“Dunno.” Clutching the rod, Lewis stood rooted, his gaze as hopeful as a spaniel’s.
Untwisting the last knot, Nate reset and recast the line. The sinker landed in the estuary with a solid splash and the current drifted it closer. “Breakfast was army rations, but a villager had baked naan,” Nate continued in the same curt tone. “That’s flat bread, cooked the way your dad liked it, spicy and oiled. As a last meal…” His throat closed, Nate concentrated on his line. “Getting any bites?”
“Um—” Lewis refocused on the fishing “—not anymore.”
“Check the bait.”
Lewis did as he was told. The hook broke the surface, trailing raggedy white shreds.
“Rebait it,” Nate barked.
The boy hesitated. “Can’t you do it?”
“No.”
The teenager finished reeling in. “You’re mad,” he commented nervously. “Dan said to be really careful how I asked because you had such a bad time.” He caught the swinging hook. Nate frowned at the implication he was somehow fragile.
“I’m not mad,” he said. “I’m—” Guilt-stricken, gutted, devastated. “It’s…fine you asking,” he lied. “It was dawn when we drove out.” Nate tried to take the gravel out of his tone. “The sky is an incredible blue that early. In the desert it seems to whiten out by noon. As we left, the dogs started barking—I swear those bloody Afghan mutts make better sentries than we do.”
Lewis stood riveted, the hook dangling from the rod, glinting in the sun. “Bait,” Nate prompted, and the boy crouched by the pail, wrinkling his nose as he dipped into the bucket for the slab of defrosted soft bait.
“Cut a centimeter cube,” Nate advised, and then winced as Lewis slashed at the bait with the razor-sharp knife. “Here, let me show you before you slice a tendon.” Wedging his rod in the railing, he knelt to demonstrate technique. “Either Claire’s a poor teacher,” he commented, “which I doubt, or you have trouble listening to your mother.”
Lewis scowled. “You know I do,” he said ingenuously. “Mum must have told you why we moved here.”
“I didn’t get details. Share a few.” However much he might have improved, Lewis could benefit by an attitude adjustment around his mother. Sunny enough when things were going his way, the teenager quickly turned sullen if Claire requested help with small chores—the same tasks he happily knuckled down to when asked by Nate, Ross or Dan.
“No, I don’t want to go into it.” Lewis finished baiting his hook and wiped his hands clean with a rag.
Nate didn’t press him. They resumed fishing and Lewis glanced over expectantly. “Well?” he said after a couple of minutes.
“Well, what?”
“You’re telling me about Dad.”
“No, I don’t want to go into it.”
Lewis only took a second to get with the play. “That’s blackmail,” he protested.
“Yep.” The line pulled as a fish nibbled the bait; Nate jerked the rod.
“I shoplifted,” Lewis said grudgingly.
“What did you take?”
“I took iPod earplugs at an electronics store.… They had surveillance cameras.”
“So you weren’t a very good shoplifter?”
Nate glanced at Lewis as he spoke and saw a flash of annoyance before the teen shrugged and let out more line. “Guess not.”
“So how many times did you get away with it before you were caught?”
Lewis glanced up, shocked. “What? N-n-never.”
“You know another animal you see everywhere in Afghanistan? Goats… I’ve hooked something.” Nate started winding his reel. “That morning Lee discovered one had somehow climbed high enough to steal two pairs of his underpants from the clothesline.”
Lewis laughed.
“Yeah, we all thought it was pretty funny. Not Lee though, but he’d been grumpy all tour. Your dad said—” Nate stopped. A small kahawai broke the water, its sides flashing silver as it wriggled on the hook.
“Dad said…?” Lewis prompted.
“We’ll let this baby grow a bit more, shall we?”
“Sure.”
Seizing the struggling fish, Nate freed it with one deft twist.
“So Dad said…?”
“How many times did you shoplift before you were caught?” Nate released the gasping kahawai into the water, watched it surge out of sight.
Silence. Nate rebaited his hook. Cruel to use a dead father as a negotiating tool, but he had no doubt of Steve’s blessing.
“Three,” Lewis admitted in a small voice. “A bar of chocolate from the supermarket and then a T-shirt. I bought one and wore another under my own. And a prepaid phone card. My friend distracted the teller.”
The hint of pride in his voice faded as he met Nate’s hard gaze. “I am sorry now,” he assured him hastily. “I won’t ever do it again. Don’t tell Mum.”
“I won’t.” Claire had enough on her plate. “Were you prosecuted?” Nate threaded more soft bait onto the hook.
“No. Nana knows the store owner really well. I just had to apologize and clean up around the store’s trash bins every Sunday for six weeks.”
