by Rhyll Biest
While she tucked the card into her shirt pocket he took in the clean lines of her face. No wonder she reminded him of a fox, she had such a sharp nose, jawline and chin.
She looked up, caught him studying her. ‘What?’ Her tone was sharp.
‘I still don’t get it.’ He drained his cup.
She raised her brows.
‘What someone like you is doing in a job like this.’
‘Someone like me?’ She frowned.
His gaze swept over her. ‘Classy, intelligent.’
Good looking. He didn’t say it but they both heard it, her expression growing even more wary. Hell, with her keen eyes she could probably see the tiny pheromones of sexual interest wiggling in the air around them. He certainly felt them, and in a certain part of his anatomy.
She bestowed a thin smile on him. ‘Thanks for the compliment. Not that I’m that classy or intelligent, but perhaps the population of Walgarra sets the bar low for those qualities.’
Ouch. Look how neatly she’d eviscerated him and then stitched him back up and given him a pat on the head.
‘You have no idea. And you’ll meet all the worst types in a job like this.’
She sat up straighter, her tone cool. ‘Well, that’s okay since I’ll be investigating reports of animal abuse, not looking for a date.’
And that includes you, Bozo, her eyes said. A solid left hook. Round one to her. Though when their conversation had turned into a fight he had no idea. ‘Fair enough but you may want to consider that training I mentioned.’
‘I am. Considering it.’
Her tone and her posture told him to back off, and since training and experience had taught him the shitty results of forcing a point with a defensive person he dropped it. ‘Nick must have gone to Brazil to get the beans for that coffee. Sure you don’t want anything to drink?’
She actually wrestled with the offer, as if an answer would be tantamount to a confession. But perhaps something else was causing her storm of anxiety. Perhaps she’d read more into the question than he’d intended. Like it was possible that ’would you like a drink?’ could mean ‘would you like heated sex?’. Because, really, that was what he wanted deep down, wasn’t it? And this was a woman who scented subtext without trying.
She finally settled on an answer. ‘Just some water, please, and I’d like my mug extra clean.’
He raised his brows. A neat freak? ‘Clean it is.’ He stood and made more coffee for himself, sterilised a mug with boiling water for his visitor before adding cold water.
She shifted on her chair as if it offered no comfort. ‘Thank you once again for keeping me from getting my face smacked in at the shelter yesterday.’
‘I certainly hope it wouldn’t have come to that.’ The thought feathered him with unease. If the idea of her getting a love tap from some aggro dad bothered him, how would he handle it if she got shot by a biker? Or stabbed by an ice addict? All his fears flew down to roost and he couldn’t shake a sense of foreboding, just like he couldn’t sleep at night and couldn’t return Mark’s cap to Stacey. ‘Want ice?’
She shook her head, her neatly pulled back copper hair gleaming sharp and bright as a knife under the fluorescent lights. Ms Fox.
He handed her the mug and pushed an open tin of biscuits towards her. ‘Nick said you had a career change. What line of compliance work were you in before?’ She looked like a trophy PA, the sort of sleek and capable eye candy senior executives loved to trot out at meetings.
‘I was a quarantine dog handler at Sydney airport. You know, checking passenger luggage for food and whatnot.’
Ah, fruit and vegetable compliance, the kind of offenders who rarely fought back. ‘You had a detector dog?’
‘A beagle.’ She nodded. ‘But he was retired this year and I decided to join him.’
There was something about the dog, or something about the job that bothered her. ‘Did you keep him?’
‘I wanted to but wasn’t allowed to.’
And that pissed you off … Her expression was so tightly neutral it had to hurt. He could have left it at that but the bastard in him probed. ‘You didn’t want to stay on in quarantine?’
She cocked her head, gave him a smile as tough as Kevlar. ‘I liked the job, but there’s only so many years you can ask tired, crabby people why they had half a kilo of sausage and a bird’s nest in their carry-on. Or up their butt.’
