Chapter Six

Hal

When Izzy goes, I stay sitting at the table, the will to rise having vanished completely. The girl behind the counter doesn’t return, so I’m guessing she’s playing it safe and waiting until I leave.

I lean back and stare at the half-eaten sandwiches, at Izzy’s coffee cup, still almost full. At least I got her to eat the pie. I think of her slender form, of how narrow her waist would be in my hands. Her breasts are surprisingly generous considering she’s slim.

I roll my eyes at myself.

Then I think about the look that was there in her eyes when I told her how much I wanted her. It was like the glint of sun on a mirror, a flash of emotion, gone in a second, but it was there—I saw it. A mixture of hope and longing, before her expression turned to disbelief and hurt.

I screw my nose up and close my eyes. Could it have gone any worse?

I sit there like that for five minutes or so, feeling the warm January breeze coming through the open door, until I hear feet on the tiles. I open my eyes, expecting to see the girl coming back to the counter, but instead I find it’s my cousins, Albie and Leon.

I don’t say anything. I look out of the window as Leon goes behind the counter and takes out a pie, while Albie retrieves a can of Coke Zero from the fridge and tosses some money on the counter to cover their purchases. Then they both come over to the table. Albie sits beside me, and Leon opposite.

I’m close to these guys. We all grew up together, as our fathers are brothers, and also very close. I’m the son of Brock, the eldest, Albie is Charlie’s son, and Leon is Matt’s. Albie is a year and a half younger than me and Leon. We all have sisters, and step-siblings—children that our mothers had by their previous relationships before they met the Kings—but the three of us are closest, and I trust them more than anyone.

Bar Izzy. I blow out a breath.

“I hear you’ve broken up with Rosie,” Leon says eventually.

“Yeah.” I feel doubly depressed at the thought. I’m conscious of how difficult it’s going to make things at the Ark. Izzy’s friends with her, for a start, and Rosie socializes with a lot of the other staff. “Sorry. I know it’s going to be awkward.”

I’m prepared for him to be irritable with me. Leon’s head of HR as well as Finance at the Ark, and it’s his job to deal with any staffing issues. He can be quite hard when he wants to be. He works closely with the Ministry for Children, the New Zealand Police, and the Women’s Refuge, as, sadly, it’s well-known that animal cruelty is linked to family violence and child abuse. He does all he can to work behind the scenes with ministers and the community to improve animal welfare and educate the public. He’s always said our personal lives shouldn’t affect our working lives. It’s an easy thing to say, less easy to carry out.

“I hope her father doesn’t cause trouble,” I add. Martin Jensen runs a vehicle company and we lease our ambulances from him. The contract’s up for renewal soon, so he could easily demand his vehicles back.

“Martin?” Leon snorts. “If he does, we’ll take our business elsewhere.”

That’s an option, but it would cause us problems, and I feel uncomfortable to think I’ve affected the Ark by screwing up my personal life.

“We saw Izzy walking away,” Albie says. “She looked upset.”

“Yeah,” I reply, realizing that’s going to affect the Ark too. “I fucked up there, too. Not really surprising.”

Albie’s lips twist, and Leon sighs.

“You finally told her how you feel?” Albie asks.

“Yeah.”

“She doesn’t feel the same?”

“She does,” I say.

Leon meets my eyes. “Are you sure?”

I hesitate. To be honest, it hadn’t entered my head until that moment that she might not. That she truly just thinks of me as a friend. In all the years I’ve known her, she’s never flaunted other men before me, and although I know she’s had dates, she’s never lived with anyone, never even introduced me to a guy she’s seeing. I used to be hurt by that, but I gradually came to realize she’s just incredibly private, and she didn’t want to be teased, or to have her relationships picked apart by me or anyone else. So I don’t know what kind of men she likes. Maybe she doesn’t like the fact that I’m huge, that I break door handles and kitchen implements on a daily basis, and I’m constantly knocking over bottles and equipment in the surgery because somehow I don’t seem to fit in a room the same as anyone else. Maybe she likes tiny guys, like Vic fucking Hartley. My mouth thins.

And then I remember again that look in her eyes. That hope, that longing. Just for a millisecond.

“Yeah,” I tell Leon. “I’m sure.”

“So what are you gonna do?” Leon tucks into his pie.

I turn my coffee cup around with my fingers. “I’ll have to talk to her again, I guess. Try to convince her I meant what I said. She thinks I only want her because I haven’t had her.”

Leon gives a short laugh and wipes his mouth with a serviette. “She really had no idea how you feel?”

“Nope.”

“Jesus,” Albie says. “And I thought us guys were clueless.”

