heritage again, I’ll throw you off this property myself. Do we understand each other?”
The young man ground his teeth some more and Hana waited, determined to see this out even if she had to wait all day. She raised her eyebrows expectantly at him, her heart beating a tattoo in her chest and sending the blood way to fast to her brain. When he still didn’t reply, she shrugged and turned. “Phoe!” she called pleasantly down the hallway and her voice echoed off the newly painted walls and ceiling of the homestead. Out of the corner of her eye, Hana saw Anahera slump back down on the sofa again and put her face in her hands.
“Mama!” Phoenix sounded excited and trotted into the hallway from a bedroom to the right. Her curls bounced with her ungainly run and she held a small object out in her hand. Wiri sauntered after her casually, his hands rammed into the front pockets of his jeans. He exuded pure ‘Du Rose’ with every fibre of his being. “Look what Wiri gived me!” Phoenix ran into Hana’s legs and held the object aloft. A small blue toy car sat in her hand, teetering on the tiny palm as though parked there and left to its fate.
Hana squatted down to look, biting her bottom lip and wondering how to extract herself from a situation which seemed to get worse by the second. She felt Asher’s eyes boring into her back and heard the victory trumpets in his heart. Here they go again, taking what belongs to others. Hana could imagine his thought pattern. “It’s beautiful,” she told her daughter.
“Like Tama’s,” Phoe cried, only really interested in the similarity.
“It is, clever girl,” Hana praised her daughter. “So how about we borrow it for tonight to show Tama and then put it back in Wiri’s room with its brothers and sisters? Then when Wiri comes to play with you, he can bring it again? Like a game. Yes?” Hana worked hard to sell the story and Phoenix knitted her brow in concentration. Please don’t kick off. Please don’t kick off, Hana pleaded inside her head, fully prepared to deal with it if she did, but really not wanting to with her current audience. Phoenix looked at Wiri for confirmation and he smiled generously at her.
“K,” she said happily. “Showin’ Tama. You come my house, Wiri,” she said and pointed her finger into his chest.
“Ok.” He smiled.
Hana closed her eyes and swallowed while her back was still turned. Stress waves rolled over her whole body. “Awesome! Maybe Wiri would like to do baking at our house one day this week?”
Both children’s eyes lit up and Phoenix licked her lips exaggeratedly. “Makin’ Tama cakes!” she cried and bounced on the spot. She wasn’t yet competent at completely leaving earth and wobbled slightly on the downward. Wiri smiled and looked thrilled with the invite.
“Great then,” Hana said with false bravado. “Wiri can come for his car and bake cakes.” She looked across at Anahera but the woman kept her head down. Feeling awkwardly and with her heart still thudding in her chest, Hana left the house. She pushed her feet into her boots and did up the zips but Phoenix, frustrated with her tiny trainers, stripped off her tights on the doormat and carried it all in her arms. Wiri stepped out onto the gravel like all New Zealand children, without shoes. Phoenix was rapidly becoming one of them.
Hana strapped Phoenix into the car seat in the back of the truck while Wiri stood patiently next to her, one hand resting on the arm of the car seat. He looked wistful, as though he wished he could come with them and Hana felt torn. She bobbed down to his level. “Darling, please don’t run away like that again, will you? It scares me that you walked so far on your own.” The child nodded and looked sad. “Wiri, the house telephone can ring the hotel, did you know that?” He shook his head. “Do you know your numbers yet?” Hana asked him and he nodded. In the dust on the truck door, Hana wrote a zero with her finger. “That one. Press that one and you’ll get through to someone on reception. Tell them it’s Wiri and ask them to find Hana. Do you understand?” He nodded.
“Look for the circle and ask them to find Hana,” he sighed. She nodded. He was a bright boy. So much of his situation reminded her of all she had heard about Logan’s upbringing. He had been a small, dark haired boy trapped in a lonely, unhappy life, with no understanding of the wars which raged around over his head. Hana wanted to scoop Wiri up and take him home and fought the maternalism that screamed inside her head on his behalf. No, she defied it
. I need to stop collecting other people’s children to love better.
“Hana,” Anahera’s voice sounded strangled as her feet crunched across the gravel in her slippers. “Thanks for bringing Wiri home. He just gets really fed up of all the upset.” Her eyes welled up with tears again. “I’m sorry about Asher. I never realised until now that it’s all about the money with him. I thought it was about the land but it’s not.” A sob escaped her throat and Hana sighed and put her arms around the other woman. “He’s not a horrid kid,” Anahera cried. “Please don’t think badly of him.”
