Making Sense (14 page)

He rubbed his nose. “I left all the business side of things to Dad. I didn’t have a clue what he organised—I went where he said, healed who he told me to heal. I was only interested in making people better. The years went by, and he organised larger shows and interviews on radio and local TV, and I went along and was open and honest, even though I could see there were many people who were sceptical. I had nothing to hide—I knew I wasn’t lying. I made people better. What’s wrong with that?”

He shifted in his seat, starting to look more agitated. “What I didn’t realise was that the more famous I got, the more he charged. I found out later that many people couldn’t afford to come to me, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was oblivious to it all. I was working twelve-hour days most of the time, you see. Holding appointments all morning, usually having a show in the afternoon, more appointments in the evening. I worked flat out. I still didn’t really have a clue what I was doing. I read the occasional book on it, but I was still arrogant—I thought I was so incredibly powerful, who on earth could teach me anything I didn’t know?”

“It’s understandable,” Freya said, but Nate shook his head.

“It was conceited, but I didn’t have anyone to tell me what an ass I was being. My brother worshipped me, my mother idolised me. My father…well, his eyes went
kerching!
every time he saw me heal someone. So I kept going. I didn’t understand anything about the flow of energies, about where the power comes from, nothing. And, as time went by, it began to take its toll.”

He shifted in the seat, and Freya slid her legs off him and sat up. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands linked. All around them people were laughing and having a good time, but she felt as if they were in some sort of bubble, separate from the vineyard, in another time and place. “What happened?”

“I began to get sick. It was a gradual thing—for years I seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of energy—I could keep going for days.” He glanced at her and smiled wryly. “In all ways. I didn’t have any shortage of female company and, being young and virile, I made the most of it.”

She thought of how attractive a youthful, energetic Nate must have been, arrogant and confident, charming all the girls. “I can imagine.”

He looked back at his hands. “I’d work all day, party all night. Crash out at two am, get up at six, start all over again. But after my twenty-first birthday, something happened. I started to get tired. I was still healing, but it seemed to be taking more out of me. It was as if I’d begun to give more of myself, you know? Instead of letting whatever had done the healing before take over. I wanted to heal the world. I took on more appointments, pushed myself harder. As a result, I started to get colds and sickness bugs, and the old aches and pains from the accident came back.”

“But you didn’t slow down.”

“No. Sometimes I’d ask my Dad if I could have a day off, but he rarely agreed. ‘Just think of the people who’ll be disappointed,’ he used to say. “‘All those terribly sick people.’ Of course, when he said that I’d be racked with guilt, and I’d have to carry on. I still healed with the same strength as ever, but my health got worse and worse. I was exhausted. I couldn’t concentrate—I got depressed. But still my father pushed me. And eventually…”

Nate’s voice tailed off. Freya listened to the drunken singing going on around them and felt surreal, as if she’d stepped into a science fiction movie. “What happened?”

He flexed his hands. “I’d had enough, but my father wouldn’t let me stop. He told me I had to pull myself together and get on with it. But I couldn’t. There was an…incident. I…” He hesitated and bit his lip. Then he shook his head and changed the subject. “I found out about the people who couldn’t afford me, and I wanted to hold a free clinic once a week, but my father wouldn’t let me. He’s a big man, hugely controlling and manipulative, imposing and intimidating. For the first time though, I stood up to him. He refused to give in, and we had a huge row. So I left. Just up and left one night. And I’ve never gone back.” He sank his hands into his hair, looked at the ground. “I feel terrible for all those people I let down. All my regular clients who needed me. But I couldn’t do it anymore.”

Freya studied him. Her heart ached for him, for the young, innocent lad he’d been, and the damaged man he was now. She reached out a hand and touched his face, and he glanced across at her. She was startled to see tears in his eyes. He hadn’t told her everything, she knew. There had obviously been an event that had sparked the argument with his father, but he couldn’t cope with telling her any more now.

She stood and held out her hand. “Come and dance with me.”

