Kiwi Strong (New Zealand Ever After Book 3)

by Rosalind James

  “He’s done both his visits around the same time of day,” I said. “An odd time. Five-thirty at first, and around seven last night. Not in the dead of night, like you’d think. Seems to be going on some sort of Mount Zion timetable, that women will be cooking dinner at that time, doing the washing-up. Makes me wonder if he’s just trying to get Frankie outside to talk to him, because he’s so sure she’ll go back to him. Bound for Hell if she doesn’t, is the idea. He’ll get her out there by scaring her, or even smoking her out, which is an odd idea, but he’s clearly mad as a meat axe. Could be he wants Daisy, too. Maybe all three of them, but that kind of bloke … I’m thinking it’s the wives he wants. That he wants to take Frankie back.” And, I didn’t say, to hurt Daisy.

  “They were both married to him?” Luke said. “And he was violent? That’s not good. The most dangerous time for a woman is after she’s left. That’s what I hear, anyway. And the second sister to run, the second wife, was helped on her way by the first? Not good.” Saying exactly what I’d been feeling, which wasn’t exactly comforting.

  “No,” I said. “It’s not. If you could hang around a bit, maybe, around that time of day, in case he’s cruising the neighborhood, maybe thinking about trying again. Park your car out front, and make him wonder if he’s got it right after all. He’s got an old white ute, a Ford, so you may notice him. Dark hair, medium height. Sharp face, all angles, and that same kind of energy, too. Aggression, but the scared kind. Which makes me think that if he assumed some older lady lived there, and he finds out instead that it’s somebody twice his size with three times his stopping power, he may think twice.”

  “Only three times?” Luke said. “Think I can do better than that. On all counts. Hayden and I are in a rental right now, looking around for the right place. We could move in until your mum’s back, if you like. Run him off, too, if I can get close enough. I’m guessing I could deliver a message.”

  “I’m guessing you could. Nobody better, but the place isn’t even cleaned yet. My mum’s sending some of her crew over tomorrow to do it. She runs a staff of cleaners, so that’s convenient.”

  “Easier if I do it,” Luke said. “I’ll be there, and I’m not working now anyway. Still sorting out what I want to get into next. I’m reasonably handy, and I may as well do this as anything else.”

  I wanted to refuse. I didn’t. I said, “Thanks, mate.” A few more details, and I felt just absolutely bloody fine about my house, because the man who went up against Luke Armstrong was a fool.

  You don’t mess with a prop, and you especially don’t mess with a world-class one. A prop’s nothing but a solid cube of muscle, all the way from his head-sized neck to his freakishly strong feet. Props don’t feel fear, and nobody’s any too sure that they’re capable of feeling pain, either.

  Which would have been fine, if the girls and my mum had all been holed up in the Wanaka house, available for guarding. Since they weren’t, I made call number three, using a number I’d written down a week ago, after Daisy’s phone had got that call.

  The phone rang six times and went to a voicemail that wasn’t set up yet. I rang off and tried again. And again. The fifth time, a voice answered.

  “What do you want?”

  No lower-register tones. His voice was all in his throat. Driven by fear, marrying small women because he was afraid of being small himself. I’d been right about that.

  I said nothing.

  If somebody had done that to me, I’d have rung off. He didn’t. He said again, “What do you want?”

  I said, “I want you to think back to every time you laid a hand on your wives.”

  “What?” he said. “Who is this?”

  I said, “This is Gray Tamatoa. I’ve asked them to make a list. I told you I would. They’ve written it all down for me, so now I know what to do. You like pain. You like humiliation. I can arrange for you to get some of each. You’d better pray you never see me, but you’d better pray for more than that. You’d better pray I never see you. Because I am going to make you pay.”

  “You can’t. City boy. You’re soft.” He said it, but once again, I could hear that note of fear.

  “You think so?” I said. “Come try me. Hitting a woman is easy. Come try me instead. Pussy.”

  A few seconds, and he said, “Will you bring a shovel this time, too? Easy to threaten an unarmed man when you’re carrying a shovel.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll bring my fists. They’ll do.” And rang off.

