Just Say Yes (Escape to New Zealand Book 10)

by Rosalind James

  He looked at Chloe again, because she was saying something. “You’re all right, darling. You’re all right. And Zavy’s all right, too. You’re both getting oxygen, and you’ll be going to hospital in an ambulance. I have to ride with Zavy, but I’ll be with you as soon as I can. As soon as I can.”

  He clawed at the mask, but it wouldn’t come off, and she had her hands over his, saying, “No. Don’t take it off. He’s going to be all right. He’s going to be all right, and so are you. You saved him.” A sob in her voice. “You saved my baby. Oh, Kevin. You saved him.”

  When Kevin had started running, Chloe had wanted to go after him with everything in her. To follow him into the house, to help him find Zavy. But she hadn’t.

  Instead, as soon as she’d seen him disappear around the corner of the house, she’d run and grabbed the man who’d been doing the organizing, yanking him by the arm and shouting, “My boy’s in there! My little boy!”

  He swung around, frowning, then shouted, “Oi! Peter!” and waved a sweeping hand at a boy in his late teens, wearing jeans and trainers. Chloe took off, and the two of them ran with her around the building.

  When they got to the back, she recoiled. A massive mound of mud blocked her way. And then she saw the open window.

  “My partner,” she told them over the roar of flames, the cracking of timber. “He went in there to get my son.” She knew it. “I’m going to ...” She looked at the window. “I’m going in. I can light the way out.”

  “Don’t do it, missus,” the man said. “Too dangerous. That’s going to be coming down, and you’ll lose him in the dark. Too risky.”

  “I’m not going all the way,” she said. “Just helping him get out.” She jumped up and grabbed the sill, felt the man back there boosting her, but she didn’t need his boost. She straddled the window frame, shone the torch from her phone at the door opposite, offered a faint ray of light into the smoky gloom, and prayed like she’d never prayed in her life.

  Please, God. Please, God. Please. My baby. Kevin. My baby.

  When she saw the light coming toward her, her heart lurched. Leaped. She couldn’t tell what was behind it. Then the light skittered away, and her torch picked up a shape.

  One shape. Big. Crouching, coming at her with a shambling gait, like an enormous bear.

  The scream was in her chest, coming up her throat, and then she saw it. The reason for the odd shape of him.

  Her boy, clutching at Kevin, clinging to him like a monkey. And Kevin holding onto him. Bringing him out.

  Ten minutes, or twenty, or an hour later, the ambulance swayed around the corners, its siren rising and falling in a monotonous wail, and she sat with her hand on Zavy’s hair as the paramedic worked over him. Zavy’s eyes were closed, his chest moving up and down.

  Moving. Because he was breathing. Because he was alive.

  It was a while before she got to Kevin. She couldn’t leave until Zavy was asleep in his hospital bed, a tiny shape under the white coverings, barely large enough to disturb the surface. An oxygen tube was clipped to his nose and instruments recorded his vital signs, displaying reassuring blinking numbers and the regular wave of green that was his heartbeat. A nurse stood at the foot of the bed, recording something, and Chloe’s mum and dad were there, too. Her mum in the chair, holding Zavy’s hand, her dad standing against the wall. Both of them stunned into silence.

  “I need to go see Kevin,” she told them, and her mum nodded. She knew what Kevin had done. They both did, because Chloe had told them. But she needed to see him.

  She moved along the corridor like a sleepwalker, inquired and inquired again, and finally found him. His face chalk-white, his hair looking redder than ever, with that same oxygen tube in his nose. And Connor and Noelle and Holly sitting at his bedside, filling up the room.

  Kevin’s eyes weren’t closed. They were open, although he wasn’t talking. When he saw her, he tried to sit up, just as he’d done on the gurney.

  “Zavy.” It came out as a croak.

  “All good,” she said. She was dissociating now, her overwhelmed brain trying to separate from her body, and she held it in place by sheer force of will. “They’ll keep him overnight. Like you, I imagine.” Noelle got up from the chair by the bed, and Chloe sank into it and took Kevin’s hand.

  “Yeh,” he said, and even managed a smile. “Won’t do my running speed any favors this week, eh, but it was worth it.”

