Saving Rose

by Kate Genet

  Saving Rose

  Kate Genet

  Copyright © 2018 by Kate Genet.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Sapphica Books

  Dunedin. NZ

  www.sapphicabooks.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Locales and public names are sometimes used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Saving Rose/ Kate Genet - 1st ed.

  For Valerie,

  because without you, this book would never have been written, and Claire Wilde wouldn’t be nearly so amazing.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  About the Author

  1

  ‘Dad, turn that off – it’s rubbish, nothing you haven’t already seen.’

  Her mother tugged on her arm, a wide smile under her tangle of hair. ‘But we’re proud of you, love,’ she said.

  Claire shook her head as her dad waggled the TV remote in his hand, staring at the screen as he did so.

  ‘They had someone waiting for me at the airport in Auckland,’ Claire said on a sigh, sitting down in the sunshine and light of her childhood home. She stretched and listened to the bones in her back creak. The flight from Cape Town to Auckland, then down here to Christchurch, had been long, dull, but now she was here, worth it.

  Her mother was still beaming at her. ‘But of course they did – you know how New Zealand is about its sailors. You’re a national hero.’ But her smile disappeared as she watched the pictures playing across the screen, one hand going to press against her chest.

  Claire looked away from her mother to the television. They were playing the old clip again. Her mother always got upset when she saw the rescue footage.

  ‘You still keep in touch with him?’ her father Frank asked, gesturing at the grainy footage of a spray-swept life raft.

  She nodded, forgetting to answer out loud, gaze fixed on the past with its dark, heaving swell of ocean and in the midst of it, a bobbing yellow life raft. Her own boat came into view, looking from the overhead Royal Australian Air Force plane like a pathetic toy tossed about in the vast callousness of the Southern Ocean.

  She’d seen on some website just recently a one-line entry describing the Vendee Globe solo around-the-world race.

  The Vendee Globe is extreme. Period.

  From Vendee, France, down the Atlantic Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope, then clockwise around Antarctica, keeping Cape Horn to port, then back to Les Sables d’Olonne in France. Most competitors never completed the race.

  Then it was her face on the television screen, the footage from her cockpit camera, and her grin was a wild bearing of teeth as she struggled to drag aboard the man in the survival suit.

  ‘Turn it off, Dad,’ she said again. ‘The rescue was a year ago. Time to move on.’ The news programme cut to the dark-haired journalist who had been waiting for her when she’d come through customs at the airport, and there again was her own tired face, this time the one she’d seen in the mirror that morning. She couldn’t help the wince, even while she knew she should be glad of the publicity. She was back home, not just to see her parents, after all, but to get sponsorship for her next big race.

  The woman on screen was giving a quick rundown of the famous Vendee rescue, and Claire watched herself nod when the woman asked her a question.

  ‘You do the right thing by your fellow sailors,’ she replied on television. ‘Any one of us would have gone back to rescue Matthias.’ She watched herself give an awkward smile and a one-shouldered shrug. ‘You live or die by your decisions out there on the ocean. It doesn’t mean you’re never afraid, but you simply step up anyway, and do what needs to be done.’

  2

  Zoe tucked the phone under her ear and scowled. Damn these cell phones were too flat to hold on your shoulder and she didn’t have one single clue where the Bluetooth ear thingee was. It could be anywhere in this mess. Danny was a terrific stay-at-home dad, but she suspected the laundry bred in the corner at night while they were sleeping.

  ‘Hang on a minute, Claire,’ she said. ‘I need about another eleven hands.’

  Claire laughed on the other end and Zoe thought how great it was to hear her friend’s voice again and know that for once Claire wasn’t talking to her over Skype from some far-away exotic country, or even from aboard some yacht that pitched and rolled about in a way that made Zoe dizzy every time, but which didn’t even seem to faze Claire one bit.

  ‘Rose has a birthday party this afternoon,’ she explained. ‘And is refusing to wear anything but a princess dress.’ Zoe rolled her eyes. ‘Of which she has about five because Danny keeps buying the damned things for her.’ She gripped the phone and pounced on another pile of clothes. One she would have sworn hadn’t been there when she went to bed last night.

  ‘I can’t wait to see the little kiddo,’ Claire said in her ear. ‘But since when is she into princess stuff?’

  More eye-rolling. ‘It’s those bloody Disney movies. Rose watches them over and over and over.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘And thanks to Danny, she has the dresses to go with them. And the dolls. Can’t forget the dolls. No way. They go everywhere with her. Heaven help you if you forget the dolls.’