  Would it work? Not if he thought he could sneak up on me. Not if he could set a fire and run. But it might shift his anger and his focus to me, and that was where I wanted it to be.

  Call four, now. Call four would be the tricky one. Another number I’d written down.

  Three rings, and a cautious, “Hello? Who’s this?” I could hear talking in the background. Kids’ voices.

  I said, “Gray Tamatoa.”

  “Who?”

  “The man who took your nieces out of Mount Zion last week.”

  “Who are you?” he said. Uncle Aaron, whose number was in Daisy’s phone. “What’s your interest?”

  “I’m a friend,” I said. “And I think you’re a friend as well. Is it safe for you to talk?”

  “I’m always safe,” he said. Not proudly. Stating a fact. Plenty of lower-register in his voice. A calm man.

  I said, “I’d like to tell you two things. First, I’d like you to get a message to your leader.”

  “The Prophet,” he said.

  “Your leader,” I said again. “Tell him that he has no power away from Mount Zion, but I do. And that if he doesn’t hold Gilead back, it won’t just be Gilead I destroy. I’ll break his elbows badly enough that he won’t work for months, yeh, but that isn’t all I’ll do. I’ll make it my life’s mission to shut your community down.”

  “Others have tried,” Aaron said.

  “I have a unique set of advantages,” I said. “A public profile. Three personable young women who will press charges, and the contacts to hook them up with the media and let them tell their story. I’ve got the financing to make it happen, and a powerful will. If he crosses me, he’ll pay. Will you pass that message along?”

  Silence, and then Aaron said, “I’ll do my best.”

  “Thank you,” I said. And rang off.

  Daisy

  I didn’t see Gray in the morning. I didn’t see him in the afternoon, either. That was because I had exactly forty-five minutes after I woke up to get ready.

  I’d gone to sleep to the sound of the roosters crowing, the birds calling, the wind in the trees. I’d woken, then slept again to the whine of power machinery up by the road and cupboard doors opening and closing as somebody worked in the kitchen. To the scent of new-mown grass and yeasty bread and cinnamon. To all this life around me. And I found, when I drifted up to the surface for real, that I’d slept for eight and a half hours.

  When I made it out to the kitchen at last, Honor was sitting at the dining table with Frankie and Oriana. There was something meaty cooking in the oven, and a half-consumed Sally Lunn on a cutting board on the benchtop. Thick white icing, coconut sprinkle, fluffy, rich bun studded with golden raisins. Too many kilojoules and not enough nutrition. I flipped the switch on the electric jug, dropped a teabag into a mug, and said, “Somebody’s tempting me again, and I don’t have time to run today.”

  “That was me,” Oriana said, surprising me not at all. “Honor had some ideas, too, though. We did lemon zest in it. It turned out quite nice. Have some.”

  Frankie said, “I haven’t cooked at all since I’ve left. Not sure whether to feel bad about that.”

  I waited for Honor to answer her, but she was quiet, so I said, “Well, there’s your ankle, of course. But do you miss it?”

  “No,” Frankie said. “I don’t miss any of the work rotations. I didn’t hate cooking as much as laundry or cleaning, and I didn’t hate knitting much at all, but that’s all I can say. I didn’t even always like looking
after the kids. Maybe Gilead’s right after all, and I was made wrong. Not enough of a woman. Maybe I’m actually a man. Like Iris.”

  “Iris isn’t a man,” Oriana said. “She used to be a man. She always felt like a girl, though, since she was little, so she switched. There’s medicine you take, and surgery, but it’s in your head, mainly. It’s how you feel.”

  “If she feels like a woman,” Frankie said, “why does she dress like that?”

  “Because she can dress any way she likes now,” Oriana said. “At first, when she decided to, you know, be a woman, she wore makeup and skirts and heels, but after ten years or so, she got tired of it. She likes being outside and she likes being comfortable, so she decided she’d dress in the way she likes, too. I never knew there were so many decisions, Outside. Even whether you’re actually a woman or a man.”