“I won’t,” Hana promised. “My son can be a total jerk sometimes. I’ve lost count of the number of fights we’ve had recently. It’ll all be fine, I’m sure.”
Anahera shook her head. “I don’t think it will. Not unless he...” The woman stopped and pulled away from Hana’s kind arms. “Thanks for bringing Wiri,” she said again and dried her eyes on her sleeve. She reached for the little boy’s hand and he gripped hers placidly, smiling up at Phoenix with a look of failed nonchalance that was far too old for his years.
Phoenix reached out with her arm and stretched towards her little friend. She pretended to be chatting like the women. She opened and closed her mouth and tossed her head as though having a silent conversation. Wiri laughed and she sniggered. “Luff you Wiri,” she said softly and he crinkled up his eyes, the weight of the world for that single moment, no longer bearing down on his wise, four-year-old shoulders.
Chapter 35
“Aye? What? Can you say that again?” Logan’s brow furrowed and he stuck his index finger in his other ear and listened intently to the voice coming out of his phone. “So you’ve stopped work why?”
Hana stopped plating up the sandwiches she had made for lunch and watched her husband, sensing trouble. He disconnected the call and turned to her with a strange look on his face. “What is it?” Hana asked, her voice laden with fear.
“Nothing. It’s fine. I’ll sort it out.”
“Logan!” Hana slammed the plate on the table and the sandwiches jumped off and landed on the stripped wood. “You’re doing it again!”
Her husband hovered in the doorway, evidently pursuing the latest crisis and skipping lunch. “I have to go, babe. I’ll explain later.”
Hana took a step towards him. “No! You tell me now and start treating me like an equal or there’s really no point me being here. I’m not prepared to live like this anymore. I’m not a child and I’ve had enough.”
“Please let me go?” Logan implored her but Hana stood her ground, fed up of the shroud of mystery she had existed in for the last two years. She put her hands on her hips in a show of defiance and faced her formidable husband, refusing to quail at the dark flash of anger that lit his grey eyes in warning. Her rounded belly made her feel ridiculous, poking out in front of her like a comic stomach. “Hana!” he snapped, his teeth gritted.
Hana sighed in defeat once again. She put her hands down by her sides and shook her head sadly. A wave of misery crossed her face and she turned away, giving up the idea of ever being an equal partner in her marriage. “Don’t take the ute,” she shot over her shoulder at Logan. “I’m going out.”
“Hana, please?” Logan’s tone had changed to one of irritation. “I need the car, I have to go now.”
“Fine, I’ll get a taxi and charge it to you,” she called from the hallway. “Come on Phoe, let’s get your coat on.”
Hana heard Logan’s footsteps padding down the hall after her and shook her head in frustration. She sensed him in the room and when she glanced up, his face was dark and unreadable. “Where are you going?” he asked, biting his lip and Hana’s chest stabbed with guilt at what she’d caused. She was calling in at the museum but realised Logan imagined a more non-returnable journey. She cursed herself as the spiteful part of her sought to capitalise on his insecurities.
“Mind your own business and I’ll mind mine!” she bit, regretting the look Phoenix gave her, a silent reprimand of solidarity with her father.
“Hana, I have to go but I promise I’ll tell you later.” Desperation littered her husband’s words.
“Don’t bother,” she retorted. “I’m quickly losing interest in everything to do with you and your business dealings.”
“Don’t be like this. I’m just trying to protect you.” An edge of begging had crept in too and Hana felt cruel but at the same time powerful.
She did up the buttons on her daughter’s coat and waited while Phoenix bent down to collect her squashy pony. “Grab your shoes, sweetie,” Hana told her with a reassuring smile and Phoenix toddled off to retrieve her boots. Hana rounded on Logan. “I don’t need your protection, I need your honesty. Your secrecy is what got us into this mess of mistrust in the first place! Can’t you see that? Have you actually learned nothing?”
Logan pursed his lips and exhaled slowly. “You’re really gonna wish you didn’t know this.”
“Whatever Logan!” Hana pushed at her husband’s strong chest as he blocked the doorway into Phoenix’s bedroom but her slight fingers contacted a rock hard surface that didn’t move an inch. Placing one arm across to completely prevent her exit, Logan dug his other hand into his jeans pocket and retrieved his phone.
