by Karina Bliss
“The carpenter was supposed to have this fixed today, it’s dangerous.” She shook the banister. “And where are the staff?”
“I’ve closed the place.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “You told me I had until tomorrow.”
“You do.” His voice was reasonable as he laced up the second shoe. “Until then there’s no point continuing renovations.”
“The bar wasn’t under renovation.”
“The closure is temporary.” Christian looked at her with eyes the guileless blue of heaven. “Or permanent. Entirely up to you.”
Kezia reached for the banister again; it offered no support. “I assume you’re paying people in the meantime.”
“Assume away.”
He started jauntily down the stairs and her anxiety increased with every step he took. Of course he would have paid staff. Wouldn’t he?
She put a hand to her forehead and tried to massage some wits into her tired brain, but after last night she didn’t trust herself to make a dispassionate judgment.
Then it occurred to her it didn’t matter. In another twenty-four hours she would concede defeat and her staff would be back at work.
“Do what you like,” she told him with a shrug. “It’s your hotel.” She carried on up the stairs without a backward glance. Yes, it was pathetic to cling to the last vestiges of her pride. Still she couldn’t give it up. Not until she had to.
KEZIA’S UNEXPECTED COMPOSURE frustrated Christian so much he forgot to pace himself and ended up five kilometers past his usual circuit down some godforsaken road he’d never been before. Damn it! He stopped, bent forward from the waist and sucked in great gulps of air. Even his hangover was making a comeback.
He started to run again, slowly now, ripping off his T-shirt and wiping away sweat. Heat shimmered off the black tar road, which unfurled like a strap of sticky liquorice through the golden acres of newly cut hay.
Christian barely noticed, caught up in the darkness of his emotions. Closing the hotel was supposed to be the masterstroke that panicked Kezia into an acceptance. Instead her staff were enjoying paid leave with no benefit to himself whatsoever. It was infuriating!
And disturbing. What if she called his bluff? What did he do then?
“Aaaaaah!” As he raised his fists and yelled his exasperation, and several cows stopped chewing to stare at him.
Grimly, he cut a loop and ran back the way he’d come.
Well, to hell with it. He’d put in a manager and leave Kezia to play the martyr. I did my best, Muriel, I really did.
Ahead to his left, a new Power Wagon jolted down a rutted track and stopped just before the road, providing a welcome distraction. Then Christian recognized the driver and groaned. Bob bloody Harvey.
Bob leaned one meaty sunburned forearm out the window and grinned as Christian jogged toward him. “I got some hay bales need moving if you want some real exercise.”
“Tempting.” Christian ran past.
Behind him the vehicle rumbled into gear and Bob drove alongside, keeping pace. “I’ve just been driving over my new land and you know what? I figure I got the best out of that deal.” With a hearty laugh, the farmer jammed his foot down and sped off, leaving a cloud of exhaust fumes in his wake.
Christian kept jogging until the 4WD was out of sight, then circled back. He followed the rough track up the hill that was once Kezia’s land.
An anomaly on the plains, the fields hadn’t been grazed, and from the top of the hill Christian watched the warm wind ripple across the gold. He saw at once where Kezia had intended to put the pond and how the farmstead she’d described would nestle into the side of the hill.
He sat and rested, just looking. The breeze was sweet with grass and wildflower and ripe summer heat. And he understood the real sacrifice Kezia had made when she’d sold her land to a man who would probably use it to grow turnips.
Cursing, he stretched out the tightening muscles in his legs and began the run back. Bob Harvey was right. He’d bought a piece of paradise for a song.
To hell with Kezia’s principles. One way or another Christian was making her take the damn hotel even if he had to tell the truth to do it. If only he could figure out what that was.
In the shimmering distance he saw some sort of small animal on the road, with black face and pointy ears, pale chin. A goat?
As Christian drew closer, a tired John Jason came into focus, padding wearily down the road toward him, Batman cape trailing in his wake.
He had a backpack on one shoulder and his cheeks were sunburned and sweaty under the satin hood. A plastic bag of sandwiches hung limply from his utility belt.
Anxiety quickened Christian’s pace. He was at the kid’s side in five strides, untying the knotty bow under his chin and stripping off the cape.
“Now you’ll know who I am,” complained John Jason, but his struggle lacked conviction. Heat radiated from his body, and the baby-blond hair clung damply to his scalp.
“John Jason, is that you?” Christian feigned surprise and, mollified, the little boy allowed himself to be led to the shade of an ancient macrocarpa.
Christian spread the cape out over the sharp, burned grass and sat the boy on it, gave him the water bottle and watched him take gulping swallows. In that black cape the kid would have been all but invisible to a car from behind. The thought sickened him.
With an effort he kept his voice gentle. “You must never, ever, walk on the road. Where’s your mother?” First, the backpack registered, then the guilty defiance on the child’s face. “You’re running away?”
“Me and Roland.”
“Hell, you’ve got the rat with you—where is it?” Out came the listless white rat from a half-zipped pocket to be watered and revived, while Christian panicked about the best way to handle this. Parenthood was for idealists. His own childhood had made a benevolent worldview impossible.
