Kiwi Strong (New Zealand Ever After Book 3)

by Rosalind James

  “Look who we’ve got here, though,” George said. “Samoan god, eh. Just like me. Gray Tamatoa, in the flesh.” He winked at Ruby, in case she might’ve missed the point. “Prettiest nurses in Otago,” he told Gray. “You’re a lucky man yourself.”

  “I am,” Gray said. “And sorry, George, but that’s my girl you’re grabbing.” After which he took a step, got me around the waist, more or less dragged me across to him, bent me back over his arm—yes, he did, which had me gasping—kissed my mouth, stood me up again, smiled into my eyes, and said, “I came to take you to breakfast. A working woman needs to eat.”

  I stood there with my mouth open like a trout flopping on the shore, tried to think what to say, and failed.

  “But you …” I started.

  George said, “Well, that’s news, if you like. Reckon this means I have to go work for a living instead of catching up with Miss Daisy, because you won’t find a better protective detail than that, Daisy-girl. Morning, Ruby. Cheers for the selfie, uso. My kids’ll be chuffed.”

  “Your kids won’t know who I am,” Gray said.

  That made George laugh some more. “Nah. I’m old, and so are they. Got another grandson coming soon, and that makes three. The wife’ll be chuffed as well. Too chuffed, but never mind. Back to work. Fā soifua, uso.”

  “Fā soifua,” Gray answered.

  George ambled off, and Ruby said, “I’m off myself. See ya, Daisy.” And shot the kind of look at me that meant, Why did you let me natter on about my crush on him?

  To which I had no answer.

  Gray

  Daisy looked gobsmacked. And not in a good way. I said, “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Sorry. I was a bit nervous, so …”

  She’d got her voice back, because she said, “You did that because you were nervous?” Which, yes, sounded like Daisy again.

  I said, “I get overconfident when I’m nervous. Compensatory, you could call it. Sorry. If you hated it …”

  “I didn’t say I hated it,” she said. “I said I was surprised.”

  Actually, she hadn’t said that at all. Didn’t seem like the moment to be pedantic, though, so I said, “Well … breakfast? That was the best idea I could come up with. Private time, eh. My mum, your sisters …” I scratched the back of my head and grinned in what I hoped was a rueful manner and did my best not to think about dipping her back and kissing her. How light she’d been on my palm, or the jolt of surprise it had been to realize that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  That was something you didn’t see every day, sadly. Little yellow T-shirt, no bra. She looked just bloody fine like that. I was trying not to look some more, because, yes, that kiss had worked for her. I wasn’t having much success.

  “You need to go to work, though,” she said. Buttoning up her cardigan, which was a pity.

  “I’ve been,” I said. “Got in by seven, got the team going, and now I’m here with you. If we don’t rattle our dags, though, my time’ll be up. D’you mind walking? I thought, Good Oil Café. OK with you?”

  “Yeh,” she said. “Sure. Thanks.”

  We headed out of the hospital and down the street, and she stuck her hands in her cardigan pockets, frowned down at the ground, not much like Daisy at all, and said, “Your mum got in, then. I heard her car.”

  “Yeh,” I said. “She did. In time to wake me from my nightmare and bring me a cup of tea. True story,” I assured her when she looked up at me. “I could’ve been five, eh. She sat by my bed and everything.”

  She laughed, and I smiled down at her and thought, That’s better.

  “What did you dream?” she asked.

  “About you in the water,” I said. “That I couldn’t get you out.” Even now, on a fresh, bright November morning with the sun shining and the breeze blowing, it gave me a chill to remember.

  “But you didn’t have to get me out,” she said. “I got myself out.”

  I stopped, slapped a hand to my heart, and said, “Just shove the dagger in deeper, why don’t you.”

  She was laughing, at least. “All right, you helped me at the end. And carried me to the ute.”

  “Yes, I did,” I said. “In an extremely manly and competent fashion that I’d like you to remember. But maybe,” I added as we started walking again, “I didn’t take care of you after that in the way that I should’ve. Could have let you down, in fact.”

