Just Once More (2 page)

“Sounds terrifying,” she said softly. Her hand was still there, stroking over his skin. “I’ll bet you saved me, though.”

“No.” He felt her hand still for a moment in surprise. “I mean, I did, I guess, because he was gone, and I was lying there, beat to hell from having my head bashed against the rock and that. But I’d had my hands around his throat, and I’d either killed him or he was gone, don’t know which. You know, dreams. But then I was still there, in the dark, in the tunnel, and I couldn’t find you. And I knew you were having the baby. Right there. I knew it, and I couldn’t get there. I couldn’t get to you.” His body remembered exactly how it had felt. Because she was right. It had terrified him.

“Which has happened,” she pointed out practically. “Twice now. Though without the tunnel, thank goodness. And I’ve had them all the same. I know you think you’re necessary, and no question, you’re pretty important at the start, aren’t you?”

She was trying to tease him, doing her best to ease his unquiet mind, and he was embarrassed. She should be the one being nervous, and he should be the one doing the comforting, not the other way around.

“But when it gets to that point, you know,” she reminded him, “I pretty much have to do it myself. An anxiety dream, that’s all it was. But it’s all right.”

“Going to be there for this one all the same,” he told her. “Shouldn’t have missed the last one. Should never have gone, not after the first time.”

“No,” she said instantly. “How could we have known it would be that fast?”

Because it had been fast. Too fast. He’d been here, talking to the Bay of Plenty club about the coaching job, and she’d been back in Auckland with their three-year-old. And his mum and dad, thank God.

“It’s only three hours away,” she’d told him when he’d vacillated about going. “It’s not going to happen faster than that, for heaven’s sake. You need to talk to them, I’m not due for more than ten days, and the midwife says nothing looks imminent. Go.”

So he’d gone, and once again, he hadn’t made it back in time, because three hours had been too long after all. He’d broken every speed limit to get to her, and it hadn’t mattered. He hadn’t made it.

“It’s going to be me holding your hand this time,” he told her now. “Not my mum. Me. So don’t be thinking you’re going anywhere without me for the next couple weeks, or that I’m going anywhere without you. No arguments.”

“I’ll be happy to have you there holding my hand, believe me,” she assured him. “I want you there. And meanwhile, I guess we probably shouldn’t go caving for the next couple weeks after all. Better cancel that blackwater rafting booking, you think? Shoot. I was really looking forward to that.” She still had her hand on him, and she was smiling, he could tell.

He laughed. Reluctantly, but he laughed all the same. “Stupid, I know it. It’s just…” He said it, in the dark. “My biggest fear, isn’t it. That I won’t be able to take care of you. You and the kids.”

“And you might not be able to, someday, somehow,” she said, no laughter in her voice anymore. “You’re not always here, even now. But I manage all the same. And I would manage. To take care of myself, and the kids too, no matter what. Don’t worry, Drew. It’s all right.”

“I know,” he said. “I know. It’s just…” He rested a hand on the taut roundness of her belly. “Too close, I reckon. I’m always nervous when you’re this close. It matters too much. And besides, I’m used to being able to do things, to take care of things, and when you’re having the baby, I can’t. So hard to know you’re hurting, and not be able to help.”

“Somebody said that. That when you have a child, you give a hostage to the world. When you love somebody that much.”

“A hostage. Yeh.” He felt his son kick under his hand, held safe there under his wife’s heart, and knew how true it was. “You, and the kids.”

“True for me too, you know,” she said. He’d turned onto his side to face her, and he could see her now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The gleam of her pale hair, her eyes on him, her face so gentle. “True for both of us. Love is a risk. But you’re worth it, Drew. Always.”

He did his best to speak around the lump in his throat. “Yeh. So are you.”

Hannah woke to find the room dark, because the shades were still drawn. She could see from the bright December light shining around their edges, though, that it was morning.

No Drew beside her. She pulled the pillow that had supported her belly out from between her legs, rolled with difficulty onto her other side, and looked at the bedside clock.

