by K T Bowes
Chapter 31
Hana stalled, trying to slow her heart rate and deliberately disconnecting from Logan. She reached down to replace her right stirrup iron and wouldn’t look at him again. She willed herself to hate him for putting her at risk, not understanding his end game. Alfred said she should eat before his son killed her and she’d taken it as a joke. Logan Du Rose seemed fathoms deep and at the back of the heart stopping attraction, something else lurked.
Her battle plan to distract her poor heart from Logan’s magnetic power over it failed, as the clank of tack signified Sacha moving closer to Digger. They snuffed and breathed into each other’s nostrils as though conversing. Logan’s stirrup iron clinked against hers and Hana glanced up to find him still close. The air between them crackled with electricity and her resolve crumbled. “Stop running from me,” Logan whispered. He put his hand up to Hana’s face again and she felt the warmth of his fingers on her cheek. This time, she didn’t pull away.
He ran his thumb under her eye and across her lips before letting his hand drop back to his side. He clicked his tongue to Sacha, moved away from the edge of the bank and turned his back on Hana. Emptiness shrouded her and her chest tightened as though the oxygen levels depleted in his absence. Hana fell in behind him, her emotions still plunging down the bank over and over. She’d been there before and it wrecked everything. “Get a grip, Hana,” she hissed under her breath. “One big mistake was enough.”
“Sorry?” Logan turned as Sacha picked her way over a decayed punga. He raised his eyebrow in question and Hana shook her head.
“Nothing. I said nothing.” She swallowed and screwed her face into a look of passable blankness.
They rode for another hour, talking as often as the track permitted. “Why do you have a French surname?” Hana called, stopping to admire a view of the bluest skies and tops of young kauri trees.
Logan laughed, his eyes creasing against the sunshine. “Does it offend your English sensibilities?” he demanded and she shook her head.
“I’m half Scots and half Irish. I don’t get hot under the collar about Frogs.”
“Frogs!” Logan acted like he didn’t know the English slur. “A French ship travelled into New Zealand waters in the early 1800s. Her captain, Jean Francois Langlois secured land and invited the Du Roses to return with him in 1840 as settlers. They arrived at Akaroa to discover the British had annexed the South Island for themselves.”
Hana smirked behind his back. “Sounds about right.”
Logan nodded and flicked a fallen cockroach off his sleeve, causing Hana to examine the overhead trees with alarm. She patted the surface of her hat and examined her clothing. Nothing. “Local Māori agreed to Langlois’ original deed of purchase and he retained the land as a matter of honour. But the Du Rose family migrated north and headed for Auckland. Conditions were tough and all but one man died on the way. Local iwi took pity on the survivor and the chief befriended him, allowing him to marry his youngest daughter. He purchased the mountain for farming with the blessing of Māori. I’m fourth generation New Zealander, but we maintain our French heritage, although to lesser degrees as the younger generation loses interest. We still have family in France. The first Du Rose supported Māori in the Waikato Wars, offering a haven for women and children during the storming of Rangiriri Pā. After that, we became part of the landscape.”
“That’s some heritage,” Hana agreed. “Did he build the hotel?”
Logan nodded. “Yeah. Cost a fortune to earthquake proof a couple of years ago. He built it into bedrock in the valley, so it’s safe from most shakes anyway, but the local council took some convincing. We’ve poured money into holes in the ground and there’s more concrete and steel in the thing now than he ever imagined possible. Auckland University used it as a test case for structural engineering students. We shut the place for twelve months and almost bankrupted it. I wanted to pull it down, but it’s also listed now.”
“How did your parents meet?” Hana asked, interest pricking her.
“Usual way.” Logan glanced back, a cursory look to check on her. “Mum’s from a local hapū and my paternal grandmother was the daughter of the rangatira.”
“That’s a Māori tribal leader by birth, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, good girl.”
“So, could they be related? Your parents. It’s not a big town.” A twang of jealousy budded in her soul. He owned a history, a place in time to call his own. Hana swallowed it, with difficulty.
“First cousins. It’s how they maintained the French and Māori whakapapa. All that generation intermarried.”
“Oh.” Alarm bells went off in Hana’s head. “Won’t it be expected of you?”
Logan’s jaw showed through his cheek as he ground his teeth. A look of pain passed across his face. “I do what I want,” he replied. “I’m done pleasing them.”
