Du Rose Family Ties

by Bowes, K T

  “I won’t be going far, will I?” He slumped into a stuffed armchair with a sigh and clattered his crutches to the floorboards. “I’m stuck here now.”

  Hana narrowed her brows and shrugged. “Why did you come, then? I thought you were adamant about staying at the hotel.”

  “That old woman made me.” Caleb pouted and Hana heard the alarm bells in her brain.

  “Why?” She narrowed her eyes. “I know something happened after we left but Leslie won’t tell me what.”

  Caleb swallowed. “She had a massive argument with the old bloke. I missed you and the kids. After you left nobody came to see me and it got lonely.”

  “Ah, sweet.” Hana mellowed, suspicion laid to rest in the face of the teenager’s admission. “So you hitched a ride with Leslie?”

  “Yeah.” He looked pleased with himself. “You said there’d be room.” He cocked his head to one side and levelled blue eyes in her direction. “Who was the Indian dude? Is he your son?”

  Hana nodded. “Yep, that’s Bodie, my eldest son. His sister’s called Isobel and she’s awesome. I need to make the trip down to see her again soon, but Invercargill’s ages away with three little children on a plane.”

  “Invercargill? That’s like, the other end of the planet.”

  “No, just the other end of the country,” Hana mused. “I’ll talk to Logan; maybe he’ll come with me to help with the little ones.”

  “He hates me.” Caleb picked at a fleck on his jeans, wincing at how the action moved his plaster cast. “He doesn’t want me here.”

  “Logan hasn’t said that.” Hana stood up and brushed dust from her trousers. She heard Leslie moving overhead and wondered how she could get the wily old lady to spill her secrets.

  “He doesn’t need to. Asher said he makes it real clear when he wants rid of you.”

  “Asher!” Hana fixed a steely gaze on Caleb’s face. “How do you know Asher?”

  He licked his lips, focusing his attention on the rolled up leg of his jeans and neatening the uppermost edge against his cast. “I met him at the hotel.”

  “Asher’s not allowed near the hotel.” Hana put her hands on her hips and stared Caleb down. “He’s allowed to live with Nev but not set foot on the rest of the property. I’m guessing you didn’t go for a stroll to the other side of the mountain, so how did you meet him?”

  Caleb groaned. “It’s no big deal, Hana! His dad sent him around with some gear for the old bloke who lives upstairs. Please don’t tell Logan?”

  “For Alfred?” She felt her heart rate hike and instinctively touched the outline of the pacemaker. “He knows Asher’s not allowed there. Logan needs to know.”

  “No!” Caleb jumped up and balanced on one leg, reaching out for Hana. “Please, don’t do that! I wasn’t meant to tell you. If your husband charges in there and chucks him out of his home, he’ll blame me.” He hopped towards Hana, his cast trailing behind him. The effort pained him and as he passed the sofa he sank down into its folds with relief.

  Hana swallowed and her fingers fluttered in front of her. Keen to busy them, she seized a decorative mug from the mantelpiece. “It’s not like you’ll ever see him again,” she said, her tone tight and wooden. “Once your cast is off, you’ll move on. You won’t go back to Mātakitaki.”

  Caleb’s eyes widened in surprise. “Yeah, I will! I need to go back to where my dad lived last. That’s there, at the hotel.”

  “Your dad lived at the hotel?” Hana’s lips parted in shock. “You’ve never mentioned it.”

  “He did though. I followed him there. People know him. I have to find him.”

  “Who’s your dad?” The words emerged as a husky whisper but as she watched Caleb writhe in discomfort, the similarities were startling and she wondered why she’d never seen it before. The teenager’s reply drove her hands to her face in horror and Hana sank to her knees in front of the fire.

  Chapter 28

  The Worst of Shocks

  “What did you say?” The colour drained from her porcelain skin as Hana struggled with Caleb’s words. The mug slipped from her shaking hand and bounced on the floorboards, sprinkling shards around her from tiny chips in the surface. Hana stared at the mess and ran a trembling hand over her face, the horror in her green eyes mirroring the devastation on the floor.

