“Did your mum or Nadia make the bread this time?” Daniel finished nailing the last plank up and forced a grin to his mouth as he turned to face the boy.
Theo gave him a cool glance. Another nail to the gut. “Nadia won’t let Mum near the camp oven again after she burnt two loaves in a row.”
Daniel tucked the hammer back into his borrowed tool belt and sat on some spare planks balanced on a couple of sawhorses. “Then it’s all good. Hand ’em over.”
Jimmy and Adam swooped on the cooler a moment later, grabbed a couple of sandwiches each, and made excuses as they disappeared down the path with pointed looks at Theo. Yeah, he got it. Theo had been two steps behind him every day since they’d returned to Ana’s house, and when he’d broken the news to the boy about leaving…well, let’s say that he’d felt like something left on the underside of his farm gumboots after walking around the sheep paddock.
Daniel reached down and picked out a sandwich. He shoved it at Theo, since the boy made no move to claim his own. “Sit, eat, and then talk.”
They chewed quietly and let the neighborhood sounds of hammering and good-natured catcalls from up the hill wash over them. The wind, an ever present entity in Wellington, ruffled Theo’s hair, flicking a lock into his eyes.
“It sucks, you leaving,” Theo said.
Pound another nail in, kid, why don’t you? “I have to.”
“Can’t you stay a bit longer? The only time Alyssa leaves me alone is when you jump the fence from Adam and Jimmy’s to play with her.”
Shit. And another while you’re at it. God, he was going to miss the two of them.
“Besides, you’ve still got the hots—” Theo stilled his tongue at Daniel’s raised eyebrow, then tried again. “Besides, you like my mum.”
Daniel let the words settle while he took another bite of his sandwich.
“Guess me coming up to the farm to have a go on the bikes is out now.” Theo pulled off a light brown section of crust and tossed it to a cheeky sparrow.
“Nope. We’re mates, aren’t we? I promised and I never go back on a promise. But you’re old enough to know that things don’t always work out between men and women. Like me and your mum.”
“Yeah. I guess. I’d just hoped…” Theo slumped forward, folding in on himself with a sad twist of his lips.
Daniel sighed. He reached over and gave him a gentle shove on the arm, the male equivalent of a hug. He felt the last nail drive home, this time through his shredded heart. “Yeah. Me, too, mate. Me, too.”
Chapter 37
Saturday, August 13. 9:12 a.m. Southgate, Wellington, New Zealand.
* * *
A week and a day had passed since Daniel and Nadia returned to their family farm. Saturday morning had dragged. Alyssa woke crying for Nadia and Danny, then dumped her bowl of cereal on the floor, demanding Nadia come back to bring her another. Thankfully, being the weekend meant Theo was enlisted to entertain Alyssa outside in the garden.
Ana slumped at her kitchen table, another cup of tea growing cold by her arm. Outside, Theo patiently threaded daisies into a chain for his sister. The same tenderness existed between Nadia and Daniel and it struck her again how much she missed him as she watched her kids interact. She took a deep breath as the mention of Daniel’s name gripped her heart with iron pincers.
The front door slammed and she heard the shuffling footsteps of her dad. He, too, had stayed with her for that first week, helping Daniel with repairs when he could and sending her pointed looks that she ignored. He’d returned home the day after the Calders left with assurances that he and Gladys would take care of each other.
“Hello, sweetheart.” He moved around the table to plant a kiss on top of her head. “Tea in the pot?”
Ana nodded. He fetched himself a mug and poured.
“This is a surprise visit. Don’t tell me Gladys has run out of teabags already?”
“Ah, no, love. Gladys’ll be by later.” He settled in the chair opposite her. “I wanted to tell you some news in person. You know how sporadic the phones still are, so I thought I’d pop in.”
Her first thought was of Daniel, and her stomach heaved into a tight black mass. “Tell me what?”
“Harrison Burbank took his own life last night.”
“Oh,” she said, stunned and then instantly guilty at the relief that swept over her.
