The arrival of the Saturday-morning paper provided Ross with a far bigger headache than the impending battle over the mortgage.
Things started out well enough. He and Danny managed to sit at the kitchen table and share breakfast without stabbing one another with their cutlery. Ross refrained from making a crack about Danny’s decision to paint her hair pink, and Danny didn’t turn on the cold water as he took a shower after his morning run. She sat at the table, munching on a triangle of toast and browsing through the paper, half-listening to Mia and Matt’s discussion about which toy they could get with the cards they were collecting from the cereal packets.
Suddenly Danny stopped eating, her toast suspended halfway between her mouth and her plate, her eyes riveted to the gossip column. Two photographs of her and Ross at the publishing party were in the centre of the page. One showed her spread-eagled across the bar entwined with Ross—they weren’t kissing so much as devouring one another. The other had been taken in the car park, and showed Danny crouched at his feet clutching her passport while he loomed over her.
Danny’s vision blurred, and all her good intentions went sailing out the window. Stealing a few socks wouldn’t even come close to assuaging the black fury that gripped her. A summit meeting in the chook house would turn into a blood bath.
‘Auntie Danny?’ Matt asked. ‘Are you OK?’
She launched herself to her feet and rushed from the kitchen with the paper crushed in her fist.
Ross was luxuriating beneath the soothing, steady, warm flow of water from the ancient shower when the bathroom door crashed against the wall and Danny burst into the room. He blinked at her blurry image through the plastic shower curtain suspended from the rail above the bath.
She waved something at him. ‘Have you seen this, Fabello?’
Ross groped behind him and turned off the water. What the hell was wrong now?
‘What are you talking about? Can’t it wait until I’ve finished my shower?’
‘NO, IT CAN’T!’
Danny grabbed the curtain and wrenched it aside, sending the plastic rings clattering and skittering along the rusted rail. That Ross was naked and she was stripping away his last bit of cover didn’t even register. She was so incensed by what she’d seen in the paper that the only thing that mattered was making him pay for her humiliation.
Ross glowered at her, a large, furious, wet male covered in nothing more than a few sliding soapsuds. His lips barely moved as he ground out, ‘What exactly was it you wanted me to see, Daneka?’
Danny’s red-hot anger fizzled like a lit fire-cracker held out in the rain. Her gaze slid slowly down his body and snagged on Ground Zero. Her eyes widened as he twitched and lengthened. She had a sudden urge to step into the bathtub and pay a visit to America.
Ross made a sound somewhere between a growl and a snarl, and Danny jerked her eyes back to his face. ‘Either get in here with me, or get the hell out!’
She dropped the newspaper and ran.
Ross counted to ten. Then he counted to thirty. When he hit one hundred, he gave up and turned the cold water on. It was several more minutes before he was in a fit state to climb out of the bath. He picked up the newspaper and sat on the edge of the tub.
Findlays Publishing House gave a Friday-night bash to remember when they turned a downtown warehouse into an indoor beach, complete with surfboards and a lagoon. But the crowning glory was the presence of perhaps the most successful and famous of their stable of international authors, RF O’Rourke—a man renowned for his dislike of the limelight. Imagine the delight of Findlays management upon discovering the delectable Mr O’Rourke right here in Godzone—albeit for ‘family business’.
Possibly the only fly in the proverbial ointment was the golden-eyed, gamine lovely on RF’s arm who made it clear she wasn’t prepared to share him with any of the siliconed lovelies eagerly dropping naughty notes in his pockets. The lady, who called herself Danny and insisted she was RF’s sister-in-law, got her revenge by holding an impromptu auction of the notes, which went some way towards raising $6,000 for a local women’s refuge. This reporter cannot recall enjoying an evening so much as he watched the note-droppers scramble to buy back their illicit messages or risk being outbid. It was worth watching Ms Danny in action just to see her rout her competition.
RF seemed to agree. He spent the entire night watching her before the pair eventually all but did the horizontal tango on the bar. Intensive behind-the-scenes research by your dedicated reporter has revealed the lady is a senior nurse at a certain busy Emergency Department in our fair city. Unfortunately, what must have seemed a swell evening for the couple degenerated at some point into a slanging match in the car park with Mr O’Rourke clearly getting the upper hand.
