Hana Du Rose Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4

by Bowes, K T

  Hana wrapped her arms tighter around Logan and put her head under his chin. She felt the unevenness of the long scar on his side, inflicted by his older brother and cousin. It was jagged and lumpy, running almost down to his hip. She touched the tattoo on his bicep, sensing it was different from the rest of his arm and flatter where the ink was. His whakapapa was marked into his flesh, defining who he was and where he came from. It documented the waka which arrived on the shores of Kawhia, to the female union with a French Commander on a boat come to cause nothing but trouble, a lifetime ago. Hana knew its trail on his arm well enough now to trace it, even though it was too dark to see. She put her hand up to his face, trying not to poke him in the eye, running her fingers lightly over his cheeks and chin. “Would you get on your face?” she whispered.

  She felt him shake his head slowly. “No. I’m not kaumatua or chief,” he answered.

  Hana smiled and scoffed gently. “I think you are,” she said, thinking of how much deference was paid to him at home and work. She let herself think of Mr Che and how he listened so intently and respectfully to her husband. There was no doubt Logan had the ‘x factor.’

  Logan exhaled with a laugh catching under his breath and turned more towards her. “Not at the moment. Right now, I’m just your husband and her daddy.” He rubbed his hand over Hana’s tummy, making it tickle. She took a sharp intake of breath.

  “You didn’t!” It was the first time either of them had referred to the sex of the baby. Weeks ago, the radiologist wrote it on a piece of paper after the first scan and put it in a sealed envelope. Unable to agree or make up their minds, they were supposed to look at it together but hadn’t yet. “You peeked!” Hana half sat up the sheets falling lazily from her naked body.

  “Didn’t you?” he asked innocently.

  “No!” she sounded scandalised, biting her lip and slapping him in his chest. “Now you’ve ruined the surprise!”

  “Oh, sorry.” Guilt laced his voice in the darkness.

  “When did you do it?”

  “When I was waiting for you this afternoon. I missed you and the envelope was just there.”

  “Oh.” Logan felt Hana’s body tense again. He turned on his side and pulled her soft body into his.

  “I’m sorry. Don’t be mad at me.”

  “I’m trying not to be.”

  “Hana?”

  “What?”

  “Why was the envelope containing our baby’s sex hidden in the bread bin?”

  There was a leaden silence. “Is that where it went?”

  Logan snorted. “You didn’t know where it was? That’s the only reason you didn’t open it!”

  “No! I wouldn’t have...” Hana shrieked with laughter as Logan tickled her ribs. “Stop!”

  Logan pulled his wife back down to him, ignoring the sliver of resistance and kissed her on the mouth. He wanted her back from wherever she had been in her head the last few days, wanted to repossess her totally. She kissed him back and he felt relief wash over him as their tongues touched and Hana’s fingers were butterfly light on his aroused body.

  Later as Hana stood on the precipice of sleep, just about ready to jump off into the black nothingness, she felt sure she heard a voice. She stirred slightly; it was so soft it almost wasn’t there. “I’ll take care of you, Circle-Line-Girl.”

  Logan lay still next to her, his breathing so steady Hana fancied she imagined it and jumped into the welcome abyss. Logan felt her let go and relaxed, willing his mind to switch off and follow her. He ran some stuff through his head, working out numbers and scenarios and finally drifted off to sleep.

  Du Rose Legacy

  Chapter 23

  Next morning, Logan got up before the alarm. Down in the cold kitchen in his boxer shorts he dialled Liza’s mobile number. He knew she’d be awake. She hardly ever slept, glued to her laptop or case notes as though her life depended on it. Her life didn’t, but her reputation did. “S’up little bro,” she greeted him, in their childhood speech. “Kia ora.”

  Logan dispensed with the niceties and gave her a list of instructions for his lawyer, a partner in her firm. “Why don’t you call him?” she grumbled crossly and Logan ignored her. “It’ll cost you. You could do this more easily than him. Why don’t you?”