“You’re bloody lucky Ellie had contacts.”
“That’s what she says.”
“So why’d you do it?”
“It sounds lame now.”
That’s encouraging. “Tell me anyway.”
“The first time to prove I wasn’t a wimp.” Lewis shrugged. “A mummy’s boy. It was scary, but it was also kinda exciting after I’d got away with it and it snowballed, I guess. School and stuff seemed a bit pointless and the kids I skipped classes with were fun to hang out with. They didn’t give a sh—damn about all the school rules. But they’re not my friends now. Even if Mum let me, I don’t want to see them anymore.”
Nate recast his line. The lure of cool kids, those sullen little badasses—as he’d once been—who strutted around acting as if they had all the answers. He knew well their attraction to a boy who’d lost his way. He glanced at Lewis. Or a boy whose whole world had been turned upside down.
“You think I’m an epic fail, don’t you?” Lewis said.
“We all make mistakes. I got into worse trouble when I was your age.”
“Yeah?” The teen pricked up his ears. “What did you do?”
“Similar stuff,” Nate hedged. Fortunately, he’d never been caught, at least not doing anything serious enough to affect his army application later. But he’d been a lot street smarter than this kid.
“Tell me!”
“So your dad said to Lee—” Nate took up his story again “‘—Lighten up, General Lee, it’s another be-u-ti-ful day.’ He was buzzed from getting a letter from you a few days earlier.”
Fortunately, Lewis was diverted. “Yeah?”
“Steve still had it in his pocket. God help us, he kept reading out the knock-knock jokes.”
“Oh, man,” Lewis groaned. “I forgot I was into those.”
“Your dad’s favorite was, knock knock, who’s there?”
Lewis covered his face with one hand. Nate grinned.
“Eve,” he answered himself.
Lewis squirmed. “Don’t—”
“Eve who?” said Nate, and waited.
“Nate!”
“Eve who me hearties!”
Lewis groaned again, trying not to laugh. “Really, his favorite?”
“Cross my heart… What’s happened to all the fish?” Nate checked the bait. Still there.
Lewis gave his line a cursory tug. “That joke scared them off.… So, will you talk to Mum for me? Ever since the shoplifting and stuff, she doesn’t trust me.” He hit Nate with “help the puppy” eyes. “And I’ve been perfect at least two months.”
Nate laughed. “Kid, you’ve made so many withdrawals from the trust account you’ll be paying interest for the next six months at least. But if you want to bank brownie points, then be nicer to your mum.” He held the boy’s gaze. “Treat her with the same respect your dad did.”
The teen broke eye contact first. “I’ll try.… So, what else do you remember…about Dad’s last day.”
But Nate had reached his limit. “That’s it.”
“Ross said the road had only been checked for IEDs hours before.”
Unable to help himself, Nate put his hand on the boy’s thin shoulders. “We never knew what hit us,” he said honestly. “But up to that point, I promise your dad had a really good day.”
Lewis nodded. “Cool.” Then without warning his face crumbled. Dropping his rod, he buried his face in Nate’s side.
Nate wrapped a comforting arm around him, instinctively grabbing the dangling rod with the free hand holding his own. “It’s okay, mate,” he managed to say, though they both knew it wasn’t.
“I feel bad that I’m forgetting him—” Lewis’s voice was muffled against Nate’s shoulder “—but I was only eleven.”
And you’re still only thirteen.
“Doesn’t matter,” Nate insisted stoutly. “Steve was your dad—he’s in your DNA. Nothing will ever change that.” One of the rods jerked in his hand. He ignored it.
Stepping back, Lewis wiped his eyes dry with a sleeve. “Did you stay away because we remind you of the bad times?”
“No.” Nate swallowed. “Because you remind me of the good times.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” The rod jerked again, attracting Lewis’s attention. “Have I got a fish?”
“I think so…here.” Nate untangled the two rods, doing the handover just as the line bowed.
“Whoa!” Lewis grabbed the pole with both hands. “I think it’s a big one.”
His grief forgotten, he started reeling in and a fish jumped out of the water, a fair-size kahawai, ready for a fight. Nate seized the distraction.
“Drop the line, then reel in a little bit,” he advised. “Yeah, that’s it. She’s a beauty.”
They lost it, but it didn’t matter because somehow they’d started enjoying themselves. When Claire’s car pulled over beside the bridge to give them a lift home, Nate even checked his watch, astonished by how quickly the afternoon had passed.
“Catch anything?” she said when they’d walked to the car with their fishing gear. She wore a black, slim-fitting skirt that accentuated her small waist and the curve of her hips.