‘I see.’ A sense of humour, too, he really liked her—what she was electing to share, anyway. Time to take the gloves off and see what she was really made of. He flicked another glance over her frame. ‘You’re kinda small for the sheriff type, what made you want to do this job?’
Stillness settled thick between them. If she’d had a tail it would have flicked.
‘I like animals, I don’t like the dickheads who hurt them, and investigation appeals to me.’
Feisty. Maybe she was sheriff material, after all. ‘This is your first job as an inspector though, right?’
She gave him a look as cool as the water she sipped. And dammit if the way she drank wasn’t the hottest thing he’d seen in who knew how long. The way her throat moved with each swallow, the slight pout of her lips as she folded them around the lip of her mug. He had to stop looking at her lips.
She put her drink down. ‘Are you worried Walgarra will be too rough on my training wheels?’
‘Sweetheart, I’m worried someone’s going to rip your training wheels off, strip you for parts and sell them for ice.’
The clock on the wall ticked dismay at his comment but the rough jab caused not so much as a flicker of dismay to register on her pretty face.
‘Are you flirting with me?’
Well, well, declare me officially intrigued. Obviously wrangling fruit and vegetable at the border made a girl tougher than one would think.
Or maybe she’d just been that way to begin with.
It surprised him how much he wanted to know which was the case.
Actually, he had a hunger to know everything about her—where she came from, why she’d left her last job, why she’d come here, and, most of all, what she looked like under her ugly-as-sin inspector’s uniform.
He issued himself a caution against unauthorised lust.
She used the pause in conversation to turn the tables on him. ‘How long have you lived in Walgarra?’
‘Most of my life. But it wasn’t always like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘Parts of it dysfunctional. Poor. Broken.’
She sipped her water. ‘That doesn’t sound like fun.’
How carefully she chose her words. He shrugged. ‘This job isn’t about fun. And you?’
‘I grew up all around.’
Her evasive answer sat between them like an abandoned cat in an RSPCA waiting room.
Hopefully she could tell he was about as satisfied with her reply as the deadbeat dad had been with his RSPCA customer service experience.
‘What kind of training did you receive to do this job?’
Her cool glance served as an infringement notice. ‘I did the Diploma of Investigation since I’m not an ex-cop like a lot of inspectors are.’
He nodded. ‘You got a gun licence?’
About to raise her cup she paused. ‘For euthanasia purposes. Why?’
‘A few months back a cattle truck turned over on the highway and several cattle had to be destroyed. But I had to wait for Mark because I didn’t know how to humanely slaughter a cow.’
‘A two calibre service revolver isn’t really adequate for the job.’
‘Tell me about it.’ He liked a woman who dropped ‘service revolver’ and ‘calibre’ into a conversation that casually. ‘And whereabouts are you staying?’
She gave him a sideways look.
He leaned back. ‘Relax, I’m not planning to stalk you, I just want to make sure you’re safe. Which part of town are you in?’
‘Rivett.’
‘That’s not a bad area, but prone to
burglaries. You’ll need good locks. If you’re living alone, get an alarm.’ Did that comment reflect a little too much interest on his part about whether or not she was living alone? Probably.
‘I’m getting a dog.’
‘Good idea.’ She fronted all tough-as-nails but her pretty face and slight frame condemned her to the same intimidation factor as tofu. He had nothing against tofu, but nor did he have any appetite for it—unlike Ms Daily. He had plenty of appetite for her.
Unfortunately, he suspected the local predators might feel the same way. Perhaps the trick to keeping her safe was to be the first predator in line, to lay some claim to her. Or was that just wishful thinking on his part? Did he even care? He might unnerve her but he would certainly never intentionally harm her. And that seemed like just good enough an excuse to push a little harder.
‘And to answer your earlier question, no, I wasn’t flirting with you. But I’m single and available, so we can flirt all you like, as hard as you like.’
***
We can flirt all you like, as hard as you like.
The words nailed her hard, as did his accompanying cool, appraising stare. She sucked in a breath.
The cocky bastard.
