Some of the group had been taken out fishing by Tane and Matiu today. I couldn’t wait to hear what Nathan had to say about that. Nathan wasn’t exactly an outdoorsman.
Violet, who’d brought Karen’s bridesmaid’s dress down from Auckland but had left mine behind, wasn’t among the group. “Not possible, darling,” she’d said when Hemi had offered the fishing outing. “Not that I want to. Glad to have the excuse, to be honest. I do have a bride to fit, though, and it’s not easy. Changes every week, doesn’t she.”
Violet had been given the considerable task of altering Hemi’s design to accommodate my twenty-five-week belly. “Not quite kosher, darling,” she’d told me when I’d asked her to do it. “If the groom isn’t meant to see the dress beforehand, he surely isn’t meant to design it.”
“Hemi and I,” I’d told her serenely, “make our own rules. He hasn’t seen me in the dress, and that’s good enough for me.”
“You know,” she’d said, “when I first met you, I thought, ‘Hemi, mate, you can’t be serious.’ And now, I think, ‘Hemi, mate, I only hope you can keep up.’”
So, yes, those were all people I counted as my friends, too. And then there were all the people I could count as my family.
Koro, of course. Tane and June and their kids, and Matiu as well, despite the laughter in his eyes every time he encountered Hemi and me, as if he knew Hemi was watching him every moment, waiting for him to slip up and declare his undying love. All the other cousins and aunties and uncles and babies that made up a Maori whanau. And the few whose arrival would be greeted warily by all. Hemi’s father, who’d continued to stay clean—and who’d be borrowing money throughout the reception. His mother and sister, whom I hadn’t met yet and wasn’t excited to see.
Tane had told Hemi the day before, when we’d all been at their house eating dinner and discussing wedding plans, “And before you say anything—if somebody needs to chuck your mum out or drive her back to her hotel, it’ll be me. You’re not the only man in this whanau who can take charge. Time you learned that.”
“Could even be me,” June had said with her usual cheerful laugh. “Since I’m more likely to be fit to drive than you, Tane, and you know it.”
“Right, then,” he’d said. “We’ll do it together. You’re not to worry, mate, and neither is Hope. We’ll get it sorted. You two focus on each other. That’s what it’s all about.”
Soon enough, Hemi would be headed over to Tane’s, where he’d be sleeping tonight while Karen and I stayed at Koro’s. But right now, on a glorious early-summer afternoon, all fresh breeze, impossibly blue sky, and light striking diamonds off the water, he was taking me for a drive.
“Soothe the wedding nerves, eh,” he’d said, looking decidedly un-Hemi-like in shorts, a T-shirt, and jandals, the ubiquitous flip-flops that were mandatory attire in this most casual of countries.
“Speak for yourself,” I’d answered. “I don’t have wedding nerves. Somebody’s got to make an honest woman of me, and it had better happen soon, because I’m not getting any less pregnant here.”
“Compliant,” he’d said, that hint of a smile in his dark eyes. “That’s what I thought when I first saw you. Obedient. Sweet.”
“Good thing you were wrong,” I’d said—yes, sweetly. “How boring would that have been?” And this time, I’d been rewarded with the laugh that I, more easily than anybody else on earth, could coax from him.
Oh—I know you’re wondering. Yes, I had a job, and no, it wasn’t working for Hemi. So what was I doing? I had the job of my dreams, maybe the job of a lot of women’s dreams. I was thinking about, talking about, dreaming about, and writing about—shoes.
Funky shoes. Rocker-girl shoes. Skedixx Footwear, to be exact, the company whose designs Hemi had chosen for his show. When I’d seen the shots, I’d known that was something I had to be part of. And when I’d proposed the idea to Hemi, right there in Paris, in the afterglow of his triumph, he’d said yes.
After that, I’d done the work. I’d made the call to the president, a fast-talking, whip-thin woman with the dirtiest mouth I’d ever heard, a woman who would have intimidated me to the point of silence a year earlier. But when I’d called her, introduced myself, and told her that Hemi was interested in using her company as an exclusive supplier and that I’d like to be the liaison in their joint venture? You could say she’d leaped at the idea.
