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“We could run?” he suggests a little half-heartedly. “Take the car and get far away from here?”
“Is that what you want?” I ask, propping myself up on my elbow so I can see his face.
He brushes his hand tenderly along my cheek.
“We should call the police. They already know about the Cobras.”
My eyes meet his.
“If it’s not the Cobras, then will it be some other gang? Are we gonna spend the rest of our lives running?”
He’s quiet for a while. Chewing it over. Then he presses his lips onto mine.
“We better get dressed.”
He sits up.
“Where we going?”
“To the house. Get a shower. Something to eat. Find that sexy underwear of yours.”
He blows kisses on my belly making me squeal.
“We’re staying put at the lodge. Facing this out.”
“And what about the Cobras?”
“We’ll keep watch. If we see them heading our way, we’ll hide back here.”
???
After Nik had gone, Tia left the café too, crossing over the road from the café to the florist shop. June usually never missed a trick, but she was staring back blankly at Tia now.
“A Brit you say?”
“Yeah. With an accent like from that soap you always watch?”
“What, Coro?”
“Ah yeah! That one. Coronation Street.”
“No, sorry, babes. Not seen any Poms around here today.”
“He’s about this high?” Tia persisted, “Dark hair, pale skin, freckles?”
“Ah! You mean the guy who went into the camping shop about half an hour ago?”
“Choice!”
Tia smiled back at her, already running.
“June, I owe ya.”
She’d had a terrible feeling about this Irish since he left. The bloke was a weirdo and she needed to throw him off the scent. Get that napkin with the directions to the lake back off him. Call Claire?
By the camping store, she reached in her bag for the phone, her finger hovering over Claire’s number.
After she’d told Nik everything he’d made some calls too. Then he’d left her to meet up with King. Nik was a brave one. Someone had to tell King and it may as well be him. He was like a son to the big guy. Nik had agreed with her. Once King knew about Claire, he’d be there like a shot.
She shook her head and put the phone back into her bag. She really liked that girl but Nik had told her to keep out of it, he’d handle it. Nik was family, but even so, it was best not to mess with Cobra business or with King.
She turned to go into the camping store. Something told her to check in on Frank anyway. She was curious to see what that Brit had bought.
“Frank? You there?”
Tia called out again as she wandered into the shop.
“You seen a man with pale skin and freckles? Funny accent? …Frank?”
A small gurgling sound was all he could manage. But it was enough. That, and the pool of blood that swept in a thick red carpet that Tia followed to where he lay.
He’d been trying to reach the phone but he was too weak.
“Struth! Frank. Don’t move. I’m calling 111.”
She made the call and then went back over to him, trying to stem the bleeding too by pressing onto the wound in his stomach, willing the ambulance to get there as soon as.
From the gun room at the back Irish heard voices drifting from the shop. A woman calling out. She sounded hysterical. But he wasn’t fussed about that. He’d got what he needed.
Coolly pocketing an extra box of ammo, he stored the two pump-action shotguns in a camouflage-coloured gun bag. Farmer guns. Still, at the end of the day, all he needed was two shots to hit the target and he’d achieve what he’d come all this way to do.
???
It’s so good to be clean again. And to be here, in this lovely house with Shaun.
He joins me in the lodge kitchen and sits on a stool at the island where I’m chopping up vegetables. I’m trying to make us some dinner with one eye still watching the track through the window.
“You’ve done a great job with those rooms.”
“Thanks. They’re ready for guests.”
“Let’s wait till next season. I kinda want it to be you and me for a while.”
I don’t disagree with that idea. I want us to spend time alone together too.
“These are amazing, Claire.”
He points towards the opened parcel.
I’ve seen them too. They’re not bad. I’m going to put them in the guest rooms.
“You need to do this professionally.”
“Funny, you say that. Tia thinks so too. I ordered her a set of the lake and she’s put them up for sale in the café in town. She was trying to be nice to me but I don’t think they’ll sell. Anyone can take a photo.”
“But not like these. I’d buy them. They’re stunning.”
He goes to the window and takes a good look around. The place is deserted from what I can see, but he goes out to re-check the barn anyway and then drops down to the shoreline from where he can see the whole of the picnic area across the lake.
“One car left, hikers by the looks of it. All the other day-trippers have gone. I’ve left the barn door open and the ladder ready, in case we need to bolt.”
A shiver runs down my spine.
“I was going to ask you,” I say, chopping up a pepper and trying hard to jump back into our happily-ever-after dream. “What d’you think about turning the barn into a bunkhouse?”
It takes him a minute and then his face cracks into a broad, beaming smile.
“We could do like an outdoor pursuits centre. Kayaking, fishing, climbing, bushcraft, that sort of thing. It’d be awesome.”
I smirk.
“You’ll have to get someone in to teach fishing.”
He nips my waist at that, making me shriek.
“Instead of clearing the land to farm,” he carries on, “We could build eco-lodges, tree houses, do glamping pods and camping out in the bush? What d’you think, Claire? You and me? Together?”
“Is that a job offer?”
He takes the knife carefully from me and holds both of my hands, interlacing my fingers in his. My heart is pumping as he holds my gaze, searching into my eyes like he’s exploring my soul.
Then, I can’t believe it. Holy Shit! He’s dropping down onto one knee.
“Marry me, Claire? Let me spend the rest of my life with you.”
I’m stunned. One minute I’m chopping a pepper, the next I’m getting married. Getting married. To Shaun.
“Yes!”
My hand’s covering my mouth in shock.
“Yes… Yes.”
I pull him up to me and we kiss passionately. The food is forgotten as he takes me hard and fast on the granite kitchen top.
Now I’ve found Shaun, I’m never letting him go.
“Who was that?”
I ask afterwards, seeing him ending a call as I come back down from the bathroom.
I’m determined to restart making this meal. My stomach’s growling. Abduction, escape, sex, marriage proposals; nothing is going to stop me this time from eating that pepper.
“I tried Frank. Thought I’d better warn the neighbours about the Cobras. But there was no answer. And I phoned Ari.”
“What did Ari say?”
“He says to tell you congrats and that he’s coming over.”
“What, now? Is it safe? He’s got a baby.”
“Claire, honey, we gotta sort this out if we wanna stay here.”
“What about the police?”
“Not yet. Ari thinks he can help us.”
???
King listened carefully to everything Nic said.
Then he called Nic’s cousin, Tia, and she confirmed it. Told him too about Frank Plunkett. Decent bloke. Nearly carked it, she said. By all accounts, it was still touch and go.
/> He didn’t owe Frank anything. It wasn’t his business. But Tia had confirmed it was this ‘Irish’ dude that had stabbed him.
King considered it some more. He’d brought trouble to the town. And the police would be on his back about it. They’d always lived with each other by the set of three unwritten rules:
Keep your head down.
Don’t rock the boat.
Don’t take the piss.
And today he’d done all three.
