by Rhyll Biest
He thought he’d be over that by now, but apparently not. Catching sight of Mark’s cap in his office once he returned to the station hadn’t helped either. It made the fault lines beneath his feet yaw wider. He really needed to get rid of the cap.
‘You leaving, boss?’
‘Yup.’ Give me a moment.
‘See you later. Hey, what time did you say the floor cleaners are coming tomorrow?’
Give me a goddamn, fucking moment. His lungs made an odd wheezy sound. That wasn’t good.
‘Boss, you there?’
‘Ten. They’re coming at ten.’
‘Okay.’
It wasn’t okay, he wasn’t okay. When he’d found Mark’s body he’d fallen down a deep well and had failed to yet climb out from it. Which was why he spent half his time treading water.
After the panic attack passed, he headed for his car, questions blossoming like cancer. What sort of idiot stayed to work in a town where his best friend had been murdered? Anyone else would find the loyalty he felt to a handful of people—his colleagues, emergency services workers, staff at the RSPCA shelter—a pitiful excuse for not leaving. The town was lost, the bikers had it too firmly by the balls. He couldn’t save it.
So why couldn’t he leave?
It’s not like Stacey, Nick, the new girl or anyone else would give him a medal for staying, and the place was a constant reminder of his failure.
What if he failed the new girl, too?
Too many questions about her bothered him. For example, if she was engaged, where was her fiancé? And what kind of fiancé allowed his future wife to play RSPCA inspector in a town where the last one had been murdered? If Luka ever met the man, he would ask him that very question.
In the car park he found a bird had crapped on his car, the white splatter running from the roof down the car door.
How fitting. ‘Fuck.’ A headache flared to life.
In the driver’s seat, instead of starting the engine he sat there. What he should do was drive straight home, but there was nothing in that place, just a collection of furniture and belongings. Material things.
What he really needed was company, a voice to block the images swirling around his head, like the lives at the scene of the double fatality he’d just watched circle and then slip down the drain.
The dead of Walgarra were piling up in his head like the frozen corpses of climbers on Everest. He’d read that over two hundred lay preserved in the snow. If he wanted out of the cold, he needed contact with the living, and not just any living. What would really warm him was the company of the new girl. He had an inflatable mattress in the boot of his car just for her.
Read into that gift what you will, Ms Daily. And give my regards to your fiancé.
But the thought of flirting with an engaged woman flushed his veins with acid. Just before Mark had died, Luka discovered that he was cheating on his wife.
‘Why? Why would you do that, Mark?’ His hands tightened around the steering wheel as the tension clamped his head.
He would never get an answer now.
And while he knew it made no sense, he continued to connect infidelity with murder, mentally wrapping them both in the same bloodstained paper.
Thus, no matter that her fiancé didn’t deserve her because he’d let her take a murdered man’s job in a strange town and hadn’t even visited, Luka would simply give the mattress to the new girl, check she was okay and leave. There was nothing improper about that. He knew the street—Custer—where Nick had mentioned she was staying.
Just a very quick visit.
His tired limbs obeyed his brain’s suggestion to start the engine and he took the main drag southbound.
The only problem was that the new girl was unlikely to welcome a visit. Well, one from him, anyway. Or maybe he’d been forgiven for trying to tell her what to do and they could talk, for example, about why she rubbed her left inner forearm a lot, like it had once been injured and still bothered her. Why she scanned a room just as thoroughly as he did, despite the fact she wasn’t a police officer.
Perhaps the subject of de-escalation training would come up. Perhaps not.
And she could tell him why she’d shown up, looking so fresh and sharp—all invitation—in his town. Like she was part of some conspiracy to remind him he hadn’t done the no-pants dance in far too long—not since the disaster with Sharon—and hadn’t had a real relationship for even longer. Like he had time or opportunity with his job.
He slowed to a crawl along her street. Four houses down he spotted her car—which still had its old rego plate—and parked. It was only eight in the morning. But it felt good just to be near her, close enough to matter.
