by Bowes, K T
Phoenix slept in her cot in the back bedroom while Hana made up the double bed with a new duvet cover and sheets. “Angus won’t be smiling when he gets the bill for this lot,” she smirked, savouring the high quality of the new duvet inner and pillows. “You’ve certainly had an online shopping spree, Mr Du Rose and there’s a home wares store ready to send you flowers at Christmas.”
A loud rapping made her heart freeze, restarting only as she crept near the front door and heard someone call her name. She yanked the door open. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey,” Tama cried, flinging his arms wide. “Give us a cuddle!”
Hana stood aside to admit his lithe, teenage body. “Absolutely not. Answer me. What are you doing here?”
Tama stepped between Hana and the doorframe, expertly sliding himself through the gap, dragging a large suitcase with him and banging her on the shins. He smiled and indicated the smart new sofa. “My bed I presume.”
Hana opened her mouth to object and he put his olive palm over it to halt her objections. “I’ve cleared it with Uncle Logan and Mr Blair and as long as you’re happy, I can stay.”
“But why? You said you’d never come back here.”
Tama shrugged. “I left of my own accord, love. No hard feelings. When you shag the school typist you can’t expect to stay on.”
Hana eyed her nephew with suspicion, his philosophical attitude out of character. “What are you up to?” she asked. “You’re starting agricultural college in a few weeks and I’m not sure I can keep you out of trouble for that long. There’re too many females over forty in this place and I can’t protect them all. Do I need to ring Logan and Angus and check you’re telling the truth?”
“Nope,” Tama said with confidence. “I spoke to them both and you can check.” He sank into the voluptuous folds of the new sofa and patted the arm nearest him. “But if you get me a beer, I’ll tell you what Flick said.”
Hana froze. “There’s no beer. And why do I care what he said?”
“Because he told me to look after you,” Tama replied, his grey eyes convincing.
Hana shook her head. “Don’t lie! He told you everything! I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him!”
Tama cringed. “I told him you’d guess straight away. Yeah, he told me. We figured because I know what Laval looks like, I’d be the best person to keep you safe. Like a bodyguard, only way hotter.”
“Why would Bobby betray me?” Hana complained. “He promised he’d wait.”
“Bobby? Oh, Flick, he wanted to make things right with you. He couldn’t come himself or the cops would be on him like a rash, so he sent me.”
“What else did he say?” Hana snapped.
Tama quailed. “He said if I screw up and something happens to you, Phoenix or Logan, he’ll come after me and make it hurt.”
Hana sank onto the sofa next to Tama, trying to process this new development. He put his long arm around her shoulders. “You’re pleased I’m here, I can tell.”
She smirked and slapped his thigh. “Honestly? Yes. It was a relief sharing my worries with Bobby, but having you here helping keep Logan safe is a blessing beyond measure. “But I thought you were banned from the site. You really saw Angus Blair?”
“Yep, and he was fine with it if you were,” Tama replied, thinking the actual meeting which was short and sweet.
Tama walked into the reception and met the steely stare of the receptionist. He sensed the principal’s personal assistant’s eyes boring into his spine from her vantage point outside Angus’ inner sanctum. “I’m back!” he declared and the woman’s lips curled back in a snarl.
“Well, try not to hump any staff this time!” she spat nastily.
“Oh, I dunno.” Tama looked the dumpy woman up and down, taking in the hairspray, old-lady-shoes and boring dress. “I’m not fussy.” He winked and blew her a kiss and she bridled and glowed pink, pointing a shaking hand at the personal assistant’s doorway.
Tama removed his baseball cap and ran his hands through his dark hair. He oozed sex appeal across the assistant’s tidy desk but as he got into his stride, Angus appeared in the doorway and Tama’s confidence seeped into his trainers. “Oh, hi sir.”
Angus invited Tama into his office without speaking. The teen took a deep breath, fixed a smile on his lips and stepped into the lion’s den. “So,” concluded Angus some time later, “you’ve been sent to stay with Hana and watch over her? May the good Lord help that poor woman.”
Tama nodded. Angus had played him like a banjo and knew everything within the first five minutes. “But Logan mustn’t know. Hana’s trying to deal with it herself.”