  “Oh,” Frankie said.

  “Do you feel like a man?” I asked. I needed to get ready for my date with Gray, and still, I sliced off a generous hunk of Sally Lunn, poured a splash of milk into my tea, and sat backward at the island in my dressing gown. This was important, too, and it wouldn’t take long to dress casually for a date, would it? I contemplated the fact that I actually didn’t want to dress casually, nerves or no, and that I might be secretly disappointed not to be getting the flash restaurant and the candlelight and flowers, not to be looking into Gray’s eyes across an intimate little table and, just possibly, having his hand brush mine on the tabletop while we sipped on something rich and red. After that, I contemplated the other fact that there was, apparently, no pleasing me.

  “No,” Frankie said. “I just feel … different. Like I want something different. I want pretty clothes, and I like my new hair, and I want to do something else. Not cooking, and not farm work. I just don’t know what.”

  “You’re picking up that computer stuff pretty well,” Honor said.

  “Yes,” Frankie said, “but that’s fun, learning to use everything.”

  Honor said, “Reckon there are worse ways to choose a career than doing what you enjoy.”

  “Is that what you did, Daisy?” Frankie asked. “How did you choose? How did Dorian?”

  It was the first time she’d asked anything like that, and surely that was progress. I chose my words carefully while I ate my Sally Lunn. Which was, yes, rich, decadent, and delicious. Spoiling my appetite, maybe, except not. I was ravenous. I could’ve eaten the whole loaf, just like I could’ve slept all day and all night. If I hadn’t had something good to wake up for, that is. I said, “Dorian did what he’d always liked. Maths. I still don’t know exactly what he does, but it’s something to do with actuarial tables. Risk management for commercial insurance.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” Frankie said.

  I laughed. “Neither do I, love. He likes it, though. It’s a kind of puzzle, I think, and satisfying when you test it and all the pieces fit together. That’s the good thing about doing more school. You find out what you like and what you’re good at, and they have people to help you sort out what to study so you can make a career of it. For me … it was more working in the hospital, I guess, seeing the excitement, thinking about how it must feel to take a person who would’ve died and make them well again, how satisfying that would be. I’d talk to the nurses a bit sometimes, when things were quiet, and they told me I could do it if I wanted to. Chance to be brave, eh. Chance to be strong. Having to move fast, in Emergency, to see different things, to make quick decisions. Excitement, but more than that.”

  Huh. That was all true, actually. That was why I liked it. I liked solving the puzzle, the same way Dorian did. It was just a different puzzle. And I liked knowing I could climb that mountain every day. I liked knowing I’d made a difference.

  I finished my bread, slid off the stool, and said, “And unless Gray wants to go out with a woman in a dressing gown, I’d better get my skates on.”

  “How are you going to do your hair?” Frankie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, then decided to ask, “Do you have an idea?”

  “Yeh,” she said. “There’s this thing called Pinterest, and something else, YouTube, that lets you see exactly how to do things, because it’s filmed. You can find anything on it. I could try one of the styles on you, if you like.”

  I wavered a moment, I confess. If it looked odd, or too fussy, how would I redo it without hurting her feelings, damaging this fragile olive branch we were standing on?

  “You should let her,” Oriana said. “She’s been practicing on me.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Fifteen minutes, OK?” Enough time for a quick shower, almond-scented lotion rubbed all over my body, taking a bit of time for once to enjoy the feeling of that, and makeup that would look like I wasn’t wearing any. And, I hoped, enough time to find something to wear that said, “What, this? I just threw it on. Not my fault if I’m too sexy for you to resist.”

  Yeh, right.

  44

  Flowers and Wine

  Gray

  At six-thirty exactly, I walked up the ramp to the yurt and found Mum out there playing a game of cards with Oriana. War, it looked like, about the easiest game there was. Easing Oriana into a life of worldly decadence, then.

  I said, “Hi.” I was feeling oddly nervous, even though it was my own house, even though I’d been on more first dates than … well, than anybody other than a rugby player would dream possible.