He looked up at her, surprised. “Dance?”

She beckoned at him. “Come on.”

He stared at her, and then he took her hand, rising and letting her lead him to one side of the stage. She put her arms around his neck, and he slid his hands around her waist. The band played a very old, slow Motown number, and as they moved to the music, Freya slid her fingers into Nate’s hair and willed all the comfort and calm she could summon to flow from her into him.

To one side, she saw Ash and Grace dancing, but Ash was watching them, and as he saw Freya look over, he smiled and nodded. He’d seen them talking, and he knew Nate had opened up to her. She smiled back. Now she knew that Ash must have rescued Nate when he was in Auckland, torn up from whatever incident had been the final straw in the downward spiral of his relationship with his father. Presumably, it was also Ash who was trying to get Nate to start healing again. For Nate’s sake—and for Josh’s—she wanted to thank him.

Nate rested his chin against her temple, the five o’clock shadow rasping her soft skin, and she felt him kiss her hair. She turned her face up to his, letting his lips brush her cheekbones and then her lips, and before long they were kissing, slow and leisurely, bathed in the golden rays of the sun.

They danced like that for a while, kissing gently, and then the song ended and the band struck up something livelier. Freya grabbed two glasses of wine from the table, handed one to Nate and led him away from the people down a small track that ran along the vineyard.

They walked for a while in silence, not touching, enjoying the music in the distance and the fantails fluttering in the tall trees to their right. It had grown more humid, and sweat trickled between her breasts again.
 

Thinking about what he’d told her, Freya asked, “What does it feel like, when you heal someone?”

He sipped his wine and looked up at the sky, shading his eyes. “Like this. Like standing in the sun, feeling the energy run down my arms and out of my hands. My hands grow hot, here, in the middle.” He turned his hand over and drew a circle on his palm with the hand holding the glass. “When I started working with Ash, he taught me a lot about the flow of energy. I mean, he’s not a healer as such, but he knows a huge amount about that sort of thing. He gave me lots of books to read and introduced me to one or two people he knows who are healers. At first I didn’t want to know, but gradually he’s talked me into it. And I understand a lot more now about how it works. That it’s not from
me,
the power—that I can’t give my own energy away. I’m just a vessel.”

“Where do you think it comes from? The energy, I mean?”

He shrugged. “The universe. God. I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters. I’m not religious—never have been, even at the height of it all. I never thought of it as faith healing. Or even spiritual healing. Just…I don’t know, a transference of energy, I suppose. I had so much of it—it seemed right that I passed it onto other people. I think we’re all made up of energy, and any relationship is about exchanging that energy. You know how sometimes you’re with someone, and you feel like they drain you? But other people make you feel energised?” He squeezed her hand. “I’m not saying there’s
not
a powerful being up there, just that I don’t tend to think of it like that. But I’m open to being convinced.”

“What happened, when you died?” she asked curiously. “Can you remember anything?”

“No. There were no white lights, no tunnels, no meeting my ancestors or anything like that. No angels on clouds or harp music. Or fiery brimstone either, for that matter.” He frowned. “Sometimes I think I remember a feeling of warmth, of safety, of feeling like I belonged. But they say it’s just your synapses firing. The last dregs of electricity surging around your body before you die. I don’t know what happened, why I suddenly got the gift. Why me? I’ve often asked that. People have accidents all the time. Why was I chosen? I’ve never been able to work out the answer.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About your father being such an arsehole.”

He gave a short laugh. “Yeah, me too. I hadn’t heard from any of them until just a week or so ago. I guess my brother tracked me down somehow.”

“Are you going to write back?”

“I don’t know. Ash thinks I should. He thinks I’m still running. But…I can’t, you know? I just can’t. I can’t go back. I won’t go back.” He spoke fiercely, his body tense.

Freya caught his hand and stopped him, turning him to face her. “You don’t have to,” she said, stroking his cheek. “Nobody’s going to make you.”

