Hana Du Rose Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4

by Bowes, K T

  Logan used his hand gently on her chest to check she was still breathing without alarming Hana and felt the rise and fall of the delicate lungs. He breathed out with relief. “You must make good stuff,” he joked lamely to Hana.

  In the silence he heard the sound of male voices, huffing and puffing up the rise. He fought the urge to shout for help, irrationally wanting instead to shush them and ask them to whisper. The baby jerked slightly, her arms spreading wide out of her daddy’s shirt in a reflex action and then settled again as the men crashed into the clearing.

  Every man from the bunkhouse and hotel had come up, Tama and Michael leading the way. Two of the men carried the makeshift stretcher from the tack room. They poured into the dusty space and fell silent as they saw a tiny white face and fists sticking out of the blue and white checked shirt.

  Michael got straight down on the tarpaulin with Hana, asking her questions about herself and the baby. Logan stood close to them. “You’re not going to examine her here?” He looked worried.

  Michael stood up, shaking his head, “No point, bro. I can’t see properly by torch and to be honest, we need to get them both down. Then I can assess them.”

  He supervised Hana and the baby being lifted onto the stretcher, allowing Hana a moment to pull her clothing straight and then walked briskly next to them, keeping his hand on Hana’s wrist even when the going was single file only. Logan paced along in the middle of the hushed throng, feeling oddly discarded. It was as though he had become surplus to requirements. As they slipped and slid down the hill, Logan felt a firm hand on his shoulder, close to his neck. Looking round, he saw Tama struggling to walk next to him. The boy was wide-eyed in the torchlight and frightened, yet he tried to comfort Logan by offering him that unspoken masculine physical contact. Logan was grateful and rubbed Tama’s back in response, attempting to smile confidently at him from the side. He understood a kinship with him that immediately traversed all other family relationships - displacement. He kept his muscular arm around Tama, even when he could have let go.

  Hana was brave as the men lifted her into the back of the utility vehicle. It was ancient and rusty and smelled of horses. Tama, Michael and Logan leapt into the back with her, packing their bodies around her to stop her from sliding. The baby slept on her chest, oblivious to the drama she had caused. “I wish Mum were here,” Logan said softly, to nobody in particular.

  Michael was quick to brush away any maudlin thoughts, staying business like and clipped. “I sent Toby to the township, Leslie’s daughter’s up for Christmas. She’s a midwife,” he added on the end.

  Logan nodded and stroked Hana’s shoulder, holding her hair away from the edge of the ute and the grabbing, snatching branches it pushed through. The baby’s tufty topknot blew back against her head as they picked up speed, bouncing down through paddocks and across ridges. Her hair looked pitch black against the reflected glow from the frantically bouncing headlights, but it was hard to tell what colour it was without daylight. She stayed sleeping, snugly pulled against her mummy under Tama’s jacket.

  One of the stockmen hopped in and out of the passenger seat, opening and closing gates as they moved down the property and away from the sound of the sea. “You got up here quick,” Logan called over the noise and Tama nodded.

  “Flick drove the ute and the others followed. He’s a frickin’ maniac!”

  Flick drove the ute expertly and more carefully than anyone else could have managed on the difficult terrain. His misspent youth and criminal adulthood finally came into its own. Behind the ute thundered quads, motorbikes and horsemen, closing the gates and restoring order in their wake. Not a single man remained at the bottom of the mountain, every last one wanting to support Logan in his hour of need. Tama nodded to his Uncle Nev as the man cantered behind the ute and Nev touched the brim of his hat and smiled.

  All the outside lights were on at the hotel and the main door was open. A big SUV screamed onto the gravel, spinning its wheels as it came to a halt. Within seconds, a dark haired, pretty woman popped out of the front passenger seat and ran towards the hotel. She stopped as the ute pulled up, practically right on top of her. The men poured out of it straight away, Logan leaping over the side and landing expertly on the gravel. Within moments, the back was lowered and the stretcher with mother and baby pulled carefully off.

