“I’d guess. Intricate, I guess you’d call that.”
“Yeh.” She sighed. “Champagne always makes me sleepy. They were stored at Victoria’s. They’re what I used to do, but I wanted them around. And I saw what you tried to do. Thank you.” There. She’d said it. He didn’t have to know what it had done to her when he’d held up those photos of her flowers and talked about them that way.
“Well, yeh,” he said. “Because you’re very good. But you know that.”
“Decorative.” She tried to hold back her heart. It wasn’t easy.
“Bugger decorative. You’re good. You should believe me. And no, I don’t care if Kane hears me say it. I hope he does. If he can’t see how good those are, he’s blind. I want to buy that blue one to hang in the foyer, by the way. The blue flowers in the pitcher, with the gold scarf behind them. That’s something special, and I want it. But what you’re working on now is under the cloth, eh. Something bigger.”
She went still. “You didn’t look.”
He shot her a glance, then concentrated on the road again. “No. Not my business. I’d like to see when you’re finished, though.”
“Uh… thanks. And thanks for what you did. I mean it. Thanks. You got me the bridal couple, at least.”
“A mixed blessing.”
She hummed her agreement. She’d had too much champagne, and Marko had been too sweet, and… everything. She was melting like a piece of chocolate in the sun. “Confession for you. I don’t like dachshunds.”
“Good,” he said. “Means you’ll never be after me to adopt one.”
She yawned, and since she didn’t have to watch the road, closed her eyes. “Ella told me you hate doing public things. She said that when you do signings with the All Blacks, you look like you’re going to jump people if they don’t shut up, and they move off. She couldn’t believe you today.”
“Yeh, well,” he said, “maybe I was in a good mood. Could be from taking off somebody’s clothes and all.”
“Mm. Is that what you call that?” If she laid her head against the door, just for a minute…
“Pizza tonight, I reckon,” she heard him say as she drifted off. “And another steak, maybe. In my Japanese dining room, since I’ve got it. If anybody but me is still awake to eat it.”
Monday afternoon, and once again, Marko was heading across Auckland towards home with that same lift in his heart. Even though today, a series of squalls was moving across the island. At this moment, in fact, the sun was shining even as his windscreen wipers battled the latest cloudburst. It could be rainy on Saturday night for the match, he wasn’t playing under a roof anymore, and none of it mattered.
He was playing. That was enough. And right now, he was flying like an arrow headed for the target, on his way to a house that felt like home. A house with a painting in the foyer, delicate strokes of blue against rich gold, that he’d hung last night, because it was his now. A house with Nyree in it.
The night before, everybody had stayed for pizza, steak, and salad, as he’d imagined they would. He had six chairs now, though, so that was all right. The room was serene, exactly like Nyree had told Ella it would be, with the discreet lighting outside shining on the ferns and palms, making it look like the magical world she’d described. He’d watched Nyree eat pizza and heard her heady, midnight-and-silk laugh, and had laughed himself when Ella had jumped up and imitated Harold falling into the arbor and losing hold of Pookie. He’d seen the looks Kane and Victoria had exchanged, had heard Kane offer Vic a lift home, and had caught Nyree’s eye as she smiled about that. And maybe about him not having to drive Victoria home himself, because it meant they’d be alone sooner.
The bruise on his thigh had ached, the stitches on his ear had throbbed under their strip of tape, and he hadn’t cared. Kors had stayed to do the washing up with Ella while Marko and Nyree had hung Marko’s new painting, and then Kors had left, too. Marko had seen him take Ella’s hand, bend to kiss her cheek, and murmur something, and had decided he didn’t have to do anything about that. Not right now.
And then Ella had gone to bed, saying, “That was a great day. That was one of the best days ever.”
After that? He and Nyree had gone upstairs, and he’d locked his door.
The first urgency had passed and been replaced by anticipation, now that he knew how good it could be and had moved on to wondering how much better he could make it. You always pushed for improvement.