Not a man to be crossed—or, as my dear old nana would say, handsome is as handsome does.
Ross looked at the photo of him and Danny kissing and thought he might have to climb back under the shower again. He turned his attention to the photo of them fighting in the car park and winced. Danny was crouched in the rain with her passport, looking like a drowned kitten. She stared up at Ross towering over her, his eyes slitted with anger and his mouth open as he yelled at her.
Ross dug his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. He looked like a bully. He had been a bully. He hated having his privacy invaded, but he’d had several years to get used to it. Danny had no previous experience, and Ross remembered the sense of outrage and invasion the first time it had happened to him.
He pulled on his clothes and went to find her.
She was standing beside the letterbox in front of the house, wearing a pair of baggy old black lycra running shorts, a yellow ribbed tank-top that clashed with her pink hair, and battered running shoes. She was staring at a sheet of white paper in her hand; the torn envelope clutched in the opposite hand.
Danny ran or exercised only when she was upset. When she was happy, she sat on the couch and ate chocolate. The newspaper article had made her drag out her running shoes and shorts. It was habit that made her check the letterbox before she set off down the road. The letter was from the finance company offering her a hefty new personal loan…because she’d repaid her existing one.
For a moment, Danny wondered if she was concussed again. It was as if her life was a deck of cards that somebody had thrown into the air and she could only watch helplessly as they fell to the ground.
‘Danny?’
She turned slowly and looked at Ross.
‘By this time next week everyone will have forgotten about the newspaper article.’
It was about the worst thing he could have said. Danny didn’t care about everyone. What he’d done made no difference to everyone, but it made a whole world of difference to her. She glared at him, furious.
Ross, who didn’t realize the significance of the sheet of paper in her hands, propped his hands on his hips. ‘I wanted to apologize, but you don’t make it easy. I didn’t know the damned photos were being taken!’
She shook the letter at him. ‘Yooouuu!’
He peered at her face. ‘Do we need to take this to the henhouse?’
Danny made a strangled sound and flattened the letter faceout against her chest.
Ross caught sight of the name and logo of the finance company and put two and two together. A trip to the henhouse wasn’t going to fix it.
Mia and Matt joined them.
Ross hastily checked the surrounding area for any potential weapons, then, with his eyes on Danny, said: ‘Could you two go over to Deryl and Lloyd’s while Auntie Danny and I talk please, kids?’
Danny hadn’t even noticed the children. ‘Can’t we stay and watch you and Auntie Danny fight?’ Mia asked.
‘No!’ Ross barked. ‘Do as I say!’
‘Come on, Mia.’ Matt grabbed her hand. ‘If we stay, they’ll only go to the chook house.’
Once the kids were gone, Danny advanced on Ross rattling the letter like a sabre. ‘You…You!’
Ross guarded his crotch with his hands. ‘Yes and yes to everything.’
‘You paid off my debts!’ She danced on the spot, stopping every few seconds to haul on her drooping lycra shorts.
He noticed a piece of string holding her shoe together and guessed the shoelace had been sacrificed to the late, unlamented toilet. ‘Danny, will you calm down and let me explain?’
‘Explain?’ she shrieked. ‘Explain? Did you think you could buy me?’
He stiffened. ‘This has nothing to do with buying you. It’s about making sure Matt and Mia are financially secure, which is something you sure as hell haven’t been able to do.’
Danny stopped her war dance and stared, her eyes full of pain and frustration. She crushed the letter into a ball and fired it at Ross. He tried to duck, but it smacked him between the eyes and bounced onto the grass at his feet. When he looked up again, he saw Danny sprinting down the road.
Ross set off in pursuit. ‘Danny!’
She ignored him.
‘Danny!’
She put her head down and ran faster.
Ross lengthened his stride. Danny tried to out-sprint him, but Ross was fitter and his legs were longer. ‘For chrissakes, stop and listen to me!’
He reached out and snaked an arm around her waist, but their legs tangled and Ross found himself catapulting through the air clutching Danny. He twisted and landed heavily on his back in the long grass at the side of the road with Danny sprawled on top of him, her back against his chest.
‘Are—you—OK?’ Ross gasped when he got his breath back. He propped himself on one elbow and peered over Danny’s shoulder at her face.
