“You know what?” Zora told Casey. “Let’s go pick you some mandarins. I have a tree. They’re better than cookies, I think. There’s a lovely hammock in the garden where you can lie and eat them while you listen to the birds. You could even take a nap, if you like.”
“I don’t take naps,” Casey said. “I’m not a baby.”
“Of course not,” Zora said. “You’re six. You can have a wee rest, though.”
“Or I could help you with your princess flowers,” Casey said.
“Next time,” Zora said, “I promise I’ll let you help with the princess flowers. Just now, though, I need to talk to your dad.”
Rhys did not have a good feeling.
Rhys leaned up against one end of the long table with his arms folded, his usual stance, and watched Zora work.
She wasn’t lighting into him the way he’d expected. In fact, she wasn’t saying anything. Gathering her forces, he suspected.
Outside, the air was warm, the breeze soft, and Casey, when he’d peeked out there to check, was lying in the hammock, one ankle over her knee and her dinosaur book in her lap, looking right at home and not one bit tentative.
If not for that moment in the airplane toilet, he wouldn’t have known what was under the toughness. He did know, though, and he needed to get her set, so she wouldn’t have to worry and she wouldn’t have to cry. Worrying was his job, not hers, and if she did have to cry, he needed to be there when she did.
Her mum must have been something. She must have been special. And yet they’d been two more people Dylan had thrown away.
All of that was why he was here, in the cool of the shed, which was scented the same way Zora’s van had been, a mix of spicy and sweet. Zora’s motions were absolutely assured as she cut the stems of more white and lavender multi-petaled flowers that looked a bit like roses, but weren’t, then arranged them the same way she’d done with the others, straight into the midst of the other flowers. She started on some deeper purple orchids, and the whole thing looked even better. He said, “You don’t do it symmetrically.”
“No.” She glanced at him, then away. “It looks better like this. Less formal. More of a cottage garden effect. Lush and romantic, that’s the idea, especially when I add the snowberries and a few blackberries. Texture and color and contrast, and making it all blend together as a whole.”
“I believe you. It looks good. I just didn’t realize how it . . . worked.” He’d never thought about flowers much. Flowers were what you sent when you were gone on tour, or what you brought home on Friday night. At which time you picked them up from the shop, already put together and wrapped in plastic. Flowers were easy points, but they didn’t normally have this kind of—well, sensuality. The way she’d arranged them, the ones she’d chosen—it was as different from a dozen red roses and some ferns as a gold chain around a woman’s neck was different from a rope of pearls hanging down her bare back.
The ones she’d already done were interesting, too. Frankly sexual, if you asked him. The lilies, or whatever they were, had a fuzzy yellow nub inside, and a single folded, heart-shaped white petal opening around it in a delicate frill. That was nice, and so were the eucalyptus leaves around them, their solid gray-green contrasting with the fragility of the pussy flowers.
Whoops. Do not say “pussy,” he reminded himself. It had been too long since he’d been married, probably. He was losing his civilization skills.
He could get behind giving something sexy like that, though, or like the other thing she was doing, with the orchids and all. For a Russian princess, she’d said, with gold and rubies in her hair. There was a word for it. “Sumptuous,” maybe. He could try saying that, if he didn’t think she’d laugh. Better than “pussy,” anyway.
Instead of saying either, he asked, “What is it about pearls?”
“What?” She looked startled again.
“Why do pearls look like something your grandmother would have on, if you wear them in the front, and nothing like that if you wear them in the back?”
“Pardon?” She was staring at him like he’d lost his mind. “Do you wear pearls often? Are you asking for fashion advice?”
“Sorry. Train of thought derailed. Never mind.” He shook his head, trying to clear it. He was getting fuzzy.
“To answer your question,” she said, “I don’t know anybody who does after-school child care.”
Her movements had got a bit stabby, surely, with the flowers. They were getting into it, then. “Oh.” That was all he could think of to say. He tried to summon up some energy, and some thought. He blanked. “Well, I’ll . . . Dunno what I’ll do, actually.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. When he’d found out about Casey, he’d thought, I’ll go get her. I’ll handle it. He hadn’t realized how much “handling” it was going to take. He hadn’t thought it through, either because he hadn’t wanted to, or because he hadn’t known what would be involved. Or both.
