When Daniel finally let me go, I stood back and focused on breathing, but he wasn’t done. “Think about being a good wife to Hemi,” he said, his eyes shining with the tears that I could already see came too easily to him. “Such a thing as loyalty and supporting your man through the hard times. You could think about that.”
The room was nothing but silence until Hemi said, “I’ll walk you out, Dad.” His voice was hard and cold as steel, and he didn’t even glance my way, just stalked out beside his father.
“Whoa,” Karen said into the silence that followed their exit. “I guess I’m glad I didn’t get any words of wisdom. Or a hug.”
“All right?” Tane asked me.
“Sure.”
Koro said, “Sit down,” and I didn’t argue. I sank into the chair Daniel had vacated and thought, Wow.
Tane said to June, “If I ever do that to one of our sons? Shoot me quick.”
It was so unexpected, I laughed, and so did everybody else except Koro.
“Yeh,” Tane told me with a grin. “Never mind. He’ll be far away. The Pacific Ocean’s a wide and wonderful thing.”
I thought, Thank goodness. And then I thought, Oh, Hemi. And I hadn’t even met his mother yet.
Hemi
I didn’t want to hang about and chat with my dad, but he paused at the open door to his car, looked at me with resignation that made my blood boil, and said, “You don’t have to marry her just because she’s pregnant.”
I was controlled. That was who I was. At least it was the man I had made myself into. “I do have to marry her,” I said. “I’m going to marry her. You’ll be invited to the wedding, because Koro will want you there. And if you get drunk, I’ll be the one chucking you out. Drive safely.”
“I told you,” he said. “I’m sober. If I’m not safe, it won’t be my fault. It’ll be these tires, because they’re buggered.”
I held his gaze. “Tell me you don’t have a bet on that All Blacks match. More than one, probably, because somebody’s in form, and the jokers at the TAB haven’t figured it out. You’ve got inside info on who’s likely to score the first try, and you can’t lose, because this is your big chance, and you deserve it. How much? A hundred? How many tires would that buy?”
A flash of anger in the dark eyes. “Your sister says you’re a cold bastard. Why d’you reckon she’d say that?”
I breathed in and out. “Because I don’t listen to excuses. Because I expect the same effort out of anybody else that I’m willing to put in.”
“You don’t understand human weakness. You don’t understand life.”
“No. I understand it, and I don’t let it beat me. I push back.”
I left him standing there. Did it feel good? No. But then, it never did.
Back into the hospital, then. Back to Koro, and a roomful of people I could be grateful for with my whole heart. Back to Hope.
But first, I had to deal with something else. I walked through the door to Koro’s room, pulled out my wallet, and said, “What did he borrow?”
June looked at Tane, and my cousin sighed and said, “Fifty.”
I handed the bills over without a word, and he pocketed them and said, “Sorry, mate. Hard to say no. He’s my uncle.”
I nodded, and then my gaze fell on Koro.
“Not your business,” he said.
“Almost a hundred,” Karen said softly from my side. “Everything Koro had in his wallet.”
“He’ll spend it on cigarettes and the TAB,” I told Koro. “Next time you see him, he’ll be driving on those same tires, have that same story.”
He shrugged. “Have to believe, don’t I. No choice. He’s my son.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I never had.
Hope
We were in Hemi’s car again, headed north toward Katikati, when Karen said from the back seat, “No offense, Hemi, but your dad’s kind of a jerk.”
I’d had my hand on his thigh, wanting to help but not knowing how else to do it, and I felt his muscle stiffen for a split second. And then he laughed, and it relaxed under my hand. “Yeh,” he said. “He is. At least he wasn’t drunk. Used to turn up at my rugby games pissed, have a go at the coaches and generally make a nuisance of himself, until he got himself banned for good for charging at the ref. That was a hell of a day. One of many memorable moments.”
“Whoa,” Karen said. “That’d be majorly embarrassing. Didn’t you just, like, want to sink through the ground?”
