TAP. TAP. TAP.
Owen Cooper opened an eye. Someone was tapping out a Morse code message in his bedroom.
Or was it a dream?
Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap.
He opened the other eye. A faint orange light from the rising sun partially lit the room, leaving corners still shrouded in darkness.
Dawn. Great. Add curtains to the shopping list.
Tap. Tap.
Not a dream.
Someone or something was in here with him. ‘Mason?’ he whispered. ‘Mason, it’s still night time. Go back to bed.’
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Not his son Mason—a dream. Which was a surprise, given he’d barely had any sleep.
The ferry had been late docking last night and there’d been no welcoming party for them on Rāwhiti Island’s main pier. But he’d found an old, battered, red Jeep-style four-wheel drive at the end of the deserted pier with an envelope with his name on it stuck to the windscreen. It had contained an apology from the practice nurse, saying that they’d been busy, so hadn’t been able to meet them, a set of keys and a hand-drawn map to his new house.
‘New’ meaning ‘acquired for the first time’, rather than ‘recently built and unused’. Because this little house was well used—so used, in fact, that it needed bowling and completely rebuilding. And so not what he’d been led to expect when the island doctor job had been advertised as coming with accommodation.
There’d been no mention of Morse code messaging from his bedroom either.
He turned over, releasing a cloud of dust, and came face to face with two beady red eyes staring at him and a long grey beak.
He shot up and waved his hand. ‘Hey! Get out!’
There was a flurry of feathers and a loud squawk. He managed to get a glimpse of caramel-brown feathers, something around the size of a hen, before it disappeared into the corridor.
A weka. One of New Zealand’s flightless but feisty native birds. How the hell had that managed to get in? He lay back down on the old iron bed again, releasing another puff of dust, and mentally ran through his to-do list.
Secure the doors.
Clean the house.
Air his bed. Get a new bed.
Bird-proof his bedroom.
Reconsider his choices all over again, ad infinitum.
Had coming to this island twenty-two kilometres off the Auckland coast been a mistake? Uprooting his boy from everything familiar just so Owen could be the father he should have been all along? Everything familiar in the guise of Mason’s mother had already left them and, he had to admit, left him floundering somewhat.
It was time to step up. It was long overdue.
But first...more sleep. He closed his eyes.
‘Daddy?’
Okay, maybe not more sleep. He imbued his voice with a cheer he did not feel. ‘Mason! Good morning.’
‘Want Mummy.’
Owen’s gut clenched like a tight fist. ‘I know you do, buddy. How about we try to talk to her later on my tablet?’ If she could fit her son into her busy schedule.
Mason’s bottom lip wobbled and he nodded, blinking back tears. It sucked, just how brave his four-year-old was trying to be. ‘There’s a good boy. How did you sleep?’
His son scrambled up onto the bed and put his cheek against Owen’s. ‘The bed’s all lumpy.’
He looked at his son in navy and white stripy pyjamas and his heart squeezed. ‘I know, kid. I’m sorry. Mine is too. But it’s only for a little while until your racing car bed arrives on the big boat. Did you see the weka?’
Mason’s eyes grew huge as he nodded. ‘He’s my friend.’
The poor kid’s world had been ripped apart by divorcing parents and a mother who’d decided she’d had enough of parenting, and generally being adult, and had left them so she could forge an acting career in the States. And now he was finding friends in the local fauna. Was that a sign of emotional damage, or resilience and resourcefulness? ‘He’s a bit skitty for a friend. When you start kindy on Monday, there’ll be loads of other children to play with.’
A nod. ‘Can we go fishing now?’
‘Later. We’ve got so many jobs to do first.’
There came a pout reminiscent of his mother’s dramatic talent. ‘Fishing first? Please.’
‘No, Mason. We’ve got too much to do.’
The pout hardened into a sulk. ‘You said fishing.’
He had. Last night, as they’d hauled their suitcases across the dirt from car to house, they’d passed a little tinny boat moored off the end of the property’s jetty and Owen had promised Mason that fishing would be high on the agenda of their Boy’s Own adventures.
What was the harm if they ignored all the chores and started the adventures ASAP? There was no one to tell him not to. No one they had to report progress to. No one else to take into account. It was just Mason, him and two whole days before the job started.
He could either clean the house now or later. The dust wasn’t going anywhere. So why not spend some time with his boy before diving into chores?
The harm was that it had been fifteen years since he’d taken a boat out onto the water and he wasn’t prepared. But, after a bit of detective work, he found some dusty fishing rods propped up in the shed. And, luckily, the newest things provided in his accommodation were life jackets in assorted adult’s and children’s sizes hanging up in the porch.
