Don't Let Me Go (9 page)

‘No, absolutely not,’ he broke in firmly. ‘She doesn’t have the first idea, I swear it, and as far as I’m concerned, she never will have.’

Turning back towards the bach she put her hands to her head, hardly able to think.

‘It’s going to be all right,’ he said gently, coming to put an arm around her. ‘I know it’s a scary time right now, but you’ll get through it.’

Touched by the sincerity in his tone she looked up at him, and felt the simplicity of his words start to buoy her.

‘I’ll always be there for you,’ he promised. ‘No matter what.’

She smiled shakily. ‘I’ll be there for you too,’ she said, meaning it.

‘I know that,’ and drawing her into an embrace he held her close until they both started to laugh as the ducks, on their evening constitutional, came waddling out of the sea.

‘Time for their dinner,’ she declared.

‘And for another drink,’ he added. ‘Come on, I’ll race you back to the bach, last one in gets to eat the cupcakes.’

At the top of the incline, where she was watching through the puka trees, Katie’s face was as pale as the rays filtering down to the bay. She was afraid he’d come here after she’d driven off and left him, and being proved right was tearing her apart.

She hated herself for sneaking around after him, behaving like a pathetic stalker with no courage to speak up, but she’d had to find out if she was right. Now she wished she hadn’t, because she knew what she should do next was go down there and confront him.

‘Just look at them,’ she whispered brokenly to her friend Josie, as Charlotte and Rick fought to get across the footbridge first.

‘Are you going to do anything?’ Josie asked, transfixed by the scene.

‘Well I can’t just let them get away with it,’ Katie replied miserably. Though rage was trying to break through the cracks of her despair, it wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

Batting away a mozzie, Josie said, ‘I told you we shouldn’t have come.’

Feeling wretched right to her core, Katie turned to start climbing back through the vineyard to where they’d left the car.

Following her, Josie said, ‘At least you know now.’

‘Yeah, that makes me feel so much better.’

‘Sorry, but you’re the one who wanted to come, the one who had all the suspicions.’

‘And I’ve been proved right. Obviously there is something going on, and frankly it’s sick. She’s his stepsister, for God’s sake . . .’

‘Which doesn’t make them blood-related.’

‘It’s still sick. And I keep wondering if it’s why Anna brought her here. Maybe they all wanted this to happen.’

Since she had no idea if that was true, Josie stayed silent as she got into the car. ‘Where now?’ she asked, starting the engine as Katie slumped into the passenger seat.

Katie lowered her head, struggling with the urge to cry or run back down there and beg him to stop. They’d been together for almost two years, were engaged to be married, and everything had been perfect until Charlotte Nicholls had turned up. ‘What does he see in her?’ she growled desperately. ‘She’s not exactly a raving beauty, is she? And as far as I can tell she doesn’t have anything going for her, apart from that strange little retard kid who he seems to be completely besotted with.’

Wincing at the cruelty, Josie decided now wouldn’t be the time to admit that she considered Charlotte to be über-attractive. However, she couldn’t let it go by about the child. ‘She’s not retarded,’ she protested. ‘I don’t even know what makes you say that.’

Katie didn’t either, really, and she felt terrible now for saying it.

‘Where do you want to go?’ Josie asked again. ‘Shall I take you home?’

Katie turned to stare out of the window. She couldn’t see the roof of the bach from where they were, but that didn’t stop her imagining what was going on inside it. ‘I should confront them,’ she declared through a scalding rush of tears. ‘I should go down there now and make them stop.’

When she didn’t move, Josie said, ‘I don’t reckon it’d do any good. Not if you want to hang on to him, and I take it you do.’

Katie turned to her. ‘Of course I do,’ she responded shakily, ‘but if he’s fallen for her, there’s not going to be very much I can do about that, is there?’

‘Maybe not, but if it’s just a passing fling . . .’

‘It’s more than that, I just know it. He’s been different since she came here . . .’ Taking a breath, she put her head back and dragged her hands over her face. ‘We have to get rid of her, Josie. Somehow we have to make her go back to where she came from.’

Starting to turn the car around, Josie said, ‘You’re the one who keeps saying she’s hiding something, so maybe, if you find out what it is . . .’

Katie’s eyes were so blurred by tears she barely knew what she was seeing. ‘There is something,’ she muttered distractedly. ‘I just know it.’

‘So take a little trawl around the Internet, see what you can find out. I’d come and do it with you, if I didn’t have to get back for Curt.’