“Maybe at first,” he said. “When I was younger. After that, I pretended he wasn’t there and focused on what I was doing instead. What I could control. He couldn’t embarrass me if I didn’t show it. Good for me, probably, that I learned that lesson early.”
He didn’t say any more than that, but he didn’t have to. I’d wondered what could possibly have forged that iron self-control, that nearly desperate need to be in command of not just himself, but every situation he was in. I had a feeling I had my answer. If I was terrified I’d end up like my mother, Hemi was even more terrified of ending up like his dad. Feelings were weakness, and showing vulnerability was offering yourself up for humiliation and pain.
For now, I kept my hand on his leg and didn’t talk. He didn’t need me jumping all over that. He’d told me, had given me that gift, and I was going to respect it.
“So can we all just agree on that and go have lunch?” Karen asked. “Because I’m starved, and Hope probably needs to feed the munchkin.”
“Sadly,” I said, “it’s true.”
“Then I reckon I know what my job is,” Hemi said, sounding a whole lot more relaxed.
The second I got into the café, a small, cozy place a block from the Katikati beach, my stomach made an important announcement. I told Hemi, “I need something really fast. A . . . I don’t know. A muffin. Something. Right now.”
“All right,” he said, looking a bit startled. “Uh . . . what else would you like?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t care. Food.”
He must have seen how agitated I was, because he told the woman behind the counter, “Can we get a savory muffin straight away, please? Pregnant partner. Emergency, eh.”
She smiled, put a muffin on a plate, and handed it over, and I took it to a table and tried not to fall on it like a Labrador who’d just heard the rattle of kibble in the dish. But by the time Hemi and Karen arrived at the table carrying glasses and a carafe of water, the muffin was history.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m all better now. I can even wait for my lunch. I’m ready to talk to Karen.”
“Uh-oh,” she said. “Why me? You guys could just deal with your own stuff, you know. Don’t bring me into it. I’m fine. I’m just here because I wanted to see you and Koro. I didn’t have any burning need for more drama. I’m the teenager here. I’m the brain tumor survivor, too. How come I’m the only normal person in this room?”
“Well, see,” I said, “that’s the perfect segue. I need you to stay here with me and help with Koro for a few weeks and be your nice normal self.”
She studied me for a few seconds. “Let me guess. Hemi told you that I’m actually, you know, having a normal teenage life, seeing a—gasp—boy, so now I must be whisked away to New Zealand before I, what? Start having group sex? Get pregnant? Oh, wait. I’m not the one who did that. Or maybe it’s because I left my shoes on the floor. I ate in the living room and forgot to pick up, and Mr. Clean can’t handle it. Time for military school. Geez. I’m a person, you know, not a robot.”
“Well, no,” I said. “Actually, that’s not it. There are boys everywhere, so how would that change anything? And if you’re here, you’ll be leaving your shoes on Koro’s floor, and I know it. But I need your help, and so does Koro. I need to stay here for a while, and if you stayed, too, I could get a job. You could cook, because how will Koro manage with one hand? And you’re a better cook than I am already. Plus, I miss you. I really miss you.” Darn it, there were those tears again, right there
behind my eyes.
“You know what would be even simpler?” she said. “Let’s see. You could come home?”
“Please, sweetie,” I said. “It’s just a few weeks. Please stay with me. I need your help.” And then I held my breath. I didn’t think I’d ever said that before, and it felt so scary to say it now, to hear her refuse again, to think that she might not love me as much as I loved her. Hemi must have realized that, too, because he had hold of my hand under the table.
Karen sighed. “All right. But I was going to take driving lessons, and keep on with my swim lessons. And get surgery on my eyes.”
Hemi said, “I’ll have Josh reschedule the surgery. I’ll come back here for you, what? End of August? We’ll fix it for then, so you’ll be good to go when school starts. And I’m guessing you can find a way to get driving lessons and swim lessons here. Everything’s easier in New Zealand. You’ll see.”
“Which would be why you moved away,” Karen said.
“Except making money,” he said. “That’s easier in New York.”
