Kiwi Strong (New Zealand Ever After Book 3)

by Rosalind James

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I just sat there.

  We needed to have a discussion about boundaries. What you asked and what you didn’t, in what seemed like an unbelievably permissive culture where you could ask anything.

  How had I learned that?

  Well, by making mistakes, probably. By asking the wrong thing, stepping over the boundaries.

  After a minute, Gray said, “Nobody’s asked me what I said to Gilead, after he got done with all the Hell and brimstone and damnation and so forth. I particularly enjoyed ‘She-Devil.’ That was special. But here I am, waiting to tell you the next part. That was going to be my big finish.”

  “Oh,” I said gratefully. “Tell us. I hope it’s good.”

  “Short and to the point,” Gray said. “I told him if I saw his face again, or if my mum saw it, or if any of you saw it, I’d kick his arse. He wants to stay in Mount Zion? Then stay there. I thought that was the whole point of the place. I told him I was going to find out everything he’d done to both of you, so I could do it to him.”

  “You’d be in prison,” I said.

  He sighed. “I’m not going to do it. I’m going to make him think I’ll do it. Men who hurt women don’t much fancy getting hurt themselves, and he’s had a look at me. Ran away as fast as his legs could carry him, too. I reckon he’ll run again. And I’ve got a question.”

  “Yes?” I asked. Warily, you could say. I didn’t want to revisit the question of how long it had taken me to want to have sex.

  He asked, “Did anybody make pudding?”

  35

  Daisy: 0

  Gray

  She’d pulled back. She’d put her foot in my lap, and then she’d pulled back. And I didn’t think it was just about Gilead.

  Or maybe it was.

  I tried to remember everything she’d said, to puzzle it out. I couldn’t manage it. The foot had distracted me.

  I ate my sticky date pudding, which was excellent, and told Daisy, “Mum’s coming tonight, by the way. That’s a load off my mind. I didn’t fancy her spending another night alone there, so close to Mount Zion.”

  She said, “Oh, I’m glad.” Relieved not to be talking about Gilead anymore, and maybe … maybe not to be talking about sex signals anymore, either.

  I wasn’t used to not being sure of how to proceed with women. You read the signals, and you responded to them. I was a physical fella, and reading body language had been my life for … well, for all my life. In rugby, and now. Whether you were guessing whether a fella was throwing the dummy or actually passing the ball, sitting across a table doing a contract negotiation, or talking to a foreman, you needed to see more than what somebody was apparently doing, and you needed to hear more than what they were saying. You needed to know what they were thinking, too. But I couldn’t read Daisy, except that it felt like I was holding a stunned bird in my palm, my hand stroking over its feathers, trying to find out how injured it was. Trying not to startle it more.

  That, and all the dirty stuff, too.

  I finished the sweet and said, “Awesome pudding. Cheers for dinner. I’ll be off, then. Get things ready for Mum.” If Daisy actually was that injured bird, I needed to give her space. Also, I had work to do.

  Xena jumped up the second I did. It was hard to resent a dog who was that good at loving.

  Daisy asked, “Would you like me to come over and help you?”

  And there went the work, because it seemed I’d just kicked it to the curb. I asked, “Is this a trick question?”

  She looked confused for a second, and then she smiled and said, “Right, then. Let’s do that.”

  When we got to the door and I picked up my boots and socks, she slipped those pretty feet back into her jandals, and when I opened the door to my house for her, she kicked them off and said, “Good for the girls to do the washing-up alone, I’m telling myself. Sense of ownership.”

  I looked at her, and she said, “I could be nervous.”

  She was standing there, her back against the door, trying for her casual Daisy-smile. I set down my boots, took a step forward, put my hands on her hips, my thumbs brushing just above the waistline of the drawstring trousers, which were riding heart-stoppingly low, and told her, “You don’t have to be nervous.” And then I bent and kissed her soft mouth. Gently. Carefully. I pulled back and smiled at her, and she smiled back. It was tentative, though, and I felt a sudden, fierce desire to punch Gilead in the mouth.

  I said, “Not so easy?”

  “Well, no,” she said. “Since you ask.” She blinked, and I could tell that she was fighting the urge to run. “So … want to put sheets on your mum’s bed?”

