The Heir’s Chosen Bride

CHAPTER ELEVEN

WAS she mad?

Susie lay and watched the shadows. This was her last night in this castle.

The man she loved had asked her to marry him.

A courageous woman would take him on and train him, she thought desperately into the stillness. Marry him and ask questions later. Have a tantrum or six when he spent fourteen-hour days at the office seven days a week and treated her as being on the outskirts of his life. Which was what would happen. She was under no illusions as to how Hamish saw marriage.

He’d had some sort of epiphany this week, she thought. He’d seen Marcia out of her business zone and seen how sterile the life they proposed was.

So he’d gone for the easy solution. The noble one. Ditch the businesslike fiancée and pick up a ditzy one with a gammy leg and attached child. Give his life a bit of interest and do good along the way.

Problem solved.

She rose and crossed to the window, staring out at the moonlit sky. An owl swooped across the night sky and she thought of Taffy. Taffy…

She’d had her for what? A whole day? And she’d gone, and Susie felt…

Sick.

‘This is it,’ she whispered into the dark. She wanted Rose here so she could hug her, so she could tell her baby she was doing the right thing. ‘I can’t expand my heart any more. The heart expands to fit all comers? Maybe, but how often can it break and stay intact?’

She wanted to cry but the tears wouldn’t come. Nothing would come. She should sort a few more things. She should…

Dammit, if it’s not packed now I don’t want it,’ she told the moon fiercely, watching the flight of the owl over the water’s edge. ‘I’ve got no more room. I have no more room for anything.’

‘Marcia, I can’t marry you.’

It was two in the morning. Hamish had been sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for Marcia to come back. Which had taken quite some time. Now she’d burst in the back door, still laughing, and had stopped dead when she’d seen Hamish waiting.

He should have broken it gently, he thought as her laughter stopped. He’d been sitting here for hours, trying to make it right in his head. Nothing made sense any more, but the only absolute that stood out was what he’d just said.

He couldn’t marry Marcia. In the end the words had just come.

‘What? What have they told you?’ Marcia demanded, and he blinked.

‘Pardon?’

‘Hell, this place! How did they know?’

He blinked again-and then he focussed. She looked rumpled, he thought. There was sand in her hair. A strand of dried seaweed was intertwined with the normally impeccable French knot.

The knot was coming undone. She put a hand up to adjust it, a pin came loose and it tumbled free.

What was going on?

‘You’ve been on the sand dunes?’ he ventured cautiously, and she swore and shook her hair looser, causing a shower of sand to fall to the floor.

‘God, who’d live in a small town? People have been staring at me since I hit the town boundaries. I might have known.’ She glared across the table at him, defiant. ‘What do you mean, you can’t marry me? You’re not getting prudish on me, are you?’

‘Prudish?’

‘I was bored, OK? There’s nothing to do in this godforsaken place and you were stuck with the widow.’

‘So…’ He was putting two and two together and making six. But maybe six was right. ‘You and-Lachlan?-headed for the sand dunes.’

‘Of course Lachlan. Who else do you think? Hell, Hamish, someone had to be nice to him. You hardly made the effort.’

But she had coloured. His efficient, cool fiancée was seriously flustered.

‘You were nice to him…as in heading for the sand dunes.’

‘It was just a bit of fun! This is the modern world, you know.’

‘I think I’m old-fashioned.’

‘Well, don’t be. Hell, Hamish, we lead separate lives. That’s the basis of our whole relationship.’

‘What relationship?’

‘We fit,’ she snapped. ‘You know we do. Together we can be a serious team. But not if you’re going to get jealous every time I let my hair down.’

‘I would have thought…maybe you’d want to let your hair down with me?’

‘Oh, come on, Hamish. That’s not what our relationship’s about. We’re a serious team. Does it matter if we get our fun elsewhere?’

And it was as easy as this. He was being let off a hook he hadn’t known he was on until tonight, and suddenly he didn’t even recognise what it was that had snagged him.

She didn’t love him. He didn’t love her. Where on earth had they been headed?

‘I’m in love with Susie,’ he told her, and she paused in shaking her hair to stare at him in incredulity.

‘You have to be kidding.’

‘I don’t think I am.’

‘What on earth do you have in common?’

‘I guess…nothing. Are you in love with Lachlan?’

‘Of course I’m not. I don’t do love.’

‘Including with me?’

