He worked at the yacht club where Ben had once sailed. Every time a challenge occurred that might draw him to the city, he looked at it with regret but he still turned back to Banksia Bay.
She kissed him goodnight and carried Kleppy inside, thinking every time she laid down an ultimatum Philip caved in.
This dog or no wedding?
This dog.
‘He loves me,’ she told Kleppy, sitting down on the hearth rug and allowing her scruffy dog to settle contentedly on her knee. ‘He’ll take you because he loves me.’
But she’d seen Philip’s ruthless behaviour in court. He could be ruthless. He’d never liked dogs.
Why didn’t he just say no?
‘I’m so lucky he didn’t,’ she whispered and she hugged
Kleppy a bit tighter and then gazed towards the spare room door. Her wedding dress lay behind.
She was lucky?
Of course she was.
She was gone and Raff stayed outside, staring sightlessly into the moonlit night.
Abby Callahan.
Right now there was nothing in the world he wanted but Abby Callahan.
Oh, but there was. Inside, Sarah would be snuggling into bed, surrounded by dogs and cats, dreaming of the day she’d just had—her animals, her honey jumbles. Her big brother.
He loved Sarah.
He also loved this place. He loved this town. But love or not, he’d leave if he could. To stay in this place with so many memories …
To stay in this place and watch Abby married …
But leaving wasn’t an option. He’d stay and he wouldn’t touch her again. Tonight had been an aberration, as stupid as it was potentially harmful. He didn’t want to upset Abby. It wasn’t her fault she was the way she was.
It was his.
He was thirty years old and he felt a hundred.
He hardly needed to see her again before the wedding. His participation in the Baxter trial was almost over. He’d given the prosecutor all the help he could manage, even if it wasn’t enough to convict the guy. There might be another couple of times he was called to the stand, but otherwise he could steer well clear.
So … He’d drop Sarah off at the church next Saturday, pick her up afterwards and it’d be done.
Abby Callahan would be married to Philip Dexter.
Abby spent until midnight making Kleppy hers. She bathed him and blowed him dry with her hairdryer. He was never going to be a beautiful dog, but he was incredibly cute—in a shambolic kind of way. He was a very individual dog, she decided.
He tolerated the hairdryer.
He ate a decent dinner, despite his pre-dinner snack of honey jumbles.
He investigated her bedroom as she got ready for bed. And, curiously, he fell in love with her jewellery box.
It was a beautiful cedar box with inlaid Huon pine. Philip’s grandfather had made it for her when she and Philip had announced their engagement. She loved its craftsmanship and she also loved the wood’s faint and beautiful perfume, stronger whenever she opened it.
She also loved Philip’s grandpa, she thought, as she removed Kleppy’s paw from where it had been resting proprietorially on the box. His woodwork was his passion. He’d made these beautiful boxes for half the town. ‘It’ll last for hundreds of years after I’m gone, girl,’ he’d told her and she suspected it would.
Philip’s grandpa was part of this town. Philip’s family. Her future.
More people’s happiness than hers was tied up in next week’s wedding. That should make her feel happy, but right now it was making her feel claustrophobic. Which was dumb.
‘Do you like the box or the jewels?’ she asked Kleppy, deliberately shifting her thoughts. She opened the lid so he could see he couldn’t make millions with a jewel heist.
Kleppy nosed the trinkets with disinterest, but looked longingly at the box. He sniffed it again and she thought it was its faint scent he liked.
‘No!’ she said and put it further back on the chest.
Kleppy sighed and went back to his bra. The bra she’d paid for and given to him. Yes, he shouldn’t benefit from crime but today was an exception.
He made a great little thief.
He slept on her bed, snuggled against her, and she loved it. He snored. She loved his snore. She didn’t even mind that he slept with his bra tucked firmly under his left front paw.
‘Whatever makes you happy, Klep,’ she told him, ‘but that’s the last of your loot. You belong to a law-abiding citizen now.’
One who needs to stay right away from the law.
From Raff.
Don’t think of Raff. Think of the wedding.
Some hope. She slept, thinking of Raff.
She woke feeling light and happy. For the past few weeks she’d woken with the mammoth feeling that her wedding was bursting in on her from all sides. Her mother was determined to make it perfect.
It was starting to overwhelm her.
But not this morning. She loved that Kleppy woke at dawn and stuck his nose in her face and she woke to dog breath and a tail wagging.
It was lucky Philip wasn’t here. He’d have forty fits.
He wouldn’t mind being here. Or rather … he’d be happy if she was there. As far as Philip was concerned, she was wasting money having her own little house when he already had a wonderful house overlooking the sea.
Her parents had said that, too. When she’d moved back to Banksia Bay after university they’d welcomed her home and even had her bedroom repainted. Pink.
She had a choice. Philip’s house or her old bedroom.
But her grandparents had left her a lovely legacy and this little house was her statement of independence. As she let Kleppy outside to inspect her tiny garden she thought how much she was going to miss it.
Philip’s house was fabulous. She’d been blown away that he could afford to build it, and it had everything a woman could possibly want.
So get over it.
She left Kleppy to his own devices and went and checked on her wedding dress—just to reassure herself she really was getting married.
She should be excited.
She was excited. It was a gorgeous dress. It was exquisite.
It