  “Hana?” Caleb grappled with the sofa arm to haul himself upright, reaching sideways for the crutch nearest the armchair and bending double to retrieve it. He grunted. “Why are you being like this?” He resembled a pantomime pirate as he bounced towards her on one leg with the crutch sticking out sideways.

  “No! Don’t touch me!” Hana raised a hand towards him, warding him off and backing away as he reached her.

  “What did he do?” Caleb’s face filled with panic. “Did my dad hurt you? What happened?”

  “Not him! You!” Hana shouted, her eyes wide with manic fear. “You ruined my life!”

  Caleb’s crutch scraped across the floorboards as he dragged his body towards her. Confusion reigned in his blue eyes. “No. No, I didn’t. I’d never hurt you.”

  Hana continued to back away from the young man on her knees, causing him to swivel on his crutch and risk tipping over sideways. “Which one were you?” she spat. “Did you attack me or were you the one who broke my windscreen?”

  Caleb’s face paled. “Neither. I did none of those things. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Your family made my life hell!” Hana gasped, backing up so her spine rested against the sofa. “Nothing was ever the same again. They came after me for a year and I didn’t know what they wanted. Now you turn up here pretending to be lost. How could you do that? You’ve taken our hospitality and kindness, when all the time you were lying!” She waved her hand at the damaging photograph in Caleb’s hand, her lips curling back in an ugly sneer.

  “I’m just me!” Caleb’s face held all the emotion of a kicked puppy. “None of this makes sense. I wouldn’t hurt you; I’m happy with you.”

  “Oh, I bet you are!” Hana snapped. Hot tears dusted her cheeks and bounced off her clothes. “You must have a real laugh at me, foolish, gullible woman!” She sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her hand and her voice hitched. “Why am I always so stupid?”

  “You’re not, please listen? You’re kind and beautiful and I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Don’t judge me, please, not when you’ve been so open-hearted until now.”

  Hana put her hands over her eyes and swallowed. She wanted the young man to leave and narrowly stopped herself yelling at him to get out. A voice in her head told her not to be cruel. Caleb hovered in front of her, resting his weight on the good leg, his face a mask of pain and confusion. “Can I explain?” he begged. The faded picture of a much younger Flick holding hands with a slender blonde woman seemed to mock Hana’s foolishness. It dangled from Caleb’s fingers like his greatest treasure.

  “I don’t know if I want to hear it.” Hana squeezed the bridge of her nose. “I thought you didn’t know who the Du Roses were and believed you were genuinely lost. Was it all lies?”

  “No!” Caleb risked hobbling forward, his expression fearful. “None of it was lies. Please, hear me out and then I’ll leave if you want me to.”

  Hana nodded, the still small voice in her ear telling her to give the kid a break. Caleb shuffled backwards and hefted himself into his armchair. He sighed. “I told you the truth; my dad died and Mum’s new bloke killed him. We sat through court for weeks during the trial after we’d given evidence and the jury found him guilty. We walked out of court and stood on the steps and my mum turned to me and said, ‘Can we try to get things back to normal?’ She said it like it was no big deal to watch her partner convicted for her husband’s murder and I stared at her for ages wondering if she was serious.”

  Caleb gulped and ran a hand over his face. “I asked her who my real dad was and she shook her head. ‘Just a man I loved once,’ she said. ‘But he left before I could
tell him about you. He’s gone, Caleb. Come home and let’s make this work, just the two of us.’ I looked at her and realised I never knew her. She didn’t care when her boyfriend knocked the shit out of me and she didn’t care that my dad was dead because of him. I asked her for his name and she said, ‘Robert, Robert Dressler, but you’ll never find him.’ I said goodbye and walked away. She didn’t come after me and I’ve spent months looking for my dad, Hana.”

  Hana squeezed the bridge of her nose between her finger and thumb. “You said you lived with a girl in Auckland. Was that the truth?”

  “Yeah.” Caleb nodded. “I met the girl I told you about and lived with her folks, working at a dairy in town for an Indian family. Dressler’s not a common name, so it was easy to track down an uncle in Henderson, who put me on to a step family in the north, although they had a different name.” Caleb smiled with pride. “New Zealand’s not that big and I’m quite good at following leads and keeping notes. The dairy owner let me make local calls from the landline during my breaks.”

