Love Thy Neighbour

by Victoria Gordon

  ‘The family’s always been heavily involved with local government,’ her lawyer had said. ‘Both his father and grandfather were wardens of the municipality, and the word is that your man might be looking for a place at the next election.’

  ‘He’s not my man,’ Fiona had retorted, but her heart hadn’t been in the argument. It was hardly surprising that Dare Fraser was so knowledgeable about the council’s regulations; she’d best be very, very careful to ensure her new kennel block couldn’t be faulted. And she’d best get the kennel licence business sorted out before her neighbour’s powers increased.

  Not that it mattered much; if Dare Fraser wanted to make things difficult, he was already more than capable!

  Such thoughts did nothing to make her afternoon go smoothly, although she did manage to organise a meeting with the council’s planning officer for the next afternoon, and was thankful for the split-shift roster that allowed her the flexibility to do so.

  The meeting, surprisingly, was much less stressful than she had expected.

  ‘You’ll have to advertise regarding the kennel licence, of course,’ she was told. ‘But considering your location and all, I can’t see much to worry about.’

  And the plans for the kennel block itself were approved without argument, which surprised and delighted Fiona. She had expected all sorts of bureaucratic nonsense, and was pleased to find the enforcement of the new regulations relatively straightforward.

  She stopped in town on the way back to work and arranged the appropriate advertisements, secure in the knowledge that Dare Fraser would have to work to stop her plans in that direction.

  Which, it appeared, he wasn’t about to do anyway. She got home that night to find a note on her door which suggested her neighbour wasn’t nearly the obstructionist she’d expected.

  ‘Phone me tonight. Concreting here on Friday ... could do your kennel block at same time,’ said the note, and when she did phone, it was to find Fraser as good as his word, although not long on explanation.

  ‘Simple enough, I’d have thought,’ he remarked to her plea that she couldn’t afford his generosity and her query at just why he was being so helpful.

  ‘It isn’t simple at all,’ she replied. Fiona was finding Fraser’s involvement in her affairs terribly difficult to cope with. She didn’t dare trust him, didn’t want him being given so many opportunities to become involved, but she could find no logical way to avoid it.

  ‘Of course it is,’ he said. ‘Watching you the other day reminded me that my own kennels could stand a touch- up, and if we share the costs of the concrete it makes things cheaper for both of us. What could be simpler than that?’

  ‘But I’ve told you ... I can’t afford it right now, whether we share costs or not. I just can’t afford it!’

  ‘So square it with me later; the benefits are the same.’ She could almost see him shrugging, could more than easily visualise him shaking his head at her obstinacy.

  Recognising her opportunity, Fiona jumped at it.

  ‘But I’m already indebted to you quite enough,’ she said. ‘You lent me the crowbar, you’ve actually lied for me, which I still don’t understand, you helped me lay out my kennels, and now you want to help build them as well...’

  ‘None of which is being more than neighbourly,’ he replied, a trace of impatience coming into his voice. ‘So if you can’t handle that, just consider that I’m protecting my own interests. I want to be damned sure your dogs aren’t going to hassle my sheep.’

  Fiona gasped. Anger flared like a burning torch, just as, she quickly realised, he’d intended it to. But when she spoke, it was in carefully modulated tones, all sweetness and light and logic. Bastard!

  ‘I really don’t understand how lying to the police for me could possibly protect your interests,’ she began. Lamely, at first, then more strongly as her conscience got its stride. ‘But I certainly do want to thank you for that. In fact, it’s really the reason I dropped round the other night, to thank you, and to ask you why?’

  ‘Because that particular walloper is a decidedly officious and nasty piece of work,’ he growled, voice sliding into the peculiar accent of rural Tasmania when he dropped the slang term ‘walloper’ into his reply.

  Fiona couldn’t help but grin. It was such rural slang, almost unheard nowadays on the Australian mainland, yet coming from the worldly Dare Fraser it sounded, somehow, just right. And the policeman had been officious, no doubt about it.