‘We’re a sensible partnership,’ she snapped. ‘You know that. We’ve talked about it. You let emotion into your life and it’s down the toilet. If you were on with the widow-’

‘I’m not on with anyone.’

‘But you want to be? With her?’ Disbelief was warring with incredulity that he could be so stupid.

There was only one answer to that. ‘Yes.’

‘She’ll never be a businessman’s wife.’

‘Maybe I’ll be a landscape gardener’s husband,’ he retorted, and she gave a crack of scornful laughter.

‘This is ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.’

‘Yes.’

She paused. Regrouped. ‘Let’s talk about this. We don’t need to break up. I want that title,’ she said abruptly, as if it was suddenly the most important factor in the whole deal.

‘I think you can buy titles over the Internet if you pay enough,’ he said cautiously. ‘I’ll see what I can do. It can be a breaking-off-engagement present.’

‘You’re not serious.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘I’ve come all this way for nothing?’ It was practically a yell. She was no longer flustered. She was out and out furious.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Not half as sorry as you’re going to be,’ she snarled.

‘You really think I wouldn’t mind a marriage where my wife trots off into the sand dunes with other men?’

‘This has nothing to do with anything I might have done with Lachlan,’ she flashed back. ‘Has it?’

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘It hasn’t. But I’ve decided… Marcia, maybe emotion is important in a marriage. Maybe we could both do with some.’

There was a long pause, strained to breaking point.

‘Right,’ she said at last. ‘You want emotion? Let’s see how you deal with emotion, you stupid, two-timing wannabe country hick!’

Sitting in the middle of the table was a vast earthenware casserole containing the congealing leftovers. Marcia removed the lid. She lifted the pot-and she threw the entire contents at her fiancé’s head.

With pot attached.

Tuna surprise!

Susie heard Marcia come in. She heard their soft murmurs in the kitchen. Then the voices were raised. Then came a crash of splintering crockery.

Should she get up and investigate?

Mind your own business, she told herself, and shoved her pillow over her head so she couldn’t try to eavesdrop.

She didn’t want to know.

She didn’t.

Breaking off his engagement had been as easy as that.

Hamish lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and wondered where to take it from here.

His cell phone rang.

It was three in the morning. Was there an emergency back in the office?

‘Douglas,’ he said crisply into the phone, trying to sound efficient, and there was a sigh down the line that he recognised.

‘You’re not supposed to be working.’

‘Jodie?’

‘You remember me?’ His ex-secretary sounded pleased. ‘Nick said you mightn’t answer the phone if you recognised my number. Are you still in Australia?’

‘Yes,’ he said cautiously. ‘Jodie, it’s three in the morning.’

‘Since when did you need sleep? I’ve just seen your photograph.’

‘My photograph,’ he said blankly.

‘Oh, Hamish, it’s lovely.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to call me Mr Douglas?’ he demanded, and her sigh this time was totally exasperated.

‘I’m not your secretary any more. I’m calling as a friend.’

‘Why?’

‘To tell you I think she looks gorgeous. To say the baby looks really cute and the dog’s amazing and I’ve never seen you look so happy. I opened the magazine and got such a shock that I almost dropped my coffee.’

‘What magazine?’

She told him and he gaped into the stillness. ‘How…?’

‘You’re on the beach,’ she told him. ‘The baby’s asleep at your feet. What’s the dog’s name?’

‘Boris,’ he said, before he could stop himself. His mind was racing. A photograph on the beach. Albert and Honey… It had to be Albert and Honey’s photograph. This was Susie’s doing. She’d told them his real name, they’d have done some research, and now the photograph would be splashed across America.

Did he mind?

‘Is she nice?’ Jodie was asking.

‘Um…yes.’

‘One of the girls from the office told me Marcia was following you.’

‘Marcia’s here. Jodie, what business is it of-?’

‘You see, the thing is that I’m pregnant,’ Jodie said, ignoring his interruption. ‘I thought I was last week and now I’m sure. Nick and I are so happy. But I’m so happy that I want everyone else to be. So I’m worrying about you.’

‘You don’t need to worry about me.’

‘I won’t if you end up with the lady on the beach.’

‘She won’t have me,’ Hamish said before he could stop himself, and there was a breathless pause.

‘You’ve fallen in love,’ Jodie said at last. ‘Oh, Hamish…’

‘She won’t have me.’ It was almost a statement of despair. He was in territory here he didn’t recognise.

