Du Rose Vendetta

Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

The Bad PennyLogan flipped the last burger on the barbecue and smiled at Hana. “This is nice, isn’t it?” he said.

“Perfect.” She slipped an arm around his waist and gazed across the horizon. The Tasman Sea stretched out before them like a tablecloth. Wiri’s giggles reached them from the tree line as he and Phoenix engaged in a game of hide and seek. Not understanding the point of the game, Mac snoozed underneath the wooden table still waiting for someone to find him. Hana smiled and kissed her husband’s firm biceps. Home-grown steak and sausages stayed warm in a tray above the flames and Logan prodded the burgers one at a time. He hadn’t mentioned JD’s paddock again and she hoped he wouldn’t. She didn’t want to think about Jacob Du Rose or his cursed legacy near the township. Her talk with Phoenix went nowhere. She’d still claimed her stomach hurt, but her squeal of delight betrayed the lie as Wiri found her hiding place behind a wide totara trunk. Hana frowned at an empty space on the deck. “Did you move some of my plant pots?”

“Nope. Food’s almost ready,” Logan announced. Glancing across at his sleeping son, he waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe wake Mac before the others stampede around his head.”

Hana nodded and stepped up onto the wooden deck. The vibration of her footsteps caused her son’s eyes to pop open. Pink-cheeked and bonny, he gave her a beautiful smile. “Dinner time, Macky.” Hana lifted her right hand and made the fingers and thumb into the shape of a beak. She tapped her lips and he repeated the action with a lazy, sleep fogged hand. “Come.” Hana held her hand out and he rolled onto his stomach and crawled out from beneath the table. Logan appeared around the side of the house with the other two. Phoenix rode on Wiri’s back and made a clicking noise with her tongue. Turning aside from Hana, Mac held his arms out to Wiri and the boy stamped up onto the deck with heavy footsteps. Phoenix slid down his back and landed with the finesse of a ballerina. She bore Logan’s natural grace and Hana frowned. She needed to get to the bottom of the Holly issue and soon. Wiri squatted down and Mac scrambled up his back like a monkey. After two circuits of the table, he tipped the boy onto the bench and squeezed in next to him.

Three pairs of wide eyes watched Logan’s progress from the barbecue to the table, carrying his tray laden with meat. “I’ll turn the grill off,” he said, setting the tray next to a bowl filled with open bread rolls.

Like the central pivot in a fine mechanism, Wiri held his hands out either side of him. Phoenix ceased clapping her excitement at the sight of the feast and grabbed his right hand. Wiri tapped Mac’s leg and the little boy slipped his tiny hand into the offered palm.

“Pray, Papa!” Phoenix demanded and Logan twisted knobs on the barbecue and hurried back. His long legs stepped onto the deck without using the stairs and he clasped his daughter’s hand in his. Hana remained standing and reached both Mac and her husband by stretching across the table. She wrinkled her nose as a wasp buzzed near the salad. Logan closed his eyes and bowed his head.

“Ki taku whānau, me nga hua, me te kai, kia ora.” He tried to release Phoenix’s hand, but she held on with determination and translated the prayer.

“For our family, friends and food, we say thank you.” Her eyes blinked open and she smiled at Hana. “For Mama,” she said and gave a beatific smile.

“Thanks.” Hana felt abandoned as Mac let go of her fingers and knelt up on the bench to reach a bread roll. A tick of sadness began in her chest at the isolation created by the language barrier. She’d tried to learn Māori, listening to the children’s bilingual conversations and staring at their picture books. Words and phrases stuck, but nothing enabling her to have a conversation in Logan’s native tongue. He squeezed her fingers as though reading her mind and then let go. Hana watched her son slapping sausages into the mouth of his bread roll and felt a kinship with him outside of maternalism. They were both cripples in communication but for different reasons.

“Ka pai, Macky.” Wiri gave Mac a beaming smile and praised his skill with the hefty sandwich disappearing between rosebud lips. Mac nodded and a sausage tumbled onto his plate. He rolled his green eyes in exaggerated annoyance and Wiri grinned, a complicit bystander in the battle between tiny fingers and hungry mouth.

“Papa, can we play guitar after dinner?” Phoenix asked. “I need to learn if I’m gonna be a lady vicar when I grow up.”

“What?” Logan’s eyes widened and he halted in the act of loading a slab of steak onto his plate. His fork poised mid-air and sunshine glinted off its prongs. The horror on his face cheered Hana a little. Her miniature evangelist adored everything about Sunday school and God, challenging her father’s upbringing and beliefs with a skip and a smile. The wise kaumātua of the local marae had assured her it would work out okay and the two could coexist. He’d patted her hand and smiled, living proof of the fact. Especially as his grandson served as the local vicar.

Logan frowned. “The guitar is broken. I’m getting the strings replaced. They keep snapping. There’s a place in Auckland who reckon they can fix it up for me. I put it in the back of my truck ready for when I go up there next.”

“Okay. But please can you be quick?” Phoenix flapped her elbows like a duck. “I’m learning guitar so I can play in church, then I’m getting me long flowing robes for vicaring. And wings.”

“Cool.” Logan relaxed and sat on the bench next to Hana. She swallowed her disappointment at the evangelist’s moment of confusion.

“It’s a hood.” Wiri prodded Phoenix in the back and she lurched forward. “On Sam’s robes. A hood.”

“Isn’t!” Phoenix’s eyes widened to complete the picture of utter horror. “It’s wings.” Her outrage carried across the table and Hana looked down at her empty plate to avoid being dragged into the debate. She reached over for the salad and scooped lettuce with the tongs.

“Ooh, a burndy one.” Wiri snagged a blackened sausage with his fork and waggled it in front of Phoenix’s face as a peace offering. She paused a second to make him suffer and then accepted his gift with mumbled thanks.

“Is wings,” she whispered and Wiri smirked and ignored her.

Hana lifted her cutlery and glanced around the table at her perfect family and their perfect home. She tensed as though a sixth sense told her she wouldn’t get to enjoy it for long.

“This looks cozy.” Footsteps accompanied the voice and long legs brought the speaker around the corner of the house and onto the deck. Dark tousled hair hung over his right eye and even, white teeth clamped his lower lip in a look of pure enjoyment. Grey eyes glinted in a once handsome face and Hana shrank back from the look of malice she recognised there. He turned his body to face Logan, not giving him ample time to disguise his dismay. “Hey, bro’,” he said with a mischievous chuckle.