Page 76 of Catch a Kiwi
I wanted to say something. I couldn’t. I could only feel his hand around mine and look into his hard face and wish that I could resist being told that I hadn’t been stupid. That I hadn’t been weak. That I hadn’t been to blame.
He wasn’t done. “You were hurt. That’s obvious. That doesn’t mean you were weak. Nothing I’ve heard says weakness, and nothing I’ve seen does, either. I’ve been judging people half my life, and what’s at the core of you isn’t weak, and it isn’t selfish. What’s inside you is nothing but heart. Nothing but mana. You’re not selfish, but I am. Because I want it, and I want you. And I can’t stop.”
Tell me how a woman’s supposed to resist that.
31
SUPERHERO MOVES
Roman
It took me most of the drive from Tauranga Airport to Katikati, peaceful as the setting was, to shake off what Summer had told me. It was a good thing that bastard was in prison, because if I’d met him, I wouldn’t have answered for what I’d do. She was so much more than the hair and the body and the eyes and the voice, but I’d bet that was all he’d seen. Of course, the hair and the body and the eyes and the voice were still there as well, and they were still knocking me out.
Complicated.
Nothing like descending on dozens of members of your not-actual-family to refocus the mind, though. I followed the GPS up a winding road from the sea toward the foot of steep hills for a few kilometers, and Delilah said, “So does this guy live on a farm, or what? Because these look like farms. Or orchards, I guess. Whatisthat?”
“Kiwifruit,” I said. “Grown on vines and trellised.”
“Oh.” She still sounded dubious. “I thought Hemi Te Mana was a billionaire.”
“He is,” I said. “Doesn’t mean his granddad is.”
“Your granddad, you mean,” Delilah said. “You’d better practice. I thought Kiwis were family-focused, though, and that Maori were even more that way. Wouldn’t he have bought something fancier for his grandfather?”
“Dunno,” I said. “You could ask him.” And wondered howthatconversation would go. Delilah confronting Hemi Te Mana … fireworks ahead for sure.
“Is it going to be all, like, excessively Maori, too?” Delilah asked.
“How would he know?” Summer asked, at the same time I asked, “What’s excessively Maori?”
“I don’t know,” Delilah said. “I’m a tourist.”
“So am I,” I said. “More or less. We’ll have to find out.”
There were so many cars parked along the road, I couldn’t get close. I said, “I’ll drop you, then find a carpark.”
“Oh, that’s hardly awkward at all,” Delilah said. “Two total strangers whoaren’tanybody’s grandkids showing up.”
“We can walk,” Summer said.
“Shoes and all?” I asked.
“I didn’t think you noticed,” she said.
“I noticed,” I said. “Pretty.”
“Bet you didn’t notice mine,” Delilah said. “And I told you, Summer was a WAG. She wore stilettos.Icouldn’t walk in those heels, but never mind, because I’m not wearing them. I’ve decided not to feel awkward about this, by the way. I’m going to observe. Ask questions. Maybe take notes. Journalists are never awkward. Do you have a notebook and pen? I didn’t bring mine.”
“No,” I said. “Take notes in your head.” But she’d succeeded in distracting me, and when I did park and we climbed out, Summer took my hand.
“Time to start pretending,” she said, when I looked down at her.
I said, “You realize I’ve done heaps of hard things,” and she said, composedly as you like, “That doesn’t make them easy,” and didn’t drop my hand. I felt her touch in more than my palm. I felt it in my body. It felt good, and it wasn’t close to enough.
I wasn’t a misfit, I reminded myself as we headed down the hill. I wasn’t looking in through lighted windows at happy families laughing together, at fathers lifting baby sons into the air. I was a competent, successful man. I’d even been married. Of course, I wasn’t married now, but never mind.
Our actual arrival was a bit of an anticlimax. Yeh, I could hear music and that laughter and chat from somewhere behind the house, and I could smell roasting pork, too, but the living being that greeted us was a duck. A very small white duck, waddling forward in that self-important way ducks do, quacking its head off and wearing, for some reason, a little black vest fastened around its middle with a button.
