Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3)

by Rosalind James

  You could say I was surprised. You could say that. “Hemi Te Mana,” I teased, the tears there behind my eyes, “king of the sandbox. Are you going to sit on the edge and help him or her build castles?”

  “Could be. And that’s the other bit of my surprise.”

  We were interrupted at that inopportune moment with our lunches. Well, not so inopportune, because I was starved, and I’d ordered a salmon salad that I wanted to start eating right now.

  Hemi must have seen the haste with which I seized my fork, because he commanded, “You eat and I’ll talk. The surprise is this. I’ve worked out a timetable for when you’re back, and for when the baby arrives. For all of that.”

  I finished my absolutely delicious bite of fresh, buttery fish and crunchy, tangy greens, then said, trying not to be disappointed, “Babies don’t run on timetables, though. They’re hard to schedule. That’s how I remember Karen, and what I’ve read, too.”

  He didn’t look the least bit abashed. Instead he looked smug. “Ah. But you see, this isn’t a timetable for the baby. It’s a timetable for me. I’m coming home in time to eat dinner with all of you every evening from here on out.”

  “You are?” I may have been sitting there, stupefied. It’s possible. “What about work?”

  “Got a home office, haven’t I. I can work there after dinner, after I’ve heard about everybody’s day, told you about mine, and helped put my baby to bed, maybe. Dunno why I haven’t been doing that all along, except that change doesn’t come easily to me. It’s come now, though. What do you reckon?”

  “I reckon that’s a pretty great idea. I reckon I’m pretty happy to hear that.” An hour or so a day wasn’t exactly Mr. Mom territory, but it was more than I’d expected, for sure.

  “But here’s the big one,” he said. “Ready?”

  “Oh, yeah.” My heart had started to beat faster. It was the way he looked, maybe. Brimming with expectancy and pleasure, exactly the opposite of the shut-down man in that courtroom.

  “Sundays,” he said. “They’re for you, and for my family. They’re for us. No calls, no meetings, no email. Nothing. From the day you come back home, Sundays are for you, and so are Women’s Wednesdays, except that they’ll be Family Wednesdays now.”

  “Or maybe,” I said, “Whanau Wednesdays.”

  He smiled, and it was so sweet, I could barely stand it. “Even better. Though I’m keeping our date night as well.”

  “You’d better,” I said. “That one’s sacred.”

  The amusement left his face, and he put out a hand and grasped mine. “Something Eugene told me a long time ago. I may have forgotten it for a while, but I won’t be forgetting it again. He told me that love isn’t something you say. It’s something you do. I’m going to be doing it, and so are you.”

  “That’s some surprise,” I said, the happiness threatening to overpower me. “That’s . . . that’s a change.”

  “You told me people could change. You said you could learn to put your hand on me and tell me that you needed my time and attention, and I could learn to give them to you. I reckon it’s better if you don’t have to put your hand on me. It’s better if we know we have that time and attention coming. For both of us.”

  All I could do was nod. If I tried to talk, I was very much afraid I was going to cry. And then I thought of something.

  “What if Anika gets what she wants?” I asked. “What if you do have to start again from halfway down, rebuilding? Are you sure you won’t be thinking that you need your Sundays? That you’ll need every bit of time you have to do that?”

  “That’s why they’re called priorities. Because they’re what matters most.”

  I knew my smile was too wide, and that it was completely foolish. “I thought you’d given me some good presents before, but, Hemi . . . this is the best. It’s the best.”

  “Not much I wouldn’t do for you,” he said, and his eyes were so warm, the hand around mine so firm. “Time to prove it. You’ve given me your surprise, and now I’ve given you mine. And I’m going to marry you as soon as we can manage it. I’d call this a good day. I’d call it almost the best, except that what’s coming is going to be even better.”

  I smiled again, but this time, it was slow and secret and special. He had no idea what kind of day this was going to be. “Oh,” I told him, “this isn’t the surprise. Finish your lunch. There’s someplace we need to be.”

  Hemi

  When Hope pulled into the carpark of a medical building, I thought I knew what her surprise was.