‘You haven’t asked her to live in your grey penthouse?’ Jodie said anxiously. ‘She doesn’t look the sort who’d live in a penthouse.’

‘Hell, Jodie, it’s where I live. It’s where I work.’

‘I’ve taken a job as part-time secretary in the church that Nick’s restoring,’ Jodie said as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘The pay’s lousy. Not a lot of prestige there. I’m happy as a pig in mud.’

‘I’m pleased for you. But-’

‘Don’t stuff it, Hamish.’

‘Mr Douglas!’ he roared before he could stop himself, and there was a cautious silence-and then a giggle.

‘You’ve got it bad,’ she said on a note of discovery. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased I phoned. Nick said I was butting in where I wasn’t wanted but I so wanted to know, and now I do. I’ll ring you back in a few days and find out the next installment. Don’t stuff it. And don’t shove your penthouse down her throat.’

Where was sleep after that? Nowhere. The castle was almost eerie in its stillness. At five Hamish rose and went out into the bushland behind the garden. He walked the trails in the moonlight, calling over and over again.

‘Taffy?’

If he could find her…

He wasn’t sure what that might mean. He only knew that Susie was holding herself under rigid control and he needed to break through it. Somehow. If he could find Taffy, he could offer to buy a house on the coast, commuter distance from work. He could see Susie there, but the loneliness thing was an issue. She’d need a dog.

He could buy her a dog but Taffy would be better.

Taffy was dead.

But there was a tiny part of him that was refusing to accept the pup’s death. It was the logical conclusion and he’d spent his entire life trying to be logical, but he’d just let this tiny chink of inconsistency prevail. Just for now.

‘Taffy…’

He didn’t find her. Of course he didn’t find her. Logic was the way to approach the world. Logic was always right. Emotion…well, it had no place in his life. Did it?

There was a bruise on the side of his head that said emotion was happening whether he encouraged it or not.

Somehow he had to persuade Susie anyway, but by the time he conceded defeat and returned to the castle, he knew he was too late.

The castle was alive with people. Half Dolphin Bay seemed to be there. Kirsty was presiding over the kitchen, issuing orders. A mountain of luggage was piled in the hallway. Susie was behind a mug of coffee, with half a dozen women sitting around her.

She looked up as Hamish entered. Their eyes met-and he saw a tiny flicker of hope die behind her eyes.

‘You didn’t find her.’

She knew what he’d been doing. She wasn’t being logical either. She was still hoping.

Someone had to see things as they were. ‘No.’ He spread his hands, helpless. ‘Susie…’

‘Hamish, can you help Jake load gear into the car?’ Kirsty asked, sounding as if she was annoyed with him, and he met her gaze and knew he was right. She was seriously displeased. ‘It’s like a huge jigsaw puzzle. How we’re going to fit everything in, I don’t know.’

‘Sure.’

‘And what happened to Mrs Jacobsen’s casserole?’ Kirsty asked.

‘I took a dislike to it. Tell Mrs Jacobsen I’ll buy her ten more. Susie, can I talk to you?’

But Susie was no longer looking at him. ‘I’m leaving in half an hour and I have all my friends to say goodbye to,’ she whispered. ‘Hamish, we said everything we needed to say last night. There’s nowhere else to go.’

‘Susie, you’re way over the limit for cabin baggage.’ It was Jake, appearing at the door and looking exasperated. ‘Rose can’t need all these toys.’

‘One’s Hippo, one’s Evangeline and one’s Ted. They’re all too precious to be entrusted to the cargo hold.’

‘You’ll have to repack,’ Jake said, trying to sound stern. ‘Evangeline weighs two kilos. Two kilos for a toy giraffe! It’s either Evangeline or the nappies.’

Susie closed her eyes, defeated by choice. Blank.

She should be crying, Hamish thought, feeling desperate. She should be sobbing. But her face was closed and shuttered. Dead.

‘Please, Susie…’ he started, and her eyes flew open again.

‘Leave me be,’ she snapped, anger breaking through the misery. ‘Hamish Douglas, butt out of what doesn’t concern you.’

If there’d been another casserole to hand he could have been hit twice over. And maybe he would have welcomed it.

He butted out.

Marcia was packing as well. He went out to the courtyard and found her loading her gear into the back of Lachlan’s BMW.

‘As fast as that?’ he asked, and she gave him a vicious glare. Lachlan, looking nervous, stayed back.