The last she’d heard about the man’s condition was from a brief phone conversation with Sergeant Miller. The sergeant seemed to feel obligated to keep her updated and had informed her that Harrison had been airlifted to a spinal rehabilitation unit in Auckland. Paralyzed from the waist down, it was unlikely he’d ever walk again.
“Oh,” she repeated. “I don’t know what to say or how to feel about that.” She took a sip of her tea and pulled a face. Cold. “I keep seeing him as a little boy, hiding behind his mother’s skirts.”
He patted her hand. “You were always good at looking backward and not seeing what was right under your nose.”
She looked up to find her father staring at her with a stony eye.
“Harrison Burbank was not a scared four-year-old when he terrorized me and my grandson. I pity him but I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead. Second thing. Looked in the mirror lately, sweetheart? You look like crap.”
“Dad,” she sputtered.
“It’s God’s truth, my girl, and since there’s no one else here to do it—though I’ve heard your Joel and Lucy have had a go—someone has to give you a swift kick up the backside and ask why the devil are you still here instead of with Daniel?”
Her mug clunked down on the table. “I have a life here. Kids, you, friends, my job—and that’s not the point anyway,” she snapped.
“No, that’s not the real point, is it?” Her dad leaned forward, crossing his arms and resting them on the table. “A smart lady like you could easily figure out a solution to those problems, trifling things that they are. The real point is you love him but you don’t trust him not to do to you what I did to your mother.” He nodded and pursed his lips when her mouth dropped open. “Oh yes, I know why you pushed him away.”
“Did he say someth—”
“No, sweetheart. Nobody had to say anything, because I know your mother’s heart wasn’t the only one broken that day.”
Ana blinked repetitively. They’d never before spoken of that time.
“You thought I was perfect. Your golden daddy, a larger-than-life hero. But I was just a man who loved you and your mother, but a man who made a terrible mistake. Oh, if only I could go back in time and erase all the pain I caused you and Lily. But what’s done is done. Your mother came to forgive me—a lot quicker than it took me to forgive myself, mind. Now I’m asking you, as my grown-up daughter, to forgive me.”
“Dad, of course I forgive you.” She reached over and squeezed his hands.
“Then don’t deny yourself a once-in-a-lifetime chance of happiness with that fine young man because of my foolishness. He loves you and he loves your kids. He risked his life to save you and Theo. I’ve never met a better bloke than Daniel Calder.”
High praise indeed, coming from the man who once referred to Theo’s biological father as a “long-haired hippy” and Neil as “that uptight fancy-pants.”
“What if he doesn’t want me anymore?” she whispered, remembering the distant expression on his face as he climbed into the car, waiting for Nadia to say her last goodbyes.
“Then beat him down with your brilliant arguments till he sees sense,” he said at her frown. “What? Your mother and I spent all that money on your education and you can’t even outwit one lovesick man?”
He grinned at her over the rim of his mug. “Now, think I’ll go and tell the kids that Pops and Gladys will be staying with them for a few days while their mum goes on a wee visit, hmmm?”
Chapter 38
Saturday, August 13. 2:47 p.m. Calder family farm, Manawatu, New Zealand.
* * *
Convinced that Nadia had
given her the quad bike from hell to teach her a lesson, Ana gritted her teeth as the engine stuttered and died on top of a windswept hill in the Manawatu. To be fair, Daniel’s father had warned her the engine was a bit dicey, which was why it’d been parked up in the workshop instead of out with a tour group. She’d insisted on not waiting for Daniel to return from fixing fences—she needed to talk to him now.
“It’ll get you there, or else Dan’ll spot you on his way back,” Andrew Calder had said with a smile that displayed a set of dimples that were apparently hereditary.
Now there she was, stuck on a windswept hill with miles of rolling farmland surrounding her and not much else, bar some skittish-looking sheep that huddled together a safe distance away and bleated at her suspiciously.