  It was hard to know where to take Hana suddenly. A discussion broke out about where best to put her until she sleepily demanded she be taken up to Logan’s bedroom. “I’m tired. The world just fell out my bottom and I need to go to bed,” she complained.

  “I think you’re going to hospital!” Michael interjected and Hana shook her head.

  “Make me!”

  In the end, the child was given to Michael and Logan carried his wife manfully up the main staircase and down the long corridors until he reached their bedroom. Then Hana protested, “Put me on the floor, not the bed. I’m disgusting. I don’t have the energy to wash sheets on top of everything else.”

  Logan hefted himself down with difficulty until he was able to lay her on the wooden boards without dropping her. Michael handed the baby to Leslie’s daughter, Isla and dropped to his knees to take a proper look at Hana. “Where do you hurt?” he asked her first, smiling at her cute response.

  “My arm! My arm hurts.”

  “I don’t think you mean, arm,” Michael laughed.

  “I do!” Hana insisted. “Tama drove like a moron and I think I broke it again.” She rubbed at the elbow of her right arm and Michael pushed her sleeve back and inspected it.

  “Just bruised, love,” he said kindly. “I was thinking more of the other bits of you.”

  “You’re not seeing those!” Hana retorted. “That’s too weird.”

  The midwife got the baby laid on the bed and unwrapped her from her unusual attire. She noticed the makeshift nappy, made out of gauze bandage and a sling and tied with a large knot at the front. She hid her smirk and gave Logan points out of ten for ingenuity. She was pleased to see t it was already damp and the baby had started to eject everything she was meant to.

  Leslie had driven Isla, who enjoyed a few glasses of wine with her dinner and she knocked and came in, skirting Logan’s stiff body like he was a venomous snake. In her hand, she carried a bag. A small white baby-grow and a vest accompanied three of the tiniest nappies Logan had ever seen. He smiled at her with gratitude. “Thanks. I appreciate that. We don’t have anything.”

  “I know, love,” she replied. She smiled fondly on Hana who lay on the floor still, protesting against Michael’s examination. Logan’s wife had softened his edges and Leslie watched as he studied the scene with concern.

  “Help me, Mum,” Isla said softly and the women took the baby into the ensuite. Logan heard running water.

  “Get my medical bag from my room, please bro,” Michael said and reluctantly, Logan left.

  “You’re still not looking at my bits,” Hana yawned. “I’m having a shower.”

  “How did Logan ever get you into bed, Mrs Du Rose?” Michael laughed. “My charm is much more effective than his!”

  Hana shook her head and thought of Reuben’s handsome smile. “No. It’s very different.” Her eyes glazed with a faraway look and Michael proceeded to take Hana’s observations, blood pressure and pulse, looking into her eyes and asking what seemed like ridiculous questions about mundane things to ascertain her state of mind. He gently palpitated her stomach, noting her discomfort and drawing medical conclusions about what might be happening. “I know what day of the week it is,” she groaned under the pressure he placed on her shrinking womb. “I had a baby not a bloody lobotomy.”

  Hana became distressed on the bedroom floor and insisted she see her baby and have a shower. “Please let me see her?” she insisted, beginning to cry.

  “Here she is, look. She’s fine,” Leslie said, helping Hana stand up. Isla had run the baby under the tap in the ensuite and dried her on a bath towel. She gave Hana a stern, don’t-you-do-th
is-at-home look, which made Leslie smile. The child looked clean and peachy and was in the process of being stuffed into the nappy and clothing, whilst laying on the bed looking all around her in an unfocussed way. “She’s perfect,” Leslie said, squeezing Hana’s shoulders. “Like her whāereere.”

  “I don’t feel very perfect right now,” Hana sighed, running a filthy hand across her eyes. “I need a shower.”

  “I need to look at her first!” Michael grew exasperated. “If she’s haemorrhaging and it all goes wrong, it’s all on me when the ambulance gets here!”

  “I’m fine, please. I just want to be clean,” Hana groaned, her body bending almost in half as Leslie struggled to prop her up.