‘You don’t want me here. I’ll be back to you about financial details.’

‘Financial details?’

‘This has cost me,’ she muttered, throwing a holdall into the trunk with vicious intensity. ‘I’ve wasted three years of my life organising our future and you mess it up with one stupid widow. If you think you’ll get out of that without a lawsuit, you have another think coming.’

‘You did go to the sand dunes,’ he said mildly. He looked across at Lachlan, who decided to comb his hair in the car’s rear-view mirror.

‘I hate you,’ Marcia told him.

‘You don’t do emotion.’

‘I so do!’ She rallied then, whirling to face him head on, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Tears of fury, frustration and bitterness.

‘You see?’ she snarled, her voice almost breaking. ‘I do “do” emotion. It’s just that I don’t want to. It stuffs up your life. You can’t control people. And I don’t want it, any more than I want you.’ She flung herself into the passenger seat and slammed the door. Unfortunately the window was open and without the engine on she couldn’t close it.

‘Get in,’ she snapped at Lachlan. ‘Let’s get moving.’

‘Sure,’ Lachlan said, and grinned at Hamish. ‘That’s quite a lady you’re losing.’

‘Rich, too,’ Hamish offered.

‘You think I don’t already know that?’

I’m sure you do, he thought as he watched the BMW disappear from view.

Two unemotional people?

No. There were emotions there all right. Maybe they were in the wrong place but they were still there.

As were his. He just had to figure out where to put them.

He still hadn’t figured it out thirty minutes later as he watched Susie climb into Jake’s car. Still with no tears. Still with that dreadful wooden face he was starting to know-and to fear.

‘Goodbye, Hamish,’ she said, but she didn’t kiss him goodbye.

Her body language said it all. He had no choice.

He stood back and let her go.

The castle emptied, just like that. One minute there’d been a crowd waving Susie off, a confusion of packing and tears and hugs and waving handkerchiefs as the car disappeared down the road.

Then nothing. The inhabitants of Dolphin Bay simply turned and left, went back to their village, went back to their lives. Which didn’t include him.

Hamish went back into the kitchen, expecting a mess, but the Dolphin Bay ladies had been there en masse and everything was ordered. Pristine.

There was a note on the table from Kirsty.

Susie’s organised professional cleaners to go through the place tomorrow. Leave a list of what you want kept. They’ll dispose of the rest. Mrs Jacobsen says one casserole dish will be fine, thank you, but it had better be a good one.

Great.

He walked back out to the hall where Ernst and Eric were looking morose. Guard duty with nothing to guard.

They’d look dumb back in Manhattan, he thought. Could he write a clause into the hotel sale, saying the new owners had to keep these two?

Ridiculous.

The word hung.

Why had Susie thought his proposal ridiculous? It had been a very good offer, he thought. He’d told her he loved her. He’d look after her, keep her safe, make sure she wanted for nothing.

Ernst and Eric gazed at him morosely.

Ridiculous.

‘The whole thing’s ridiculous,’ he snapped. ‘Not me. What does she want me to do?’

Whatever it was, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t.

His phone buzzed and he looked at the screen. Jodie. Another lecture.

He flicked it off. Out of communication.

That meant the office couldn’t communicate either.

Good. He needed to not communicate.

‘You are sure you’re doing the right thing?’

‘Of course I am.’ They were outside the vast metal gates at the airport-gates you could only go through as you passed passport control. The days of waving planes off were long gone. Now the gates slammed on you two or three hours before the plane left and that was that.

Susie and Kirsty were in a huddle. Jake was standing back, holding Rose, giving his wife and her sister space to say goodbye.

‘But you’re in love with Hamish.’

‘He doesn’t have a clue what love is. Leave it, Kirsty. It’s over.’

‘You will come back when our baby’s due?’

‘I promise.’

‘Oh, Susie, I don’t see how I can bear it.’

‘If I can bear it you can,’ Susie said resolutely. She’d expected to be a sobbing mess by now, but the tears were nowhere. She didn’t feel like tears. She felt dead.

‘I can bear it,’ she told her sister. ‘You’ve been the best sister in the world but we’re separate. Twins but separate. You have your life and I have mine.’

Yes, thought Kirsty as she stood and watched the gates slide shut, irrevocably cutting Susie off from return. I have my life. My husband, my kids, my dog, my life. Oh, Susie, I wish you had the same.

