Hana Du Rose Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4

by Bowes, K T

  She awoke abruptly, her heart pounding, doing a mental check of herself as she struggled to collect her senses. She had turned onto her side in the armchair with her feet up on the seat, a soft blanket covering her shoulder and muffling sound from the room. Her neck ached and she was aware of wetness on her face where she dribbled in her sleep. Someone in the room spoke loudly, interspersed with sobbing. The unexpected increase in volume sent her body into danger-mode.

  Hana shot into a standing position, the blanket sliding to the floor and tangling in her feet. “What’s going on?” she slurred, swaying on the spot and rubbing her hand over her eyes like a drunk. A big man stood over her husband with his back to her. His shoulders heaved and he spoke loudly and rambled without control, sounding angry. Hana looked at Logan but curiously, he watched the television as though there was no-body there.

  Hana held her breath, doubting herself, beginning to relax and assume she was dreaming. Then he spoke again. “Anka left me,” he snivelled. “I was so angry and you tried to stop me and…” The tirade continued and Hana’s blood pressure hiked instantly. She scanned the room for something to clout Tama with, denying him a second opportunity to hurt Logan. The only thing to hand was her bag, down by her feet. It wasn’t heavy, but it would have an element of surprise.

  Hana bent slowly, screened from sight by Tama’s man-boy’s body and thwacked him across the back of the head with the patent maroon handbag before he saw it coming. “Get! Out!” she yelled as she punctuated her words with heavy thuds on his head.

  There was a jangle of metal as keys and change spewed out onto the floor, but the bag hit its target, and Tama put his hand up to his head in surprise, wheeling around to face her. Hana dropped the bag and shoved him hard, pushing him around the bed and towards the door, desperate to get rid of him and shut him out. “Get away from my husband! How dare you turn up here. Get out or I’ll get the cops!” She whacked him again with her open palm.

  But Tama was a college rugby first fifteen player, and physical tussles were his specialty. A delicate waif of a woman had little impact on him, as reaching the footboard of the bed he turned and faced her down. He spun her round and held her off the ground in a bear hug as Hana kicked and clawed at him, her face a look of determination and anger. She saw her dangling feet as she tried to wrench herself free and suddenly heard the ‘thwack’ and felt her feet touch the ground again. Hana almost overbalanced with the impact of reaching the floor but a strong hand gripped her shoulder and pushed her upright.

  Hana spun to punch and her fist met her husband’s open palm. His fingers moved to her wrist without looking, his eyes staring over her head. In panic, Hana fixed her arms around Logan’s waist, hearing him grunt as she tried to defend him from the threat behind her. “Geez!” he groaned as Hana’s face pushed into his stitches and she gasped and released him. She spun her body, arms out to her sides to shield Logan only to find Tama spread-eagled on the lino floor, clutching a split lip. Logan rubbed his right hand against his hospital gown, leaving streaks of blood in its wake. His eyes were steel grey and his face an unreadable mask.

  Tama hauled himself to his feet and staggered into the corridor. The sound of his feet pattering down the corridor came back to Hana. An alarm sounded from the monitor by the bed, the drip cable trailing along the floor spilling clear liquid into a puddle and blood ran in a rivulet from the cannula in Logan’s hand.

  The sight of blood had a curious effect on Hana as she breathed out but not in. A strange tingling headache began over her eyes and her chest locked up. She heard a curious gagging noise coming from her mouth and realised she couldn’t breathe; her lungs stuck on one way only. Logan tried to hold her up as she sank to the floor, grunting with the effort. As Hana’s face touched the floor she smelled disinfectant and nausea added itself to the mix. Littered around her were the contents of her bag, lipstick, keys, odd bits of necessary stationary and random bits of rubbish. The random thought trotted through her brain; that was stupid, now I have to pick it all up again.

  Hana’s vision didn’t go black like on the movies, it faded out like a piece of music or a well-made video and the frantic need for air stopped. When she came round, she was no longer on the floor staring at the junk from her bag but laid in Logan’s bed. He sat in the armchair and a nurse tried to reinsert the drip needle, which looked painful. “Did it just come out or did you actually rip it out?” the nurse asked testily, glancing up at Logan’s impassive face. He shrugged and didn’t answer. “You ripped it out then, didn’t you?” The nurse sounded cross. “Hold this!” she put Logan’s finger over a piece of gauze that was rapidly soaking red and left the room. “I’ll be back in a second. Don’t take that off!”

