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The ranch slider slid open as Wiri bent to unlace his boots on the porch.
“Leave those. The floor is disgusting.” Leilah beckoned him inside. Wiri took a step over the threshold before shaking his head and withdrawing his foot.
“It feels wrong,” he murmured. “It only takes a second.”
Leilah held the net curtain back with her hand as Wiri dipped to unlace his boots and kick them off onto the pine slats of the porch. He paused to stuff the neck of one into the other to prevent unwanted home makers and sat his hat over the top.
Moths fluttered above his head, drawn by the lure of light and warmth. Leilah batted them away with her hand as Wiri stepped into the lounge. She closed the door and dropped the fabric with a flourish, leaving the creatures to beat their wings against the windowpane. “Eggs?” she asked, glancing back at him as she sprang ahead.
“Yes, please.” Wiri gave an enthusiastic nod, ignoring the sickness which threatened his appetite. Everything reminded him of Phoenix, especially eggs, which she hated with a vehemence unless her mother turned the yolk to a rubbery yellow.
“Grab a seat.” Leilah jerked her head towards the table where three place settings sat ready. Wiri glanced down at hands which had touched the fence, his boots and numerous other things. He wanted to wash them, but Leilah occupied the cramped space behind the kitchen counter. He faltered, staring at his fingers and feeling ridiculous. The stockmen ate in the bush all the time, swallowing sweat, dirt, and bugs without a second thought. He’d spent most of his life doing the same. But the rules had always been different inside the house, and he yearned for the safe normality of Hana Du Rose.
Wiri wiped his hands on his jeans and took the seat on the opposite side of the table to the kitchen. He realised his mistake as he stared at the neat place settings, which would force Leilah and Vaughan to watch him eat.
As though summoned by Wiri’s thoughts, Vaughan arrived in the kitchen. As tall as Logan Du Rose, he almost hit his head on the frame as he powered beneath it and closed the door behind him. He slid into the kitchen without disturbing Leilah and grabbed three mugs from a shelf. Keeping them in one hand, he wrapped the other around her waist and she stilled as he kissed the top of her head. Wiri watched from beneath his lashes, pretending to study the image on the place mat as Leilah tilted her head back to bump his shoulder. The air crackled with their intimacy and the boulder slumped heavily over Wiri’s heart.
He closed his eyes and replaced the couple with him and Phoenix. Would she stand in a dilapidated kitchen one day and make him rubberised eggs for breakfast?
His brain ran the question on a loop and his quest took on a futile flavour. He’d broken away from the Du Roses on purpose, severing the threads to make it on his own without their money or influence. Like Dick Whittington and Robert Smythe, he’d forge his own path in a different town, hoping to make his fortune and return to breathe truth into his promise. Vaughan had advertised a fair wage and low rent for manual work Wiri could perform in his sleep. Phoenix would celebrate her sixteenth birthday in ten months and he figured if he worked hard, he could save enough to support them both until they could marry.
“You still asleep?” Wiri snapped his eyes open to find Vaughan staring at him. The bigger man wrinkled his nose. “Sorry, were you praying?”
Wiri exhaled and forced his muscles to relax. He released his clenched fingers beneath the table. “Something like that,” he replied.
Daylight sneaked through the ranch slider and cast orange flecks across the worn rug. It betrayed the loose threads and fading pattern with a dignified glee. Leilah arrived at the table bearing two plates filled with bacon, eggs, fried bread, onions, and tinned tomatoes. She leaned across to place Wiri’s on the mat, the plate tilting enough to cause the juice from the tomatoes to bleed into the egg. “Sorry,” she breathed. She handed the other plate to Vaughan before rubbing at her shoulder and turning back to the kitchen.
Returning, she carried a plate containing two rounds of toast spread with jam. She settled at the table next to Vaughan. “This isn’t usual,” she said, groaning before bouncing up again and fetching a tea pot. She dumped it in the middle of the table and went to the fridge for a carton of milk. By the time she returned, Vaughan had poured the amber tea into two of the mugs. He jerked his head to Wiri and with nothing else on offer, he nodded.
“Yes please.”
Leilah sat again in her seat and dumped milk into her tea. “We don’t do this every morning,” she began, closing her eyes as she sipped the hot drink.
“What?!” Vaughan’s brow furrowed and his jaw dropped as though in shock. Then he laughed, the crow’s feet appearing in the corners of his eyes and his irises sparkling like hot coals. “Just kidding.” He winked at Wiri. “Leilah refuses to play the role of the farmer’s wife.” He shot her a sideways glance filled with humour. “She’s much too high society for that game.”
