Kiwi Rules (New Zealand Ever After Book 1)

by Rosalind James

  I’d been gone for two hours, just time enough to shower and change at home, unload the car, and grab a few groceries for when I brought Karen back. I could be thinking about what all this meant and what I was doing, but I was pretty knackered. That was my excuse, anyway. The next thing was to go back to the hospital, so I did that.

  When I found her new room, thankfully well away from the ICU, there were two bouquets of flowers on the wide ledge under the window, and one yellow happy-face balloon bumping up near the ceiling. There was also a bloke standing at the monitor, reading through her chart, who looked like a TV version of a doctor. Blue scrubs, neat hair, too-handsome Maori face with just enough lines in it to show his manly compassion and concern. Which would have been fine, except that as I watched, he smiled at Karen with his extra-white teeth, then picked up her hand and sat down. In my chair. What the hell?

  Both of them looked up when I came in, but the bloke didn’t drop Karen’s hand. He said, “Who’s this?”

  “I could ask the same thing,” I said. “Jax MacGregor.” I handed Karen her smoothie. “Blueberry, spinach, and banana, with a bit of pea protein milk, which sounds disgusting, but the girl recommended it, so there you are. No protein powder, no yoghurt.”

  “Hey,” Karen said, sounding perky and happy. “You’re back. And thanks. This is Hemi’s cousin, Matiu Te Mana. Dr. Te Mana. He works here. Flaw in my plan for secrecy, I guess.”

  The bloke rose and shook my hand, subjecting me to some fairly intense scrutiny. Looking at my scars, probably. I’d changed to track pants in case I ended up sleeping here again tonight, but I couldn’t hide my face. Or maybe he was looking for more than that, because there was something else going on. I’d swear he’d been startled to see me. What was it with the Te Mana men? The grandfather had been all right, but here was another one who seemed to think Karen was his property.

  “Look,” Karen told me. “I got flowers, and it’s not my birthday until tomorrow. The yellow roses are from Hemi, because of course they are. He always sends me yellow roses. He doesn’t have much imagination. More like ‘determinedly thoughtful’ and ‘tick all boxes.’” And again, I thought, what the hell? She went on, “But the other ones are a mystery.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Those would be from me.” The biggest and brightest bouquet the hospital’s gift shop had held, tulips in shades of yellow, orange, and red.

  “They are?” She looked as sunny as her flowers, like she radiated life. “Well, I love them. Thanks. You also sent me the happy-face balloon, I guess, because it was tied onto the vase.”

  “I did. Made me smile, and I thought it might make you laugh.” I still had my eye on Matiu. “How’s she doing?” I asked him. “I assume that’s what you’re here to find out.”

  “Yesterday was my day off,” he said, “or I’d have known she was here and checked sooner. Hemi rang and told me this morning, though. And she’s doing quite well. Infection’s being controlled, and her vitals are looking much better. Everything responding as you’d hope.”

  “When do I get my IV out?” Karen asked. “I need a shower.”

  “Patience, grasshopper,” Matiu said. “We’re meant to heal you, you know. Give us a chance.”

  “I didn’t want to come at all,” Karen said. “Jax carried me in. Not because I couldn’t walk, either. He looks easygoing, but it’s an act. He was just supposed to be my tour guide.”

  “Lucky he did,” Matiu said. “Your tour guide, eh. That explains it, then.” He bent down, gave Karen a kiss on the cheek that lasted too long for my comfort, laid a hand on her face, said, “See you tomorrow at the hangi, as I’m guessing you’ll be released this afternoon. Good that I’ll be there to make sure you don’t do any wild dancing, I reckon. Maybe just the slow stuff, with somebody strong holding you up. Will you need a lift?”

  “No, thanks,” she said. “Jax is bringing me.”

  “Ah.” Matiu subjected me to some more penetrating assessment. “Back to work for me, but I’ll be checking on your progress. See ya.”

  When he was gone, I didn’t sit down. Instead, I leaned against the wall, folded my arms, and looked at Karen.

  “What?” she said, but her gaze slid away. “Thanks for the flowers. The balloon’s awesome.”

  “Three options,” I said. “One, you don’t know what you’re doing. Impossible. Two, you don’t know that he fancies you, but you’re hoping to make him. Three, you do know, and you’re enjoying playing me off against him. I think it’s three.”

