Page 30 of Kiwi Gold
“You helped Amira fill herplate,though. You keep being here, and I can’t work out why.”She was keeping her voice down, so I had to lean over a bit to hear it. Understandable, as we were at this table with Poppy and Matiu and, more importantly, all sorts of curious children. I’d already overheard Amira explaining to Poppy about “Mummy being sick two times today, but it wasn’t from her appendix,” and it seemed to me that any one of them, possibly excepting the three-year-old, would be completely capable of bringing up the “perm donation” idea again, with a smooth segue into the mechanics of vaginal intercourse.
“I did help her fill her plate,” I said. “And Iamstill here. As for why—dunno, really. Possibly, I like you.”
“Do you have some sort of thing for women with kids?” she asked. “Or for kids?”
I choked on my bite of steak, and then I kept choking.
Yes, there’s nothing that impresses a woman like stumbling out of your chair and staggering about coughing up a piece of meat while dozens of concerned faces turn your way and the doctor in the house puts down his napkin and stands up, prepared to attend to you once you collapse. Eventually, though, I finished the choking performance, mopped my face with a paper napkin, and came back to sit beside her again, because what was the alternative? After which I drank some water, coughed a bit more, and said, “No. Generally, I go out of my waynotto date women with kids. I don’t like them in a creepy way, but I like them well enough. I travel, though, and anyway, it’s … it works out better.”
“Because of the quadruplet sisters,” she said.
“Exactly.” Was I happy I’d spelled that out? No, I wasn’t. It was the right thing to do, though. Clearly.
“Let me get this straight, then,” she said. “You came over this morning to help because you didn’t know it was me. I mean, me from last night. Fine. And then you did know, but you stayed anyway, because … well, for no good reason I can conceive of except that you’re generally helpful. We’ll hope that there’s an equally good reason that I let you stay, since it won’t get me Mother of the Year points to go to sleep with my terriblehangover”—she was all but whispering now—“and leave a strange man alone with my six-year-old daughters.”
“Oi,” I said. “After the Mickey Mouse pancakes and all?” For some reason, she was still making me laugh.
“And you came to this barbecue, too,” she said, “because you were … bored?”
“I’m asking myself that question, no worries,” I said. “Never more than now. D’you want me to leave, then?”
She flushed, then put a hand to her hair and smoothed it. She’d done that last night, too, and had seemed shocked that it was loose. Also, she had very graceful hands.A Water hand,the fortuneteller had said.A hand of sensitivity.“No,” she said. “Please don’t. I’m just trying to … I haven’t dated much. Well, at all.”
“You amaze me,” I said, and this time, she laughed. “Reckon Imustlike you,” I went on. “There’s got to besomereason. That you were impossibly pretty last night, and I liked dancing with you and running away with you and watching you get your palm read, and all the expressions that crossed your face? That could be part of it.”
“In my nightdress,” she said. “It was the wrong costume. Exactly wrong. I’m not the right woman for, er …”
I waited. “Stuck, eh,” I said, when nothing else happened.
She laughed helplessly and waved a hand. “So stuck. And somebody’s going to hear this, no matter how quiet I am, andthenwhat kind of questions am I going to answer? I’m the wrong woman for dating, if that’s what you have in mind. I won’t even mention anything else.”
I had to think about that for a minute, and I kept my own voice low when I said, “Three reasons for that I can think of. One, because your husband’s dead and you haven’t started dating again and are out of practice. Two, because you’re Kegan Ashford’s widow, and despite the bad press, you’re devoted to his memory, because he was a wonderful husband and father despite his moment of bad judgment, which is why you’re still wearing his ring. Or three …” I trailed off.
“What’s ‘three?’” she asked. “I can’t wait.”
She was laughing herself now, as unexpectedly as she’d done last night when I’d hit the wanker with the sword. As if, even though she knew she should worry instead, when things got too ridiculous, she had to laugh. I said, “I’ll tell you in a minute. First, though—on the day I got the bullet scratch—”
“Oh, say ‘bullet wound,’” she said, and she was still laughing. “It sounds so much sexier. Like some kind of action film.”
“Right. On that day, I also survived an assassination attempt by a snake. It wasn’t a good day, and it was. Found copper, eh, and found gold, too. Anyway, there I was, blood streaming down my cheek, blokes still popping off with semiautomatic weapons behind me, wondering if that snake was going to be the end of me, and all I could think was—pity we didn’t bring any beer in the truck, if this was going to be my final hour. And laughing, because itwasso much like an action film, except that I wasn’t doing anything heroic. Pretty dull film, with the hero not even fighting back.”
“Maybe you just weren’t the hero,” she said, that smile still tugging at the corners of her pretty mouth.
I fell back against my chair and put my hand over my heart as if she’d shot me, and she laughed some more. After that, I sat up straight again and said, “Probably true.”
“So,” she said. “Third reason?” When I probably looked confused, she said, “That I’m the wrong woman to date.”
“That youthinkyou’re the wrong woman to date,” I said. “Nah, I don’t think I’ll share the third reason. What was I thinking?”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Share.”
“You seemed …” I started, then stopped. “No. There’s no good way to explain this.”
“But I need to know,” she said. “At some point, I need to go out again, right? It’s been disastrous so far, obviously, which is another sign that I need to go out. Online dating, or whatever. Sharpen my skills. Mynonexistentskills.” Now, she was the one sitting up straight. “Wait. Dating coach.”
“Pardon?”
“You don’t really want to date me, obviously,” she said. “Because I’m not cut out for it—to put it mildly—and you don’t want women with kids. With daughters. Withtwindaughters.” Which was true, so what could I say?