My lips curve up. The three of us have never talked about Izzy, and I thought I’d kept my feelings to myself, but it doesn’t seem to come as any surprise to them I’m interested in more than friendship.

It’s unusual for the three of us to talk like this. Our normal topics of conversation involve rugby, soccer, occasionally cricket, the Ark, the staff, and sometimes, if we’re really desperate for topics, food. We never talk about feelings. Albie’s convinced he doesn’t have any, and Leon’s like me, a physical guy, happier doing rather than talking. I half expect Leon to change the subject and start asking about my views on the All Blacks’ line-up against Australia next week.

But instead, he says, “Do you think she’ll come around?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly.

“Come on,” Albie says, “once you turn on the Hal King charm there’s not a woman in a radius of a hundred miles who can resist you.”

I smile, because he’s teasing me, but for the first time in my life I wish I was different. Izzy thinks I’m a womanizer, and I suppose she’s right. I certainly haven’t been a monk. What can I say? I like women and I like sex, and over the years I’ve tried to get as much of both as I can. It’s surprisingly easy when you’re six-three, built like the Incredible Hulk, and a billionaire. Not that I tell girls that, but they know when you’ve got money; they can smell it on you like aftershave.

But I know that over the years she’s seen women come and go. Unlike her, I’ve never tried to hide my relationships. And, contrary to what I’m sure she’s thinking, I’ve never treated a woman badly. I’ve never tried to lure a girl to bed with promises of commitment or wedding rings, or even with promises to call them the day after. Most women like sex too. All three of us at the table realized that early on, and it was a revelation to all of us. I’ve never had to talk a woman into bed. Okay, so I can turn on the charm, all the Kings can, including the King girls, but it’s not as if I can approach a woman who has no liking for me at all, whisper in her ear, and convince her to take all her clothes off. I wish I could—that would have been a cool superpower, and I could use it on Izzy to get her into bed.

But of course, I don’t want it to be like that. I want her to admit her feelings for me. I want to take our relationship to the next level, because I’ve waited eighteen fucking years for her, and life’s too short to listen to Marc-fucking-Fitzgerald, and I’m not going to wait any longer.

“Can you do me a favor?” I ask Albie. “Check that Izzy’s all right when you get home.”

Albie has a large house over in Paihia. He’s as wealthy as Leon and I, so he can obviously afford to live alone, but when we first started the sanctuary and everyone was moving up here, he let some of our friends stay with him as his house has four bedrooms, and Izzy and Nix are still there. Leon and I think it’s funny they’re still sharing a house, but it works for them. They’re all focused on the Ark, on the work, and I know it’s nice to have someone to come home to at the end of the day.

“Izzy told me she’s going to rename the Animal Welfare Team,” Albie says.

It’s the first I’ve heard about it. “To what?”

“The Foundation’s Animal Rescue Team. I actually wrote it down before I realized she was joking.”

I work out the acronym. “F.A.R.T.?” Leon and I laugh, and Albie grins. He and Izzy have a brother/sister kind of relationship, even though they’re not related. I’ve wondered in the past whether Albie’s interested in either Izzy or Nix, but he’s never made a move on either of them, to my knowledge, so I guess he just sees his roommates as friends.

Albie is a whiz with computers, and he’s the head of Information Technology at the Ark. He works closely with Leon to keep the Ark’s website up to date, and to get the word out about the Ark and about animal welfare in general. He’s warm and charismatic, but very occasionally he exhibits signs of his father’s Asperger’s syndrome, usually when he’s with women, being too blunt or misreading the signs, which has led to a few amusing disasters. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s been slapped more than any other man in existence. But because of his natural charm, he’s rarely short of female company, although he’s at that ‘I’m too young to settle down’ stage. It won’t last. A girl will come along and wallop him between the eyes, and Leon too, despite their protests that it will never happen. I just know it.

Suddenly, I feel very old.

“Have you tried calling Izzy?” Leon asks.

“No.” I scratch my ear. “I don’t think she’ll want to talk to me yet.”

Albie takes out his phone, brings up Izzy’s number, and presses ‘call’. He listens for a moment, then hangs up. “It’s going to answerphone. She’s switched it off.”

I frown. She’s left the Ark before seven p.m. and switched off her phone. That’s unlike her. I feel the first twinge of unease. I’ve really upset her.

“She’s probably just gone for a drive to clear her head,” Albie says. “She’ll be back before the end of the day.”

“Yeah.” I shake off the lingering doubt. She can’t have been that shocked at my declaration? Surely she must have had some idea of how I felt about her?

“How did this morning go?” Leon asks, and only then do I remember the dude with the gun and how close Izzy came to being shot.