  Logan grunted. “It’s nearly done but if I keep driving around meeting directors, I’ll have to spend more evenings away from Hana,” he replied, “and I don’t want to. I’ve liquidated most of the assets but doing it nicely is taking too long. I’ve had enough. I want him to trash the lot, float it, auction it, I really don’t care. They all know I’m pulling out but they wanted meetings on meetings on meetings and it all amounts to the same thing. They want more time, they needed more warning and they can’t raise the money. I’m over it. It’s over. Che’s taken the big ones and if the rest don’t sort themselves out quickly, he can have them all.”

  He sounded so final Liza grew worried. “What’s wrong, bro? You’ve got directorships and sleeping partnerships all over the country. It’s bound to cause a ruckus, you must have known that. Just sticking it to them isn’t going to make you very popular, although the banks will probably send you chocolates and flowers for the loans and overdrafts they’re going to be selling today!”

  “I’m over it,” Logan repeated. “It was all just...just a game, a time filler. I want out. Now. I’m not playing anymore.”

  “Some game,” Liza said softly, “people’s lives and livelihoods. I sincerely hope nobody plays with your life that ruthlessly.”

  Logan gave a snort of derision. “Do you? I’ve been played my whole life, sis. But not anymore. Tell him the instructions. Tell him the deadline’s the end of next week. I want it finished. He can file against anyone who doesn’t come up with the goods.”

  Logan rang off leaving his sister discomfited. Damn you stupid boy, she thought to herself, sipping her cup of cold coffee with distaste and trying to fix her mind back on the point of law in the tomes before her. Liza Du Rose had halted a murder trial the previous day on a technicality and had one more hour to sort it out before driving back to the court. Her concentration gone, she wittered about what Logan meant by having been played his whole life and wondered if after all these years, he had finally worked it out.

  Logan went for a shower and was dressed and ready to leave when his mobile phone chirped. He answered shortly. “What?”

  “The New Zealand business world hates you,” came his lawyer’s jovial voice back down the line. Logan heard the sounds of a coffee shop even though it was just after seven. “There are some unhappy directors and CEO’s driving to work. But the banks love you and want to know what you’re doing with your vast fortune.”

  Logan laughed, “Spending it, man!”

  The lawyer laughed too. “Yeah, on me! Gonna cost ya. I’ve got a week’s work from this little mess, twenty-four seven.”

  “Go for your life,” Logan told him. “It’s never gonna happen again! Just don’t hike the expenses. I’ll be checking them carefully, every damn one. Oh and bro, answer your bloody cell phone in future and don’t make me go through Liza again. She doesn’t need to know about my financial affairs from now on.”

  They disconnected and Logan went to focus his attention on Hana. “Sorry babe, I need to go. Are you ready?” He searched around the upstairs looking for her. “Hana?”

  “Here,” came a small voice from the bathroom, “I can’t get off the toilet. I’m peeing like it’s an Olympic sport!”

  Logan stood outside the door biting his lip. “Did you drink much fluid...yesterday...wherever you were?”

  “Nooooo!” came back a wail. “And I couldn’t pee because I was scared of the toilet.”

  Logan tutted and furrowed his brow. “You were scared of...oh, never mind. Eight hours with no fluids will do that. The doctor told you to watch out for kidney infections again. Stay home, I’ll see Watson and sort it out.” And yesterday’s absence, he thought in his head, cringing. He jogged down to the k
itchen and grabbed a pint glass from the cupboard in the corner, filling it with water which he brought back and carefully laid inside the bathroom door. “Drink this and about two more. Then see how you feel. Don’t drink from the hot tap either, it’s not filtered. I’ll ring you in a bit and see how you are. If it’s still no good, I can call the midwife and get her round.”

  Logan heard a sad sniff from inside the bathroom. He felt trapped, needing to go into work and get an assessment for the Year 11’s set up before school, but he also wanted to be with his wife. Logan pushed the door open slowly, aware he was invading Hana’s privacy. She sat on the toilet, her boots half done up and her big black coat pulled tight around her. It hung either side of the toilet as though were robed on a porcelain throne. She looked funny but also touchingly pathetic. Logan hunkered down next to her and stroked her cheek. “Want me to stay?”

  Hana sucked her bottom lip under her teeth so it was hidden. The action gave her cute dimples and she looked like a sad child as she nodded. Then she changed her mind and shook her head. “You have to go,” she said quietly. Logan started to protest, but she pushed on his chest, “I’ll be fine. I’ll do everything you said and I’ll ring you.”