  “I’m going to your check with you,” I said. “I didn’t realize it was today.”

  “I made sure it was.” She looked excited, and a little shy, too. “I thought we might need something positive to even the scales. I thought it might help.”

  “It does.” The rain had stopped at last while we’d been at lunch, and even as we crossed the carpark, the sun came out. Hope’s hand was in mine, and we were looking at a mass of billowing clouds that glowed around the edges where the sun was making its presence felt, and at a wide beam of sunlight that shone down out of them, blessing the earth after the storm. As poignant—and as trite—as any religious painting you could hope to see.

  I’d never have designed anything that obvious, but it didn’t matter. It worked. “Rain for sorrow and rebirth,” I said. “Sun for joy.”

  Hope touched the pendant at her throat. It was the manaia carved from South Island greenstone that I’d given her, the protective spirit of an ancestor looking after her soul. She’d worn it today for strength and connection. I knew that without her telling me.

  She didn’t say anything, and I thought she might not trust herself to speak. So I did it for her. “Yeh,” I said. ”That feeling you have—it’s your mum, guarding your spirit through all of this. Maybe guarding our baby, too. That’s her grandchild, eh. That matters.”

  She stopped where she was, on the pavement outside the building. Her face worked, and she tried to say something, but all that came out was a choked sound.

  I did what I hadn’t done yet today, what I hadn’t done for weeks. I gathered her in my arms, held her tight and close, and said the words. “I love you, and I always will. We’re going to be all good, you’ll see. Everything your mum could have wished for you, that’s what you’re going to have. You and Karen both. Everything I can give you.”

  She gasped once before burying her face in my jacket. Her shoulders shook, and I held her, rubbed a hand over her back, and thought, That’s my promise to you, Rose Sinclair. I’m holding onto your daughters and your grandchild, and I’ll keep holding on forever. I’m keeping them whole. I’m mending the cracks.

  “No fair,” Hope said at last, her voice shaky. She stepped back, wiped her fingers under her cheeks, then searched in her purse, pulled out a tissue, and began putting herself to rights. She laughed, unsteady and sweet as a baby’s first steps. “The midwife’s going to think we’ve been having a fight.”

  The midwife didn’t seem to think so, as it turned out. When she came into an exam room to find Hope sitting on the table, swinging her feet with obvious nerves, and me in a chair in the corner, all she did was shake hands with me and say, “Always good to see the dad here, especially on this visit. Gillian Wright.”

  “Hemi Te Mana,” I said. “Pleasure.”

  The assessing look she gave me told me she knew who I was, but she just washed and dried her hands, then turned to Hope and said, “Well, my darling, let’s see how you measure up. You’ve gained over a kilo and a half, I see. Working your way back up to the positive side of the ledger.”

  “I’m eating like crazy,” Hope assured her. “I’m going to have to be careful not to overdo it if I keep this up.”

  “Mm. Still got a ways to go, I’d say. Keep an eye on the scale and the guidelines, and you’ll be good.” She pulled up Hope’s deep-blue sweater, tugged her leggings a bit lower on her belly, took a tape measure out of her pocket, and did some checking. “Very nice.”
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br />   Hope let out a breath. “Good?”

  “Looks good to me. But then, that’s what we’re going to find out today, aren’t we?” She took hold of the bell of a stethoscope, ran it over Hope’s belly, and frowned.

  Five seconds. Ten. Hope was holding her breath, her eyes widening with fear. I could tell that was what it was, but I wasn’t sure why. The midwife was listening for a heartbeat, obviously. That was what stethoscopes were for. But how would Hope know whether she heard it?

  At that moment, I heard it myself, amplified so loudly that it made me jump. Not a heartbeat, not the way I was used to thinking of it. More of a gallop. The heartbeat of something very small.

  A hummingbird. Or a baby.

  Hope was hauling in breath as if she couldn’t get enough and turning her head to look at me, the smile on her face as wide as the sky.

  “Baby,” she said.

  I took her hand, said, “Yeh. Baby,” and thought I might float away.