  “I’ll go in with her.” Hana sighed with relief as Logan backed her up.

  “Right, well, I’m staying here. Just shout me if it all goes wrong,” Michael said grumpily.

  Logan ran the shower until it was of a reasonable temperature and Leslie helped Hana into the bathroom. Before closing the door, Hana looked across at the little olive baby snuggled up in Isla’s arms and smiled. “I did it,” she said and Leslie nodded and kissed her cheek.

  “That you did, my girl. That you did.”

  Once in private, Logan held Hana hard to his chest, trying to sustain her with the love he felt. “I’m so proud of you, he whispered. He stripped off to his boxer shorts, tenderly undressed Hana and climbed into the shower behind her. Hana felt feeble and weak, couldn’t get any of the shampoo bottles or the shower gel undone and relied on him to gently wash her hair and soap her sore body. It felt as though everything ached, deep down to the bone. Logan ran conditioner through her hair and left it in as instructed; patient as a saint when she grew stroppy with how he was doing it. “Don’t run your fingers through it, it hurts!”

  He held her up with one arm, whilst quickly soaping himself off with the other, seeing the dark mountain dust which ran off him and down the plughole. Outside the shower, he was kind and attentive, making sure his wife had towels and leaving himself only a small hand towel to dry with.

  A knock on the door revealed Leslie’s hand, bearing a pair of Hana’s knickers, sourced from her suitcase and another of Logan’s shirts. She had also raided somewhere else because she had a handful of sanitary towels to stuff in the knickers. Hana was grateful and relieved, the prospect of dressing beginning to make her feel more human. “Thanks so much,” Hana called through the gap.

  The baby let out a wail and Hana was eager to get out into the bedroom and back to her child. Logan looked awkward, holding a tiny hand towel around himself and evidently feeling desperate. The small square of fabric didn’t even go all the way around his shapely buttocks and there were beads of water all over his back and shoulders. Hana spotted his soaked boxers on the shower floor and suddenly realised. “I might leave you here, like this,” she sniggered, putting her hand up to cover her smirk.

  Amidst all the sadness and disappointment of the last few days, followed by the trauma of the evening, it was the funniest moment she had experienced for a long while. “There’s two women outside the bathroom and my rather well-formed husband has nothing to wear but a small handkerchief,” Hana snorted. It was hilarious. She laughed raucously and almost toppled sideways trying to get her knickers on.

  Logan made it worse by frowning petulantly and gripping the small piece of towelling in white knuckled fingers. “It’s not bloody funny!” he complained in a hiss.

  “Oh dear, take this for now.” Hana offered him her damp towel while she dressed in the rest of the odd ensemble and he snatched it gratefully and wrapped it around him. Hana put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, Logan Du Rose. See what stupid things I have to do to get your attention.”

  Logan’s face had begun to lose the dreadfully haunted look, but there was still darkness there just beneath the surface. Hana let herself out of the bathroom and went to the suitcase in the corner, pulling out the spare underwear and jeans she had washed and dried after the fire and dropping them inside the bathroom for him. She heard his muttered thanks through the gap in the door.

  “Right my dear, moment of truth.” Isla pulled back the sheets and instructed Hana to get into bed.

  “Michael has to turn around!” Hana insisted and he tutted and turned his back.

  “I’ve been a bloody doctor for years!” he insisted. “I’ve seen hundreds of girl bits!”

  “Yes, but not mine!” Hana retorted.

  Logan took that moment to appear from the bathroom, his hair wet and his torso glistening with droplets of water. He stalked across the bedroom bare foot, his jeans hanging low on his hips and his face a mask of concern. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets and his biceps tensed, the strong muscles across his chest rippling. Isla raised her eyebrows and winked at Hana. “I can see how you got into this mess.”

  Michael whipped his head round and Hana squeaked and yanked the shirt back down. He looked at Logan in disgust and tried to suck his own portly stomach in. “I can compete with him!” he said with an edge to his voice and the women burst out laughing.

