Last Chance Proposal (12 page)

“Next week!” Pat shrieked. Her arm was on Ellie’s now and the looping in Ellie’s stomach was turning into nausea. “We’ll never organize a proper wedding in a week.”

“It won’t really be a proper wedding,” Ellie said, and for the shortest second she wanted to tell this lovely woman that none of this was true, not the words, not the touching, none of it. She felt the warning as Cy squeezed her finger. “What I mean is,” she continued, “we really need to get married so we can be together in the States, but we’d both love to have a proper wedding sometime, when the time is right.” The lies came all too easily now.

Pat smiled, seemingly satisfied with the idea. “Well, I just can’t think of anything more wonderful,” she said, her eyes becoming glossy. “First loves finding each other after all these years.” She touched Ellie’s cheek. “And I couldn’t think of a more perfect mother to my grandson.”

Ellie swallowed past the lump in her throat.

“I don’t have any bubbles, I’m afraid,” Pat said as she wiped her eyes. “Sherry will have to do. You lovebirds take a seat while I check on Jonty, and then we’ll toast your beautiful engagement.”

When she was gone, Ellie slipped from Cy’s touch and crumbled into the nearest seat, the dryness in her mouth making her voice catch. “That was terrible,” she whispered.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Cy took the seat opposite her and rubbed his thighs. His voice was low. “We had to do it but it’s over now. Mum’s a realist, she’ll understand when she finds out.”

They sat in silence, listening to Pat chatting to Jonty about how lovely it would be having Ellie come back to the States with them.

“Telling Mum has proven one thing,” Cy said. “She believed us totally. If anyone ever did ask if she believed our relationship was real, I’m sure she’d say yes.”

Ellie nodded and sat back in her chair with a sigh. “That’s why telling her the truth is going to be so hard.”

…

Cy couldn’t pull his gaze from Ellie as she pushed his son higher and higher in the swing. Her head was thrown back, hair flaming chestnut in the late afternoon sun, her tinkling laugh surrounding him like a cloak.

They’d accomplished everything they needed to in Auckland, including finding an engagement ring that was getting resized, and he couldn’t wait to get back to the cove, even if their time was running out. The pressure of the lie they were about to embark on squeezed his insides.

His mother had wished them well. She’d be at the wedding, of course, and she’d come over to support them through the custody hearing. She’d seemed so happy. If only they were getting married for real.

Cy leaned an elbow on the picnic table. He listened to Ellie chatting to his boy about all the things they’d seen in the city and what they might do when they got back to the beach.

For a minute, she stopped pushing and looked at Cy, a careful smile touching her face. Everything she’d done in the last two days had been careful, as if she were uncertain how he’d react. As she brushed hair from her cheek, he remembered the way her body had molded to his, the way she’d been confident enough to show him what she wanted when they’d made love.

He shook the memory and stood. He couldn’t let Jonty sense any of his confusion. His son needed to believe his world was stable now, unshakeable. That nothing, and no one, could cause him anxiety again.

As the swing slowed, Jonty dragged his feet on the ground, then jumped, and with his toy pukeko tucked firmly under his arm, ran to a slide on the opposite side of the playground. Still wearing the knitted sweater his nana had given him this morning for Christmas, he’d be sweltering in the summer sun.

“Come on, Cy,” Ellie called as she took the empty swing, her back to him.

Hands in his pockets, he stayed where he was. Trying to forget how the silky hair falling in rivers down her back had felt against his chest.

“Come on. Give me a push at least.”

He drew closer and placed his palms on the bare skin where the fabric of her sundress dipped. Breathless desire tore through him. His fingers tingled with the touch and his senses filled with her flowery fragrance. He pushed her away and she came swinging back, directly into his palms. Again, the fizz of closeness raced through him.

No matter how much he tried to bury this physical need for her, it wasn’t working.

“Higher,” she yelled. “I want to fly.”

He stepped back and pushed her hard and her head tossed back, her hair softly grazing his arms as she swung away.

