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Wiri grunted to Leilah as he left through the back door. He heard her call after him that she’d help him tack the horses at Vaughan’s place soon.
The woman she’d employed to work the rest of the Sunday shift smiled at him as he hurried along the street. He nodded but didn’t stop to chat. Her smile drooped. The whole town knew how much she liked him and waited as though holding its breath for a wedding. Wiri shook his head. There wouldn’t be one.
Phoenix.
His mind flicked to her as it always did, like a reflex of his soul. The bitter tang of regret flooded his chest and snaked up the back of his neck. He’d pushed her away one time too many, wanting to do the right thing and then living with the consequences. She’d consumed his teenage years with her ready laughter and her irritating habit of slipping Bible scriptures into inappropriate conversations. He adored her and always would. But he’d hurt her, and she’d exited their relationship. Despite the eight months of distance between that moment and this, he still didn’t know how to fix it. Or if he could.
Mac helped him to keep tabs on her. His loyal cousin saw off errant hopefuls within their shared mix of friends. He was a Du Rose. A look or a word was enough to make his point. Wiri hadn’t asked Mac to do it, but he didn’t stop him either.
The envelope made a chuffing sound in his front pocket as he walked. He’d always appreciated his long stride, which helped him cover great distances without effort. He hated it now. The movement of his left leg didn’t flow, adding a jarring stutter to that side of his body as his boot sole hit the pavement.
And for what?
He’d borne it because it seemed a noble injury. Administered by a man who’d sacrificed himself for love. He’d empathised with Ted.
But the old man had lied to him.
Wiri made the turn onto Larry’s street and his steps slowed. A vehicle bumped into the vicarage’s rutted driveway and halted. The signage emblazoned across it culminated in a familiar logo in the centre of the driver’s door. “What now?” he hissed. His phone buzzed again in his pocket and he dug it out, peering at the screen and trying not to trip.
Two texts from Mac. Both relayed the same message.
‘Incoming.’
His thumb hovered over the keypad as he deliberated his reply. But he didn’t have time. The driver had seen him and the truck’s heavy door swung wide.
David Allen gave an upward jerk of his chin and folded his arms across his chest. He leaned against the truck and crossed his ankles, observing Wiri’s approach with a quizzical gaze. Wiri forced himself to concentrate on his gait, grinding his teeth until his head ached. He hated how the limp weakened him and turned him into the imperfect Du Rose. But David made no comment as he drew level. Not about his leg, anyway. “I’m taking your truck,” he declared without preamble.
Wiri swallowed. “Why?” His mind ran into panic mode, calculating a scenario in which he had no transport. It took a second for him to notice the key fob which David held out to him.
“Because apparently it’s sending distress signals to the dealer and they want to check it over.” He bounced the key fob twice before dropping it into Wiri’s palm.
“Is it?” Wiri stared at his truck in disbelief.
David snorted. “No, you clown! But it’s missed the six month service. You can have it back next weekend when you visit. Use mine until then.”
“Next weekend?” Wiri frowned as someone else moved inside the vehicle. He blinked in shock as Phoenix stepped from the running board of the passenger side and rounded the bonnet. His head emptied of words as though a giant flush had stolen the vocabulary from his brain. She’d grown taller in the intervening months. And become more beautiful than Wiri had imagined. Bouncing black curls tapped the points of her shoulders. She had the ethereal elegance of her elfin mother coupled with the inner strength of a Du Rose. When she studied Wiri from beneath her dark lashes, his heart dropped into his stomach and flapped like a stranded fish.
David groaned and Wiri forced his gaze back to him. “Not much point telling you anything now, is there?” The sentence emerged as a grumble, though humour sparkled in his blue irises. He jerked his head towards Phoenix. “She can fill you in on the details. But the forestry block is overdue its first thinning. Branches need to come off up to four meters and the skinny trees culled.”
Wiri glanced at Phoenix and his breath caught in his chest. He found it difficult to concentrate with her staring at him through her intense grey irises. “Culled,” he whispered, his tongue tripping over the proclamation of selective mercy killing.
David nodded. “Yes, culled.” He silenced as Wiri’s mind drifted through time and space to the backbreaking work of planting the tiny saplings. Had it really been six years since they’d stood on the side of the mountain and tried to imagine it as a forest? Edin had been six. She’d complained from morning till dusk for the entire week. Watering them proved even worse during the drought of the trees’ first summer. They’d endured weeks of carting watering cans from the tank on the back of the truck to each flailing plant. He sighed and pursed his lips. The trees had become a forgotten legacy, an uncomfortable memory of a promise he’d never appreciated. But he’d known this day would come.