They started in the spa tub, and it was even better than his fantasy. Candles lit around the edge because she’d brought them up, and clouds drifting across the moon. Shadow and light, warm water and cool breeze, all of it telling him that the slow road was the best one, and that he had all the time in the world.
Holding her in his lap and kissing her, slow and hot and sweet, keeping his eyes open so he could watch hers close. Touching her everywhere, learning how she liked it, and then how she loved it best of all, and having her touch him. Feeling her kiss his chest, run her hands over his shoulders and down his arms, then wind her arms around his neck, kiss his mouth, and tell him he was beautiful. Which a man shouldn’t need to hear, but he somehow did.
Blowing out the candles, then, and picking her up and carrying her into the shower, another fantasy that was even better now that he had his hands on her soft body. Washing each other off, soaping each other up, going slower with every stroke, and kissing some more. Seeing Nyree drop to her knees. That was a good moment. Hearing her say, “Lean back so I can reach you,” and getting that hard rush. Wrapping his hands in her hair, wild and black as the southern sea, and watching her as long as he could. Until he was the one who had to close his eyes.
He kept waiting for her to stop, and then realized she wasn’t going to. After that, he forgot to think about it, because all he could do was surrender to the pleasure she was giving him. Until his head was the one that was banging, until he couldn’t keep himself from calling out, and he knew he was pulling her hair, but he couldn’t help it. She didn’t mind that, either, because her smile, afterwards, as she looked up at him, was wicked. Like she saw straight into his mind, and she liked what she saw.
After that? He stayed there and got his breath back for a minute or ten, and she smiled some more, washed him again, and then washed herself while he watched. And when he’d seen enough, he took her to bed, drew back his white sheets, and turned on a light.
She said, “Maybe that’s too much… uh…” And sighed, which may have been because he was over her already, and she liked it that way. “Too much illumination on the subject.”
“Not possible,” he told her, trailing kisses over to her ear, then settling in to play. “I need to watch, and I need to see your face when I make you come. But I may have to wait for that until the second time.”
They got to it. There was that first time, though, that he needed to take care of before they could move on. Taking her up fast and hot, drinking her in, getting all the benefit of the kissing in the spa tub and the rush it had been to her to please him. His rush, now, as he pulled the fierce climax from her, holding both her wrists in one hand and feeling how much better that made it for her. She loved it, he’d already learned, when he held her tight, so all she had to do was focus on what he was making her feel. You could say that worked for him, too.
The second time, then, when he was over her. All the way up on his palms, and her legs not wrapped around his waist at all, because her ankles were over his shoulders.
Going so slowly. Going so deep. Driving to the heart of her, and feeling her hold him there like she never wanted it to end, like he’d be inside her forever. And then being rewarded for his patience. Feeling the shift in her, watching her face begin to twist, hearing her start to sing out.
At last, the tortured look on her face, the sound of her stifled moans, as if the pleasure were too much to bear, and he was pushing her to a spot that was almost too far. The way she grabbed him as she went over, pulling the response from him, making him helpless
to delay it any longer.
Taking him up with her like a witch. Like a magician. Like a woman.
Days after were always awkward, Nyree knew. Except this one. Because when Marko walked through the door, dropped his bag, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her breathless… how could any woman on the receiving end of that do anything but melt?
Marko could hold you. And bloody hell, but the man could kiss.
He pulled back, smiled down at her, and asked, “Good day? Good work?”
“Oh, yeh. Call me inspired.” She nuzzled her face against the hollow at the base of his throat and wondered how she’d ever thought he was too big for her. “You’re a good size, by the way.”
She felt his laugh, a vibration from the depths of his chest, before she heard it. “So they say.”
“Uh, excuse me?” Ella’s voice, coming from the passage to the kitchen. And Marko stepping back from her, maybe because Cat was climbing him like he’d been created to be her activity center. Nyree knew how she felt. Ella went on, “I’m only having my sonogram today, to find out what gender of humans I’m producing? Not that it’s important or anything.”
Marko put his arm around her and gave her a cuddle. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it.”
