Making Sense (6 page)

But he didn’t.

His eyes met hers, his pupils dilating, and then he gave a short laugh of surrender before he wrapped his arms around her and lowered his lips to hers.

Freya’s mouth curved beneath his, and she slid her arms around his neck, pressing herself fully along him. He kissed her soundly, but languidly, taking the time to taste her, and a deep shiver ran through her at the sensual slide of his tongue on hers. As she slipped a hand into his hair, he moved his hands down her back to her hips, and then lowered them to cup her ass. He tightened his hands on it, lifting her slightly, nestling his erection into her softness. As she inhaled with pleasure, he moved his hips, pushing against her, arousing her, and a warm ache grew between her legs. Her nipples tightened, heat pooling in her stomach, and he obviously felt something similar, because he gave a low growl of appreciation in his throat, deepening the kiss and making her sigh with longing.

“Whoa!”

They broke apart hurriedly as someone spoke behind them, and Freya turned to see Jodi—Ash’s fourteen-year-old daughter—watching them with wide, amused eyes.

“Yowza,” said Jodi. “I’ve never seen a guy kiss a girl like that except in the movies.”

“Hey,
she
kissed
me
,” said Nate, brushing the back of his hand across his mouth and wiping off Freya’s lip gloss before tucking his hands in his pockets. “I’m just an innocent bystander.”

Jodi grinned. “Yeah. You looked like you
hated
it.”

Nate laughed, glancing at Freya, whose face burned.

“I didn’t know you two had hooked up,” Jodi said, interested.

“We haven’t,” said Freya, worried Jodi would overreact and make Nate panic. “I was cheering him up. We’re just good friends.”

“Oh my God, if a friend ever cheered me up like that, I’d
explode.
”

I nearly did,
Freya thought. She cast Nate an apologetic look, but he just winked at her. He looked more relaxed now, anyway. Was his heart pounding as hard as hers was? And it wasn’t all due to the fact that they’d been discovered. When he kissed her, she felt like one of those old cartoon characters who had steam come out of their ears. And the way he’d pushed his erection against her… She couldn’t think about it. She’d have to have a lie down with a cold flannel on her face. Or a cold flannel somewhere else.

“Come on,” she said, “shopping. Bye, Nate.”

“See ya.” He smiled.

She followed Jodi out, meeting Ash and Grace in the hall, and shook her head in warning as Jodi giggled. “In the car,” said Grace, ushering the two girls out, and they scrunched across the gravel to Grace’s car. Freya slid in the passenger seat, Jodi got in the back and Grace had just started the engine when she demanded, “Tell me!”

“She snogged him,” said Jodi. “Tongues and everything.”

Freya rolled her eyes. “Oh jeez.”

Grace nearly drove off the drive into the bushes. “You kissed him?”

“He needed cheering up,” said Freya defensively.

“Oh my God!”

“It was just a kiss.”

“It was
not
just a kiss,” said Jodi vehemently. “He had his hands on her ass and there was definite cuppage.”

“Jodi!”

“What?” The young girl’s eyes were sparkling. “It was very romantic.”

“There was absolutely nothing romantic about it,” said Freya with amusement.

“You couldn’t see it.”

“Honey, romance is flowers and exchanging glances over dinner and him whispering sweet nothings in your ear. There wasn’t a whole lot of that going on.”

“Even so.” Jodi shrugged. “That little smile he gave you, and the way he slid his hands down your back…” She sighed.
 

“Jeez, Jodi, how long were you watching?”

“Long enough,” she said smugly. “Oh God, I
so
need to get myself a boyfriend who can kiss me like that.”

“No you don’t,” Grace and Freya both said together, hastily.

Grace glanced over at Freya, clearly overjoyed at the news. “You little devil.”

“He started it,” said Freya, “the night you made him walk me home.”

“Oh! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t tell you because it’s not a big thing. Neither of us wants a relationship, Grace. I’m serious now. It was just a bit of fun. He clearly has severe commitment issues, and I have
far
too much on my plate to think about a regular boyfriend right now. It was just…nice.”

“If that’s nice,” said Jodi, “I’d like to see what you call passionate.”

Chapter Five

Freya would like to have said she worked so hard the following week that she didn’t have much time to think about the kiss, but that would have been a lie. She thought about it constantly, every spare minute she had in between changing beds, mopping up bodily fluids, administering drugs and soothing upset or worried patients. At first, it made her cross that she couldn’t get it out of her mind, because she was completely aware it would never lead to anything. She didn’t want to romanticise the situation, and she didn’t want to get obsessed with a guy with whom there was no chance of a future. However, eventually she just accepted it for what it was—a daydream she could focus on when she needed cheering up, similar to a kiss she’d read in a book or seen on TV, and provided she thought of it as a screen kiss, there was no harm in fantasising about it in her quieter moments.

It also gave her comfort when she was dealing with the difficult side of her job—seeing her patients who were in pain or had received bad news. One little boy in particular, Josh, who was only seven, had acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and although he’d had a bone-marrow transplant, he’d developed graft-versus-host disease, which affected his internal organs. The doctors had put him on high-dose corticosteroids, but he had developed an infection, and the prognosis wasn’t good.

Freya always did her best not to get involved with her patients, especially the kids, but there was something special about Josh that got to her. Maybe because he was so cheerful in his illness, always ready with a smile for her, never seeming grumpy. Maybe because his parents were so nice, thankful for any help she could give, complimentary about the staff and gracious even though they were obviously distraught at how sick their son was. Or maybe it was just that for some reason, Josh tugged at her heartstrings more than any other child had done.
 

For the first time since she’d become a nurse, Freya could imagine him as her own son lying there, suffering, and it was becoming harder to distance herself from him. When she felt overcome with emotion, she’d walk out to the nurses’ station and pretend to read a file or something, and concentrate instead on the memory of Nate’s hands cupping her face, his lips firm on her own. It calmed her, grounded her, and for that, if nothing else, she was thankful.