  “Last night,” she said. “Sorry about that. It was stupid. I—”

  “Daisy.” I turned on the sidewalk and put my hands on her hips again. Somehow, that was where my hands always wanted to go. “Let me say this. Please. I need to get it out.”

  “OK,” she said. Looking wary. Looking guarded.

  I said, “I thought about it, afterwards. After the nightmare, when I couldn’t go back to sleep. Thought about you trusting me, telling me. You didn’t … bring up the subject in the way I expected, I guess.”

  “How do you expect frigid women to ask for your sex therapist services, normally?” she asked.

  “Don’t say that word,” I said, and, yes, I was angry again. “Don’t think it. It’s not true. If somebody breaks a leg, you don’t expect him to walk again without some help, do you? If you concuss a fella over and over again, he’s not going to think straight for a while. He’s going to have a hard time thinking at all, in fact. And if you hurt a woman during sex—a sixteen-year-old girl during sex, and you do it over and over, she’s going to be scared to have a sexual response with a man. No different from a work injury, because that’s what it is.”

  “A … work injury,” she said. “I’m not—”

  “Right,” I said, “I’m using the wrong words again. Bugger the words. I’m trying to tell you. We were already there.”

  “Already where?”

  “Already here,” I said. “I’m holding you right now because I love to hold you. I kissed you when you came home last night because I wanted to kiss you, and you put your foot in my lap because you wanted to flirt with me, and you wanted to tease me. And, no, there was nothing one bit wrong with having that foot in my lap. Sexiest thing a woman’s done for me in a long time, and I’m glad that you didn’t read it in a women’s magazine. You’ve given me your honest response every time, and I’ve given you mine. It’s felt pretty bloody good every time, too, and I want to keep doing it.”

  “But it’ll be too slow,” she said. I could see her pulse beating, right there in her throat. I could feel the faint tremble of her body under my hands. I wanted to kiss her here and now, on the George Street pavement, with pedestrians veering around us on their way to work, with the second glances when somebody recognized my face.

  “So we’ll go slow,” I said. “I’ve gone fast enough times in my life, times when it didn’t mean a thing. I’m not proud of that, but it’s true. Maybe it’s time to learn how to go slow, the way they used to do. But there’s one more thing I need to tell you, so listen to me.”

  “Right,” she said. “I’m listening.”

  “It’s not sex therapy,” I told her. “It’s just us. You and me. Going out. Staying in. Courting.”

  “Courting?” she said.

  “Yeh.” The tenderness was there inside me, squeezing my chest. I put a hand on her face and felt the tension in her soften. I told her, “You deserve to make love with a man because you want to do it, because you can’t go another minute without touching him, and you know he can’t go another minute without touching you, either. If it takes a while to get there, that just makes it more fun. You deserve to enjoy every step of the way. You deserve to be courted, and that’s what you’re going to get.”

  I couldn’t help it anymore. Pavement or no, curious glances or no. I bent my head and kissed her, and this time, she kissed me back. Tentatively, and then getting a little bolder, her warm body pressed against mine and my hand on her hip pulling her in. And the heat licked up in me like a tongue of flame.

  Going slow was going to kill me.

  I was going to do it anyway. />
  38

  A Rupture of the Fibrous Tissue

  Daisy

  The man could kiss. He didn’t grab you and smash his lips against yours. He did it like it was all he wanted to do. Like he wanted to taste and touch and explore all of you, but with so much tenderness. He didn’t just dive for the prize, either. He kissed the corner of my mouth, then my cheek, gentle as you please, and by the time he came back to my mouth again, I wanted it more. One of his hands cradled my head, and the other one was pulling me up closer. On my hip, not my bum, but I could tell he wanted to go there. I could feel the urgency in him, and his body was so solid. My hands were on his shoulders, and there was so much there to hold on to.