John Jason’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m finding my daddy. I’m gonna make him come home.”
Shit. Where was Kezia when you needed her? She’d know exactly what to say. “You miss him.”
John Jason started howling. Great, Kelly. Christian handed the kid his T-shirt, watched him wipe his nose on it, smearing snot across one plump cheek. Christian reclaimed the T-shirt and awkwardly wiped the kid’s face clean. “C’mon, let’s get you home.” John Jason howled louder.
Christian unzipped the backpack, threw out a couple of apple cores and fashioned a bed in a pair of pajamas. “Put the rat in here.” Reluctantly, Christian then swung the partially closed backpack to his shoulder, telling the rat through gritted teeth, “Stay put, vermin.”
John Jason stopped crying. “He’s Roland, not Vermin.”
“Give me your hand.”
“Carry me!”
“You can walk for a bit.”
John Jason’s lower lip trembled again and, feeling trapped, Christian picked him up. One small hand latched on to his bare shoulder, the other kept hold of Christian’s T-shirt, trailing it down his chest. Christian felt something distinctly cold and slimy on his bare skin and tried to ignore it. He set off.
John Jason started crying again. “Mummy’s gonna be mad.”
“I’ll tell her not to be.”
The child leaned back against Christian’s arm and assessed him doubtfully. The untanned portion of his face made him look like a reversed raccoon.
Christian grinned at the sight and John Jason sighed and rested his wet cheek against Christian’s chest.
“Will you get my daddy, too?”
Christian patted the child lightly on the back. From what he’d heard—despite his best efforts not to—John Jason was better off without the man. “I think your daddy is too far away for anyone to find.” In a hell of his own choosing.
The child said sadly, “But I need a daddy.” Christian suffered a surge of helpless rage against all men who shouldn’t be fathers. “I need him to do something,” added John Jason.
“What?”
<
br /> “Build me a tree house. Mummy says she can’t do it an’ she got mad when I said Daddy would have if she hadn’t made him run away. She sent me to my room an’I hadn’t done anything. So I ran away, too.”
Christian shifted the child over to his other arm. He was surprisingly heavy. “Is that rat still lying still?”
John Jason checked. “Yep.”
Around the next bend Marion’s farmhouse came into view. With any luck the kid hadn’t been missed. “Y’know, the real Batman wouldn’t have run away. He would have known it would make his mummy sad.” Jeez, I can’t believe I’m saying this.
“Batman doesn’t have a mummy!”
“Sure he does. Her name is Batmum and she fights tooth decay and snotty noses.”
John Jason pushed back to gaze solemnly at him and Christian couldn’t keep a straight face.
“Noooooo!” The kid burst out laughing.
“You’re right I’m tricking, but running away makes things worse.” Unless you’re a grown-up, then it works just fine.
“You ran away from Auntie Kezia,” said John Jason blithely. At Christian’s frown he hastened to add, “Mummy said that.”
“Mummy was wrong.” Christian put the child down and opened the gate.
“No—” John Jason led the way down the path “—she never is.”
Christian was tempted to cast a seed of doubt in the kid’s mind just to pay Mummy back for gossiping. “Who was she talking to?” he asked abruptly, rapping on the open door.
“Auntie Kezia.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said don’t tell Christian I went looking—” John Jason looked at him, suddenly confused. “She said don’t tell.”
Christian hunkered down to his level. “Tell what, son?”
“John Jason!” The phone pressed to one ear, Marion swept down the hall like a dynamo, grabbed her son and hauled him into a one-armed embrace. “Where have you been!” She held him away from her, scanned him for damage and hugged him again. “It’s okay, Kezia.” She sighed her relief. “Christian found him…call you later.”
She dropped the phone and squeezed her son. “I only realized he was missing ten minutes ago. Where’d you find him?”
Christian pleaded John Jason’s case, then accepted lemonade he didn’t want for the sake of getting the information he did. John Jason was sent grumbling off to the shower. “Don’t push your luck,” Christian advised him.
“I’ll launder this.” Marion picked up Christian’s T-shirt. “Sit down while I find you another.”
Ignoring his protest, she left the room, coming back with a man’s faded blue sweatshirt. “Put this on.”
It was too short, and tight across the shoulders and biceps, but one look at Marion’s face and Christian kept his mouth shut. The last thing he needed was more tears.
Her embarrassment plain, she said, “I’ve been meaning to get rid of his clothes, but some have memories, y’know?”
A couple of weeks ago Christian would have thought she was crazy. Now he could only nod grimly. “How are you settling in?” he asked to make conversation.
“You know, I was scared about being on my own again but it’s been good for me.” Bringing a jug of lemonade and two glasses over to the table, she attempted to pour it but her hands shook too much.
Christian took over. “It’s okay, he’s home safe.”
“What about next time? I’d die if I lost him, too!”
Her outburst startled Christian so much he reached out a hand to cover hers. “Muffet?”
“Ignore me, I’ll come right.” Still, her return grip on his hand made the bones ache. “It’s just so hard raising him on my own. John Jason needs his father, and where is he? Probably drinking himself to oblivion in some hellhole.”
“Let me give you money.”