  “It is not,” she said. “I’m disgusting, in case you haven’t noticed. Besides, I was in love with him for about five extremely embarrassing years, and Matiu’s the definition of ‘Playboy doctor bachelor.’ The whole thing, including my undying love, is kind of a family joke now.”

  “Yeh,” I said. “And you were with somebody else until just recently, and you’re not a teenager anymore. Tell me he doesn’t make a point of coming around when you’re visiting, or that he never told you that fella wasn’t good enough for you.”

  “That doesn’t count,” she said. “Everybody told me Josh wasn’t good enough for me, even though he was almost as good-looking as you and Matiu, and he had a Porsche and was a CEO and was the closest thing to Hemi I could find. I thought I was doing it right. Go figure. Matiu was in love with my sister. Everybody’s in love with my sister. When you meet her, you will be, too. Also, I’m vulnerable. You’re supposed to be nicer.”

  I was baffled again. Matiu didn’t sound like the one she was in love with. Sounded more like Hemi to me. I had to laugh, though, too. Very confusing emotional mix. “Twenty-four hours ago, I was so worried about you, I could barely see straight. Maybe you’re supposed to be nicer to me.”

  “Nah,” she said, and smiled. “If you can’t take it, run. Here’s a tip: you probably will. I told you, I’m hard to love.”

  She said it lightly, and I said, “Actually, you’re not. Drink your smoothie.”

  Karen

  Boy, was I glad to get out of the hospital. I didn’t much want to admit how tiring it was to get dressed again, or to get driven twenty minutes to Jax’s apartment, or to stand up and do actual walking for the time it took to get from the basement parking garage to my room with a view. And I really didn’t want to admit how nice it was, at around nine o’clock that night, to have Jax slide into bed beside me and turn out the light.

  “This isn’t quite the second date you had in mind,” I said in the dark. I was wide awake now, probably because I’d slept most of the day.

  I could practically hear his smile. “Is that what it is? Could be good enough, though.” He rolled to his side and stroked a hand over my hair, even though I was wearing my PJs, not some slinky nightgown.

  “It isn’t good enough,” I said. “And here tomorrow’s my birthday and all.”

  He laughed, found my mouth in the dark, and kissed it, soft and sweet. “Never mind, baby. It’ll be good enough anyway.”

  I thought that I’d never met a more confident man. I also thought that I shouldn’t let him call me “baby.” It was probably infantilizing. I’d never had to think about it before, because nobody had ever called me that in my life, except for Hope when I’d been sick, and our mom, maybe. She’d been gone so long, I couldn’t always remember the look of her face. Just the sound of her voice, sometimes, when I was tired or too lonely, but that might be Hope’s voice I remembered there, too.

  I was too independent and too intimidating to be any man’s baby. I’d found that out a long time ago, and it was fine.

  Then I fell asleep again, because Jax was holding my hand.

  I was still in my PJs, but out of bed, at least, when the doorbell rang the next morning. Jax wasn’t there, so I checked out the camera, sighed, and buzzed them in, and three minutes later, I opened the apartment door.

  “Wait,” I said. “Where . . .” I was laughing, and hugging kids. “You guys hid from the camera. Awesome. What are you doing out of school?”

  “It�
��s your birthday!” the youngest, Maia, said. She had hold of me around the legs and was pressing her cheek against my thigh, which meant I had to put my good arm around her shoulders and snuggle her. “So we had to come. Did we surprise you? We wanted to surprise you, because surprising is more fun.”

  “We came because you’re sick, and you’re turning thirty,” my nine-year-old nephew, Tama, said. “It’s like when you turn ten. Birthdays that end in zero are the most important, even though you were already pretty old.”

  “Also, Mom’s having another baby,” eleven-year-old Aroha announced, and rolled her eyes. “Which is super embarrassing, when I’m in middle school already. Nobody has four kids. The most anybody has is two. But anyway, she’s pregnant again, so you know she’s all weird and everything. Dad said they should leave us in school, and she cried, so he caved. As usual.”