Katie’s heartbreak swept over her again. She couldn’t bear to think of going home alone, of spending the evening trying to dig up something damaging about Charlotte Nicholls instead of being with Rick. But what choice did she have? He’d turned down the house, had gone straight to Charlotte, and she couldn’t imagine anything she said or did now was ever going to help her to win him back.

Chapter Five

BOB WAS SPEAKING
on the phone, looking worried and slightly upset, as Anna came into the kitchen. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well, I’m really sorry to hear that. I only wish I understood what was going on with him.’ To Anna he mouthed, ‘Sarah.’

With a sigh, Anna went to wind in the awnings as a batch of storm clouds began forming over the far islands. Adolescents, as Bob would call them, since they didn’t appear especially threatening, but if there were some big guys muscling up behind them it would be best to have everything secure.

‘OK, I hear you,’ Bob was saying as he went to pour himself a coffee. ‘I’ll call you once I’ve spoken to him,’ and ringing off he gave a groan of frustration. ‘Apparently Rick’s rejected the place on Opito Bay,’ he declared irritably. ‘Have you spoken to him since yesterday? Have you seen him, even?’

‘Not since he dropped by to pick up his mail,’ Anna replied, ‘which was before they went to see the house.’

‘Mm,’ he grunted, taking a sip of his coffee. ‘Sarah’s saying Katie’s pretty upset, and I can’t say I blame her, messing her around like this. For God’s sake, what’s wrong with the boy? It’s a fantastic house, right on the bay, all the space they could wish for . . .’

‘If it didn’t work for him, it didn’t work for him,’ Anna interrupted calmly. ‘And it’s been a while since he was a boy.’

‘Then he should stop behaving like one and start manning up to his responsibilities. He’s engaged to be married, for God’s sake, and not before time. He’s going to be thirty-five next month; by the time I was his age I already had him and his sister.’

Unable not to laugh, Anna came to give him a hug. ‘There’s no rush,’ she reminded him. ‘Katie’s not pregnant, or not as far as we know, and when the right house comes along . . .’

‘I’m telling you that was the right house. If you’d seen it you’d know it too.’

‘Maybe, but he’s a grown man, he gets to make his own decisions, and it’s high time you, my darling, came to terms with the fact that you can’t rule his life.’

‘I’m not trying to
rule
it, I’m just trying to . . .’ He stopped and went very still. ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded, his troubled eyes starting to simmer with pleasure.

‘Just trying to take your mind off things,’ she smiled flirtatiously.

‘But it’s half past ten on a Sunday morning,’ he protested. ‘And we’re in the kitchen with all the doors open and half our neighbours out there on the bay . . .’

‘Oh, silly me, I get everything wrong,’ she sighed, turning away.

‘You come back here right now,’ he growled, and putting down his cup he swept her into a crushing embrace.

‘Mm, think I might have to be finishing what I started,’ she murmured as he raised his head to look down at her.

‘I think you’d better,’ he agreed sternly.

‘Here or upstairs?’

Before he could answer the sound of urgent footsteps running through the house caused their heads to fall together in despair. A moment later Anna was laughing and opening her arms as Chloe burst into the room shouting, ‘Nanna, Nanna, we’re here.’

‘Hello, my darling,’ Anna murmured, sweeping her up and pressing a kiss to her cheek. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning.’

‘Boo!’ Craig suddenly shouted from behind them. ‘I came round the back. Grandpa, can we go fishing?’

‘Hey you two,’ Shelley called breezily as she followed Chloe in from the front door.

‘We did a jump-off,’ Chloe told Anna.

Anna’s eyes rounded to show she was impressed.

‘Yeah, last night,’ Craig broke in. ‘We were practising for when Chloe does it.’

‘And who did you jump off to?’ Anna asked Chloe.

‘Me and Danni,’ Craig answered for her, ‘because it was just a practice. Grandpa, please can we go fishing?’

‘We’ve got flowers,’ Chloe whispered to Anna. ‘We picked them in the bush.’

‘How lovely,’ Anna smiled. ‘So where are they?’

Chloe spun round in search of them, and spotting Danni on the veranda waving to a friend on a boat in the bay, she wriggled to get down and charged outside. Moments later she was back with a ragged bunch of stitchwort, pimpernels, toadflax and several dandelions. ‘I got them for Mummy,’ she explained, ‘but Mummy’s sleeping.’

Anna’s eyebrows rose. ‘Is she now?’ she responded, glancing with interest at Shelley.

