“I’ll talk to her. God knows what I’ll say.” He couldn’t even say out loud how much his daughter’s words hurt.
Ben tugged on his jacket as he strode up the street, his breath misting in front of him. Dragon’s breath, Jade called it the other day. She’d made him smile. Made him remember how he and his sisters would have competitions to see who could breathe the longest plume on cold winter mornings.
He checked his house first—empty. A glance out the kitchen window to the yard below revealed a small, hunched shape huddled behind the rhododendrons. Hiding from him again.
With a sigh, he walked outside and jogged down the deck stairs. Wet blades of grass clung to his boots as he crossed the lawn and crouched down.
“You’ll get a wet butt back there. How ‘bout you hide in your bedroom instead?”
Rustles from behind the rhododendrons and a long, watery sniff. “I hate that room. It’s ugly.”
“Yeah. We’ll have to redecorate. Move some of my crap out and give it a new coat of paint—so long as you don’t want pink. Pink’s where I draw the line.”
“I hate pink.”
Ben bit back a grin, unsure if Jade could see him through the branches. He wouldn’t mention her beloved Barbie backpack or that Barbie herself seemed partial to pink.
“That’s good then. One thing settled.”
“Why can’t I go and live with Mum and Jerome? I wouldn’t be any trouble.”
His throat pinched closed. Screw you, Marci Carter, and the douchebag you’ve hooked up with.
“’Course you wouldn’t, kid. But that’s a hard question, and I don’t know the answer.”
Another drawn-out sniff and a hiccup. “It’s because I’m dumb.”
“Bullshit.”
A sudden intake of air behind the bushes, and a scandalized, “You’re not meant to swear in front of kids.”
“I know. But in this case, a swear word’s necessary.” Ben pushed branches aside—careful not to let them flick back in his face. “You’re not dumb, Jade. And whatever reasons your mum’s got for wanting you to stay here, it’s nothing to do with you. It’s all about her.”
Jade crawled out, her eyes shiny and red, her pigtails dotted with dead leaves. Ben shifted his weight, so his knees dropped to the ground, the cool dew immediately soaking through his jeans. Like someone or something else controlled his arms—and he entirely blamed Kezia—he opened them to his daughter. After a beat of hesitation, Jade flung herself forward and burrowed in. He rested his chin on her head, patting her shoulders like an imbecile. But hey, he’d never hugged a kid before. Least of all, his kid.
“Nobody wants me around.” The words were muffled against his chest.
“I want you around, kiddo.” And in that moment, with her hair tickling his nose and her little hands fisted into his shirt, he meant every word.
Pain in his ass she may be, but she was his. And Ben Harland took care of his own.
She rubbed her nose against his shirt—leaving a trail of snot, no doubt—then pulled away. “If I’m gonna stay here, I want a purple room. I like purple.”
“Okay. So long as it’s not a girly purple.”
“I get a proper bed, and I choose the duvet cover.”
“Done.”
“And put 4Way posters on the walls.”
He gave her an epic eye roll, which made her giggle.
“If you have to.”
Tilting her head, she half closed an eye. “And if I’m going to be a vet one day, I’ll need a puppy.”
Oh, dear God, not a dog. He cleared his throat. “You’ll need a puppy?”
“To learn how to take care of it—if you really think I’m smart enough to be a vet.” She blinked, her expression shifting easily into wide-eyed innocence.
“Uh-huh.”
“A puppy’ll stop me from feeling sad.” She offered up a watery smile.
The kid had inherited his mother’s flair for the dramatic, and womankind’s natural inclination to manipulate big, dumb men. Like him.
“Pleeease, Dad?”
Such. A. Sucker. “When it pees on the floor you’re on cleaning duty.”
“I don’t mind—I’ll teach him to pee outside.” Jade slipped from his arms and bounded across the yard. “C’mon Dad, let’s go and eat breakfast.”
A puppy.
Ben stood, squeezing the bridge of his nose. A puppy and a kid in the space of a month.
“May as well buy a damn minivan,” he muttered and followed his daughter back to Kezia’s.
