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But he did not know how to be single.
2
MONKEY-DOG IN A RUBBISH BAG
The first day of school started with the monkey-dog. After that, it got stranger.
Beckett had been called cocky in the past. Also arrogant. And an arsehole. The first thing was what women who fancied him said, or they’d used to. The second was what those women had said when they didn’t fancy him anymore. The third was what he heard on a jobsite, but when you were a construction manager with an owner who never raised his voice but expected the job to be done right the first time anyway, a contractor and subs who always thought they knew better, and a ridiculous number of millions on the line, you had to expect that. He wasn’t fussed.
The thing hewasn’tused to? Having a good-looking woman let him know he was incompetent. In front of his children.
Again.
He reallyhadlost it, then.
No crows today, and the non-witch—because, yes, it was her—was in a swim costume. That was because they were at the beach. Not a proper beach, with seashells and surfers and white sand so fine, it squeaked, but there was sand here, and there was water. Specifically, a lake. They weren’t very close to the lake, of course, because of Troy, but it was out there.
The bird-woman’s swim costume was red, but it wasn’t anything close to a bikini. It was a tank of the kind generally seen on swimmers crouched on starting blocks. A Speedo, in fact, and not a sexy one. She was also wearing a bright-yellow neoprene swim cap and had goggles on top of her head and the goggle rings around her eyes to match.
So why had he kept looking when she’d started wading out of the water? Because he’d recognized her, and because of the body inside the costume.
He couldn’t help it. He was Australian, which meant he liked sport and people who did it. Some men went for the “display model” type who didn’t like to get her hair wet, and the skinnier the better. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but tall, confident women with muscular shoulders and bloody fantastic legs turned his crank, especially when they wore red, and most especially when they reached back and snapped that red tank down over the curves of their arse.
He didn’t quite watch, of course, just like he hadn’t watched last time, with the ice cream. Because hewasn’tan arsehole, he had a daughter, and he was married. Not actually married, but he felt married, still, at crunch moments like this. Attracted like he wasn’t married, but guilty like he was. It was confusing.
Also, school started in fifteen minutes. The second new school year he’d handled by himself since Abby died, which should’ve made it easier. That other first day hadn’t been in Montana, though, and Troy had woken crying with a nightmare again last night and ended up in Beckett’s bed. Beckett had told him, “We all have to be strong now,” and Troy had wailed, “But I’mnots-s-strong. I’m a littlekid.”Obviously, it had been the wrong thing to say, and never mind that his own dad would’ve said worse.
Kindergarten could be hard, though, he guessed. Kindergarten in a new country, without your mum, was probably worse.
The Swimming Bird-Woman said again, “You should check for a phone number.”
“Cheers,” he said. “Got that.” And continued his attempts to read the muddy, scratched tag as the filthy little dog squirmed in his arms. He’d pulled into the beach carpark on his way to (A) his kids’ first day of school, and (B) his own very important next day at his new job, in order to rescue it. The dog didn’t seem to agree on the necessity.
It should’ve been a fat little thing. It was that kind of dog. Fawn body, black face with a wrinkled brow, and huge black eyes like either a monkey or a pug, not to mention skinny legs and tail like no pug ever. The dog wasn’t fat, though. His ribs showed, in fact, and when Troy had spotted him and yelled at Beckett to stop the car, the dog had been half inside a ripped-apart rubbish bag. Beckett had thought at first that he was an American-sized rat.
There should be another word besides “dog” for animals like this. A dog was a border collie, out with the sheep. A Labrador, going after a duck. A bloodhound, on the scent.Thosewere dogs. They could do a job. They could look halfway dignified. They couldn’t fit in a purse.
The rat-dog squirmed hard again, then licked Beckett’s hand. Beckett rubbed one soft, floppy ear between his fingers and said, “Mixed signals, I’d call that. Never mind, little fella. We’ll get you back home.”
Troy said, “He wants to get down.”
“We can’t let him down,” Janey said. “He could run away again.”
“If I ran back to the car and got my lunch,” Troy said, “we could give him a sandwich. Then he’d want to stay. Dogs like sandwiches. You drop pieces of it along like a trail and it makes the dog tame. I saw it on telly.”
“Maybe,” the bird-woman said. “But he could also take the sandwich and run off. Don’t put him down,” she told Beckett.
“No worries,” he said. Clearly, she thought he was an idiot.
“You can give him to me to hold,” she said. “Since you’re having trouble holding him and reading his tags.”
He was starting to understand why people called him those things, because he was getting a little stroppy at her continued vote of no confidence. “You can dial for me,” he told her, then handed over his phone, since she hadn’t even stopped for her belongings before hurrying over on those long legs to join them, just about the minute he’d picked up the dog. He’d thought,Nice, but I don’t have time,completely forgetting about his new non-appeal.
“Read out the number,” she said in a businesslike way, not even looking at him, because, yes, he clearlywasthat arrogant, and she wasn’t impressed.
He did, and when she said, “It’s ringing,” he took it from her hand. She made a little protest-noise, and he glanced at her, then put the phone on speaker. Fine. Everybody could listen. He still wanted to know why she thought the dog was her problem, though. He was handling it.
Three rings, and the person on the other end of the line said, “If you want to sell me something, fu—”