She kicked him in the shin.
He grunted. ‘Guess that’s a yes.’
Ross flinched as Danny wriggled down him, rose on her knees and twisted around to face him. She grabbed his loosely buttoned shirt along with a handful of his chest hair and shook him. ‘You have no right to interfere in my personal business!’
‘Ow!’ He grabbed her wrists. ‘That hurts!’
She pulled harder.
Ross lurched onto his knees, sending her tumbling back into the grass. He lost his balance when Danny grabbed him to keep from falling. They landed in a jumble of arms and legs.
He searched for and found the bald spot on his chest. ‘That damn well hurt!’
‘Good!’ She tried unsuccessfully to buck him off. ‘Get off me, you big lump!’
Her wriggling made Ross forget all about his chest. The blood rushing to the site of the injury suddenly changed direction and charged off towards his groin.
Danny noticed the change and stilled. She looked up at Ross and said ‘Oh.’
He stared down at her and agreed dryly, ‘Yeah—oh.’
They were distracted by the sound of a car engine, and watched as an ancient, battered Rolls Royce Silver Shadow covered in dust and mud stopped on the road, the driver surveying them disapprovingly through the open window. A tired-looking cloth sunhat with lime green and purple panels was perched on his head like a discarded pancake. His eyes were an indeterminate muddy shade, and he had the worst buck teeth Ross had ever seen. The guy could eat corn on the cob at twenty paces. Ross watched as the apparition put an index finger to the brim of the awful hat and said in a nasal voice, ‘Danny.’
She gave Ross a shove and scrambled out from beneath him, her face glowing like a beacon. ‘Hi, Jarvis!’
Caught by surprise, Ross sprawled in the grass and gazed at the car in disbelief. It was a collector’s item and would be worth a lot of money if somebody took the time to look after it.
Jarvis pointed at him. ‘I thought he was dead.’
Ross thought he’d misheard, but knew he hadn’t when Danny squeezed his arm. ‘This is Patrick’s brother, Ross,’ she said quickly.
Jarvis studied Ross suspiciously.
Ross didn’t notice. He was preoccupied by Danny’s unexpected and surprisingly sweet gesture of comfort. She let go of his arm and jumped up brushing grass from the seat of her saggy shorts. ‘I’m so sorry, Jarvis! I didn’t even know she’d got out!’
Ross wondered what the hell she was talking about until he spied a large black sheep in the back seat of the Rolls Royce.
It was Charcoal, one of the two lawnmowers that lived in the paddock behind the house.
Jarvis Wainwright was the wealthiest man in the district. He owned the large farm stretching along the cliff top at the end of the road and the hill Ross climbed each morning with the Walking School Bus. It was prime real estate, and property developers had been after Jarvis for years to sell. To his neighbours’ relief, Jarvis had refused all offers to develop the area for luxury housing. He was a man of simple needs who just happened to have substantial financial assets. Jarvis’s main goal in life was of a far more personal nature.
He was in the market for a wife.
His preference to fill that role had always been pretty, sweetnatured Daniella Lawton. Although she’d been swept off her feet years ago by that Yank larrikin, Jarvis considered every woman was available until a man put a ring on her finger, and the Yank larrikin had never shown any sign of doing so, despite giving her two children. Whenever Patrick Fabello disappeared for months on end, Jarvis got his hopes up and began to visit Nella, but they were always dashed when Patrick returned and Nella tumbled into his arms like a puppy overjoyed to see its owner.
When Daniella died, Jarvis squeezed himself into his one and only suit and placed a handpicked bunch of flowers on her coffin. Danny had been touched, until she realized Jarvis had decided to transfer his attentions to her.
Jarvis wasn’t best pleased to find yet another Yank larrikin had got his feet under the kitchen table, and, after releasing Charcoal into the back paddock to a rapturous reunion with Persil, Jarvis accepted a cup of tea, got his feet under Danny’s kitchen table, and proceeded to make sure the interloper knew he was poaching on Jarvis’s territory.
Ross quickly understood Jarvis’s intentions. He poured himself a glass of red wine and sat opposite. Danny hovered, longing to hit Ross over the head with the wine bottle. It was obvious he was out to bait poor old Jarvis. While Jarvis strangled his mug of tea in one meaty fist, his bushy grey and black brows beetling over his bulbous nose, and kept his big, practical feet firmly on the floor, Ross tilted his chair back on two legs, dangled his wineglass carelessly between his spread knees and smiled unpleasantly.