She turned away from the flowers with a sigh and set a palm on the table. “I’ll watch her. Of course I’ll watch her, until you find somebody.”
“You will?” He blinked. He wasn’t going to say, “That’s not necessary.” He was running out of choices.
“Of course I will. That little girl, losing her mum, having to move to a new country . . .” She went back to the flowers again, tweaking and arranging, perfecting what he’d have thought was finished. “How often have you visited her? How often has she visited you?”
“Uh . . . never. I found out about her mum dying early last week, and I went and got her. And here we are.”
Her hands stopped, then started up again. “You’ve never seen her?”
No good way to dress this one up. “No.”
“And yet she’s clearly yours. Did you know about her? I don’t know why I’m asking. Which answer is going to be better? Neither. They’re both bloody awful. In one, you’re absolutely thoughtless, and in the other, you’re absolutely uncaring.” She said the last bit like she was talking to herself.
Oh, bugger. He hadn’t even thought of what she’d think of him. He hadn’t thought about counting backward, or what any rugby player’s wife would imagine. What Dylan’s wife would imagine. He was working out how to answer when she said, sounding calmer, if no happier, “I don’t want to know, not really. I don’t need to, not to look after her. Now that I know you’d never even seen her.” She was lying to herself, because she was clearly getting worked up again. She apparently did need to know.
“I did know she was mine,” he said. “I, uh, paid. Child support. But her mum, uh . . . I . . . it was complicated.”
He should have thought of a better lie. Some story of how her mum had refused him access, but he’d sent Casey long, loving letters and bought her a pony for her fifth birthday. Except that Casey would have rubbished it, so there you were. He was stuck with the almost-truth.
“I can imagine,” Zora said. “Does Victoria know?”
He was casting about for a lie. Some lie. The problem was, he was a disaster as a liar. When they’d been kids, even as Dylan was smiling charmingly and spinning a much preferable story, Rhys had always been caught, flat-footed and stolid, with the unpalatable truth. What had happened to the feijoas off the neighbor’s tree? A possum had got up in the tree, Dylan would say, and a cat had gone after it. They’d had a royal battle, and half the fruits had been knocked down, but the possum had got away. Dylan had tried to pick the feijoas up and put them in a sack, but the other kids had come along and started eating them, and they hadn’t listened when he’d told them to stop.
That time, their Nan had sighed and looked at Rhys, and he’d said, “We picked them and ate them.”
They’d got a hiding, and Dylan had told Rhys tearfully, afterwards, “She was believing me. Why do you always have to tell?” He couldn’t have explained. He was built that way, that was all. He had no twisty spaces inside.
Except, now, he looked like he did have them. And he still couldn’t think of a lie. If that wasn�
�t the worst of both worlds, he didn’t know what was.
“No,” he said. “Victoria doesn’t know. Reckon she will now, because I’ll have to tell her.”
“Well, yes,” Zora said, back to tweaking her flowers, “I’d say so. You wouldn’t want her to base her life, all her memories, on a lie. You wouldn’t want her to . . .”
Her hands were trembling. He wanted to take hold of one of them, to pull her in and hold her close, the same way he’d done once before, almost the only time he’d ever touched her. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and tell her, Yeh, he was a bastard, but he loved you. Just not enough. You deserved better.
“You’re right,” he said instead. He didn’t say, “I’m sorry.” That had been Dylan’s other talent: apologizing like his heart was broken to have broken yours, and he’d never do it again. He’d always meant it, too, Rhys would swear. At the time. He was sure Zora had heard that enough, so instead, he said, “I’ll take her home, I guess, and get her things unpacked. Sort out dinner and so forth. I’ll bring her tomorrow. Seven-thirty OK?”
Zora sighed. “Rhys. I can tell she’s exhausted, but how much sleep have you had?”
