Logan’s appearance in the bedroom was accompanied by even more pent up frustration and anger than he exhibited downstairs and he paced the room, trying to regain control. “Bloody woman!” he snapped.
“Don’t think about Leslie, think about me,” Hana sulked, enticing him into bed. “I fancy more of what I had downstairs, please.” She smirked as Logan shed his clothes and pushed his muscular body onto the sheets next to her. Hana ran her cold hands over his torso making him shiver and slipped on top of him. “I love you, Logan Du Rose,” she whispered, running her tongue lightly across the underside of his top lip.
Logan’s hands strayed under Hana’s tee shirt and his fingers wound their way between her panties and the soft skin of her bum. He moaned and opened his mouth to her eager kisses, happy to be distracted from his present misery.
They woke in the middle of the night, freezing cold and naked on top of the covers. “When did you pull your tee shirt over us?” Hana asked, sitting up. “It’s not covering very much.”
She pulled herself into her nightshirt and they snuggled down in the bed but Hana couldn’t get back to sleep, mulling things over in her head too much to nod off. It probably didn’t help that she had allowed herself to get physically over-taxed. She felt shattered and harried the next morning, not helped by her husband’s reluctance to let her out of bed. “I need you,” he sighed into her hair and pulled roughly at her night shirt. A couple of buttons made a horrid popping sound as the stitching gave and they pinged onto the sheets.
“Are you always this insatiable when you’re upset?” Hana ran her hands over his strong back and smirked at his answering growl. “I’m just enjoying you being mad at someone other than me.”
Logan looked up at her, his dark hair mussed and sexy. His eyes burned hot and passionate in his face and his kiss was insistent. “Stop talking,” he said roughly, “you’re just trying to put me off.” He yanked her shirt over her shoulders and pressed his lips to her bare skin, his chest rumbling with the ecstasy of the prospect of satiated desire.
Escaping some time later, puffed and physically exhausted, Hana plucked her baby out of the cot. “Pooh, you’re smelly,” she said, pulling a face. “Daddy would love a cuddle with a bugle bum. I think you’re the perfect thing to cool his ardour!” She put Phoenix in bed with Logan and they snuggled down together, the little girl periodically giggling heartily when Logan tickled her feet through her baby suit. Hana showered quickly and dressed, putting some makeup on for the first time in days and feeling much better for it.
Back in the bedroom, Logan had reluctantly dealt with the stinker and climbed back under the duvet. Hana sat in the chair by the window feeding her daughter. She sighed. “Phoe seems to have settled back into breastfeeding again, doesn’t she? It’s such a relief. It’s stopped me feeling like a spare part.” Hana caressed the tiny outstretched fingers and enjoyed the closeness it gave her. “Loge,” she said thoughtfully, seeing the top of Logan’s dark head pop out of the covers and hearing a grunt she assumed meant, ‘yes.’ “What will you do?”
The top half of him appeared with a look of confusion on his face. His olive skin was darker against the white sheets and his St. Christopher necklace hung sexily to one side across his muscular chest. His hair was tousled and Hana felt something stir in the pit of her stomach as he smiled at her. “Do about what, babe?” he asked, looking gorgeous as he ran his hand through his hair to push it back from his face. Grey highlights peppered their way through his sideburns, making him look distinguished and even more devastating. Hana smiled covetously and he beckoned her back to bed, trying to entice her in. She pointed at the suckling child, who failed to help her as she drifted peacefully off to sleep, satisfied with her old brand of milk.
“About what Nev wants. What are you going to do? Last night you wanted to jack it all in and sell up. Do you still feel the same way today?” Hana studied her husband, waiting for his reply. “I’ve learned to love it up here. If I’m honest, I don’t want you to cash in your heritage. I know it wasn’t given. You earned it through pure hard work and savvy entrepreneurialism.” Hana sighed. “Ah, look. It’s yours to do with as you please. It’s technically none of my business.”
Logan lay back on the pillows and put his arms up behind his head. Hana lifted Phoenix carefully and laid her back in the cot, hoping she would sleep for another hour. Then she climbed onto the covers next to her husband and waited for his answer. It didn’t come, possibly because at that moment, he didn’t honestly have one.
Logan turned on his side and took his wife’s left hand in his, seeing her wince in anticipation, even though he would never deliberately hurt her. He turned it over, looking hard at the livid pink scar which ran up her wrist from the heel of her hand. It was ridged and obvious, betraying the afternoon of horror she suffered as a hostage a few months ago. “Still hurts?” he asked softly.