  I heard some laughter, a muttered “Get a room, bro,” and didn’t care, but Gray was lifting his mouth from mine, then cuddling me close and saying, his voice a bit strangled, “Pretend this is me being tender. It’s actually me not being in a fit state to walk down the street with you. That was meant to be a sweet kiss to seal our deal and show you I meant it. You were better at it than I expected, though. Hang on a sec. Bloody hell.”

  I smiled, put my hands on his chest, kissed him there, snuggled up closer, and said, “I’m getting that you meant it.” I kissed his chest again, because it was right there under that plaid workingman’s shirt, thought about sliding a hand up under it, regretfully decided that I really couldn’t do that on the street, and asked, “Is this helping?”

  “No,” he said, but his hand was still on my back, and he wasn’t exactly pushing me away. “Bloody hell, woman.” Which made me smile some more.

  “So how does this work?” I asked him when we’d finally made it to the café and I was getting stuck into my favorite Good Oil breakfast: pumpkin & rosemary loaf, bacon, spinach, beetroot relish, and poached egg. “Also, I’m a bit disappointed that you’re not more adventurous.”

  He looked up, startled. “Pardon?”

  I gestured at his plate. “Smoked-salmon eggs bennie? Thought you were meant to be my education.”

  His smile started slow, then spread. “Challenging me already? Thought we were going easy. Courting, eh.”

  “I realized how good you are at kissing, that’s why,” I said, taking another bite. “Before, I thought you were just, you know …”

  He eyed me skeptically. “What? I’m fascinated to hear. In a horrified sort of way.”

  “That it was like … kissing your sister,” I said. “Or a friend. Because you’d cuddle me and give me a kiss. You know. Casually.”

  He set down his knife and fork and said, “Daisy.” Trying to be severe, which was cute. “What kind of friends do you imagine I have? And I’m pretty sure you’re not meant to kiss your sister like that, either. Not if you don’t want to be arrested.”

  “Well, now,” I said. “But before?”

  “Before, too. I don’t want to have this sister conversation. Creepy as hell. No. No sisters. Yours or mine.”

  “Geez, you’re firm, all of a sudden. I thought this was all going to be, you know … gentle. Sweet. New Age.”

  Now, he was staring at me, looking horrified. I fought the urge to giggle, widened my eyes at him, and took another bite of spinach and beetroot.

  “It’s not …” he started to say. “I’m not …” Then, “Stop teasing.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry. I’m a beginner. As we’ve noted.”

  He said, “I’m not pounding my head on the table. That’s because I’m a disciplined man.”

  “Also,” I said, “migraines.”

  “That too. New topic. Tell me about your night.”

  Pity. I’d never been good at flirting, but I was finding my stride, and it was fun.

  Oh, well. “Want the sad ones,” I asked, “or the funny ones?”

  “Whichever you want to tell,” he said, which was, yes, sweet. And possibly New Age.

  “Right. Funny ones, then, for today.” I told him about my farmer, and he shouted with laughter. I said, “He was right, too. He was fine. The surgeon took the post out, sewed him up, and put him on a ward, but I’m guessing he’s agitating to go home already, telling the nurse he’s good as gold. Or ‘Box of birds.’ It took me so long to learn the Kiwi lingo, after Mount Zion. The first time a patient said that to me as a student nurse, I was so confused. Then there was ‘Box of fluffy ducks.’ I couldn’t think how birds came into it.”

  “They don’t say that, then, at Mount Zion?” Gray asked.

  “No. Slang is worldly.”

  “So that’s it?” he asked. “Not going to tell me the naughty stories?”

  “What, where the sex swing breaks, the poor lady leads with her face, because her wrists were unfortunately restrained, and the crash brings the flatmates? Like that?”

  “Ouch,” Gray said. “Yeh, maybe not so much.”

  “They can be funny sometimes,” I admitted, “though not to somebody outside Emergency, probably. The inserted items, for one. Candles are nothing special, but when the candle’s still in the glass holder … Or then there’s the one where they’ve eaten an extra-spicy meal on their date night, and there are some, ah, tender parts that probably shouldn’t have been exposed to hot chiles.”