He met her gaze. His eyes were open, honest. “Freya, you’re a lovely girl. You soothe me, and…I like you. You make me happy. But…you should know, what I said at the flat still stands. I’m screwed up, sweetheart, tangled and knotted inside. I gave everything in my previous life, my whole self, and I’m not going to do it again. I can’t—I can’t risk losing myself.”

“I know.” She continued to stroke his cheek.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse.

She smiled. “You don’t have to apologise. Nate, honey, I’m your friend. I told you on that day, I’m not looking for a relationship. I’ve got to sort my own life out before I think about sharing it with somebody else. I need to decide what I’m doing and where I’m going. I’m not looking for anything from you.” Her gaze fell to his mouth. “Well, almost nothing.”

His studied her for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite believe that she wasn’t pushing him for more, demanding something he was unprepared to give. And then, slowly, his lips curved. He sipped his wine, his eyes on hers. Then he slid his arm around her waist, pulled her gently toward him and kissed her.

Chapter Twelve

His mouth was soft, and she could taste the tannins from the red wine as he brushed his tongue against hers. The kiss started slowly, and she slid her free hand into his hair and enjoyed the luxuriousness of the feel of his mouth on hers, the sun warm on her face. She’d actually only meant to kiss him, but his hand splayed on her butt and pulled her hips to his, and with surprise she found him hard, making her heart beat faster as he pushed his erection into her soft mound.

“No brewer’s droop for you, then,” she said as he pulled back.

Laughing, he took her glass from her and placed it with his on the ground to one side. Then he came back to her, sliding both arms around her, pushing her a foot or so backward until she bumped up against the tall oak tree. This time he kissed her firmly, hungrily, pushing his tongue into her mouth, one hand finding her breast and playing with her nipple through the soft T-shirt. A hazy swirl of heat and lust spiralled through her, an ache beginning between her thighs as his other hand came up to join the first, obviously finding the feel of her breasts without a bra too enticing to ignore.

He kissed her deeply, eventually sliding one hand up her short denim skirt and into her panties, making her gasp as he stroked her, groaning to find her wet. She pulled her head back to look briefly across at the vineyard, but they were quite a way from the activity now, and there was no sign of anyone anywhere around.

She put a hand on the zipper of his pants, but he caught it, pulling back to say, “Can’t. No condoms.” He gave her a wicked grin. “But that doesn’t stop me helping you to enjoy yourself.”

She shook her head, breathless. “I’m on the pill, if you want to forget the condom. And I’m…clean. If you are.”

He met her gaze. “I’ve never had sex without a condom.”

“Me neither.”

He swallowed. “I shouldn’t.”

She pressed her lips together. “Me neither.”

He blinked, looking from her green eye to her blue one and back again, still clearly entranced with the difference in colour. He cleared his throat. “But I suppose we should make the most of such a beautiful day. It seems a waste of a golden opportunity.”

“That makes sense.”

He laughed. “You’re trouble, you know that?”

“Yes.” She let him pull her into the trees, out of sight of the vineyard, her heart thumping.

“You lead me astray,” he murmured, pulling her to him again, sliding her panties down her legs so she could kick them off and then moving both hands up her skirt to cup her butt as he kissed her.

“I do my best.”

He kissed her for a while and then pulled her onto the grass under the dappled shade of the oak, lying back and letting her stretch out along him. Pushing her upright, he slid his hands up her T-shirt, his eyes growing hooded with desire as he felt her soft, damp skin. He tugged impatiently at her top and, flushing a little, hoping nobody had missed them and was currently sending out a search party, she stripped it off and let him pull her forward. He ran his tongue up between her breasts, licking the drops of sweat from her skin, and she swatted him, exasperated, making him laugh before he closed his mouth over her nipple. She arched her back as he sucked the soft peak, making it tighten in his mouth, and they both groaned, caught up in the sensuality of the afternoon, with the sun scattering its rays across them through the oak leaves, tuis calling in the top branches, and the taste of wine in their mouths.