She laughed at that, released his hand and sat down. “What is it with you, Kelly, that you keep trying to buy off women?”
He grinned back reluctantly. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s only happened since I got back. Normally, I’m the one getting offers. I must be losing my touch.”
Marion’s expression sobered. “What you can do is tell me whether you intend to close the hotel if Kezia refuses to take it. Working there is the only thing keeping me sane.” Seeing Christian hesitate, she added, “I can keep a secret.”
“It will stay open.”
“Thank God.”
“Now tell me something.” He repeated what John Jason had said.
Marion looked at him steadily. “I just said I keep secrets.”
“Kezia implied that she came after me all those years ago, but I’d already left town. Later she told me she hadn’t. Which one do I believe?”
Marion would never make a poker player. He pushed back from the table. “Thanks for the lemonade.”
JOE UNPACKED HIS BAG AT the cheap Auckland motel that constituted his halfway house. Alcoholic Anonymous’ Big Book came out first, along with details of a local AA meeting. No photos, no personal mementos. The night he’d run, sickened by what he’d done, Joe had only taken his shame.
He sat on the end of the bed, pulled a coin from his jeans’ pocket and held it, remembering. The day after he’d hit his wife, still half drunk and more desperate than he’d ever been in his life, he’d sat in his car on a deserted byway with a loaded shotgun and tossed this coin to see whether he would live or die. The coin chose life.
And so he’d emptied the family’s savings account and gambled it on one last chance at salvation—rehab. It was a selfish act, and whenever he teetered on the verge of giving up in those first bleak weeks he’d reminded himself whose money he’d be throwing away.
So he submitted to the physical hell of detox and to the psychological hell of holding a mirror up to his soul. Exposed as a loser.
Joe tucked the coin back in his pocket and walked to the window. Nothing to see but asphalt. “I’m an alcoholic,” he said out loud. Now I can admit it. He looked at the phone.
Ironically, the better his recovery had progressed the worse he felt about who he’d been and the harder it became to make that call. He wanted the best for his wife, his child, and he wasn’t it, not by a long shot. After all, he’d left them to exist on her meager earnings and the goodwill of a town that knew how to take care of its own.
For weeks Joe had convinced himself that the selfless thing to do was get a good job and send money on. Stay the hell out of their life.
But it hadn’t stopped him lying awake night after night, worrying about them, missing them. Until somewhere in the confusion he’d acknowledged his utter helplessness.
Then something amazing happened.
He began to believe that even though he didn’t deserve another chance, someone might have given him one in the toss of that coin. He began to believe he might earn back his family.
He’d rung the bar she worked at and his luck had held—a stranger answered. The guy said she’d moved out and innocently gave Joe her new number. Except twice now his courage had failed.
He picked up the phone and dialed. Doc Samuel was right; his own fears meant squat against his wife’s rights.
“Marion Morgan’s residence.” A male voice. His wife had gone back to using her maiden name and this sounded like the same man who had given Joe her new number. She had found another guy, maybe one who deserved her.
“Hello…anyone there? Muffet,” the man called, “I think there’s something wrong with your phone.”
Muffet? Joe’s knees buckled and he leaned against the wall. No, the guy had to be talking to someone else. Please God.
“I wish you’d stop calling me that!” Affection pervaded Marion’s complaint. The man laughed.
Joe dropped the receiver, ran to the bathroom and threw up. Then he cleaned up and headed to the nearest bar.
“THERE’S NO ONE THERE.” Marion said it lightly but Christian heard an undercurrent of distress as she hung up.
“You’ve been
having crank calls?”
“Maybe. Actually, I thought…hoped…” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
The penny dropped. “You think it’s your ex?”
She shrugged again. “Wishful thinking, probably.”
“Wishful? You want it to be your ex?”
Marion avoided his eyes. “He’s not my ex, he’s my husband.”
The hairs rose on the back of his neck. “Marion, you can’t take him back. He’s a drunk and a wife-beater.”
“Once, Christian. He hit me once. And it was more of a hitting out than a hitting at.”
He couldn’t believe he was hearing this. “Next you’ll be telling me he’s a good provider who loves his family.”
“He was,” she said sadly. “I know this sounds crazy but taking our savings, abandoning us, is totally out of character.”
“He took your savings?” Christian thought of John Jason, and a fierce protectiveness swept over him. He pulled out a chair and sat Marion down. Straddled another opposite it. “Look at me.”
She raised her eyes reluctantly to his. Good God, she still loved that asshole. “Don’t do this. Don’t cling to the happier memories, hoping he’ll change and become the person you once knew. Don’t buy into the excuses he’ll make.” Christian gripped the chair back.
“Guys like him look for someone to blame. In the end he’ll even make you believe it’s your fault—that he gets violent because you provoked him. It’s bullshit.”
“For the last time, he hit me once. Would a battered woman kick him out and tell him never to come back?”
“You did that?” His anxiety eased. “Good. Well if he rings you, call me and I’ll make sure to reinforce the message.”
She didn’t answer, busied herself with standing and pushing the chair back under the table.
Christian stopped her with a hand on her arm. “It’s none of my business, but I know what I’m talking about. Don’t let that bastard screw up John Jason’s life.”