What the hell was a man to do?

Hamish paced the castle in indecision. He went back into Angus’s room and looked at the papers scattered over the floor. Yes, they needed to be gone through. There were all sorts of important deeds that couldn’t be left. They represented a couple days’ work.

He’d stay for two more days, and then he’d leave.

He rang the airline and booked his return flight for two days hence. Right. That was the start of organisational mode.

Now sort the papers.

It didn’t happen. His head wasn’t in the right space. The papers blurred.

He went back out into the garden and saw his half-finished path. He’s work on that.

Two spadefuls and he decided his hands were just a wee bit sore to be digging.

He’d go to the beach. He’d swim.

Alone?

He had to do something.

He went to the beach.

The water was cool, clear and welcoming. Before, every time he’d dived under the surface of the waves he’d felt an almost out-of-body experience. It had been as if he’d simply turned off. A switch had been flicked. Here he could forget about everything but the feel of the cool water on his skin, the power of his body, the sun glinting on his face as he surfaced to breathe.

Today it didn’t work. He couldn’t find a rhythm. He felt breathless, almost claustrophobic, as if this place was somehow threatening.

Susie had almost lost her life here, he remembered. And he hadn’t been here to help her.

She wouldn’t have let him near even if he had been here.

Hell.

He looked back to shore. A sea-eagle was cruising lazily over the headland. As he watched it stilled, did a long, slow loop, focussing on something below, and glided across the rocks just by him.

There was something there-a dead fish maybe-but Hamish’s presence distracted the bird. For a moment he thought the bird would plunge down, and suddenly he splashed out and yelled at it.

The bird focussed on him and started circling again. Slowly.

Still watching whatever it was on the rocks.

It’d be a dead fish, Hamish told himself. Nothing but a dead fish.

He struck out for the rocks, surfacing at every stroke to make sure the bird wasn’t coming down. Twelve, fourteen strokes, and he reached the first of the rocks. They were sharp and unwelcoming. He’d cut his feet trying to get across them.

It’d be a dead fish.

But the thought wouldn’t go away. He looked skyward and the bird was focussed just in front of him. Two or three yards across the rocks.

He hauled himself out of the water. Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

A dead fish…

It wasn’t a dead fish. It was Taffy, curled into a limp and sodden ball, half in and half out of a rock pool.

He thought she was dead. For a long moment he stared down at the sodden mat of fur, at the tail splayed out in the water, half floating. At the little head, just out of the water.

And then she moved. Just a little, as if she was finding the strength to drag herself out of the water an inch at a time.

The rocks were forgotten. His feet were forgotten. He was kneeling over her, lifting her out of the water, unable to believe she’d still be alive.

‘Taffy,’ he whispered, and her eyes opened a little. And unbelievably the disreputable tail gave the tiniest hint of a wag.

‘Taf.’ He held her close, cradling her in his arms, taking in the enormity of what had happened.

What had happened?

He looked up and the eagle was still circling. There was another bird now, swooping past, as if the two birds were disputing about who was to get lunch.

Two birds…

He looked down at Taffy and saw lacerations in her side. Deep slices. Something had picked her up…

And carried her out over the sea? And then maybe got into an argument with another bird, and the prey had been dropped.

If she’d been dropped into the white water around the rocks then maybe the birds had lost her. Maybe she’d have been left struggling in the water, to finally drag herself up here.

Only to expose herself again to the birds of prey who’d dumped her here in the first place.

Hamish was crying. Hell, he was crouched on the rock and blubbing like a baby. Taffy.

‘We’ll get you warm,’ he told the pup. ‘We’ll get you to a vet.’

But to walk over the rocks in bare feet was impossible. He was two hundred yards from the beach.

He’d have to swim.

He backed into the water, dropped down into the depths and felt Taffy’s alarm as she was immersed again. He was on his back, cradling the pup against his chest. He’d get back to the beach using a form of backstroke-backstroke with no arms? But if the pup struggled…

‘Trust me, Taf,’ she said softly, and it seemed she did. The little body went limp.

‘Don’t you dare die on me,’ Hamish told her. ‘I have such plans for us. My God, how can I have been so stupid?’

The doors closed behind her.

It was over. Susie walked past the duty-free shops and the huddles of excited travellers and she didn’t see them. Her mind was blank.

