by Bowes, K T
The water closed around his mouth and nose with frightening speed, probing and infiltrating his airways. There was no time for spluttering. He was a dead weight and sank like a brick, his heavy biker clothing pulling him instantly down. Logan’s eyes remained open, even when his head contacted the metal siding and sliced the skin open, the blood swirling around him in the dark water and the copper taste infusing his open, gasping mouth. Logan wished for unconsciousness if this was the way he was destined to go. The pain in his lungs seemed unbearable. Sorry to do this to you again, Hana, he thought. Widowed twice is a sucky legacy.
Unconsciousness came but death stayed its hand. It wasn’t his turn to meet his maker and give an account of his life. Logan realised it hadn’t been much of a life actually, so probably wouldn’t take many minutes at the Pearly Gates - if he even made it that far.
Bodie, the police diver saved him, yanking his heavy body out of the water and hauling him over to the side. “Help me somebody! I can’t hold him up!”
Bizarrely, having made a tenuous peace with himself, Logan found coming up out of the water far worse than suffocating in it. His lungs burned, the inside of his nose felt raw and his eyes smarted painfully. In the flashlights trained on his floating body, the water round about him ran pink and stained with his free flowing blood. Logan’s eyes stared upwards, thinking about the beauty of the stars overhead in the crystal clear black sky and how he would like to have shown them to his wife.
“What about Tama? Did the cops get him?” Hana’s voice broke into Logan’s tortured reverie. The dark look on his face frightened her. Logan shifted under her gaze, obviously considering his options. He seemed to fall on the truth.
“I rang him. Got him to cry sick and get out of there. He’s gone home to my Mum.”
Hana shook her head. She wanted to think of Tama sitting in a police cell, not getting bed and breakfast at the hotel. “Why?” her teeth were gritted as she spoke, her lips hardly moving.
Logan stood up and looked straight at her. “Why?” he repeated. He strode across the room and seized Hana’s wrists with his cut and bruised hands. “Why? Because he’s known for months where we live. He could have told Laval at any point and didn’t. Because he’s whanau and that’s what family does!”
“He threatened to!” Hana shouted into Logan’s face. “He sat in my car and threatened to. If you didn’t call the lawyers off his family!”
Logan looked down. He had no answers. “I don’t know what to say to you, Hana. I don’t know how to make all this right with you. I always do what I think is best and...I end up feeling like it’s not good enough.”
Tears of anger welled up in Hana’s eyes. Logan lifted her gently down from the worktop, his biceps flexing as he allowed her body to slide seductively down his and then held her while the feeling came back into her legs. His arms felt safe around her lower back and Hana blushed at the thought of his hands on her earlier. Logan took her by both shoulders and looked into her eyes, so close she felt his gentle minty breath on her face. “What. Do. You. Want. From. Me?”
He shook her gently and spoke as though to a stupid person. It made Hana feel even madder, pushing all the wrong buttons. With his question, she realised she didn’t actually know what she wanted. She made a stupid decision, one which as she made it, she knew she would live to regret. The feel of his butterfly kisses were still on her neck, but she told him, “I want you to go, I want a divorce. I can’t live like this. I don’t know who you are half the time.”
Logan’s reaction astounded Hana. He turned calmly and walked away. She heard his feet padding down the hallway and into the bathroom. Then she heard the shower running. Hana’s heart pounded with fear and regret and she knew she’d made a terrible mistake. But she wasn’t going to undo it; she couldn’t bear to look like a loser. Vik made her into a loser; a loser who couldn’t even admit it because too many other people would be hurt. Hana shook as she tidied the already-tidy kitchen and hung around that end of the house, waiting for her husband to go.
She waited an hour. He didn’t leave, perhaps because he couldn’t get a flight. Curiosity drove her down to the bathroom, only to find he wasn’t in there. She opened the bedroom door with the ready excuse that she needed her antibiotics. Logan was showered and changed and to her surprise, laid on the bed reading a book. She recognised the sticker on the cover from the airport. Hana hung around in the doorway and Logan ignored her. It became painful. “Aren’t you going?” she asked him belligerently, recognising at the same time she didn’t want him to go. The moment he stepped out the door she would be utterly broken.
