Nikki and the Lone Wolf (13 page)

The work was physically demanding but satisfying on a level Nikki had never guessed she needed. The farmer whose property they were working on came often to inspect, and his pride and pleasure added to hers.

‘I never thought I'd get this fence fixed,' he told them. ‘It's been here since my great-great-granddad's day. I've been filling the gaps with wire but now Aggie has a student… Lass, you'll have your life's work cut out for you.'

It felt great.

Horse agreed. When Nikki moved, so did he. He was becoming hers, Nikki thought with even more satisfaction.

This was her perfect life. Except for the small niggle of Gabe.

Who turned up mid-afternoon.

She was having trouble fitting a stone. Aggie assured her it'd fit; she just needed to rotate the stones above and behind. She was figuring whether she'd have to chip a bit off the stone—
a process Aggie regarded with scorn as there was always the ‘right' stone—when suddenly Horse was on his feet, wagging his shaggy tail and barking with delight.

‘Look who the cat dragged in,' Aggie said, her voice full of pleasure as Gabe climbed from his truck.

He was wearing jeans and T-shirt, not as rough as usual. He'd shaved.

He still looked big and dark and dangerous.

He still made her heart flip.

‘To what do we owe this honour?' Aggie demanded, and Nikki thought thank heaven for Aggie because there was no way she could think of anything sensible to say.

‘I decided I'd come and see if she's as good as my mum,' Gabe said and smiled at her, and her heart did a backward somersault.
As good as my mum…
What sort of statement was that?

A statement without anger. A statement of a man accepting things as they were.

‘She's got a long way to go but she's going to be better,' Aggie said roundly. ‘Your mum had distractions. Husband. Baby. A working girl needs to focus.'

‘So Nikki's focusing?'

‘Yes, she is. Don't you distract her.'

‘I wouldn't dream of it.' He hesitated while Nikki found another stone and tried to fit it. It was nowhere near the right size. Funny, maybe her mind was somewhere else.

‘You coped with distractions,' Gabe told Aggie mildly. ‘I seem to remember a husband, kids, a farm and a fishing boat. And world-class stone walling medals.'

‘My Bert supported me,' Aggie growled. ‘He was one in a million. He'd spend the night fishing, sleep for a couple of hours, then if I was on a rush job he'd come out and sort stones for me. They don't make 'em like Bert any more.'

‘What did you do with the kids?' Nikki asked, fascinated.

‘Playpens,' Aggie said. ‘They don't hold with 'em any more,
do they? But I had 'em corralled while I worked, then, as soon as they were big enough, they sorted stones. Can't figure why none of them wanted to stone wall for a career.'

‘I can't imagine,' Nikki said faintly. She caught Gabe's eye and laughter met laughter.

He made her toes curl.

‘Can I help?' he asked and there was a statement to take her breath away.

She didn't need to answer. Aggie was way before her.

‘Sure you can,' she said, beaming. ‘Nikki's got a way to go to get those muscles strong enough to set the base stones. There's a good twenty yards where they've been moved out of alignment. Some moron decided to drive cattle through here, can you believe that? They pushed a bulldozer through the lot of it. Twenty yards when two would have done. How fat's a cow? At least Frank wants it fixed now, so we just need you to dig along the line, flattening a trench and I'll tell you what stones to put in. Spade's in the back of my truck. What are you waiting for?'

The laughter was still there, Nikki thought. It was suppressed—there was no way Aggie would concede anything she said was funny—but it flashed between Nikki and Gabe and it warmed something she hadn't known was cold. It made her feel…

‘If you stare at that stone for any longer it'll grow teeth and bite you,' Aggie snapped. ‘We're wasting time. With Gabe to help us, I reckon we can get a couple of yards done by dusk. Get to work.'

‘Yes, ma'am,' Nikki said and Gabe saluted and grinned and went to get the spade.

 

It felt weird.

It felt excellent.

Hard physical work—and it was hard, as hard as hauling in nets, as heaving crates of fish.