  She tried to stop the tears, but she couldn’t. They were welling up, and when they began to spill, when the first sobs ripped up through her chest, Kevin’s eyes got soft, and his hand was on her hair, stroking it. And she laid her head on his shoulder and cried. Finally, she cried.

  Tears of joy, and other tears, too. Tears for the worst fear, the nightmare fear, and tears of relief that it wasn’t true. Tears that Zavy was still with her, and so was Kevin, and that Kevin had saved him.

  And after she was done crying, after she’d gone into the bathroom and mopped up and left Kevin with his family again, she went looking for Rich.

  The nurse had told her earlier that Rich was in the waiting room, that he wanted to come in to see Zavy, and she’d said no.

  “Are you sure?” the woman had asked, looking shocked, and Chloe had said, “I’m absolutely sure. He isn’t in this room. Not now. Not ever. Write it down.”

  She didn’t want to be in a room where he was now, either. But she needed to be.

  When she came through the door, he was sitting in a blue plastic chair, elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them, head bowed. She walked straight up to him, said, “Rich,” and his head jerked up fast.

  “Zavy,” he said.

  “He’ll be fine,” she said, and watched Rich’s eyes close.

  “I’m so glad,” he said.

  “You left him.”

  Three words. Three damning words.

  “I couldn’t get him,” Rich said. “I ran into his bedroom, and he wasn’t there, and the smoke beat me back. I looked, but I couldn’t find him.”

  “You got your laptop. You got dressed.” She’d never thought she was capable of murder. Now, she wasn’t so sure. “You didn’t get him faster because you were grabbing—what? Your phone. Your computer. Your wallet. Everything important. Everything except your son.”

  “I wasn’t thinking properly,” he said. “I know it. It was so sudden, and so confusing. I panicked.”

  “Lucky thing Kevin didn’t. Lucky thing Kevin has mana.” Her contempt rolled off her like waves, and Rich must have felt it, because he recoiled. “And you’re never seeing Zavy again.”

  “I can’t— You can’t—”

  “No?” She looked down at him. “If you try? Let me put it this way. Every newspaper, every magazine, every TV station in New Zealand and half the ones in Aussie are going to be featuring an interview with a beloved All Black being humble and strong, and a grateful mum talking about how he saved her little boy’s life when his father bolted like the coward he is. And by the time Kevin and I are done? You won’t have a job. You won’t have a career. And you bloody well won’t have a seat in Parliament. You’ll be moving to the UK to live with your toffee-nosed parents, driven out of New Zealand by your shame.”

  “No,” he said, but it was a breath.

  “Or you can give up your rights to him,” she said. “The rights you never wanted anyway. You can be off the hook for everything, forever. The money. The visitation. Every single responsibility you never wanted. You can walk away.”

  “He told you,” Rich said. “He did this with you.”

  “What?”

  He made a gesture. Impatient. Futile. Weak. “McNicholl. He came to me months ago and said the same thing. That I should sign away my rights, because he wanted to adopt Zavy. He’s always wanted him. He’s my son, but he wanted him.”

  Something else was happening now. In her head. In her heart. Like a dam that had been built, brick by brick, tall and wide, and now was breaching.

  One brick
at first. Then two. Four. Eight. And, finally, all of them crumbling, being carried away by the silvery stream that came bursting through, breaking its bounds, flooding the thirsty land in cool, clear water.

  Water the nourisher. Water the life-giver. Water the healer.

  She wasn’t bound to the earth anymore. She was floating on that water. She was floating, and she could fly. A white swan, flying free.

  “You’re right,” she told Rich. “Kevin wants him. And he gets him.”

  It wasn’t Kevin’s most fun night ever. He never enjoyed being in hospital anyway, his body felt like somebody had tied him in a sack and hit him all over with a cricket bat, and his lungs felt worse.

  On the other hand, Zavy was safe. He’d take that deal.

  He was sitting up in bed the next morning, eating some repulsive lime gelatin, wondering why hospitals had to feed you like this, and thinking what he’d give for a decent coffee, when Chloe walked in. Carrying Zavy on her hip.

