Du Rose Blaze

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

MartingaleHana parked the truck in her reserved spot in the staff car park. She reversed it to facilitate a fast getaway if required. A snap sounded from the back seat as Edin released herself from the safety straps.

“No!” Hana whirled around and pointed at her. “That’s dangerous. The grown-up fastens you in and only the grown-up presses that button. Then, we know it’s done right. Do you understand?” The ramifications unfurled before her like a rug, decorated with Bodie’s distress as a road patrol officer when he arrived first on the scene of an accident. Unbelted child versus windscreen and road surface remained etched on dreams which even therapy couldn’t eradicate.

Edin studied her with a furrowed brow, a fathomless depth in her coal black pupils. Dread snaked around Hana’s heart as she found herself face to face with the essence of Caroline Marsh. She swallowed and strengthened her will. “I’m not losing this battle with you, Edin. You’re beautiful and clever and I know there’s a good girl in there.” She pointed towards Edin’s chest and sighed. “And I love that good girl very much.” She just wished she saw more of her. The child required almost all her attention, her stunted speech development making a liar of the intelligence behind her eyes.

Mac’s auburn head lolled against his seat, a line of dribble snaking from his lips to his shoulder. Complications from the first surgery for hearing in his left ear had demanded a second attempt to attach the implant to the bone. The coil and audio processor from his right ear peeked from beneath his auburn curls.

Edin gasped, and her eyes lit up like strobes. “Macky!” she hissed. She stretched out her left arm but couldn’t quite reach him across the middle seat. “Macky!”

The boy inhaled, pink cheeked and fresh from slumber. He sat up straight and blinked, confused at his presence in the car when he’d gone to sleep in his bed. His green-eyed gaze settled on Hana, and he spread his hands in question. “I need to see Papa,” Hana signed. She still used her fingers to speak to him, despite the right implant’s lone ability to convey her voice.

He nodded in acknowledgment and lifted a delicate hand to touch the tender skin above his left ear. The shaved hair would grow to cover the scar as it had on the other side. Edin leaned sideways, grunting and stretching her body to reach him and only satisfied when he lifted his hand and tagged her fingers. She released a giant exhale. “All better now.” Her head bobbed up and down to confirm her diagnosis.

Hana exhaled. “Right, this is what’s happening.” Both children watched her hands as she signed and spoke. “I’ll walk you upstairs to see Nonie for a moment. We’ll take what’s left of the biscuits. Maybe Poppa Alfie would let you nap in his bed, Mac? I need to see Papa.” She swallowed and turned to Edin. “Uncle Logan.”

Mac nodded in understanding and Edin studied him before copying his movement. Hana stepped from the driver’s seat and eyeballed Edin through the window. To her credit, the child remained in her seat as Hana pulled open the door. “Do it gain.” Edin flapped her slender fingers at the button.

A glance at Mac for a translation showed him signing for her to fasten the button and then release it. An unexpected childishness rose in Hana, making her want to stamp her authority by ignoring the strange request. But as her fingers paused over the straps, Edin smiled up at her as though offering a compromise. “Good girl,” Hana forced herself to say. “Nice waiting.” She refastened the seatbelt button and then released it.

Realising she’d shot herself in the foot with her enforcement plan, Hana held Edin’s hand as she walked around to Mac and released his seatbelt. She relied on the older children to unfasten themselves and had now caused confusion. He looked up at her and smiled, wisdom in his gentle emerald irises. Hana smiled back and kissed his warm forehead. “Thank you for waiting,” she mouthed to him. He hadn’t heard her rebuke Edin, but had employed his father’s quick intelligence to read the situation with accuracy.

Hana held one of Edin’s hands and Mac gripped the other as they crossed the hotel car park and entered the lobby. Gravel crunched beneath Hana’s shoes and she glanced down at the children’s bare toes. They showed no sign of discomfort, stepping across the rough surface like mountain goats.

The receptionist waved from behind his wide desk as they entered the lobby. Hana blinked against the dimness after the glare beyond the double doors. “Hi Mrs Du Rose,” he called. “And hello little Du Roses.” He never got their names right and had given up trying when Edin arrived.

Hana glanced down to see her jutting her tiny chin upwards and defiance flashing in her eyes. Her delicate fingers gripped Mac’s until he released a hiss of pain. Somehow, throughout her short-lived journey of confusion, Edin had discovered a hidden security in her cousin. She clung to it and to him with everything she possessed. It formed another reason Hana couldn’t send the girl to the distant relatives of Caroline, who had asked for her through a barbed lawyer’s letter.

Hana released Edin’s hand once they’d knocked on Alfred and Leslie’s apartment door. Light flooded the attic room through skylights as they stepped over the threshold.

“Nonie!” Edin bolted for Leslie’s legs and she tangled herself in the floral skirt, which hid them. She lifted her arms and the old lady laughed.