“Jesus. I forgot.” I summarize the event briefly, and they both look alarmed.

“She didn’t seem shaken up by it,” I clarify.

“You don’t think she was affected by someone just missing her with a shotgun?” Albie confirms.

I shift uncomfortably. “She didn’t look it.”

Leon frowns. “Have you reported it?”

“Not yet. I’ve literally only been back fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll ring Anne at the station. Give me the deets and we’ll see whether this moron has a firearms license.”

Glad that Leon’s going to deal with it, I relay the details, and he goes off to ring his contact at the local police station.

Albie and I walk out into the sunshine. “I’m going to check on the dog I brought in this morning,” I tell him, and he nods and walks to his office in the cluster of buildings to our right.

I head for the pale-yellow building that’s our grooming center, run by my sister, Juliet, or Jules, as we call her. I go through the door into the reception, wave to the girl behind the desk, and walk through to the two rooms. I stop at the first and smile wryly at the sight of a large, soaked Newfoundland in the process of shaking himself and covering the two squealing women who are trying to bathe him. Then I carry on to the next room.

Jules is there, with the dog I brought back this morning on the table. Unfortunately, Rosie is also there.

I stop in my tracks, but they look up and spot me before I can beat a hasty retreat. Rosie looks at Jules, who says, “I can handle her now, Rosie, why don’t you take a break?”

Rosie steps back, wipes her hands on a towel, and walks toward me. I step aside, my stomach knotting, as she approaches. She stops before me and looks up with a small smile. “Hey,” she murmurs.

“Hi.” My back’s rigid, and I don’t smile. She meets my gaze and holds it for a moment. I haven’t seen her since I walked out of the house, and I thought I might feel regret and wistfulness when I saw her again, but I don’t. I just feel resentment and a kind of dull tiredness. The hope in Rosie’s eyes dims, and she walks out without another word.

I look at Jules, who was watching us while pretending not to. “Ouch,” she says and gives a fake shiver. “It’s turned icy in here.”

Ignoring her, I walk over to the table and inspect Miss Daisy. She’s lying on her side while Jules clips her coat short, either unable or unwilling to move, although maybe she’s just enjoying the human touch. She’s been bathed, and I know she’ll feel much better once she’s free of all the knotted hair.

“Hello sweetheart,” I murmur, as she lifts her head at my approach. Her tail thumps on the table, and she licks my hand when I stroke her head.

“Another addition to the Hal King Fan Club,” Jules says wryly.

“Well there’s a vacancy now,” I grunt, gesturing at the door.

Jules snorts and carries on clipping the dog. “How are you doing?” she asks as she trims carefully around the Collie’s ears.

“Fine.” I inspect the sores on Miss Daisy’s back. They’re not too bad and will heal with some salve and a few days’ rest. She’s going to be fine—luckily, we got there in time.

“How’s Izzy?” Jules asks.

I look up at her. She gives me an innocent look. I’m not sure if she’s referring to our trip to the farm this morning or something else.

“Come on Hal,” she says softly. “Tell me this isn’t all about Izzy.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Jesus. Can’t a man have any secrets?”

“Not at the Ark. Dude, it’s written all over your face. Has been for years.”

“Does Rosie know?” I ask cautiously.

She shakes her head and trims around Miss Daisy’s neck. “She didn’t mention it, anyway.”

I blow out a breath. I don’t want me leaving Rosie and me getting with Izzy to become entangled. They might look it, but they’re not connected at all.

“Have you told Izzy how you feel about her?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“And?”

I put the fingers of my right hand to my temple and mime pulling a trigger, and then illustrate the left temple exploding.

Jules rolls her eyes.

It occurs to me that I shouldn’t have told Izzy I’d broken up with Rosie and that I wanted to date her instead on the same day. That was stupid.

“I’m such a fucking idiot,” I tell Jules.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” She sighs and ruffles Miss Daisy’s ear. “Men are such fools, aren’t they, sweetheart? Especially when they’re in love.”

I huff a sigh and leave the room. Then I stop. I don’t want to go back to the surgery because Izzy’s not back, and Rosie will probably have gone there.

Where is Izzy?

I hate not knowing where she is. Normally she’s always at the sanctuary. I hate that I can’t just walk across and see her. My stomach’s in a tight knot, and I feel queasy at the thought that it’s my fault she’s gone AWOL.

I can’t find her or even talk to her if she doesn’t have her phone on. It’s one of the first times I’ve ever wanted to see her and not known where she is.

I walk slowly across to the surgery, hoping Rosie’s in Stefan’s room. I won’t settle until I hear from Izzy. Please God, I think, let her call soon.