One Hot Winter's Night (23 page)

“Yes.” He pronounced it “yis”. He looked at Heath. “This is Dr Roberts from Te Papa Museum.” His Antipodean accent had the distinctive lilting, clipped intonation that most Maori seemed to have.

She looked at Heath, who looked coolly back.

Rapine glanced between them curiously. “Do you two know each other?”

“Yes,” said Cat.

“No,” said Heath at the same time.

“Okay…” Rapine lifted his chin. “Let’s talk business.” He indicated the boot of his car, presumably where the weapons were.

“Let’s not,” said Heath shortly. He turned to Cat. “He hasn’t got permission from the
kaumatua
to sell these.”

“They belong to the
iwi
,” Rapine protested. “I am the elder’s son—I have as much right to sell them as he does.”

Cat’s heart sank. “I understood the tribe had agreed.”

Rapine looked determined. “The
iwi
were divided. Some of them didn’t agree. But we need the money. We have to build a new jetty down on the foreshore. And our primary school needs books and sports equipment. The elders prize our history and culture above everything—they can’t see that we need to live in the here and now.”

Cat studied him, realizing he was older than she’d first thought. He made a sound argument, but that didn’t mean he had the right to sell the weapons. Items like that always had spiritual and cultural significance. It had only been his insistence that he’d had the authority of the tribe behind him that had convinced her to come.

Heath glared at her. “Don’t even think about it. You’re not buying them.”

Anger flared in her stomach. She would never consider removing an item from its cultural home if its local community didn’t want to sell. The thought that Heath considered her capable of doing such a thing hurt her feelings. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. “Who are you to say what I can or can’t buy?” she snapped.

He scowled. “This conversation is over.” He pointed at Rapine. “You’re going back to your village and you’re going to return those weapons to wherever you got them from.”

“Heath!” Cat stared at him. “You can’t tell him what to do like that.”

“I most certainly can.”

She glared at him. “If you don’t want to buy them, that’s fine. But if someone else wants to buy them, it’s none of your business.”

He’d taken on that lazy, relaxed look that she was beginning to understand meant he was furious. And she knew it wasn’t really about the weapons.

He took her by the arm and marched her a few yards down the road, turning her to face him. “Tell me you’re not going to buy those weapons,” he said carefully.

She wasn’t going to agree with him just because he was bullying her into it. She lifted her chin. “I’ll do nothing of the sort.”

His eyes met hers. Finally, she saw, shimmering in the hazel depths like stones at the bottom of a pool, the deep, deep hurt he’d been trying to hide. “I don’t know you at all, do I?” he said quietly. “What a fool I’ve been. I thought the woman in my bed wasn’t the Black Cat. But you’ve been her all along.”

“We’re one and the same—you can’t separate us. You told me that about you and the Fox,” she reminded him, trying not to cry.

“Yeah,” he said. “But I was lying.” He released her arm. “I guess I’ll see you around.” And he turned and walked back to his car, got in, and drove away without a backward glance.

Chapter 29

“You’re going with Ed to a strip club,” Lucy said firmly. “Tonight.”

“No, I’m not,” Heath replied, just as determinedly.

“Honey, you need to get drunk, and you need to get laid. It’s the only cure for being in love.”

Heath swore loudly, slammed his pen on the table and stood up. “Will you leave it out? I’ve had as much as I can take from you, Ed, Judith, Mum, Dad, and the rest of the goddamn family.”

His sister-in-law shrugged, totally unaffected by Heath’s show of temper. “We’re worried about you. You’ve never been like this before.”

“I’ve been back four days, not four months—I can’t see why you’re so worried.”

“Sweetie, usually you forget about a girl five minutes after she’s out the door. For you, four days of moping is an eternity. It’s not surprising we’re worried.”

Heath’s gaze dropped to his desk. He sighed heavily and sat again, putting his head in his hands. “I can’t get her out of my mind. She’s all I think about. I thought it would get easier, but it only seems to be getting worse.”

He closed his eyes. He’d played over the scene outside the coffee shop a million times. He’d been cruel to her, and then he’d walked away from her. It was the only thing he could have done, but it didn’t stop him feeling like a heel. He missed her. He wanted her. But she didn’t want him. The conundrum went around and around in his head like a kid refusing to get off a Ferris wheel.