Digging along the trench. Setting the lines so he could pack straight. Then heaving rock after rock into the trench, following Aggie's orders, moving, shifting, discarding, trying again, until he had the perfect line.

Normally an afternoon like this he'd be frustrated, stuck at home, itching to get to sea again.

He was having fun. Being bossed by one tyrannical old lady.

Listening to Nikki being bossed.

Watching Nikki take pleasure in her stones.

He remembered his mother. ‘There's nothing like it, Gabe, when you find the perfect stone and it fits like it's meant to be there. When you know that's its place.'

She'd never locked him in a playpen or ordered him to help, but he had helped, and the pleasure of it returned to him now.

He'd never remembered his mother without pain, but this afternoon…watching Nikki…

His mother seemed to be there. And Jem.

Horse was lazily watching, and it seemed the ghost of Jem was with him as well. There was a peace here he hadn't known was missing.

The armour was peeling back.

He worked on. Little was said, but when Aggie got vocal, chastising them for fools, idiots, anyone could see that stone was way out of line, he flicked a glance at Nikki and their shared laughter grew.

And something else.

Something that had nothing to do with his mother. Or Jem. Or anyone or anything else.

It was something about the way Nikki knelt, intent, her crazy curls—how long since she'd abandoned that sophisticated straight cut?—flying in all directions. It was watching her sorting, fitting, rejecting, choosing another, listening to Aggie's criticism, sitting back, surveying what she'd done and finally, finally accepting that she'd found the right stone and the right place.

She'd give a tiny sigh of happiness as the stone slotted in and, as each stone fitted, she'd turn and hug Horse and tell him how clever he was for helping.

Horse wagged his tail, accepting praise with decorum.

Dog and woman looked totally, gloriously happy.

She was a city girl. A highly trained specialist engineer. This wasn't her world.

It looked as if it was her world.

He thought back to the woman he'd met the day she'd moved in. She'd worn a sophisticated outer skin. Now it seemed she'd shed it and she was who she truly wanted to be.

She was beautiful. Dirty, bedraggled, windblown, totally absorbed, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

He turned a little and found Aggie was watching him. Bemused.

‘A worthwhile project,' she said and grinned, and Gabe figured he'd never blushed in his life and he wasn't about to now.

‘It'll be good when it's finished,' he said.

‘She's beautiful now,' Aggie said and she wasn't looking at the wall. Her grin broadened but then a sudden gust of wind slapped around the slight shelter their partially made wall was giving them, and Aggie's hat sailed off her head, a woollen beanie. Gabe retrieved it, Aggie sighed, shoved it on her head and pushed herself out of her folding chair.

‘That's it. The hat barometer says it's time to call it a day.' She shoved her chair into the back of her disreputable truck. ‘I drove Nikki here, but you can take her home. Can you fit that dog in as well?'

‘Sure,' Gabe said and glanced at Nikki—and the laughter was gone.

Replaced by uncertainty? Fear, even? Just because he'd agreed to drive her home?

He'd been an oaf.

He had a lot of ground to make up.

 

They drove in silence. He wasn't sure where to start, and maybe she thought the same. But it was up to him, he decided as he pulled up at his house. At
their
house.

‘I need to apologise,' he said, and she twisted in her seat and looked at him. Horse was at her feet, his great head on her lap. She'd been stroking him. Her hand stilled.

‘I thought you already had.'

‘Not properly.' He hesitated. ‘I've been a git,' he said at last. ‘My dog died four months ago. It threw me. I know it's dumb to get emotional about a dog, but I didn't want to have another around the place.' He raked his hair. Tried to figure where to go from here. ‘Horse is your first dog?'

‘Yes,' she said, brisk and cool. ‘And I hope he lives for ever. But the way you reacted to me… It's not all about Jem, is it?'

‘No.' He shook his head, trying to figure it out. ‘You remind me of my mother.' It was trite. It was barely true. There was so much more, but he couldn't begin to put it into words.

‘That's so what every girl wants to hear,' she retorted but, amazingly, she grinned. ‘Woohoo. But I'll take it as a compliment. After a day with Aggie, I'll take any compliment I can get.'