Hana sighed, her mind straying to Vik and their situation. “I’m jealous of your heritage,” she admitted. “Immigration robbed my children of that. We belong nowhere. For that first generation, everyone seated around our table at Christmas is all we had. We made our own history and traditions. It felt uphill at times.”
Logan nodded, his tone harsh. “Yeah. Isolation is a bitch.”
At the top of a long rise, they encountered a gate. Logan dismounted to open it, pressing numbers into a combination padlock. Hana’s brow knitted. “A locked gate at the top of a mountain. It sounds like a riddle.”
Logan didn’t reply, leading Sacha through and waiting until Hana followed. He remounted by standing on top of the fence post like a dangerous circus trick. Hana needed the toilet and grew more and more uncomfortable the further they went. “Not far now,” he said, jerking his head. “Just over there.”
Hana looked at the back of Logan’s head for inspiration. Nothing about the flat, open paddock suggested toilet block with fresh running water. She cringed and the worry grew, intensifying the feeling of desperation. She studied Digger’s bobbing ears and realised she needed to dismount first. That in itself loomed as an impossible feat, especially as one might lead to the other.
“Wow!” Hana exclaimed at the vast expanse of water laid out before her like an endless tablecloth. “The Tasman Sea, right?”
“Yep.” Logan leaned on the horn of his saddle and lifted his feet from his stirrups, stretching his legs. He pointed to a wide estuary spewing out grey water. “That’s Port Waikato.”
“So your parents’ land stretches from the hotel to the coast?” Hana sounded impressed and Logan shifted in his saddle, a flash of uncertainty there for a second and then gone. “Yep.”
“Can I see it on a map?” she pressed, interested. “It might make more sense. It feels like we’ve gone around in circles and ended up here.”
Logan gave a tight smile. “There’s an ordinance survey map back at the hotel. Or you can look on Google Earth. Not up here though. There’s no signal.”
Hana nodded. “Yeah. I love that satellite view. I’ll do it later.” Her mind strayed to the decaying villa on the back road to Huntly. She’d check out that too.
Hana watched as Logan dismounted with ease, keeping one foot in the stirrup, throwing the other leg over the cantle and stepping down. She pretended to admire the view whilst her brain reminded her legs they needed to do more than dangle at the end of her hips.
Logan’s activity distracted her and she stared in amazement as culinary delights appeared from pockets in the saddle blanket. Sacha’s flanks held a picnic, one which had endured a terrifying bum slide. “The wine’s a bit shook up.” Logan held up a small bottle which frothed near the lid. “Might need to leave that a while.” He pushed his hat back and raised an eyebrow at Hana. “After last night it could be a hair of the dog.”
Hana shook her head. “I’ll be fine today.” She leaned forward and dragged the stirrup leather away from her bruised thigh. “I’m not drugged up. And I won’t be doing that again.” Digger’s ear flicked back and forward and he snorted.
&nbs
p; While Logan continued to produce food from his patient mount, Hana dealt with the ordeal of getting off. She took her right foot from the stirrup and attempted to swing it over the back of the cantle, finding her stiff leg unable to comply. She resembled an arthritic doing ballet. After three more tries, she looked for another route down.
As Logan removed Sacha’s bridle and let her snuffle in the long grass, Digger became impatient. He wrenched his reins free and dropped his head, eager to copy. He munched with eagerness, not caring that his neck formed a slide and his arched back made dismounting even harder for Hana. “Thanks for that,” she grumbled, grabbing a tuft of mane and making her move as Logan fiddled with a picnic blanket.
Hana threw her right leg over the back of the saddle with gusto. She slid down Digger’s left side, banging every buckle as she descended. Too late, she realised keeping her left foot in the stirrup was a terrible idea. Her nose touched her shin and the top button of her jeans flung itself open. She dangled there, her right foot a good ruler length from the floor and the tuft of mane shedding stubby hairs into her rigid fingers. “Damn and blast it!” With a squeak, Hana let go, falling backwards into the squashy carpet of lush grass. With a clang, the stirrup released her left foot and she lay like a snow angel under the azure New Zealand sky.
Digger snuffed around her feet, nudging her boots away and snagging the grass beneath. Logan’s anxious face appeared from behind the gelding’s dappled rump. “You ok?” he enquired.
