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‘My sharp investigative skills inform me that the dog can dig,’ Raff said, shaking Kleppy a little so a rain of dirt fell onto the polished wood of the courtroom door. ‘Will you come with me, please, ma’am?’
‘Just give the dog back to whoever owns it,’ Philip snapped, his hand gripping Abby’s shoulder tightly now. ‘Tie the other one up outside. Abigail’s busy.’
‘Raff, please …’ Abby said.
‘Mrs Fryer’s hopping mad,’ Raff said, unbending a little. ‘I’ve waited until court broke for lunch but I’m waiting no longer. You want to avoid charges, you come and placate her.’
She glanced at Philip. Uh-oh. She glanced at Justice Weatherby. The tic at the corner of his mouth had turned into a grin. Someone was giggling at the back of the court.
Philip’s face looked like thunder.
‘Sort the dog, Abigail,’ he snapped, gathering his notes. ‘Just get it out of here and stop it interfering with our lives.’
‘Right this way, ma’am,’ Raff said amiably. ‘The solicitor for the defence will be right back, just as soon as she sorts her stolen property.’
Abby walked out behind Raff, trying to look professional, but she didn’t feel professional and when she reached the outside steps and the autumn sun hit her face she felt suddenly a wee bit hysterical. And also … a wee bit free?
As if Raff had sprung her from jail.
Which was a dumb thing to think. Raff had attempted to make her a laughing stock.
‘I suppose you think you’re funny,’ she said and Raff turned and looked at her, and once again she was hit by that wave of pure testosterone. He was in his cop uniform and my, it was sexy. The sun was glinting on his tanned face and his coppery hair. He was wearing short sleeves and his arms … They were twice as thick as Philip’s, she thought, and then she thought that was a very inappropriate thing to think. As was the fact that his eyes held the most fabulous twinkle.
Her knees felt wobbly.
What was she doing? She was standing in the sun and lusting after Raff Finn. The man who’d destroyed her life …
She needed to get a grip, and fast.
‘You’re saying Kleppy dug all the way out of my garden?’ she snapped, trying to sound disbelieving. She was disbelieving.
‘You’re implying I might have helped?’ Raff said, still with that twinkle. ‘You think I might have hiked round there and loaned him a spade?’
‘No, I …’ Of course not. ‘But the fence sits hard on the ground. He’d have had to go deep.’
‘He’s a very determined dog. I did warn you, Abigail.’
‘Why don’t you just call me ma’am and be done with it,’ she snapped. ‘What am I supposed to do now?’
‘Apologise.’
‘To you?’
He grinned at that and his whole face lit up. She’d hardly seen that grin. Not since … Not since …
No. Avoid that grin at all costs.
‘I can’t imagine you apologising to me,’ he said. ‘But you might try Mrs Fryer. I imagine she’s apoplectic by now. She rang an hour ago to say her dog had been stolen from outside the draper’s. I did think we were looking at dog-napping—she’d definitely pay a ransom—but we have witnesses saying the napper was seen making a getaway. It seems Kleppy decided to go find another bra and found something better.’
She closed her eyes. This was not good, on so many levels.
‘You caught him?’
‘I didn’t have to catch him,’ he said, and his smile deepened, a slow, smouldering smile that had the power to heat as much as the sun. ‘I found the two of them on your front step.’
‘On my …’
‘He seems to think of your place as home already. Home of Abby. Home of Kleppy. Or maybe he was just bringing this magnificent gift to you.’
Oh, Kleppy.
She stared at her scruffy, kleptomaniac, mud-covered dog in Raff’s arms. He stared back, gazing straight at her, quivering with hope. With happiness. A dog fulfilled.
Why did her eyes suddenly fill?
‘Why … why didn’t you just take Fluffy back to Mrs Fryer?’ she managed, trying not to sniff. She had a dog.
‘Watch this.’ He set Kleppy down and tugged the diamanté lead, trying to dislodge it from Kleppy’s teeth.
Kleppy held on as if his life depended on it.
Raff tugged again.
Kleppy growled and gripped and glanced across at Abby—and his appeal was unmistakable. Come and help. This guy’s trying to steal your property.
Her property.
Raff released him. The little dog turned towards her, his whole body quivering in delight. She stooped and held out her hand and he dropped the lead into it.
Oh, my …
She was having trouble making herself speak. She was having trouble making herself think. This disreputable mutt had laid claim to her.
She should be horrified.
She loved it.
‘You could have just taken Fluffy off the other end of the lead,’ she managed.
‘Hey, your dog growled at me,’ Raff said. ‘You heard him. He could have taken my hand off.’
‘He was wagging his tail at the same time.’
‘I’m not one to take chances,’ Raff said. ‘I might be armed but I’m not a fast draw. Too big a risk.’
She looked up at him, big and brawny and absurdly incongruous. Cop with gun. He’d shoot to kill?
‘You don’t have capsicum spray?’ she managed.