  ‘He wasn’t that way after you came along, thankfully,’ she said. ‘So thank you again; I was starting to feel quite uncomfortable at the time.’

  ‘Forget it,’ was the brusque reply. Fraser’s voice was suddenly all business. ‘I’ll have my men round tomorrow or the next day to box in for the concrete; does it matter to you if you’re there or not, and if it does can you give me a time that suits?’

  Fiona was so startled by the transformation in his voice that she stumbled over her reply. What had happened? It was as if he had suddenly decided he didn’t want to be overheard, or something.

  ‘Yes ... no ... well ...’ she began, then more solidly added, ‘No, I suppose it doesn’t matter if I’m there or not, since you did the planning, after all. I’ll make sure the dogs are locked in the house if I’m not, so you’re not bothered.’

  ‘Excellent,’ was the blunt reply, followed by an even blunter goodbye. The telephone was hung up from his end before she could echo his dismissal.

  Fraser’s strange behaviour worried her through the little that remained of her evening, but didn’t disturb her sleep, although for some reason it was right there to confront her in the morning and lasted through a work day that had little else to excite her interest.

  Fiona found herself wondering about the various things she’d learned, despite having so little real information on which to make judgements.

  Was there some reason, however remote, that the coincidence of names was somehow involved? Had the original Miss Boyd actually been involved with the elder Fraser, and if so had Dare Fraser known? And perhaps most important, why the splendid ‘good neighbour’ act, when it seemed perfectly obvious and logical that Dare Fraser should want her gone, not more solidly established on land he wanted for himself!

  Too many questions and not an answer to be found.

  She arrived home after work on Thursday night to find the framing boxwork all done and her fencing panels carefully stacked to one side in preparation for the next day’s work of getting the concrete laid.

  But there was neither note nor telephone call from Fraser, nor did he answer her own phone call to him.

  She got home on Friday night to find the concrete had been poured, had been properly levelled and screeded and her drains correctly shaped, and even the fencing panels and gates bolted into place.

  Still without communication from Dare Fraser.

  She spent the weekend fumbling her way through the ‘pre-cut, pre-measured, a child could put it together in ten minutes’ treated pine shed that would serve as her dogs’ sleeping accommodation, but still heard nothing from Fraser and still couldn’t contact him by telephone.

  After the last fiasco, she didn’t even consider driving over in person to thank him, and knew without actually admitting it that she would hang up without speaking if the dulcet voice of Consuela Diaz were to answer his telephone.

  For Fiona, her feelings towards the other woman were both surprising and a bit alarming. She had never in her life been intimidated by another woman, much less so instinctively wary and antagonistic. Even the dozens of young bimbos her first husband had been involved with so blatantly ... but no, she wouldn’t think of that. It wasn’t at all the same thing, and.she just did not think of it!

  ‘And I won’t, either,’ she muttered aloud, mentally damning herself for the stupidity of giving such thoughts life. ‘Like don’t think of a white horse,’ she snarled even more angrily, quoting what had to be the most ridiculous advice ever offered a curious child.

 
; Because given any choice, any at all, she would never think of Richard! Handsome, charming, ruthless, deceitful, treacherous Richard, with his lies and his destructive ways, with his tarts and whores, his drugs and his drink. So plausible, so believable, so utterly evil he’d almost destroyed her.

  But he hadn’t. And, Fiona thought as she shook her mane of bush-honey hair, he wouldn’t! Not ever! And neither, she vowed, would any other plausible, believable man. Nor any man at all, for that matter.

  Sunday evening, having started on that note, could only get worse, and it did. Her mind in an overdrive of bad memories and worse, she struggled through the evening before trying vainly to sleep her way out of it all.

  On Monday morning, having slept little and rested not at all, she locked the dogs away in their new quarters, drove in to work, and spent half the morning composing a brief, polite, non-committal note thanking Dare Fraser for his neighbourly assistance and asking what her share of the costs would be.

  She put it in the mail during the lunch-break, lest she change her mind. It was chillingly polite, almost rude.

