Sweet as Honey (The Seven Sisters) (9 page)

In one swift move, he’d put his new life in
danger, risked it all for a snatched kiss outside a seedy café. Had anyone seen
him? He’d been in uniform, for Christ’s sake, leaning against a police car. He
was well known throughout a good portion of the Northland and he hadn’t even
dragged her around the corner out of sight—he’d kissed her in full view of the
passing traffic. Someone could be on their mobile to Honey right now, telling
her.
I saw your fiancé kissing another woman in public.

He pulled over to the side of the road,
opened the door and sat there for a moment, close to vomiting.

Eventually, his stomach settling a little, he
shut the door and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. His heart pounded,
but he forced himself to calm down, to keep his cool.

Yes, he’d made a grave mistake. But it
could have been worse. He hadn’t taken her off to a motel and fucked her. It
had only been a kiss, less than five seconds of their lips touching, hardly
enough to bring an engagement to an end.

You think that matters?
His brain screamed at him.
You think Honey would understand if
she found out? Would you understand, if you saw her kissing Ian
Mc-Fucking-Idiot?
Of course he wouldn’t—he would be terribly, irrevocably
hurt. He would think she still loved her ex, and that she couldn’t possibly
love him, Dex, to have betrayed him so badly.

He just had to hope she didn’t find out.
There was no guarantee he’d been seen by anyone he knew. The kiss
had
been brief after all, and even if someone had seen them in the café talking,
that wasn’t a crime—he often met up with friends and colleagues for a drink.

His mouth felt sour, and his head ached. Despair
and doubt swirled around him. Cathryn had touched a nerve—she’d hit on his
deepest innermost fear—that Honey had seemingly coped fine being single for a
long time, and maybe her ex had been right and she wasn’t interested in sex.
He’d tried to fight it—she always reacted well enough to his kisses, but the
worry had eaten away at his brain like a maggot in an apple. How would he cope
if she didn’t like sex, or only wanted it once a month? With the lights off, in
the missionary position? If he asked her to do something and it disgusted her?
He’d planned to let her dictate the pace at which they explored their sex life,
only suggesting one thing at a time, taking it carefully to make sure he didn’t
overstep the mark. But he didn’t think he could bear it if he frightened or
hurt her, and he worried that she’d go along with something she didn’t want to
do just to please him.

Cathryn had reminded him how suited they’d
been sexually. They’d got up to all sorts of things he’d never have dreamed of
before he met her, although he knew she’d never understood that even though
they’d been good in bed together, after sex with her he’d always felt tainted.
She would never understand how much he loved being with Honey because of the
way she made him feel—clean and unsullied, renewed.

But the fact was that he hadn’t
changed—deep down he was still the same man with the same faults, even though
he tried to hide them. He’d been stupid and briefly given in to his libido,
which wasn’t hugely surprising considering how long it had been since he’d had
sex—it didn’t make it okay by any means, but it was understandable.

And then shame swept over him and he sank
his head into his hands, clutching his hair. Understandable? He was the pits,
the worst kind of man that ever existed. He didn’t deserve Honey Summers, who was
an angel on earth, who’d been treated badly herself and who needed a good man
to look after her, someone who wouldn’t hurt her.

He wasn’t that man. He’d kidded himself he
could change, but he was an old dog and that was a decidedly new trick. At that
moment, Dex hated himself. And he wished he’d never been born.

“You’ve been so long in that bath I’m
surprised you haven’t turned into a prune.”

Honey looked over her shoulder to see Cam
walking toward the deck, coffee in hand. “Hiya.”

“Can I join you?”

“Of course.” She cupped her hot chocolate
in both hands and smiled at him as he sat beside her. She had indeed spent over
an hour in the bath, soaking until the water turned cool, and now she wore her
favourite pink pyjamas and soft white fluffy robe, her feet—stuffed into
matching white fluffy slippers—propped on one of the wooden garden chairs.

He sipped his coffee, and they looked out
across the lawns to the darkening gloom of the Waitangi Forest. Although it was
nearly April and therefore officially autumn, the sub-tropical Northland hung
onto its summer jealously. The air had not yet cooled enough for Cam to don a
jacket, and cicadas still called from the bush.

Cam placed his mug on the table between
them. “Missy told me you rang Dex before you got in the bath.”

“Yes.”

“But he was busy tonight.”

“Yes.” She looked at her hot chocolate and
picked out a tiny fly that had attempted to go for a swim in it.

“Everything all right?” Cam asked.

She sighed. “I think so. Probably. I don’t
know. I rang him at lunch today and he was…weird. And tonight he was…” She
trailed off, not knowing how to voice it. “Distracted, I suppose.”

“Work?” Cam suggested.

“Maybe.”

“He’s a busy man. He has a lot on his
plate,” Cam said. “And he’s probably nervous about Saturday.”

“I know.” That didn’t explain his irritated
tone, she thought. His curt, clipped sentences. The awkward silences. Something
had changed, and it wasn’t just her imagination.

“Did you tell him about the court case?”
Cam asked.

“No…” she said slowly. “I told him I wasn’t
allowed to discuss it outside the courtroom.”

“You discussed with me.”

“I know.”

He sipped his coffee as he waited for an
explanation.

She watched a pair of pukekos walking
across the lawn, their blue feathers bright in the late evening sunshine, their
red feet comical as they strutted to the pond. “I didn’t want to mention it,”
she said tiredly. “I didn’t want to have the conversation, because I’d talk
about Sarah Green and he’d pick up from my tone that it was upsetting me, and
then he’d get angry that I was comparing her to myself and tell me off.”

The corner of Cam’s mouth curved up. “He
wouldn’t tell you off.”

“Yes, he would.”