He ran his hand over his jaw again. He’d shaved to meet the social worker, whose name he somehow couldn’t bring up anymore, but not since then. His eyes felt as scratchy as his face, and his muscles ached from lack of use and the discomforts of travel. “Oh, not so much. I’m good, but Casey’s a bit tired, you’re right.”
“You’re not good,” she said. “You’re both practically falling over, and are you telling me you’ve got nothing for her at home?”
“I barely have anything for me at home,” he admitted. He had sheets on his bed, and that was about it. He wasn’t sure that his milk wouldn’t have gone off by now. How long had he been gone? And Casey needed . . . He was blanking again. He couldn’t even think what she needed.
Zora said, “Help me carry these to the van. I’ll make my deliveries, and I’ll pick up a few things for her on the way back. Am I guessing that you don’t have anything for her hair?”
“There’s a brush. I told her to brush it.”
She stared at him, then laughed. “Rhys. You have to brush it. She’ll never get through all that hair. What clothes does she have to wear after school?”
“A few things. Mostly winter jumpers and jeans, a couple dresses. Warm ones, though. It was winter there.”
“What size is she?”
“Uh . . . not sure. Small?”
She didn’t roll her eyes, but he suspected she wanted to. “Take the flowers to the van and shove them into the pasteboard holders back there so they won’t spill. I’ll find out.”
“How?”
“I’ll look at the tags, of course.”
When he came back from loading the van, though, and went to find Zora, Casey was fast asleep, turned onto her side with her face buried in the fabric folds of the hammock and her fist still clutching Moana tight. Zora had picked up the dinosaur book and was holding it, looking down at the girl. Thinking what, Rhys had no idea. He said, keeping his voice down, “Can you guess, on the clothes?”
“Yeh. I can. Let her sleep. Except that I need these.” She eased off Casey’s trainers and peeked inside. Looking for the size, he guessed.
He hesitated, then said, “I don’t want her to wake up and be scared. That happened on the plane. I’ll put her on your couch instead. At least if she wakes up, I’ll be there.”
He lifted her into his arms. She made a protesting sound, nothing but a broken-off murmur, snuggled into him more tightly, her head on his shoulder, and went limp again. Zora followed behind him with the book and set it on the coffee table while he laid Casey gently down on the couch and pulled a cotton throw over her. Zora said, keeping her voice down, “If I’m not back before Isaiah comes home, tell him I’ll be here soon. We’ll talk about the rest later.”
She delivered her flowers with the radio turned up, and when that didn’t work, she sang along. No point in thinking too much, or, rather, a wonderful time to think about the six hundred dollars every week’s spa-flowers subscription brought her. The lovely thing about Anna Pemberly, the owner, was that she wanted everything high-end. “No carnations” and “use your own judgment”— those were six words that brought joy to a florist’s heart.
When she’d finished her deliveries and was wandering the girls’ aisles at Cotton On in New Lynn, though, the thoughts came back. And as always when it came to Rhys, they were confused.
He’d never seen his daughter, and yet he’d picked her up like she was precious. When he’d covered her with the blanket, Zora’s heart had melted a little. There was still the cheating and lying he’d done, though, not to mention the non-visiting, and how to reconcile that with everything she’d supposed him to be. It wasn’t her business, but how could she help thinking about it?
Never mind. She forced herself to focus instead on the unexpected pleasure of shopping for little-girl clothes, of balancing Casey’s dinosaur T-shirt against her fascination with the princess flowers, and doing her best to shop for both sides of her. Casey wasn’t hers, but she’d pretend, just for a few minutes. Both Casey and Rhys clearly needed the help, and for once, she didn’t even have to worry about the budget.
She was late getting back, as she’d expected, once she’d made another stop at Pak ‘n’ Save. She saw them all as soon as she pulled into the drive, and once she did, she got out to get a better look.
