The power cut happened while they were doing the washing-up. Zora had already sent Isaiah to bed with another ice pack, and Rhys had told himself it was only brotherly to do the washing-up with her before he left.
One moment, he was tipping the contents of a slow cooker into a plastic container, and she was loading the dishwasher. The next, a clap of thunder seemed to hit the house at the same moment the sky lit up bright, the two things together like a flash-bang grenade going off, and Zora let out a startled squeak. Rhys set down the pot in the dark, feeling for the edge of the plastic container so he wouldn’t tip butter chicken all over the kitchen, and turned, his hands outstretched, to find those candles.
He’d forgotten how small the space was. One step, and he bumped into something soft. When he pulled his hand back, it landed on something that could never, ever have been anything but a woman’s breast, and he realized he was behind her, and pressed too close. He couldn’t see a thing, but he could identify the parts just fine. A frozen second, and he jumped away, crashed into the benchtop, caught his elbow on something, and felt it sink down into wetness.
A flare of light, then another one. She’d found the candles. She brought one over, her face lit from below like a Byzantine saint on a postcard, then started to laugh.
“You’re helpful, mate,” she said. “Oh, what a mess. Oh, bugger. There’s tomorrow’s lunch gone.”
He already had a bad feeling. He looked down. Yes. He had tipped over the plastic container of butter chicken, rice, and peas, and half of it was on the benchtop and oozing down the cabinet. The other half was on his arm and down his side.
He started to smile, and she laughed harder, until he had no choice but to join in, then start sopping up the mess with a roll of paper towel and chucking it into the bin. “Now,” he said, “I owe you two dinners.”
“I reckon you do. Especially if I tell Isaiah, and he puts it on his list. You may have noticed that he keeps track of things. Give me two or three of those.” She wet them at the sink, then grabbed his wrist and started sponging down his arm.
He froze. He couldn’t help it. He wished the light were better when she stepped back, slapped the towels into his hand, and said, sounding a little breathless, “You can finish that up better than I can.”
Wonderful. She’d noticed. He said, “Adventures in curry. I should be going before I do any more damage.”
“Probably. Especially as you have a new house of your own. You’ll need to take some candles, and a box of matches. There are more in the closet.”
“Nah. I’ll go back to the hotel instead. I’ll have a restart tomorrow, when the worst of the storm’s passed. I need to do some work tonight to get ready for training in the morning, especially if we’re doing it in the wet.”
“Because you’re coaching,” she said. “Here.”
“Yeh.” He waited a minute, and when she didn’t say anything, said, “You could come by on Sunday, if you like. You and Isaiah. To see the place. Give me . . . ideas of what to do with it, and give me a chance to get to know my nephew better.”
“Where is it?” She was working on the front of the cabinet now, crouched down with a sponge and a tea towel and wiping curry sauce off everything.
“Here. Titirangi.”
She looked up fast. “Here?”
“It’s . . . ah . . .” He rubbed his nose, then realized he was still holding the paper toweling. Now he probably had curry on his face, too. No, he definitely did, because his eyes were starting to water, and his nose to run. He needed to leave before the lights came back on. “Where the best house was. The place I like best in Auckland, too. In the trees.”
“You feel that as well? But you grew up on the sea. Your family are fishermen. And then you were in Australia, in Brisbane, Dylan said, playing League. Surely Titirangi is nothing like Brissy. I’ve only been once, but I don’t remember that.”
He hoped Dylan hadn’t said much about Brisbane. Like, for example, any or all of the things Rhys had told his brother when he’d had Dylan over to visit, hoping to impress him like the stupid kid he’d been. That wasn’t a good thought at all. “No. It was city life there. Dunno. Maybe I was reincarnated. Some Maori ancestor, up in the bush, living amongst the kauri.”
“Sounds romantic,” she said. “Probably wasn’t. All that fighting over land and women. Not too flash for the women, either.”