Ana slid off the bike and kicked the front tire. It had no effect other than hurting her toe, but she felt marginally better. She tugged the safety helmet off her head, the fresh air a welcome relief after its claustrophobic confines. She sat back on the bike seat, staring out at the patchwork shades of green in the valley below. So much for her grand vision of riding confidently to meet Daniel on his own turf.
Once again she was on the back foot and out of her element. In more ways than one.
She’d say what she’d come to say regardless of the outcome. If Daniel said ‘Sorry, babe, it’s too late,’ well, that’d make for an awkward ride down to the farm on the back of his bike, because no way was she walking back through the mud.
“Ana?”
His voice came from behind her and she squeaked, sliding clumsily off the bike and slapping a hand to her chest. “Do you have to move so quietly?” she wheezed. “What are you? Part cat?”
Daniel stood, arms folded across his bare chest, a grubby T-shirt tucked in the pocket of his jeans—they looked like the same ones he’d had on when she first met him. Low slung to begin with, they now hung even lower on his tall frame. He’d lost weight. The planes of his face seemed sharper, his eyes duller. His mouth folded in a tight line and he looked anything but happy to see her.
“I heard the bike stop and thought I’d better check it out. Why are you here?” He made no move to come closer.
Her speech, so carefully prepared on the two and a half hour drive from the city, blew out of her mind like thistledown. Hell, she was a lawyer and words were her bread and butter. Pity the words in her vocabulary had been reduced to those her two-year-old would be familiar with.
“I came to say I miss you. That I…love you.”
He cocked an eyebrow and shrugged his beautifully toned shoulders. “That it?”
“No.”
“No?”
She hesitated, fiddling with the helmet strap. “You cut your hair,” she blurted.
He smoothed a hand over the short spikes covering his head. “Nadia should’ve sent you a text. Could’ve saved you a trip out here.”
“I didn’t come out here to discuss your hairstyle. Didn’t you hear me tell you I loved you?”
“I heard.” He used his T-shirt to wipe his forehead. “But I already knew that, and it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.”
He jammed the shirt in his hip pocket and turned to walk away.
“Don’t you walk away from me, Daniel Calder.” She stomped around the bike and strode across the muddy grass. The sheep, who’d boldly wandered closer, scattered again. “I came out here to give you something.”
She tugged on his arm, her throat suddenly dry at the feel of his hair-roughened skin beneath her fingers. Her body ached to touch him, to press herself against his warm skin, to kiss the softness back to his mouth. Taking a deliberate step back but not releasing his arm, she met his gaze.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since you left and I kept returning to what you said about how there was nothing you could do to earn my trust. You were right. There is nothing you can do to earn my trust, because there’s nothing more you need to do to earn my trust. You’ve more than proven yourself trustworthy.”
Ana felt him pull away from her fractionally, the muscles in his forearm tightening under her hand.
She continued quickly before she lost her nerve. “I realized trust can’t just be earned, it has to be given. I also realized I’m too stubborn not to give this relationship everything I’ve got and to make sure you do, too. That’s why I’ve come, Daniel. To tell you I’ve been a bloody idiot and to give you all of me—all my love and my trust.”
His gaze darkened but never shifted from her face.
“If you’ll have me, that is.” Ana’s voice choked when her heart wedged in her throat.
Behind her drifted the tick of the bike’s engine cooling and the soft munch of sheep cropping grass. Still Daniel remained silent. Her heart slithered from her throat and sank to her borrowed gumboots.
She was too late.
Then she spotted them. Two crescent shaped creases indenting his cheeks. The dimples deepened and a crooked smile appeared.
“Are you laughing at me again?” Ana drew herself up to her full height, which put her nose in the same region as the middle of his chest.
“Not at all. I’m happy you’ve finally come to your senses and I’m wondering if I really have to get down on bended knee to tell you again that I love you, that I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“You know what?” She looked down at the sheep poop squelching beneath their feet, rose on tiptoe, and kissed him soundly. “Since they’re your best jeans and all, why don’t we skip the mud bath and just take it on faith?”