Another one that got away. Nate rattled the empty bucket. “We won’t be filling up your bait freezer.”
“Now, that’s a shame. I—”
“Mum,” Lewis interrupted. “Remember all those knock-knock jokes I used to send Dad? Nate said he read out bits of one of my letters the morning he…of his last tour.”
“Really, that’s so great.” Her eyes met Nate’s, glowing with a gratitude he didn’t deserve. He busied himself loading the fishing gear in the trunk.
“It’s Mum’s fault I got hooked on knock-knock jokes,” Lewis said. “She tells the lamest jokes.”
“Hey,” Claire protested. “I tell great jokes. What fish do road-menders use? …Pneumatic krill.”
“See.” Lewis rolled his eyes at Nate. “She doesn’t even wait for you to answer before giving away the punch line.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I
N
SOME
WAYS
, signing the sales agreement on her house felt like Claire’s wedding day. An exuberant celebrant— Adam, the estate agent, could barely contain his excitement over the sales commission. Her dress was a little tight.… She’d put on five pounds over the past ten days. And it was a moment of change that would close a chapter and catapult her life in a new direction.
Claire watched as Nate leaned forward to sign the document. The pen hovered over the blank space as he sent an unspoken query.
“Don’t even go there,” she warned and, smiling, he signed. Claire added her own signature with a flourish.
“Congratulations, everyone!” Adam retrieved a bottle of champagne from behind his desk. “I know it’s only noon. But I think we’ve all earned it.” Popping the cork, he poured the fizzing liquid into paper cups. Claire turned to the couple who’d been so patient.
Peter and Felicity Durell had the relaxed happy demeanor of two people who’d spent a week reigniting their marriage through a combination of sand, tropical sun and sex. Claire raised her glass in a toast. “I hope you’ll be as happy in the house as we were,” she toasted.
“Thank you.” Felicity was three months pregnant. After toasting, she put the cup down as gingerly as if it was a detonator and smiled at Nate, who looked particularly handsome in dark jeans and a moss-green cashmere sweater that clung to every defined muscle. Remembering her reaction to Nate last time she’d drunk champagne, Claire set down her own cup, untasted. It didn’t help the lust. A light had been switched on inside her and she couldn’t switch it off.
“This time next week, honey, we’ll be home owners.” Peter leaned over and kissed his wife. They’d gone for a quick settlement. Claire needed cash to finish the boat and she wanted to reimburse Nate quickly. She’d already transferred some things to the bach—kitchen appliances, newer beds and linen. All that remained was to box up what she intended keeping and send it with the furniture to storage.
She glanced at her watch and stood. “I hate to sign and run but Nate and I are due at my lawyer’s.”
As long as Jo’s medical checkup went well—please, God—he’d leave tonight, taking a feeder flight from Whangarei to Auckland to catch a connection to L.A.
And keeping busy was the way Claire avoided dwelling on that.
The first thing Jules did when they reached her office was try to talk Nate out of resigning from the trust.
“I’ve changed my mind. I think you’ve got a lot to offer.” She glanced at Claire. They’d discussed this briefly on the phone, but Claire had left Jules to raise the idea with Nate. His choice, she’d stressed. Maintaining the trust would safeguard the bach against the possibility of claims against Claire’s new business venture.
Nate shook his head. “It’s too complicated with me living in another country.”
“Not if we modify the trust so that Claire and I sign for cash withdrawals up to a pre-agreed amount and organize an electronic signature for you.” Jules had agreed to replace Steve as third trustee. She sat back in her office chair and crossed her legs. “Really, you’re only looking at an annual general meeting and that can be done over Skype.”
“Leave it now, Jules,” Claire said after a glance at Nate. “Excusing Nate from the trust was part of our deal when he agreed to come home. I’ll ask Ellie to step in for him.” She’d hoped Nate might have changed his mind, because Jules was right, his advice had proven invaluable, but she completely related to his need for a safe distance.
“Okay… But it’ll take me another few days to sort out the paperwork.”
Nate straightened in his chair. “I thought we were signing everything off today.”
“I figured you’d agree, so I didn’t prepare alternative documents.”
Claire frowned. “But I told you that Nate’s leaving tonight if Jo gets the all-clear.” Nervously she checked her watch. Nate should be getting a call from Dan anytime now.
“Tonight?” said Jules. “I thought you said Tuesday.” Five days away? She thought no such thing, Claire decided. Their friend was trying to play matchmaker.
“Well, where the hell does that leave us?” Nate demanded.
“It leaves us with Jules putting a rush on documents, doesn’t it, Ms. Browne?”