After securing one on himself and one on his son, he gathered up the ancient fishing rods and lures and then pushed the little four-and-a-half-metre aluminium boat out into the calm water and they hopped in. There was even petrol in the outboard motor. ‘Hey, we’re in business, Mason! Whoever lived here before us clearly paid far more attention to boating than the living quarters.’
Having cranked up the motor, he steered the tin boat out from their cove and turned right. There was probably a proper name for the direction they were heading in, but he couldn’t remember. From this vantage point, he could see the contours of the island stretching out ahead and above. Undulating hills were covered in dense, natural bush of kanuka, manuka, beech trees and assorted ferns. He pointed out tui birds and fantails. ‘The Te Reo Maori name for those little fantails is piwakawaka.’
‘Piwaka...?’ His mini-me echoed and grinned.
‘Almost. Good effort.’ Owen looked at the bush and sighed, hoping he’d made the right decision to come here. It was a far cry from their modern suburban house on the edge of the city and close to the motorway.
Here, housing was sparse, but a range of old villas, crumbling holiday homes and new architecturally sophisticated buildings dotted the hillsides, each with its own private path down to the golden beaches and coves. Numerous jetties jutted out into the calm turquoise water.
Owen tried to remember the things his grandfather had taught him about fishing, quieted the engine, attached the lures to the line and cast them into the sea. But soon all fishing was forgotten as Owen made out shapes scudding through the water towards them.
‘See the dolphins, Mason? Look!’ He lifted the boy onto his lap and pointed to the silvery shapes jumping out of the water. ‘Wow. Look at that. They’re doing acrobatics.’
Mason’s hesitant smile grew as he watched the beautiful creatures splash ahead of them, tumbling and turning. Then his boy started to laugh, a full, gurgling, belly laugh that Owen couldn’t remember having heard for a very long time. He took a huge, deep breath and let it out slowly. Okay, so despite the early-morning bird alarm clock, the fact his accommodation was falling apart and that his son still wasn’t convinced he was going to survive without his mama, moving here had been a good decision after all.
The dolphins swam faster and faster ahead of them, and Owen quickly pulled in the fishing lines, cranked up the outboard motor and followed them, struggling to juggle the steering, but managing his son’s safety and laughing along for the first time in far too long.
Over on shore he saw a woman in a cove frantically waving her arms at him. He waved back, then realised she was beckoning to him, so he slowed the boat down and steered towards the property’s little jetty.
As he closed in, he could see she was around medium height. Young...at least, a few years younger than his thirty-two, maybe. He wasn’t the best judge of women’s ages these days. Or women in general, it seemed, given his failed marriage.
She was wearing a zipped-up navy wetsuit top and short black shorts. Bare feet. Tanned. Bloody great legs. Strawberry-blonde hair scraped back into a tight ponytail. Behind her and nestled into the bush was a small collection of wooden buildings, and to her right was a large playground complete with swings and slides. To her left, a huge boat shed housed a lot of bright orange kayaks and little Optimist boats and, maybe a hundred feet beyond the boat shed, was a cute cream-coloured cottage that looked in a lot better repair than his.
Attached to the small jetty he noticed a sign.
Camp Rāwhiti
Outdoor education specialists
For Sale
Ah, he’d been told in his interview that part of his remit would be to offer medical advice and assistance to a school camp place. Maybe this was it. Or wouldn’t be for much longer, given it was for sale. He cut the engine and moored the boat onto a cleat.
Then he tried to find his best smile for the scowling woman in front of him.
Carly Edwards was sick of the careless weekend island visitors’ total disregard for safety and serenity. But she was surprised the man in the boat, who seemed older than she’d first assumed—mid-thirties—had a small child with him. Certainly, he should have been setting a better example.
When he stepped off his little boat, she dashed over to the jetty and couldn’t help railing at him. ‘Just exactly what the hell do you think you’re doing? Can’t you see there are children here?’
He frowned as he looked over at her stand-up paddle-board class in the shallow water. ‘I wasn’t anywhere near them.’
‘Not yet, but I had no way of knowing if you had control of your vessel. And you were going far too quickly.’
‘I can assure you, I wasn’t.’ Dark eyes glittered in anger. ‘I was in full control.’
‘The wash is enough to make them feel seasick. We’re on island time here. Slow down.’