Epilogue
Saturday, November 25. 3:21 p.m. Climb For Your Life Indoor Rock Climbing, Manawatu, New Zealand.
* * *
Daniel wanted three things for his birthday, and lucky man that he was, he’d already got two of them.
He’d spent the last hour at the indoor climbing center, scaling the walls and watching Theo and Joel and Lucy’s two kids beat Daniel’s brothers in a race to the roof. His protégé was pretty damn slick on the wall. But considering he and Theo climbed together every Wednesday evening now, maybe the boy had an unfair advantage over his couch potato brothers.
A chorus of “Happy Birthday” sprung up from behind the picnic table where they sat, and everyone soon joined in. Daniel grinned as Ana set down a tray in front of him with a giant chocolate cake and way too many lit candles. Eh, it was worth getting another year older if his chocolate cake came with a side of the beautiful woman carrying it. Every morning that he woke with Ana curled around him he counted himself the luckiest man on earth. Even if she did perpetually have icy cold feet that she loved to press against his calves.
He blew out the candles and made a wish for the last item on his wish list. Just in case.
“What did you ask for?” Theo said from the chair next to him. “Mum to stop leaving her makeup and stuff all over the bathroom?”
He grinned at the boy, who was holding Alyssa on his knee. The devilish little cutie, who’d run squealing into his and Ana’s bedroom that morning before even Daniel’s internal alarm had been triggered, was eyeing up the chocolate cake with rapt devotion.
“Cake,” said Alyssa. “Cake for me ’n’ cake for Oscar, too.”
Oscar was Alyssa’s current favorite of the farm dogs. She’d happily empty the container of dog treats for Oscar to eat at the back door of Daniel’s house. Their house now, Daniel corrected himself. Their house for the past six weeks. Having Ana get a position at a law firm in Palmerston North and her and the kids move in with him was his first wish granted.
The other two?
“Before we dive into the cake Nadia made,” he said, “how about Ana gives me the only thing I wanted for my birthday?”
Whoops and whistles and catcalls came from Nadia, his brothers, his parents, and John and his lady friend, Gladys. Maggie, Joel, and his wife, Lucy, had also driven up from Wellington that morning to join in the celebrations.
Ana froze, the kitchen knife she was about to use on the chocolate cake hover
ing over the thick, creamy frosting.
She shot him a wide-eyed glance, her lovely mouth sagging open. “I thought you were teasing about that.”
“Nope. I never tease.”
“Yeah, right.” Theo laughed and Alyssa joined in, mimicking her brother even though she likely had no idea what the joke was—that their home was full of laughter and teasing and playful affection. Everything a home should be.
“Come on, Mum.” Theo stood and passed Alyssa to John. Then he tugged his mother’s hand in the direction of the climbing wall. “Daniel won’t let you fall, you know that, right?”
Ana’s gaze met his across the table, changing in an instant from shocked to burning bright with the single emotion that permeated every aspect of their relationship. Trust. Wish number two granted.
Her lips curved in the corner, her smile telling him that even though she knew she was in the safest hands, payback would be a bitch later in their bed. Bring it on, baby. He grinned at her and rose to his feet, holding his arms out for Alyssa who was wriggling on John’s lap, trying to get to the chocolate cake.
“Theo and I will spot you, and Alyssa can cheer you on.”
Alyssa grizzled—the joys of toddlerhood, which he’d leaped into boots and all and didn’t regret for a moment—and stuck out her lower lip. With this contingency planned for, Daniel bent and whispered in the little girl’s ear. She immediately quit complaining and let him pick her up.
He carried Alyssa over to the wall, watching to ensure the staff member attached Ana’s harness correctly.
“I’ll take her, son,” John said, coming to stand beside him. “Think you’ll have your hands full with that one.” He tipped his head toward Ana who was dividing her attention between the advanced beginners’ wall and Daniel, the latter receiving mock glares that could’ve relit the cake candles behind them.
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