  Hana turned her face away, feeling oddly sick. Running a mental body-check, she discovered a weird tingling in her lips and a tightness around her face. Putting her hand up, she found a hard thing over her nose and mouth and panicked, trying to pull it off. She managed to dislodge it, finding it clamped back on in an elastic motion.

  “Steady on, don’t panic.” Her ministrations were interrupted by a cool hand, which pulled hers away and slipped the thing off her face. A gust of cold air brushed her forehead as it was hung above her on the wall and the switch was flicked, shutting it off. Hana’s brain finally recognised the oxygen mask, but couldn’t tell her why she was in bed with one on. The hand belonged to Dr Singh, who felt the pulse in her wrist with it, using the other to press on her shoulder and keep her lying flat. He harrumphed and looked hard at her. “Hyperventilation. Quite common under stress. Get up and move around when you feel able.”

  Hana felt ridiculous lying there and started to sit up. “I’m perfectly fine. How embarrassing!” The fog threatened to descend again and she lay still for a moment, waiting for it to clear.

  Dr Singh turned to Logan, watching as the nurse returned and tried to stop the bleeding. She glanced up at him. “I’ll stop this, then I’ll try a different site.” She held gauze with one hand and mopped up the blood with the other. Logan watched her ministrations with disinterest, his face a veil of frustration. Dr Singh cleared his throat and paused until he gained Logan’s attention. “I’ve completed the research and tests I began at the Waikato and have reached a conclusion.”

  Hana realised she was holding her breath again and tried to consciously breathe in and out rhythmically as the doctor spoke. “You haven’t been attending clinics for your hemophilia, or getting appropriate regular assessments. Would I be correct in that assumption?”

  Logan’s face was neutral, but Hana’s brain grappled with the gravity of the situation through the fog settled firmly over her ability to reason. Dr Singh sounded capable and calm and Hana hung onto his confidence as hers waned. “Do you have brothers with this problem?” The doctor was perfunctory and matter-of-fact, interpreting Logan’s movement of his head as definitive, whereas Hana thought it was more of an, I don’t know. Logan’s jaw worked rapidly through the rough skin on his face, the grey bristles intermingling with the black. Even unwell, he still managed to look tousled and handsome.

  “What do they do to cope with it?” the doctor asked, unfazed by the dangerous look in Logan’s eye as the medic revealed all to Hana in deliberate indifference.

  Logan bit his lip, stared hard at the man and answered, “They die.”

  The Doctor pulled a face and ran his hand over his black beard. “Right then. Well, when you want help, you come find me.” He placed a couple of leaflets on the end of the bed with careful fingers and strode off, leaving the nurse still trying to mop up the blood from the cannula.

  Shocked, Hana swung her legs down off the bed, wishing private health care included double beds so they could both have a lie down. The smart grey linoleum looked like it was dancing towards her and away again and she felt unbelievably sick, grappling with her own un-wellness and trying to deal with the fact her husband chose not to include her in his confidences.

  The nurse was sweet, grovelling under the bed
to pick up the contents of Hana’s handbag, piling them up on the covers for her to put into order. Hana sat sideways on the bed, seeming unable to extract herself and Logan perched on the other side, one hand raised holding the metal drip rack, trying to stop his hand bleeding. “I’m sorry,” he sounded chastened.

  Hana shrugged. “Why should I care? It’s not like I’m your wife or anything, is it?” Sarcasm covered her disappointment and fear.

  “Hana, it’s not like that, I…”

  “Save it!” Hana raised her palm in his face. “You don’t want to share with me. Fine! Good to know where I stand, I guess.”

  Logan’s face clouded and he gritted his teeth. He reached forward as the nurse piled Hana’s belongings onto the bed and fingered loose change and an earring. He picked up a little metal box, which seemed to want to cling to everything else on the bed. He moved it around thoughtfully as coins and a paperclip stuck to it, flicking everything off with his finger and then repeating the action.