“Yeah. Mark says there’s still a piece of the whiskey glass in it. It’s bizarre really, isn’t it? I don’t see my brother for twenty-six years and then discover later how he spent the night trying to save my life.”
Logan’s brow knitted. It had been traumatic. He thought about what it would mean to lose this woman. What made him any different from her kidnapper? Laval was all about money and status and always had been, even at school. He mistakenly assumed Logan’s family had money and sought friendship with the Du Rose brothers. The irony was they were all at the grammar school on scholarships. Logan’s family home belied an illusion which once rang with the sound of extended whānau. When he brought Michael Laval home for the weekend it was empty, deteriorating before his eyes without explanation. Now he knew why. His birth was the catalyst for the whānau’s detonation, brother betraying brother in an act of adultery which divided the family. “Am I so different from him?” Logan asked softly, turning Hana’s hand back over so he couldn’t see the damage which offended him daily. Hana cocked her head inquisitively and the name was out of Logan’s mouth before he could take it back. “Laval.”
Hana snatched her hand back in an instant, a disturbed look on her face. “Why are you thinking about him?” she asked, her eyes flashing and her jaw clenched.
Logan lay back on the pillows, disconnecting from his wife while she calmed down, knowing he would only make things worse if he tried to hold her. He didn’t want it to turn into a fight. “Just thinking,” he said casually. “Forget it.”
Hana saw the walls crash down over his soul and sensed herself firmly left on the outside again. Regret pierced her heart. “I’m sorry. Tell me, please?” she begged, climbing fully dressed under the sheets and putting her cold hands onto Logan’s warm body. He groaned and cringed as her icy fingers touched his firm stomach, laughing and seizing her hands in his warm ones. “Please?” she said again and kissed him on the mouth, pulling back as he tried to get serious, staying safely out of range for now.
“I was wondering what the difference was between me and…Laval.” Logan tried to explain. “We were good friends at school, right up until Year 11 when his dad showed up and corrupted him. We were both academic, both sporty and had a similar business head. We both created empires but his went one way and mine steered a more middle course, not straight, but better than his. When it came down to it, he couldn’t care less about family, about his dad or the impact his business would have on his mother. His mum was a nice lady - I remember her. So I was wondering what he would do in my situation. That’s all.”
Hana lay her head on her husband’s shoulder and snuggled in tightly. “Easy,” she said, surprising Logan with the surety in her voice. “He’d sell them all down the river for a fast buck. Even I know that!”
Logan lay with his arms around his wife; his baby daughter snoring loudly on her back in the cot and thought about Hana’s assumption. She was right. Laval only cared about his own comfort. He came after Logan purely out of revenge, making it look as though he wanted to stop Hana testifying against his father but ultimately, he hadn’t cared less about the old man. He wanted to hurt Hana to get back at Logan. He dragged it out and made an art form out of his psychotic need for violence. Logan shuddered involuntarily and tried to wipe the man’s face from his mind, pulling Hana into his body. “You’re right,” he said with certainty. “I won’t sell. This mountain belongs to the Du Roses and I won’t give it up. Mana tangata whenua will keep us here as long as we’re physically able.”
“What should I tell Nev?” Hana asked quietly. “He’s desperate for an answer. It cost him dearly having to admit his financial mess to me.”
Logan kissed the side of her head. “I’ll buy him out,” he answered, “but I’ve got an idea about that. We’ll arrange to meet him somewhere else to talk about it. Ok?”
Hana felt happy at her husband’s inclusion of her in his business dealings. It felt good. He tried once before. A disastrous trip to Auckland to meet with the Chinese Triads ended in misery for her and almost finished their marriage, but they had come a long way since then. Hana snuggled down feeling gratified. “I love you Mr Du Rose,” she sighed.
But she had unwittingly crept into the tiger’s lair again and was kept there, despite her protestations. Logan was passionate and impossible to refuse. He undressed her slowly, never taking his eyes away from hers. There was a pop as another button hit the mattress and she sighed resignedly at her horny husband. The lips which covered hers were smiling. With very little effort, he always managed to get her to the same place and she never grew tired of him.