“No, Hana,” he replied firmly. “I made you a promise.”
“But...” she began feebly and he interrupted her.
“No, Hana. You don’t ask me to go and I don’t leave. That was the deal!” Logan swung his legs onto the floor and put the book down with care. His bruises and cuts looked far worse without his mussed hair and the covering of beard. He was so tall he dominated the room and Hana took a step backwards. He was undeniably, no, she told herself, stop that!
Logan took a single stride towards her and bent as though to kiss her, but didn’t. Hana closed her eyes in anticipation and then hated herself for it. “By the way, just to put the record straight, I didn’t leave the other night. I nipped out. You left. It’s very different.”
He smiled coyly at his wife, knowing he had rattled her and slipped between her and the doorframe. The tension between them arced like electricity. Something felt ready to snap. As he walked behind her, Logan touched her hand lightly, guaranteed to smash the last tatters of her resolve and then when he was almost past, he slapped her on the backside and kept walking. Hana’s jaw dropped wide open. He had never done that!
Hana couldn’t even find words in her head for how he made her feel. Except swear ones and she tried hard to keep a lid on those. She leaned up against the white wall and sulked, attempting to fool herself she didn’t care that he wasn’t running out on her like she’d tried to make him. Inside she smiled a self-satisfied sort of smile; but outside she sulked for effect.
Logan came back, his socks making a shushing sound on the wooden floor. He carried a cup of tea for her and coffee for himself. He pushed the door shut behind him with his foot and laid the drinks on top of the magazine on the dresser. Then he walked up to Hana, very close. He chewed his bottom lip, betraying his nervousness despite his vast experience around frightened females of the equine variety.
You should never show your fear, Hana thought. He’d told her that. He was dangerously close. In a flash, she lifted her left hand and got it halfway to his face. The slap would have been full of frustration, aggression and confusion, but he was too quick for her. Logan caught her hand before it passed his shoulder and gripped her wrist tight. He knitted his fingers through hers on her right hand and leaned in to kiss her, his grey eyes twinkling behind their black lashes with amusement and sex appeal. Hana felt the breath escape her like a whoopee cushion without the sound and knew as she melted; she was a complete pushover with absolutely no backbone. Logan Du Rose could get away with anything.
Du Rose Legacy
Chapter 27
They pushed Elizabeth in her pram around Otepuni Gardens in Invercargill. Logan actually did most of the pushing and Hana retrieved all the things Beth kept throwing out. “I think she likes how your head keeps popping up by her face,” Logan suggested. “Couldn’t you just do the popping up and down and then she might not keep throwing her stuff in the mud?”
Hana popped up again with a muddy teddy and pulled a face at Beth, which sent her into a paroxysm of giggles. Hana collapsed onto a nearby bench exhausted and Logan joined her. He fumbled with the brake on the pram and then hooked his foot around the wheel just to be sure. He lay back and put his arm around Hana. “Why do they cry so much?” he asked.
Hana shrugged. “Are we talking about the babies, or Izzie and Marcus?” she asked.
“Heck yeah!” Logan exclaimed, thi
nking about Izzie’s latest bout of tears that morning when some part of her anatomy didn’t seem to want to do what she thought it should. He skulked off to the supermarket with Marcus for no particular reason other than to get away. They scoffed an ice cream, bought milk and apples and returned home again to find it all sorted out and everyone smiles. It was like living in a lunatic asylum.
“Hormones.” Hana informed him wisely.
“Well, you can’t have any of those then,” Logan commented, watching a golden retriever walking its puffing owner. He got the feeling the man wanted a quiet stroll, but was being hauled along at Olympic record-breaking speed. “I’ll have to cancel them out somehow,” he went on mischievously. “I’ll get you pregnant again straight away, then it won’t count.”
Hana shook her head and sat up. “No, we need to talk about that actually.” She sounded serious. Logan crossed his legs, put his fingers in his ears and sang ‘la la la’ to himself to drown Hana out. Elizabeth laughed and flipped another teddy out of the pram and onto the wet mud.