The invitation, along with all manner of sexual scenarios conjured by the words ‘as hard as you like’, left her head foggy, her breath sticky. Just how hard did he like it? Difficult not to imagine a rousing tussle that broke furniture.
But it also felt like she’d just been rolled for her purse—the one between her legs. ‘I’m engaged.’
Liar! Galenka howled.
His eyes widened before his gaze went to her bare fingers.
Why had she lied? She tugged at the long silver chain with her fake engagement ring hanging on it. She dangled it at him, using it like a crucifix to ward off a vampire.
He looked at it without expression. ‘A good idea to wear it out of sight. Less tempting for muggers.’
She tucked the chain and ring back under her RSPCA shirt. Now, why had she gone and done that? Fibbed. It left her feeling exactly like the grubby little liar she was.
They made stilted conversation until Nick arrived, all apologies. He plonked a coffee in front of her.
‘Thanks.’ Kat eyed it. They would be spending much of the day in the car and if she drank it on top of the water she’d already had, she’d need a pee stop every ten minutes. Better to pass on it.
While Evert and Belovuk chatted about one of the properties on their inspection itinerary, Kat replayed her conversation with Belovuk.
What had that ’stripped for parts’ comment been about? A kind of verbal chin check to see if she’d hit back? She’d bet it had been.
And asking where she lived. What the shit? Like she didn’t know how to make her own home secure.
Belovuk raised his brows at something Evert said and the thick white scar bisecting his right brow caught her attention and tossed it around. How had he got it? Brawling in bars? The suggestion was ridiculous since police officers didn’t brawl—unless he was a weekend offender. She blamed his face. Every time she looked at him the hard contours of his features screamed ‘inmate’ rather than ‘officer’.
As if sensing her scrutiny he looked her way, the tarnished mirror of his eyes sweeping over her. She resisted the urge to suck in her gut under his inspection. Why bother? Despite his declared interest in flirting the RSPCA uniform she wore was uglier than her quarantine inspection uniform had been, and that was a whole lot of ugly.
Plus, he seemed more interested in her past than her figure.
Why had he asked her about her old job? He couldn’t possibly know about ‘the incident’. Or did the man have some sort of sixth sense for indiscretion?
She’d wanted to keep her detector dog, Bill, after he retired but hadn’t been allowed to. And oh boy, if that wasn’t the mildest, most understated encapsulation of an epic shit fight she didn’t know what was. Being refused permission to keep Bill the beagle had been a key trigger for ‘the incident’. She’d told her mean-spirited jerk of a manager what he could do with his rectal-pull generated excuses for why she couldn’t keep Bill. It had boiled down to one thing—she hadn’t liked her boss and he hadn’t liked her. So fuck her and her request to keep Bill.
That he’d had such power over her, over Bill, had made her glad to leave. Screw that controlling male shit.
She stared at Belovuk’s thick column of a throat. The way he’d asked her why she wanted a job as an RSPCA inspector bothered her, like it was the least desirable job on Earth.
As if she, with her year-twelve certificate, flair for dog training and quarantine job experience had all the career choices in the world. His tone and expression had been neutral but her imagination had ferreted out implied criticism.
What was wrong with being an RSPCA inspector? True, it wasn’t well paid, it wasn’t the path to fame or glory, and it could be dirty, exhausting and dangerous. But it was noble. A word much mocked in modern times but the truth was that animals had always been her refuge, so what kind of arsehole would she be not to offer them shelter in return?
A nervous yawn escaped her.
Evert glanced at her. ‘We keeping you awake, sport?’
‘Sorry, didn’t sleep well.’
Belovuk’s stare said I bet you were kept awake worrying about the big mistake you made, huh?
She tuned him out for the rest of the conversation but when she and Evert left, he held the door open for them—he seemed to be big on that—and a playful breeze carried the scent of him to her. Au de Thug, the thought leaped out. She quickly strangled it. Just because he was a big man with an intimidating face and physical presence didn’t mean he was necessarily a bad man. Besides, au de Thug was two parts testosterone and one part bad decisions, and she had a feeling this man had far too good a lid on himself to make bad decisions.