“What?” he said to the caller with a definite edge of antagonism. Hana used the opportunity to try and duck under his arm and with a smirk, he anticipated her move and lowered his arm to in front of her bowed head. “I’m coming now! Oh and Tama, keep everyone away from it until the cops get there. Look I won’t be long, I promise. Just manage everything for me please mate?”
Hana stood up straight, her face awash with enough confusion and guilt to betray a woman who had badly misjudged a situation. “What is going on?” she asked.
Logan placed both hands on her shoulders. “Are you leaving me?” he asked, biting his full lower lip.
“No!” Hana almost shouted. “I didn’t leave you! I went to a hospital appointment and we argued. Because of all the secrecy. If you don’t start levelling with me then we really have no future. But right now, I’m going down to see Will.”
“Oh.” Logan’s jaw worked and his face looked chastened. “Sorry.” He took a deep breath and secured his hands on Hana’s shoulders. “I have to go to Nev’s new place. The construction company are there assembling the new barn in the paddock behind his house.”
Hana nodded, remembering the discussion about a new barn for equipment needed to reclaim areas of Reuben’s neglected old farm, which had been taken over by scrub. Logan took a deep breath and swallowed while Hana looked up at him impatiently. “They dug the footings out the other day and now they’ve come back and...there’s a body in the hole.”
Hana’s face tilted as though she needed to let his words percolate into a different side of her brain. She narrowed her eyes against her husband’s impatience. “A what?”
“A body, Hana. A dead person. I need to go now. The cops are on their way and I need to be there!”
“Ok.” Shock wiped all expression from Hana’s face but as Phoenix appeared waving her favourite pair of red wellies, her mother seized control. “You drive to Nev’s place and then I’ll take the ute to the hotel so that I can get home after I’ve seen Will.”
Logan huffed in irritation but Hana’s look stopped him in his tracks. “What’s your problem? You have a ride to the site and you still have me. Is there something else I don’t know about that’s irritating you?” Her tone was strident and demonstrated a backbone that Logan hadn’t credited her with. He shook his head and Hana gathered her handbag from next to the front door. She lifted Phoenix bodily and the child inserted her feet into her boots and waited for the door to open, chatting happily to Fluffy in her arms. Hana slipped her feet into her ankle boots and then turned back to her husband with a look of pure arrogance and raised her eyebrow. “So are you coming, or what?” she asked and stepped over the threshold.
“Bloody women!” Logan complained as he jogged into the garage to grab
his cowboy boots. As he emerged from the house, hopping to fit his feet into his boots, Hana noticed a definite smirk on his face and turned to watch the tui going about his business from the passenger window. Logan’s nature meant he had to be king but Hana felt she was finally learning to best him, slowly but surely. Her husband climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. But instead of inserting the key and starting the huge diesel engine, he leaned over the gearstick and pulled Hana into him. The seatbelt felt tight across her breast and belly but she didn’t resist, allowing Logan’s forehead to touch hers. His hair tickled her skin in a feather light touch and he sighed deeply. “I love you, Hana Du Rose,” he whispered and kissed her with soft, enticing lips on hers.
Hana leaned back, confused as Logan started the car, not understanding the smirk of satisfaction on her husband’s handsome face. As the ute roared out of the driveway and jerked to a halt so that Logan could close the wide metal gate, Hana spied the kauri tree nearby, its high branches stretching out like wide embracing arms. The history of names scored into its elderly bark called to her, issuing words of wisdom and comfort to the outsider she had always been. Realisation trickled over Hana like cold water down the back of her neck and she abruptly knew Logan’s game. The strong Du Rose male loved a challenge and his wife had just become it. Hana sighed and shook her head as the tall man got back into the ute and released the handbrake. She observed him sideways through slitted eyes as he rode the breakneck track with confidence, his hat pushed back on his head and his dark wavy hair escaping from underneath. A day’s beard growth graced his cheeks and his long black eyelashes flicked in concentration. Hana watched his capable hands control the steering wheel, pausing to bend the gearstick to his will and back again, cuts and scars littered over his fingers like a pattern. She reached out a tentative hand and placed it on his strong thigh, feeling the tension in the muscle under her palm. Without looking, Logan removed his left hand from the steering wheel and placed it over Hana’s. He caressed her fingers at the same time as making horrendously tight turns and it was at the same time, sensuous and dangerous.