  She’d been so brave, and she was trying to be brave again now. I said, “Yeh. And you know … I need to take a shower. If I do that, will you trust me that it’s just a shower?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Of course.” She laughed. “I’m being silly. Fainting maiden, eh.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re not.” And then I stepped away, because I had to, and said, “Come on. I’ll show you Mum’s room. You can tell me how to make it not be horrible.”

  Up the creaky old stairs with her padding barefoot behind me and Xena bringing up the rear, and to the dormer bedroom at the end of the hall. “I know,” I said, opening the door. “Pink and blue.” Pink walls, pale-blue carpet. It had been a girl’s room, obviously. It looked like one of those plastic doll houses, and not in a good way.

  “You’re right,” she said. “That is horrible.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” Actually, the dormer window was nice. That was it. The good feature. Well, that and some built-in cabinetry done to 1870 standard, which I always appreciated.

  I went to the linen cupboard across the passage and grabbed sheets and a duvet, and she took them from me and said, “I’ll do it. Go take your shower. If you come back and I’m not here, I’m probably in the garden. Flowers make everything better.”

  Back to breezy, shifting back and forth like the wind. I headed for the shower, stripping my shirt over my head along the way, and thought that a man who was trying to get somewhere with a woman might not ask her to put the sheets on his mum’s bed for him. He’d probably be less sweat-stained when he went to dinner with her, too.

  I could fix one of those things, anyway.

  Daisy

  I made the bed with white sheets and a brown duvet. My least favorite color. I stood back, looked at all of it, and thought that it was awful. Pink, blue, and brown.

  It wasn’t like Gray had no taste. He’d done the yurt, and he’d done his house in Wanaka. He had beautiful taste. He just had no time. The girls had told me that they’d heard the ute leaving this morning before seven, and he’d come home at six-thirty, because he hadn’t even had time to shower and change before we’d got there.

  I didn’t want to think about what I was doing, so I didn’t. I didn’t think about his thumbs brushing over the skin over my hipbones, or the gentle touch of his lips on mine. The working-man scent of him after a hard day, made up of dust and the kind of clean sweat that came from physical labor, or the way he’d asked me to trust him. Or the sight of him walking down the passage, pulling his T-shirt over his head. Or the look of his jeans when my foot had been on his thigh. It was hard not to think about that, because it had been impressive, but I did my best.

  I went downstairs instead and hunted through the orange-and-green kitchen for scissors. I found shears, which were even better. I also checked out his collection of glassware: poor. And the state of his fridge: pathetic.

  He’d been in Wanaka, that was why, and then he’d been working too much and fixing my window and chasing off my ex-husband.

  I was pretty sure his mum would take care of his fridge. I wasn’t going to have to cook for him anymore, and never mind that more than half of me wanted to do just that. Gratitude, or something more complicated.

  Another thing I didn’t want to think about, so I went outside and headed down through the gar
den, then along the track. After that, it was a wrestling match.

  Xena found me first. I heard Gray’s voice, and before I could answer, the Labrador was running up to me, then running off again. Gray turned up thirty seconds later, looked at my efforts, and said, “I’m not saying it. It’s killing me not to say it.”

  I said, “I have excellent balance. Also flexibility.”

  “Noticed that, didn’t I,” he said. “When you had your foot on my thigh. I could still ask why you need to be two meters up in a kowhai, with one foot on a limb that’s bound to break, and reaching too far for good sense.”

  “Because that’s where the flowers are,” I said. “And the limb is bound to break if I go out any farther, since as I told you, I’m heavy for my size. Fifty-one Kg’s, to be exact, which is too heavy for that branch. And because you don’t grow enough flowers, and kowhai is cheerful.” I finished clipping off another branch drooping with trumpet-shaped yellow blooms and said, “I’ll hand them to you and climb down.”

  “Barefoot,” he said. “How about not. How about this instead. You trust me, and I’ll lift you down. Since we’re sharing, I’m twice your weight, which is exactly no surprise to me.”

  I said, “Fine. I could do it, but let’s avoid having a whole barney about it.”