  “Hi,” Oriana said. “Frankie’s helping Daisy get ready. I’m not sure they’re quite finished yet. Do you want me to go and check?”

  “Yeh,” I said. “Thanks.”

  She went inside, and Mum set down her cards and said, “You look very nice, love. Come give me a kiss.” When I did, she put her hand on my cheek and said, “Just shaved, eh, and you smell good, too. Made an effort. That’s good to see.”

  “I generally do clean up before I take a woman out,” I felt compelled to point out. “Oddly, they don’t find rugby shorts, jandals, and my unwashed self particularly appealing.”

  She smiled, but it wasn’t actually terrible to know that my jeans and collared white shirt looked acceptable. “Where are you taking her?” she asked. “I think she was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t a more flash date.”

  “We’ll have to see whether I can change her mind,” I said, and that was my mood spiking again.

  Then the door opened, and Daisy came out. Drawing her fingers through the top of her tousled hair and pushing it back in the way of beautiful women everywhere. Wearing a pair of slim-cut navy trousers with a line of three buttons at each side and looking like no sailor ever, not with all that hair, not with the snug trousers clinging to her pretty legs, and not in a filmy white blouse with the top four buttons unbuttoned, over something that didn’t look very substantial at all. Some sort of little strapless undergarment, I was guessing, and there wasn’t a bra under there. I could tell it. I could all but feel it. The blouse was tucked loosely into the trousers, letting me see her hips and bum, and she was wearing wedge sandals that made her walk with that sway that made your heart stop.

  Well, yeh. All of it worked for me. I leaned over, put a hand on her waist, and brushed a kiss onto her full lips, and she smelled like something baking in the oven, warm and sweet. She leaned into me the least little bit—those heels, probably, tipping her that delicious bit off-balance—kissed me back, put a hand on my shoulder, which I’d noticed she enjoyed doing, smiled up at me, and said, “You look great.”

  “So do you,” I said, and meant it.

  “Is this what you had in mind, then?” she asked. “What I’m wearing?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s better. We’ll take the Mustang. Up our game, eh.”

  “Oh, let’s,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to see how you drive it.”

  “How would he drive it any differently from the truck?” Frankie asked.

  “Never mind,” Daisy said. “He just will.”

  I said, “Those cameras are all set up, Mum, and t
he gate’s wired to the alarm as well. I’ve written down the combination for all of you.” I reached into my back pocket for my spiral notebook, and I’d swear that Daisy liked watching me do it.

  How could you be this aware of a person, even with three other women around? Including your mother? It was like there was a current humming between us. I could feel it there. I could very nearly touch it, and I had a feeling that when I finally did, it was going to burn. I ripped off the piece of paper, handed it to Mum, and said, with the last of my composure, “I left Xena in the house. She’s pretty brokenhearted about it. You could go get her, maybe, once I’m gone. Set the alarm for the house tonight, would you? The girls can sleep there, too, if they’d rather. If Daisy and I are out late.”

  “I’ll do that,” she said. “Go have a good time. Don’t hurry home.”

  Daisy

  The way he’d looked at me. The way he’d kissed me.

  I was a full-grown woman. I felt like that, and also like the teenager I’d never been. He held my hand on the way along the track, seeming to know that I was a bit tippy in my highest sandals, and when he held the door to the Mustang for me, I slid in, let him shut the door again, and didn’t feel one bit like an imposter.

  He climbed in on his side, racked the seat all the way back, and headed up the track. He hit the button for the newly automated gate, and it swung open and then closed behind us. I didn’t have to ask if the place was secure now. I knew he’d made it that way. I settled back a little more, stuck one foot out in front of me and tucked the other one under, angled a bit more toward him, and said, “You worked hard today.”

  “I did,” he said. “It was worth it.”

  I said, “Oh?”

  He glanced across at me, then stopped at the intersection, turned onto the main road, and said, “If it lets you go out with me, and relax while you do it? Well, yeh. I’d call that worth it.”