Kiwi Strong (New Zealand Ever After Book 3)

by Rosalind James

  “Thanks,” he said. “It helps.”

  I stood there for another few seconds, hesitating. More than half of me wanted to bolt, to go get busy. To go cook something, maybe. To do anything but to stand here and say this.

  Just say it. Just do it. It’s the right thing. I told him, “What you said about me, before. After breakfast. I just want to say … me too.”

  He took the facecloth off his eyes and looked at me again, which I could definitely have done without. “You too what?”

  I said, “That I’ve never known a stronger man, or a braver one. And maybe a kinder one, too. Thanks for that. For all of it.”

  After that? Well, yeh. I bolted.

  14

  All the Sexual Politics

  Gray

  I was holding a woman, my body halfway over hers on a grassy bank beside a river under the warm spring sun. My hands in her soft, dark hair, her sweet mouth opening under mine. She was making some noise deep in her throat, letting me know how much she wanted me, and all I wanted in the world was to keep hearing that noise. Her skin was warm, and when I drew my hand slowly down her side and captured a pretty little breast, she moaned, wriggled closer, and …

  Licked my face.

  I said something, possibly “Gah!” shoved both arms out, opened my eyes, and discovered that the brown eyes staring lovingly into mine, the soft hair brushing my arm, did indeed belong to a girl.

  A girl Labrador.

  Daisy threw open the door, asking, “Gray? All right?”

  I was doing two things at once. Trying to get the dog off the bed, and trying to get the duvet back over myself, because I was in my undies, and, well … dream.

  She noticed, I could tell, because she was trying not to smile. I don’t know what your Naughty Nurse fantasy would be, but I’m guessing it doesn’t involve being caught with a dog in your bed and an enormous erection.

  I said, “Fine. I’m fine,” shoved the dog’s hairy rump the rest of the way off the bed, told her, “Stay down,” and finally succeeded in covering myself. Then I summoned up my best attempt at suave unconcern and told Daisy, “I’m fine, yeh. She was licking me. Got up on the bed. As you see.”

  “Aw,” Daisy said. “She loves you. Sweet.” She’d lost the battle with the smile. “Feeling better?”

  “Yeh. Headache’s mostly gone.”

  “Need anything?” she asked. “I made soup.”

  I may have been scowling. It was possible. “I’m not a patient. I had a headache, that’s all.”

  “Mm-hmm.” She was smiling some more. “I’m glad you’re better. You had me a bit worried. Want me to take the dog?”

  The dog, at the moment, was resting her chin on the edge of the mattress and gazing up at me in a worshipful sort of way, her tail wagging as if she’d forgiven me already for my cruel rejection. I asked, “Do you think she’d go?”

  “Well, no,” Daisy said. “Probably not. Love is a many-splendored thing. Do you want your jeans?”

  They were on top of the tallboy, I realized. Folded. “I want you to leave,” I said, “so I can get dressed.”

  She was leaning against the door frame, her bare ankles crossed. Her hair was loose, her T-shirt was on the snug side, so were her jeans, and she had a light in her eyes that I might have wanted to see, under other circumstances. “Who rode in the truck with me, then,” she asked, “when I had no trousers on, and, as you may have noticed, no undies, either, and didn’t say, “Here’s my jacket?”

  I attempted some dignity. “That was different. I didn’t think of it, was all.” I didn’t say that I hadn’t noticed. She’d know it wasn’t true.

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “Well, like I said—soup downstairs. If you don’t actually want me to be a ministering angel.”

  “Does any man want you to be a ministering angel?”

  “Well, no,” she conceded, pushing herself off the door frame. “Generally, they’re narky about it. Like you.” She looked over her shoulder, showing me a trim waist and those tight jeans that showed off exactly what she had going on back there, smiled sweetly, said, “Fortunately, we don’t generally do bedpans in Emergency,” and shut the door.

  I came downstairs with the dog at my heels five minutes later, partly because I’d been asleep more than three hours, which was long enough, and partly because … well, because I wanted to go downstairs. I was curious.