“Yeh, right,” Ella said. “You know, for somebody who gave Tom the side-eye for kissing my cheek last night… When you met Nyree, she was fourteen and you were nineteen. I counted back.”
“Yeh,” Marko said. “And I wasn’t kissing her, because she was too young for me.”
“That’s not the only reason,” Nyree said, and Marko grinned and asked Ella, “Ready to go find out about these babies, then?”
“Well, yeh,” she said. “Obviously.”
They had to wait through the obstetrician’s appointment first. A visit that, when they got to the office, Ella said she would do by herself.
“Are you sure?” Marko asked. “I can see why you wouldn’t want me, but it’d be better to have Nyree, surely.”
Ella said, “Nyree isn’t here, though.” She shook her head. “Well, she is, but… she’s not in my head, is she? I have to be able to do this alone, because I am. Anyway, the questions can be pretty embarrassing. Not sure anybody else needs to hear about my toilet habits. Or the mucus plug. Blech.”
Marko looked at Nyree, and she said, “Fine. But if you want me, this time or anytime, I’m here.”
Ella nodded, but when the nurse called her name, she went into the back alone.
Marko shifted in his chair, and Nyree took his hand and said, “She’s all right. We’re both here for her, and she knows it. She is the one who has to do this. To go through all of it, and live with it afterwards. Call it practice.”
“Right,” he said. “I’ll believe you, since I don’t have a clue here. But I’m going into that scan with her. Got to make sure they don’t give her that same tech, for one thing.”
Nyree laughed, and he smiled. Reluctantly, but he did. “Even if we got the same one,” she said, “you’ll have shut her up.”
“Yeh?”
“You know you did. You were impressive.”
“Always good to hear. So about this return to the homeland next week. What do you think? Once the whistle blows on Saturday night, I’m all yours. But there’s that job, eh. Not to mention Pookie and Precious.”
She gave him a sidelong look. “If you were my mum, you’d be telling me it’s not a real job. In this case, she’d be envisioning you coming through the door of the restaurant, and me ripping off my apron and tossing it to the floor. And possibly you picking me up and carrying me out of there, taking me away from all this. My mum’s seen An Officer and a Gentleman too many times. Also Love Actually. No carrying, but similar theme.”
“That what you want me to do, then?”
She laughed. “Nah. I think I’ll keep my job, thanks. But I may have checked about shifts. What would you say about Sunday to Wednesday?”
“I’d say I’ll take it.”
They didn’t have the same technician. Whether that was because of the conversation Marko had beforehand at the front desk or not, he didn’t know. At one point, he overheard Ella asking Nyree, “Could he embarrass me more?” and Nyree answering, “Probably not. On the other hand, you know he loves you. I’d say Marko’s a ‘Show, don’t tell’ type of fella.” Which was probably true.
At any rate, when they got back to the little room and the ugly gown and the paper-covered table, the tech turned out to be a comfortable lady with a jolly smile who started out by saying, “Not your first scan, I see, love, so you already know how cold the gel is. That’s usually the big shock. Let me take some measurements, get through the business end, and then we’ll see if we can find some naughty bits to look at. Nearly eighteen weeks? We should do, but you never know.”
Ella didn’t look nearly as scared this time. In fact, Marko would say she looked excited. He sat beside her, held her hand, watched the screen, and said, “I think that’s a leg. I see toes. Kicking, eh. Can you feel it?”
“No,” Ella said. “At least, I have wicked heartburn, but I doubt that’s it.”
“It’s normal not to be able to feel the babies kicking yet,” the tech said. “Especially for your first. Wait a month. They’re both good and active, that’s the main thing. Your…” She looked at Marko. “Dad?”
“Cousin,” he said. Geez. Maybe he should shave more.
She looked like she was wondering whether to be shocked or not, and he sighed and said, “Big brother, you could say.”