More and more he pushed, and each time she flew away, the desire in his limbs to be near her again grew with each touch.

He pushed her so high that the chains were almost parallel to the ground.

“Jonty!” she cried. “Jonty, look at me fly!”

From the top of the slide, Jonty waved at her, grinning widely.

They could be a family. Anyone driving by could look and see a son playing on a slide, a father pushing a mother on a swing. But this picture wasn’t real, and the lie sat bitter in his mouth. It was a distortion. A man who’d asked a woman to put her life on hold to help him, a woman who didn’t want children but who’d sacrifice months of her career to be with a little boy because the man had nowhere else to turn.

He looked over to where Jonty pretended to give his toy pukeko a slide. He hadn’t had a panic attack in four days, and for the first time in weeks, Cy began to feel that he was contributing to his son’s progress, too. Being careful about each new experience, what he was exposed to and what he wasn’t, was so important and would be for months to come.

“Swing with me,” Ellie called to Cy, her voice high and fluting. To stop himself thinking, he folded himself into the swing beside her and pushed off.

As he swung higher and higher with Ellie beside him and his son waving from the slide, he had the strangest sensation of being out of control, hurtling through space and being free. He let out a whoop and Ellie whooped back. Jonty came running from his slide waving his toy pukeko above his head.

“Do you remember?” Ellie asked, panting as her swing slowed. “When you built that tire swing out on the rocks by Leo’s Point?”

He nodded. “And you were too scared to use it.”

Tossing her head back, she groaned. “It was such a long way down. I watched you doing it day after day, telling me it would be all right but it seemed so far. Such a risk.”

Cy nodded, memories flooding him. “But you did it. One day you came out there with the rest of us. I remember the determined look on your face when you pushed to the front of the queue.” His swing slowed, and he dragged his feet along the bark chips.

“I’ll never forget how it took my breath away,” she said. “The sense of accomplishment, of leaping out into the air, hoping I’d made the right decision that what you’d said was true and it would be all worth it in the end.”

His swing had stopped and the chain links burned beneath his grip. He pushed his glasses on top of his head so he could see her better. “What made you do it?”

“What do you mean?”

He concentrated on the light in her amber eyes and pushed out the question. “Why did you think it would be all right? After being scared so long, why did you decide to take the chance, get on that swing, and leap off into the sea?”

“Because I trusted you.”

The steel of the swing chain heated beneath his grip. “Me?” The thump of the pulse in his throat almost buried the word.

She blinked. “I’d seen you build it and watched you jump off dozens of times. When you told me it was safe, that you’d watch me while I did it, and come get me if I needed you, I believed you.”

The chain links threatened to cut into Cy’s fingers as he clenched them, a hundred-pound weight settling across his shoulders. If doubt had begun to crawl through his head since they’d made love, then this shot him between the eyes.

He’d meant what he’d said about no more sex, about keeping their distance for the sake of Jonty. And she believed him. Trusted him. But he didn’t trust himself. The whole time they’d been in this playground he’d imagined seducing her. She didn’t want a long-term relationship, didn’t want to be a wife or mother and he was already asking her to put her career on hold.

The metal links burned beneath his hands. Words hadn’t worked, actions hadn’t worked, someway, somehow he had to face the agony of his relationship with Ellie and solve this mess once and for all. It was the only way for them all to come out of this whole.

…

Ellie sat in the hall the next morning putting the finishing touches to Jonty’s tree costume for the dress rehearsal. The hall was hot as the sun beat through the high windows and the old overhead fans creaked in their effort to move the air around. Groups of kids waited for their turn to perform and parents sat around chatting.

Louis was out back getting into his
piupiu
and having a
moko
drawn on his face for the
haka
. Over the past few days the bigger boys had been working in secret on the special war dance with one of the Maori elders, and Ellie couldn’t wait to see the pride on her nephew’s face when they came onstage for the first time.