“Get that,” Logan said authoritatively to Hana and pointed at the toy. She exhaled and fished it off the ground.
“It’ll be hard going home again,” she said wistfully, “I like it down here.”
Logan pulled her into him and pushing back the knitted hat she had borrowed, kissed her on the forehead. “I know babe,” he sighed.
“Can we stay?” Hana asked in a whiny voice.
“No.” Logan stood up before Hana could get any other ideas. He leaned in towards the little girl in the pram. “I’m a north-island-bear and north-island-bears can’t go further south than Tokoroa!”
Elizabeth squealed and held her little furry-clad arms out to him. They arrived back at the vicarage with Elizabeth swaddled up in her coat, hat and gloves, riding on Logan’s shoulders and hugging his head. “I can’t see, Bethie. You need to move those wee hands out of my eyes,” he laughed and she squealed at the top of her voice on the doormat. Hana lumped tiredly along behind, pushing the pram.
“Ooh,” said Marcus as he opened the door to them, “you want to watch that.”
“Why?” asked Logan.
Hana shoved the pram up the steps and into the hall. “Because last time Beth played horsey, she puked, narrowly missing Daddy’s head and mummy went into labour on the hall floor.”
“Oh,” said Logan apologetically and let Marcus take his daughter down.
“I need to get you two to the airport,” Marcus said, turning to look for his wife. “I’ve put your stuff in the car. Where’s Izzie? She was here a minute ago, the boys are asleep.”
“Got names for them yet?” asked Logan. Marcus shook his head. “No. Might run a competition in Sunday School if Izzie doesn’t agree on something soon.”
Logan pulled a face. “Dangerous! Jedediah and Zerrubabel. Nice.”
Marcus nodded in agreement as Hana went down the hallway to Izzie’s bedroom. She found her sitting on the edge of the bed, a box of tissues next to her. “You’ll set me off,” Hana said, sitting next to her beautiful half-Indian daughter and holding her tight. Izzie sobbed harder. “I don’t know what to say to you,” Hana began and then her own voice broke. “I love you, Izz. Nothing will ever change that.” Hana kissed her gently on the forehead and stood up. Sometimes it was impossible being the adult. She wanted very much to hurl herself down on the floor and cry. “Don’t come out if you can’t face it,” Hana said, her voice breaking, “I’m sure Logan will understand.”
Izzie nodded but couldn’t look at her mother. “Thanks for everything, Mum. It’s been precious having you here with me again for the birth and all. This last two weeks has been so much better with you here.”
Izzie gave a big sniff and Hana bent to stroke her dark, glossy hair and then strode out of the room before she made it worse. She met Logan in the hallway. “I’m just gonna say bye,” he said and smiled, his grey eyes crinkling at the edges. Hana didn’t have the heart to stop him. She hugged Marcus and plastered lipstick kisses all over Beth’s pink face while she waited. Logan wasn’t long but was oddly quiet when he reappeared. Marcus took Beth down to the bedroom to her mother and Hana felt ripped open when the little girl started crying as they shut the front door behind them.
They tried to make small talk on the way to the airport, but Hana was impossibly sad. The men chatted between themselves in the front seats. At one point, Marcus turned to Hana. “Don’t you need a certificate to travel on an airline whilst pregnant?”
Hana shrugged and pulled her coat around her. “I’ll do what I did on the way down and not mention it.”
The men looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Marcus dropped them at the terminal and Hana refused to let him get out of the car. “No, love. Please go back and take care of Izzie. I think she needs you more right now.”
Marcus gave them one last hug and with a wave he was gone. The old car limped back out of the gate and Hana felt sure one of the tires looked lower than the others. “I wish I could give them the Honda or something,” she said. “That old thing’s knackered. And I don’t think the rear facing child seats look safe in it.”
Logan smiled to himself and thought about his parting gift to Izzie; the documentation for a new seven-seater Chrysler he bought the day before. It was brand new with a five-year warranty. It cost him just shy of fifty thousand dollars. It was due to be dropped off that afternoon at the same time as the plane took off back to Hamilton. Poor Izzie had cried even harder and clung to Logan until he thought he wasn’t going to make the flight check-in.
