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‘I don’t want to.’ But she’d been thinking. Thinking and thinking. She’d been totally, hopelessly in love with Jonathan for years and to change her life so dramatically …
Why not change it more?
Tomorrow. Think of it tomorrow.
‘And now I have a dog,’ she said, hauling herself back to the here and now with something akin to desperation. ‘So here I am.’ Deep breath. Tomorrow? Why not say now? ‘But I have been thinking of changing jobs. Changing completely.’
‘To what?’
How to say it? It was ridiculous. And to say stone walling, when she knew how he felt …
But the germ of an idea that had started today wouldn’t go away.
Putting one stone after another into a wall.
Crazy. To turn her back on specialist training …
Oh, but how satisfying.
It was a whim, she reminded herself sharply. A whim of today. Tomorrow it’d be gone and she’d be back to sensible.
Don’t talk about it. Don’t push this man further than you already have.
‘I don’t know,’ she managed. ‘All I know is that I need something. Woman needs change.’ She hugged Horse, who was still gazing out to sea. ‘Woman needs dog.’
‘No one needs a dog.’
‘Says you who just lost one. I wonder if Horse’s owner misses him like you miss Jem.’
‘Nikki …’
‘Don’t stick my nose into what’s not my business? You’ve been telling me that all day. But now … I’ve told you about my non existent love life. You want to tell me why I can’t finish your stone wall?’
‘It’s my mother’s wall.’
‘And she disapproves of completion?’
‘She died when I was a child. She didn’t get to finish it.’
‘So the hole’s like a shrine,’ she said cautiously, like one might approach an unexploded grenade. ‘I can see that. But you know, if it was me I’d want the wall finished. Are you sure your mum’s not up there fretting? You know, I’m a neat freak. If I die with my floor half-hoovered, feel welcome to finish it. In fact I’ll haunt you if you don’t.’
‘You don’t like an unhoovered floor?’ They were veering away from his mother—which seemed fine by both of them.
‘Hoovering’s good for the soul.’
His mouth twitched. Just a little. The beginning of a smile. ‘Do you know how much hair a dog like Horse will shed?’
‘He has to grow some hair back first,’ she said warmly. ‘He grows, I’ll hoover. We’ve made a deal.’
‘While you’ve been sitting on the beach, staring at the moon.’
‘It’s filling time. How long do you reckon it’ll take him to figure whoever he wants isn’t coming?’
‘Dogs have been faithful to absent masters for years.’
‘Years?’
‘Years.’
‘I was hoping maybe another half an hour.’
‘Years.’
‘Uh-oh.’
‘And years.’
‘I don’t know what else to do,’ she whispered.
Her problem. This was her problem, he thought, and it was only what she deserved, taking on a damaged dog …
As he’d taken on a damaged dog sixteen years ago and not regretted it once. Until it was over.
He’d had his turn. Yes, this was Nikki’s dog, Nikki’s problem, but he could help.
‘I don’t think you’re doing anyone any favours by letting him stare at where a boat isn’t,’ he said.
‘I’m doing my best.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know that.’
She cast him a look that was suspicious to say the least. ‘I didn’t mean to mess with your mother’s memory,’ she told him.
‘Yeah.’ He deserved that, he conceded. Like he’d deserved the hit over the head? But she had her reasons for that. Her heart was in the right place even if it was messing with … his heart?
That was a dumb thing to think, but think it he did. Since Lisbette left … well, maybe even before, a long time before, he’d closed down. Lisbette had whirled into his life, stunned him, ripped him off for all he was worth and whirled out again. He’d been a kid, lonely, naïve and a sitting duck.
He wasn’t a sitting duck any longer. He’d closed up. Jem had wriggled her way into his life, he’d loved her and he’d lost her. She’d been the last chink in his armour, and there was no way he was opening more.
But this woman …
She wasn’t looking to rip him off as Lisbette had—he knew that. Lisbette, getting up every two hours because she was worried about him? Ha!
Nor was she trying to edge into the cracks around his heart like Jem had. She might be needy but it was a different type of needy.
It was Nikki and Horse against the world—when she didn’t know a blind thing about dogs.
She was blundering. She was a walking disaster but she was a disaster who meant well.