  I had time to compose myself as Gillian chatted with Hope. Diet and exercise and sleep and vitamins, and I tried to focus, and to listen. I needed to know this, too.

  Finally, Gillian said, “And this is the visit when I tell you not to lie on your back from here on out. You don’t want the weight of your uterus cutting off blood flow to your heart, or to baby. And since dad’s here, I’ll anticipate him and say, yes, that includes during sex. Propped up’s OK, if he’s strong enough to keep his weight off your tummy. Flat on your back isn’t.”

  “Oh,” Hope said faintly. “Is there anything, um, else about that? Anything we should know?” She was turning pink, and I couldn’t help but be amused. And interested. And, yeh, I was strong enough.

  “Not really,” Gillian said cheerfully. “As long as you want to do it and it feels good, feel free.” She glanced at me. “Which means as long as she wants to do it, and any way that’s comfortable and feels good to her, except on her back. Check in, and experiment. Sitting up’s good, facing each other. Spoon fashion’s another. Or from behind, hands and knees. That’s easy on the woman, and no belly to get in the way. You get the picture. License to be inventive, eh. And, yes, oral sex is all good as well, long as you don’t blow into her vagina. We have to say that, though I’ve never heard of anyone doing it. Why on earth would he?”

  Hope had a hand over her eyes by now, and I had to laugh. “I think I’ve got it,” I said. “Cheers. I knew there was a reason I’d come.”

  “Oh?” Gillian asked. “Don’t want to see your baby?”

  My heart knocked against my chest so hard, you might have seen it jump. “Pardon?”

  “Ah.” Gillian looked at Hope again. “Are we surprising dad?”

  “Yes.” Hope had lost the embarrassment, but she was breathless again. “That’s the idea.”

  “Awesome. Off you go, then.”

  We could walk to this one, because it was next door. I was quiet, but Hope was quieter. And by the time she was lying on another table, in a paper gown this time and covered by yet more crackling blue paper, she’d gone absolutely silent and still.

  I knew what that meant when I did it. It meant I was feeling too much, so I was gathering all my energy into myself, pulling it inward so I couldn’t betray it. The more I felt, the quieter I got. But Hope didn’t have to protect herself. Not here. Not with me. That was my job.

  “What is it?” I asked. I took her hand, and it was beyond cold. It was frozen. “Baby, what?”

  “What if . . .” She was forcing the words out through tightened lips, a constricted throat. “What if something’s wrong? Everything’s been so good. What if my life can’t go this way after all? What if it’s too much to . . .” She swallowed. “To expect?”

  I had hold of both her hands now, and the helplessness, the tenderness—they were making my chest ache. “No,” I told her. “Nothing’s too much to expect. Nothing’s too much to want. Love, babies, work to do that makes you happy. You’ve given so much to Karen, to your mum. To Koro. You’ve rubbed his ugly old feet.” As I’d hoped, that made her smile, even though I knew the tears weren’t far away. “And to me. What you’ve given to me alone—it’s going to take a lifetime to pay that back.”

  “But what if . . . I haven’t taken good enough care of it?” It was a whisper. “What if I haven’t eaten enough? What if I’ve hurt it?”

  I made my voice, my face as firm as I could manage. That was what she needed, so that was what I was going to do. “You know better than that. You’ve taken the best care you could. You’ve never done anything less, and you never will. It’s not in your nature. It’s not possible. And if something is wrong? We’ll deal with it, you and me. We’ll do it together. You think you couldn’t bear it alone? You could, but you won’t have to, and neither will I. We’ll only have to bear half. Less than half, because we’d both take more than half off the other. We can get through anything if we’re doing it together.”

  The tears were running down her temples, into her hair. Her eyes were squeezed shut against them, her lips pulled back in her effort to suppress the sobs, her chest heaving. If anything had ever hurt me more to see, I don’t know what it could have been.

  That was the moment when the tech walked in. Her scrubs were printed with bright balloons, her hair pulled back in a swinging high ponytail. A greater contrast to the suffering woman on the table beside me you couldn’t have imagined.

