“So,” he said, switching to a language she hadn’t spoken since the day she walked out of this place, “you came back. I never figured you would.”
Anahera returned her eyes to the horizon and to a sunrise that screamed “home” with the same angry beauty that it whispered of the dead. She didn’t speak until the final echo had faded. “Last I heard”—she turned to face Nikau—“you were presenting on MÄori culture at international academic conferences.” The words came easier today, the language so much a part of her that even eight years of silence couldn’t erase it.
“Yeah, well, shit happens.” Nikau’s face went hard as he glanced back and to the right, looking not at the drive but at something far beyond. “I guess Josie told you about me and Keira?”
“I was sorry to hear about the divorce.” She’d always wondered what Nikau saw in Keira, but that he’d loved her wasn’t in doubt. They’d been joined at the hip since they were seventeen: quiet, intense, and studious Nik with beautiful but somehow… empty Keira. She’d always seemed to echo others rather than being a whole person.
Nikau looked at her, his gaze strangely flat. “That’s all you have to say?”
“I’m not sure what else you expect me to say.” Anahera didn’t have the emotional patience to read between the lines about another bad marriage. “I’m your friend. I’m sorry your marriage broke up. I know you loved her.”
Nikau stared at her for another disturbing second before he blew out a breath and thrust a hand through his hair. “Shit, sorry. I guess Josie didn’t pass on the dirt.”
The answer to his bitterness lay in her own cold anger. “Did she cheat on you?”
“Worse. She hooked up with that asshole a year after our separation.” A glance to the distant right again. “They got married fourteen months ago.”
That asshole, when added to the direction of Nikau’s vicious gaze, made the identity of Keira’s new husband clear. “Daniel May?”
A hard nod.
They’d known one another all of their lives, Anahera and Josie, Keira and Daniel, Vincent and Nikau. There had been others—Tom, Peter, Christine—but those three had come and gone. It was the six of them who had been a constant, a tight-knit group that had snuck out at night to make bonfires on the beach and that had flowed back together each time the holidays rolled around and everyone was back in the Cove. It hadn’t mattered that Daniel May and Vincent Baker were private-school kids who came from the two richest families in town, while Nikau and Anahera came from the poorest.
Then they’d grown up.
“That sucks, Nik.” What else was there to say? Daniel had used his father’s money and influence to “win” an international exchange scholarship for which Nikau had been far better qualified—and deserving. For Daniel, it had been another line to add to his CV later on in life. For a teenage Nikau, it had been the only way he could hope to travel internationally.
It was the kind of betrayal that could never be forgotten or forgiven. “What about Vincent?” she asked. “Did he turn into an asshole while I was away? I have him on my online friends list, but I haven’t actually logged into my account in months.”
A bark of laughter from Nikau, his coldness melting. “Nah,” he said, “Vincent’s still Vincent.”
Which meant the handsome Baker scion was still living up to his family’s expectations. “He looked happy in the last photos I saw of him—with his wife and the kids.”
“Yeah, I think he actually is happy. Go figure, huh?” A shrug. “He should be the most messed up one of us with all the pressure his parents put on him.”
Anahera nodded; she’d always felt sorry for Vincent—but he seemed to like the borders on his life, appeared to have thrived inside them. “They weren’t the best parents, I guess, but he and his brother must miss them.”
“Yeah, a fire gutted the old Baker place. No way for them to survive—I went to the funeral. Vin did a nice job of it.”
Anahera would expect nothing less from Vincent. “Come on, I’ll pour you some coffee.” Nik had changed and so had she, but she found she was still comfortable with this angry man who’d once been a hopeful boy she’d known.
Nikau had settled down on a rickety chair he’d dragged from inside, Anahera passing him his coffee and bracing herself with her butt against the porch railing—after checking its sturdiness—when there was the sound of another car coming down the drive. “London has nothing on Golden Cove traffic.”
She’d half expected a cheerful Josie in Tom’s plumbing truck, but it was the police SUV that appeared in view a second later. The long-legged cop with the broad shoulders and the face that was too thin got out soon afterward.
“Will.” Nikau raised his coffee cup. “You come to do a welfare check on our returnee?”
“Nik. Ms. Spencer-Ashby.”
His words were a punch to the solar plexus. “Anahera is fine.” Rawiri or Spencer-Ashby, she wanted to claim neither surname. “Would you like some coffee? I think I have another mug.”
“Thanks, but I’ll pass this time.” Impossible to read those eyes, that grim face. “I did want to make sure you had a way of contacting help if you need it. I know there’s no landline phone at this address.”
Anahera wasn’t certain if she was amused or not; it had been a long time since she’d answered to anyone. “I have a mobile phone, just like most of the universe.”
No change in his expression. “You mind checking the signal for me?”
“And if I do?”
No smile. “Then I guess I’ll be doing a welfare check on you every morning.”
Nikau laughed at that, but his tone was serious when he met Anahera’s eyes again. “Will’s right, Ana. You should check. This place is in the middle of nowhere of the middle of nowhere.”
Rolling her eyes, Anahera went inside and grabbed her phone. She brought up the home screen as she walked out… and cursed. At least the cop didn’t say “I told you so.” Instead, he said, “I suggest you move to a different provider.” He named which one. “Their signal appears to reach even the far edges of Golden Cove.”
“Upside is their plans are cheap,” Nikau said. “I can lend you my phone until you switch.”
Anahera waved aside the offer. “I’ll be fine. I have nothing to steal and we all know petty burglary is at the top of the Golden Cove crime stats.” Some folks stole out of boredom, others out of poverty.
“Crime isn’t the only threat,” the cop said. “If you have an accident, it’s possible no one will find you for days.”
Anahera could feel herself going white. Squeezing her hand around the phone, she stared at the cop. “You’ve done your job. Far as I know, cops aren’t babysitters.”
7
Will wondered what he’d said. Not only had Anahera iced up, but Nikau’s face had gone hostile between one heartbeat and the next. Mentally tracing back the conversation, he realized it had been his statement about a possible domestic accident that had done it. Obviously, he’d stepped on a nerve. That was what happened when everyone in a small town knew something but no one talked about it: hapless outsiders put their foot in it.