It occurred to her that she could ask Drake if he was any good at rat-catching. Perhaps it would be a face-saving way of re-approaching him, with the added bonus of being genuine, so if he rebuffed her with the name of a local exterminator she would still have gained something. And if he did offer to personally crawl under her house with a torch and a rat-trap, well…this time she would make sure she didn’t let her hormones run riot!
Her sudden craving for a nice piece of fish scotched the rat idea by suggesting a more mature approach. They did say the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach and according to her reading the waters around Oyster Beach were famous not only for oysters and a teeming variety of fish, but for particularly plump, juicy scallops.
Drake was a sucker for a scallop.
He had always declared his own cooking skills to be rudimentary, and since there was nothing so glamorous as a restaurant in the small community, and she doubted the take-away joint next to the gas station ran to Coquilles St Jacques, perhaps offering him a feast of his favourite meal made with delicacies fresh off the boat would create the right atmosphere to re-establish communication. If she also had to invite Melissa for the sake of politeness, well…so be it. It might even prove ultimately more informative than just having Drake by himself. After all, it was thanks to Melissa she was now in possession of a few more intriguing facts…about the way Drake worked, about the dyslexia that might very well be inherited by his son or daughter. She was rapidly coming to understand that even if Drake wasn’t emotionally involved in his baby’s birth and upbringing, there were lots of ways in which he would critically influence the child’s life.
Arriving back from the wharf with a bulging plastic bag of scallops, kindly dug from their shells by the grizzled fisherman for no extra charge, Kate swung into her driveway. Halfway back into the garage she remembered she would need mushrooms, too, for the Coquilles. She might have to go as far as the store for those, unless there were some available from roadside stalls on the way. She shifted the car into reverse and put an impatient foot on the accelerator. As she shot back down the driveway in a burst of revs she glimpsed a whisk of mottled grey out of the corner of her eye as it scooted behind the car. She instinctively swerved and jammed on her brakes but there was a jarring thud and high-pitched yelp as the rear wheel ran up onto something and bumped down again.
Kate was out of the car and kneeling beside the back tyre within seconds, scraping her hands on the decorative rocks that lined the drive as she braced herself to peer underneath. Wedging the mud-flap against black rubber tread was the ubiquitous three-legged dog, no longer irritating her with its foolish antics but lying lax, and ominously still. Grateful that the wheel wasn’t actually resting on the dog, Kate scrambled back into the idling car, and with shaking hands slowly drove it forward until she estimated it was well clear of the fallen victim.
This time when she knelt on the driveway beside the dog, she was relieved to see its side shuddering and its head lift briefly before thumping back onto the rough concrete with an accompanying low whine, the stump of the missing leg twitching pathetically, the ridiculous tail limp and streaked with a dark stain she feared could be blood.
‘Oh, God—’ Stricken with guilt, she tentatively touched the trembling coat, wary of causing any more damage to broken ribs. ‘It’s all right,’ she said shakily, daring a few, butterfly-light, pats. ‘You’ll be all right once we get you to the vet…he’ll fix you up…’
She knew there was no way she was going to be able to lift the heavy animal into the car by herself, nor did she have any idea if there was a vet anywhere close. Murmuring foolishly to the dog that she’d be back in a moment, she ran around into Drake’s paved front yard and hammered violently at his door. It seemed to take an age for him to open it and as soon as he did she gabbled wildly:
‘I’ve hit a dog with my car. I think it might be badly hurt, but I’m not sure. It’s just lying there, whimpering, and I don’t know who owns it or what to do. Is there a vet around here, or a doctor I could take it to for help?’ But in her panic she didn’t think to wait for an answer, she was running back, anxious not to leave the dog injured and alone. If it died she didn’t want it to die alone.
By the time she got there Drake was beside her, cursing under his breath when he saw the animal, crouching down and running his large hands over the hairy hide, running explorative fingers through the thick pelt, eliciting a feeble flicker of the tip of the foolish tail.
‘It was my fault—I mustn’t have looked properly,’ Kate agonised. ‘It ran behind the car when I was backing. Thank God it wasn’t a child!’ The thought made her feel ill. ‘I can’t have been going very fast but I think maybe it went under the wheel—’
‘Him,’ said Drake tersely, cutting off her semi-hysterical spate of words.
‘What?’
‘It’s a “him”, not an “it”. He’s obviously a male,’ he said, his face oddly desolate and blank of expression as he gently manipulated each of the three big paws and quieted the broken whines with an indistinct murmur.
‘Oh, I wasn’t sure…with all that hair,’ Kate quavered, grateful to cling to a steadying fact in a sea of wretched uncertainty. ‘He’s been hanging around ever since I got here, but I don’t know where he comes from. Do you think he’ll be OK?’ she asked anxiously.
‘I don’t know. I can’t feel anything broken but we need to get him to a vet as soon as possible in case he’s bleeding internally. There’s a clinic about thirty kilometres away, near Whitianga—it covers a big rural area as well as the town, but they always have more than one vet on call.’
Internal bleeding! Kate’s stomach twisted as Drake continued, ‘The only visible sign of trouble I can see is this graze on his muzzle.’ He withdrew his hand from the dog’s mouth and turned it over to show her the bright red splodge of blood on his palm. Kate’s senses swam and she turned away and was promptly sick on the edge of the grass.
‘Sorry…shock,’ she mumbled, taking the handkerchief he thrust at her and wiping her mouth.
‘You didn’t hit your head?’ he asked sharply, his face pale and set, his mouth grim.
He looked more shaken than she had ever seen him, fighting some inward battle for calm, and she realised he must be worrying about concussion. She put her hand over her belly, freshly aware of the fragility of life, and grateful for her habit of caution.
‘No, I was wearing my seat belt, of course, and anyway, as I said, I wasn’t going that fast—’
He shifted his crouch, leaning forward to slide his arms under the dog’s recumbent form, smoothly strai
ghtening his legs in order to rise to his full height without jolting. As Kate suspected, the big-boned dog was even heavier than he looked and the strain on Drake’s neck and shoulders was clearly visible as he adjusted his unwieldy burden against his chest. Kate winced at the pitiful yelp that the move elicited, and hurried to open the rear door of the car, but Drake was already moving in the opposite direction.
‘Where are you going?’ she cried, almost tripping as she hastened on his heels.
‘He’s obviously not going to fit in your car lying down. I have a four-wheel drive with very good suspension—he’ll be less likely to be cramped or jostled. Go and get my keys from Melissa, and tell her to call the vet—the number’s in the red index on my desk.’
By the time she had breathlessly returned Drake had the dog lying full length on a tartan rug on the wide back seat of his battered grey Land Rover. He grabbed the car keys from her hand and hefted himself up into the front seat.
‘Wait!’ said Kate, scrabbling at the back door handle as he gunned the ignition.
He frowned impatiently at her through the open window. ‘There’s no need for you to come. I know where I’m going—’
Kate’s shaking hands succeeded in getting the door wrenched open. ‘Of course I have to come,’ she said, shocked he would think otherwise. ‘I injured him; I’m responsible for him. I can’t just abandon him for others to look after!’