David inclined his head to observe Wiri from beneath bushy eyebrows which ran from blond to white. “Logan always said you needed to do the work yourselves. The girls have completed their chainsaw safety course. And I know yours is up to date because I checked.” He rolled his eyes. “You’ll just need to keep Macky from felling the bloody lot. Kid’s a maniac.”
Wiri mustered a smile. Mac loved everything about the farm. Especially the power tools. Hard as he tried, he couldn’t imagine Edin breaking a sweat with a chainsaw.
He let his gaze slide back to Phoenix and his heart beat a fast tattoo, causing a dull drumbeat to thud inside his head. He couldn’t ask why she’d come. It seemed rude and besides, he didn’t want to break the spell. “I have to work,” he said, his voice raspy as though something heavy leaned on his windpipe. “But I can text Leilah and make you both a drink.” He held his left hand out towards the porch steps, the middle finger sticking out in its permanent protest.
“You’re working?” David frowned and cocked his head. “On a Sunday?” Wiri nodded, and his lips parted to reply. But David switched his attention to Phoenix. “I thought you’d checked.” His tone held a note of accusation. He shrugged. “What will you do now? Everything is closed.”
“I’ll be fine.” Her voice had lost its girlish quality.
“For eight hours?” David’s head bounced as he spoke, disbelief drawing his brows into a bushy line. “I don’t think so. You can come with me.”
“No!” Wiri cleared his throat and took a step forward. He listed as he trusted his left leg with his weight. “She can come with me. We’re hacking onto the mountain for a couple of hours.”
Phoenix looked from David to Wiri and back again, uncertainty in the flickering behind her stone-coloured irises. They morphed to a granite hue, and she gave a definitive nod. “Okay.”
David snuffed with something suspiciously like relief. He held out his hand for Wiri’s car key. Wiri stared blankly at the dirt ingrained along his lifeline before realising what he wanted. “Can I get my gear out?” he asked, the words rushed.
David sighed. “If you’re quick. I’m picking up a trailer from near Taupo. It fits the tow ball on your truck, but not mine.” He jerked his head towards Larry’s villa. “Can I use the bathroom?”
Wiri sorted out the front door key and handed it to him. He waited until David had entered the house before exhaling in a rush. Phoenix stood at the curb, hiding behind her fringe and pretending to inspect an errant cloud hanging over the mountain. Wiri swallowed and took on the role of adult. “Please, can you help me?” he asked. He glanced at the open front door and stepped towards his truck. “I don’t want him to see the GPS blocker.”
Phoenix nodded and met him by the driver’s door. She lifted the hem of her shirt to create a pouch and he unplugged the blocker and placed it inside it. “Thanks,” he whispered.
By the time David emerged from the villa, they’d transferred Wiri’s belongings into David’s truck. Phoenix hid the blocker beneath the passenger seat and rose to face him, her expression devoid of guilt.
“Right kiddywinks,” David said. “Meet me here at nineteen hundred hours. No funny business and don’t be late.” He snapped his fingers in front of Wiri’s nose and caused him to jump. “Call Hana about next weekend.”
“Okay.” Wiri licked his lips and stepped backwards, clattering with Larry’s post-box in his haste. It groaned and tipped a little further on its rusting pole. “Seven o’clock and phone Ma.” He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to repeat David’s instructions back to him, other than to busy his whirling brain.
David turned away and clambered into the driver’s seat. Phoenix cleared her throat and suppressed a snort as the shorter man adjusted the settings so he could reach the pedals. He fiddled with the mirrors before firing the engine and cranking the gear lever into reverse. The side window hissed as he depressed the switch to open it. “Play nice,” he warned with a smirk. He bumped the truck over the rutted driveway and onto the road.
The diesel engine rumbled towards the main street, and Wiri and Phoenix watched it turn right. They stood next to each other, neither one speaking. Wiri blew out a ragged breath and glanced sideways so he could observe Phoenix as she composed herself. He saw her blink and purse her lips.
Larry’s front door swayed on its hinges and Wiri noticed the key still nestled in the lock where David left it. He jerked his head towards the house. “Do you need to use the bathroom before we head up to the farm?” The words ground in his throat like needles. In trying to act with politeness, he’d gone straight to something intensely personal. His shoulders slumped and his arms hung by his sides as defeat shrouded him. Every new sentence he sifted for quality sounded ridiculous or inadequate as a follow up.
Phoenix ran her tongue over her lower lip and heat rose from Wiri’s groin and frizzed the wiring in his brain. He lost his head.
His arms moved to enfold her without the permission of his rational mind. He crushed her against him and his lips sought hers with a hunger he’d only barely suppressed for eight long months. She didn’t resist, lifting her chin and meeting his kiss with shared eagerness. Her lips parted to admit his tongue, and he lost himself, falling into a well of light and abandonment. The old flame revived as he ached to possess her, to connect in a way that life and circumstance couldn’t steal.