  Hope was hugging me now. Hemi was being his normal self, standing there looking impassive, like a Maori boulder. “You’re kidding,” I said. “You guys. They have measures you can take for that now, you know.” After that, I was hugging Hope back. She only came to my chin. “Congratulations. I can’t wait. How far along?”

  “Almost two months,” she said, holding me tighter, then standing back, holding my face, and laughing, her blue-green eyes sparkling and her mouth trembling with emotion. Hemi was such toast. “I’m so glad you’re OK, sweetie. I’ve been so worried. It was such a relief when Matiu called to let us know you were going to be all right. And I did not cry. I was a little conflicted, that’s all, because I wanted to be with you so much, but I didn’t want to leave the kids. I thought they could miss a day.”

  “She totally cried,” Aroha said. “She got those big eyes and held onto Dad’s arm and blinked a lot and then kind of hid her face in his chest, and it was Game Over. But I got straight A’s on my last three report cards, so I can miss a day, and Maia’s in baby school, so it doesn’t matter. Tama’s the only one who should’ve stayed home. He got three B’s and one C last time, and he didn’t even do his homework on the plane.”

  “I did so,” Tama said. “You just didn’t see. You aren’t the boss of me.”

  “I’m not in baby school,” Maia said. “I’m in kindergarten.”

  “Inside,” Hemi said. “Auntie Karen needs to lie down, and your mum needs to sit.”

  “Not lie down,” I said. “Sit, maybe.” I did, on the couch on the terrace, where I’d been hanging out, drinking the smoothie Jax had made me and reading his book, since I’d stolen it from him. It was extremely engrossing, or maybe I was just starved for entertainment. I’d forgotten how much fun reading could be. When I did it normally, it was during brief snatches of time before I fell asleep. I hadn’t just lain around like this since . . . forever.

  Maia climbed up beside me to snuggle, and Tama asked, “Can we see your wound? Is it, like, really gross?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But the worst part is under a dressing.” I showed him my forearm. “Look how red it still is around it, though. Pretty good, huh?”

  “I thought they were going to have to, like, amputate it or something,” he said.

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” I said. “Maybe next time.”

  Hemi was looking around. “So where’s this fella? Gone off and left you alone? Doesn’t sound too concerned. Never mind. Now that we’re here, you can come stay at the house. If your things are packed, we’ll take you straight to Koro’s, and home from there after the hangi.”

  “I don’t need taking care of,” I said. “I’m fine. Also, tell me Hope isn’t throwing up. Or don’t, because I won’t believe you anyway. She always throws up.” My sister was, in fact, sitting in a basket chair with her legs tucked up under her, looking blonde and fragile and beautiful, and Hemi was standing as close to her as it was possible to be without actually carrying her around, which was probably what he wanted to do. He called her “baby” all the time, if you’re wondering, and she was also the only person who could make him change his mind.

  “Which means I’ll be cooking,” Hemi said. “Cooking for you as well. Six aren’t any more trouble than five.”

  “And you can sleep with Aroha and me,” Maia said. “We can be very quiet.”

  I hugged her a little closer. “I know you can.” Which wasn’t true. Staying in Hope and Hemi’s child-intensive household was pretty much like living in a hurricane. “But look how great it is here. There’s coffee right across the street, and the hot pools are a block away for when I heal up. I’m so comfortable, you wouldn’t believe it.”

  That was when I heard the door open, and saw Hemi go to DEFCON-2. One step down from nuclear war. Oh, boy.

  Jax

  I knew they were there, of course. Two walls of this place were glass from floor to ceiling, which gave me a fortunate few seconds of warning.

  I headed out to the terrace, handed Karen her mocha, and said, “I ate your chocolate fish. Happy birthday anyway.”

  “Oh, goody,” she said. “Exactly what I wanted. This is everybody. My small whanau. Hope, Hemi, Aroha, Tama, Maia. This is Jax. I can’t believe they all showed up for my birthday. How good is that?”

  “We didn’t,” Hemi said. “We came to look after you.” His voice was more of the same growl I’d heard the other night, and he was looking me up and down in a way that had my muscles tensing. I relaxed them with an effort, took off my sunglasses, and left on my baseball cap. Could be I didn’t feel like exposing all my scars, and could be I had a reason. I was also glad I wasn’t wearing shorts. He was, but Hemi Te Mana in shorts and a T-shirt was still heaps of intimidation factor. For a civilian.