  But very, very effective. Fiona got an equally polite note in the mail several days later, stating costs and charges but making no attempt, thank goodness, to renew any form of neighbourly contact.

  It Stretched her budget to the utmost, but she had a cheque in the return mail and was able to attend an obedience dog trial that weekend with just enough petrol to get her home and to work on Monday morning.

  And the next couple of weeks weren’t much better. She was forced to discover new and frightening aspects of budgets and financial planning just to keep food on the table and her vehicle on the road.

  Still, she thought as she woke to brilliant spring sunshine and a work-free Saturday, it was all worth it, worth every penny. Lala was now fully in season, and the security of the new kennels was decidedly welcome. Fiona had originally planned to mate the yellow bitch this time round, but was now in two minds about the situation.

  Certainly the budget didn’t hold the two hundred dollars or so she’d need for a stud fee, but that had to be weighed against all the other circumstances, not least the fact she had firm orders for at least half a dozen pups.

  On the other hand, the improving spring weather would mean an upsurge in interest in her dog-handling classes, and the last thing she wanted was a litter of pups and not enough time to properly socialise them and begin their formal training as working gundogs.

  She rolled out of bed, scorning even breakfast on this most beautiful morning. Too nice to waste time brooding, too nice to do more than gulp down a cup of coffee and get outside with her dogs, she thought.

  They quite obviously agreed, and the next hour was spent casually walking the boundaries of the property, Fiona occasionally hurling a retrieving dummy into a handy patch of scrub and the three dogs fiercely vying to see who could find it first and return it to her.

  Then she got into the more serious aspects of their training, laying out patterns for directional work and trying to convince Trader that barking was not allowed when he was tied up to await his turn.

  It was, she thought, about like trying to convince the sun not to shine, and Fiona was about ready to get heavy with the young dog when a change in the tone of his bark made her turn to see what was wrong.

  The sight of Consuela Diaz, resplendent in the most fashionable of riding gear, made Fiona immediately sorry she had chosen to work from Fraser’s side of her property, with the dogs being tied to the boundary fence when not working.

  ‘Too late now,’ she muttered, and forced herself to wave to the approaching figure on the tall bay horse. Consuela didn’t return the gesture, but rode closer in silence until she was able to look down upon Fiona from an imposing height, the look holding obvious disdain for Fiona’s less than fashionable jeans and sweatshirt.

  The two women stared at each other for what seemed to Fiona to be hours, and clearly Consuela Diaz was determined not to be first to speak.

  Bother this, Fiona finally thought to herself, and greeted the other woman with a civil ‘Good morning.’ The gesture brought her only a curt nod; Miss Diaz’s attention was diverted to Trader’s anxious attempts to crawl through the brand-new, dog-proof fence and visit with the horse.

  ‘You’d only get yourself kicked halfway home. Now settle down and stop being such a twit,’ Fiona muttered at the writhing chocolate figure, which, as usual, ignored her.

  The horse, too, seemed intrigued by the dog’s antics, and stepped closer to the fence, long head bowed to snuffle at the excited animal.

  Consuela Diaz yanked sharply at the reins, digging spurred heels into the horse’s flanks as it twirled away. Fiona, immediately angered by such treatment, had to swallow the criticism that leapt to her lips. It wasn’t her horse, she determined, nor her business how the older woman handled it.

  The rider’s slit-eyed silence, moreover, was decidedly unnerving, despite the fence between them and the fact Fiona was on her own land, minding her own business, and perfectly entitled to do so.

  And when Consuela Diaz did finally speak, the message in that lilting, unusual South American accent was only too clear, if not entirely logical.

  ‘You should not be here; this is no place for you here,’ the woman said without preamble.

  And then, instead of replying to Fiona’s startled ‘Why?’ she spurred the horse round and cantered off without a backward glance.

  ‘How very strange,’ Fiona muttered to the dogs, who all stood to attention, eyes fixed on the departing figure. They, of course, didn’t answer either, but at least their attitudes were friendly.

