Page 84 of Kiwi Gold
“Hughes,” I said. “Lachlan Hughes.” Then grinned, because once again, I sounded like I was in a James Bond film, except that Laila was right. If I was, I clearly wasn’t the hero. “His daughters’ half-brother,” I added, for the hell of it, and didn’t mention Laila. “And I don’t need the hospital,” I decided to say, just to make that clear. My chest was bruised as hell, but it was nothing that a bag of ice wouldn’t fix.
The ambos were trying to get Drake onto the gurney now, gesticulating, urging. He was roaring, “No! For the last bloody time, I’m not going!” and I got distracted by how much Amira would’ve enjoyed an ambulance ride with her grandfather. The German fella was shaking his head and walking off, probably mentally composing a text to his wife about insane Brits, because he wouldn’t know we were Kiwis. If he had, he probably wouldn’t have been so surprised. As for the hotel manager, he looked like he’d heard it all, and also like he could stand here being urbane all day until he got his way.
I told Drake, “We’ll go in a taxi, then. Both of us.” And added for good measure, “My chest isn’t too flash. Could need an X-ray myself.” He was Laila’s father, after all. Also, I may have felt a little guilty.
I wanted to win, yeh. Iplannedto win. I didn’t normally do it by running people into the ground, especially not the father of my new almost-partner. Who loved her dad. A dad who was her only surviving parent.
I could’ve thought this one out better.
* * *
Laila
When my phone started to buzz and jump around like an angry hornet, I was asleep. I reached for it in that pat-pat-pat way you do, and heard theclunkas it fell off the nightstand. I was swearing in my head, reaching over the side of the high bed, feeling for it, finally catching the edge, and …
And falling out of bed. My heel hit the wall hard on the way down, and I thought, still sleep-fogged,Good thing Lachlan’s not home, or he’d be rushing over here to the rescue, thinking I’d kicked his wall as some sort of danger signal. He’s worse than my dad.And got distracted by the thought of what he’d do if hedidrush over and found that I was OK. Also if he found out that I was in my nightie, which wasnotwhite, cotton, and billowing.All of which meant that, by the time I got more-or-less upright again and had the phone in hand, it had stopped ringing.
“Bugger,”I breathed. The number was unfamiliar, and it had a country code in front of it. An unfamiliar one.
Saudi Arabia,I thought, scrambled back into bed, and …
Didn’thit the redial button. I didn’t know the country code was Saudi Arabia, and I certainly didn’t know it was Lachlan. Quite possibly wishful thinking. With my luck, I’d get some Russian spammer wanting me to extend the warranty on my car. The reason Amira wasn’t allowed to use my phone anymore? Because I’d caught her with it a few months back, when I’d come out of the shower and heard her piping voice from the kitchen, giving her name and address. I’d rushed out there, a towel wrapped hastily around me, and grabbed the phone from her, saying, “Hello?” in a breathless way that must have sounded too much like Amira, because the heavily-accented person on the other end said, “Yes, miss. The outstanding tax owed must be paid before the end of the month, or we will be forced to take action to seize your accounts. I’m ready for your credit card information now.”
I’d stabbed at the button fast, and after that, I’d kept the phone with me.
Now, I checked my voicemails. Nothing.
Was it reasonable to expect him to call me? To text me? I didn’t know. There must be a middle ground between “Kegan-style two weeks without a text” and “stalker.” I just didn’t know what it was.
The phone buzzed again.
I did some more button-stabbing, and heard, “Did I wake you?” in a Kiwi accent.
“Lachlan!” I said. “No. Of course not.”
A long, long pause. “No. It’s Baba.” In anextremelydangerous voice.
Half of me wanted to giggle. The other half said, “Oh! Hi, Baba. What time is it there? Midday?” Because, yes, I’d looked up the time difference. Thinking that Lachlan might text me, but he hadn’t, not so far. Just my dad.
I wasn’t looking forward to this conversation, whatever it was. He hadn’t spoken to me yet in any detail about Lachlan’s sisters, for one thing, even though I’d been anticipating it for two weeks. Any envy and jealousy I’d felt were going to be rewarded, it seemed, because I was going to be the only daughter after all. It should have been what I wanted, but it didn’t quite feel that way. I hadn’t expected him to meet them, then totally ignore them, even though he wasn’t their father, not in any way that counted, and their mother wouldn’t thank him for trying to step into that role, not to mention the stepfather. But maybe I’d wanted him to at leastcare.
And then there was the other thing. He’d stopped by Friday morning on the way to the airport to retrieve his oscillating tool and say goodbye to us, the way he always did before a journey, and the girls had bounced around him like Long John until Amira had dragged him into the bath “to see our new rout.”
“Not bad,” he admitted, once he’d examined every line of grout like a building inspector, and tapped on the tiles. “I thought I’d have to get in here to redo your work. Can’t have moisture behind tile.”
“It’s grout, not an oil painting,” I said, keeping my voice light, but tensing despite myself at the familiar criticism.It’s because he wants to be useful,I told myself, but it didn’t feel that way. Of course, I couldn’t gettoooutraged this time, since I hadn’t actually done any of it.
“Pity you didn’t match the tile,” he went on, “but it’s probably not worth the effort, as what you really need to do is rip out this bath to the studs and do a frameless shower instead, modernize every bit of this. What’s it been, fifty years since they put it in? Whole place is full of rot, I’m guessing.”
“It’s not rotten, Grandad,” Amira said. “It’snice.It’s all pink andfriendly.And we did it over and over, so it’sperfect.Lachlan said it was perfect, and he is a tile nexpert!”
“Anexpert,”Yasmin said.
“Iknow,”Amira said. “That’s what Isaid.”
Yasmin sighed, and my dad said, “What does Lachlan know about your bath?” Not to the girls. To me.
Amira answered before I could. “Because hedidit. First he used the tool and took out all the rout, even though it took a long time and was very noisy, and then he glued the white tiles in so they won’t fall out on Mummy’s head anymore. Mummy said she wanted to do it instead, but he said that’s what a man needs to do.”