Angus shook his head. It explained Hana’s tense behaviour and tears. “Surely they’d be better off in witness protection,” he mused, but Tama shook his head.
“Na. She’ll be right.”
Angus frowned at the familiar kiwi mantra, which aimed to dismiss everything from a broken fence to a family death. “Fine!” he said grumpily, not wanting Tama’s particular brand of testosterone on the premises. “Stay. But if I get a whiff of extra marital sex or any kind of sex, I’ll...” He didn’t need to finish the sentence.
“Ah, you’re referring to my particular set of skills with the ladies. I promise I won’t be using it for the moment. Not on site anyway.” Tama smirked.
“Goodbye, Mr Du Rose,” Angus said, offering Tama his hand.
“Oh,” Tama’s face filled with regret. “I’m not a Du Rose, aye?”
Angus put his head back and roared with laughter, hearing the clink of glass as the personal assistant removed the eavesdropping tumbler and ran back to her desk. Tama looked alarmed. “She didn’t hear,” Angus said with a wink. “It’s why I moved my desk around the corner.”
Tama nodded with relief and turned to leave. “Thanks, sir.”
“You are a Du Rose, Tama,” Angus said to his retreating back. “As surely as I have breath in my old Scots body. You’re a twenty-two carat Du Rose, if ever I saw it.”
“Thanks,” Tama stammered and left, feeling both flattered and perplexed. All that remained was to convince Hana he was good news for a change.
“Any funny business,” she stressed, “and I’ll...”
“I know, I know,” replied Tama. “Mr Blair already gave me the no sex talk!”
Hana stood up. “Fine. Make yourself useful for half an hour. Mind Phoe while I get the shopping. I just put her down so she shouldn’t wake. Settle in but please don’t leave the house and keep the doors locked. Ok?”
Tama nodded and practiced his reliable face. He adored his baby cousin, having played a major part in her birth. “I’ll guard her with my life,” he promised with sincerity.
Hana shot out to the supermarket, extracting the Honda from behind Tama’s battered ute and enjoying the freedom of not having to trail the baby. Tama turned the television on, pulling a face at the infomercials. On the farm, he would have been at work for hours already, on the mountain fixing a fence or checking stock. He leaned forward and opened his bag, getting out his iPad and starting a game. He played for twenty minutes before a knock on the front door made him start and a zombie ate his little soldier. “Ah, you...!” he swore.
Tama put the iPad on the sofa, peering through the kitchen window which faced onto the road. A woman’s expensive jacket was framed in the small space and his heart lurched with recognition. He’d stripped it off her often enough for the feel of its fabric to be ingrained on his psyche. Tama wrenched the door open, his heart beating fast.
“Oh, sorry.” Anka put her hand up to her mouth, struck dumb. She turned away and Tama grasped her sleeve.
“Don’t go.” He stood back and she brushed past him in the small hallway, his hormones giving a disconcerting surge which made him breathless. The throbbing in his trousers translated to his brain as a dull ache.
“I wanted Hana,” Anka said exuding nerves. “I haven’t seen her in ages, I shouldn’t have come. I didn’t know you were here.”
Tama’s lips were hard on hers and she sighed with the memory of him as he parted hers with his tongue, beginning the familiar dance with enthusiasm. His promise to Angus fell to the ground with Anka’s knickers as he pressed his thumbs over her erect nipples and ground her underneath him. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” she moaned as her will power disappeared under the influence of the intoxicating Du Rose male.
“Shhhh,” he soothed, marking her neck with a love bite and hoisting her bare buttocks underneath him. Anka cried out from his ministrations, right back where she started. The teenager was both addictive and toxic like a drug and she was powerless under his raw masculinity.
Chapter 19
Hana parked at the staff units, struggling to squeeze the Honda into its space in front of a smart BMW. She retrieved the carrier bags from the boot and set them on the steps, pleased with how quickly she’d managed her errand without Phoenix and her paraphernalia.
Hana strode up the front steps, panicking when she found the front door unlocked. “Tama!” she called in a strangled voice. She bowled straight into the lounge with a packet of toilet rolls to discover Anka sitting on the new sofa buttoning her blouse. Her pert breasts spilled through the gap and her knickers hung over the front of the television screen.