  ‘That woman really doesn’t like me,’ Fiona said to herself as they all strolled back towards the house. What she couldn’t figure out, since the only logical reason, jealousy, was clearly illogical, was why?

  By the time lunch was over, the incident had lost its impetus. It could hardly be important, Fiona had decided she could exist quite happily without Dare Fraser or his exotic girlfriend and her dislikes.

  And the less I have to do with either one of them, the better, she thought. I can be a perfectly good neighbour without getting involved any further.

  It seemed a splendid theory when she went to bed, but when she was awakened at dawn by a growling, slavering monster that was trying to smash down her back door, there was at least a brief moment when a handy neighbour might have had great appeal.

  Amid the pandemonium of her dogs going mad, she dashed to the window, gasped in astonishment, then flung open the door and rushed outside, adding her own voice to the fray.

  Unfortunately, Lala followed right on Fiona’s heels, and since Lala was the focus of all the commotion her presence did nothing to help.

  ‘Get out! Go on! ... get out of it!’ Fiona cried, brandishing the broomstick like some modern-day witch as she charged down off the back porch in pursuit of her intruder.

  Devilish eyes peered at her as the ghastly beast scuttled away, but the brute’s attention was divided between Fiona and the yellow bitch whose aroma was so entrancing to the stray dog.

  Fiona rushed. The stray easily slipped away to one side, those bold eyes laughing at her. Again she rushed, and again the animal flowed away from her, this time turning swiftly as it tried to entice Lala to join it.

  Hampered by her nightgown and bare feet, Fiona pursued the fiend in what seemed to be ever-diminishing circles, but eventually realised she wasn’t going to catch it, wasn’t going to drive it off while Lala was clearly in evidence, and was in real danger of having her careful mating plans go up in smoke.

  ‘Lala—Heel!’ she finally cried, abandoning the visitor for the moment as she tried to divert her dog’s attention from the shaggy, fleet-footed suitor.

  To her great relief, Lala obeyed, and was quickly shut inside the house. ‘Now, little mate, we’ll sort you out,’ Fiona cried, once again lifting the broom as she stalked forward.

  What followed would have been funny had it not been so serio
us. Fiona, still in her nightgown and bare feet, chased the stray back and forth and round and round while Trader and Molly charged around their kennel like dervishes, barking and growling their encouragement.

  She thought for an instant about turning Trader loose, then as quickly discarded the idea. He was too young, had never fought another dog, and was unlikely to be a match for this shaggy mongrel that was half again his size.

  ‘If I had a gun, you wouldn’t be smirking, you mongrel bastard of a thing,’ she gasped at the strange dog, which now seemed to be laughing as it easily dodged her assaults.

  ‘I think I prefer you with your broomstick; it’s much more in character,’ interrupted a voice from behind her, and Fiona shrieked with alarm, spun around, and slipped on a damp patch of grass, to land in a welter of flying bare legs and broomstick squarely at Dare Fraser’s feet.

  ‘And, just for the record, he’s neither a mongrel nor a bastard,’ Fraser said, grinning hugely as he reached down to lift Fiona to her feet, eyes roving insolently over her near nakedness as he did so.

  ‘He’s both, and so are you!’ Fiona hissed as she tried to wrench free.

  ‘He’s in love; you should show a bit of compassion.’

  ‘Compassion? I’d sooner give him a lead injection,’ she replied, struggling in his grasp. ‘Will you let me go, dammit?’

  ‘Why? So you can hit me with your broomstick? I’ve got to protect my dog, after all. He’s the best sheepdog in southern Tasmania.’

  Fraser’s grip had shifted, somehow, from Fiona’s arms to her waist. What had been a gesture to help her to her feet now became a holding action, not quite a caress, but close enough that she felt the difference, and knew he did also.

  His fingers were like fire against her waist, burning through the scanty fabric of the nightgown. As he looked down into her eyes, Fiona was suddenly over-aware that she hadn’t combed her hair, or brushed her teeth, that she wore no make-up at all, that her nightgown was worse than useless as any sop to modesty.