“Fine thanks.” Hana tilted her chin upwards and avoided Logan’s eyes. She pulled herself onto her elbows and pushed the hat off her left eye. “I love the New Zealand sky, it’s enormous.”
Logan shrugged. “I guess.” His lips trembled as he resisted a smirk. “You fell, didn’t you?”
“Nope, no. Absolutely not.”
He went back to the picnic and Hana hid her face in her hands. “Big sky?” she groaned. Clambering onto her knees sent the toilet problem higher on the urgent list. Hana chewed her lower lip and wondered how to broach it. Logan removed Digger’s saddle, standing it on its pommel and replacing his bridle with a head collar. Digger ignored him, moving off over the grass like a primary school child at choosing time.
“That looks amazing.” Hana kept her legs crossed as she admired the fruits of Logan’s labour. Paper plates sat on a patterned picnic rug with sandwiches in plastic wrappers. A pair of tiny wine bottles leaned at cheerful angles on the camber of the rug.
“You can sit down if you want.” Logan pointed at the rug and then jerked his head towards the cliff edge. “I just need to pee.” He disappeared from view and Hana looked around, desperate for a hiding place. She settled on a stand of trees to her left and ran there, her sigh of relief sending a flock of birds cascading into the sky.
The sun shone warm on their backs during lunch, hot despite the nagging breeze. Hana scarfed sandwiches and fruit, sipping expensive wine from the bottle. “Riding makes me starving,” she commented, peering at the squashed chocolate muffin between her fingers.
Logan nodded. “The long musters are killers. All you think about is food.”
“How long does the longest take?” Hana asked.
Logan’s answer made her eyes bug. “Two days. The terrain is rough going in places so we ride out at dawn. Sometimes fences are down so the cattle spread further. We take what we need and stay out with the horses for as long as it takes.” He shrugged. “It’s what we’ve always done.”
“Don’t you use dogs?” Hana snagged a wet wipe from a rustling packet to clean her fingers. Digger ambled over, anticipating a treat. Logan swore as the horse nosed his apple from his fingers.
“No.” He shook his head.
“Is that unusual?” Hana probed and he shrugged.
“Don’t know. We just never have. The horses and stockmen work fine together. It’s how my grandmother ran it.”
“The kuia?” Hana cocked her head and remembered the portrait in the lobby.
Logan’s eyes softened. “Yeah.”
Hana lay on her back and closed her eyes. “Wasn’t this an amazing place to grow up?” she asked, romantic visions of Enid Blyton novels in her mind’s eye. Logan seemed slow to reply and she stared across at him, squinting against the sunshine.
“Sometimes,” he said, his tone thoughtful. “But not always.” He pushed a blade of grass into the corner of his mouth, his voice faraway and distracted. “I loved primary school in the township. Ma home-schooled us for intermediate. I rushed through my school work so I could ride with Jack and Pa.” He sighed and Hana waited. “The others weren’t interested. Eliza’s five years older than me. My brother Barry didn’t care about the farm. Michael suffered a bad fall as a kid. But I loved it. There’s freedom out here in the mountains with a horse under you.”
Hana nodded in understanding. “It sounds idyllic.”
Logan shook his head. “Dirt poor, Hana. That’s what we were. Never enough to go around.” He flicked the grass away and Digger investigated it. “Just before my thirteenth birthday, Barry got sick. Ma sent Mike and I to study at North Shore Auckland Grammar and we boarded there while she looked after Barry. Liza went to Wellington to study Law. We all won scholarships and satisfied the underprivileged Māori quota.” He shook his head and gave a disparaging snort. “We owned a mountain nobody wanted. Pa wasted money sub-dividing some of the front blocks, but nobody fancied living in a nothing town in the back end of nowhere. All that land and we were the kids in a private school with holes in our shorts.”
Hana looked away, sensing he didn’t want sympathy. Or words.
“We couldn’t come home during the first holidays because Barry was too ill. Ma sent us to relatives in Whangamata. Michael couldn’t behave and slept with the eldest daughter, so they turfed us out. We hitched back to school and camped out in the cricket pavilion for a week. Barry died, but she didn’t fetch us home after the tangi. She sent us back to school with empty promises. ‘Just use up this year’s scholarship,’ she said. Then next year’s and the year after. She let us back for holidays after that, but never to stay.”
“But you achieved?” Hana asked. “For yourself?”