  “Not a prayer, girlfriend!” Leslie snorted. “He’s fine.” She drew out the last word and Isla’s eyes bugged.

  “Mother!”

  Logan looked affronted and strode across to the suitcase, snatching a shirt from its folds and throwing it over his shoulders. The ugly welts on his body from past injuries only added to his sex appeal but he never saw that. “Ok, ladies. Concentrate!” he said with sarcasm, buttoning the shirt and glaring at Michael who stood with his back to the bed, shaking his head.

  Leslie rocked and soothed the baby while the midwife made sure she was happy with Hana’s physical state. “The rapid birth has caused some tearing, but nothing that won’t heal of its own accord,” she was happy to report. She felt Hana’s stomach, comfortable with how it was all going back to normal. “Breast feed as much as you can and that will help you and baby.”

  Hana’s child was weighed in a sling-type-weigh-machine and Leslie told Hana the weight in kilograms.

  “I need pounds and ounces,” Hana complained stubbornly, “I’m English!”

  The baby was five pounds and twelve ounces. Not premature weight, but not big by any standards. Michael and Isla talked in the hallway outside in hushed voices. Isla went into bat for Hana against him. “I think she should go to the hospital,” Michael insisted.

  “Well I don’t. The hospitals are on reduced staff due to the Christmas break and if she goes in now, she’ll just be kept waiting around. The baby seems hardy enough and you can keep checking on them over the next few days. It’s been traumatic and the best thing for Hana right now, is to be here with her husband and newborn. I’m twenty minutes away at worst. If you need me then call me!”

  The doctor reluctantly conceded the little family would be better off at home, comfortable and with familiarity around them. Isla warned Hana, “But if anything changes, Michael will call an ambulance and get you and the baby straight to Auckland General.”

  Back in the bedroom, Logan agreed with a sense of relief. He had lost so much recently that he clung to his tiny family with scary ferociousness, hesitant to spend even a moment apart from them. Finally, Leslie and Isla left to carry on enjoying their Christmas. Loud clapping could be heard from downstairs as the men waiting outside the front of the hotel greeted Isla with a round of applause. She was quietly thrilled and Logan watched from the bedroom windows as she took a regal bow.

  The Du Rose men were a formidable bunch locally and to be lauded by them and get the opportunity to boss Logan and Michael around as she had, was a moment in a lifetime. Toby winked at her from his seat on the bonnet of the ute and Isla felt ten foot tall. She looked coyly back at him and gave a small smile.

  From the window, Logan watched Michael appear and speak to the men still hanging around outside, ordering them to retrieve a number of crates of beer from the cellar to celebrate, thanking them all for their help and concern. The
y went back up to their bunkhouse happily satisfied that all was well with the precious family upstairs in the big house. “Cheers Mr Du Rose,” they called out happily.

  The baby wasn’t hungry, but drew comfort from being close to Hana’s skin. In the lamplight of the bedroom, Hana finally got to have a good look at her daughter. She was midway between pink and olive, a good healthy tanned colour. She would look stunning as she grew older. Her eyes were a strange blue and Hana hoped she had inherited her father’s stunning irises once the colour fixed. Her hair was dark like Logan’s and wavy like Hana’s, sticking up in a kind of mohawk on the top of her head. She had a layering of soft down on her skin from her early entrance into the world and there were little spots of grease in the creases of her skin, which Isla had missed with her hurried wash. Hana sniffed her. “She smells just like you,” she said, watching her husband as he turned away from the windows and smiled tiredly.

  Apart from the discomfort she felt from the midriff down, Hana was content. Logan lay on the bed next to his girls, left hand constantly in contact with Hana but he was silent and brooding. “Do you want to hold your daughter again now she’s got proper clothes on?” Hana whispered and he looked momentarily scared. Hana stroked his arm. “You were awesome in the bush. I felt so relieved to see you. I’m glad you were there with us.”

  “About that,” Logan began and his voice was husky and filled with emotion. “I shouldn’t have...”