  “Kia ora,” I said. “And welcome.” I put out my hand, and after a second, he took it. No attempt to crush mine, which told me he’d be subtler than that. I was a bit taller, but he was broader, built along Polynesian lines and with the heavy muscle and full-arm tattoo to go with it.

  His wife, Karen’s sister, Hope, had sat up in her chair at my entrance, and I took her hand next. She was very pretty indeed, with a head of tumbled blonde curls and some of the biggest, most innocent eyes I’d ever seen. She looked, in fact, as unlike Karen as a sister possibly could, like a Persian kitten next to a black panther.

  “Thank you for taking care of Karen,” she said. “Hemi and I both appreciate it so much. I still don’t understand how she’d get that sick that fast. She does her best to be indestructible these days.” Her voice was a little breathless, and she basically defined the word “sweet.”

  “Because she had a bacterial infection that got into her bloodstream,” the older girl said. “From a wound. I told you.”

  “Aroha.” Hemi’s tone was perfectly controlled, but it made his daughter snap her mouth shut and mutter, “Sorry, Mom.”

  I asked, “Can I offer you something? I don’t have coffee laid in yet, but I could run to a cup of tea. Water. Orange juice. Fruit. Karen’s been working her way through an entire repertoire of smoothies, so we’re well stocked with fruit. Got soup as well.”

  “No, thanks,” Hemi said. “We aren’t staying. We came to collect Karen.”

  “Except that you didn’t,” Karen said. “Would you guys sit down, please? You’re making my neck hurt.” She scooted over, and I sat beside her and put my arm around her for good measure. She leaned into me like she had a point to prove, which was interesting.

  Hope had been looking at each of us in turn. Now, she stood up and said, “If you don’t mind me helping myself, Jax, I’ll have a look at that fruit.”

  “Please,” I said. “Go ahead.”

  “Come on, kids,” Hope said. “Let’s check it out.” Leaving me with her husband. Interesting again.

  “I want to stay with Auntie Karen,” the littlest girl said.

  “You don’t get to choose about that,” Hope said. “Come on.” All three kids hopped up. Hope was tougher than she looked, maybe.

  Hemi watched them go, his expression brooding, then turned his gaze back on me. I met it. What was he going to
do, try to throw me over my balcony? Good luck.

  Finally, he spoke. “You realize,” he told Karen, “that Jax MacGregor isn’t any better a choice than Josh was. Worse. At least Josh made his own way.”

  “Excuse me?” She was sitting up straight, the color rising in her cheeks. “This is your business why?”

  “Because I love you. That’s why.”

  “I love you, too,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I go around telling you who to hang out with. How would that work out? Would you love it? I love it just exactly that much. You’re also insulting Jax in his own house. I’m pretty sure that violates some kind of fundamental Maori hospitality rule.”

  I wanted to tell her to calm down. This couldn’t be good for her. I didn’t, because it would have had the opposite effect.

  Te Mana said, “If I’m going to insult a man, I’ll do it to his face.” He directed his emotionless gaze at me. “Whose apartment is this?”

  “Belongs to the family,” I said.

  “Thought so. There’s a saying in the States. ‘Born on third base, and thinks he hit a triple.’ Could apply here.”

  “He has a house of his own,” Karen said. “Just not here. And—”

  I put a hand on her arm, and she looked at me, then shut up. That was encouraging. “Got any other objections?” I asked Te Mana. “Other than my occupation and my unfortunate family connections?”

  “Other than that you’ve had too many women and have never got serious with any of them, and you’ve got no skills other than looking pretty in your undies, and Karen’s judgment is a bit compromised just now? Those would be the main ones, yeh.”

  Karen said, “All right. I’m going to say just one thing. One.” She wasn’t, I could tell. “I don’t think you’re exactly in a spot to lecture anybody about their romantic behavior, Hemi. I was there, remember? Like when Hope cried in the bathtub after your first date? Oh, wait. I was there on your second date, too. That didn’t go a whole lot better. And, oh, let’s see. Maybe when she ran nine thousand miles to get away from you, when she was pregnant, because you were such a jerk, and you kept lying to her?”