by Susan Napier
‘So what is it?’ She could see he was relishing her frustration at his evasions. She could also see that his hands were more relaxed on the wheel and the muscles in his jaw were no longer clenched. ‘Let me guess.’ She pretended to think. ‘Rumpelstiltskin!’
He almost smiled.
‘No? How about Rover? Very appropriate to his nature.’
There was no response from dog or man.
‘Spot? Montmorency de Waverley Assortment?’
That got her a human snicker. She raised her eyebrows and he gave in to her persistence, his worried eyes wary as they reflected his surrender.
‘Prince.’
‘Prince,’ she repeated. There was suddenly a huge lump in the middle of her throat. It could have been a mocking appellation, but from his shifty expression she guessed otherwise. It was the wry and wistful choice of a boy for his first dog. Drake had called his shambling, shabby, shock-haired goof ‘Prince’, and now at least something about the woolly hound would have the dignity that genetics had cruelly denied him.
She looked down to hide the sting of tears. Drake might act as if he had no desire for commitment, but the existence of Prince suggested that at some level he did want to establish emotional ties in his life. He may not choose to love, but he could and did love.
And if one love could force its way into his well-guarded heart, why not another?
‘I’m very sorry I hurt Prince,’ she said quietly. Would he ever be able to forgive her if she caused the death of his dog? ‘I should have been more careful.’
He didn’t rush to absolve her with soothing lies, but he did offer her comfort to ease her guilt. ‘So should he. He makes a sport of pretending to chase cars. He’s been knocked about before. It was an accident, Kate.’
He sounded fatalistic, but Kate knew better. He had simply internalised his fear. ‘I hope he’s all right.’
‘We’ll soon find out. The clinic is just up ahead.’
The white-coated vet who came out to greet them with a metal gurney was a tall, thin man about Drake’s age, with a long-suffering expression on his bright and humorous face. ‘You’re lucky I hadn’t gone out on rounds yet, Drake. At this rate I should get a royal warrant to stick on my door. What on earth has Prince done to himself now?’
‘Not him—me—’ Kate began, only to have her explanations pre-empted by Drake’s terse account as he lifted the whining dog onto the gurney. The vet’s friendly air didn’t dilute his brisk professionalism and he kept up his patter as he pushed the gurney through the doors and past the reception desk in the waiting room.
‘We’ll take him straight through to the surgery and I’ll assess whether he needs a scan. But we’ll start off with the cheap option.’ He cast a smile into Kate’s anxious face. ‘That’s me. Hands and eyes are a vet’s most valuable tools.’
‘I’ll be paying, so I don’t care how much it costs,’ she blurted. ‘Just do everything you can—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Drake said roughly, stroking the dog’s head. ‘I can afford any treatment he needs—just send the bill to me as usual, Ken.’
‘But—’
‘For God’s sake, Kate, stop making it such a drama. I don’t need your guilt money!’ he snapped as they paused for the vet to open the surgery door.
Kate’s hand fell away from the gurney. She knew it was fear making him lash out, but it still hurt to hear him declare he wanted nothing from her, and she had to steady herself against the wall.
‘Are you all right?’ said the vet, his eyes suddenly sharp on her pale face.
She stared at the name badge pinned to his coat as she fought for composure.
‘Ken Cartwright B.V.Sc.’ the black lettering said as it moved briefly in and out of focus, making her feel as if she were standing on shifting ground. ‘I’m just a little dizzy,’ she excused herself.
‘She threw up before we left,’ added Drake unnecessarily.
Ken’s sharp gaze became speculative as it ran over her from head to toe. Oh, God, she hoped that vets didn’t have any special instinct for detecting early pregnancy in humans!
‘Perhaps you should sit down for a few minutes—Christy!’ Ken called out to his receptionist. ‘Would you get a glass of water for Kate here, while Drake and I see to Prince?’
‘Oh, really, I’m fine…’ she murmured, but Ken was already disappearing into his surgery with the gurney, while Drake hesitated outside.
Kate braced herself, but when he frowned it wasn’t to issue another rejection. ‘Are you sure it’s only dizziness? Are you feeling sick again?’ He glanced restlessly over his shoulder at the closed door and back at Kate, his eyes black with inner turmoil, clearly torn.