  As if Zoe had conjured her up, her daught
er sidled into the room, Rapunzel wedged under one arm, and the golden-haired Disney character’s horse grasped tight in a small fist.

  ‘And here she is,’ Zoe said. ‘The wee mischief-maker herself.’

  There was a happy sigh from the phone. ‘We’re still on for lunch tomorrow, right?’

  It was Monday tomorrow, a workday, but Zoe was determined to catch up with Claire all the same. She could take a proper lunch break for once. Heck, usually she crammed a sandwich down her throat in the car between clients and tried to keep it down as she went over the latest case of child neglect and abuse. She deserved a proper lunch.

  ‘You bet. Our old haunt on Oxford Street, okay? They’ve done it up and it’s really nice now. I’m going to have a glass of wine and a huge plate of Alfredo to go with it.’

  ‘Sounds delicious. Will you bring Rose?’

  Zoe tickled the little girl at her knee under the chin, but the child just leaned against her and didn’t smile.

  ‘I thought we’d do the grown-up thing first,’ Zoe said. ‘I actually want both of us to be able to get a word in edgewise. And I want to know everything you’ve been doing – are you seeing anyone?’

  Claire laughed in her ear. ‘I am way too busy to keep a woman happy enough to keep seeing me.’

  That just made Zoe roll her eyes. ‘You’re never going to settle down, are you Claire?’

  ‘Not any time soon, Zoe.’ Claire’s voice was amused. They’d had this conversation before.

  ‘Mummy?’ Rose interrupted, her small face puckered into a frown.

  ‘What, Sweetie-pie?’ Zoe asked, knowing Claire wouldn’t mind a three-way conversation for a minute.

  ‘Mummy?’ Rose said again. ‘Is Daddy a Prince Charming?’

  Zoe couldn’t help a little snicker. ‘He’s our Prince Charming. Why? What’s the matter, Rosie Posy?’

  Rose sighed, and Zoe stroked her hair, knowing the little girl wished it was as long as Rapunzel’s because she was always asking how long it would take for it to grow. Probably a long time, Zoe always told her, since it was really a tangled bird’s nest of unruly red curls.

  ‘I'm not sure,’ Rose said, her lower lip quivering.

  A kiss on the top of the tangle. ‘Not sure about what?’

  Nipping at the quivering lip with her sharp little teeth, Rose looked up at Zoe. ‘He yelled at me,’ she said.

  Zoe couldn’t help the smile. Yelling could be almost anything above a whisper if it was something Rose didn’t want to hear. Three years old and the child could be oddly sensitive.

  ‘That’s okay, Rosie Posy,’ she said. ‘He didn’t mean it.’

  Rapunzel made an appearance and shook her long blonde hair. ‘Yes, he did, Mummy. He said I sneaked up on him, but I didn’t. I wanted him to fix the movie. It wouldn’t play, and I pressed all the right buttons, Mummy, I really did. And I didn’t even go in.’ The words came out in a rush that puffed up her cheeks.

  ‘In where?’ Zoe asked, but she knew the answer as soon as the words were out. ‘Danny’s office is his sacred space,’ she explained for Claire’s benefit. ‘We go in there on pain of death.’ She wrapped an arm around her little daughter and planted another kiss on the tangles, already wondering where the hairbrush was. Sometimes Rose used it on her dollies and then it could end up anywhere.

  She smiled at Rose. ‘Daddy didn’t mean it,’ she said. ‘You probably just gave him a fright if he didn’t see you. Sometimes adults get growly when you give them a fright.’ She lifted Rose onto her lap and the child was warm against her, fragrant with baby shampoo from her bath.

  ‘Are you going to cry, Rose?’ she asked. ‘Because I’ll get Daddy to come collect your tears if you are.’ She smiled at the giggle she’d known she would get.

  ‘He tried that once, didn’t he Mummy?’ Rose said, and Zoe hugged her tighter.

  ‘Yes, he did, Rose Red. A princess’s tears are very strong, after all, and make the best magic potions. He popped you on the table in the kitchen, remember, and told you to keep crying so he could bottle them all. Every last one.’

  Rose was nodding. ‘He got a little bottle, and the brush you use on the roast meat.’

  ‘And then you stopped crying and he didn’t get any. Not a single tear.’

  ‘They’re my tears,’ Rose said. ‘I need them.’