He glanced down at his son and then back at her, clearly not wanting to argue in front of the boy. His eyes were a deep, dark brown, like his hair, which was slicked back with a clipped fade at the sides—very ‘city’. His skin was smooth, clean-shaven and pale, as if he spent a lot of time indoors. His clothes were typical weekender. Pale blue polo shirt and sand-coloured cotton shorts. He filled them very nicely. She could be objective about that. He had strong-looking arms, she’d noticed as he’d tied the rope, and a body that looked used to exercise. But there was one thing that surprised her—he wore jandals on his feet rather than boat shoes. A mistake in her assumptions there—usually, the city people wore new boating shoes.
‘We’ll just have to agree to disagree.’ He bristled, his jaw set. ‘I’ll make sure to keep an eye on my speed in future.’
If it was meant as an apology, it lacked the basics, such as the words I’m sorry. But she guessed it was all she was going to get. ‘Thank you.’
‘Mason hasn’t seen dolphins before, and we were following them.’
As excuses went, she had to admit it was a good one. The dolphins out here were so enchanting and friendly, and they liked to show off their tumbling skills. She knew how spellbinding they were. Even so, shaking her head and trying to control her frustration, she turned and walked to the edge of the water, scanning to count her class in. All present and correct.
‘Okay, everyone. Come in. Time’s up,’ she shouted. ‘Bring the SUPs out of the water and load them back on the racks, please. You know the drill.’
Behind her the little boy asked, ‘Daddy, can I play on the swings?’
‘I don’t think so. The scary lady might tell us off. Again. We should go.’
Scary lady. Was that what she was now? She really hoped not. But there was humour in his tone and it was infectious. She pressed her lips together to stop a smile escaping. Speeding was no laughing matter.
‘But, Daddy...pleeease.’
Despite the longest ‘please’ she’d ever heard, the little guy’s voice was tentative, almost resigned to a negative response.
And it came. ‘I’m sorry, son. I promise we’ll fix up the garden and I’ll build you a playground as soon as we can get the supplies sent over.’
So, he was a new resident of the island. He could have bought any one of the houses for sale recently.
It was none of her business. Her business was here, these children in the lesson. This camp. But not for much longer. Someone would come and buy the place and she wouldn’t be the warden of the cove—tempering visitors’ enthusiasm and speed and protecting the sanctity of the place. She’d be off exploring the world beyond Rāwhiti Island, trying to forget the heartache and shake off the sting of bittersweet memories.
‘Today?’ Hope resonated in the little boy’s tone.
‘No, buddy. It’s going to take a bit longer to build a playground.’
‘Okay, Dad.’
Scary lady. She turned and watched the boy’s eyes look greedily at her playground as they started to climb back into the boat. Poor kid. ‘Hey, bud. What’s your name?’
He looked up at her with eyes as dark as his father’s. ‘Mason.’
‘Well, Mason, you can play in my playground if you want, as long as Daddy promises to enrol in a day skipper class.’
The boy’s head whipped round to look up at his father. ‘Daddy?’
The man shot her a look that was filled with shock, and possibly anger. He held her gaze for a moment and she steeled herself for whatever he was about to throw at her—that he was a skilled boatsman and how dared she suggest such a thing?
But his shoulders dropped, as if he was consciously making himself stay calm, and he gave her a sharp nod. ‘Okay. Yes, Mason, go and play. Five minutes. Then we have to go back to do the list of jobs we’re avoiding.’
She could relate to that at least. ‘Excellent. They run the courses at the Coastguard offices in Auckland, or if you’re here for any length of time you can do them at the yacht club. Or online.’ How to ask if someone lived here without asking if they lived here? But he just gave another nod. ‘I’ll look into it.’
‘Tell them Carly sent you. Should get a discount.’
‘Thanks...um... Carly.’ He looked down at his feet then back at her. ‘Your accent is English, is that right?’
‘Sure is.’ She didn’t have to explain anything.
The man nodded as if he understood her reluctance to have a conversation. ‘Well, thanks again. It’s been a difficult time. He’ll love just being able to play.’
His eyes were deep and soulful. For a beat she was spellbound by the flecks of gold in his irises, and simultaneously her heart crushed to hear of the boy’s struggles. Which was a heady combination—she knew exactly how it was to deal with difficult things and she certainly didn’t wish that on a little one.
But she could not want to know why things had been difficult or why they were here. She could not want to know anything more about them, no matter how curious she was. Or how good-looking this man was. She was drawing a line under this place, finally, after her own very difficult time.
‘Talking of jobs...’ She returned his nod with one of her own, then turned and walked away back to her class and her home...for now.
Above all, she didn’t have time to stand around looking into any man’s eyes. Especially one who’d put her class’s lives at risk. She wasn’t going to give him a chance to risk her heart too.