Chapter 8
Monday morning, the world’s biggest moron, AKA Ben, walked with Jade to school, carrying her Barbie backpack. He pretended not to see Ford busting a gut under the bonnet of the Honda he was working on.
“Off to school, are ya?” Ford yelled as they passed the workshop.
Jade waved, not intimidated by Ford’s black, shoulder-length dreadlocks and inked arms after all. Ben waited until Jade looked away and shot a one-finger salute to him, which only made Ford laugh more.
And surprise, surprise. West and Piper sat on Due South’s veranda with coffee and matching smug grins.
“Hey rookie, all set?” Piper trotted down the steps and gently tugged Jade’s ponytail—Ben had flat-out refused to tie the kid’s hair into two equal bunches. One was enough of a challenge.
“Yep,” she said.
West ambled over, slipping an arm around Piper’s waist. “Bit nervous?”
Jade cut a sideways glance at Ben. “A little.”
“You’ve met most of the kids already. You’ll be fine.” Piper cupped a hand to her mouth. “And if anyone gives you a hard time, tell them your dad and I will use them as bait for the Great Whites.”
Jade giggled.
Ben shifted the Barbie backpack to his other hand. “Yeah, yeah—Kez’ll love that. C’mon kiddo, you don’t want to be late.”
They continued walking along Oban’s main road, the sea hissing softly over the sand on their left, a scattering of shops and businesses and bush-covered hills to their right. A plump Kererū flapped overhead, the wood pigeon’s wings making a distinctive whooshing noise.
Other locals called out to them—Holly Parker, Shaye’s bestie, ran out of Russell’s grocery store where she worked and handed Jade a “first day” chocolate bar. Kip Sullivan, the new resident hottie, according to his sisters, wished her good luck as he jogged past.
Jade’s hand slipped into his and Ben sucked in a breath.
He squeezed her fingers. “We’ll mention to Gran that you need some mittens, eh? Your hands are freezing.”
“So are yours.”
Ben opened the school gate for her. “I’d look kinda silly with mittens on, don’t you think?”
“Especially pink ones.”
“Just for that, I’m telling Gran to make you a pair in the brightest pink wool she can find.”
Jade laughed, and a flush of warmth spread over his skin. Maybe he wasn’t cut out to be a father, maybe his size might sometimes intimidate her, but at least he could make her laugh.
Zoe and a bunch of other kids spotted them and raced across the playground. Following close behind and looking like his wet-dream come to life in a grey pencil skirt and yellow blouse, strode Kezia.
A huge act of willpower clenched his jaw shut so his tongue didn’t loll from his mouth. Fresh, hot, and untouchable, she tossed her halo of curls over her shoulder and smiled.
“Morning, Mr. Harland.”
Ben gawked for a good two beats of awkward silence. Kind of hard to pay attention when dozens of brain cells had exploded from the curve of her breasts pressing against her slim-fitting blouse. And the smell of her—flowers, sunshine, and woman—should be bottled and distributed as a potent aphrodisiac.
“Hey,” he croaked, as a cluster of giggling, hyped-to-the-max kids swept Jade away. “She seems fine.”
“She’ll have a great day. The kids are excited to have a new girl in class.”
He shifted from fo
ot to foot. Looked down at Jade’s Barbie backpack still in his hand—crap!
“Here.” Ben shoved the bag into her arms. “I gotta fishing trip booked this morning. Mum will pick her up at three.”
The sea breeze picked up a curl and blew it across her face. It caught in the corner of her lush mouth, sticking to whatever clear glossy stuff she’d painted on her lips. He itched to step forward and remove that strand of hair, but instead, he raised his hand in a half-assed wave and bolted for the gate.
“Ciao, Ben.”
Her smoky laugh followed him out into the street, and the tips of his ears blazed hot enough to start a bush fire.
***
With the pound full of drooling, barking, wet-fur-stinking canines, Ben nearly turned tail and fled. To hell with Jade and her overly excited BFF. Not to mention the BFF’s hot mum, whom they’d conned into joining them on this Saturday morning torture trip.
Since bailing out over a four-legged poop-machine would make him a wuss, he straightened his shoulders and continued walking down the concreted aisle between the cages.