  The girls were at the table with Daisy, who seemed to be making a list. When they saw me, they jumped up and looked at the floor, and Obedience put both hands to her dark hair, which was coiled into an enormous knot at the back of her head, as if I’d caught her out. They weren’t wearing the white caps or the aprons, I realized. That was what was different.

  I said, “At ease, men,” and they glanced at each other, confused. I said, “Nah, it’s just that—that’s what a soldier does, that jumping-up thing. Out here in, uh … Wanaka, the man’s the one who stands when the woman comes in. Well, if he’s exceptionally polite or trying to impress a woman, he does. Not often, actually. Trying to remember when I last did that. I was trying to impress a woman at the time, I’m pretty sure, because sadly, I’m realizing that I’m not exceptionally polite.”

  I ignored them, then, since my explanation wasn’t making them any more comfortable, and headed into the kitchen with the dog at my heels. I asked, “Is this the soup?” lifted the lid, and inhaled. It smelled fantastic, and it was a bit mashed, thick and appetizing. “What kind?”

  Daisy said, “A bit of ham, some veggies, and a couple cans of beans, that’s all. I made scones as well, as your mum had some dates. Hope she doesn’t mind. I like to be busy, and there wasn’t much that needed doing.”

  “Smells amazing,” I said. “Anybody else want some?” I grabbed a bowl out of a cupboard and looked around inquiringly. Fruitful looked back, or at least in my direction. Obedience was still looking down. I said, keeping it gentle, “It’s OK to look at a man, you know. Not so much difference between men and women, really.”

  That had them both looking at me, though Obedience looked down again fast. Fruitful asked, “How can that be? Is that what people believe, though, Outside?”

  “Yeh,” I said. “Of course they do. At work. In, uh, families, I guess, most of the time. I’m trying to think. In everyday life, daily interactions. You’re all just people, after all, and most work isn’t gender-specific, is it?”

  They stared at me as if I’d grown an extra head, and I said, “All right, my jobs have been, but normally, work isn’t, either the kind you do at home or the kind you do at … well, work. If it’s a social occasion, though—romantic, especially—there’s more difference, because … uh, romantic, eh.”

  I was starting to be sorry I’d brought it up. How did I explain this?

  Fruitful said, “Oh. You mean if you’re getting married.”

  I cast a glance at Daisy. She lifted a very nicely shaped dark eyebrow at me. She looked just bloody fine without makeup. Honey-colored skin, dark brows and lashes, a broad forehead, and dark eyes with twice a normal person’s amount of life in them. A straight, pretty nose, heaps of cheekbone and square jawline, and a small mouth with a perfect bow in the top lip, and the kind of fullness in the bottom one that didn’t need any lipstick at all to get your imagination going. It all worked just fine for me.

  It took me a second to realize that she wasn’t going to answer, and then to think of what the question had been. “Well, no,” I told Fruitful, bringing my soup over to the table. “I didn’t mean marriage. I meant if you’re dating a woman.” I was not explaining hookup culture. Daisy could do that. Call it the Advanced level. “Which may or may not lead to marriage. Usually ‘not,’ to be fair.”

  “If it doesn’t lead to marriage, though,” Fruitful said, “why would you do it?”

  Obedience whispered, “Fruitful,” in a horrified sort of way, so I said, “No, it’s a good question. And asking me is the right thing, too. How are you going to find out if you don’t ask?” Then,
of course, I actually had to answer. I decided on, “Well, as a man … because in those ways women aren’t like men, they’re pretty awesome. Softer. Sweeter. Well, except for you,” I told Daisy, who was doodling on her paper now, drawing three-dimensional boxes, and boxes inside of boxes, like a woman with too many things to figure out. She laughed, and I grinned. “Because they are made differently in some ways, and it’s fun to talk to a woman, and be with a woman, and, uh …”

  “And kiss a woman?” Daisy asked, yes, sweetly. “And so forth?”

  “Well, yeh,” I said. “That too.”

  “But don’t you want to get married?” Fruitful asked. “How can you not? Who cooks for you, at your other house? Who does your washing and cleaning? And what about babies, and needs?”