Logan nodded and his face changed. “Yeah. I found a reason. I needed money and to get that, I needed transferable qualifications. Teaching and accounting were my ticket out.”
“Yet you love it here.” Hana rolled onto her side. “You fit.”
Logan reached out a hand and stroked her cheek. “It’s the tangata whenua. They make me return.”
Hana cocked her head. “The people of the land?”
“Yeah.” Logan concentrated on twirling a strand of her hair in his fingers. “My ancestors. I can go as far away as I like, but they bring me home every time. It’s like a tug in my chest and I can ignore it for a while, but not forever.”
Hana sighed. “That’s amazing. There’s nothing for me in England, or anywhere else. All I have is here.”
Logan’s voice lowered to a whisper. “Me too.” He became quiet and Hana relaxed in the peace. She rolled onto her stomach and cushioned her head on her forearms. Her body touched Logan’s and he stretched his arm across her back.
“Sorry about your brother,” she whispered. “People dying sucks.”
Logan didn’t answer and Hana concentrated on the activities of a busy tūī bird making a nest in the top of a kauri tree. “Did you find home-schooling lonely?” she asked. “With only you and your brother.”
Logan shook his head. “We were escape artists.” He smirked. “My pa didn’t talk to his brother and we weren’t meant to associate with any of his family. But we had this friend, Linc. He helped us make a track through the mountain and we built a den. We all met up there.”
“With your uncle?” Hana looked confused.
“No. His kids. They live on the other side of this ridge. We got away with it for ages.”
“How did they find out?” Hana kissed Logan’s exposed wrist and he closed his eyes, shuttering his feeli
ngs from her.
“Something happened.” He withdrew his arm and his fingers moved to his right side. He traced the seam of his shirt from armpit to hip as though a bug crawled over his flesh.
“What are their names?” Hana asked.
“Nev is the oldest. We always got along. My sister dated his younger brother, Kane. My pa found out and gave her such a whacking, she couldn’t walk for a week.” He sighed. “Kane raised Tama. He’s a nasty drunk and drove the kid’s mother off early on. He smokes weed and is real bad news. My uncle fostered a girl a few years older than me.” Logan licked his lips. “He never adopted her though.”
“I wonder why.” Hana watched a ladybird crawl along her sleeve. “Maybe her parents never let her go.”
Logan shrugged, the action dismissive. “Yep. She always wanted to be a Du Rose.”
“That’s sad. She could change her name by deed poll.”
Logan’s brow creased and he shook his head. “It’s not the same though, is it? It’s not acceptance.”
“I guess. She’s probably married and doesn’t care now.” Hana sighed. “This sun is gorgeous. I need a nana nap.”
Logan enfolded her in his strong arms and rolled her on top of him. Hana felt attraction burgeon like a flower in her heart as she ran her hands across his chest. He put a steady pressure behind her head and lowered her face, his kiss firm but gentle on her trembling lips. He sensed her fear and stroked her hair back from her face. The tip of his tongue probed her mouth, taking her breath away and driving her to the point of explosion. She knew he held all the aces, rendering her powerless to protest.
“You’re beautiful,” Logan sighed, brushing the side of her mouth with his lips. Hana wore her vulnerability in her face and he smiled. “We’ve got all the time in the world,” he promised as he pressed her cheek against his shoulder. “I don’t want you to be scared.”
His perception floored her and gratitude flooded her body. He’d wait. A cynical part of her brain wondered for how long, but she pushed it away, content for now. He held her under the warm sun and Hana sensed an ethereal presence surround them. God didn’t sing ‘la la la’ with his fingers in his ears. Instead, he smiled with satisfaction.
Disappointment raged through her as Logan patted her back. “We need to leave,” he said, his voice lazy.
“No!” Hana pushed her fingers behind his neck and held on. “I don’t want to. Let’s stay here forever.”
Logan snorted. “I wish.” He slapped her bum. “Come on, Ms McIntyre. It’s a long ride back.”
Hana rolled off him sideways and scrambled to her feet. “I’m not doing that slide again,” she said, her eyes flashing in warning. “Send a helicopter or something. I can’t do it.”
“Idiot!” He chased her and pulled her struggling body into him, wrapping his arms around her. “There are other ways back.”
“Now you tell me!” Hana’s voice sounded muffled against his shirt. “Then why did we go that way?”