He could sleep in the car for a bit, no need to bother her so early in the morning. He fully reclined his seat and weariness took the opportunity to mug him, stealing consciousness instead of his wallet. Sleep dragged him headlong into a dream the colour of the new girl’s hair.
***
Kat stared at the pile of steel poles and screws that was meant to be a set of wheels for Stumpy. The instructions for the mobility cart had looked pretty straightforward which made her question how she’d ended up with a pile of hollow pipes.
She sipped her water. It was only ten in the morning. Maybe her brain would un-fog soon and then it would all make sense.
Stumpy sat next to her or, rather, lolled like a drunken sailor, listing to one side. ‘Posture, Stumpy, posture.’
His tail thumped against the carpet. The perfect housemate, he’d been faithfully supervising for the past half hour without a word of criticism. The cart was a necessity. It was important he had some means of getting around without her, otherwise she’d spend the rest of her life carrying him and he was surprisingly heavy. She’d end up with scoliosis while he could damage his puppy bones by placing too much stress on his forelegs trying to drag himself around.
The crunch of dirt under tyres made her look up. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of Belovuk’s black, eight-cylinder ride rolling up her driveway. What did he want? To boss her around some more?
He wants all—mind, body, soul. Galenka cackled.
‘At least I have a soul, you little cow.’ Kat glanced at the pieces of mobility cart scattered about the carpet. ‘Shit, how are we going to hide this clusterfuck from Officer Pushy-pants, Stumpy?’
Stumpy rolled onto his back and gave her a melting come-hither look which meant ‘scratch my belly’. He didn’t even look towards the window which considerably dashed her hopes regarding his future guard dog potential.
A brisk rap at the door—the sort which in movies was sometimes followed by the door being kicked in—propelled her to her feet. ‘Coming.’
Brushing crumbs from her t-shirt she frowned. Her cotton shorts bared a lot of skin but there wasn’t time to change. She ran to the door, socks skidding on the tiled entryway floor. A second knock, this time one as obnoxious and pushy as the man hammering on her door. She flung it wide open. ‘What?’
It was a uniformed Belovuk. Since both he and the uniform sported the rumpled look he had to be at the end of a shift. An all-nighter judging by the lines of fatigue etched round his mouth.
His gaze skimmed her, took in the riot of unbrushed hair and informal pyjamas, but it was impossible to read what he made of her messy self.
‘Morning.’
‘Morning.’ She stared him down.
‘I brought an inflatable mattress.’ He raised it.
Their eyes locked in mutual recognition that, taken out of context, those words could be misconstrued.
Her cheeks flushed and threatened to make the moment even more awkward. She quickly looked away, the pile of parts on her mind. There were worse things than allowing a guy to see that you couldn’t assemble something, but she couldn’t think of them right at that moment.
‘Unless you have company?’
Her gaze snapped to his. Company? Like male company? Did he really think she worked that fast? Oh, there was that bi
g fat fib she’d told about being engaged. Whoops. ‘Only Stumpy.’
His brows raised.
‘Come and meet him.’
‘Sure.’
Stumpy sat up as they appeared, goggled at the stranger.
‘Stumpy, this is Officer Belovuk. Officer Belovuk, meet Stumpy.’
They assessed one another and Kat had to give Stumpy credit for not flinching under Belovuk’s stare.
‘Tell me this isn’t your guard dog,’ he muttered.
She inspected the ceiling.
‘Jesus.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Something wrong with his hind legs?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Satisfied with that spare answer, Luka switched his attention to the room. ‘Where’d you get the sofa?’
‘Evert donated it until my furniture arrives.’
He gave a grunt, whether it was one of approval or disapproval was hard to say. His eyes zeroed in on the pile of steel pipes on the carpet. ‘You buy some IKEA furniture?’
‘Not exactly. I’m trying to build Stumpy a mobility cart so he can get around. Emphasis on the word ‘trying’.’
‘Want some help?’