  “Not how it works, surely,” Gray said. “Unless you mean that the chiles burn on the way in and the way out, which would be an extremely improper story, if you’re talking about exposing that area to further friction. Which, having been through it, I can’t imagine the horror of. World traveler,” he added when I raised my eyebrows at him. “The All Blacks did a thing in Korea once. That was a night to remember, even without further friction. Ouch.”

  “No,” I said, though I was laughing. “Extra points for honesty, though, I guess? No. What happened was that the interior of his mouth was burning. His tongue. And so forth. We didn’t know that could happen, that the heat could transfer like that. We found out, though.”

  “Ah,” he said, and smiled. “She got a little more than she bargained for, did she?”

  “You smile,” I said, “but it hurt. We’ll call that a lesson learned. And then there are all the ones where somebody gets his penis broken—which is and isn’t actually broken, by the way. No bones in there, as I’m sure you know, but you can rupture the fibrous tissue, which is why you hear a pop, or a cracking sound. Oh, and the time when the hookup found out, once she’d driven him to Emergency after that, well, sudden emergency, that he was her new boss at the job she was meant to start next day. That was sweet, though. I like to think that one was the start of a love story, sort of a meet-cute for the Tinder age. She was so worried and flustered and horrified, and he was stoical and protective despite all the pain, holding her hand and telling her it was OK. Excruciatingly painful injury, breaking your penis. Requires surgery to repair. Don’t do that.”

  Gray had crossed his legs. I was pretty sure he didn’t realize he was doing it. I smiled at him and took another bite of my breakfast, then said, “One good thing—if something goes wrong despite all your vast experience, I probably know how to cope with the disaster. A bit like escaping from a submerged car, as I’ve been able to learn from everybody else’s mistakes. So there’s that. Or I could ring Matiu, if it’s beyond my capabilities. Keep it in the family, eh, and keep you out of the ED. You’ve got a famous face, it seems, and you know how those people gossip.”

  “I’m letting you get away with this,” he said, “because it’s your comfort zone.”

  “Ooh,” I said. “That was masterful.”

  He sighed and said, “Daisy.”

  “Yes?” I was feeling good, suddenly. Like a woman who did actually know how to flirt, even though discussing broken penises probably wouldn’t be on most lists.

  He said, “I need to go to work.” He got up, then leaned over and kissed my mouth. “See you tonight. And we’ll court some more. I feel the need to regain the upper hand here.”

  “Will there be touching this time?” I asked. “I feel ready to move on to touching. So you know.”

&
nbsp; “Oh,” he said, “I imagine there’ll be some touching.”

  39

  Reshuffling the Deck

  Daisy

  When I got home, there was music playing in the yurt, and Gray’s mum was sitting with Frankie at the dining table, a laptop computer open before them. Honor switched the music off and said, “Welcome home. Good day? Sit down, and I’ll make you breakfast.” Like this was our normal routine.

  I said, “No, thanks. I had breakfast. With, ah, with Gray, actually. He turned up at the hospital and took me out before he went back to work. It was nice,” I added, just because I needed to tell somebody. “No. It was—actually, you know? It was awesome.”

  Honor smiled with clear satisfaction, which gave me some more of the floating-on-a-bubble feeling I’d had all the way home, and said, “That’s all good, then. Frankie and I were just working on the identity documents, and starting to fill out the protection order paperwork as well. The more you do yourself, the less you spend on the lawyer, that’s what I’ve found, and she says that appointment’s today.”

  I said, “I appreciate that, but you don’t need to do all that. Those things were on my list.”

  Frankie said, “Honor knows exactly how to do everything, though. She’s helped heaps of people.”

  “Housekeeping supervisor,” Honor said. “Which means hearing every sad story you’ve ever imagined. Immigrants. Refugees. Not much I don’t know about women starting over, or women making their lives better, for that matter. Should’ve been a lawyer, I reckon, but nah. Social worker, more like, but it’d be too frustrating. Paperwork never gets done, but houses can get clean, and women can move on. I’ll stick to houses, and help with the paperwork on the side.”