The rain hammered down outside and Hana went down to breakfast, leaving Logan in bed to watch mindless TV programmes while Phoenix snoozed in her cot. The forecast promised it would clear up by lunchtime. Mark read the newspaper and sipped a cup of black tea at a table in the guest dining room and Hana plonked herself down opposite, pulling a face at the weather outside. “It was such a hard frost last night, I felt sure it would be a nice day,” she grumbled, ordering a pot of tea from the waitress with a smile. “How come you’re eating in here?”
Mark shrugged and laid his paper down on the pristine white tablecloth. “The housekeeper shooed me in here and treats me like a lord. It really is quite unnerving.”
Hana smiled and tried not to think bitchy thoughts about Leslie’s attempts to make amends. “How was your bush walk with Alfred last night?” she asked him, watching from under her eyelashes.
“Awesome,” Mark replied with genuine enthusiasm. “He’s very proud of your husband’s achievements. He took me all over the property, showed me the camp-ground, the motel rooms, the stables and then we went back to his for a few beers. I called in to see you last night but couldn’t get any answer. I wasn’t sure if you were out or asleep.”
“I think we were in the family room around the back,” Hana said guiltily. “Sorry. This place is like a maze. I should have shown it to you before. We go there to chill out. Otherwise, we have a tendency to come here for a break and stay trapped in the bedroom with the baby.”
“Yes, I can imagine that would be easy to do. I’m sure it’ll be better when you have your own house to move into. At least then it’ll be a proper family home, especially when your little girl is toddling.”
Something made Hana ask, “Have you been up to our new place then?” surprised when Mark replied with enthusiasm.
“Alfred took me up there in a vehicle. It’s a long way up that driveway, isn’t it? He was proud of everything his son’s achieved. He’s excited about the house and you all living here much more.”
Hana looked at him, her face screwed up in disbelief. “Alfred?” she asked. “Tall, skinny man. Thinning white hair, grey eyes and a bit of a stoop? Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”
Mark laughed and nodded, confirming it was indeed the same Alfred. Hana shook her head, bemused. She brushed away Mark’s enquiry, not wanting to gossip or besmirch the old man’s character even though he made little attempt to see Logan of late. He could have been of help and comfort to him in his distress over Hana’s illness, but he hadn’t bothered. The pretty redhead sat at the table and decided she would never understand the complicated Du Rose men, no matter how long she lived.
Without warning, Mark, ever the surgeon, grabbed Hana’s wrist and turned her hand over so he could look at it carefully. He looked sadly at his ruined work and she tried to pull her hand away. “I wish I knew what the problem was with this,” he said thoughtfully. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I even spoke to one of the radiographers about it. Would you let me open it up and take a look inside? I could probably do it with a camera and…”
“No!” Hana answered and risked the pain, pulling her hand away roughly. “I’ve had enough!”
Other guests in the dining room looked their way in alarm and Hana caught hold of her flaring temper. The waitress had evidently rushed to get Leslie because the housekeeper appeared next to their table, still looking subdued as she asked Hana if everything was alright. Hana nodded sombrely and flustered, requested more tea. Then she forced herself to calm down. “What would you like to do today?” she asked Mark, determined not to let their relationship be damaged by trivia. He looked pensive.
“I’m heading off early tomorrow. I’ve got a shift starting at two in the afternoon. So, whatever you like really. I’d like to explore here more, as opposed to driving around anywhere else. What do you suggest?”
“Did Alfred, your friendly local tour guide, take you up to the memorial site?” Hana asked him, sarcasm leaking through her voice. “I bet he didn’t.”
“No. Where’s that?” Mark shook his head and looked enthusiastic. Hana told him a little of the history of the site, shivering as she recounted the night of the fire, her child’s birth and the subsequent clearing of the charred cedar wood house.
“Logan’s half-brother couldn’t face building on the same site so he persuaded the insurance company to use land at the bottom of the mountain. The memorial gardens are being constructed on the site of Reuben’s charred house. The remains of the building are gone now and the garden will eventually be a maze.”
“That sounds fantastic.”
Hana raised her eyebrows. “Yeah, it’s an appropriate tribute to the chaotic sense of lost-ness that seems to surround Logan’s birth parents. Elaine helped plan it with me and Dad. She did some drawings which were pretty amazing.”
Mark seemed keen to take a drive up there. “Let’s meet after lunch,” Hana suggested and Mark agreed, freeing him up to do some journal writing for a few hours. He mentioned he had some serious thinking to do, but didn’t seem to want to expand.