Logan shrugged. “It was the most scenic.” His lips quirked upwards. “Now it’s not.”
Hana let him slide his fingers through hers. “You promise?”
“Yeah. I promise it was the most scenic route and now it’s crap.”
“No!” Hana dragged her fingers away and he turned and caught her wrist, a look of amusement on his face. She couldn’t break free. “Promise you won’t take me back that way.”
“I won’t.” He kissed her, grey eyes laughing at her discomfort.
Logan whistled and the horses reappeared. Digger’s muzzle dripped water and his hooves looked wet. “You’ve been in the stream, boy?” Logan said, slipping the halter over the flicking ears. The horse gave an answering snort which covered Logan’s shirt in water spray.
Hana fetched the tack and waited while he sorted out the horses, their fingers brushing with each exchange. “Was the house always a hotel?” she asked.
“Dairy farm,” Logan replied. “And beef. The whole family lived there when I was first born, but an argument between my father and uncle divided them. They left.”
“That’s sad.” Hana’s nose wrinkled.
“Broke my grandmother’s heart,” Logan replied, tightening Sacha’s girth. “She never got over it.”
“But the hotel works?” Hana said. “It looks amazing.”
“Yeah, it works.” Logan slapped Sacha’s neck and handed the reins to Hana. “It’s a money pit, but it’s paying its own bills nowadays. Thank goodness.”
Hana held the reins and waited for Logan to tighten Digger’s girth. He left it loose and dangling and her heart clenched. “Pa started the hotel after the kids left,” he said. “Best business idea he ever had.” He winced. “No follow through though. No control over spending or budgets. He’s like a kid in a lolly shop.”
“What’s the name of this mountain?” Hana waved her arm and Sacha glared at it with her blue eye, her head bouncing in annoyance.
“Mātakitaki.” Logan said the name with pride. “It means to watch.”
Hana gazed around her at the spectacular view and sighed. “It certainly does that.” Logan’s eyes sparkled and something in them made her blood fizz. She snatched at a memory infused with the worst day of her life but no, it danced away like sea mist.
Logan led Digger behind him and indicated they should walk. They stepped through the long grass with the horses tugging at occasional mouthfuls. Logan shot sideways looks at Hana and she felt panic rising. When he stopped, she wanted to scream at him to just do it. “Do you want to dump me?” she demanded, her jaw stiff.
“What?”
Hana swallowed. “You say all the right things, but sometimes your body language screams something else. I’m confused.”
“Oh.” Logan floundered, darting a look at Sacha and back at her. The horse blew out a sigh of contentment and snagged a mouthful of lush grass. He stepped in front of her, towing Digger. “I wanted to ask you if we have a future together. If you like me enough.”
Hana closed her eyes against her idiocy. She shook her head and when she opened them again, saw the fear in Logan’s face. “I’m cross with myself,” she admitted. “Not you. I never feel good enough. Life is a balancing act of second-guessing and protecting myself against inevitable hurt. I anticipate pain and just want it over.”
Logan squirmed with discomfort and his courage failed in his eyes so fast, Hana felt guilty. “Yes I like you.” She reached out and stroked his cheek. “More than like you.” Sadness flushed into her veins like cold water. “But I don’t know what to do about work, or my kids, or anything.” She swallowed and her voice became a whisper. “I want to keep seeing you, Logan. But I don’t want to get hurt.”
He nodded with understanding. “I know. But I’m not sure one comes without the other.” The dimple showed in his right cheek as he winced.
Hana sighed. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
His kiss banished all doubt and darts of pleasure filled Hana’s stomach. His beard felt bristly against her chin and she rubbed the day old growth with her fingers. “When I’m around you, I get this feeling of déjà vu. It’s so odd.”
He kissed her one last time and shrugged. “Weird.”
“Do you get it with me?” she asked, skipping to catch up. Sacha followed with her ears back.
“I get a lot of things around you,” Logan replied with a smile. “I don’t call them that.”
Hana laughed and followed him to the fence, towing the white horse behind her. Her insides felt light as though they could lift off into the air and she smiled to herself like a giggly teenager with her first crush. Memories of Vik wiped the smile from her face and she banished him from her thoughts with difficulty. He left. He didn’t get the right to ruin her future.
“You did good.” Logan took Sacha’s reins. “My horse likes you.” He kissed the end of her nose.
