No. She was living here, in a house that somehow, unbelievably, was worth more than hers. With the world’s hairiest dog, and a motorway roaring beneath her. And a creepy doll collection.
And an amazing view of the sea.
She dragged her suitcase into the bedroom. There was a chair to put it on. That was good, because there wasn’t anyplace else to set it other than the bed, and she wasn’t putting it there, because putting luggage on a bed wasn’t ….
Webster jumped onto the bed. And lay down.
“You’re kidding,” she said aloud. “This is a joke, right?” In answer, Webster thumped his enormous feathery tail, grinned at her, and drooled a little on the duvet.
“Tea,” she decided. “I’m in New Zealand. I’m calm. I’m having tea. Fortunately, the kitchen is very close.”
Tea. Then she’d take that shower, unpack her suitcase, find out where the laundry room was—she suspected the garage, and she also suspected a dash through the wet to get there every time it rained, which would be a lot—go for a walk, and have breakfast.
And deal.
The girl set down the coffees on their sidewalk table, and Luka said, “Cheers.”
She blushed and looked away. You noticed the blush, because she was a pale blonde, and fragile-looking. Luka barely got a glimpse, though, before she was heading back into the restaurant.
Marko, of course, was grinning and saying, “Can’t decide if that was, ‘You’re so unbearably hot, it’s overwhelming,’ or, ‘You’re clearly dangerous, and I’m running away.’ Or maybe she heard that you date on the younger side, and she doesn’t want to be considered. Since you have gray hair, mate, and she looks about eighteen.”
“Yeh, nah,” Luka said. “Not too chuffed about being with somebody who’s scared of me, or who was starting kindy when I was getting selected for the Blues, either. Henry exaggerated. Twenty-one, at least. Strict lower limit, because I like a confident woman who knows what she’s about.”
“Oh?” Marko said. “Where would that be?”
Luka said, “I’m not talking about my sex life with you, mate, just because you’re frustrated. How do you know about it anyway? You weren’t there.”
“How do you think? Hugh told me. Funniest interview he’d ever seen, that was the report.”
“I couldn’t exactly say, ‘Piss off,’ to an eight-year-old kid, though. I was stuck, wasn’t I.”
“Reckon you feel old, too,” Marko said. “Balding fellas tend to do better when they shave their heads. Make it a statement instead of pathetic. I’m telling you that in case it’s helpful with the confident twenty-one-year-olds.”
“I’m not balding,” Luka said. “I have a full head of hair. A bit of distinguished silver at my temples, that’s all. Premature silver.”
He would have said more, but there was some sort of commotion happening up the street. People shouting. Things crashing.
Danger.
He started to move.
How had this happened? Elizabeth wondered in despair as she ran. One minute, she’d been opening the front door, her running shoes in her hand, ready to sit on the steps to put them on and go on that walk to get breakfast. The next, the dog had been shoving his way past her and, in a horrifying instant, charging through the gate she somehow hadn’t closed all the way and taking off up the street. The one that led to Ponsonby Road.
She’d been in the country an hour, and she was already killing the dog!
It took her a couple of very long seconds to find the leash, and then she was headed out after him. The door open behind her, the gate open behind her.
Her purse still on the front steps, she realized after a few blocks. Oh, boy. Now she was going to have gotten the dog killed, and gotten the house robbed and the doll collection stolen. And lost all her credit cards. And her passport. All at once! On her first day!
Too late. She was up the hill and already gasping for breath. She couldn’t even see the dog. At least she hadn’t seen its body, though.
Yet.
Please don’t get hit, she prayed, as if it would help. Please don’t get hit. And ran, her lungs on fire, because the elliptical machine was not the same as running uphill after the stupidest dog in the world.
All the way to Ponsonby Road, her chest heaving like a bellows. A complicated intersection with roads coming in from all angles, and she was swiveling, searching, dreading. There wasn’t much traffic yet, not this early on Sunday morning, but there was enough.
An older couple crossing the street saw the leash in her hand, and the man said, “Looking for a big black dog? It headed off down the road, going like billy-o. Looked like it was trying out for the All Blacks. I tried to catch it, but it wasn’t having any.”
She ignored the incomprehensible parts of that, gasped, “Thanks,” and then she was running again. At least it was downhill now. But she still couldn’t see the dog.
Oh. Wait.
Oh, no.
It was like a flip book, or one of those trails of dominoes. Sandwich-board signs slamming to the ground, one by one, all the way down the sidewalk. Pedestrians scattering. And Webster galloping like a Shetland pony, if Shetland ponies galloped, his huge paws stretching out. All four of them off the ground, then gathering beneath him to shove off for the next stride. She was running as fast as she could, but how fast could you go in your stocking feet? After twenty-four hours in transit? If your exercise consisted of thirty minutes a day on an elliptical machine?
Not fast enough, that was the answer. Not nearly fast enough. A woman with a baby in a stroller barely got out of the way, sending Elizabeth’s pulse rocketing even higher, and Webster was gathering speed.
He was going to hurt somebody. She had to catch him. But how?
Luka didn’t look to see if Marko was with him. He knew he was. Right off his shoulder, exactly where he should be.
He was wearing jandals. Didn’t matter. The thing with the pushchair and the baby had been too close. He got himself in position, and when the dog got there, he met him in a bone-jarring tackle, flinging himself at his chest even as his arms wrapped around him and held on. His feet left the ground and he rolled, and the dog dragged him for a pace or two, but after that? He dragged the dog.
It shouldn’t have been hard, because the dog probably weighed half what he did. And still, it was like taking down a world-class lock with the tryline in his sights. He felt Marko piling on, and together, they got the animal on the ground and kept him there.
Marko said, “Got his collar?”
Luka couldn’t answer. That was because he was gasping, his left arm lit up with stabbing, slicing pain all the way to his neck. The neck itself? It felt like it was broken. He gritted his teeth, though, and got the dog’s collar in his hand. He’d tackled him straight off the curb, and they were wedged between two parked cars, which had helped him stop the dog but had also jarred his entire body with the suddenness of the stop and the unforgiving nature of asphalt. He dragged the dog back onto the pavement, and Marko said, “All right?”
“Yeh,” Luka said, but he didn’t let go of that collar. “Sit,” he told the dog, and he sat. And grinned at both of them, while wagging his tail like it had all been a wonderful adventure.