‘What d’you do for a living?’ Jarvis demanded.
Ross took a sip of wine and rolled it across his tongue. ‘As little as possible.’
‘Ross is a—’ Danny began. She was wasting her time. Neither of them paid her any attention.
Jarvis slurped his tea. ‘Where’re you staying?’
Ross topped up his wineglass. ‘Here.’
Jarvis choked on his tea. ‘Here? With Danny?’
‘That’s right.’
Danny once again tried to interject. ‘The only reason Ross is—’
Jarvis’s florid complexion darkened to vermillion. ‘Danny’s a decent girl—she deserves to be treated with respect.’
‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Danny wished they’d take their pissing contest somewhere besides her kitchen. Ross was enjoying toying with Jarvis, who didn’t yet understand he was out of his league.
‘Believe me,’ Ross smiled lazily, ‘I make sure Daneka gets all the respect she needs.’
Danny let out a hiss and reached for the wine bottle just as Deryl arrived with the children, who grabbed something to eat and disappeared into the back garden.
Deryl wrinkled her nose when she saw Ross was drinking so early in the day, and smiled at Jarvis. Deryl thought Jarvis was a prime catch, and kept reminding Danny of his good points. She started up again after a scowling Jarvis finally left.
‘He’s young,’ Deryl began.
‘He’s sixty if he’s a day, Dee.’ Danny was acutely aware of Ross listening in and helping himself to some more wine watched by a disapproving Deryl. ‘Can’t you go away?’ she demanded.
He smiled and saluted her with his wineglass. ‘No.’
‘Jarvis Wainwright is in the prime of his life. He’s good to his animals.’
‘If a man takes care of his animals, he can be relied upon to take care of his wife and kiddies.’
‘Dee, I don’t want to be taken care of by Jarvis Wainwright.’
‘He’s a wealthy man. You’d want for nothing.’
‘Only my sanity.’
Deryl looked at Ross and sniffed. ‘You wouldn’t be beholden to anybody.’
Ross gave her a sour look.
After Deryl left, Ross placed a sheaf of papers on the kitchen table. ‘You might as well read this.’
Danny eyed the papers as if they were a coiled cobra. ‘Why? What else have you done?’
He walked away.
Danny sat down and read the documents. She no longer had a mortgage. She was debt-free. It was all too much to take on board. She felt worn out, emotionally battered. She’d be a liar if she said being debt-free wasn’t going to be a huge weight lifted from her shoulders. Ross had put the house in both their names, making them joint owners. It was there on the paper in black ink. Daneka Aroha Lawton and Ross Igor Padraig Oreste Fabello. She laughed weakly. What had his mother been thinking?
She tracked Ross down in Matt’s bedroom. He was lying on the bed, reading Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes. ‘Why did you put the house in both our names, Igor?’
Ross sighed. Matt had lent him the book and the bed for a few hours.
‘You did it so I’d have to get your approval if I ever wanted to sell my share and move, didn’t you?’ Danny accused.
Ross put the book on his chest and tucked his hands behind his head. ‘If you worked it out, why did you need to ask me?’
‘It’d serve you right if I married Jarvis and spiked your guns, Oristo.’ Her voice lacked its usual fire.
‘Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen. And it’s Oreste,’ he corrected her. ‘Old Jarvis might be rich, but believe me I’m richer.’
‘I googled you, remember? I’ve seen the list of women you’ve dumped. You’re a real catch, Fabello.’
‘I am!’
‘I’d rather catch foot-and-mouth disease.’ Danny’s curiosity was piqued. ‘How rich are you? Are we talking billions?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Only millions?’
Ross eyed her warily. ‘What do you mean only millions?’
‘How many are we talking about? One million? Two million?’ She paused. ‘Three?’
Ross was so pissed by her sniffy attitude that he broke one of his golden rules and told her what he was worth.
The colour slowly leached from Danny’s face. She swayed.
He leapt up and forced her to sit on the bed. ‘Put your head between your knees.’