‘I’m not going to let myself get depressed again,’ she told Rosie, hugging her almost fiercely. ‘I’ve been down that road and never again. If I’d let Hamish have his way…no, I’ve fought too hard for independence to risk it all over again.’

That was the crux of the matter. Maybe she could change him. Maybe she could teach him what it was to really love.

‘Oh, but if I failed…’ she told Rose. ‘I have you to think about now, sweetheart, and I’m just not brave enough to risk everything again.’

The vet was stunned. And beaming.

‘Two deep lacerations on the right side but only scratches on the other-the bird couldn’t have got a decent grip. But there’s nothing vital damaged. We’ll run an IV line for twenty-four hours just to be on the safe side but you’ve got her warmed and dry. I see no reason why she shouldn’t live to a ripe old age.’

Hamish stood and stared at the little dog on the table and felt his knees go weak. He’d run up the cliff, wanting help, wanting to shout to the world that he’d found her. The castle had been empty.

He’d opened the oven door, lined the warm interior with towels and laid the pup in there while he’d pulled on some clothes. Then he’d offered her a little warm milk, and had been stunned when Taffy had hauled herself onto shaky legs, shrugged off her towels and scoffed the lot.

Then he’d thought that maybe he’d done the wrong thing in giving her milk-maybe she’d go into shock or something-so he’d bundled her off to the vet. To be given the good news.

‘She’s as strong as a little horse,’ Mandy, the vet, was saying. ‘Susie will be so pleased. I can go about sorting out the quarantine requirements again.’

Taffy would leave, Hamish thought blankly. Of course. Taffy was Susie’s dog.

She didn’t feel like Susie’s dog. She felt like family.

‘Can I take her home?’ he asked.

‘Back to the castle? Can you keep her still so the IV line stays in place?’

‘Sure.’

He carried her out into the morning sunshine and shook his head, trying to figure where he was.

Things had shifted. Important things.

What plane was Susie on?

He started doing arithmetic in his head. The new rules for international flights meant you had to be there three hours ahead of departure. Kirsty and Jake’s car had been overloaded, and they’d left leeway, expecting delays. If he left now…

Taffy was in a box in his hands, the IV line hooked to a bag slung over his shoulder. He’d have to rig it up carefully in the car to get her back to the castle.

He didn’t want to go back to the castle.

He’d have to find someone to care for Taffy.

He didn’t want someone else to care for Taffy. At least…not completely.

‘You haven’t found the puppy?’ It was Harriet, Dolphin Bay’s postmistress, emerging from the post office and carefully adjusting a sign on the door to read ‘Back in Five Minutes’. ‘Oh, my lord…’

‘I’m not my lord,’ he said absently. ‘I’m Hamish.’

‘You’re my lord to me,’ she said, resolute. ‘Ever since I saw you in that kilt.’ She peered into the box and her mouth dropped open in shock. ‘You’ve found her,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, my lord. Where was she?’

‘An eagle had her,’ he said, but he was moving forward. ‘Harriet, see that sign?’

‘The sign?’ She turned back to where she’d written Back in Five Minutes. ‘Yes?’

‘Can you make it five hours?’

She looked at him as if he was crazy. ‘Of course I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can,’ he said encouragingly. ‘I’m your liege lord. You just said it. My wish is your command. Harriet, I command you to change the sign, hop into the front of the car and cuddle Taffy.’

‘Why?’

‘Your liege lord needs his fair lady.’

‘Flight 249 to Los Angeles is delayed by sixty minutes. We wish to apologise for…’

‘Fine,’ Susie said to Rose, and glowered at the screen. ‘Let’s go buy some duty-free perfume. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?’

‘No,’ said Rose.

‘What do you mean, she can’t come in?’

‘Sorry, mate, dogs are forbidden in airport premises.’ Hamish had parked the car in the multi-storey car park and they were now at the airport doors. Hamish was carrying Taffy’s box and Harriet was carrying the IV line.

‘You can’t go any further,’ the man said, and Harriet sniffed, knowing what was coming.

‘Harriet…’

‘You’re going to ask me to sit in the car with Taffy,’ she said darkly. ‘Just when it gets interesting.’

‘Harriet…’

‘Don’t mind me.’ She sighed, her bosom heaving with virtuous indignation. ‘I’m just the peasantry.’ Then she grinned. ‘Go on with you,’ she told him. ‘But I’m not staying in the car. I’ll just sit on the doorstep here and watch the comings and goings. Taffy and me will like that.’