Not that he disliked dogs. West’s old mutt was pretty cool. Donny rarely barked, and he sat and stayed and didn’t dig huge holes in West’s yard. He certainly didn’t pee on himself like the tiny ball of fur in the first cage they walked past.
“Not that one,” he said to Jade, as the mutt leaped about in its own urine.
Over Jade’s head, Kezia shot him a grin, a certain devilish enjoyment in her dark eyes. Yeah, everyone’d ragged him about getting a puppy. But he figured it would give him and the kid something to talk about on the long winter nights ahead.
“You could get a slightly older dog.” Kezia pointed farther along the aisle. “People always want the puppies. They forget about the older ones.”
Jade trailed a hand over the wire fencing. She’d already been up and down the rows a dozen times and still couldn’t make up her mind.
“Nobody takes the older dogs?” Jade turned her face up to his.
“Some people think they’re not as cute as the pups,” he said.
“And so they have to live in these cages forever?”
“No,” said Zoe. “After a while, if no one takes them home, the vet gives them a special injection to make them go to sleep and never wake up.”
Kezia’s eyes flew open, and her gaze jerked to his, before lowering to her daughter. “Zoe!”
“Mamma. Jade’s not a baby. We talk about death all the time.”
“You do?” Ben said.
“Sure. Zoe told me how she could’ve died from lu-keem-ee-a.” Jade folded her arms across her chest. “And a kid at my school in Auckland was killed when a tree branch fell on him at the park. We had a special assembly and everything.”
What could he say to that? In his world, adults died—not kids—because until a few months ago, kids hadn’t made much of a blip on his radar.
But then Zoe had arrived on the island with her infectious personality. He’d forget she was a survivor—a feisty little fighter—until a casual comment would remind him. Like the time Shaye stopped in at his place with Zoe in tow, and he’d mumbled a compliment about the girl’s pretty necklace. Zoe had smiled, told him they were her “Beads of courage,” each colorful plastic or glass bead representing a medical procedure she’d gone through in her leukemia battle.
He’d nothing but admiration for Kezia after that. Life dealt her a crap hand—dead husband, sick kid—but nothing seemed to make her spine buckle.
“Do they really kill the old dogs, Dad?”
“Only as a last resort.”
“Then I don’t want a puppy. I want...” She walked down the row and indicated a small black and tan dog huddled in a cage corner. “This one. She’s the saddest.”
The dog certainly had the look of a death-row prisoner, shivering under her shaggy coat as if the enclosure was icy cold and tyrants had deprived her of a last meal.
He read the card attached to the door. “Two-year-old female spaniel/Chihuahua cross.”
“Here girl, here girl.”
Jade snapped her fingers and Zoe made kissy noises.
Kezia said quietly, “Spaniel and Chihuahua. Not an impossible combination such as a Great Dane and a Chihuahua.”
“Depends how determined the dogs were to fool around,” he replied in the same soft tone.
The girls paid no attention, focused on the dog that had uncurled from the corner and licked their fingers through the wire.
“Some things aren’t meant to be.” Kezia stepped away from the door, shifting her handbag across her body. “I’ll get the assistant and tell him you’ve made a decision.”
She walked back along the corridor, her pert ass twitching under her slim-fitting black pants. He’d made a decision, all right, and his decision was Kezia. No other woman raised even a glimmer of interest in him since she’d come to the island. The solution was obvious. He needed to have her. Get her out of his system, once and for all.
Jade tugged on his shirt. “Aw, she likes me!”
The furball’s shaggy tail swept from side to side on the concrete floor.
“I’m calling her Sparky, ‘cause look at the spark in her eyes.”
The mutt did indeed have a spark of light in her eyes—she knew parole was imminent and a wallet-load of cash about to be spent on her.
“Cute. You’re still on pee duty, kid.”
Jade laughed. “I know, I know. But you won’t pee in the house, will you, girl?”
Sparky’s tongue lolled sideways out of her mouth, and she cocked her head.
Laughing at them.
Forty minutes later, they left, three hundred dollars lighter and sixty pounds heavier with bags of dog food, dog paraphernalia and the dog itself, who sat in Jade’s arms like royalty.