  His face clouded. “I made so many phone calls, word got back to my half-brother; I’m guessing he’s the one you met. The day after he got out of prison, he tracked me down in the dairy and turned up with some nasty mates. He told me to stay away from his family and robbed the till while his buddy held a knife to my throat. They terrified the owner’s wife and told her if she didn’t get rid of me, they’d come back. The Indians were good people, Hana. They were nice to me so I gave a statement to the cops and then quit. I got home early to find my girlfriend in bed with another guy and couldn’t stay.”

  Caleb glanced at a misshapen index finger on his right hand. “I think I broke his nose; hope so anyway.” He shrugged. “I hitch hiked south to Rangiriri where I asked around about my dad and described him to a few locals. They clammed up and went quiet. I figured they knew him but didn’t want to tell me, so I hung around to see if he turned up.”

  He wiped his hand frantically over his face, masking the sadness in his eyes. “I didn’t know who the Du Roses were until I met a guy fencing a paddock at the bottom of the mountain. He said Logan Du Rose would kill me and hide the body if he found me on his land. I pretended to leave, back tracked and booked myself into the camp site for a few weeks. I bought a knackered tent from a couple going home to Holland and that lasted a while, but then it ripped in that big storm two months ago and I’ve lived rough in the bush ever since.”

  “What did you hope to achieve doing that?” Hana asked, curiosity budding in her chest. “How could you find your father from a shack in the middle of nowhere?”

  “I didn’t stay there all the time.” Caleb looked pleased with himself, puffing up his chest and seeking Hana’s approval. “I stored my gear there and moved around. It seemed easy to pretend to be a back packer and watch Logan’s men. I learned their names and listened to what they talked about. One afternoon I hid from some stockmen and heard them talking about Flick as they rode by on horses. It’s the name my half-brother used in the dairy so I got excited. I knew my father lived there.”

  Hana sighed. “He’s not on the mountain, Caleb.”

  “Yeah, he is,” the teenager argued. “That’s his nickname. I heard them say it but they moved away too fast.” He glanced down at the cast on his leg. “I broke my leg the next day as I packed up. I figured if I went down to the hotel I might find work in the kitchens or something. The pig ran past and I thought I’d kill it and save the meat in case I needed to go back to the hut.”

  “Was David one of the stockmen you heard talking?” Hana asked, the afternoon’s events falling into place like a jigsaw puzzle.

  Caleb’s eyes widened. “Yeah, the one with curly blonde hair. He knows where my dad is.”

  Hana slumped with her head in her hands, the huge sigh escaping her lips. “He doesn’t. I promise you, David’s the last person to know where Bobby is.”

  “Bobby? His family up north called him that.” Hope burgeoned in the teen’s eyes and Hana bit her lip.

  “I’m the only one who used that name,” Hana said, her jaw working. “We became allies at a time when life with the Du Roses wasn’t easy. I miss him.” She pursed her lips.

  Caleb’s eyes looked red with the effort of not crying, the last of his fragile ego holding on by a thread. “He’s dead, isn’t he? I came all this way and he’s dead. I’ve got nobody.” His chin sank to his chest as the teenager jumped to wrong conclusions. “Did Logan kill him? I bet he could.”

  “No!” Hana regretted the irritation in her voice. “My husband killed no one.” Not as far as I know. “And Bobby’s not dead. He left and he can’t come back.”

  “He’s still alive?” Caleb gulped. “Where is he? Can I see him? At least tell me what happened to him, preferably before you throw me out?”

  Hana edged towards the sofa and sank into its folds. She wrung her hands together. “Bobby’s not dead, but I can’t tell you where he is because I don’t know. Logan took him to the mountain for his own safety and he worked for us for a couple of years. He became a great stockman and Logan trusted him. He oversaw our house build and became a friend to both of us. The day Mac came, Logan’s grandfather tried to kill us but your father stopped him. The last time I saw Bobby, he handed me a gun and went outside to find him. When they found Jack’s body I thought your father killed him and panicked. I persuaded Logan to give him a new identity and get him away from the mountain. Bobby left the same day.”