‘You're serious enough to cope with Aggie's criticism?'

‘I've never been more serious. If I can make a go of it…'

‘You will.'

‘I intend to try.' She reached for the door handle but Gabe reached over, caught her hand and held.

‘I haven't finished apologising.'

‘You've said you were a git. And you gave me crayfish.' She looked down at his hand holding hers and she couldn't quite stop a tremor entering her voice. ‘That'll do nicely. Plus you've dug my trench, which I would have had to do tomorrow. It would have taken me all day and it took you two hours. So apology accepted, thank you very much.'

‘Can I cook you dinner?'

She stilled. Looked down at their linked hands. ‘You don't want me on your side of the wall.'

‘I might have changed my mind,' he said. No. That wasn't enough. He had to say it properly. ‘I was nuts. I do want you on my side of the wall. There's nothing I'd like better than to cook you dinner.'

‘Can I bring Horse?'

A woman and a dog on his side of the wall. In his sitting room.

Nikki and Horse.

Suddenly Jem was right by him, egging him on.

The measure of a life well lived is how many good dogs you can fit into it.

Did that go for love, too?

He'd never truly loved. He didn't know how.

He could try.

 

He stir-fried prawns, Thai style, with chilli, coriander, snap peas, lime juice. He served them over rice noodles that melted in her mouth.

They ate on the veranda looking over the sea. Looking out over the hole in the stone wall. Looking out at the world.

‘Where did you learn to cook?' she asked. She'd eaten at some wonderful restaurants in her time. What she'd eaten tonight was right up there.

‘I've cooked since my mum got sick. It's fun.'

Fun. The word hung between them.

Fun, she thought.

Fun wasn't a concept that sat easily with this man.

‘Do you cook on the boat?'

‘Life's too short for a bad meal,' he said simply. ‘I'll take you to sea one night and cook you calamari straight from the line. There's nothing in the world to beat it.'

I'll take you to sea one night…
It was a promise.

She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice.

He brought out panacotta then, so creamy it was to die for, with brandied segments of mandarin and slivers of chocolate on the side.

‘When did you do this?' she demanded.

‘This morning. Before I came to find you. When I decided the fleet would stay in port, I had the whole day to kill.'

So he'd planned dinner, and then he'd come to find her.

She wasn't sure what was happening. All she knew was that Gabe's grim face had disappeared. He was shedding something. Opening himself.

Horse was between them, stretched under Gabe's chair. Gabe was rubbing his belly with his boot. Horse was practically purring.

Horse, too, had eaten prawns for dinner. Life was looking good from Horse's angle.

From Nikki's as well.

Every night she came home from work with aching muscles. Tonight she wasn't feeling an ache.

‘Can I ask if you and Aggie can schedule in finishing my wall?' Gabe asked and the night stood still.

‘Do you really want that?' she asked, breathless.

‘I do.'

‘Gabe…'

‘Mmm.'

‘You're not just doing it to be nice?'

‘I'm not,' he said, and his tone was suddenly back to being grim. ‘I'm doing it because I've lived with ghosts all my life. They've controlled what I do, and now I've decided it's time I was doing the controlling. The ghosts can come along if they want—and maybe they will—but they can watch what I do rather than dictate.' He rose. ‘Come and tell me what needs doing.'

He held out his hand, imperious, and she looked at it for a moment, considering.

But there was nothing to consider. This was Gabe. Gabe, whose outside armour held a man she was…wanting to love?

The concept was frightening, but not as frightening as ignoring the hand, turning away from the need.

She laid her hand in his and let him tug her up. She came, a little too fast. Ended up a little too close.

He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. It was a gesture of laughter and friendship, surely nothing more, but it brought back the memory of that first kiss.

Of her need.

She tugged back a little—but she didn't let go of his hand. He smiled ruefully.

‘Slow,' he said. ‘I have the sense to be slow. The way I'm feeling…'

There was enough in that statement to take her breath away all over again.