Seven-thirty. She’d slept in, and Drew had let her. She still had more than two weeks to go until the baby, but everybody who’d told her the third was harder had been right, because she was dragging. Or maybe it was just that she was thirty-five now, and pregnancy, never her easiest thing, had got even harder. She couldn’t love her children more, but she sure didn’t love being pregnant. And last night, she hadn’t loved it at all. She’d woken, slept a little, and woken again until the wee hours of the morning. Drew’s nightmare had unsettled her, maybe, or maybe it was just her back. She got up, putting a hand to it as she did, and it was an effort.

But Drew was on holiday, she had a houseful of guests, every one of whom was somebody she loved, and it was a beautiful December morning. She drew the blinds to reveal a few white clouds in the impossibly clear blue of a New Zealand sky, the grass and flax plant and palms, their fronds waving a little in the gentle breeze. And, beyond, the expansive curve of beach where sand met sea. Papamoa Beach, on the Bay of Plenty. Home.

Fifteen minutes later, she was down the wide, angular white-walled stairway of the modern house, windows streaming with light, into the gleaming stainless-steel of the kitchen, where breakfast was in full swing.

Helen, Drew’s mum, had clearly been up and cooking early. Drew, his father Sam, and Hannah’s brother-in-law Liam were finishing off a very full breakfast with obvious contentment. Sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes, potatoes, and all. Helen had really gone to town for “her boys.”

Hannah was glad she hadn’t had to do it, because even this late in her pregnancy, bacon and sausage—even the smell of them—didn’t sit easily. And that was particularly true this morning.

“Morning, love,” her mother-in-law said.

“Morning,” Hannah said, stooping with some difficulty to give her children a somewhat messy kiss that they barely deigned to return, so intent were they on their own breakfasts. “You should have woken me, Drew. Here I am, last one down.”

“Nah,” he said, mopping up a last bit of yolk with a piece of toast. “Needed your rest, didn’t you. Baby’s going to be more trouble out than in. Rest while you can.”

“How did you do, Kristen?” Hannah asked. Kristen was due only ten days after her elder sister, but of course she still looked beautiful, because it seemed that Kristen could never look anything else.

“Not too badly,” Kristen said, and if a pregnant woman could truly be said to glow, she was glowing. And even that irritated Hannah this morning, which was just wrong.

“Sit and have some breakfast, love,” Helen said. “Eggs? Toast? More?”

“I can get it,” Hannah said automatically.

“Oh, let me spoil you, my darling,” Helen said. “You know how much I enjoy it, and I’ll be back with only Sam to see to soon enough.” Which made Hannah a little weepy. Her emotions were out of control today, and that was the truth.

“Though I’m more trouble than three,” Sam Callahan, an older and even broader version of his much-decorated son, said. “So it’s not really a fair comparison.”

“Rubbish,” Helen said. “A bit mucky from the animals, maybe.” She gave Hannah a wink.

“So,” Hannah said, taking a cautious nibble at a triangle of toast from the rack, a sip of the herbal tea that Helen put in front of her. Spoiling her, as always, just as she’d said. She took a breath, another sip of tea, tried her best to sound cheerful. “We’ve got a big day today, don’t we?”

“Yeh,” Drew said. “Mako and I thought we’d start it with a visit to the gym.”

That made her smile after all, her first truly genuine one of the morning. “Oh, because you need to work out. Before you go water skiing and swimming and whatever else you’ve got planned for today.”

“Aw, that’s just a bit of larking about,” Liam said. “Not a real workout.”

“Uh-huh,” Hannah shared a look with her sister. “If you say so.”

“I thought we’d take the kids,” Drew said. “The other boys are bringing theirs too. Drop them in the childcare there, give you girls a break before everyone gets wet and sandy and noisy. Right, you two?”

“Yeh, Mum,” Jack piped up. “We’re going with Dad! And then the beach!”

“Really? Who all’s going?” Hannah asked.

Drew shrugged. “Everybody. All seven of us. Toro’s not arriving until later today,” he reminded her, referring to his successor as captain of the All Blacks, coming in for the wedding that was the excuse for this gathering of teammates past and present.