Lucy studied him. Heath adored his sister-in-law. She reminded him of a spaniel puppy with her glossy brown curls and huge eyes. Now those eyes were filled with sympathy. “She really got to you, this one, didn’t she?”

Heath sighed and rested his forehead on a hand. He looked up at her. “She was The One,” he said simply. “Or I thought she was.”

“The One?” Lucy raised her eyebrows.

“You know. The One. Mrs Right.” Heath looked down at his desk and fiddled with his stapler. “Or I thought she was. I knew she was anti-commitment. But I thought I could talk her around.” He punched the stapler, ejecting a folded piece of metal onto the table. “Turns out I couldn’t.”

“Maybe she’s changed her mind, now she’s had time to think about it.”

“I doubt it. She’s so stubborn. There’s no way she’d call me in a million years.”

“And there’s absolutely no chance she’d be interested in anything more?”

“Absolutely none.” Heath doodled with his pen.

He knew things had to change. He had to do something to move on. She was probably in Rome or Berlin or Moscow flirting with some guy to get access to a dinosaur bone nobody had ever heard of or would be interested in seeing.

He sighed. “Maybe I will go with Ed tonight. I’ve got to get her out of my brain. Perhaps having sex with someone else would work.” He closed his eyes and received a brief flash of Cat’s mouth closing around him as she went down on him, his hand tight in her blonde hair. He put his head in his hands again. “Oh God.”

Lucy sighed. “Do you love her?”

Heath looked at where he’d doodled a drawing of a black cat. There was no hope for him whatsoever. “Yes.”

“And do you think she loves you?”

“Yes.”

“So…you’ve got to go back to her. Tell her how you feel. Talk her into it. You weren’t head of the debating team for nothing.”

Heath shook his head. Then he leaned back in the chair and studied Lucy again. “It won’t work. I know that. For us to work, she would have to admit she wants me, and that’s not going to happen. I’ve got to move on.” He looked at the documents on his desk awaiting his attention, but the words swam in front of his eyes. “How do I do that again?”

Lucy stood. “For God’s sake, man, it’s Christmas Eve. You look like you haven’t eaten in a fortnight. Come out with me and get a mince pie or something.”

He knew she wouldn’t give in, not where food was involved. She treated him as she treated her two kids: firmly and stubbornly, with food and sleep being top priority. “Okay.” He scooped his papers together. “Let me just make sure there’s nothing urgent in here, and I’ll be right with you.”

Cat stood by the window, looking out at the gardens in front of the hospital. They always tried to make them beautiful so the patients had somewhere nice to walk during the day, but, inevitably, they were inhabited by smokers, or people in gowns shuffling around in slippers with white faces. Now, at eight in the evening, they were filled with shadows. She wouldn’t be surprised if they were haunted with the spirits of those who didn’t make it out of the place.

She hated hospitals. She would have given anything to go home and crash out in her own bed. But she couldn’t leave Alexander.

She turned and looked at the old man lying in the bed across the room from her. Tubes led from him to a ventilator, and he looked pale and small in his striped pyjamas. He’d had a heart attack, and it wasn’t yet clear whether he would be strong enough to recover from it. He might die there, in the hospital room, with only Cat to give a damn that this fine man wouldn’t see another day.

She looked back out of the window, her mobile phone in her hand. Numerous times, she’d dialled the number for Te Papa in Wellington. And every time, she’d cancelled it before anyone answered.

Ringing Heath meant giving in. It meant admitting she wanted him, needed him, something she’d never said to anyone in her life, not even Alexander, although they’d both known he and Melissa had saved her life as clearly as she’d saved theirs that day on the street. She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to admit to Heath or to herself that she needed him. Besides which, she didn’t want to burden him. They’d made the break—he’d be getting on with his life.

But she did need him, and she did want him. She’d wanted him when she left him in bed in the ice hotel; when she woke up to find he’d vanished from the room in Cairo; when she’d got on the plane in Xian; the moment he walked away from her outside the coffee shop. She’d wanted him all the way home on the plane flight. She’d wanted him every minute of the four days they’d been apart. And the first thing she’d thought about when on the way to the hospital on hearing of Alexander’s heart attack was Heath, and she’d cried, ashamed her distress wasn’t only due to the fact that the man she thought of as her father was possibly going to die.