The week passed quickly and got gradually busier, and she worked over the busy Waitangi Day weekend. By Tuesday the following week, after several twelve-hour shifts, she was ready for her days off, even though the hot and sultry weather had turned to thundery showers.

With half an hour to go before her shift ended, she checked on Josh one last time, then nipped to the canteen and flipped open her mobile. She wanted a few days of peace, without having to worry about visiting her parents, and therefore planned to go around there that evening and get it out of the way.

The phone rang several times before her mother answered. “Hello.”

“It’s only me,” said Freya. “What are you up to? Thought I might pop around after work.”

“Freya?” After a few seconds of silence, Sarah said, “Er, I don’t that’s a good idea right now, love.” In the background, a huge crash echoed, and Sarah swore.

Freya frowned. “What was that?”

“Nothing. Look, I’d better go…”

“Mum.” Freya spoke sternly. “What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing—it’s just your father.”

“What’s he done now?”

Sarah sighed. “He’s had another bad day at the races, love, and he’s a bit annoyed…” Another crash sounded, this one closer.

“Mum? Is he drunk?”

“A bit. It’s okay, I can handle him.”

Shit.
“How much did he lose?”

“He told me not to tell you,” said Sarah, her voice thick with tears. “Honestly, I’m okay.”

“Mum! Tell me, for God’s sake.”

“Just under five hundred,” said Sarah, cursing as something else shattered closer to the phone and Harry Fletcher started yelling in the background. “Stop it!” she yelled back, covering the phone with her hand, but her words still rang in Freya’s head. “Love, I’ve got to go. Please don’t worry—this isn’t the first time this has happened. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She hung up.

Freya swore, clipping the phone shut and storming back to her ward. She worked silently for half an hour, then said goodbye to Josh before making her way down to the cashpoint in the lobby. She fumed as she withdrew five hundred dollars, cursing all the way to her car in the rain, only then realising she’d forgotten to get changed and still wore her uniform. She cursed again, got into the car and slammed the door shut. This was not how she wanted her break to start.

She drove the twenty minutes to her parents’ house in mute rage, the wipers almost double speed, parked outside and ran up to the house. Before she could knock on the front door, however, it opened, and her mother slid out, carrying an umbrella that she held over the two of them.

“I told you not to come,” Sarah hissed. She looked old, thought Freya, her salt-and-pepper hair scraped off her face in a rough ponytail, no makeup, her skin wrinkled with worry lines. Her left cheek sported a large red mark.

“I was worried about you.”

Sarah looked over her shoulder toward the house. “I can handle him, Freya. You should go.”

“Did he hurt you?” Freya shook with anger.

Sarah touched the red mark. “I fell.”

“Oh Mum, for fuck’s sake…”

“Don’t swear,” said Sarah automatically. “Freya, I’m okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, I promise.”

Freya took the money out of her pocket and pressed it into her mother’s hand. “Take this.”

“Freya…” Sarah’s eyes filled with tears. “I can’t.”

“Mum, please. I hate the thought of you worrying.”

“Dad will go spare. He hates you helping us out.”

“So don’t tell him,” said Freya harshly. “What does he expect you to do, magic the money out of nowhere?”

“He doesn’t mean to do it,” Sarah said.

“But he does. And it sucks.” Freya nodded toward the house. “Are you sure you don’t want to come back with me? Leave him to it?”

Sarah smiled then, reaching up a hand to touch Freya’s face. “I know you mean well, and it confuses you why I stay, but he’s my husband. You’ll understand one day.”

“I’ll never let a man treat me like this,” Freya said, tears burning her eyes.

Sarah’s hand dropped, and her eyes hardened. “Don’t judge me. You don’t know everything.”

“I know enough, Mum. How can you continue to put up with it, day after day, year after year?”

“Because I love him,” Sarah said simply. “And we don’t get to choose who we love.”

“Bullshit.” Freya was angry now. “Nobody’s powerless to control their feelings. That’s just a weak excuse for why you’re such a coward.”

Sarah stared at her. Then she turned around and walked back into the house without saying another word.

She kept the money, though.

Tears scorched Freya’s face, mingling with the rain that soaked her uniform and plastered her hair to her head. She stormed back to her car and took out her keys. Her fingers fumbled, and she dropped the keys, which clattered onto the curb and tumbled off the edge—right into the drain.

“Shit!” Freya dropped to her hands and knees, but water gushed down the drain from the channel running alongside the road, and she couldn’t see a thing. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” She pushed herself to her feet, angry and frustrated, kicked the car and then stood there, glancing over at the house. No way would she go back and ask for help. Instead, she walked along the pavement to a bus shelter and stood there, dripping, crying furious tears. Her watch read seven thirty, and there wouldn’t be a bus along at that time of the evening.

She took out her phone and rang home. No reply. Mia must be out, she thought irritably. She rang Mia’s mobile, but she’d turned it off. Who was she out with—Ross again? Getting desperate now, she rang Grace’s mobile, but that was off too. “Damn it!” She rang Ash’s house, wondering if Jodi was in and might know where Grace and Ash had gone for the evening.

A deep male voice answered. “Hello?”

“Ash?”

“No,” said the man. “He’s not in at the moment. Who’s calling?”

“It’s Freya,” she said, suddenly realising who it was. “Nate?”

“Yeah. Hey, Freya.” He sounded pleased.

“Are Ash and Grace there?”

“No, they’ve gone to the cinema. I’m just catching up on some paperwork. What’s up?”

For some reason his voice, low, gentle and calm, brought more tears to her eyes. “I’ve done something stupid…” Her voice tailed off in a squeak.