“I can’t lift you, kōtiro,” she snorted. “You’re five. Much too heavy for an old whaea like me to carry.” She took Edin’s hand and walked to a sagging sofa, sinking into its folds and allowing the child to clamber onto her knee.

“Hana.” Alfred Du Rose stepped from behind the partition to the kitchen. A drying towel hung over his left forearm as though she’d disturbed him in the process of tidying.

“Alfie.” She kissed his cheek and accepted the embrace he administered despite his arthritic joints.

“Up! Up!” Edin sat bolt upright on Leslie’s knee and stabbed her finger at the ceiling. She loved the excitement of accessing the roof garden through the narrow passageway, but she needed a more agile attendant to keep tabs on her than the two octogenarians.

“Not now, darling,” Hana soothed. “I need to see Logan.”

Alfred bent and pressed a soft kiss to Mac’s downy hair. “How you doing, tane?” he demanded.

Mac smiled and lifted a thumbs up, standing on one leg and sticking close to Hana.

“He’s good.” She stopped herself from answering for him, biting down hard on her tongue. Mac’s lips twisted and she sensed him resisting a grin. He didn’t mind that she still forgot and acted as his unofficial mouthpiece. She forced brightness into her tone. “Please, can Mac stay with you for a little while? I woke him up to drive down here.” Her gaze strayed to Edin, seeing the child’s dark curls nestled against Leslie’s copious bosom. “I’ll take her with me.”

“She can stay.” Leslie issued the invitation with only a modicum of hesitation.

Hana winced and considered her answer. Alfred patted her shoulder. “She’ll behave.”

Mac tilted his head to observe her, his steady gaze containing no judgment.

“I’m not sure,” Hana whispered. “She seems a little better, but what if she misbehaves and you can’t cope?” She forced herself not to look at the French doors in her peripheral vision. The new veranda rail beyond them replaced the one Logan’s brother took with him when he plunged to his death in the car park. Caroline had served six months on remand and six months of a thirteen-year sentence for pushing him. Manslaughter, not murder. Though no one in the family denied she’d intended to kill Neville Du Rose, the jury had failed to reach a guilty verdict beyond reasonable doubt. Edin’s intense fascination with the veranda had traumatised them all.

“We’re fine,” Alfie assured her. “I hid the key. She can’t get out there or on to the roof.” He swallowed. “Not like last time.”

“Okay,” Hana breathed. She took a step towards Leslie and Edin, bumping Mac’s shoulder with her hip by accident. He blinked up at her, his expression blank. “Edin?” Hana injected enthusiasm and seriousness into her tone in equal parts. “Nonie and Poppa Alfie said you can stay. If you’re naughty, they’ll phone and I’ll take you away with me. But if you behave, we’ll look at the horses from the roof garden when I get back. Okay?”

“Up?” Hope flickered in Edin’s eyes. “Up.”

“Yes.” Hana stepped back and rested her palm on Mac’s warm head. “If you behave.”

Edin gripped the horse beneath her arm and considered Hana’s bargain. She released a slow nod as Hana held her breath.

A countdown began in her head, moving backwards on an invisible stopwatch to the moment when all hell would break loose and Alfie would call, breathless and dismayed.

Hana kissed the top of her son’s head and bolted, her feet drumming down the staircase before the door had clicked behind her. The sense of escape enveloped her, forcing her heart rate to hike and the pacemaker to stand guard over her life. She burst through Logan’s office door on the ground floor of the enormous house, her breath coming in heaves and her legs trembling.

He started in surprise, dropping the fountain pen in his hand and rising to his feet. Grey speckled his hair like salt and pepper, making him even more striking and imposing than the glossy black locks of a decade ago.

Hana stopped at the sight of Lincoln standing next to him. “Where’s the fire?” the stable manager asked with a smirk. Hana ignored him. She’d accepted his employment but hadn’t changed her mind about him.

“I left Edin upstairs with Leslie and Alfie.” She glanced down at her watch. “I have about five minutes before they call for help.” The stopwatch ticked in her head.

“I’ll leave you to it.” Lincoln shifted the discarded fountain pen aside and pulled the sheaf of papers free. He gave an upward jerk of his chin to Hana as he passed her. Blond curls poked from beneath the cowboy hat he hadn’t removed. The door closed behind him.

Logan met her halfway across the room, his boot soles half on the expensive Turkish rug, which buffered his steps against the wooden floor. Hana relaxed into his chest, the muscles hard against her cheek. She’d played her last hand with Edin, and they both knew it. She sensed him wanting to state the obvious.

“It’s fine,” she lied. “I’m coping. She’s getting better.” Hana pulled away from him and turned, knowing he could read her like an open book if she didn’t hide her face. “Let’s talk about Tama.” Her gaze fell on an envelope lying on Logan’s desk. The tattered corner showed he’d already opened it. The familiar stamp of the Auckland lawyer sent a dart of anxiety bubbling into her chest. It piled on top of her existing misery. They wanted to take Edin and they weren’t giving up.