Men. Who could explain their compulsion to erect things? ‘Knock yourself out.’ It might even make her a little less uncomfortable about having him in her house if he had a task to focus on rather than her.
He rested the inflatable mattress against the hallway wall before kneeling on the carpet by Stumpy whose tail thumped with the fury of insta-love. ‘What happened to his hind feet?’
‘Kids put tight rubber bands on them and by the time the parents took him to the vet they’d gone gangrenous. Stacey had to amputate them.’
He winced. ‘Ouch.’
‘Ouch indeed.’ Her new job was changing her, the story already less horrific to her than it had been a few days ago. She watched Belovuk study the pieces awaiting assembly with all the gravitas of a terrorist building a nuclear device. ‘Coffee?’ Tell me why you’re here.
‘Please.’
She translated: I’m not ready to spit it out yet.
She gave a nod and left. If he managed to successfully assemble the cart he could have all the coffee he wanted. Hell, he could have her, too. She frowned at the wayward thought. It hadn’t even been one of Galenka’s.
When she returned with the coffee she found he’d constructed the base already but had paused to play with Stumpy’s ears. He held the giant things up, stared at them as if unable to believe their size. The sight of him playing with her puppy’s ears did things to her insides. Strange, squishy, squashy things.
Not good.
‘They’re his angel wings.’
He glanced up at her. ‘Is he meant to grow into them?’
‘Yeah, I think so. Though Weimaraners always have kind of biggish, floppy ears.’
He lowered the ears to take the coffee, eyes still on Stumpy. Almost as if he were trying not to look at her. Jeez, she didn’t look that bad, did she?
She settled on the carpet with her back to the wall, not averse to supervising the manly construction of things.
‘I also came to apologise.’ His tone was gruff.
‘Sorry?’ Had she misheard?
‘Perhaps I came on too strong with some of the stuff I’ve said to you. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. You can always count on me having your back, regardless of whether I think your job is risky.’
What did she say to that? She’d written him off as a macho jerk and the truth was that she’d been more comfortable with that assessment. There was no chance she’d get tangled up with a jerk, but, oh, a man who could apologise, who could nut up and admit that he’d said the wrong thing—well, that was far more dangerous.
‘Thanks.’
‘You don’t need to thank me for admitting I was a jerk.’
There it was again, that air of him telling her what to do. Conscious or unconscious? Probably the latter. She sipped her water.
What now?
She couldn’t resist a bit of gentle ribbing. ‘So, I can keep my job, then?’
His eyes finally met hers. With a start she took in how tired he looked, his expression starker than ever in the morning light.
‘I would never dream of telling you to quit your job, Kat. I just want you to be careful out there.’
He made it sound like she was hunting terrorists rather than working as an RSPCA inspector but he was trying, so the least she could do was cut him some slack. It almost made her feel bad about lying about her engagement. Almost. ‘Okay, apology accepted.’
She caught a ghost of a smile before he looked away.
‘Where do you want me to leave the mattress?’
‘Just there is fine, thanks.’ Since he was playing nice she should too. ‘By the way, I think I’ll come along to Stacey’s wine tasting.’
‘That’s good.’
If it was good, why did he look worried?
‘But I was wondering how to get home in case I’m over the limit. Is there a cab company in Walgarra?’
He set his coffee on the cardboard box serving as a makeshift table. ‘There is, but you won’t need a cab because you can sleep over at her place. She has six guest bedrooms and so long as we guests make her coffee and cook breakfast in the morning, she’s happy to play hotel.’
‘Did you say six guest bedrooms?’
‘Family money.’ He gave an uninterested shrug. ‘Her place is a fair way out of town, too, on unlit roads, so it makes sense to stay over.’
‘Oh.’ She hadn’t really been up for a sleepover. Sleepovers sucked. Contrary to the name, sleep was the last thing that happened when she stayed overnight at another person’s house. If the bed was too soft, she ended up on the floor, which was too hard. So no sleep. At home, alone in her own space, was really the only time she got to fully relax, so a sleepover meant no down time. And if Stacey had a husband or a male partner that could also make things hard for Kat, particularly if they were large and red-haired, or acted in any way aggressively towards Stacey, or were prone to loud laughter or shouting.