Maternity leave? Flexible hours? No problem. And I had my dream job. All it had taken was a little confidence and a lot of Te Mana. The difference was—this time, I knew I had something to offer. I wouldn’t be a token, and I wouldn’t be a figurehead. I’d be working, and I’d be contributing. I’d already started, in fact, and I loved it.
And Anika? That’s the other thing you’re wondering about. Anika wasn’t going to prison, at least not now.
Walter had paid her an unexpected visit on the day after the Paris show, together with Hemi’s New Zealand attorney. Let’s just say that Anika had dropped her suit in record time, and that if she ever did share those recordings, she’d pay a price she hadn’t seemed one bit eager to experience. The spider had gone back into her hole, and she seemed likely to stay there.
If she didn’t? What I’d told Hemi was true. I didn’t care. Sex scandals were a dime a dozen, and a husband talking dirty to his wife wasn’t going to be front-page news.
“Nice here,” I said now, a little sleepily. We were driving along Seaforth Road in Waihi Beach, just north of Katikati, past a row of houses, some modest, some grand, located to catch the best possible views of one of the endless stretches of spectacular shoreline that were New Zealand’s specialty.
“It is,” Hemi agreed. He turned onto a side street that ended at the beach itself and pulled to a stop. A path led through scrubby grass onto the sand. Public, like every beach in the country.
I could have walked and run on these wide-open spaces forever. Or even, maybe, swum. I’d tried a swim in the ocean with Hemi that morning, and it had been different, a little scary but exhilarating all the same, the water clear enough that I’d seen live sand dollars half-burrowed into the sand beneath me, a flash of blue that had surely been a fish.
“This house is for sale,” I said idly, looking at the elegant, modern building beside us. A pristine white, its entire front—the part that faced the beach—was domed. Arched, you might say. In order to allow more window space, I guessed, and to get more view. “That’s a nice one.”
“Would you like to have a look?” Hemi asked.
I stopped in my tracks. “Do not tell me. You bought a house.”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
I suppressed the pang of disappointment. What, I expected him to buy me a house now? Redecorating his entire apartment and rearranging his entire life hadn’t been enough?
“But,” he said, “I could do.”
I stopped again. “Tell me. Right now.”
He pulled a key from his pocket and dangled it from his fingers. “Borrowed it, that’s all. Come see. Just in case, eh.”
When we went inside, I stood in front of that window wall and said, “Oh, yeah,” and Hemi smiled and started folding glass doors back. On and on, until they stood wide open and I was in an indoor/outdoor area that stretched from the modern kitchen behind me to a spacious, airy lounge, then all the way out until the stone-flagged patio ended in a low concrete wall. Beyond that was the beach, and the sea, and the sky. It was pretty good. Scratch that. It was great.
“Three bedrooms in here,” Hemi said. “And something Americans care about even more, eh. Two baths.”
We walked around the downstairs and looked at all of it. It was modern, but it was so light, so breezy, so cheerful. And I was in love.
Then we went upstairs, and it was even better. The top part of that huge curved window gave an uninterrupted view of the sea, an overhanging deck provided more of that indoor/outdoor space, and an enormous bed sat against the far wall from which to take it all in.
“
You’d see stars at night,” I said dreamily. “I’ll bet.”
“You would. If you were, for example, here on a visit. Say, three or four times a year. If you had excellent satellite reception so you could work while you let yourself be inspired by space and light and color, that is. It could be someplace where you could spend the odd evening having a barbecue with your whanau, let your Koro spend time with his mokopuna. You could take your kids out on a boat, teach them to fish and to swim and to be Kiwis, and to be Maori. For example.”
I stopped where I was, in front of those windows. “I am very pregnant,” I told him. “Don’t mess with me. Don’t tease me if you don’t mean it.”
He took my hand. “Don’t you know yet that I love to tease you, but I always mean it?”
I knew my eyes must be shining like stars, and that everything I felt was there to read in my face. “Tell me.”
“It’s your wedding present, if you want it. I wanted you to see it first. If you don’t like it, no worries, we’ll find another.”