  He said, “Let’s,” then reached up, closed his hands over my waist, and lifted me carefully down. Slowly. From over his head. The man had some strength. I don’t mean weight-lifting muscles. I mean strength. He set me on my feet again, not doing the whole brushing-down-the-body thing that I was half-expecting, took the kowhai branches from me, and said, “It never would have occurred to me to cut these.”

  “I like flowers,” I said, slipping my jandals on again and starting up the track. Xena, of course, stayed so close to Gray that her nose was practically pressed to his leg. He was wearing soft, faded jeans again, and another T-shirt, an old Highlanders one. His dark hair was damp, his skin was gleaming, and that lift down had told me he smelled wonderful, too. Like soap and clean cotton, and a faint touch of the same scent as I’d used in his shower. Honey and spice shampoo, for Islander hair that would feel thick under your fingers.

  He said, “I don’t have many flowers. Never thought of growing them. Never had a reason to.”

  “I’m guessing your mum likes them,” I said. “She has flowered prints in her room. Iris isn’t a flower woman?”

  “You met Iris?”

  “Yeh. Well, the girls did. She and Obedience have hit it off. Not sure she likes me.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” he said, opening the door to the house for me again. “Two opinionated, stroppy women?”

  I said, “I’m not going to dignify that with a response. Bring those branches into the kitchen, and I’ll put them in water.”

  He looked at them dubiously. “Pretty sure I don’t have a vase.”

  “You’ve got a jar,” I said. “That’ll do.”

  When he’d handed them over, he leaned back against the kitchen bench, his hands clutching its edge, and watched me arrange them. Which gave me a pretty good view of the biceps and the chest and the tattoo, if I’d wanted to look. He said, “You’re wondering about Iris.”

  “A bit,” I said.

  “Not much to tell. She popped by and asked me about putting beehives on the section, five or six years ago, and I said yes, because why not? I like bees. Got a job to do, and they do it. Good for the plants, too. And then one day, she had bruises. She’d had some trouble, out where she was staying. Not always easy to be different. I had the yurt done by then, was going to move into the house anyway, so I told her to go on and use it for a while. I knew she was tidy, and anyone who can keep bees can keep a house. The whole thing was simple enough, especially since she moved out again pretty smartly.”

  My hands stilled on the branches I was arranging. I asked, “Have you always collected lame ducks?”

  I got a flash of heat from the dark eyes, but his voice was level when he said, “No. I know what it’s like to be skint and hurting, though. Why shouldn’t I put out a hand, if I can?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know why I said that.”

  “Don’t you?” he asked.

  I couldn’t pretend to be working on the kowhai anymore. It only takes so long to stick branches into a jar. I said, “You’ve got a theory, I’m sure.”

  He said, “I’ve got an observation, anyway. Do you want to hear it?”

  No. I didn’t. I said, “Yes,” instead, because what kind of life could you have if all you did was run away? I was scared of hearing and more scared of what would come next, but I was more tired of running. You don’t change until the pain of not changing is worse than the pain of changing. I was ready for the pain of changing. I hoped.

  He said, “I think you’re scared of something. I wish I knew what it was.”

  “Isn’t it …” I tried to breathe. “Obvious?”

  “No,” he said. “Or it is, but it doesn’t make sense. You’re not scared of me. I don’t believe that. I lifted you down from your tree just now, and I’d swear you enjoyed it. You put your foot on my thigh and enjoyed knowing you were teasing me, especially someplace where I couldn’t do anything about it.”

  He gave me some of that smolder I’d seen only in flashes. Gray could smolder like nobody’s business, and it was more effective because I could tell he didn’t do it on purpose. It was all natural. Like the rest of him. He said, “You watch me watch you, and it gives you a thrill. Just like the thrill you give me. So why?”

  I was two things at once. Fluttery with nerves, and fluttery with something else. He did that thing I’d daydreamed about. He put his hand on my cheek, brushed my hair back with his thumb, and said, “You can tell me, you know. I’m right here.”

  He was so close. He smelled so good. I said, “I … could need some … help.”

  “You must know I’ll give it to you,” he said.

  “Well, that’s good, then,” I said. “Because that’s what I want.”

  He looked confused. “What’s what you want?”