‘That’s obscene,’ she said faintly. ‘What’s the point of having all that money? You couldn’t spend it in two lifetimes.’
Ross stroked the short, silky pink hair at her nape and noticed how pretty her ears were. From where he stood, he could see the silver butterflies holding her earrings in place. He didn’t want to talk about his money, certainly not when it so obviously upset her. Ross thought about the unexpected sweetness of her gesture out on the roadside when Jarvis had spoken so callously about Pat.
He threaded his fingers into her hair and began to massage her scalp. ‘What’s the deal with your middle name?’ he asked, to distract her.
‘Aroha?’ Danny’s eyes drifted closed. She tilted her head to give Ross better access to the sensitive spot behind her left ear. Ross trailed his fingertips across her neck to her ear. Danny sighed. ‘It means “love” in Maori.’
He stroked his thumb behind her ear.
Her eyes flew open. What on earth was she doing? She batted his hand away and sprang to her feet. ‘This isn’t over, Fabello.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Ross said dryly.
‘Leave Jarvis Wainwright alone, d’you hear me? He’s my neighbour. I rely on him for help.’
‘You can rely on me.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Danny scoffed. ‘When you get bored with yanking my chain, you’ll disappear into the sunset.’
‘I’m not Pat.’ He was sick of saying it, sick of trying to convince her.
‘And you’re not Jarvis Wainwright. He wants to marry me; you just want to piss me off.’
Suddenly it no longer seemed imperative that Ross get back to the States asap. Suddenly it seemed far more important he stay right where he was.
‘While we’re on the subject of who’s pissing off whom,’ Ross snapped, ‘the next time you feel the need to catch an eyeful, go rent yourself a blue movie.’
Danny eventually had to do a night shift, which meant leaving Ross in charge of the children overnight. She tried to get Deryl to stay, but she refused, which was probably just as well, because Ross said he’d strangle Deryl with her knee-highs if he had to spend a night with her in the house. Danny knew Ross was angry because she wouldn’t trust him with the children, but the truth was Danny didn’t want to start relying on him.
‘You’re just being difficult.’
‘Damn right. Now do us a favour and leave us alone.’
‘You won’t be so cocky at three o’clock in the morning when Mia has a bad dream or wets the bed.’
‘Mia will be just fine,’ Ross insisted, with more confidence than he felt.
Danny’s words came back to haunt him just after midnight. He’d scored himself a night in a real bed by bribing Matt to sleep in Danny’s room. Ross felt just as uneasy about using her bed as he did about sleeping in Daniella’s old room. He was lying beneath Matt’s red-and-black Holden bedcovers, listening to the rain spattering against the window pane and the wind whistling around the old house, reading How I Got My Shrunken Head when Mia appeared at the bedroom door. She was rubbing her stomach through her pink Bratz nightdress and looking miserable.
Ross lowered his book. ‘What’s up, Mia?’
‘I’ve got a tummy ache,’ she whimpered.
He climbed from the bed, convinced Mia was just feeling insecure and missing Danny, confident he could handle this minor glitch and show Auntie Danny a thing or three.
‘How about I put you back to bed and, before you know it, it’ll be morning and Auntie Danny will be home from work?’
Mia shook her head. ‘I’ve got a tummy ache!’
‘Honey, if you go back to bed you’ll forget all about your tummy ache and soon be asleep.’
She took a deep breath, widened her eyes and threw up all over Ross’s feet.
‘Aw, shit!’ What was it with the females in this family and hurling all over his feet? Mia burst into noisy tears.
‘Sorry, Mia. I wasn’t yelling at you, honey.’
Ross’s heart sank right along with the puke running down Mia’s nightdress and between his toes. He cleaned her up, washed off his feet, and put her to bed with her favourite doll. She promptly sat up and threw up all over the bedcovers, and Ross had to start all over again.
‘I—huh—want—Auntie—huh—Danny!’ Mia sobbed.
Ross held her on his lap. ‘Auntie Danny’s at work, sweetheart. I’ll take care of you.’
A quick check of the clock revealed it was only 1.15 a.m., which meant Danny wouldn’t be home for hours. Ross reminded himself that kids got sick and threw up all the time, but as the night wore on and Mia vomited twice more he decided it wouldn’t hurt to call his mother just in case.