  “We having a bit of an emotional moment?” she asked cheerfully, plucking a box of tissues off the table and holding them out for Hope, who took them with a choked gasp. “Never mind. Happens all the time. Let’s take a wee look and see what we see, and after that, the waterworks can really let loose.”

  Endless fiddling followed. The tech typed into the keyboard of a huge machine, then spread some thick, clear stuff from a plastic bottle onto Hope’s firm little belly that made Hope jump and say, “Oh. Cold.”

  One minute, the machine’s screen was showing a rectangle of black with white block letters in a corner. The next, the tech was moving a paddle over Hope’s belly, her eyes on the screen, and the black background was covered with specks and swirls of white that were . . . nothing I could sort out, try as I might.

  “Keep breathing normally,” the tech said. Hope was probably holding her breath again. I took her hand, held it, and watched the screen along with her. And still had absolutely no idea what I was seeing.

  Just like that, it was there. A pulsing white blob, and movement beyond it.

  “Ah,” the tech said with satisfaction. “There’s our baby.”

  “Is that the heart?” I asked over my own racing heartbeat. That was a person, and it was mine?

  “It is,” she said. “And we’re kicking. See that? Those are legs. Lively, eh. One second. Let me get through the business end.” She was moving her paddle, measuring, clicking, stopping to type onto the keyboard. Minute after minute, while Hope stared at the screen and I held her hand and stared with her.

  Finally, when I could tell that Hope couldn’t last another moment without knowing, the technician said, “That’s that done. Now comes the fun bit. Want to meet your baby?”

  “Yes,” Hope and I said together.

  “Right, then.” She moved her paddle, and a cursor on the screen moved with it. “Head, nose, chin. See?”

  I did. I saw. A face, in profile. A baby’s face. I was having trouble with my chest. With my breath.

  “Arms,” the tech went on as the cursor moved. “Fingers. You see?”

  Hope said, “Oh. They’re moving. She—he—they’re waving.”

  “Kicking as well, still. Active, and that’s good. Do we want to know the sex?”

  Hope turned her head, her eyes searching mine. “Do we?”

  “Do you?” I knew how I felt, but I wasn’t the most important person here. I was number three, in fact.

  “Yes.” It wasn’t tentative. It was sure.

  “Yes,” I told the tech, and she smiled and said, “Here we are, then.”

 
More movement of the cursor, and she said, “Legs, and here we are between them.”

  “I can’t see anything,” I said.

  “That’s because,” she said, “you’re having a girl.”

  Hope

  We were in a café again, Hemi with a coffee and me with yet another herbal tea. Not because we needed them, but because we needed more time. Our hands were linked across the table, his fingers threaded through mine.

  Somehow, I was going to have to let him go. Somehow. He left for Paris in a week, and Koro had a cast to get removed, and anyway, that was the plan. Karen was in school, Hemi seemed to be doing a fantastic job with her, and I needed that relationship to be cemented.

  When he came home from Paris, though, I’d be there. We’d be there.

  “What do you think?” I finally managed to ask. “About a little girl? A daughter?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer. I asked anyway.

  “I think,” he said, “that I’m over the moon. I think I can’t wait. I think I love you. What do you think about names?”

  I hesitated. I’d thought about them, of course, but I hadn’t dared to think quite enough, to take it all the way. Somehow, it still hadn’t seemed real. Now, it did. So real, I was overwhelmed by it. “I wondered,” I said slowly, “about Maori names. I wondered if you’d want that. I wondered if you’d want to choose.”

  How had I ever thought this man was hard? There was nothing but happiness in the face opposite me, nothing but warmth and strength in the hand holding mine. And I’d been right, that day all the way back in the Auckland airport, when I’d imagined how fiercely he’d protect us, how tenderly he’d hold us. Our daughter and me, and Karen, too. All of us.

  “I have a name,” he said. “Came to me when I saw her, as soon as I knew she was a girl. It came into my head, and it’s been there ever since. I’m hoping you like it, because to me, it’s her name.”