‘You can’t stay here,’ the security officer told her, and she puffed up like an indignant rooster ready to crow.

‘There’s a sign saying I can’t come in with dog,’ she said. ‘But there’s no sign saying I can’t look in with dog. That’s just what I’m doing.’

And she sat on the rack holding the luggage carts in place. She slung the IV bag over her shoulder, she took Taffy’s box into her arms and she smiled.

‘What are you waiting for?’ she demanded. ‘Go fetch who you need to fetch.’

Her flight had been delayed. Oh, thank God, there was sixty minutes’ grace. But even then it wasn’t easy. There was the little matter of the metal doors at passport control.

‘You can’t come through,’ he was told. ‘Not unless you’re a traveller.’

‘I’m a traveller.’ He hauled his passport from his wallet and displayed it. ‘I’m from the US.’

‘You need to be booked on a plane today. You need seat allocation before you can get through.’

They were adamant.

‘We can get a message to whoever you want to see,’ he was told. ‘But if they come out they’ll have to go through security again. No one will be happy.’

Maybe she wouldn’t come out, he thought. Maybe a message wouldn’t work.

He took his wallet over to American Airlines. ‘I have a ticket two days from now,’ he told them. ‘Any chance of swapping it for today?’

‘The flight’s fully booked,’ he was told. The girl behind the counter eyed him dubiously, and he thought that even if he had been booked there might be trouble. He’d dragged on jeans, a windcheater and trainers but he hadn’t shaved that morning and he’d come straight from the beach.

And he knew he looked desperate.

Hell.

The gates stayed shut. She’d be through there, sitting, miserable, maybe crying…

He stared at the screen. There was Susie’s flight, leaving in forty-five minutes. Any minute now they’d start boarding.

The flight straight after that was to New Zealand.

Susie’s flight was from Gate 10.

The New Zealand flight was from Gate 11.

Act cool, he told himself, trying frantically to be sensible. If you launch yourself at the counter and act desperate, they’ll drag you off as a security risk.

So he sped into the washroom, washed his face, bought a comb and a razor from the dispenser and spent precious minutes transforming himself from a beach bum with hair full of sand to someone who might board an international flight with business in mind. Casual but cool.

He stared at himself in the mirror. What was missing?

Ha! Five more precious minutes were spent buying a briefcase and a couple of books to bulk it up.

Then a walk briskly to the Air New Zealand counter, feeling sick with tension and with the effort not to show it. ‘Any chance of getting onto the flight this afternoon? I only have hand luggage. I’m booked for a US flight in two days but I’ve finished what I need to do here and could usefully see some of my people in Auckland.’

His authoritative tone worked. The girl looked him up and down-and smiled. ‘Do you have a visa?’

He did. The work he did required travel at a moment’s notice and he always had documentation.

‘There’s only economy available,’ she said, and he almost grinned. What value a comb?

‘Thank you.’

Which way was New Zealand?

Why would she want to buy perfume?

‘Let’s have a look at duty-free cigarettes.’

‘You don’t smoke,’ she told herself.

‘I might. If I get desperate enough.’

‘Are you all right, madam?’ an assistant asked, and she blushed.

‘Um…yes. Just telling my daughter about the evils of smoking.’

Hell, why was security taking so long? The line stretched forever.

‘Passengers for Air New Zealand, please come through the priority line.’

Thank God for that. But when he was through…

‘They’re boarding already. If you’d like to board the cart we’ll get you straight to the boarding gate.’

Fine. But he was jumping off early.

She wasn’t in the departure lounge.

Where was she?

‘This is the final boarding call for Flight 723 to Auckland…’

Where was she?

‘Pardon me, sir, your flight is ready for boarding. You need to come this way.’

‘Not until I find who I’m looking for!’

There was a commotion down near her boarding gate. Shouting. Beefy security men, running.

Then a couple of burly giants escorting someone back toward the entrance area.

Susie glanced up from her rows of Havana cigars…

Hamish.

‘Excuse me,’ she said faintly, stepping out into their path. ‘Where are you taking him?’

‘Security,’ one of the guards said brusquely. ‘Step aside, ma’am.’

She was holding a box of Havana cigars in one hand, Rose in the other. She dropped the cigars.

With huge difficulty she managed to hold on to Rose.

‘You can’t take him away,’ she said faintly. ‘He’s mine.’