  “I do all that for myself,” I said. “Even here. My mum taught me to hang out the washing when I was just a kid, and how to clean a bathroom and do the washing-up and the rest of it, too. Single mum, eh, with enough on her plate.”

  They gaped at me. I’d swear that shocked them more than the sexual part. “Well,” I amended, “I do it all except the babies.” I wasn’t going to ask about “needs.” I suspected I knew what “needs” were, and as far as I was concerned? That was another Daisy topic. “And as to why I’m not married,” I went on, “I, uh, had a job where I traveled a fair amount, overseas as often as not, and I wasn’t very available otherwise, and since then? Dunno. Just never found the right woman, I guess.”

  The girls looked at each other again, and Obedience asked, her voice tiny, “Why do you have to find her?” And then blushed dark over having said anything.

  “Uh …” I said, “because so far, she hasn’t found me?”

  Daisy explained, “In Mount Zion, your husband is chosen for you by the Prophet once you turn sixteen. Boys, too, though they tend to be older. I’d say something about how that makes it easier for them to command their wives, since a wife’s job is to obey and a husband’s job is to make her, but that would be bitter.”

  “Which you’re not,” I said.

  She laughed, at least. “Nah, I’m bitter. I’m owning it.”

  Here we were, then. I did need to ask this. It was hanging over this table like a cloud. Wasn’t it? It felt like it, an edging of fear around every conversation, around all Daisy’s actions last night, brave as she’d been. “That man,” I said. “One of the two who were chasing us. He said he was the girls’ father.”

  Everybody got extremely still. No more smiles, and only Daisy was still looking at me. She said, “I thought it was his voice.” She wasn’t drawing anymore, and I wasn’t sure her hand was steady. She saw me noticing and put the other hand over it, clamping both of them down on the tabletop.

  Delayed reaction, almost certainly. She’d had to hold it together so long, and now, with her sisters, she was having to hold it together even more. You could only do that so long before you cracked. “Did he know it was me?” she asked. “Could you tell?”

  I thought back. “I don’t think so. He’d have mentioned it, you’d think.”

  “Yes,” she said. “He would have.”

  I went on, because I needed to know, if I was going to help them. “He told me Fruitful was married. She’s seventeen, right?” Then I thought, Tell her, mate. Show her that much respect. I said, “That you’re married, Fruitful.”

  Fruitful didn’t answer, but Daisy did. Her voice was measured. Carefully so. “Yes. You’re married soon after you turn sixteen, like I said, as soon as your husband’s revealed.” She made a face. “That is—as soon as the Prophet chooses him. They’d do it earlier if they could. The Prophet teaches that when a girl menstruates, God is saying she’s ready to marry, because she’s ready to bear children. It’s in the Bible, or so he says. That when she’s ripe, she’s ready. They’re afraid of the law, though, so they wait until sixteen.”

  Ripe. That was a fairly disgusting concept. “And you don’t get a say in who it is?” I asked. “Surely, even with arranged marriages, you get a say. A chance to spend some time together, see if you suit.”

  “No,” Daisy said. “You don’t even look straight at him until after the wedding, when you’re expected to consummate the marriage. As in, right then.”

  “Uh … right then?” I had a feeling that I didn’t want to know this.

  “Not in front of everybody,” she said. “The men—your father, your uncles—carry the two of you off in a sort of … palanquin, I think you’d call it, in olden times. A cart with handles. Straight after the ceremony, they take you to a special hut made for the purpose. The Joining Hut.”

  Obedience said, “The married women decorate it with flowers, so it’s beautiful. It’s a special day, the day you’re joined. You get to wear a pink dress, too, because you’re a bride.”

  Daisy ignored that and told me, “You come back to the reception afterwards, once it’s done, for extra humiliating fabulousness. That’s the first time you really look at him, in that hut.”

  I had no words for this one. Oddly, the girls didn’t seem embarrassed by this particular revelation. If that had been the drill at every wedding they’d attended, I guessed it would seem normal. I was embarrassed, though. Cringeworthy, I’d call that.