  He kissed her forehead and stood up, turning to look at her before leaving the bathroom. “Sure?” Hana nodded. “I don’t have time to get my stuff for the bike. I’ll leave the Honda and take the truck. Then you can go to the doctor’s if you need to.”

  Hana nodded and tried to get it together for his sake. He left the door ajar and she heard him ratching in the hall cupboard for the truck keys and running down the garage steps. The gate alarm beeped and Hana realised she needed to get off the toilet before she fell down it. “I really don’t feel so good,” she sighed, fighting unexpected nausea.

  Standing up Hana felt instantly dizzy. She drank the pint of water followed by two more from the cold tap and sat on the floor to wait. She waited half an hour, but a soreness crept into her lower back along with a nasty suspicion she was in serious strife. When Hana stood up again the three pints of water which were difficult enough to get down, threatened to come back up. She ended up crawling through to the hall and taking the phone off the wall. Scrabbling in the drawer of the hall cupboard on her knees for her blue address book, she was surprised to find it sat on the cupboard top. Flipping it open on the right page, Hana dialled the doctor’s surgery.

  “No appointments today,” a sing-song-no-messing-kind-of-voice informed her, “but you can come down and wait for a drop-in appointment? The wait time is currently two hours.”

  Very funny, thought Hana picturing herself spending the waiting time in the toilets. She rang off and executed Plan B. None of the midwives picked up so she left a message and leaned back against the cupboard doors. She had just got settled when the phone rang and Hana reached up behind her to grab it off the side and dropped it on the floor.

  “Hello?” a worried voice said from the other end.

  “I dropped you,” said Hana feeling silly, “I’m sitting on the hall floor and couldn’t reach.”

  “Your midwife’s on leave all this week,” continued the voice, “but...why are you on the floor?”

  Hana explained and then asked the woman if she knew of any herbal cures for her ailment, apart from cranberries, which she detested. The midwife asked her about her symptoms and then made a decision. “I need to come and see you,” she said, poorly masking her concern. “I’ll speak to your doctor and see if he’ll give me a prescription. I’ll bring a test kit up with me to make sure we give you the right ones. Allergic to anything?”

  Hana replied she wasn’t and rang off after explaining about the gates to the property. She stayed on the floor. The midwife was only an hour from start to finish and Hana was impressed. She heard the call button sound on the gate alarm and struggled to stand up and answer it, suffering increasingly from some horrid bout of vertigo. She heard the midwife’s voice and buzzed to let her in. Then she opened the front door, still in her long coat and sat down on the steps to wait.

  The sun was out and high up in the sky and Hana went from cold and shivering to overly hot. A silver Nissan laboured to the top of the drive and parked in front of the steps. A pretty blonde woman in a blue uniform hopped out and came right over. “Aren’t you hot?” she asked, indicating the coat.

  Hana nodded. “I am now but I was shivering a minute ago. I got my light one dirty yesterday. This was the only one that would go round me.”

  The midwife, Keely, helped Hana up one handed and they went into the house. “I need to examine you, you look ghastly,” she said. Hana pulled a face. “But do this sample first and then it won’t be so bad. You know the drill, mid-stream, please.”

  Hana shuffled off down to the bathroom and closed the door. When she came back to the living room, she sported a lidded tube with extraordinarily yellow liquid sloshing around in it. The midwife raised her eyebrows and took it from her, handing over a paper bag in exchange, containing antibiotics. “I figured you only needed a little bit,” Hana commented, “I could have done pints.”

  “I need to examine you on the floor,” the midwife said giggling apologetically and kneeling down. Hana struggled down onto the rug and Keely helped her get down flat on her back. Her tummy rose up out of her hips like Pirongia Mountain and Hana tugged at her leggings to try and pull them further down. The midwife felt around the baby’s shape, waking her up and causing her to kick and fight back through Hana’s stomach wall. The midwife smiled. “I love it when they respond like that.”

  “I don’t,” Hana grunted uncomfortably.