Something in the way she said it had him heating again. She did call to that ancestor, whoever he was. A story straight out of those days, two brothers who wanted the same woman. Back then, they’d have fought for her, she was right about that. Competed to offer her the most, to prove that he could provide for her best, or just fought. That would have worked for him. He’d have fought hard. Now, she absolutely got to choose, which was nothing but right. He reminded himself of that, and that she’d already chosen.
“Yeh,” he said. “I’ll text you the address. And if you and Isaiah come by on Sunday, I’ll show you the place and take you to breakfast. Get one of those meals I owe you out of the way. He can take a quick look at my portfolio, too, and calculate my return on investment. I’ve been thinking I need to rebalance.”
She laughed. “You joke, but in a few years, I think he’d do it. He’s not odd, you know. He’s just . . .”
“Very bright,” he said. “And concerned about his mum, maybe, because he knows he’s got a good one.”
Another intake of breath. She’d forgotten about scrubbing, was standing there with the sponge in one hand and the tea towel in another. Looking soft, and touchable, and . . . vulnerable. His voice had softened, he realized belatedly. “Maybe,” she said. “Though, like I said—“
“You try not to make him worry,” he finished. “Yeh. I know.”
He didn’t kiss her cheek when he said goodbye. He didn’t trust himself to.
He was all the way back at the hotel in the CBD when he realized that he’d never asked her why they’d needed to sell the house. How much insurance had Dylan left her? He and Dylan had talked about it, hadn’t they? Why wasn’t she covered, then? Why wasn’t she secure?
And why hadn’t he known?
That was Monday. By Tuesday, Rhys had talked sense into himself again. Of course, he’d have to start all over again on Sunday, because Zora and Isaiah were coming by the house then, the day after the final match of the preseason.
That was a thought for Sunday. This wasn’t Sunday. If you couldn’t compartmentalize, as a rugby player or a coach, you couldn’t do the job. Just now, he was talking tackling.
“Anticipation.” It was raining again, the tail end of the cyclone, so he raised his voice to compensate. “You can’t tackle him straight on if you don’t know where he’s going. You’ll be bouncing off, and he’ll be going straight through you. You don’t want to be that guy. But if you watch the film enough times, you know what the fella’s got up his sleeve, and you can counter it. Let’s have it again.”
The blast of his whistle, and the ball went from the halfback to the first-five, Will Tawera. A cutout pass over the next man in line, all the way to Kevin McNicholl, who had to reach up for it. He pulled it in, stepped, then stepped again, so lightning-quick that if you’d blinked, you’d have missed it, shifting his line.
He didn’t fool Marko Sendoa. The flanker was on him like an avenging angel, but pulled his tackle at the last second. No point bruising your mate’s ribs two days before the match.
Rhys blew the whistle. “That’s a hospital pass, Will,” he told his first-five. “You’ve left Kevvie hanging out to dry. Watch your leading hand. The moment you lose focus, start thinking about the rain and how you hope this is the last round, the leading hand is off anywhere but where it’s meant to go. And Marko—how did you see where Kevvie was heading?”
Marko considered a moment, then said, “He knew I was coming at him. I knew he was going to step. Couldn’t step to the right, because Koti was there, so I knew he’d step to the left. I was watching for it.”
“Yeh,” Rhys sa
id. “Right, then. Same again. Choose a different target, Will.” He was about to blow the whistle when he saw one of the younger fellas say something to his neighbor. Tom Koru-Mansworth had been the player on the left when Kevvie had stepped. The player Kevvie had known he could beat. He dropped the hand with the whistle and called out, “Kors. Got something to share?”
The kid looked discomfited, as well he might. “No. Just having a laugh.”
Rhys let a bit of the fire show. “And you had a laugh during the time before as well. Just because the drill hasn’t started, that doesn’t mean you’re switched off. If your body’s here, your head had better be here with it. You’re switched on, and then you’re switched higher. Those are the only two choices. Why is Marko doing this drill? He knows how to tackle. Why is Hugh doing it? The skipper knows how to tackle, too. They’re here because knowing how isn’t enough. They want to do it better. Better’s always out there, just out of reach. It’s your job to grab it. Start again. This time, focus like there’s a point to it. Winners do extra. You’d bloody well better want to be a winner, or why be here at all?”