“Well, I thought it must be something like that,” she said cheerfully. “But we never know. You see some things here that might surprise you. Anyway, you’re right. They’re both kicking. Ticking along nicely, it looks to me, so you’ll feel them soon, love. It’s a bit hard to describe it. Like a tickle inside, or butterflies. Lovely, really. But let’s have a wee wander round down here and see what I can show you. We’ll see who’s cooperating.” She moved the paddle around, then smiled and said, “It helps if you breathe.”
Ella expelled a whoosh of air. “Sorry. I’m nervous.”
“No worries,” the tech said. “But we don’t want you passing out and falling off the table, making this big fella catch you. Too much drama for me.” Ella laughed, breathed, and the woman moved the paddle some more as the seconds ticked by.
“Ah,” she said, when Marko was wondering how much longer this could possibly take. “Have a look.”
Ella peered at the screen. “What am I seeing?”
“Penis,” the woman said. “Scrotum. See, here where the cursor is? You’ve got a wee boy, and unless they’ve changed the rules for identical twins on me, I’m guessing you have another one, too. I hope nobody’s bought anything pink.”
The only noise in the car for the five-minute drive home was the slap of the windscreen wipers and the spatter of rain on the roof, until Marko said, “Venison burgers and kumara chips tonight, I reckon. Maybe roast some greens with them as well.” Which Nyree realized was the perfect thing to say. Letting Ella know that life went on, and family was forever.
“Sounds good,” Ella said, and when they got home, she seemed to hesitate, then followed Marko into the kitchen and sat at the counter.
Maybe it was his confidence, maybe it was his calm, or maybe it was just his size, but Marko had a way of making you feel that things would work out. The kitten wasn’t the only one who wanted to be where he was.
Nyree poured Ella a glass of orange juice, handed her the container of carrots and punnet of hummus she’d started keeping on hand, then turned the oven on and started peeling kumara and stripping stems off a packet of baby kale. That had been a good thought of Marko’s, too. Vitamins, and satisfying Ella’s teenage cravings. Comfort food for the cold and rain, and maybe even for the fear and doubt.
Ella said, between crunches of carrot, “I didn’t think it would be boys, somehow. But maybe boys are better for the adoption thing. Do you think, Marko? Men want boys, right? If they want
kids.”
Marko glanced up at her, then back down at the ground venison, onion, parsley, and egg he was mixing in a bowl. “Some men, maybe. But a man who’d rather have boys probably isn’t one you want to choose. Or one who’s just going along with his partner, either. You want a man who knows what it means to be a dad and wants to do it. Girl or boy, one personality or another, problems or not, whatever it is. Not a man who has some checklist of what he’ll take.”
Wow, Nyree thought and didn’t say.
“They’ll probably be big, though,” Ella said. “Big genes, I mean. Me and Julian, because Samoan. They could be rugby players. That would help. You know it would.”
“Professional, you mean,” Marko said. “Hard to say. It’s about more than size. Heaps of smaller fellas playing good footy, and heaps of big boys without the discipline, or the desire.”
“Your driving force,” Nyree said. “That’s what Marko calls it. The thing that pushes you, and the direction it pushes in.”
Marko had begun to shape his mixture into patties. Another squall was battering the windows, so he pulled out a frying pan instead of going for the barbecue. Nyree started to cut the kumara into chips, working the knife through the dense flesh, and Marko looked over and asked, “Need any help?”
“Nah,” she said. “All good.” This kitchen would never win any “cozy” prizes, but right now, it felt warm. Safe. There was that word again.
“It’s weird to think that…” Ella said, and trailed off.
Nyree took a guess. “Could be a bit weird, maybe, to have those thoughts about the babies—or dreams, even, about what they may be. About who they are already.”
“Yes!” Ella sat up straighter. “Like—seeing the fingers and toes and all, watching them kick and thinking about them being together in there, and especially knowing they’re boys… it makes it real. Not that it wasn’t real before, because obviously, and look at my belly, but it does anyway. Maybe it’d be better if I go on and find them parents, so I can sort of imagine them in their new family. Do you think?”
Just Say [Hell] No Page 25
