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 had taken her two years to make.
The pleasure was in making it. Not in wearing it.
This was dumb. She felt a cold spot on her leg and there was Kleppy, wagging his tail, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Looking hopefully at the front door.
Looking for adventure?
‘I’ll take you round the block before I go to work,’ she told him. ‘And I’ll come home at lunch time. I’m sorry, Klep, but you might be bored this morning. I can’t help it, though. It’s the price you’ve paid for me bailing you out of death row.
‘And I’m going to be in court this morning, too,’ she told him as he looked doleful. ‘You’re a lawyer’s dog and I’m a lawyer. I’m a lawyer with a gorgeous, hand-beaded wedding dress and you’re a lawyer’s dog with a new home. We need to be grateful for what we have. I’m sure we are.’
She was grateful. It was just, as she left for work and Kleppy looked disconsolately after her, she knew how Kleppy felt.
Raff wasn’t in court.
Of course he wasn’t. He didn’t need to be. He was a cop, not a prosecutor, and he had work to do elsewhere. He’d given his evidence yesterday. Philip wouldn’t call him back but she’d sort of hoped the Crown Prosecutor would.
There were things the Crown Prosecutor could ask …
It wasn’t for her to know that or even think that—she was lawyer for the defence—and it also wasn’t for her to have her heart twist because Raff wasn’t here.
She slid into the chair beside Philip and he smiled and kissed her and then said, ‘Second thoughts about the dog? He really is unsuitable.’
This was what would happen, she thought. He’d agree and then slowly work on her to come round to his way of thinking.
He wasn’t all noble.
‘No, and I won’t be having any,’ she said.
‘Where is he now?’
‘Safely in my garden.’ Four-foot fence. Safe as houses.
‘He’ll make a mess.’
‘I walked him before I left. Walking’s good. I’m going to do it every morning from now on. Maybe you can join us.’
‘Gym’s far better aerobic exercise,’ he said. ‘You need a fully