‘I overreacted with the wall,’ he conceded. ‘I looked out and saw you and the dog and that’s what I remember most about my mother. Her sitting for hour after hour, sorting stones. She did it everywhere. She and Billy.’
‘Billy?’
‘She had a collie. He seemed old as long as I can remember. He pined when she died, and my dad shot him.’
‘He shot him?’ She sounded appalled.
‘He was never going to get over Mum’s death.’
‘You were how old?’
‘Eight.’
‘You lost your mum, and your dad shot her dog?’
How to say it? The day of the funeral, coming home, Billy whining, his father saying, ‘Get to your room, boy.’ A single shot.
He didn’t have to tell her. She touched his hand and the horror of that day was in her touch.
‘And I hit you over the head,’ she whispered. ‘And Henrietta said your wife left you. And your own dog died. If I were you I’d have crawled into a nice comfy psychiatric ward and thought up a diagnosis that’d keep me there for the rest of my life. Instead …’
‘How did we get here?’ He had no idea. One minute this woman was irritating the heck out of him, the next she was putting together stuff he didn’t think about; didn’t want to think about. This was his place, his beach. He’d come down here for a quiet think, and here he was being psychoanalysed.
He felt exposed.
It was a weird thing to think. She hadn’t said anything that wasn’t common knowledge but it was as if she could see things differently.
She had her arm round Horse’s neck and she was tugging him close, and all of a sudden he felt a jolt, like what would it feel to be in the dog’s place?
The dog whined. Stupid dog.
‘You want dog lessons,’ he said, more roughly than he intended.
‘Horse doesn’t need lessons. He’s smart.’
‘He’s staring at an empty sea,’ he said.
‘He’s devoted. He’ll get over it. Needs must.’
‘Says you who’s still pining for your creepy boss.’
‘I’m trying to get over it,’ she said with dignity. ‘I’m not sitting on the beach wailing. I’m doing my best. Don’t we all?’
She rose and brushed sand from the back of her trousers. With his collar released, Horse took a tentative step towards the sea. Nikki’s hand hit the collar at the same time as his did. Their fingers touched. Flinched a little but didn’t let go. Settled beside each other, a tiny touch but unnerving.
Settling.
Things were settling for him. He wasn’t sure why.
Maybe it was watching her reaction to what he’d told her tonight, added to what he knew local gossip would have told her. His mother’s death, his father, Lisbette, his mother’s dog and Jem … Her reaction seemed to validate stuff he tried not to think about.
Permission to feel sorry for himself?
Permission to move on.
Towards Nikki? Towards yet another disaster?
Not in a million years. He’d spent all his life being taught that solitary was safe. He wasn’t about to change that now.
But he could help her. It was the least he could do.
‘Horse needs a master,’ he told her.
‘He’s only got me,’ she said defensively. ‘Why are we being sexist? A master?’
‘I mean,’ he said patiently, ‘a pack leader. He’s lost his. He’s looking for him; if he can’t find him he needs a new one.’
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Pack leader. Can I buy one at the Banksia Bay Co-op?’
He grinned. His hand was still touching hers. He should pull it away but he didn’t. Things were changing—had changed. There was something about the night, the moonlight on the water, the big needy dog between them …
There was something about her expression. She was sounding defiant, braving it out, but things were rotten in this woman’s world as well. Nikki and Horse, both needy to the point of desperation.
That need had nothing to do with him. He should pull away—but he didn’t.
‘Attitude,’ he said, deciding he’d be decisive, and she blinked.
‘Pack leader attitude?’
‘That’s it. So who decided to come down the beach, you or Horse?’
‘He was miserable.’ She sounded defensive.
‘So you followed.’
‘I held onto him. He would have run.’
‘But he walked in front, yes? Team leaders walk in front. The pack’s at the back.’
‘You’re saying I need to growl at him? Make him subservient? He’s already miserable.’
‘He’ll be miserable until you order him not to be, and he decides you’re worth swapping loyalty.’
‘I shouldn’t have let him come down to the beach?’
‘There’s not a lot of point being down here, is there?’ he said, gentler as he watched her face. And Horse’s face. He could swear the dog was listening, his great eyes pools of despair. ‘He’s been dumped by a low-life. How’s it going to make him feel better to stare at an empty sea? It’s up to you to take his place.’
‘The low-life’s place?’