“I don’t want another one,” I said at once. “I want this one. I even like the way it’s decorated, although of course I know that won’t stay.”
“It can do. I can get it turnkey if I like. We could change it up gradually, maybe. Add some art, things we found over here. Make it ours.”
“Bright things,” I said. “Pretty things.”
“Pretty things,” he agreed solemnly.
I had to laugh. “I can see you now, terrified I’ll buy some tacky flower picture or a corny saying painted onto a board that’ll make you wince every time you walk past it. Veto power on either side. How’s that?”
“Works for me.” He took out the key again and jingled it. “Say the word, and you’ve got your honeymoon suite.”
“You’re kidding. For tomorrow?”
“Yeh. For tomorrow. Can’t think of anything I’d rather do than spend the next three days and nights here with you.”
It would be a short honeymoon. It had to be, because Hemi had to get back to work. But that was all right, because we were coming again for a week at Christmas. And every Sunday was mine.
“Then, yes,” I said. “Yes, please. I want a house for my wedding present. I want time in New Zealand every year for a wedding present. And I definitely want a baby who’ll learn to be a Maori and a Kiwi for a wedding present.”
“Then,” Hemi said, “that’s what you’re going to get.”
Hemi
It could be that a man gets born twice. Once when he takes his first breath of life, and the second time when he finally realizes what that life is all about.
It had taken me longer than most, maybe. I was thirty-seven years old on the day I stood beside my cousin Tane and watched a vibrant Karen walk down the aisle of the wharenui in a yellow dress, carrying a bouquet of yellow roses that stood for her health and our friendship.
I was about to be her brother-in-law, but that wasn’t all. I was her guardian as well, the court having made it official only a week earlier. I’d be responsible for her from here on out, and that bothered me not one bit.
I managed a smile for her, and she smiled happily back at me. She looked disconcertingly older than sixteen today, and too beautiful for my complete comfort. Being her guardian was going to be a challenge. But then, I’d always been able to handle a challenge.
The thought entered my head and left it again. I didn’t have room for it, not now. Not with my bride coming down the aisle to me on my grandfather’s arm.
I’d designed her dress, and I’d thought of her during every minute of the process. But I’d never anticipated the way it would affect me to see her wearing it, and to know she was wearing it for me.
The gossamer fabric seemed to glow around her. She appeared smaller than ever beside Koro’s bulk, her pregnancy the only substantial thing about her, but nobody standing to watch her pass could have looked away. That was how brightly she shone.
The two of them came to a stop before me. Koro bent and kissed her cheek, and she put a hand on his shoulder and whispered something in his ear that might have been, “Thank you,” or “I love you.” Probably the latter, from the shine in the old man’s eyes. She handed her bouquet of white and lavender roses to her sister, and then Koro was joining our hands.
I could swear that something passed between us at that moment, leaping from her hand to mine. The same spark I’d felt that very first day in the photography studio, when I’d touched the cheek of an overworked assistant with a coffee stain on her T-shirt and blue eyes too big for her face and had known I wanted her.
I’d known that spark was sexual attraction. I hadn’t realized it could also have been her heart calling to mine, and I couldn’t possibly have anticipated the silver threads that had begun to twine around us from that moment, binding us together in a way that would become impossible to resist.
Not that I was resisting. Not anymore.
When I put the circlet embedded with tiny diamonds like stars onto her slim finger, I felt that current pass between us again, stronger than ever. And when she held my hand and slid the platinum band onto my own finger, I knew the circuit was complete.
I didn’t need the man to say the words, but he did anyway. And when he told me I could kiss her, I didn’t, not right away. First, I twined my fingers through hers, and our rings were touching when I lifted her hand to mine and kissed it.
After that, I kissed my bride, then lifted her off her feet and kissed her again.
Hope Sinclair Te Mana. The girl who had stolen my heart. The woman who had given me back my soul.
Hope
How many honeymoons can a woman have in four months? I’d had three.
Well, it had felt like three, anyway. First had been the all-too-few days and nights in our new house, during which Hemi hadn’t tied me to the bed . . . well, all right, he had once, but not the whole time or anything like that.