She would reserve judgement until she knew more. But safety meant keeping her distance.
What a pity. Galenka pouted and ran off to turn cartwheels, leaving Kat to handle the day’s work.
Chapter 6
At the end of a grindingly long day, her visit to the police station still mortifyingly fresh in her memory, Kat agreed to dinner with Evert to discuss writing up the case reports. But when Evert pulled up outside the shadiest looking establishment Kat had seen in a long time, her mood sank lower than the rusted, droopy guttering before her.
The Old Queenslander building had been a beauty before basic repair and maintenance had fallen off somebody’s to-do list, which made the neglect even sadder. Rust-smeared wounds in the iron roof added to the building’s air of bitter lament and made the outbursts of rough male laughter from within seem all the more callous and uncaring.
Kat so didn’t want to go in there. Nobody deserved to have to go in there.
Evert must have had second thoughts too as he hesitated before unbuckling his seatbelt. ‘Sorry, love, this is the only place we’ll get a cheap, hot meal and beer at this hour.’
Love? Stacey would be delighted to know how firmly Kat had been friend-zoned by that term.
But what choice did she have? Not a single saucepan, let alone a microwave or a functioning hot plate, graced her new home. And it wasn’t like she had the energy to argue, anyway. ‘Anyone ever get food poisoning after eating here?’
Evert thought about it. ‘Not that I know of.’
‘Then it’ll do.’ Just as well she always carried a tiny sachet of hand sanitiser in her bra strap. Just looking at the place had her palms itching to use it.
‘I was thinking more about the clientele than the food. Some of them can be a bit rough.’ His tone was apologetic.
Kat eyed the cluster of chrome and leather motorcycles lining the footpath. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.’
Evert grinned, his scars pulling tight across his cheeks. ‘That’s why I brought you along.’
His dry humour acted like a tonic, helped her to ignore the sprinkling of blood spatter on the cement
as she trailed him to the weeping woman of a building.
Not good place, Galenka whispered.
But Kat was going to have to rock up at all kinds of unsavoury places to investigate cases so she might as well get used to it.
Failure was not an option.
At the threshold she hesitated, reached for plucky, found it wedged and lightly crumpled between the urge for self-preservation and Nick Evert’s back.
Such coward, Galenka hissed.
She raised her hands to tighten her ponytail—that stupid involuntary tell of nervousness she could never shake—and walked in as Nick held the door open for her. A thick fug smacked her in the face. Her eyes watered. If breathing were optional she would have passed on the olfactory cocktail of a million cigarettes smoked down to the filter and a hint of urinal stall.
How could they allow smoking inside? Wasn’t it illegal? Second-hand tobacco smoke contained more than 4,000 chemicals, sixty-nine of them known to cause cancer.
A yeti-esque biker lumbered by.
Perhaps it was tough to get the biker clientele to toe the no-smoking line.
She glanced down as the carpet resisted releasing her foot. Sticky. The carpet was sticky. Evert must secretly hate her to bring her to this place. Or perhaps it was some weird initiation ceremony for hazing RSPCA inspectors.
Joy.
A handful of hard-core pokie addicts manned the one-armed bandits lining the walls. She ignored the zombies dropping change into the slot machines, they would never willingly abandon their seats long enough to roll her. Well, not unless they ran out of change.
At the bar a greying bartender—the type to smuggle extra cigarettes in his luggage—greeted Evert. His washed out eyes gave her a cursory once over and her brown RSPCA uniform and b-cup must have failed to impress because his gaze quickly returned to Evert. ‘What can I get you?’
‘A Tooheys for me.’ Evert looked to her as she browsed the on-tap selection.
‘A Diet Coke, please.’ She wasn’t worried about her weight but she was keen to hang onto her teeth for as long as possible and she wasn’t drinking anything harder while surrounded by gambling addicts, bikers and what looked like repeat offenders.