Outside the dining room, they dodged a big group of latecomers who stayed up drinking the night before and staggered around with the classic hung over air. Hana dragged her brother into the industrial kitchen to grab a tray with two bowls of porridge for her husband and daughter. She put more sugar on one than the other. Mark helpfully took the tray while Hana wrestled with the heavy door. “Dad and Elaine have arrived in Singapore fine. They’re taking in the sights for a few days.”
“Such a waste of time,” Hana said wistfully as she wound her arm through his and led him to the spiral staircase. It had ‘Private’ posted on it and was only used by staff and family. Mark bristled with an irrational sense of privilege as other guests watched him with curiosity.
“Oh, I think it’s rather a nice city actually,” he said, sounding very English.
“I’m sure it is. I was referring to the wasted twenty-six years while we all thought badly of each other and got on with our own lives, packed full of regret and longing.”
“I totally agree,” Mark said, squeezing her arm and then letting go so she could lead the way up the narrow spiral staircase. “Don’t you think it’s silly though,” he said from behind her, “that you and I get on better now we know we’re actually cousins, than we did when we were brought up as brother and sister?”
“I don’t think that’s the reason,” Hana called down to him. “I think we’re both too old for arguments and posturing. We’ve each realised what’s important. Which reminds me, you put your number into my mobile phone that day at the hospital, as ‘Aarsehole’ and I should probably change it.”
Mark threw his greying head back and laughed loudly as they reached the first floor of the hotel, the bowls clanking gently with each step. “No leave it,” he said, still chuckling. “It’s how I felt and it can be my penance for what happened. I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did back then. Everyone makes mistakes – teenage pregnancies are commonplace now. Looking back with hindsight, it’s actually humorous.”
Hana jerked her head around to look at him, her face unreadable but tending towards disbelief. Mark held his spare hand up to placate her. He observed a flash of the redheaded fire that burned in her as a child and which he delighted in igniting as often as possible. It was still there - veiled but still there. “Not the bit where I called you names, or where I hit …Vik, that isn’t humorous. Just the part where my eighteen-year-old sister turns up at our nice, respectable Anglican home in the racist 1990’s and tells her vicar-father she’s knocked up by a brown man. Meanwhile her imperfect brother, who is really her adopted cousin, spawn of a young, unmarried aunt is sitting in the kitchen about to lose his wife and two sons because of his own ineptitude.”
Mark’s mouth was smiling but his eyes weren’t. Hana shook her head and walked the few steps back to him, putting her arms around his waist and forcing him to raise the tray above her head. “Still not getting it,” she said, muffled by his woolly jumper, “still can’t see the funny side.”
“Perhaps there isn’t one then,” Mark said, holding her tightly one handed and kissing the top of her head. “Did Dad tell you how much like your mother, Judith you are?” He felt her nod against his clothing and sighed. “She was the most beautiful woman I have ever known, not only her looks, but her incredible nature. I often think of her.”
“Me too,” Hana replied. “I missed her especially when I had Phoenix that night up on the mountain. I wished she was there – she would have known what to do. I seem to blunder through life making a complete hash of things. A little bit of maternal wisdom would make all the difference sometimes. I crave it, like feeling thirsty or something.”
They walked down the hallway to Hana’s room. “I know what you mean,” Mark said sadly and Hana looked at him, a strange jealousy burning behind her green eyes.
“But you have Aunty Elaine. She’s your mother and although I’ve only known that a few weeks, you’ve known it for years.”
“I agree. I do have Elaine, Hana. But the real fact is; she isn’t Judith. Our parents were always up front about my adoption, but not about my parentage. When Elaine dropped her bombshell that time, it detonated a lot of things in my life. It’s not a great feeling knowing your father was a sailor who put into port only once, in more ways than one. Elaine is not Judith; and she and I both know it.”
Hana looked up at him, as he balanced the tray against his shoulder like a waiter. He stared back at her and his eyes crinkled in genuine mirth as he threatened her good naturedly. “Don’t!”
“I can’t help it,” Hana sniggered. “A sailor. Now that’s funny. My grandson has an obsession with Popeye’s muscles…” She squealed as Mark jabbed her in the ribs one-handed, balancing the tray gingerly to stop the porridge slopping over the edge of the bowls. Hana invited him into her room, but he declined and they agreed to meet outside the main doors at one o’clock, provided the rain stopped.
