Page 45 of Just Come Over
“We could go to a rabbit store and buy rabbits,” she said. “Then I wouldn’t be lonesome for you while you’re gone.”
“There’s no such thing as a rabbit store, I don’t think,” Isaiah said. “Rabbits don’t do anything useful, like lay eggs like chickens, or find lost people like dogs, or catch mice like cats. That’s probably why people have other animals instead of rabbits.”
“People do so have rabbits,” Casey said. “Lots of people do. So there has to be a rabbit store.”
“Maybe they only have that in the United States,” Isaiah said. “Not in New Zealand. Rabbits are only useful for eating. I’ve seen them in the butcher’s before. Parts of them, anyway, because they’re butchered.”
“They are not,” Casey said. “You don’t eat rabbits.”
“You didn’t think people ate deer, either,” Isaiah said. “But they do.”
“People do have pet rabbits,” Zora said firmly. “We won’t talk right now about butchering, Isaiah.”
Casey didn’t look tearful, like another girl would have. She looked fierce, like she’d defend her nonexistent rabbits to the death. She might not be Rhys’s, and yet she most definitely was.
He looked at her with as much sternness as he could summon, and she looked back at him with those killer eyes and sighed, all the way from her skinny chest. She was wearing the red shirt tonight, the one with the sparkly heart. A heart that knew what it wanted.
“Rabbits are my replacement, eh,” he said. “Good to know. You’ll be happy to know that I’ve been researching hutches, then. I may possibly have ordered one, and a pen as well. They’re arriving—when was that? Oh, yeh. Tomorrow. In about a hundred boxes, I’m guessing, requiring assembly. Of course, I’ve spoilt the surprise now.”
Her mouth opened, and for once, she seemed stuck for something to say. “Yeh,” he said. “I see that Ididsurprise you. I told you, I keep my promises.”
She ran straight at him like the world’s most ambitious tackler. He pivoted, got her around the waist, swung her into the air, and pulled her in. She was still holding the silverware, but she wrapped her arms around him anyway, bashing him in the back with it in the process, buried her face in his neck, and said, “I love you very, very much.”
There was something in his eye, maybe. Zora was smiling, but her eyes were bright. “Rhys,” she said, “that’s so... that’s very sweet.”
“Except for two things,” he said, hanging onto Casey, who felt exactly right there, in his arms. “First, that we still need to get some rabbits, or there’s no point. Maybe Isaiah wants to come help us put the hutch together tomorrow evening, and have dinner atmyhouse for a change. He could even stay over and give Auntie Zora a night to herself. And maybe ZoraandIsaiah want to go bunny-shopping with us on Sunday, what d’you reckon? I could take us out for that brekkie I promised weeks ago. After that, there’s the wee issue of my absence. I had an idea about that. Just temporary, of course, until we get our situation sorted and get you a nanny.” Which would be progressing faster if he’d actually done anything about it.
“Hmm.” Zora was looking skeptical now. “I can’t wait.” He wondered if she’d guessed about the non-nanny-hunting. He’d meant to do it. He just hadn’t managed it yet. Which was unlike him, and which would change, once he got back from Aussie with his head on straight.
“Of course,” he said, “there’s bunny-visiting instead, but that would be so much extra work. Every morning and every night, probably, and who knows what kind of vicious, feral beasts you’d have at the end of it, with nobody to pat them? Killers, most likely. I’d have to pay Zora much more for that, too, even than I’m doing for full-time care, and I’m a cheap fella. Or there’s another way. It seemed to me”—this part, he said cautiously, because this wasn’t the precise way he’d meant to broach this idea—“that you and Isaiah may want to do some commuting, Zora. Flowers-wise, instead of bunny-wise. Or not, because I have a shed myself, as it happens. I’ve also got this flash house. It’s a fair size.”
“His house looks like a doctor’s office,” Casey said. “Except it’s not. It doesn’t have a bathtub for kids, and it has scary stairs, but it’s very jungly, which is a good thing, because we could play soldiers in the jungle, Isaiah.”
“All true,” Rhys said. “Good kitchen, also, which the decorator outfitted with the basics, fortunately. The only issue is that it has, ah, three bedrooms. The master has a view you may like, though, and, of course, I wouldn’t be there. That would be the idea.”
“I’m sleeping in your bed, that what you’re saying?” Zora asked. “Rhys—”
“With clean sheets, so it’s like I’ve never been there at all. And as I mentioned,” he hurried on, wondering exactly how shot down he’d feel when she quite rightly rejected the entire mad idea, “the house comes with a shed, and I don’t have anything in it. It even has a sink outside it, under a shelter. I confess I was thinking of it more in terms of that fish-gutting, but I haven’t had a chance to put it to use yet, so it’s pristine as far as flower arranging goes. I’m a dead loss as a Kiwi bloke just now. Been gone from the homeland too long, and haven’t had a chance to acquire much of anything in the way of tools, or even any tackle for camping and fishing and that. If you wanted to shift the floral operation over entirely during my absences, the buckets and clippers and all, that would work.”
Zora did that thing again where she lifted her hands, then slapped them against her thighs. Her palms left a faint pink mark on her skin. He couldn’t help but notice. “Kids,” she said, “go do... something in Isaiah’s room.” She reached out and took the somewhat grubby silverware from Casey’s hand. “We’ll call you when it’s time for dinner.”
“I’m very hungry, though,” Isaiah said as Rhys set Casey on her feet. His eyes went from his mother to Rhys, and he looked off-balance for once.
Zora wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Uncle Rhys and I need to talk for a few minutes. We’ll eat dinner very soon, and we’ll talk about everything we decide. I’ll answer all your questions then. I promise.”
Zora waited until the kids had left the room and asked Rhys, “Why, exactly?”
“Because it’s—” He stopped.
She needed to get him to slice the lamb. She needed to lay the table. She needed to hear his answer.
Hayden had rung the night before and said, “Just to let you know, I’ll come cut your grass again on Sunday. Also, I could take Isaiah to Kelly Tarlton’s afterwards, if you like, especially as Mum and Dad have invited us to dinner. Well, they’ve invited me, and I’m sure you and Isaiah are about to be summoned as well. I’ll fulfill all my family obligations in one day, and learn some natural history at the aquarium at the same time, because that’s so valuable in my life. Did you know that Antarctica is both the windiest and the driest continent on Earth? You wouldn’t think it, with all the ice, but it’s true. Your son knows it, and so do I. It also has an active volcano. Ask me how I know. They have new rescued sea turtles at Kelly’s, too. I may have had a voicemail about them.”
“No on the grass,” she’d said. “Rhys did it, and I’m guessing he’ll do it next time. He was here on Monday to drop off Casey, and he noticed it was getting long, so... For that matter, I can cut my own grass. Why do men always think they have to cut the grass? No man ever says, ‘I see you need dinner cooked. Why don’t I take care of that?’ Which generally takes longer than cutting the grass, and you have to do it every single night.” It helped if a man did your grocery shopping, though, especially when he brought the kind of melt-in-your-mouth steaks that cost fifty dollars a kilogram, which you couldn’t indulge in no matter how many flower subscriptions you sold, not if you were saving for a new van. And then barbecued them for you. And then talked to you like he wanted to be there, and smiled with his eyes.
All right,somemendidtake care of dinner.
“Wait,” Hayden said. “What’s that note I’m hearing? Why aren’t you interested in my turtles? Wait again.I’mnot interested in my turtles. Why aren’tyouinterested in my turtles?”