  Kevin set the cup of gelatin down, shoved the table away, and said, “Eh, little mate. How you goin’?”

  Zavy said, “Good.” His eyes were solemn, his voice a croak, and Kevin’s heart twisted hard.

  Chloe kissed Zavy’s hair and asked him, “Do you want to give Kevin a cuddle? I think he’d like that.”

  “Yes,” Zavy said. “’Cause he came and got me in the bad house.”

  Chloe smiled at Kevin, though it was wobbly, and set Zavy on the narrow bed beside Kevin. He wrapped his arm around the boy, cuddled him close, rumpled his hair, and said, “We got out together, eh. Both of us. And your mum helped.”

  “Yes,” Zavy said. “’Cause you’re very strong.”

  Something was aching in Kevin’s chest, and it wasn’t just his abused lungs. He looked at Chloe, and she bent and kissed his cheek, then stroked a gentle hand down the side of his face and perched herself on the edge of the bed.

  There wasn’t really room for all of them. It didn’t matter.

  He asked, “Did you get any sleep?”

  “Some. They let me sleep in the other bed, next to Zavy.”

  “Nightmares, eh.”

  Her smile faltered. “A bit. How about you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I have good news,” she said. “Something I haven’t told you yet. I sent Rich away last night.” He could tell she didn’t want to say too much with Zavy there, that she was picking her words carefully. “He’s agreed to sign away his parental rights. My dad’s going to talk to my lawyer and work it out.”

  There were no words for this happiness. He tried, but he couldn’t find them.

  She went on. “The way I did that—well, maybe I threatened him. Maybe so. And I’m not sorry. But he told me you came to him months ago and said the same thing. That he could be off the hook if he liked.” She was still choosing her words, stepping carefully. “And that you’d be on the hook.”

  “Yeh,” he said. “I did. I would.”

  He had Zavy cuddled on his left side and Chloe sitting on his right, one of her hands on his cheek and the other palm on his chest. That was where he wanted to keep them forever, so he’d better tell her so. There was no way to start except to dive in.

  “I don’t have the ring,” he told her. “I don’t have the voice, and I don’t have the words. I can’t get out of this bed, because I can’t stop holding both of you. It’s the wrong time, and I’ll do it better later, but right now, I need to tell you, and I need to ask you. I love you so much, baby. Please marry me and let me adopt Zavy.”

  “What’s ’dopt?” Zavy asked. Listening after all.

  Chloe looked like she was searching for words. He knew how she felt. Anyway, Zavy needed to hear this, so he said, “That means I sign a paper, and then I’m your dad. Your forever dad. And you’re my boy. How does that sound, mate?”

  “Good,” Zavy said with decision. “’Cause I like you better than that man.”

  Kevin held him tighter. There was a battle going on behind his eyes, and then—well, he may have been crying a bit, but so was Chloe. Silently, like she did most things, two silver streams of tears running down her cheeks. She took a deep, ragged breath and said, her voice coming out choked, “What about ... other kids?”

  This, he could answer. This, he knew. “What about them? In case you can’t tell, I’m a family man. It doesn’t matter what size the family is. It only matters how strong it is.”

  “I could ...” She hauled in another breath. “I could want a baby. I’ve been thinking ... one with red hair, maybe. I could be dancing until I’m forty, but I could want to take some time off, too, somewhere in there. A year or so.”

  “If you did,” he said, “that would make me a happy man. A happier man. We’ll work it out as we go, eh.”

  “You’re ...” She was struggling, still. “You’re good at that.”

  “I am. There’s nothing we can’t do if we do it together. Nothing at all.”

  She smiled. Tremulous. Shining. Then she leaned down, put one arm around Zavy and the other around him, lay against his chest, and said, “Then maybe we should do that.”

  “Want to say the word?” he asked, stroking a hand over her hair. He could very nearly feel his heart expanding. It had to, though, didn’t it? It had to make more room for this family of his.

  “What word?” she asked.

  “‘Yes.’ That’s the word I need to hear. Just say yes.”

  She sat back again, looked into his eyes, and said it.

  “Yes.”