Drake never vacillated. He always knew what his priorities were and was never afraid to make harsh decisions.
‘Go,’ she urged, freeing him from his agony of choice. ‘I don’t need you—Prince does. Go and find out what’s happening to your dog.’ And when he still hesitated, she gave him a physical push. ‘For God’s sake, go! I have to go to the bathroom, anyway, so there’s no point in your hanging around here. Go!’
And having given him the freedom to follow his heart, she went off to find her glass of water and have a short, but deeply satisfying cry in the toilet cubicle, under the beady eyes of six fat hamsters crowded onto the veterinary products calendar on the back of the door.
CHAPTER SIX
IT SEEMED an age, but it probably wasn’t much more than twenty minutes before Drake came back out into the waiting area.
Kate took one look at his shuttered expression and dry eyes and her heart sank. His body seemed tautly bunched under the woven cotton shirt and stonewashed jeans, simmering with unexploded tension, his mouth hard enough to chew nails.
Ken Cartwright, who was steering him with a consoling hand on his shoulder, was more relaxed—although he must face this sort of situation fairly often in his professional life.
‘Well, that’s it. I’ve done all I can. I think you’d better take this guy home and give him a stiff whiskey.’
He thought alcohol the best way to handle grief? Kate’s heart swelled in her chest.
‘Oh, Drake,’ she said helplessly, sharing his misery, ‘I’m so sorry. Your beautiful dog!’ She burst into tears and threw her compassionate arms around his neck, burying her wet face in his chest.
His arms came up to clamp around her shaking body, his strong, encircling arms almost muffling out the sound of the vet’s next words.
‘Beautiful? She surely can’t be talking about Prince—his ugly mug would win the booby prize at Crufts!’
Kate stiffened, her head bumping Drake’s chin, unable to believe her ears. She could feel the chest under her wet cheek silently vibrating…oh, God, was he actually crying?
She turned her head and gave the grinning Ken Cartwright B.V.Sc. a blistering look.
‘You call yourself a vet? What kind of thing is that to say to a man who’s just lost his dog?’
‘Prince is lost? Are those tears of relief?’ Ken grinned over her angry head at Drake. ‘You should be so lucky!’
Kate’s jaw dropped. ‘Someone should report you to the—to the—’
‘The place where people report vets for making really bad jokes?’ he supplied. ‘I’m sorry, Kate. But it looks like Drake is going to have that ugly mug around for the foreseeable future.’
‘You mean he’s still alive?’ She jerked her head back to look up into Drake’s face through tangled wet lashes.
‘He’s more than OK. He’s perfect.’ The smile he was wearing was even bigger than Ken’s. It hadn’t been dammed-up grief, but fierce relief that he had been fighting to control when he’d walked out!
‘Is he?’ she sought professional confirmation from the man she had been vilifying only seconds ago.
‘A bouncing box of birds.’
Kate blinked at his cheerful alliteration and pulled her hands from Drake’s neck to swipe the wetness from her cheeks. ‘But there was b
lood—’
‘Rubbed a bit of skin off his nose, that’s all.’
‘I felt the bump, I felt the car go over him—’
‘No sign of any crushing, or marks on his coat. Are you sure it wasn’t something else you ran over?’
‘No…at least, there were some rocks along the side of the driveway…’ she faltered, remembering how the steering wheel had seemed to jump out of her hands when she had swerved to try and avoid the dog ‘…but he was lying there up against the tyre, whimpering and whining—’
‘Yes, fancies himself a bit of a Hollywood star, does our Prince. Wouldn’t surprise me if you gave him a bit of a nudge and he decided to fall over and ham it up. For all he’s skittish he likes attention, especially from a tasty woman.’ He winked.
‘He travelled all the way here with his head buried in her lap,’ said Drake drily.
‘Lucky dog!’ chuckled Ken, making Kate pinken. ‘Here I thought he was some kind of giant schnauzer-cross and he turns out to be a ladies’ lap-dog. ‘Nuff said!’