Jules returned a limpet gaze. “It would, except I’ve got back-to-back appointments today and tomorrow. Then it’s the weekend. What say we meet again Monday?”
“No,” Claire and Nate said together.
“In that case—” Nate’s cell rang, interrupting her, and they all tensed.
Nate checked the number and swallowed. “It’s Dan.… Hey, mate. How’d the specialist’s appointment go?”
“She’s clear.” Dan’s voice was jubilant. “Jo’s been given the all-clear. We’ve passed another hurdle.”
Relief swept over him like a wave so powerful that Nate forgot his annoyance at Jules. “That’s great.” He gave the two women a thumbs-up and they shrieked and jumped up and down, hugging each other. “Dan, that’s great news.”
“You’re telling me.… Hell, my hands are shaking.”
“It’s reaction,” Nate said. He was feeling a little shaken himself. “Can you hear Claire and Jules?” He held out the phone, they yahooed louder, then returned the cell to his ear.
Dan laughed. “We have to celebrate this,” he said. “By hell crikey, do we have to celebrate this.” He whooped suddenly, a sound of joy and release. “We’re coming up Saturday night—me, Jo, Ross and Viv. And don’t give me any bullshit about leaving tonight. I need you to celebrate with us, plus you owe Jo big-time for not showing up to our wedding. Tell Claire to book a restaurant in Whangarei. We’ll stay in a hotel. No way is our first baby being conceived in a tent.…Hang on…Yeah, honey, we’re making babies.…Nate, I’ll confirm details later. I have to go kiss my wife.”
Nate rang off and gave the others an update, too elated to immediately consider the ramifications of staying. “That’s fantastic,” Jules said. “And it takes the pressure off the paperwork.”
Nate turned to Claire. “Looks like you’re stuck with me until Monday.” Her eyes revealed her thoughts when she forgot to guard them and he saw the same mix of dismay and reprieve he felt himself.
He wanted to go only slightly more desperately than he wanted to stay.
* * *
D
URING
LUNCH
WITH
E
LLIE
, Nate and Lewis at the waterfront restaurant, Claire made two trips to the bathroom, solely to panic. Her second visit she sat on the closed seat in a toilet stall and obsessively shredded toilet tissue into tiny squares, trying to regain perspective. What was another few days really? They’d handled it so far, hadn’t they?
Except she felt like a marathoner within sight of the finish line who’d just been told the race had been extended another fifteen kilometers. Frankly, Claire didn’t think she had the reserves. Nate had to leave for her to regain her emotional equilibrium.
Sitting jammed next to him in one of the restaurant’s small booths didn’t help. Every time he moved, a warm shoulder or thigh brushed against hers. She knew Nate was as self-conscious as she was because he kept asking the waiter if one of the bigger tables had come free. Even when perfectly innocuous conversation flowed between and around them, their sexual awareness only got stronger for being repressed.
She couldn’t sit here forever; they’d wonder where she was. Standing, Claire lifted the toilet seat, let the myriad scraps of toilet tissue flutter to a watery grave and flushed. Hopefully, Lewis and Ellie would have finished dessert by now; she’d ask for the check on the way back to the table.
She exited the cubicle, washed her hands and grabbed a paper towel, resisting the urge to shred it. She could have kissed Nate this morning, seeing Lewis so happily recalling his dad. Claire imagined that chaste peck of gratitude turning into a carnal, tongue-thrusting, body-grinding… Oh, my God. Returning to the basin, she turned on the tap and splashed cold water on her face, then stared at herself through dripping lashes.
Four more days. She dried her face on a paper towel, practiced her yoga breath and straightened her shoulders. “I can do that.”
She returned to the booth as Nate was saying, “So while we were trying to talk to him—” He saw Claire and stopped.
“Mum, have you heard this story?” Lewis demanded, his eyes shining. “About how Dad and Lee saved a baby’s life?”
“No.” Somehow her son could draw Nate out where Claire had failed—and she rejoiced in it for both their sakes. She slid into the booth, bracing herself against the inevitable touch of Nate’s warm thigh.
“Keep going,” Ellie urged. “You’d been patrolling for weeks, collecting intel.” The slang sounded strange on her tongue.
Glancing at Claire, Nate pushed aside his empty plate. His reluctance to tell stories was to do with her, she realized, and tried not to be hurt by that.
His leg accidentally touched hers. “Where was I?” he said distractedly. At least he was finding their physical proximity as hard as she was.
“You weren’t making any progress with this village headman,” Lewis said. “That’s like the boss, Mum,” he clarified importantly.