  Hana sighed and spoke to the nurse. “I’m sorry to be such a pain,” she said, “I feel an idiot. I’m supposed to be supporting my husband, not hitting family members and then fainting!”

  “It’s fine,” the nurse soothed. “How are you feeling now?”

  “Stupid. But better. I think I’ll go home now. But please accept my apologies.”

  Logan revolved the metal box in his fingers, enjoying the smoothness of it as the nurse smiled and padded out of the room. “That’s what Tama was saying.”

  “What? He was saying what?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Oh.” Hana felt mortified. The poor boy was apologising and she did the Miss Piggy thing with the Muppet handbag. She bit her lip and looked contrite. “Oh, that’s awful! I am sorry then! I woke up and he was there and I thought…” She put her hands up over her face. “Oh, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “It’s ok,” Logan answered, “it was quite sexy actually, if a little comical. You were going for it. He would have been hand-bagged to death if he hadn’t picked you up.”

  Hana was confused. “Why did you smack him then?”

  Logan’s eyes flashed dangerously, the colour of his irises seeming to deepen and darken. “Because nobody touches my wife!”

  “I can’t work you out,” Hana sighed, a sob hidden in the exhalation.

  “You will one day.” Logan got to his feet, almost tripping over the wheeled legs of the drip rack and lost patience. “I’m over this!” he snapped. Anger and frustration ripped through his body and he kicked the stand hard, sending it flying into the wall.

  Two hours later after much argument with Dr Singh and the nursing staff, Logan was fully dressed and ready to go home. He refused to be dissuaded and, faced with his silent determination they eventually gave in. Dr Singh added a flourishing signature to a prescription and held it out to Logan. “You are more trouble than all my state healthcare patients put together! Start taking care of yourself, man! And let your poor wife help you!”

  The doctor shot a sympathetic look towards Hana, who was loaded up with leaflets and what-to-do-if-it-all-turns-to-custard instructions. Logan was given drugs to take to clot his blood and Hana promised to make sure he did. As the embattled pair stood on the steps down to the car park, the good Lord smiled on them as a warm sun peeked out from behind the clouds and graced their slow but steady walk to the BMW. Hana settled Logan into the car, fussing a little too much, worrying about the nagging sickness in the pit of her stomach. She stowed Logan’s bags in the boot, calling over her shoulder, “Don’t you think it’s funny how you left home in your pyjamas and gained almost your entire wardrobe and gadget collection over a week’s stay in hospital?”

  Hana heard her husband chuckle and stowed the last carrier bag, hoping it wouldn’t all roll around too much and end up spewing all over the boot. She slammed the lid; glad Bodie couldn’t see her vehicle-abuse and turned, almost screaming in fright.

  Tama stood next to her, literally centimetres away. Hana took a step back, but he reached for her, his face imploring her pathetically as he caught hold of her sleeve. “No, don’t go!” Tama’s lip oozed blood steadily and it was on his shirt and jacket. He looked scruffy up close with a day or two’s worth of boyish beard covering his lower face. Hana was frozen to the spot, thinking breathe, breathe constantly to herself.

  “I’m so sorry,” came the wail from the man-boy’s swollen lips and he put a hand up to his face to brush the embarrassing tears away as they leaked out and dripped down his jacket. “I didn’t know, I didn’t mean it…” He indicated towards the front of the car with a shaking finger, “He’s been so good to me. You have to tell him I’m sorry! He wouldn’t listen to me.”

  The last sentence came as a sob and Tama let go of Hana’s sleeve and reached out to grab her hand, recoiling at the contact with her soft skin. Logan’s words stood between them, ‘Nobody touches my wife.’ Clearly there were unwritten laws in the Du Rose family that were best heeded. The whole family was a genealogical mess because they hadn’t kept their hands off each other. Hana didn’t know what to say. Her mother’s heart saw the small boy in a man’s body, the tears running freely down his hairy face and unexpected compassion formed words in her mouth. “I’ll tell him you’re sorry,” she said and turned back towards the car.