Shelley merely shrugged and carried on loading food into the fridge.

‘Who’s for lemonade?’ Bob offered.

‘Yay!’ Craig cheered. ‘And then can we go fishing?’

‘I’d like some lemonade,’ Danni shouted.

‘Then you can come in and get it,’ Shelley told her.

Taking out a jar for the flowers, Anna popped them in some water and had to hide a smile as she carried the little arrangement to the table. Chloe was watching her in fascination, her curly head tilted to one side, her eager eyes not missing a move.

‘They’re beautiful,’ Anna told her.

Chloe broke into an ecstatic smile.

Why, Anna wondered, was Chloe always so anxious about the flowers she brought? The only answer was that something must have happened while she was with her father to make her doubt how well her gifts might be received.

It made Anna’s heart ache merely to think of it.

After handing out beakers of lemonade, Bob cried, ‘So who wants to go fishing?’

‘Me!’ Craig and Danni chorused, punching their hands in the air.

‘Me!’ Chloe echoed, doing the same, and catching her knuckles hard on the edge of a chair.

As her face creased with pain, Anna stooped down to kiss it better. Chloe almost never cried; if she did, it was always silently. ‘There, there, it’s all right,’ she soothed. ‘Naughty chair, it got in the way, didn’t it?’

Chloe’s bottom lip was trembling as she nodded. ‘Naughty chair,’ she whispered.

‘We won’t let it go fishing with you.’

‘No. It can’t come.’

‘But you’re going with Grandpa and Craig and Danni.’

Chloe turned to look at Bob, her eyes going no higher than his knees. ‘Want you to come too,’ she said, bringing her worried gaze back to Anna.

Glancing at Bob and feeling for how sad and frustrating he found this divide, Anna said, ‘But I have to go into Kerikeri to the market this . . .’

‘You don’t have to be afraid of Grandpa,’ Craig piped up, ‘he’s just a great big pouffty,’ and throwing himself at Bob he began landing punches anywhere he could.

‘Ooh, ow, ow, ow,’ Bob cried, trying to fend him off. ‘I’m getting beaten by the champ.’

‘He’s not the champ, I am,’ Danni shouted, launching herself into the fray.

‘Why don’t you go and get him too?’ Anna said softly to Chloe.

Chloe took a quick peek over her shoulder, but then pushed in more closely to Anna. ‘Can we do pipi dancing?’ she asked in a whisper.

Smiling, Anna stroked her hair. ‘I’m sure we can, later, but Grandpa’s taking you fishing now.’

Chloe kept her head down.

‘You don’t want to go fishing?’

‘Want Mummy to wake up,’ she mumbled.

Looking at Shelley, Anna said, ‘I guess it’s time she did.’

‘And Uncle Wick,’ Chloe added.

Anna looked down at her curiously.

‘Rick’s over there,’ Shelley explained. ‘They were both out for the count, which is why Chloe’s still with us.’

Her expression sharpening slightly, Anna turned to Bob.

As though picking up her concern, he reached for the phone and pressed to connect to the bach.

Charlotte’s groggy voice eventually came down the line. ‘Hello?’ she said. ‘Is that you, Mum? Sorry, I was in the bathroom. Is Chloe with you?’

‘Yes, she’s with us,’ Bob confirmed. ‘And I believe Rick’s with you. If you can put him on . . .’

‘Actually, he’s just left,’ Charlotte told him. ‘I think he’s on his way up to the lodge.’

‘Good. Then I’ll talk to him when he gets here. I think Anna would like to have a word with you now.’

Taking the phone, Anna put a hand over the mouthpiece as she said to Shelley, ‘Would you mind keeping Chloe for a while longer?’

‘I’m doing a shift at the Stone Store this morning,’ Shelley reminded her.

Remembering it was why Shelley had brought the children here while Phil did a shift at the Observatory, Anna said into the phone to Charlotte, ‘I’m bringing Chloe down to you in a few minutes. I hope you don’t have anything planned . . .’

‘It’s OK, I’ll come and get her.’

‘You don’t need to do that. I’ll see you there,’ and putting the phone down she looked across the kitchen at Bob.

After meeting her gaze with a similar expression he began rubbing his hands together as he said to Craig and Danni, ‘Right you guys, off you go and get the rods. I’ll meet you down at the boat.’ Then, careful not to address Chloe directly, ‘Are we sure no one else wants to come with us?’

Apparently realising he meant her, Chloe turned away, keeping her head bowed.