  “To, uh … have you give it to me. I need a sort of … well, a sort of sex therapist. Temporarily. And I can’t go out and hire one, even if I knew how to hire one. I’d die of shame just getting the referral, and then … no. Just no. But as you’re so—well, clearly you’re experienced, and obviously, you don’t hate the idea. You just said. So …” I hauled in a breath. This had gone so much more smoothly in my spa-time imaginings. I’d been seductive, then, not sounding like somebody begging for a job. Or, rather, begging somebody to take a job.

  A job he apparently didn’t want, because he’d taken a step back.

  “Daisy,” he said. “Suppose you tell me exactly what’s going on here.”

  “I …” My arm was flailing around some. “I have a problem. Well, obviously. We just said I had a problem. Like Fruitful. We both have a problem. But I’m not asking you to solve both of our problems,” I hurried to add. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

  “Bloody hell,” he said. “What am I meant to be, then, a gigolo?”

  “No!” I said. “Well, obviously not. You pay a gigolo. Or a sex therapist, and you’re practically paying me. I mean, not paying me, obviously, but—yurt. Window glass. Et cetera. I wouldn’t be adequate, ah, remuneration. I mean, my … body, or whatever. Obviously. But it wouldn’t be terrible. At least, it probably would be terrible, but maybe I’d get better. That would be the idea. Think of it as tutoring.”

  “Tutoring,” he said.

  “That’s not helpful,” I said. “Repeating what I’m saying.”

  “Oh, excuse me,” he said. “Please. Go on.”

  He wasn’t smoldering anymore. Or, rather, he was, but not in a good way. In an I’ve-had-much-too-long-a-day-for-this way. He had his arms crossed—biceps, tattoo, et cetera—and was frowning down at me. Xena leaned against his thigh like she was saying, “I’ll love you, and you won’t have to be my gigolo.” I could
see her point. I was pretty sure I wasn’t coming across as any kind of bargain.

  I said, “Right. I’m just going to say it.”

  “Always best,” he agreed.

  “I didn’t have a good time with Gilead. Well, you’ve probably gathered that. I had a … a pretty bad time, in fact. He wasn’t gentle. He wasn’t patient. Fruitful could tell you.”

  “Except that I’m never going to ask Fruitful,” he said. “I’m asking you.”

  “He … spanked,” I said. “With a belt, sometimes. If you didn’t do well enough. For other things, too, but for that as well. You were meant to be appreciative. It hurt, and it was … it was humiliating.” I swallowed and plowed on. “Sex hurt, too. Intercourse. I know it worked for other people, though. Other women. For me, it always hurt. And I couldn’t do it well enough.”

  “Right,” Gray said. “I’ll remember that. All of it.” A muscle at the corner of his mouth ticked, and right now, he didn’t look kind. He looked dangerous. If Gilead had seen him, I was pretty sure he’d have been running far and fast. He went on, “And you’re telling me that you … what?”

  “I’ve tried, since then,” I said. “I have. I’ve done it, too. Twice. With two men, I mean, not the same man twice, because they don’t exactly hang around, after. Make an excuse and bugger off, don’t they. Disaster. I’ve tried going slow with dating since then, too. Nobody wants to take it slow enough, or I decide I’ll never get there, or … who knows, really. And I’d like to be normal. I want … I don’t know. Marriage? Probably not. Kids? Maybe. A kid, anyway. I never thought so, being the oldest of twelve. I’d have said I’d done enough mothering. But maybe so. Maybe I would. But I can’t, not if I can’t even have sex.”

  “Could be you need hypnosis,” Gray said. “Therapy.”

  “I’ve tried. Therapy, not hypnosis. We didn’t talk about that much, because I can’t. I can’t believe I’m telling you, but obviously, it’s because I’m getting better. Getting … closer. And I’m good, normally. I’m all good. I’m competent. I’m successful. I’m a good nurse. I work Emergency, and that’s not easy. I’m just not good at sex. But you see, with you … I feel like I am getting better. I’ve had feelings, and I never have feelings, not the way other people talk about. But I know I’m not going to be good enough to fool you, so I can’t just say, ‘Right, big boy. Let’s go,’ like women probably normally do.”