So, yeah, sleepovers sucked.
Too late to back out now, though. Excuses were lame.
Belovuk picked up another piece of mobility cart, studied it and the instructions before screwing several poles together. Impressive. He was very good at the screwing thing.
Galenka leered.
Go away.
Stumpy watched Belovuk closely, as if considering a career in furniture assembly.
He put down the screwdriver to rub Stumpy’s head. ‘What made you want to adopt him?’
Lordy, seeing him play with her puppy was too much, how much could one woman’s ovaries take? ‘Sometimes you meet a puppy and just know they’re the one.’
He raised his brows. ‘Love at first sight?’
She sipped her water. ‘That plus the shelter vets have to assess each animal for its suitability to be re-homed, and while I knew he’d pass the behavioural assessment with flying colours I wasn’t optimistic about his chances of passing the physical assessment.’
Luka’s big hand rhythmically circled Stumpy’s scalp, putting the pup into a trance. It gave Kat a bad case of massage envy.
‘What happens if they don’t pass their assessment?’
‘It means they can’t be re-homed, so then it’s the green sleep for them.’
He nodded. ‘Stumpy’s lucky you’re a sucker for blue eyes.’
I’m kind of partial to grey ones, too … ‘Want to hear a vet joke?’
At the abrupt change of subject he glanced at her, but nodded as he picked up a screwdriver.
‘A racehorse owner takes his horse to the vet, lame in all four legs. ‘Will I be able to race this horse?’ he asks. The vet replies: ‘Of course you will, and you’ll probably win!”
He gave a small huff of laughter as he fastened a screw. She liked that about him, that despite the powerful volume that lurked in his chest he was mostly softly-spoken, not the loud, blustering sort.
And, aside from the uncomfortable attraction he stirred in her, he was comforting to be around. Calm. When not deliberately rattling her cage, of course.
Kat glanced at Stumpy to see if he agreed.
‘Sranj!’
She jumped at the harshly muttered Serb cuss word which cut doubly deep in his bass voice. So much for his calming presence.
She located the source of his displeasure, a long streak of blood welling from the cut scoring the inside of his hand where the screwdriver had slipped. Sepsis, abscesses, heavy scarring, the full buffet of complications presented themselves.
He glanced at her beige carpet before cupping a hand beneath his cut to catch the blood. ‘Do you have some tissues?’
‘I’ve got sterile bandages. Back in a sec.’ Not many people kept a full first aid kit, as well as a fire extinguisher and a go-bag in their car and house, but then most people hadn’t had her upbringing. The only way to manage the inevitable disaster looming behind every corner was to be prepared.
She slid the first aid box out from her car, dithered over selecting one bandage over another before simply lugging the whole kit with her back to the lounge room.
He raised his brows at the size of the first aid kit. ‘Are you in the illegal organ trade? Have you come to town to steal a kidney or two?’
She grinned. ‘Don’t be silly, I don’t waste bandages on someone I’ve stolen kidneys from. I just prop them up in a bath filled with ice.’
‘Environmentally friendly organ theft.’
‘Hey, organ harvesting is the ultimate in recycling. Okay, bring that hand over here.’
Leaving behind a disgruntled Stumpy, Luka sat by her on the second-hand couch. The seat cushions dipped under his weight, her stomach dipping along with them.
The closer he gets, the smaller you get. Why had she forgotten that? He could erase her.
She arranged her medical supplies on the box serving as a coffee table, the act of putting things in order calming her. By the time she held up an alcohol swab she was able to ignore the fault line in her composure brought on by his screaming proximity. ‘This is going to sting.’
He nodded.
She expected him to wince as she swiped over his graze with the astringent alcohol swab but he merely stared out the window, impassive and imperturbable as some large, anaesthetised beast. His stoicism bothered her. How would she know she was hurting him if he didn’t flinch?