I’d tied him there once myself, too. That had been fun.
In the intervals, we’d cooked and eaten and walked on the beach and swum and talked and even lain around together reading and listening to music. We’d relaxed, and it had been wonderful. The least eventful honeymoon you could imagine, especially since we’d already made me pregnant.
We’d come back for Christmas the next month, and it had been a major relief to have our own house to escape to along with Karen when Hemi’s parents and sister got to be too much.
“No offense, Hemi,” Karen had said on Christmas night, while she and I had been engaged in an unofficial tiny-mince-pie-eating competition.
Hemi and I had looked at each other and smiled. Karen’s “no offense” always preceded something special—and usually offensive.
“You sort of had to marry Hope and get pregnant and get me in the deal,” Karen went on. “You know, build a new family? Because your birth family kind of sucks.”
Hemi and I had laughed, then. We’d laughed until I’d gotten the hiccups and had had to drink out of the wrong side of the glass and had felt the giggles creeping up some more.
“Terms for you to learn,” Hemi had finally told Karen. “Big whanau, small whanau. My small whanau definitely sucks. My big whanau, though . . . that’s all right, eh.”
“Mm.” Karen had reached for another mince pie, then decided it would be even better with a giant dollop of custard on it. “Especially Matiu. Still yum.”
“Except that you’re saving yourself for a duke,” Hemi had said.
“I am broadening my horizons,” Karen had announced loftily. “I can make my own success. I will marry for love and love alone.”
“Oh, no,” Hemi had groaned. “I foresee a starving artist. A musician, maybe.”
“Could be,” Karen had said serenely. “Sweet as.”
Now, we were finishing up the third honeymoon, which had also included Karen. Hemi had finally delivered on his promise to take us to the Great Barrier Reef, now that we’d both learned to swim. He’d had to order a special maternity wetsuit
for me, or maybe Josh had. I was coming to believe that Josh had superpowers.
We’d taken off for Karen’s spring break, since it would be our last chance before the baby came, and had spent it in Australia’s Whitsundays, a group of islands off the coast of Queensland where the sea was blue, the sun was warm, and the living was very, very easy. We’d kayaked past enormous sea turtles swimming along the sandy bottom of crystal-clear waters, had sailed in the sunshine, and, most of all, had snorkeled to our hearts’ content. I’d seen corals and fish and anemones and sea stars of every size and shape and color. I’d explored a lush undersea garden with my two favorite people in the world, and then had sat in the tropical Australian dusk and watched entire flocks of cockatoos and parrots wheeling and screaming before they came to roost in the trees.
It had been the adventure of a lifetime, and it was just beginning.
Now, we were flying home, six hours into our journey with eighteen or so to go. Both Australia and New Zealand were behind us, and the next stop would be Hawaii, for refueling. Just the . . . seven of us. Hemi’s pilots, the flight attendant, Hemi, Karen, and me. And the doctor.
Yes. He’d brought a doctor along for the whole trip. Dr. Melody Simmons, to be exact, a New York obstetrician who’d been delighted to accept an all-expenses-paid luxury vacation to Australia in return for being Hemi’s peace of mind on the plane.
“I’ll only be eight months pregnant,” I’d told him when he’d brought it up. “And Australia isn’t exactly a third-world country.”
“Checking you over,” he’d said. “And for the flights as well. You’ll be thirty-seven weeks by the time we’re done. No airline in the world would let you fly, and neither will I. Not without a doctor on board.”
“Fine,” I’d said, sounding like Karen. I may have been a little grumpy. It’s possible. My maternity leave from work had begun when we’d left on the trip, and even though I knew women all over the world worked until they had their babies, I was—all right, I was tired. Especially today. I was too short and small-framed to make carrying an already-seven-pound baby anything but uncomfortable, and I’d probably overdone it a little on our last day. Swimming in warm, salty water looking at fish was about the most blissful thing a pregnant woman could do. Except, of course, having sex, and I’d done that, too. That was what I’d probably overdone, in fact.
Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3) Page 25