She missed him. So much, she couldn’t eat, sleep, or think straight. She needed to hear his voice again.

Biting her lip hard, she dialled the number for the museum again and put the phone to her ear.

This time, when the receptionist answered, Cat asked the woman to put her through to Dr Heath Roberts’ office. She closed her eyes, trying hard not to cry. She had to keep calm and not put any pressure on him. It was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do, to stand there and wait for him to answer. His phone rang and rang. It would be just after nine in the morning there. And of course it was already Christmas Eve in New Zealand—she’d forgotten. Perhaps he didn’t work on Christmas Eve?

She was about to hang up when the phone clicked, and then he said, “Heath Roberts.”

Emotion rushed through her at the sound of his deep voice, and she had to bite her lip again, willing herself to keep calm.

In the background, she heard a woman say, “Honey, I told you not to answer. It’s just some crank in corduroy pants wanting to sell you some ancient crap nobody’s interested in.”

“Lucy,” Heath scolded, his voice muffled, presumably with his hand over the phone.

Cat’s heart pounded. Of course, Lucy could be a work colleague. But her use of the word “honey” suggested something more. She hesitated as tears threatened to fall. “Hello?” he said again into the receiver. “Sorry.”

She closed her eyes. “Hi.” She cleared her throat and tried again. “Hi, Heath. It’s Cat. Cat Livingstone. From the British Museum. In London.”

There was a moment of silence. Then he said, with wry amusement, “I guessed that. I only know one Cat. Hey, sweetheart.”

His endearment made her eyes fill with tears. She bit her lip again and looked up at the ceiling.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Okay.”

A pause.

He cleared his throat. “Where are you?”

“London.”

Another pause.

“How have you been?”

“Fine.” She looked at her shoes.

A slightly longer pause.

Then he said, “What’s up, love?”

She forced herself to swallow, to calm down. “It’s Alex.”

“What’s happened?”

Cat shook her hand in the air as if that would stave off the emotional tsunami she could see approaching her. “He’s had a heart attack. I’m in hospital with him.” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.

He paused for a moment. Then he said, “Which hospital?”

What did it matter? She told him, somewhat impatiently. Then she heard him say something to the Lucy woman, his voice muffled again.

When he came back, his tone was gentle. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” And then the wave washed over her, and she sank into a chair. “No.” She rested her forehead on her free hand. “Heath, I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have called. I know we said we wouldn’t, but…I just needed to talk to you. I miss you. But friends are allowed to miss friends, aren’t they?” She tried to make her voice light-hearted and failed miserably.

“Sure,” he said. “Absolutely.”

“Heath?” Her voice was small, pathetic.

“Yes?”

“You know you’re more to me than a friend, right?” Her eyes filled, and she bit her lip. She felt as if she’d just stood herself in front of the English archers at Agincourt and their bows were all pointed at her.

He hesitated. Then he said, “Hold on. I’ll just be a minute.”

She held the phone tightly, her throat so constricted she couldn’t swallow. What was he doing? What was so important he’d ignored the most significant thing she’d ever said to a man in her entire life? Was he saying goodbye to his girlfriend? Putting Cat on hold while he kissed her? Tears broke free and rolled down her face, and she covered her mouth with her shaking hand.

“Catherine?”

She could only answer with a huge sob. She’d never sounded so femininely pitiful in her entire life and she hated herself for it.

He spoke firmly. “Hang in there, honey. There’s a flight in ninety minutes. Lucy’s booking me on now.”

“Lucy?” she managed to squeak.

“My sister-in-law. She’ll drive me to the airport.”

The relief was so great, she could only reply with an even louder sob.

“Sweetheart, I know it’s a long flight, but I’ll be there late tomorrow. Don’t go anywhere. Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“I’ve got to go now or I won’t make the plane. I love you.” He didn’t wait for her to answer and hung up.

He was flying across the world for her. On Christmas Eve. And he still loved her.

She burst into tears.