“No, he wouldn’t. He would tell
you—rightly—that this case has nothing to do with you or Ian, and it’s not fair
on you or the defendant for you to let your emotions become involved.”

Honey bit her lip. It was an easy thing to
say, but not so easy to carry out. The afternoon had been no easier than the
morning. The prosecuting lawyer had cross-questioned Sarah ruthlessly. Honey
thought that maybe James had paid a lot of money for the smartly-dressed,
hotshot lawyer to come up from Whangarei—the nearest city an hour away, rather
than hiring one from the smaller law firms in Kerikeri, whereas Sarah’s
pro
bono
lawyer—although he had done a good job in trying to elicit some sympathy
for her—wore an old suit and didn’t seem quite so on the case.

The prosecuting lawyer had picked holes in
her testimony, querying everything from why she hadn’t put the chain across the
door if she was so afraid of burglars, to forcing her to admit that she must
have stabbed James only six feet from the front door rather than in the kitchen
as she’d previously testified, because a smear of blood had been found on the
wall there. It couldn’t have been made as James walked out, said the lawyer,
because the wall was on the left, and the wound was on the right side of his
face and arm. Rather than pointing out that James could have turned around and
leaned against the wall, Sarah had asked what difference it made, but Honey had
already understood the point the lawyer was trying to make—that Sarah had come
out of the kitchen and advanced to tackle the intruder, rather than waiting
there for him to come to her. That was not the action of a woman terrified for
her life.

“I can’t not involve my emotions,” she said
in answer. “I’m an emotional person.”

Cam smiled then. “Yes, you are. You’re very
like your mother.”

Honey studied the lawn again, watching the
rabbits that had come out to play. A lump rose in her throat. “I wish Mum was
here,” she whispered.

Cam turned the mug in his hand. “Yeah. Me
too.”

“I’ll miss her on Saturday,” she said.
If
we make it to Saturday.
She didn’t voice those words though, knowing her
father would be duty bound to offer her platitudes and tell her everything
would be all right. At that moment, she wasn’t so sure. It should have been
exciting, but instead everything seemed to be conspiring to make her stressed
and worried.

“She’ll be there,” Cam said. “In our
hearts.”

Honey nodded, because it comforted him to
think so. And wished she could be certain it was true.

***

On Tuesday morning, the defending lawyer
called several other witnesses to back up Sarah’s testimony. They were a sorry,
unconvincing bunch, thought Honey as first Sarah’s father, then her boss, were
asked to take the stand and answer questions about Sarah’s love life and the
way her character had changed over the time she’d lived with James Hill. Both of
them declared that yes, the vibrant, giggly young girl had grown quiet and
sullen as time went by, and her father confirmed that he’d gradually seen less
and less of his daughter, and when she had come to visit, she was always
worried about getting back to the house she shared with James in case he should
find her gone and grow angry. But he had shown no emotion as he discussed the
ways in which James appeared to have controlled his eldest girl, and although
her boss testified that she’d obviously sunk into depression, he didn’t seem
upset to have finally let her go.

How awful to be so unloved, Honey thought
as she made her way out of the courtroom for lunch. She’d never had that
problem. Even when things had been bad with Ian, she’d always known her family
were there. True, they’d all been focused on Marama and her illness at the
time, which was the main reason nobody had realised just how bad things had got
at home with him. But  Honey had known that one phone call to Koru or Cam—to
any of them, in fact—would have sorted the situation. She just hadn’t wanted to
admit her relationship had failed. Had wanted to try and sort it herself. Women
were constantly told nowadays that they shouldn’t expect men to sort out their
lives for them, that they had to be strong and cope alone. But not everyone was
strong. Sometimes people need a little help, she thought, getting in her car
and opening her phone.

The first thing she registered was that
there were no messages from Dex. Seven from the wedding organiser, but none
from the man she was supposed to marry.

She sat there for a few minutes, fighting
back tears. It didn’t mean anything. He occasionally went all day without
contacting her. He’d told her that sometimes he had quiet days where he longed
for something to happen, but most days he lurched from problem to problem, and
perhaps today was one of those.

She forced half a sandwich down and read
the texts from the wedding organiser. The woman—Gillian—was very pleasant and
had obviously been told to keep her customers informed on events, but she’d
interpreted that as relating every little problem that arose, even if they were
solved half an hour later. Honey’s stomach churned as she read that the florist
had fallen and broken her ankle—but Gillian then went on to say she knew of
another who had agreed to pick up the order.

The next message said menus had been
printed but a mistake had been found in the spelling of one of the dishes.
Honey clenched her fists, knowing she’d checked every word in the menu three
times, only to read in the following text that the error appeared to have been
the printers’ end, and they were going to reprint with no extra cost.

The fifth text said the hotel had
apparently double-booked the room where the reception was to be held, which
sent a spiral of panic through her. The sixth said not to worry, it was a
computer error and everything was fine.

“I don’t need to know this stuff,” Honey
said out loud, banging the phone on the steering wheel as if she could knock
some sense into the woman. “Why bother telling me when you’ve already sorted
it?”

The seventh text said the white Rolls Royce
that was supposed to take Honey to the hotel had failed its Warrant of Fitness
and wouldn’t be fixed until the following week—the small local firm had offered
a silver Rolls Royce instead, if that suited.

Fighting the urge to say she’d be happy to
use Harry Potter’s Knight Bus if it meant she could get to the wedding, Honey
texted the word
FINE
and sank back in the seat, exhausted. She’d spoken
the truth. She’d have worn a T-shirt and trackpants, cycled there on a tandem
and served the guests ham sandwiches if it meant she could marry Dex and live
happily ever after. She just wanted to marry the guy she loved.

That wasn’t asking for much, was it?