Hemi
As we ate lunch, I was racking my brain. I’d be here one more night, and then I’d be leaving Hope fifteen thousand kilometers away for who knew how many weeks, surrounded by other blokes who’d see in her exactly what I saw and who’d want exactly what I did. And, yes, Eugene, my trainer, would have said that wasn’t trusting enough, but I couldn’t help thinking it. Besides, I was leaving her, wasn’t I? I was doing what she asked, and I was even trying to be understanding about it. That was going to have to be enough, because it was all I could manage.
I needed to give her something special today, though, to remind her why she wanted to wait for me. I knew what would have worked for me along those lines, but I was pretty sure I was meant to do something else, too.
I may have been a slow learner up to now, but I’d sussed out that giving her the best sex I had to offer, even with a cuddle and a bit of loving chat afterwards, didn’t meet all her intimacy needs. Seemed odd to me, because there wasn’t much more I could have asked beyond that myself, but maybe I was grasping that we weren’t wired entirely the same after all. That women actually were different, and pregnant women might be even more so. And if my achingly sweet, exasperatingly stubborn, undeniably fierce little fiancée needed more from me? I was going to give it to her. You did what you had to do to get the job done, and my job just now was to get her back, and keep her there.
I said, aiming for casual, “It’s a gorgeous day, and there’s that swimming pool and all. Seems to me that after we finish here, we could check it out, get you signed up for those lessons, maybe. I’ve never seen your progress with that, either of you. What do you reckon? Or we could do a . . .” I cast my mind about a bit more. “A visit to the bird gardens, maybe. A walk to the top of the Mount. A visit to the art gallery. Whatever you fancy.”
Hope asked, “Don’t you have work to do?”
“Yeh, I do. But I could spend a couple hours with you first, and I’d like to. And here’s that negotiation practice again, sweetheart. Don’t let me off the hook that easily.”
“I want to swim,” Karen said. “But I didn’t bring my suit.”
“I did,” Hope said. “And swimming sounds really good, at least as much as I can manage. Thank you, Hemi.”
There you were. Points. I’d got it right. “I don’t have mine, either,” I said. “No worries. A wee shopping trip, and we’re golden.”
We did that, and they both seemed quite happy about it. Hope didn’t even make any murmurs when I paid for Karen’s new things, which was progress indeed. We headed for the pool after a stop to pick up Hope’s togs, and I was changed and in the water fast.
The first brief shock of cold, then the calm the rhythmic breathing and motion always brought, plus the pure pleasure of swimming under the open sky, were the perfect antidote to the lingering tension from my dad’s visit and everything else the past couple days had offered up. I’d already powered through ten fast laps when I touched the side of the pool and looked up to see Hope and Karen emerging from the ladies’ changing room.
It was a good thing I was in the water when they dropped their towels and walked toward me. Karen jumped straight in and began to swim in a perfectly creditable crawl, but Hope sat on the concrete edge, then slid carefully into the lane next to mine. She was so short that only her upper eighteen inches or so were visible, but those inches were choice.
“Sweetheart,” I said, “how could I have missed that?”
It was the same white bikini she’d worn at the Polynesian Spa, but if it had looked good then? It looked even better now. First, despite her slimness, which had almost become frailty now, I’d seen the tiniest, sweetest little swell of belly below her navel, and had been nearly overwhelmed by a sudden, fierce longing to put my hand there. I needed to feel that, to trace every beautiful contour, and then to kiss it, because it was mine. And after that, I needed to show her exactly how much I loved seeing it.
Tonight, I reminded myself. Because the other place where she’d changed, I absolutely had to keep my hands off just now.
I’d always loved her sweet little breasts, all her delicate curves. She was tiny, but so perfectly made. But now . . . she wasn’t so tiny anymore.
“I finally got a figure,” she said, reading my mind with perfect ease. “Too bad I’ll only keep it for a month or so. I should have bought a new suit myself, I guess. I didn’t realize how much I’d be, well, spilling over.”