  “You don’t get to choose much in Mount Zion,” Daisy said. “Not your occupation, because a woman doesn’t have one, beyond domestic work. Not how much schooling you get, because every woman gets the same. Up to age fifteen, when the law says you can stop. Not your clothes, as you see, or how you spend your time. You’re rotated amongst chore assignments, so I guess you could say that you’re not always on Cleaning Rotation, and that’s a plus. To be fair, boys don’t get to choose much more than that either. But once you’re married, as a woman? You get to choose even less.” She took a breath and adopted a cheerful tone. “So as you can imagine—a good place to see in your rearview mirror, pink dress or no. And, my brother Dorian says, that goes for men as well.” She told her sisters, “You’ll love Dorian, when you meet him again. He’s married now himself, and his wife is lovely. It’s different when you can choose, you’ll see, and you’ve got all these choices ahead of you, starting with names.” She held up the sheet she’d been doodling on. “We were just thinking about names when you came in, Gray. It was a bit funny, actually.”

  Fruitful had ignored all of that. Now, she looked straight at me. She was a bit darker than Daisy, and the flush in her cheeks wasn’t so much red as dark honey. She said, “To answer your question—yes. It’s what Chas— uh, Daisy says, and I don’t need her to say it for me. I’m married.”

  I asked, “Is that why you left?”

  A long, long pause, that for once, Daisy didn’t jump in to fill, and Fruitful said, “It’s one reason.”

  I asked, “Are you afraid? Is that what’s wrong? Of what, exactly? Are we in protection mode here? Evasion mode? Are you afraid somebody’ll come after you? You should tell me, if that’s it. I’m a pretty fair protector.”

  Fruitful didn’t answer. Daisy said, “We wouldn’t involve you. Of course not. You’ve done enough already. But that’s why we wanted to get out of here. It’s too close. I wasn’t going to stop, after I got them. I was going straight back to Dunedin. The other man—was he the same age? Or younger?”

  “About the same,” I said. “I think. It was dark.” I thought back. Body language. “He wasn’t a teenager, anyway.”

  Daisy glanced at Fruitful. What? Was she worried it would have been Fruitful’s husband? Something was very wrong here. Something even bigger than leaving a cult, if that were possible.

  “You were sixteen, too, though, Daisy,” I said, possibly to get the conversation away from Fruitful, who still looked tense and flushed. “When you left. And Obedience is sixteen now.”

  “Yes,” Daisy said. “Obedience’s wedding was meant to be next month.”

  I glanced at Obedience, but she wasn’t saying much. If she was devastated at missing her wedding to who-knows-who, she wasn’t saying. She’d sound
ed a bit wistful, though, about the flowers and the pink dress. I asked Daisy, “Is that why you left, yourself? The marriage bit?” It was much too personal, but it was also at the heart of things, at least it seemed so to me.

  A long hesitation, during which her sisters looked at her and didn’t look at me, then Daisy said, “Yes.”

  “You didn’t want to be married,” I said. “Like you don’t want Obedience to be.”

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t leave because I didn’t want to be married. I left because I already was.”

  15

  T. Rex

  Daisy

  I had that nearly-trembling feeling you get when your emotions are too far out there and you’ve shared too much. I tried to joke my way out of it. “Aren’t you sorry you asked?”

  “Well, no,” Gray said. “I’m glad I asked. I take it the marriage wasn’t a success.”

  “You’d be right,” I said. The girls, I noticed, were actually looking at him. That was serious progress, but then, there was something oddly comforting about Gray. Or was that just because he’d helped get me out of the river, and the memory of the shovel and all? I couldn’t tell, but they were looking at him, and they hadn’t been the ones getting pulled out of the river. Also, the dog liked him better than she liked me, so there you were.

  But then, some women have a weakness for big, tough men. As I’ve mentioned.

  He said, “I’m guessing you don’t want to bare your soul about it at this moment. I’m full of intuition, eh.”

  “Oh,” I said, “only about as much as I want to open a vein,” and we smiled at each other. I’d been so tense, and now I wasn’t, quite. Why was that? Maybe that it was a relief, still, to hear a person’s—a man’s—horrified reaction to the details of Mount Zion, and to realize it really was as bad as all that. A reaction I didn’t get often, because I shared—oh, on a time scale of “rarely” to “never.”