‘Lady, you think this vicious mutt could be subdued by capsicum spray?’
She ran her fingers down the vicious mutt’s spine. He arched and preened and waggled his tail in pleasure.
The fluff ball moved in for a back scratch as well.
She giggled.
‘Abigail …’ It was Philip, striding down the steps, looking furious.
Philip. Dignity. She scrambled to her feet and the dogs looked devastated at losing her.
‘I’m just settling the dogs down,’ she managed. ‘Before Raff takes them away.’
‘Before we take them away,’ Raff said. He motioned to his patrol car.
‘You can cope with this yourself, Finn,’ Philip snapped.
‘No,’ Raff said, humour fading. He lifted Kleppy in one arm and Fluff Ball in the other. ‘You cope with getting Wallace off,’ he told Philip. ‘Abigail copes with the dogs.’
‘I need …’
‘You’re getting as little help as I can manage to get that low life off the hook,’ Raff snapped. ‘Abigail, come with me.’
She went. Raff was not giving her a choice, and she knew Mrs Fryer would be furious.
Behind her, Philip was furious but right now that seemed the lesser of two evils.
She sat in the front of Raff’s patrol car with two dogs on her knee and she tried to stare straight ahead; to think serious thoughts. She still wanted to giggle.
‘Kleppy should be in the back,’ Raff said gravely. ‘A known criminal.’
‘You’ve accused me of being an accessory. Why don’t you toss me in the back as well?’
‘I like you up front,’ he said. ‘You do my image good.’
‘I need dark glasses,’ she said, glowering. ‘Carted round town in a police car.’
‘You will keep a kleptomaniac dog. It might well push you over to the dark side. Spoil that good-girl reputation. Send you into the shadowy side, like me.’
Her bubble of laughter faded at that. He’d spoken lightly, but there was truth behind his words.
The shadowy side …
Raff’s grandfather and then his mother had given the family a bad name. A drunk and then a woman who’d broken society’s rules … If Raff’s mother had had the strength to defend herself, to ride out community criticism, then maybe it would have been different but she’d been an easy target. The family had been an easy target.
Raff, though … He had defended himself. He’d come back here after the accident, he’d made a home for Sarah, he’d looked on community disdain with indifference.
Did it hurt?
It wasn’t anything to do with her, she thought, but, as they pulled up outside Louise Fryer’s, she watched the middle-aged matron greet Raff with only the barest degree of civility. It must still hurt.
After the accident … There’d been no trial.
She remembered the investigators talking to her parents. There’d been insufficient evidence to charge him.
‘Is Raff denying it?’ That had been Abby, whispering from the background. She barely remembered those appalling days after the crash but she did remember that. She did remember asking. ‘What does Raff say?’
‘He can’t remember a thing,’ the investigator told her. ‘His blood alcohol’s come back zero and frankly that’s a surprise. He was just a stupid kid doing stupid things.’
‘Our Ben wasn’t stupid,’ her mother said hotly.
‘Led astray, more like,’ the investigator said and the fair part of Abby, the reasonable part, thought no, Ben hadn’t been wearing his seat belt. It wasn’t all Raff’s fault.
He’d been stupid. He had been on the wrong side of the dirt road and he’d been speeding.
He’d killed Ben and injured his sister.
Maybe that was enough punishment for anyone. The authorities seemed to think so. Even though her parents wanted him thrown in jail, it had simply been left as an accident.
Raff had come back as the town cop, he’d cared for his sister and he’d worked hard to rid himself of that bad boy reputation. For the most part he now had community respect, but there were those—her parents’ friends … people with long memories … He was still condemned.
Louise Fryer, coming out now with her mouth pursed into a look of dislike, was one of the more vocal of the condemners.
‘Haven’t you found her yet?’ Her voice was an accusation. ‘I’ve had five phone calls. People have seen her. Don’t you know how valuable she is?’
Abby was trying to untangle leads to get out of the car.
‘You don’t care,’ Mrs Fryer said. ‘We need a decent police presence in this … Oh …’
For, finally, Abby was out. She set Fluff Ball on the ground. Fluff Ball headed over to Mrs Fryer.
But … Uh-oh. Kleppy was out of the car and after his prize. He grabbed the lead and Fluff Ball stopped in her tracks.
Fluff Ball looked at Mrs Fryer, then looked at Kleppy. She wagged her pompom and proceeded to check out Kleppy’s rear.
‘She’ll catch something … Get it away …’ Louise was practically screeching.
Abby sighed. She picked up both dogs and tucked them firmly under her arms. ‘Thank you, Kleppy, but no,’ she said severely. She took the lead from Kleppy and handed over Fluff Ball.
And finally Mrs Fryer realised who she was. ‘Abigail!’
‘Hi, Mrs Fryer.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘My dog stole your dog.’
‘Your dog?’ Louise’s eyes were almost popping out of her head. ‘That’s never your dog.’