She lifted her head and watched Jonty playing with his iPod in the next row near some other boys. A smile pulled at her mouth as she saw the new toy pukeko tucked beside him on the bench. After the laugh yesterday, and the successful trip to Auckland and back, he seemed much more relaxed. She’d had to convince Cy to let her take the two boys on her own today, though, since Fleur was meeting up with some old school friends. In the end, Louis had told him that it would be bad luck if too many people saw the
haka
before New Year’s Eve, so Cy had reluctantly agreed, but he’d made Ellie promise to keep Jonty close.

“Jonty, come here, honey,” she said, and he slid along his row and came to stand beside her.

“Let’s try this on.” She lifted the brown-felt construction over his head until his little face poked through. His enormous blue eyes followed her movements as she rearranged the branches that were stuffed with newspaper and wire. When she sat back and looked at him, her throat closed over. Tomorrow night he was going to stand onstage with a hall full of people watching, but he’d only have eyes for his daddy. She couldn’t wait to see the look on Cy’s face when he saw what his son had achieved.

“You look fantastic,” she said, her voice wobbling as she pulled the costume back over his head and put it on the seat beside her. “When I’ve finished the bottom part we can see how your toy pukeko fits in your arms.”

“Ellie.” Cyndi Abberley was holding up the hem of a sweet potato costume as the boy wearing it stood on tiptoes. “Would you mind putting a stitch or two in this so Jay doesn’t keep falling flat on his face?”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Ellie said to Jonty before she made her way to the stage. She was bent over, pins in her mouth and a needle dug into the cotton costume when a loud, guttural cry sounded from the side of the stage announcing the beginning of the
haka
and the ground began to beat with the thumping of feet. Each boy slapped his chest, then lifted his hands skyward, black-and-green swirls in rich
moko
patterns covering their faces. Their eyes were wide and they alternately chanted and poked out their tongues.

She twisted to catch a glimpse of Jonty’s reaction to such an incredible sight, and air seized in her chest. He wasn’t in his seat. Just in time she saw him through the window, running down the path. She stood and glided quickly through the group of children onstage, heart pounding, adrenaline flooding her body as she took the stairs two at a time. Damn, she should have anticipated this, should have told him what to expect. Running out of the hall, the noise of the war dance behind her matched the terror racing through her blood. Where was he? Where would he go?

Arms pumping, body moving as quickly as she could make it, she arrived on the beach, the sand slowing her movements as she frantically turned one way and then the other. Where
was
he?

The road. The busy main road ran along the other side of the hall and holidaymakers drove notoriously fast through the cove. If Jonty had gone out there…

“Ellie, is everything okay?”

She spun around to see Katie and some of the other girls, concern on their faces.

“Katie, Jonty’s taken off. Would you please run down to Cy’s house and let him know? If you other girls could come with me, we can spread out to look for him.”

“Of course,” Katie said and began to run down the sand.

“Could two of you cover the beach and two come with me to look on the roadside,” Ellie said, a slow burn of panic beginning to dig into her chest.

By the time they’d made it to the road, some of the other parents had come out and were calling Jonty’s name. Ellie raced from building to building, desperate for a glimpse of Cy’s little boy.

Minutes passed and still there was no sign of him. Back at the hall someone was talking about calling the community constable and one of the dads was starting to text around his friends for more people to come and search. While Ellie was giving a description of what Jonty was wearing, Cy came running up from the beach.

She left the group and ran to meet him. “He was frightened by the boys doing the
haka
. He hadn’t seen it before and I should’ve talked to him about—”

Cy’s blazing eyes looked everywhere but at her. “It doesn’t matter what happened. It matters where he is. Which way did he go?”

He put his hands above his eyes to shield the glare of the sun and twisted around.

“I’m not sure. I didn’t see…”

He stopped turning then faced her. “He wasn’t with you?”

“Yes, he was with me but he moved so quickly. I didn’t—”

He held his arms out in a desperate gesture. “He’s six, Ellie. If you’d run straight after him, you must’ve seen which way he went.”