“Oops!” Tama bit his lip and swore, covering his nakedness with one of the new cushions and Hana grimaced.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she said through gritted teeth. “You promised!”
Anka stood up and lurched for her knickers. Without shame, Tama reached out a hand and cupped her naked breast in his palm, unsated lust still darkening his face. “Don’t!” Anka hissed, her cheeks reddening with guilt and embarrassment. She stepped into her underwear and Tama pulled the cushion away from his waist, giving her a close up view of his partial erection as she grappled to get her feet in the legs.
Anka couldn’t look Hana in the eye but Tama was unconcerned, throwing the cushion back on the sofa and giving both females the benefit of his impressive full frontal. “Can’t find my undies,” he said, spinning on the spot and peering at the jumble sale of clothes on the floor. Anka handed him a pair of black boxer shorts as she did up the button of her skirt and shoved her feet into her shoes.
Hana laid the shopping on the floor, escaping to check on her vulnerable infant instead of tackling the disaster in her lounge. Phoenix slept soundly and Hana tidied up the bedroom, still feeling out of her depth and waiting for the sound of Anka leaving.
When the house seemed eerily quiet, Hana returned to the lounge to find Anka waiting for her, hand bag and car keys in hand. Tama had donned his shorts but nothing else. “I’m sorry, Hana, I came to see you,” began her old friend.
“But you got Tama instead,” Hana said, her tone wooden. “It must have been just like old times, a quick shag behind your husband’s back. I’m glad you’ve had fun with my babysitter, but please go now.” Hana ground her teeth, making a ridged line through her cheek.
“It wasn’t like that!” Anka pleaded.
“Please, leave.”
Anka sped out of the front door like a burst dam, leaving Tama to contend with Hana’s indignation. “I don’t believe you!” she shouted, “I was only gone for an hour! How could you break my trust? And on my new sofa!”
Tama sighed and sat down, “Technically,” he said, “it’s not your sofa, it’s my bed. But we didn’t do it on there, we did it...”
Hana put her hands over her ears, not wanting to be contaminated by the sordid details of her nephew’s midday romp with a woman old enough to be his mother. She tried to shake her head to clear the images.
Tama smirked. “I didn’t realise you were gone an hour. It felt quicker. I probably could’ve managed a fourth time but three was good. There’s this thing she does...”
“Stop!” Hana shouted. “I don’t need to know!” Tears budded in her eyes. “She was my friend and you ruined it!”
“Are you gonna tell Uncle Logan?” Tama’s face paled as the consequences lined up before him. “He’ll send me away and then Flick will kill me.”
“I don’t know,” Hana answered, her voice betraying her misery. “Get dressed! I can’t think straight right now.”
“Ok,” said Tama glumly, looking like the eighteen-year-old child he still was. “But will you cuddle me first? I’m not that sweaty.”
“No!” Hana grunted, pushing him away as his brawny arms enfolded her. “Get off me, you horrid boy!”
Tama laughed and squeezed her tightly. “I’m sorry, Hana,” he said, unrepentant as he pressed her face into his chest in a bear hug.”
Hana felt his whole body stiffen and tense in fear, her head locked into his embrace and shrouded by male deodorant. “Get off, Tama!” she rebuked him, giving him a shove. He didn’t resist and she broke free, looking up to find his handsome face set in a mask of fear. Then he swore.
Hana turned to follow the direction of his gaze and saw her husband leaning against the wall of the narrow hallway. His arms were folded across his muscular chest and his face was deadpan and expressionless. The familiar warning vein ticked in his neck and he unclenched and clenched his jaw. Tama swallowed hard and waited for his uncle’s grey eyes to register shock or anger. “It’s not what you think!” Tama started. “Hana’s innocent in all this so please, don’t kill her. It’s my fault. Kill me.”
Logan remained motionless and Hana panicked. This was family and Logan had been there before with Caroline and his brother. He wouldn’t tolerate it again. “Go to the bathroom,” Hana hissed to Tama and he shot off down the hallway like a cork out of a bottle.