The corner of Kors’s mouth twitched. A laugh, or a grimace. It had better have been a grimace. Rhys breathed the fire back and said, “If you’re satisfied with where you are, you may as well hang up your boots and stop wasting everybody’s time. Switched on, switched higher, or go home. Same again.”
They kept on. Beside Rhys, Finn Douglas, his assistant coach and a legend himself, said, “The talent’s there. Nothing really wrong with his work rate, either, not lately.”
“You can’t coach hunger,” Rhys said shortly.
It had surprised him, when he’d first realized it. Shocked him, in fact. Even before high school, the way some kids did exactly what they were told to do, some shirked even that, as if it would happen by magic, and others did more. He’d assumed that everybody would do more. If you loved something, didn’t you want to get better? Didn’t you want to be the best? What was the point in trying at all, then?
He’d tried to explain that to Dylan, more times than he could count. It had never worked. Now, he gave a player the message once, loud and clear. If they didn’t get it the first time? He cut them loose. He could coach passing. He could coach kicking and tackling and scrummaging, too. He couldn’t coach drive, and he couldn’t coach heart.
Another forty-five minutes, and the squad headed into the sheds, the younger boys moving faster, like horses heading toward the barn, some of the veterans taking a few more minutes. Will having a final few kicks at goal, because his boot had been off today in the wind and the wet. Three others running lines, practicing a tricky play they’d been working out.
Kors had been headed in, pulling his beanie off along the way. Now, he hesitated, then tugged the hat back on and jogged over to the little group, positioned himself along the line, and ran the next one with them.
“Better,” Finn said. “Even if all he’s doing is showing you.”
“Push him harder in the gym tomorrow,” Rhys said. “If he’s not going to level up, we may as well find out in preseason.”
“Righto,” Finn said, and they headed in, scooping up rugby balls along the way. In the coach’s room, Rhys stripped off his jacket and track pants, both sodden with the soaking rain, and sat behind the desk to make a few notes before he headed out.
He had six voicemails, he saw, none of them from anybody he was particularly keen to talk to. Five of them could wait, but when your lawyer said, “Ring me back today,” you probably had to answer that one.
It had better not be about Victoria. It was bound to be about Victoria. Two months to go until their divorce was finalized. He rang the lawyer back.
“Afternoon,” Colin said. “You settled in, then? Everything go OK, getting into the house?”
Stalling. This didn’t sound like Colin at all. It was Victoria, then, and it was bad. The property settlement, or the alimony, which was meant to be done and dusted after this year.
“All good,” Rhys said. “What’s up?”
Across the room, Finn looked up, his blue eyes sharpening in his rough-hewn face.
Colin said, “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
“Yeh. Go on.” Rhys didn’t sigh. The problem, whatever it was, would be there whether he ran from it or walked toward it. Walking toward it got it over sooner.
Colin said, “A woman in Chicago, a Ms. India Hawk, has died and left a child. Your child, apparently, as you signed an Acknowledgment of Paternity. I could say that I wish you’d told me, because this could certainly affect your property settlement with Victoria, but that’s a matter for another day. Right now, I need to know what you want to do about the child. Who would appear to be your daughter.”
Rhys said, “What?” Never the brightest answer. After that, he gathered his resources and said, “I haven’t acknowledged anything, because there’s nothing to acknowledge. Explain why you think there is.” Across the room, Finn looked up again, then picked up some papers, stuffed them into a backpack, and headed out the door, closing it behind him, but Rhys barely noticed.
“Your signature’s on the document,” Colin said. “Recognizably yours. I have a copy in front of me here, which I’ll send over to you in a minute. Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity, State of Illinois, dated eleven days after the birth. It’s your name, and your address at the time. Your phone number and date of birth as well. Signed in front of a witness. Te Rangi Walton, whose address is given as Motueka. In addition, as passed on to me by the Department of Children and Family Services via a friend of India’s, you also paid child support for a number of years. That appears to have been an informal arrangement, because there’s no paperwork or any order on file. Next time, tell me first. The legalities are there to safeguard you as well as the child.”