  Logan’s grey eyes watched the scene with a blank expression. The cast from his broken left arm rested on the roof of the BMW, his body completely still and full of tension. He said nothing but his interest was enough to paralyze both Hana and the boy. Hana felt her husband’s powerful mana emanating from his strong body and it covered her in a sense of safety and peace. Tama stopped dead and his eyes widened with fear as he stared at his uncle. Hana felt sick of all the violence and shut her eyes against the sickness and reviving headache.

  When she opened them, Logan’s good arm was around Tama’s shoulders, pulling him in close. Hana’s jaw dropped in surprise at her husband’s change of heart. Logan’s eyes strayed to Hana’s and he shrugged and pulled a face at her. He was rewarded by the subsequent loud and grateful sobs which racked Tama’s body and a great big streak of tears and snot from neck to waist all down Logan’s clean shirt.

  “Oh, for goodness sake!” Hana breathed and got into the driver’s seat.

  Hana Du Rose

  Chapter 14

  Tama’s car allegedly broke down and was currently abandoned on State Highway 1 north of Warkworth. He hitched home after a beer-fuelled night, but discovered his substitute father, Kane, to be on a bender of his own and carried on hitching into Hamilton. “Kuia Miriam told me where you were and I hitched into town to the hospital. Geez man, I thought you were dead and when I got upset they told me you just got moved.”

  An hour or two later, thought Hana wistfully and they would have been untraceable. She drove with Tama sitting in the back seat. She occasionally glanced at him in the rear-view mirror, astounded at Anka’s attraction to him when he looked so youthful. He’s got acne! Hana tried to quell her uncharitable thoughts figuring it must have been exciting for her friend, something of an ego trip to have this man-child hankering after her, worshipping her almost with his muscular rugby player’s chest and boyish looks. But she also understood the revulsion and dismay of Angus and Logan. Anka was fortunate not to be prosecuted for child abuse. All this ran through Hana’s numb brain on the drive home, but Logan sat passively as Tama chuntered away in the back seat.

  Hana missed Alfred’s cool head and verged on livid as she turned into the driveway. Tama whistled an annoyingly slow noise at the sight of the gates opening and the villa appearing proudly over the rise. “This yours Uncle Logan?” he asked and Hana resisted the urge to shout, no it’s mine, at him. She tapped on the steering wheel with her fingernails in irritation and felt Logan’s sharp eyes studying her from the side.

  “I really hope he’s not staying long,” she hissed in a sing-song voice and saw Logan’s head swivel back to face the windscreen. Fantastic, he didn’
t answer. Hana hoped fervently she wasn’t expected to put up with Tama indefinitely, otherwise the urge to kill him would become quickly overwhelming.

  Hana carried Logan’s bags up the steps and in through the front door, stomping angrily down to their bedroom as soon as it was properly open and the burglar alarm off. She flung the bag on the floor and collapsed onto the bed, still sick and weak from her faint. Bodie would have told her off for driving. Hana heard the sound of the tap running in the kitchen, punctuated by Tama’s endless prattling and then the click as the kettle was switched on. She lay on the bed for a full half an hour feeling angry and neglected. Hana knew Logan didn’t ‘do’ emotional game playing, but even so, she still wished he would come down and speak to her. She craved reassurance about his haemophilia, the leaflets crinkling noisily in her jeans pocket. Instead, Logan played happy families with a man who broke his body in a fit of childish pique and ruined the first weeks of their marriage.

  Hana’s feet dangled off the end of the bed and she reached down and pulled off her shoes, pushing her legs under the blankets. In a matter of minutes she was fast asleep, snoring gently into her pillow. Hana dreamed she was laid in the warm sun in the paddock, where she and Logan enjoyed their picnic an age ago. He stroked her hair and undressed her and she sighed with satisfaction and desire. Hana woke an hour later, the contented feeling quickly dissipating in the empty, darkening room. The original pinch of betrayal and rejection replaced it.

  Staggering up, she found herself in her underwear, her jeans and sweater neatly folded on the bedroom chair. The sickness and strange headache returned as Hana grappled in the wardrobe for her dressing gown and she fought with the cord as she stumbled down to the kitchen, not fully awake. The room was empty. She blundered around like a small elephant, finding Logan and Tama sitting in the living room, her newly decorated living room, which she did all by herself.