Hana held her husband’s gaze steadily but a smirk began to make its way from her lips to her eyes. She put her hand over her mouth to disguise it, making it worse. “It wasn’t me and him,” she sniggered. Tension made the situation ludicrous in a way only Tama could produce.
Logan stared at his wife as his own face broke into a smirk and then a smile. He stepped over the discarded shopping and took Hana in his strong arms. Her body shook as she stifled the snorts. “Do you know what he did?” she said, trying to whisper so Tama couldn’t hear her.
Logan breathed into her hair and sighed. “I was walking across the paddock and saw you arrive and Anka leave. I guess the gaps in between would be easy to fill.” He ran his thumbs over Hana’s cheekbones and kissed her, the heady Du Rose masculinity just as seductive on the older version.
“He thinks you’re going to kill him,” Hana whispered as Logan’s lips pulsed against hers.
“I still might,” Logan breathed.
“You’ll have to do something. The last thing I need right now is a horny teenager on my sofa.” Hana groaned and looked at the new sofa with distaste. “I’m never going to sit on it again.”
A strange look registered on Logan’s full lips. “You have so little imagination, wahine!” he said between kisses. “He’s over six foot – I don’t think our two-seater’s the problem.” He kissed Hana once more, drawing her into his arms. “We might want to change the rug though!”
Chapter 20
“You’ve got to be joking!” Hana half shouted, desperation making her furious. “This isn’t happening!” She put her hands over her ears, attempting to block out the bombshell Logan casually dropped. He abandoned his sandwich and slipped from the stool to take Hana’s hands in his own.
“It won’t be for long,” his voice was gentle but firm, offering no debate. “There’s nothing else he can do.”
“You said that three weeks ago, but I’m still living in this shoe box aren’t I?” Hana resisted the tears welling up behind her eyes, pushing her face into Logan’s chest and hearing his small grunt of pain. She looked at him suspiciously; eyes narrowed as he avoided her gaze. “What have you done?”
Logan tried to push her hands away as his wife yanked his shirt from his trousers. Tama took that exact moment to risk re-entry into the lounge and pulled a face. “Gosh, what is it with you older women today?�
� His voice trailed off as Logan gave him a steely look. “I’m going...out there,” he said, pointing towards the front door.
“If you so much as talk to a female,” Hana called after him, “I’ll chop it off!”
Tama fled as Logan gave up the fight and allowed Hana to see his torso. An enormous black and blue bruise spread over the right side of his rib cage and round onto his back. Red, grainy patches showed where internal bleeding leeched under the skin. She made him take his shirt off and examined the similar bruising on his upper right arm. “Why didn’t you say something?” she demanded, her tone cross and her face betraying irritation. “It must be excruciating. How didn’t I notice at the weekend? What happened?”
Logan muttered something under his breath and Hana raised her eyebrows. “I fell off the bloody horse on Saturday afternoon,” he said grudgingly, “I walked all the way back to the hotel. And I made sure you didn’t see it because I didn’t want a fuss!”
“I think there’s a blood disorders clinic today at the medical centre in town. You should see someone.” Hana ratched in her handbag for the relevant leaflet. “I’ll come with you.”
“No!” Logan set his lips in a stubborn line. “I’ve done far worse; it’ll be fine. I’m going back to work.” He slipped his shirt over his shoulders, trying to make the action look less painful than it felt. He snatched the remaining sandwich off the plate and stomped towards the door.
“But we haven’t finished talking,” Hana said, sounding pathetic, “What will you tell Angus?”
“Actually, you’ve talked and I’ve listened. I’ve already told Angus it’s fine and we can stay and no,” he anticipated her next sentence, raising his finger, “we won’t talk later because I have a night duty. So if you’ve finished telling me what to do, I’ll go and do my real job.” He pulled the door open and stomped down the front steps, slamming out of the house.
Hana’s shoulders drooped and she cursed her overreactions. Why hadn’t she heard him out? Logan never made selfish decisions; they were always carefully considered. She hadn’t let him speak before she’d jumped down his throat in anger. The slam of the door woke the baby and Hana let out a frustrated sigh and walked to the bedroom, her shoulders slumped.