“And everybody’s bringing their kids?” Hannah asked. “Drew, the gym isn’t going to be able to handle that. That’s…” She paused, tried to count in her head, gave up.

“We won’t take the big ones,” Drew said. “Just the littlies. Only seven of them. And I already rang up,” he said, cutting her off. “It’s sorted. Besides, Jack’s going to help look after Grace, aren’t you, mate?” He gave his son’s hair a rumple.

“Yeh,” Jack said with enthusiasm, looking up at last from his oatmeal. “Grace and I like to play at the gym, and I’ll look after her, Mum. I’m very good at looking after. Want to play in the ball pit, Gracie?” he asked his eighteen-month-old sister.

Grace, all pink cheeks, blue eyes, and pale blonde curls, looked up from the cereal she had been shoveling into her mouth with all her father’s famous single-mindedness. “Play ball!” she pronounced.

Drew laughed, leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek, got a messy pat from an oatmeal-smeared hand on his own chin for his trouble.

“That’s my girl,” he said, sitting up and wiping his face with a napkin. “Knows what’s important. You and Kristen have a…a rest or something, sweetheart. Have a nice catch-up.”

“A rest?” Hannah knew she shouldn’t be grumpy, but she was all the same. “I just got out of bed, Drew. I don’t need a rest.” She saw that Drew was showing her his Patient Face, and forced herself into a cheerfulness she didn’t feel. He was doing his best to help out. Time for her to do her best too. “We’ll go for a walk, Kristen, before it gets too hot? Want to?”

Kristen sighed. “She’s making me exercise again,” she complained to Liam.

“Good for us,” Hannah said. Good for her, she hoped. She had to shake herself out of this, because she had twelve people coming to the house for dinner tonight, and even though she wouldn’t be doing much of the work, the idea of it was making her feel nothing but tired and cross.

“Don’t wear yourself out,” Drew said, reading her mood. “Because we wouldn’t want you too tired to get up on your own water skis.”

“Drew, you’re such a tease,” his mother said fondly.

Hannah had to laugh a little. “You can tell I’m grouchy, huh? I’m sorry.”

“Nah,” he said, pulling her to him and giving her a kiss on the forehead. “You’re entitled.”

“Now you know why you were always gone when the babies were due,” she said, wiping her eyes, because they were leaking again. “Much wiser.”

“Down!” Grace chose this moment to announce, shoving at the tray of her high chair and wriggling.

“And that would be another no.” Drew took the wet cloth from his mum and wiped down his daughter’s hands and face before releasing her from her imprisonment. “Happy to be here with you, grouchy or not. Go for a walk with your sister. Have a rest. Have a swim this afternoon. Whatever it takes. Mako and I know what our part in this is, don’t we, mate?”

“Not answering that,” Liam said, a smile lessening the impact of the broad, much-broken nose, the cauliflower ears. “Except to say, yeh. I’m right here putting up my hand to be a supportive partner. Got my nappy-changing down. Went to the one class I was home for, took notes, did a bit of practicing with Kristen on our own, and I’m all ready to hold her hand and remind her to breathe when the time comes. Can’t wait.”

“Me too,” Drew said. “Went to almost all of them. Extra bonus points for me, d’you reckon? Felt like a bloody fool doing all those hoo-hah breaths and panting breaths and all of that, especially with every other dad in there wanting to talk rugby, but I did it all the same. Bona fide New Age dad here. You wouldn’t think you’d have to go to class to learn how to breathe, though, would you? Let alone to help somebody else breathe.
Definition of an impossible task. I have a dark suspicion that they’re really meant to make us boys feel prepared for something there’s no preparing for.”

“Hey,” Hannah objected, but she couldn’t help smiling, because he’d jollied her out of it, exactly as he’d meant to do. “It’s harder than you think, in the heat of the moment. Easy for you to say breathing’s easy. You’ve never tried doing it while you’re…passing a watermelon.”

That earned a shout of laughter from Sam. “That’s about it,” he told Drew. “And you’re on shaky ground here. Back away slowly.”