  Keely measured Hana’s tummy from her groin to the top of her bump with a floppy tape measure. She put her funnel thing on top of the mound and placed her ear to it. “Nice, strong heart beat,” she said, “now for Mummy.”

  She helped Hana to a sitting position and popped a thermometer into her mouth with a plastic sleeve on it. While Hana sat there, she put the black blood pressure cuff onto her arm and pumped it up. Hana winced against the constriction of the cuff as it tightened. She was relieved when it let out with a hiss and loosened to the point where she could feel the blood thumping through her arm. The midwife took the reading and sat still for a moment. “I need to take that again,” she said and repeated the process. Hana started to cough around the thermometer and Keely removed it with a pop. She read it, pulled off the plastic sleeve and shook it to reset the mercury. Then she dealt with the blood pressure cuff. Hana was glad when she took it off. The midwife produced a syringe and after cleaning Hana’s inner arm, took blood. “Are you having headaches,” Keely asked, breaking into the silence.

  Hana shook her head. “Well, a bit today but not usually.”

  The midwife pursed her lips and leant forward on her knees. “You have a temperature and high blood pressure.”

  Hana closed her eyes and tried to drown out the big noooooo, forming in her brain.

  “It might be due to a urine infection and the antibiotics may clear it, but you’re an older mum and you need to be careful. Myself, or your regular midwife will call back on Monday to see you. In the meantime if you feel no better, go straight to the surgery, or if it’s at the weekend, down to the hospital.

  Hana felt the colour drain from her face. She was only twenty-three weeks into the pregnancy and already struggling. “So are you saying even if I’m better, I won’t be going to work tomorrow?”

  Keely looked at her with sympathy. “I don’t think so, Hana. I’m hoping it’s an infection but if not, you’re in for a bumpy ride. I need you to take things seriously and get some rest.”

  Hana looked crestfallen and Keely patted her hand. “Hey, you’re doing great, don’t worry but please listen to me and rest.”

  The gate alarm beeped as Keely left and Hana’s eyes widened, wondering if it was Logan already. Bodie’s car edged up the driveway, avoiding the back of the midwife’s car. He got out of the driver’s side and let an excited Jas out of the back. The little boy came r
ushing forward waving a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy with his usual level of enthusiasm. “Mum?” Bodie said, looking questioningly at the midwife’s uniform as Jas bounced in front of Hana.

  Keely explained very calmly that Hana was sick, making sure Jas heard and understood. The little boy made stellar efforts to tone it down and Hana took him inside. Bodie was a while longer, coming into the kitchen with concern and guilt mingling in his eyes. “I’ll make tea, Mum. After I’ve apologised for my behaviour recently. I’ve been a real arse.”

  Hana winced and looked at Jas, closing her eyes in mortification as he repeated it. “Dad’s a real arrrrse.”

  She exhaled loudly. “Thanks Bo, but it’s fine. And you, young man, shouldn’t repeat things. What on earth will your mum say if she hears you swearing?”

  Jas, sitting at the table in the hope of biscuits, looked beatifically at her. “Mummy says Dad’s a really, really big arse too.”

  Bodie rolled his eyes and reached into the cupboard for the biscuit tin, deftly flicking the kettle on to boil. Jas sat nicely with his biscuit and got to work playing a game on his father’s phone which required him to repeatedly lean almost out of his seat in both directions. Hana smiled. “Jas you’re so cute. I’ve missed you.”

  Bodie put the tea on the table and sat down next to his mother. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. It felt good; he hadn’t done that in a long time. Hana sighed into his neck. “I phoned you yesterday,” Bodie said quietly, “you didn’t pick up so I figured you were still mad at me.”

  Hana shook her head. “I didn’t talk to anyone yesterday. I had a bit of a crazy day.”

  Bodie nodded, thinking she meant busy, instead of insane. Hana decided it was probably best. “I didn’t think it would be so bad for you, with having Logan and a new baby on the way.”

  “It was just as painful,” said Hana quietly, “it might always be.”

  “Maybe not actually,” Bodie said. “I had Jas and we did stuff and before I knew it the day had flown by. I always keep busy, like, I always wake up and I know even when I’ve paid no attention to the date, but this time it was different.”