They got checked in and before they knew it were sitting on the plane. Logan coveted the window seat. The male steward leaned right over Hana’s personal space to hand Logan a can of fizzy drink and completely ignored her. She turned round to watch his pert buttocks wiggling back down the aisle. “Why does that always happen?” she asked Logan indignantly. “Everyone always ignores me when you’re around. I thought it was just the women, but it’s guys as well now!”
Logan shrugged. He didn’t know, hadn’t noticed and didn’t care. He offered Hana the drink he scored, but she batted his hand away and reached in her bag for the bottle of flavoured water she shoved in there. “See,” he said, pointing at the bottle, “he knew you had your own.”
Hana smiled sardonically and popped the cap off the bottle. She waited until Logan was watching something out of the window and squirted him. “Euwgh!” He brushed at the wet patch on his groin with his hand. It was cold and sticky.
“Boysenberries, mmmnnnn!” Hana said, sucking the sippy top like an advert for the stuff. “I wonder how he’ll think you did that?” she added innocently, looking at Logan’s crotch and then back at his face.
He narrowed his eyes. “Just you wait, woman!”
Hana laughed as the plane scooped itself into the air, but then went quiet as she felt the painful tug of her daughter and grandchildren lying somewhere amongst the myriad houses underneath her; grieving.
Du Rose Legacy
Chapter 28
Culver’s Cottage seemed empty after Marcus and Izzie’s small and very full house. Hana rattled around, opening windows and letting air circulate while Logan unloaded both cars. The two-week airport parking fee had been a stinger and Hana felt guilty, even though Logan hadn’t mentioned it. Hana wandered from room to room, bumping into Logan as he rushed up the stairs for the last time. “Logan...” she started.
“No!” he answered straight away, grabbing her around her waist and dropping the bags on the floor. “No, we aren’t inviting homeless people to stay, or kidnapping Jas until he’s twenty-one. I like the house like it is, just me and you until our baby comes. Then it’ll be busy enough.”
Hana smirked at his ability to mind-read her. She snuffed into his chest and let him rock her from side to side gently. “I don’t want to go back to work on Monday,” she said wistfully.
“Nope,” he whispered into her hair, “and you don’t want to stay home alone either.”
&nbs
p; “Why are you always the voice of reason?” Hana asked, exasperated. Logan laughed and pulled her tighter.
“Somebody has to be, Mrs Du Rose.” He squeezed her and then let go. Hana walked into the living room, listening to Logan rustling bags in the bedroom. She wandered aimlessly to the huge floor length curtains she made and fingered the material in her fingers, thinking how little time she spent in this room at the moment. She was either in the kitchen or bedroom. The fabric felt soft on her skin.
Logan spotted her on his way to the kitchen and detoured towards her. He took the curtain material out of her hand. “Oh no, you don’t. They’re fine!”
“I wasn’t thinking of changing them!” Hana shrieked as he swept her up under her knees and around her shoulders, swinging her out through the doorway and up the corridor to the bedroom.
“I’ll give you something else to think about,” Logan smirked, wrenching his shirt out of his jeans. “I’ll keep you too busy to start tinkering with things which don’t need it.”
Hana giggled. Logan straddled his wife, his bare torso muscular and downy in the light from the window. He bit his lip, keeping eye contact with her as his fingers roved under her dress and sought the top of her underwear. “I missed this,” he breathed, his eyes grey and intense.
“But I’ve been there with you.” Hana looked confused.
Logan snorted. “Yeah, in a lumpy little bed in your daughter’s house.”
“I didn’t notice it worrying you!” Hana bit her lip and shifted her bottom.
“It was...restrictive.” Logan pressed his lips over hers and Hana sighed, opening her mouth enough to allow his tongue access. Her hands stroked the soft skin of his ribs, feeling the rough watershed of the ugly scar under her fingers. She moved her hand gently under the waistband of his jeans and Logan groaned.