Kate suddenly realised she was still snuggled up against Drake, her stomach pressing into the buckle of his jeans, her breasts squashed into the narrow space between their upper bodies. She wedged her elbows against his chest and shoved herself out of his entangling arms—with difficulty because he seemed reluctant to cooperate. Probably because he knew what she was going to say.
‘You knew I thought he was dead! And you were laughing at me!’ she shouted.
‘Not at you, sweetheart—with you,’ protested Drake, acknowledging his utter defencelessness to the charge.
‘You insensitive pig!’ She scrubbed again at her cheeks to make sure all trace of her sympathy was gone. Unfortunately, so were her chances of appearing aloof in her displeasure. ‘You and that—that…scrofulous hound deserve each other. I bet he was laughing at me too,’ she said, remembering the lolling tongue.
‘Is she always so volatile?’ asked Ken.
Drake’s eyes darkened as he looked down at her, curiosity mingled with a dawning new awareness. Kate tensed, sure he was going to say something witty and suggestive.
‘I’m not sure,’ he said slowly. ‘She’s rather difficult to get to know.’
‘I’m difficult!’ Her momentary speechlessness gave the vet time to step in by smoothly suggesting that his assistant had had time to give the dog his antibiotic injection by now.
‘I don’t think there’s any chance of infection to his nose, but I’ll give you some antibiotic cream to take with you, Drake, just in case. Come and get Prince and I’ll give you a sample box from the surgery.’ He smiled at Kate. ‘It was nice to meet you, even in this roundabout fashion. The mouth-trap here doesn’t give up much, but I won’t pretend not to know who you are…we get given lots of gossipy magazines for the waiting room here. I hope this doesn’t put you off your visit..?’
He was blatantly fishing, and Kate ignored Drake’s restless movement to cruise by the bait. ‘Oh, I’m not staying with Drake. I’ve rented my own house on Oyster Beach…’
‘Next door to mine,’ Drake chipped in, only to be totally ignored by his so-called friend.
‘Oh, really?’ The blue eyes twinkled at Kate. ‘Ever been out on a racing catamaran?’
‘No, she hasn’t—she gets seasick in the bath. I thought you were going to get me that prescription? You have a sick tortoise over there who’s been waiting long enough.’
‘Mmm, he does look a bit green,’ said Ken, with a glance at his next patient, clutched to the chest of an old man who looked not unlike a wrinkly tortoise himself.
Kate bit off a gurgle as Drake glared at her. ‘You wait here,’ he said sternly.
Ken pointed towards the chairs, using the same tone of voice. ‘Yes, sit, girl, sit!’
Christy was on the phone and Kate hovered by the desk for a few moments thinking to ask her if she knew anything about rats. But the receptionist seemed to be getting into an argument about a bill, so Kate moved to a discreet distance, inspecting the various posters on the walls.
She was standing in front of a glossy chart showing the life cycle of the blowfly complete with close-up photographs of the rear ends of maggoty sheep when a gravelly voice said: ‘Revolting little devils, aren’t they? And fancy having to live in a sheep’s bum! Give me a good, old-fashioned, lusty leech any old day.’
Kate turned to find herself the target of a pair of vivid green eyes deep-set in a pale, intense face. For a brief moment she was distracted by the mop of flaming red hair, unpleasantly reminded of the woman who had given her so much cause for discomfort, but then her senses responded to the very male impact of the unshaven chin and sexy mouth, the lazy, white-lidded gaze and the lean, tapering body encased in a black tee shirt and jeans. His face said he was somewhere in his thirties, but the decadent eyes were much, much older.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said, consciously trying to act normal. It was difficult when he looked so fascinated by her own eyes, but perhaps that fathomless gaze was just part of his technique. ‘Some maggots have a useful side, too. Like leeches, they’re being used medicinally in some hospitals—to help remove dead tissue in and around infected wounds. They’re supposedly more effective than surgery because they don’t excise any healthy flesh.’
Oh, yes, have a conversation with the man about rotting flesh—very normal, Kate!
He received the lecture in flattering silence, moving around to lean a casual shoulder against the wall. ‘I’ll never swat a fly again,’ he vowed, hand on his heart. ‘But I still prefer blood-suckers to scum-suckers. Leeches seem like they might be more fun to hang around with at parties…’
‘You would know,’ she murmured, and bit her lip, thinking that might have been a bit rude.