It proved to be his second big mistake of the night.
Breda panicked and started talking about appendicitis and food poisoning. Ross couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Nothing short of a missing limb had been considered a good enough reason for his mother to allow him or his siblings to stay home from school. The thought of Mia being sick had Breda preparing to donate a kidney.
‘Have you phoned a doctor?’ she cried.
‘No. It’s three o’clock in the morning here, Ma. And she’s asleep now.’
‘Are you sure she’s asleep and not unconscious?’ Ross heard her yelling, ‘Vittorio! Vittorio! Little Mia has appendicitis!’
‘I really don’t think it’s appendicitis, Ma. Just a bug.’
‘Have you checked Matt? Is he unconscious?’
Vito came on the line, yelling. ‘The kids are unconscious? Call an ambulance, Ross!’
Ross pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and fingers and groaned.
‘Who groaned then? Was that Mia I heard groaning?’ his mother shouted.
‘No. That was me.’
‘Stop doing that, Ross! Are you trying to give me a heart attack? If you can’t call the doctor, then call Danny and get her to come home right away!’
Ross looked at Mia sleeping peacefully in her bed. ‘You’re fading, Ma. I keep losing you.’
‘What? Ross? ROSS, CAN YOU HEAR ME?’
He hung up and called Aoife, who listened impatiently. ‘Has she got a fever?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t got a thermometer.’
‘You don’t need a thermometer, you idiot. Feel her forehead. Does she feel hot?’
Ross wished he’d called Annie instead. Aoife, like Danny, was the evil twin. ‘She doesn’t feel hot.’
‘What’s she doing at the moment?’
‘Sleeping.’
‘Well leave the poor kid alone! Don’t wake her up!’
‘You told me to feel her forehead!’
Aoife ignored him. ‘When’s Danny due home?’
Ross was infuriated by his family’s assumption he couldn’t manage. ‘Not for a few more hours. I can cope with one sick kid, you know.’
Aoife sniffed. ‘Just encourage her to drink and keep emptying the bucket.’ She hung up.
Ross spent the rest of the night huddled in the cramped little chair beside Mia’s bed, sleeping off and on, waking abruptly when his head slipped off his fist or fell backwards and nearly dislocated his neck.
Mia threw up once more, this time managing to hit him right in the face. Ross changed her pyjamas and bedding and himself, and even put on a load of washing in an attempt to keep on top of the towering pyramid collecting in the laundry. He got Mia to take a few sips of water, wiped her mouth and face with a wet washcloth, and counted the minutes until Danny came home.
Matt stopped in the doorway on his way back from the bathroom at around 6 a.m.
‘Don’t come in here.’ Ross tried to ignore the cramping in his stomach. ‘Mia’s sick.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘She’s been throwing up.’
Matt was unsurprised. ‘It was that frog you gave us for dinner.’
‘I was only joking when I said it was frog,’ Ross replied weakly. ‘It was chicken.’ Third big mistake of the night.
Matt was unconvinced. ‘I didn’t eat any, but you and Mia did.’ He peered at Ross. ‘You don’t look so good.’
‘I’m fine,’ Ross lied. ‘Now, go back to bed.’ He didn’t feel fine. He felt like shit. His stomach was clenching and unfurling again like a glove puppet. Sweat had broken out on his forehead from the effort of trying not to throw up.
Mia had just woken up again and was demanding to know where her doll was when Ross heard Danny’s car pull up. He was going hot and cold and trying to decide if he could make it to the red bucket by the side of Mia’s bed. He heard Matt greet Danny at the front door and announce that Mia was sick because Uncle Ross had fed her frog.
Ross was beyond caring.
Danny appeared in the doorway of the bedroom, dressed in her ugly blue uniform. Her practised gaze took in Mia’s pale little face—and Ross’s even paler one.
‘Busy night?’ she asked.
‘Uncle Ross fed me frog, Auntie Danny, and I threw up!’ Mia cried piteously. ‘I threw up all over Dolly and I want her back!’
‘It was chicken not frog, and her doll is in the dryer.’ Ross gulped and inched forwards on the chair, his eyes glued to the red bucket.
Danny snatched it up and shoved it under his face just in time.
Mia nodded. ‘Uncle Ross ate the frog, too.’