“I didn’t realise it was a test,” Hana said, swapping them for Digger’s.
“Life’s a test,�
�� Logan replied with a wink. He spun her body and pushed her against Digger’s side, running his hands down her body. The sensation made Hana want to scream. Cupping her left knee in his hands, Logan counted to three and hoisted her into the saddle. “Do you want your stirrups longer now?” he asked, his tone serious.
“No.” Hana denied him victory, even though her legs protested at being forced into the same position as before.
Logan slapped Digger’s bum to send him through the gate, closing the padlock and then bouncing into Sacha’s saddle.
“You promised,” Hana reminded him and he laughed.
“Yep. I always keep my promises.” He shot her a sultry look and turned left, skirting a track he knew by sight. The route continued downwards, much sharper than their ascent, with the horses picking their way through undergrowth and fallen trees. Hana leaned backwards to balance Digger and let him find his feet.
“I lied,” Hana called to Logan, patting Digger’s neck. The horse’s ears flicked backwards and forwards at the sound of her voice.
“I know.” Logan glanced back at her and smiled.
“How?”
He laughed. “The boots looked right on you. A couple of times you’ve mentioned a friend back in England with stables. I figured you could ride.”
Hana sighed. “I started aged ten and stopped at eighteen. I helped every Saturday through school and taught the younger kids.”
“Why did you stop?” His innocuous question wiped the coy smile from Hana’s face and she searched for an answer.
“Life,” she said. Logan didn’t push it and she heaved a sigh of relief. Many women rode while pregnant and nothing happened. The bleeding which followed her afternoon of galloping and jumping, lulled her into a false sense of security and masked her pregnancy with Bodie. She blamed herself for many things, including those which didn’t happen.
Trekking through the outer edges of bush, Hana noticed they followed a fence line. It seemed endless, a ribbon of posts and wire. In the distance she spotted a sprawling, timber clad house, spread out across a flat piece of land. “Who lives there?” she asked, pointing.
“It’s Uncle Reuben’s place,” Logan told her, calling over his shoulder as though not wanting to attract attention. They followed its line until the route ended, severed by a fresh swathe of fencing which cut inwards.
“What the hell?” Logan dismounted and inspected the posts, shaking his head. A gravel road snaked alongside, circumnavigating a ridge which towered overhead.
“It looks like they couldn’t go any other way,” Hana said, eyeing the yellow chassis of a sleeping bulldozer. “They need access for that cul-de-sac.”
Logan followed the direction of her pointed finger. He clambered onto a sturdy fence post to get higher and saw the curb edging and concrete piping ready to be buried for drainage.
“Will their water run-off affect your property?” Hana asked. “I suppose it already has. Perhaps their excavations caused the washout we came across.”
Logan nodded, the movement short and jerky. He jumped from the fence post and mounted Sacha, whirling her across the uneven ground to regain the track. “Bloody bastard!” he hissed. Logan didn’t mention the fence or road again, but his mood remained heavy and brooding for the rest of their descent.
Back at the stables, Hana dismounted with more elegance as Jack whipped Digger away. He took him into a loose box, leaving her redundant. She used the bottom of her shirt to dust Miriam’s hat and watched Logan un-tack Sacha. He ran a hosepipe over her spine and Hana saw the flesh creep with pleasure, her head drooped and eyes closed in silent appreciation. Wanting to help with her mount, she popped her head over the door of the loose box and waited until she caught Jack’s eye. “Can I help?” she asked using her hands and he shook his head.
As she turned to leave in disappointment, he put both thumbs up to her and beamed. The wizened face lost its angry edge and bright eyes twinkled out from beneath hooded lids. “Thank you,” he signed in return. Hana nodded, gratified by his toothless smile.
Logan carried his heavy saddle to the tack room and Hana washed Sacha’s bit under the yard tap. The tension between them felt palpable and again, she allowed it to gnaw at her confidence. Logan didn’t notice her growing unease, hailing a dark-skinned man on a quad bike. “Toby, where’s Alfred?”
“Fifteenth, boss,” the man answered, eying Hana sideways. “Want me to get him on the radio?”
“Yes,” Logan snapped, all gentle edges gone.
Hana’s eyes widened in curiosity as the man roared away, speaking into a hand held device with a long aerial and doing Logan’s bidding without question.