“Too right.” Leilah bit into her toast with a crunch. Her face lit up with an amiable smile. “We wanted the opportunity to get to know you is all.”
“Great.” Wiri sliced up the bacon and took time over his first mouthful. The first lie invited a second and a third. He chewed, saying, “This is nice. Thank you,” before adding another piece of bacon.
“How big is your farm in Northland?” Leilah took another sip of her tea.
“My uncle’s? Two hundred hectares.” Wiri paused with his fork in the air. He’d planned it all out, so the information he provided couldn’t lead back to Logan. He knew how small and insular the New Zealand farming community could feel. His tenuous plan wouldn’t tolerate mistakes. “Mainly beef but also horses.”
“Horses?” Leilah cocked her head. Long curls from her ponytail covered her left shoulder and reminded him of Phoenix. She frowned and pierced him with perceptive blue eyes. “I saw that on your CV. Do you have your own?”
Sadness pricked the back of Wiri’s eyeballs, and he shook his head. “Not anymore.” Something about Leilah’s easy maternalism tugged at the loose threads within Wiri’s heart. She was younger than Hana, not yet forty, but she carried the same infectious empathy. He took a deep breath and let the words spill free. “I had a gelding for the last ten years. He developed a tumour on his lung a few months ago.” The next piece of bacon tasted like ash in his mouth. He’d insisted on staying with the horse while the vet administered the drug to end his suffering. It wasn’t the farm’s usual method of disposal, but he’d wanted something more dignified for his friend. The vet’s visit cost him from his own pocket, but he hadn’t cared. Phoenix’s tears had stained his shirt and, in his grief and confusion, he’d lost himself and used her as the lifeline to rescue him. He’d kissed her, fulfilling the desire he’d held forever and making promises he couldn’t yet keep.
Realising he’d grown silent and morose, Wiri spun the conversation with the skill learned from his uncle. “What about you?” he demanded. “How did you both meet?”
Vaughan smiled and dropped his gaze to his plate. Leilah exhaled and picked up her second piece of toast. “School,” she said. Her lashes swept down and then up again to Wiri’s face. “But circumstance forced us apart, and we only met again at the start of last spring.”
“Circumstance?” He repeated the word, his body dipping forward as her words captured his interest. An intensity entered his demeanour and Leilah jerked back at the force of it. She glanced sideways at Vaughan, and he shrugged.
“Someone will tell him,” he murmured.
Leilah exhaled and dropped her toast onto the plate. She sat back in her seat. “Vaughan grew up here with his Uncle Horse and my father raised me on the farm next door.” Her lips curved upwards into an attractive smile.
Vaughan breathed out through his nose. He reached for his mug and gripped it as though wanting to crush it into a thousand pieces. “No one in this town was good enough for Hector’s daughter.” His tone held a rueful quality. “Especially not me.”
Leilah shrugged. “But we loved each other.”
Wiri shook his head. His chest filled with desperation as a mirror image of his own situation played out before him. “But you didn’t stay together?” His voice croaked at the end of the sentence and he glared at the egg yolk hardening into a stain on his plate. The impossibility of The Plan made him want to run, to forget Phoenix, and learn to love someone else. He glanced up to find Leilah staring at him with a perception which made him uncomfortable.
“No.” Her soft voice reached him, cutting through the pain of the boulder ricocheting around his stomach like the ball from a pinball machine. She reached across the table and closed her fingers around the shaking wrist, which gripped the fork in his left hand. “But I wish we had. I wish we’d fought for what we knew, because then we wouldn’t have wasted the last twenty years.”
Wiri’s gaze found hers across the table and he grounded himself in the sensation of her gentle fingers wrapped around his bony wrist. Vaughan studied their interaction with a frown, his analytical nature locking him outside the emotional moment. Leilah smiled at him and withdrew her hand. She moved on as though she hadn’t just tuned into the cry of Wiri’s soul and flayed it bare. “I’m sorry about your horse,” she said, her tone soft. “It’s always very upsetting.”
Vaughan glanced sideways at his wife before resuming his breakfast. Leilah lowered her voice and whispered, “Just eat what you can manage.” He nodded and Wiri saw the flash of a smile he afforded his wife.
Wiri consumed his breakfast with more energy than of late. He’d received Leilah’s message loud and clear. Like a call to arms, she’d told him to fight.
Fight with everything he possessed.
For Phoenix Du Rose.
To stop them laying waste to two decades of their lives.
The boulder settled in his gut as he drew The Plan back to the forefront of his mind. He used his bread to clean his plate before rising with a smile at the same time as Vaughan. “Thanks for everything,” he said to Leilah.
And he meant it.