  Hana studied the young man’s face through the silence. Caleb’s eyes opened wide, pitching between disbelief and something she couldn’t read. He inhaled and swallowed. “But he’s not dead?”

  “No, he’s not dead!” Hana’s stress emerged as irritation. “He’s fine. He wrote to me and returned something of mine. I had heard nothing about him until recently, but that’s not surprising.”

  “What did you hear?” Caleb leaned forward.

  “Just that he’d got a new girlfriend.” Hana chewed the inside of her lip. “But I heard it third hand so I can’t promise it’s true.”

  “Did my dad kill the man who hurt you and your baby?” The strain put an involuntary croak into Caleb’s voice. “Is my real dad a murderer?”

  Hana shook her head, careful with her words. Bobby offered to kill Logan enough times and she couldn’t be certain he hadn’t killed before he reformed into a trustworthy employee. “A horse kicked Jack to death,” she said. “Bobby didn’t kill him. But he’d been in trouble with the police before. That’s why he stayed on the mountain so long; to avoid arrest. He witnessed Jack threatening to kill me but couldn’t give a statement and risk being jailed, so Logan moved him.”

  “To another town?” Caleb’s intense gaze burned holes in Hana’s soul as she shook her head.

  “To another country. Sorry.”

  The teenager let out a huge sigh. “I found something of his at the hut.” His voice sounded pitiful. “It’s a knife with a wooden handle. The blade shoots out when you flick the catch. A flick knife. My half-brother said it’s how he got his nickname.”

  “I recognised it when I cut your trousers.” Hana swallowed. “How could you know it belonged to him?”

  Caleb shrugged. “Just a feeling. It’s what I’d choose too, simple but deadly.”

  “I thought your brother threatened you and robbed the shop.” Hana’s eyes narrowed. “You make it sound like you sat down and talked.”

  Caleb’s blue eyes flashed with confusion and he shook his head. “He did rob the dairy. Don’t you believe me?”

  Hana swallowed and dismissed her misgivings. “Yes, I believe you. Bobby perhaps left the knife by accident. He stayed at the hut when he guarded the house.” The memory still tasted fresh in her mind. “Jack Du Rose watched me for months from the bush. If Bobby didn’t come when he did, I’d be dead.” She gulped. “I owe him my life and my son’s.”

  Caleb’s smile looked watery. “I never had my dad pegged as some kinda hero.”

  “Well, he was that
day.” Hana sounded defensive. She avoided thinking of the blonde stockman’s shameless adoration. In those last months of her pregnancy, Bobby proved Hana’s staunchest protector. She thought of his vibrant blue eyes and the way he looked at her and allowed the sensation to flood back into her heart. “I miss him,” she breathed.

  “Did you love him?” Caleb’s voice wavered. “Did you...”

  “No!” Hana shouted the word. “It wasn’t like that!” It wasn’t for me, but it was for him. She stood and stalked to the window and her eyes raked the dark soccer pitches beyond the glass. “Why does your generation make everything dirty?”

  “Sorry.” Caleb hung his head. “Tell me how I can contact him?”

  Hana shook her head and avoided his flashing blue eyes, her arms folded tightly across her chest. “I can’t, sorry. Only Logan knows; he won’t tell me and I can’t ask.”

  She heard a sniff behind her and turned, catching the teenager wiping his eyes on the corner of his sleeve. The fabric did little to stem the gentle flow of salty tears traversing his pale cheeks and his body jerked with the effort of not drawing attention to himself. Hana closed her eyes and shook her head, willing herself not to be moved but she wasn’t hard wired to ignore suffering.

  Caleb’s head sank onto Hana’s shoulder as she dropped to her knees next to him. His body heaved with misery and he cried with quiet dignity as she folded him into her. She struggled not to cry with him, feeling the raw edges of his grief at having come so far and achieved nothing. Hana stroked his soft hair and patted his back, feeling her shirt grow more sodden with every passing minute.

  Her words returned to bite her. She told Robert Dressler’s son the truth; missing Bobby’s true friendship with a tangible ache as his absence condemned her to the testosterone laden Du Roses. Hana gulped and patted Caleb’s back, whispering soothing words devoid of any practical cure. “It’s okay, baby,” she whispered. “I know it hurts.”