The return trip to Stewart Island was uneventful, with no canine overboard. Ben re-evaluated his initial suspicion of the animal’s deviousness, since Kezia reported Sparky appeared happy for Jade and Zoe to cuddle her while they sat on the galley floor surrounded by squeaky toys and chew bones.
Docking in Oban, he unloaded everyone onto the wharf, then headed out into the shelter of the harbor to moor his boat. By the time he rowed the dinghy ashore, they waited for him in the small children’s playground opposite Due South.
Kezia stood by the playground’s border, where grass dropped down a shallow bank to the beach sand. Her hair blew wildly around the collar of her wool jacket, and she had to keep picking strands of it out of her mouth. It made him smile. The furball—Sparky, he reminded himself; Jade had already scolded him for calling her new pet “furball”—sat at Kezia’s heels, tongue lolling, looking as smart as a stunned snapper.
“Where’s all the mutt’s gear?” He finished dragging the dinghy into place out of reach of the incoming tide. “You didn’t lug those bags of dog food up the hill, did you?”
She shook her head. “Ford saw us at the wharf and offered to drop Sparky’s supplies at your place.”
“Laughed his ass off too, I imagine.” He shoved the oars beneath the dinghy and climbed up the bank.
Kezia twisted the leash in her hands, offering a brief but sharp grin. “He was very refrained in front of the girls. Told Jade she’d picked a good one.”
“I bet he did. And I bet he thought I’ll look like an asshole walking a Chihuahua when the novelty wears off for Jade.”
“Chihuahua spaniel. She won’t need much exercise. Plus, you could always carry her—she’s almost small enough to fit in a handbag.” Her dark eyes sparkled.
Ben adopted one of Piper’s favorite expressions. “Bite me, sweetheart.” He loaded the words with everything he’d fantasied about in the last few weeks.
The pretty sparkle transformed into pure, pissed-off school teacher. Make that pissed off with a side of heat, as a tide of pink spread over her cheekbones.
Yeah, she wanted to sink her teeth into him—pretty damn sure of that.
“Dad, Dad!” Jade jumped off th
e monkey bars and raced across to them.
Ignoring the little dog sniffing at his boots, Ben grinned. He should’ve offered to bite Kezia. He could think of a dozen different spots on that curvy body he’d like to nibble.
Kezia handed Sparky’s leash to Jade, and with a wary glance, strode over to Zoe, who sat poised at the top of the slide.
“Can we go home now?” Jade said. “I’m going ask Piper and Gran if they want to meet Sparky!”
Ben refocused on Jade. “Sure. Maybe West’ll bring Donny, and the two canines can make friends.”
Or would West’s ugly, Staffy/boxer cross eat Sparky for dinner? Not a completely unpalatable idea.
Sparky stared up at him in full puppy-eyed reproach, as if the dumb mutt had an inkling Ben considered serving her up to Donny as a hors d'oeuvre—and then peed on his boot.
He jerked backward with a growl of disgust. “Oh, well played, furball.”
Jade giggled like a loon, clutching her belly.
Even in the fading afternoon light, with the sun spearing golden shafts over Oban’s hills, Ben caught the gleam in Kezia’s eyes and the smirk ghosting her mouth.
***
Kezia smoothed her skirt and checked her watch for the hundredth time since the afternoon final bell rang. Ben would be here any minute.
Straightening a stack of students’ exercise books on her desk, she sucked in deep breaths and tried to slow the hippity-hop of her pulse rate. How would Ben react to this impromptu discussion about her concerns for Jade? Reasonable and full of congratulatory smiles on a job well done? She rolled her eyes—just a little bit. Hah. Defensiveness and stubborn denial were her top picks.
A rap sounded on her classroom door. Ben’s grim face appeared in the small glass window and she jerked to her feet like a marionette.
“Come in.”
Right, she ordered her knee joints—which turned liquid and uncooperative at the sight of him—engage professional teacher poise.
Ben entered, tension rippling off him, as if he’d stepped onto an alien landscape. One with hostile natives hiding out of sight.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice.”
Melting Into You (Due South Book 2) Page 11