A car horn sounded on the main street and they jumped. Wiri’s nose bumped against her forehead as he took a breath. Phoenix sighed and wrapped her arms around his waist. She pressed her cheek against the hard wall of his chest and her fingers splayed across his spine. “Sorry,” he breathed into her hair. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.”
Phoenix snuffed out a laugh and leaned her chin against his sternum. It sent an ache deep into his chest which felt as though it kick-started his heart. Her irises swam like liquid mercury. “What you said was cruel.” Her tone held confidence and clarity. “But I understand now. You were right. I wasn’t ready for a relationship with you. What happened last summer ripped me apart, and I needed time to heal. A lot has changed. I’m sixteen in two months, and I expect you to ask me out properly.”
Wiri’s lips parted, and he swallowed. Her certainty washed over him. Mac said she’d changed, and he saw it for himself in the determined tilt of her head. Phoenix frowned. “Leilah texts me sometimes. She’s told me you’re not seeing anyone, but there’s a girl who likes you.” Her grey irises flashed. “I couldn’t allow that now, could I?”
Wiri threw his head back and laughed. The jovial sound echoed around the empty street. His lungs seemed to fill for the first time since the shooting. “Ted lied,” he said with a sigh. “He tipped Hendricks into the water tank.”
Phoenix shrugged. “What does it matter? You’re not him and I’m not her. They can only affect us if we let them.” She tightened her jaw and pouted her sensuous lips. “We’ll be different.”
“We’ll be different.” He repeated her words in a whisper. He brushed his thumb across her lips and revelled in their velvety softness. “I’m coming home,” he said with a smile. “I hear there are trees which need taking care of.”
She blinked up at him through a fringe which fluttered across her vision. “Good. Because I bought you a new shirt to replace the one the police confiscated. It’s at home on your bed.” Phoenix sighed. “And you need to call Mama. She spoke to Aunty Liza for hours on the phone last night. Why is Judge Eliza Du Rose interested in you? Do you know what it’s about?”
Wiri groaned. He lifted his left arm and checked his watch. “I think so. Let’s go up to the farm and I’ll tell you everything.”
He locked up Larry’s house and settled in David Allen’s truck. The envelope crinkled against his hip as he sat in the driver’s seat. Phoenix leaned sideways as she clicked on her seatbelt. “What’s that?” she demanded.
Wiri leaned back in the seat and tugged the letter free. He placed it into her lap as though it contained a priceless diamond. “Something I didn’t want to face,” he whispered, his tone loaded with disappointment. He turned sideways in the seat and bent his left knee. “Can you open it for me?”
Phoenix shrugged. Her quick fingers tore at the seam. “How’s that little foal?” she asked as she tugged a sheet of paper free.
“She’s great. Feisty.” Wiri watched as she uncreased the folds and pressed it flat against her thigh. “What does it say, Phoe?”
She tutted and stared up at him, her eyelashes fluttering in confusion. “It’s from Auckland University.” She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “But you knew that, anyway, didn’t you?”
Wiri nodded and stared at his hands. His fingers knotted together in constant motion. “What does it say?”
Phoenix released a sigh and read the serif font on the expensive cream page. “Following the stellar interview you gave in September, and after having contacted your referees, the Law department wishes to offer you a place for Semester A.” She gnawed on her lower lip. “So, you really were leaving?”
Wiri shrugged. “The letter arrived on Friday, but I figured it was a rejection. I didn’t think I interviewed well.” He wrinkled his nose. “I got halfway through a debate about contract law and noticed horse dung on the side of my boot. Figured they’d dismiss me as a country boy.”
Phoenix grinned. “You are. But you’re my country boy.” She reached across the truck and placed her fingers over his, the pressure of her hand stilling his nervous motion. A jolt of electricity ran through his veins and warmed him. “Congratulations. You’ll make a brilliant lawyer.”
Wiri shook his head. “I’m a terrible judge of character, so I doubt it. Look at Jet. And Ted! He’s out on licence and he hid a body.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his right hand. “Seline gave him a ride up to the farm after she saw me. You know she’s still denying that conversation, don’t you?” He dropped his hand into his lap. “I bet she got suspicious and rode out to see why he’d gone up there. She thought it involved her step-father.”
Phoenix shrugged. “I think it’s okay to take someone at face value. I’ve spent all year forgiving myself for my own mistakes. It makes us wiser for next time.” She flattened her lips into a sad smile and her gaze strayed to Pirongia towering over the town. “Anyway, don’t we have work to do?” She cocked her head and Wiri nodded. He sensed she meant more than just the holiday makers waiting to ride up the mountain.
The Plan would take a lifetime of hard graft.
But this time, they’d do it together.