It was true. That bikini top wasn’t really big enough to do the job she was asking it to.
“Are you all good to swim?” I asked. “Need me to come over there and give you a bit of help?”
She laughed, and it sounded so happy, it twisted at my heart. “I have the oddest feeling about exactly how helpful you’d be. Besides, I learned how, remember? You just watch, boy.”
“Like I could do anything else,” I said, and she laughed again.
She wasn’t as far along with the swimming as Karen, but she wasn’t going too badly. And then, because I really couldn’t stand there and perve at my own fiancée all afternoon, I shoved my goggles back on and did another twenty laps or so. And if I looked over occasionally to watch Hope swimming, chatting to Karen, or, best of all, doing some floating, looking exactly the way I was going to be seeing her tonight, on her back and blissful? Well, I could hardly help myself.
After our swim, Hope signed herself and Karen up for more lessons, and she didn’t even object when I paid for them. And when I stopped at the bank and opened an account for the two of them, all she did was sigh and say, “Hemi . . . how does this help my reestablishment plan, exactly?”
“You don’t have to use it for anything, ah, frivolous,” I said, and then went on with what I thought was some pretty faultless logic. “But you and Karen will be caring for Koro, won’t you? If you weren’t here, I’d be paying somebody else, or a team of somebodies, more likely, and that wouldn’t come cheap. Plus groceries and whatever else he needs. Besides, who knows what he’s giving my dad. Could help me with that, couldn’t you, so he’s not caught short. And if you had an emergency, you wouldn’t have to worry.”
Hope took the cards, tucked one into her wallet, and handed the other to Karen. “You keep sneaking in under my defenses. I know why you’re so successful. You are the most single-minded man I’ve ever known.” But she was smiling when she said it.
We headed back up the hill to Koro’s, then, and Karen said along the way, “Tane and June invited me to have dinner with them tonight, and to sleep over. So I could get to know my cousins better, they said, which was nice of them, even though their kids won’t actually be my cousins at all.”
I made a mental note to thank Tane next time I saw him. “Course they will,” I said. “You’ll find the definition of ‘cousin’ is pretty fluid to a Maori. You could say we have heaps. Your whanau’s more than your mum and dad. Or, in your case, your sister.”
“Huh,” she said. “That’ll b
e novel. Anyway, I said yes, because I thought this would be my last night in New Zealand until you guys finally got married. Ha. Little did I know I was going to be a resident. But they have a ping-pong table, so that’s cool. Besides, otherwise I’d be hanging around here, trying to read my book while you guys show me a whole bunch more of that ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ making out right in front of me and staring deep into each others’ eyes. So awkward. Leading by example, right? Showing me how not to give in to my hormonal urges?”
“We’re engaged,” Hope said, and I could see her smile trying to escape. “It’s allowed.”
Karen snorted, as well she might. “I hate to tell you this, but you started doing that a long time ago.”
“Your sister’s also nine years older than you,” I said. “And I’m in love with her, not just some fella looking to hook up.”
Another snort. “I was there, Hemi. Maybe try again.”
“All right,” I said. “She said no.”
“Oh, so guys only respect you if you say no? They act like they want sex and they’ll leave if they don’t get it, but if they do get it, they leave because you’re a slut? Who thinks like that anymore? That just makes guys sound like jerks.”
I shook my head, feeling like a bull being pestered by an annoying fly. “If you don’t become a lawyer, the world will be missing out on a perfect match. But you’re right. Guys are jerks, at least some of them are, especially the young ones. I know I was, but your sister made me work for it until the relationship was on her terms and wasn’t all about what I wanted. She’s still doing it. She tells me what she needs from me, and then she holds my feet to the fire until I give it to her. And you know I love her, or I wouldn’t be telling you all this,” I added, pulling into Koro’s drive once again. “Bloody uncomfortable, isn’t it.”
“Open communication is key between adolescents and their authority figures,” she said. “Even though your sexual politics were forged in fire at about the same time as the One Ring, and you aren’t really my authority figure.”
Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3) Page 7