  ‘Oh,’ Zoe said. ‘No tears this time either, then?’

  Rose frowned. ‘No,’ she said. But her frown deepened, and a small storm brewed on her face as she remembered the outrage that had been committed. ‘But I didn’t sneak up on him, Mummy, and I wasn’t trying to see the photos. They were stupid. The girl wasn’t even wearing anything.’

  That made Zoe blink. ‘She wasn’t wearing anything?’

  Rose shook her head and burrowed close again. ‘She didn’t have a dress on.’

  ‘No dress on?’ It didn’t sound right. Couldn’t be right. A long, thin blade sliced up under her ribs and pricked at her heart.

  Another shake of red curls. ‘She didn’t have a princess dress.’

  Zoe’s heart restarted. Rose thought the bridesmaid’s dresses counted as princess clothes, so Danny was obviously going over one of his non-wedding shoots. She hugged her little girl closer. Her job as a social worker must be getting to her, making her think the worst.

  ‘It’s all right, Rosie Red,’ Zoe said. ‘Even Daddies can be grumpy sometimes.’ She poked at Rapunzel and the horse. ‘Where’s Prince Charming?’

  A sniff from her daughter. ‘I don’t like him anymore,’ Rose said, still hugging her mother. ‘Rapunzel is going to marry her horse instead.’

  3

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to take her to the birthday party? You’ve been working so hard all week.’ Danny leaned against the door jamb and watched his wife brushing Rose’s hair.

  ‘I’m sure,’ Zoe said, and drew the bristles through the thatch of orange hair – who knew where the girl had got that bright shade from, his sister had blonde hair and his was brown. He touched his own head, unaware of what he was doing. His sister had long hair, almost to her waist. Or she had when he’d last seen her. She did in his photos.

  But Rose was a carrot-top if ever there was one. He looked critically at Zoe’s head for a moment, but Zoe was much darker. Their daughter was an anomaly. A throwback to some distant auburn-tressed ancestor, he guessed, with a feisty nature to go with it.

  ‘Daddy?’ Rose said, fiddling with the make-up on the dressing table.

  ‘What, Pumpkin?’ he asked.

  ‘Are you really going to eat my freckles?’

  He smiled at their favourite game. ‘For dinner when you get back from Lottie’s birthday party. I’m going to have them with some mashed potato. It will be delicious.’

  The little girl giggled, squirming in her mother’s lap. ‘How will you get them off?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll just lick them straight off your nose,’ he said. ‘Seems easiest don’t you think?’

  That set the little girl off into peals of laughter and Zoe sent him an exasperated look. He shrugged at her and gave her his most charming smile. At least the kid had forgotten about him snapping at her for sneaking up on him when he was busy. Couldn’t be too careful, apparently. He’d have to remember that she was big enough to sneak around and talk about it after.

  He tuned into what Zoe was saying and nodded along with it.

  ‘You spend all week with her,’ Zoe said. ‘The weekends are Mummy time.’

  ‘Mummy and Rosie Red time,’ Rose corrected.

  ‘Mummy and Rosie Red time,’ Zoe agreed. She looked at Danny in the mirror. ‘Besides, you were exhausted when you got home last night from the wedding. I haven’t seen you that tired in ages.’

  ‘Bride from hell,’ he said and rubbed his neck at the memory. ‘Mother-in-law from hell. Mother of the bride from hell. I wanted to offer my condolences to the groom instead of congratulations.’ He sighed and stood straighter. ‘Still, got some really good photos. She migh
t have been a stroppy piece of work, but she was photogenic.’ He stretched in pleasure. ‘The whole bridal party was.’

  ‘Were there flower girls, Daddy?’ Rose asked.

  ‘Dozens of them, Pumpkin,’ he said. ‘All pretty as a picture.’ They had been too. All sweet little things, cousins, six pairs of big dark eyes ready to smile for his camera.

  Zoe brought him back from his reverie. ‘What are you going to do while we’re out eating too much sugar?’

  The smile inside reached his lips. ‘I’ll work on yesterday’s photos. Should be some brilliant ones there.’

  Zoe got up, depositing Rose on the floor and walking over to plant a kiss on his cheek. ‘If you say so yourself,’ she said.

  He made himself pat her on the backside. ‘I do say so myself,’ he said. Then looked at Rose. She looked pretty in her princess dress. Even her hair looked half-decent. It was losing some of that baby fineness now that she was finally growing into a proper little girl.