Casey, still with the flower pinned to her dinosaur shirt, was running full-tilt across the grass, her curly hair bouncing around her shoulders and a rugby ball under her arm. Rhys was just behind her, calling, “Chuck it over.” She did, in a wild pass that made Zora smile, and Rhys adjusted his stride, stuck a hand out and caught the ball like it had Velcro on it, and flicked it behind his back, one-handed, to Isaiah. “Good one,” he called, when her son caught it. Isaiah turned and ran in the other direction, since they were all about to crash into the bushes, but Casey tripped. Rhys scooped her up in one big arm before she could fall, turned around just that fast, set her down again, and said something. Probably, knowing Rhys, something like, “No forward passes.” Casey took off, and Rhys jogged over to Zora with a grin on his face, looking like a buccaneer taking a night off from ferocity, and said, “Hi. How’d you go? Here, let me get those.”
He reached for her grocery bags, and she handed them over. “I thought you’d need dinner,” she said, ignoring, as best she could, that other side of him, the one she’d never seen before, that was making her go a bit goopy inside. Not to mention the size of his arms in the white T-shirt, or the contrast it made with his golden-brown skin and the blue-black tattoo. He must have had it on under the long-sleeved dress shirt he’d been wearing earlier. She also didn’t look at his rear view when he leaped up the stairs into the house, taking them two at a time, or the breadth of his shoulders. Much.
“Some of this is for you,” she said when he’d set the groceries down on the benchtop. “Milk, bread, butter, eggs, bacon. The essentials. You said you didn’t have anything,” she reminded him when he looked surprised. “So I thought, as I had to pop by anyway to get a few things for tonight . . .”
“Good of you,” he said. “Anything else out in the van?”
She couldn’t help laughing. “Heaps. There was dinner, and then there was Casey. I could’ve gone a little wild.”
“I’ll go get it,” he said, “and then we can sort out what I owe you.”
When he came back, he was carrying at least eight bags at once. “Bring in the vases as well?” he asked. “I noticed you had a collection out there.”
“Yes, please. Put them in the shed.” What a luxury it was to have somebody to carry in your groceries and help empty out your van. Bonus points for looking so good doing it.
Five minutes, and Rhys was back. “I gave them a bit of a scrub,” he said, “and put them in the rack to dry. They looked like they needed it.”
“Oh.” Well, th
is was confusing. “I was thinking how nice it was to have that kind of help, but now, you’re just spoiling me.”
His eyes were so warm, and she was getting a little lost in the green and gold of them, and the contrast with his hair and skin. “Could be. Could be you deserve some spoiling, too. What can I do?”
“Take the skin off the chicken breasts, if you’re offering. Never my favorite thing.” That hadn’t been flirty. He was concerned, that was all. He’d said as much. His sense of responsibility was as oversized as the rest of him, even for somebody who didn’t belong to him. Like, say, her.
“I’m offering.” He moved around her and washed his hands at the sink, careful not to touch her in the confined space, she noticed. Which was good. The other night had been unfortunate, but this was a new start. Not that she needed one, now that she knew enough about him to get over her inconvenient near-obsession.
It would have been easier, though, if he hadn’t smelled so good when he got close. Like cedar and sandalwood and clean man. It was faint, but it was there. She hadn’t noticed it the other night, probably because the house had smelled like curry, but she was noticing it now.
She said, still unpacking groceries, “You took a shower when you got home.”
He looked up, then smiled. Slowly. Bloody hell, but he had a good smile, sexy and warm. “Yeh,” he said, “I did. But then, I’ve been bathing regularly ever since I turned thirty.”
She had to laugh. “Sorry. That came out wrong. It’s just that you, ah . . . that you smell good, so I . . .” She waved a bag of spinach about in a random matter. “I’m, ah, a florist, so . . .” This was not going well.
“Shower gel,” he said. “Somebody bought me some once, and it seemed to be appreciated, so I’ve kept on. You haven’t discovered my secret perfume habit, no worries. It works, though, you think?”
“Yes,” she said. “Nice. Manly.” She so needed to find another subject. Also, “it seemed to be appreciated?” That was a reminder, if she’d needed one, that he’d never suffered for lack of female attention. He’d said he’d taken his ring off fast, once he and Victoria had split. She’d just bet. “Casey woke up, eh.” Another dead obvious statement, but what could you do. She wasn’t in her best form.
Just Come Over Page 11