Logan took the bridle from her outstretched hand. “I’ve had a great day,” he said. “You’re everything I knew you would be.”
Hana accepted the peculiar compliment and allowed him to hold her. His dismissal burned. “I’ll walk you back to the house and then I need to see the old man.”
“Okay.” Hana tried to sound positive, helping with the picnic items and carrying the blanket back to the kitchen. Anxiety shrouded her at the sense of abandonment.
Logan’s mother looked frazzled, wisps of hair ringing her face in a frizzy halo. “There’s a party of eighty coming.” She yanked Hana’s arm to pull her away from the chiller as a woman emerged carrying a loaded tray of desserts. Logan’s back disappeared through the kitchen door, leaving her.
“Do you want me to help?” Hana offered and Miriam shook her head.
“No. Just stay out of the way. I’ll serve dinner for us when they’re settled.” She dragged Hana’s sleeve and pulled her into the hallway. At the reception desk, Miriam waved her arm at the girl behind the desk. Hana cringed. “We’re getting something from the office,” Miriam snapped, hurrying past and dragging Hana behind her.
They passed a set of toilets and Miriam unlocked an office, closing the door behind them. “Help yourself to a nice bath,” she said, jangling keys in a wide cupboard door. “There’s one in your room.” She turned to pat Hana’s arm. “You’ll be sore tomorrow.”
The cupboard contained all manner of goodies and Hana’s eyes bulged. From pharmacy to home wares, Miriam had it covered. “Here we are.” She reached into the back and withdrew a packet of white powder. Hana’s eyes widened.
“What’s this?”
“Epsom salts.” Miriam pushed it into her hand and tapped a bony finger on the label. “It’ll help your muscles after riding all day.” She locked the cupboard and patted Hana’s back to make her move on, shooing her into reception.
Hana’s body turned to jelly and the action repeated itself in her head on a loop. Miriam handing her something. The tattoos on her chin. Her brown fingers clasped around another object in her inner vision.
Pain and misery infused her psyche as the memory came nearer to revealing itself. Not a happy recollection, but one filled with anguish. Miriam bustled away and left Hana standing outside the office door, her fingers clutching an object which felt wrong. The same action but the wrong gift.
“Do you have a spare key to my room?” Hana asked the receptionist. She aimed for rude and dismissive and succeeded at haughty.
“Yes, miss,” the girl responded. She turned to fumble in a cabinet behind her desk and retrieved a white card with a black stripe down the back of it. Her fingers shook as she handed it over, neat pink nails with white edges painted on.
Hana shoved the card in her pocket with the Epsom salts and sighed. “Thanks.”
“I’m so sorry about before.” The girl chewed her lower lip, blonde strands escaping her raggedy bun. “Mr Logan never brings people back.”
Her affirmation lifted Hana’s spirits and she nodded, forcing her face into a smile. “It’s fine. No hard feelings.”
She set off up the stairs in her socks, the grass stains and mud on her jeans making her less a part of the furnishings. Room eleven felt silent after the cacophony of the bush and Hana washed her dirty hands in the sink. The heavi
ness in her chest remained as her memory foxed her, giving her snapshots of Miriam’s hands and then misting up the time and place. “I give up,” she sighed, sinking into the deep bath.
Hana laid her phone in the soap tray and listened to music. Sounds from her childhood offered comfort and the eighties tunes reminded her of home. She hummed along, examining her bruises and soaking her tired muscles. She missed the gentle tap on her bedroom door.
Logan let himself into the room and sat on the bed, his boots dusty against the shaggy rug. He heard Hana singing and rubbed a hand across his face, leaving a streak of filth. His father’s words rang in his ears. ‘Youse weren’t bloody here!’ the old man shouted. ‘Youse left, man! You ran away, just like you always do, so don’t complain about the decisions I made in your absence!’
Logan stood, his jaw flexing. Hana sang through a terrible rendition of an eighties hit and he shook his head and smiled. “At least I know you can’t sing,” he whispered. He closed the door behind him and left no sign of his visit. In the hall outside, he felt someone watching him and saw the receptionist halt on her way to another room, a pair of pressed trousers on a hanger in her hand.
He raised an eyebrow and looked at her, seeing the colour drain from her face. “If I wanted monkeys, I’d pay peanuts,” he bit and she nodded. He didn’t wait to hear her apology.