His eyelids drooped, his trade-mark, world-weary smile hiking his sensual mouth. ‘OK, now we both know that you know who I am,’ said Steve Marlow, former bad-boy rock-star, now New Zealand’s—and one of Hollywood’s—most sought-after composer of movie-music. ‘Am I allowed to know who you are?’
‘Kate.’
‘Tell me, Kate…’he jacked one black-booted foot over the other as he trotted out one of the most hoary old clichés in the pick-up business ‘…do you come here often?’
Her heart didn’t even miss a beat. ‘Only in the maggot season.’
He laughed, his attractively harsh voice projecting off the walls. Shaking his head, he looked around the now-empty waiting room. ‘Are you here to pick up an animal?’
‘I’m here with a friend.’
‘So am I. My nephew’s pet rabbit who has been losing some of his rabbity-bits in order not to over-populate his hutch.’ He placed his hand on the wall above her head and leaned confidingly closer. ‘Has anyone told you what absolutely stunning eyes you have?’
‘Yes. I have,’ said Drake, striding across the floor to slip his hand under Kate’s elbow and tug her away, her feet stumbling as Prince blundered eagerly between them to head-butt Steve Marlow in the thigh.
‘Ouch! Can’t you keep this damned dog of yours under control?’
‘I am. He’s trained to attack tired, old, talentless has-beens who sleaze around younger women desperately trying to relive their faded days of glory!’
‘I still can’t believe you said that,’ a mortified Kate was repeating as he encouraged Prince to jump up into the back seat of the Land Rover and settle down on his tartan rug. ‘You just insulted a Kiwi icon. It’s a wonder he didn’t punch you in the nose, like he did that music critic backstage at the Oscars!’
‘He’d have to pump up those skinny arms first!’ sneered Drake, hustling her around to the front passenger door.
Just as she was getting in, Steve Marlow came out of the clinic with a carry-cage, and walked over to a black convertible parked near the door.
He looked across the gravel parking yard at them, and lifted up the cage to show Kate the sluggish white behemoth squatting within. ‘Hey, Drake!’ he called, in his famously husky voice. ‘Are you
still on for our usual Friday-night pool session?’
The mocking lilt made Drake stiffen. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
The bright green gaze went pointedly to Kate’s sun-burnished head. ‘Oh, I don’t know…Ken and I just thought you might have found more exciting things to do…’
Drake made a growling sound deep in his chest. ‘You and Ken are gossiping old women! I’ll be there, with bells on. The both of you can prepare to go down in a screaming heap—as usual.’
‘What about Kiss Me Kate with the sexy silver eyes—will she be coming, too?’
‘She doesn’t play pool.’ Drake slammed her door with unnecessary force and got behind the wheel.
‘She could hold our beers!’ The gravelly yell that had sold a million albums degenerated into a burst of coughing as the Land Rover did a sharp turn past him, kicking up a cloud of dust into his face.
Drake pulled his arm back inside the open window and turned onto the black tarmac.
‘Did you just make an obscene gesture at him?’ said Kate disapprovingly.
‘He did it first.’
Sure enough, as she looked out the back window she could see Steve Marlow’s black-clad figure extending a crudely upthrust finger at the departing vehicle.
‘He looks just like the cover of his breakthrough album,’ she laughed.
‘Poseur!’ snorted Drake.
Kate hid a smile. ‘I didn’t know you two were friends.’
She held her breath but to her delight he didn’t shy away from her obvious curiosity. ‘We knew each other for a while as kids. We’ve kicked around a bit since we met up again several years ago. Why would I boast about it?’
Why indeed? He never gossiped about others, or name-dropped to impress. He didn’t have to—he was quite impressive enough on his own account.
‘Goodness, Oyster Beach is turning out to be quite the Celebrity Central,’ said Kate, settling back in her seat.
‘You won’t run into Steve at the beach,’ said Drake, sounding smug about it. ‘He burns like a vampire in the sun. The Marlow family have a holiday place way back in the valley,’ he said with deliberate vagueness. ‘Steve’s only there now and then, in between shuttling back and forth to the UK and the States.’