  Maybe she wasn’t the biggest talker, but she said the important things. She said everything he needed to hear, and then she said it again.

  “Yes.”

  Five months later

  Chloe stood holding her enormous bouquet of ivory roses and palest-pink peonies in the tiny, cramped room off the main dining room of McHugh’s of Cheltenham, the air redolent with the heady fragrance of flowers and salt air, and savored the moment. She wanted to imprint every bit of this day on her senses, to hold this memory for a lifetime, so she focused.

  Outside the half-open window, Rangitoto, the huge island volcano that stood guardian over the Hauraki Gulf, looked nearly close enough to touch. A few steps below her on Cheltenham Beach, a child called to his mother and a dog barked excitedly at two swimmers in the water. White clouds studded a sky blue enough to steal your heart away, and the sunlight glinted off the tiny wavelets like the diamond in her engagement ring.

  January on the North Shore, summer on the beach, calm sea and serene sky. Her wedding day, and somehow, she was just that calm herself. Calm, and so happy.

  Beside her, Josie adjusted the gossamer folds of the white veil that stretched to the floor. “Nearly time,” she said, then turned to seven-year-old Piper, Kevin’s niece, and gave a tweak to the sash on her pink bouffant skirt. “Ready, love?”

  “Yes,” Piper said with an absolute determination that reminded Chloe irresistibly of her uncle.

  Josie held the door open and said, “You’ve got this. Go.” Piper took a deep breath and started down the aisle, scattering rose petals as she went.

  “Ring bearer ready?” Josie asked.

  “Yes,” Zavy said. “’Cause I am holding the pillow very, very tight.”

  Chloe crouched down, heedless of her ivory satin gown, gave her son a quick cuddle and kiss on the cheek, careful not to muss his black suit and bow tie, and said, “I love you, my darling. And I’ll see you down there.”

  “Yes,” Zavy said. “’Cause you’re getting married to my dad.”

  “That’s right. Forever and ever.”

  She stood, then, and Josie held the door for Zavy and watched him go.

  Josie said, “Kevin waved at him.” She sighed. “So sweet. Right. My turn. Here I go.” First, though, she kissed Chloe’s cheek, smiled at her with all the radiance that was Josie, and said, “I’m so happy for you, love. You deserve this, and so does Kevin.”

  “Thank you,” Chloe said. “Go.” And Josie went.


  Finally, it was just the two of them. Just her in her satin gown and her dad in his black suit, an ivory rosebud in his buttonhole. He didn’t say anything, and he definitely didn’t ask her if she was sure. He just held out his arm, and she took it. The music changed, the hauntingly sweet strains of Pachelbel’s Canon rising in the warm summer air, and her father pushed the door open and stepped into the aisle with her.

  And they began to walk to the man who was waiting at the end of it. The man who was about to become her husband.

  Kevin put his hand on Zavy’s shoulder, felt Connor’s steady presence beside him, watched his bride come down the aisle to him, and thought, You are a lucky man, mate. A lucky man.

  He’d have said that he’d never seen Chloe look so beautiful, except that he almost had. Three months ago, when she’d worn a feathered white tutu, her dark hair shining under her white headdress and the stage lights, had danced the Odette pas de deux in front of a Gala Night auditorium packed to the rafters, and had moved her audience nearly to tears. Including him.

  Chloe, lifted high over her partner’s head, her back bending so impossibly far, her slim arms curving, beating like wings. Chloe, whose every step and every movement spoke her love, her desire, and her heart-aching surrender. Chloe, dancing the Black Swan half an hour later, wicked and seductive and triumphant, turning again and again in pure, shining perfection. And finally, Chloe in white again. Dying for love, giving her life to save her company of swans, then ascending in triumph with her prince, freed from the enchantment that had held her in its chains, that had locked down her spirit and her heart and her beauty.

  Afterwards, the audience had stood and shouted. The curtain had parted seven times, eight, nine, and still they’d applauded. Chloe had curtseyed each time, regal in her acceptance of their homage, her arms filled with red roses. More roses tossed on the stage around her until she stood in a carpet of flowers, her smile radiant, everything about her speaking one truth.