Rhys was drowning in words. Time to start swimming. He said, “I won’t be telling you, because there’ll be nothing to tell, exactly the way there isn’t now. It’s not true. But before you ask—Te Rangi is my cousin. And that, and all the rest, means exactly nothing, because whoever signed that, it wasn’t me, and I imagine it wasn’t Te Rangi, either. The rest of it, the address and phone number, isn’t impossible information to come by, and as for my signature, it’s out there on a million rugby balls and T-shirts and game programs. Nice way out for whoever it was, though, putting my name to it.” The warmth in the office was suffocating. That was because his blood was boiling. “Wait,” he realized. “When am I meant to have done this?” He’d been gone from home half the time while he was playing in New Zealand, and almost all the time after that, first in Japan, playing and coaching, and then in France. You couldn’t get a girl pregnant if you weren’t there, and he’d been to Chicago exactly twice in his life. That was a relief.
“We’re going back almost seven years,” Colin said. “Chicago, early November. The first All Blacks test in the States.”
“I remember.” Not so much of a relief, then.
“India Hawk, as I said. Unusual name.” As always, Colin got more deliberate, to the point of sounding sleepy, the more the tension ratcheted up. He’d been an All Black himself, in the amateur age, and understood the particular issues of sportsmen. That was why Rhys liked him. Normally. He wasn’t a fan of this particular line of conversation.
“I don’t know anybody by that name,” he told Colin. “And seven years ago, I was engaged to Victoria.”
“I’m your lawyer,” Colin said, “not your judge. I can only help you if you tell me the truth.”
Rhys was trying not to lose his temper. Unfortunately, his temper was trying to lose him. “You think I’m afraid to tell you? I’m not afraid to tell you. If I had a kid, I’d be looking after it. I’m not, because I don’t have one, no matter who puts my name to their problems. It never happened. It isn’t true. Fight it. Starting bloody now.” That last part came out in a bit of a roar. Usually, that was for effect. This time, it was the dragon.
That should have been the end of it. It w
asn’t. “I’m sending across a couple photos,” Colin said, “and that acknowledgment. I’ll wait until you have a look.”
Ten long seconds, and the email was in his inbox, and Rhys was clicking on it. And then on the first attachment.
An easy “no.” If he’d ever seen this woman before, he didn’t remember her. He’d met a lot of girls, and he’d slept with some of them. He hadn’t slept with this one, though. He hadn’t slept with anybody seven years ago, other than his fiancée.
Why, then, was his heart thumping out of his chest?
The girl, who surely looked younger than she actually was—he hoped so, anyway, because she looked eighteen—was blonde, pretty, and smiling, holding a toddler on her lap. The kid, whose hair was dark, was dressed up in white tights, a frilly blue dress with petticoats, and shiny black shoes, but stared stolidly at the camera as if she wasn’t on board with the frilliness or, in fact, any part of the occasion.
It was a photo to make you laugh. Why wasn’t he laughing?
“I don’t know this girl,” he said. “No.”
“Did you open the second one?”
Oh. There was another photo. Rhys clicked on it.
He stopped breathing.
It had been taken at school, probably, the kind of thing where the photographer snapped a different kid every minute until he’d herded the whole class through. A girl in a long-sleeved red T-shirt, with some sort of plaid dress over it. Standard issue. Her skin was the color of light honey, and her dark hair was swept straight back off her forehead and pulled up into a high ponytail that revealed her widow’s peak, that vee of hairline dipping down in the center of her forehead. She had her elbow propped up and her chin in her hand, which was probably the pose they’d all done, but she wasn’t smiling. Instead, she looked at the camera as if she were staring it down. The same way the toddler had.
The same way Rhys did.
Her eyes were a clear hazel-green, like a stream in the Scottish Highlands. Relic of Rhys’s great-grandfather on his dad’s dad’s side, his Nan had told him. Angus Fletcher. The fletchers, the arrow-makers, running down a hill in the Highlands and onto the enemy, their kilts swirling around them, a broadsword in one hand and a bow and quiver strapped to their backs.
Just Come Over Page 4