“Even though his village was being raided by the insurgents,” Nate added. He picked up his water glass and took a sip. “One visit we were trying to find common ground with him, when this young woman approached Lee. We’d been in the area long enough for him to have treated a few locals—she must have known he was our medic. She carried a little girl, who was feverish, semiconscious. The second he spotted her, the headman started screaming and shooing her away. Sobbing, she argued with him, but he didn’t budge. Other villagers pulled her into a building.”
Claire leaned forward. “Did you follow her?”
“We’re trained to respect local customs,” he said. “If they want help, great. If not, we accept the headman’s authority.”
“But her baby needed medical treatment,” Ellie protested.
“Their country, their rules,” Nate said, and there was a soldier’s inflection in his voice. “It’s tough, but it’s necessary to gain their trust. Except then Lee muttered to Steve, ‘Symptoms match that baby I treated last week.’ Unfortunately, that village sought our help too late, the baby died.”
Claire shivered, her gaze going protectively to Lewis, but though his eyes widened, he said, “What happened next?”
“Through an interpreter, Steve started reasoning with the headman,” Nate said. “The elder kept shaking his head. It was the same week you’d taken a tumble,” he said to Lewis, “and been in the hospital overnight with suspected concussion. Suddenly your dad lost it. He started yelling at the old man, said he deserved to have rebels wipe out his goddamn village if he couldn’t put a child’s life before his pride.”
“How did he take that?” Ellie said, aghast.
“Glared back, not saying a word,” Nate replied. “When Steve ran out of steam, we shoved him in the truck because it was clear he’d blown whatever chance we had of getting onside with this guy.
“Next thing, the headman is standing in front of the bull bar beckoning Lee. We got out. The elder shook his head and pointed. Only Lee.” Nate took another sip of his water. Clearly, he found this difficult.
Lewis propped his chin in his hand. “And then?” he prompted.
“Your dad said no, and the headman walked away. Lee insisted he’d take his chances. He disappeared with the elder, leaving the rest of us to sweat it out, rifles cocked. Thirty minutes later Lee reappeared. Another hour, he said, and the little girl would have been past saving. The interpreter said the old man relented because Steve had lost it. ‘Then,’ said the interpreter, ‘he know you geev a sheet.’”
“What does a sheet have to do with it,” said Ellie, confused.
“A shit, Nana,” Lewis clarified.
Ellie frowned. “Language.” She dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “But what a wonderful story.”
“It is,” Claire said softly.
Nate looked at her. “Later, Steve said that if he couldn’t be there for his own child, he could at least be there for someone else’s.”
Her anger sprang out of nowhere. One second Claire was trying not to cry, the next struggling to swallow bitter words.
“That’s so like Steve,” said Ellie. “Always putting other people first. Just like his father.”
Claire stood abruptly. “I need some fresh air.” Ignoring their astonished faces, she escaped the restaurant and stalked across the waterfront piazza. She stopped at the edge of the quay where she struggled to bring her temper under control by counting the spars and masts of the small yachts bobbing in the marina.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” Oh, no, Ellie had followed.
She’d never told Steve’s mother about her son’s decision to accept one more tour. It would be too cruel to add another “if only” to the ones already haunting Ellie. But today the urge to scream, “Your bloody son broke his word, that’s what’s wrong!” was so strong that sweat broke out on Claire’s forehead. “I’m not feeling well,” she managed to say.
“You don’t have to pretend to me.” Her bangles jangled as Ellie hugged her. “Nate’s story upset you, didn’t it?” Claire tried to return her mother-in-law’s affectionate embrace.
“Yes,” she said tightly. “It upset me.”
“How about I take Lewis shopping for a couple of hours, give you space to have a good cry? You let Nate drive you home and I’ll drop Lewis off later.”
“Bless you, Ellie.” There was no reserve now in her hug.
Nate exited the restaurant, pocketing his wallet, Lewis behind him. Claire avoided Nate’s gaze. Only he had the information to join the dots, understand that this was anger, not grief.
“You okay?” he said quietly.
Ellie took charge. “She’s not feeling well. Nathan, take her home so she can have a little lie-down. Lewis, I’m taking you shopping for those Converse skaters you wanted.”
Her son’s worried frown lightened. “Cool, thanks… But are you really okay, Mum?”
He glanced at Nate then added valiantly, “I can look after you if you want.”
Despite her distress, Claire was moved. “It’s only a headache.” She touched his cheek. “Nothing a nap won’t cure. You go with Nana.”
She dreaded Nate raising the subject when they were alone, but he didn’t say a word until they were thirty minutes into the drive. “The stories about Steve haven’t helped, have they?” he said. “To forgive him.”