As he turned to go, Mark leaned in close to Hana and gave her some doctorly advice, “Go steady on the bedroom antics at the moment. It’s quite obvious, you know.” He pointed to a red mark on her neck and smirked. Hana flushed with embarrassment.
Mark raised his eyebrows at her and smiled, striding away down the hall and round the corner without looking back. Hana felt both smug and embarrassed. She negotiated her tray through the door and discovered her husband and baby on the bedroom floor. Logan’s hair was damp and sticking up. He wore jeans but no socks or tee shirt and the baby was dressed, her hair poking up in a wet tuft, like a large dark Mohawk. Phoenix sat on the floor with Logan laid on his stomach, in front of her. “Come on girlie,” he encouraged her, “do it again.”
“What’s she doing?” Hana asked curiously, putting the tray down on the neatly made bed.
“She’s trying to crawl,” Logan said, sounding delighted and the baby grinned and flapped her arms.
Phoenix spotted Hana and smelled the porridge and didn’t want to play anymore. She flapped her arms again but her mirth turned to a grizzle as her father gave up his cajoling and stood, scooping the little girl up in one easy movement.
“Now I’ve brought this up here, I’m not sure how to do it,” Hana said, indicating the messy mixture and the arm waving baby. “Maybe you should sit in the chair with her on your knee and I can feed you both,” she suggested hopefully.
“Yeah…na!” Logan answered bluntly. “You hold and I’ll feed.”
Hana tutted and fetched a bath towel from the ensuite, wrapping the little girl up like a sausage. Then she sat on the bed and held her. Logan scoffed his own bowl of food at the same time as pushing spoonfuls into the baby. She didn’t like being squished in the towel much but put up with it for the sake of food. Logan polished his off quickly and Phoenix made it through half as much as him, which added up to an enormous portion. Every single mouthful went into the slot and nothing came out, making the towel slightly redundant. Phoenix began to nod off in Hana’s arms but when Logan stopped filling the teaspoon, she kicked her legs angrily and opened her mouth like a baby bird, wanting more. “I’ll give her a quick breastfeed and then put her down for a nap,” Hana whispered.
“Just one more,” Logan insisted. He put more porridge onto the spoon and pushed it into the child’s mouth. It seemed to stay there, teetering on the edge of her lips before being sucked in. He looked satisfied and was about to get off his knees when the child did an enormous sneeze. Porridge shot out of her mouth in every direction, adding up to far more than a teaspoon’s worth. It had multiplied into a grey, slurry-like mixture that shot down the front of the towel, narrowly missing Hana’s hand and jeans and splattered over her father’s face and hair with gusto. Logan said a hideous swearword his wife hadn’t even heard the stockmen use and she chastised him.
“Duh, children present!” She ruined the effect with a snort. Hana tried to contain her laughter at the sight of her mortified husband but her body shuddered with the effort. Detaching the baby from the towel and finding her fast asleep, Hana laid her in the travel cot at the foot of their bed. Her husband stayed on his knees, using the remaining clean bits of towel to wipe his face.
He swore again. “It looks like chuck!” he said, disgusted. “I’m off porridge for life now!”
Hana dissolved into hysterics and couldn’t control herself, especially when she noticed a blob of it on the door handle, a few metres away. Logan stripped his jeans and boxer shorts off and got back into the shower for another hair wash, scrubbing at his face with shower gel and infuriating himself by getting it in his eyes. Hana calmed down and went in to clean her teeth. “I got chatting to Mark and forgot to eat breakfast, she commented. The grey plops of porridge in the shower tray danced as they disappeared down the drain around Logan’s feet and Hana pulled a face. “I don’t fancy anything now. It actually does look like sick.”
“I’ve got soap in my eyes now!” Logan sounded fed up, running his head under the water to clear it. He rubbed at his face and made funny watery noises as the torrent cascaded down onto his head.
Hana dried her mouth and turned to leave the small room, alarmed as the shower door flew open in front of her and a large, strong hand grabbed her upper arm. “No!” she squeaked in annoyance as her husband pulled her fully clothed into the shower and shut the door again. “Logan!”
As the water poured onto her hair and her gorgeous husband kissed her neck and undid her shirt, she wondered if it was true that you couldn’t get pregnant if you did it standing up.