Ketchup had looked bad this morning but he looked a lot worse now. He lay on towels in an open cage. His hind quarters were shaved, splinted and bandaged. He had a soft collar around his neck, presumably to stop him chewing his bandages, but he wasn’t about to chew any time soon. He looked deeply asleep. The tubes attached to his foreleg looked scary.
‘I have him heavily sedated,’ Dr Cray said. ‘Pain relief as well as something to calm him down. He’s been deeply traumatised.’
‘Do we know anything about him?’ Misty looked down at the wretched little dog and she felt the same heart twist she’d felt this morning. Yes, it was stupid, taking him on, but there was no way she could help herself. This dog had come through so much… He had to have a second chance.
‘He was at the Shelter for two weeks,’ Fred Cray said, glancing at his card. ‘No one’s enquired about him. Rolf Enwhistle found him and another dog prowling round his poultry pen but they weren’t exactly a threat to the hens. This one rolled over and whimpered when Rolf went near. They were both starving-no collars. They looked like they’d been dumped in the bush and been doing it tough for weeks.’
‘Oh, Ketchup,’ Misty breathed. She looked back to Nick then, and she smiled at him. Doubts about the wisdom of keeping this dog had flown. How could she consider anything else? ‘And you’ve saved him for me.’
‘It’s okay,’ Nicholas said, sounding uncomfortable.
‘Will he be your dog now?’ Bailey asked.
‘He certainly will,’ she said, still smiling, though her eyes were misting. ‘I have the world’s biggest couch. Ketchup and I can watch television together every night. I wonder if he likes popcorn.’
‘He’s a lucky dog to have found you lot,’ Fred said-but Bailey was suddenly distracted.
‘We don’t have a couch,’ he said urgently to his father. ‘We need one.’
‘We’ll buy a couch,’ Nicholas said. ‘On Monday.’
‘Can we buy a couch big enough for dogs?’
‘We’ll buy a couch big enough for you and me.’
‘Can Miss Lawrence and Ketchup come over and sit on our couch?’
‘There won’t be room.’
‘Then we need to buy a bigger couch,’ Bailey said firmly. ‘For visitors.’
‘I suspect Ketchup might want to stick around home for a while,’ Misty said, seeing conflicting emotions on Nicholas’s face and deciding he’d paid for Ketchup’s vet’s fees-the least she could do was take the pressure off. ‘Ketchup needs to get used to having a home.’
‘That’s what Dad says we need to do,’ Bailey said.
‘I hear you’re moving into Don Samuelson’s old place,’ Fred said neutrally. ‘That’s a bit of a barn. You could fit a fair few couches in there.’
‘We don’t have anything except two camp beds and a kitchen table,’ Bailey said, suddenly desolate, using the same voice he used when he said he really, really needed a hamburger. ‘Our new house is empty. It’s horrid. We don’t have pictures or anything.’
‘Hey, then Misty’s your girl,’ the vet said, nudging Misty. ‘Give ’em your spiel, Mist.’
‘No, I…’
‘She wanted to be an interior designer, our Misty,’ the vet said before she could stop him. ‘Sat the exams, got great marks, she was off and flying. Only then her gran had the first of her strokes. Misty stayed home, did teaching by correspondence and here she is, ten years later. But we all know she does a little interior decorating on the side. Part-time, of course. There’s not enough interior decorating in Banksia Bay to keep a girl fed, eh, Mist? But if you’re in Don Samuelson’s place… There’s a challenge. A man’d need a good interior designer there.’
‘I’m a schoolteacher,’ Misty said stiffly.
‘But the man needs a couch.’ Fred could be insistent when he wanted to be, and something had got into him now. ‘New to town, money to spend and an empty house. It’s not exactly appealing, that place, but Misty knows how to make a home.’
‘You could come and see and tell us what to buy,’ Bailey said, excited.
‘Excellent idea. Why don’t you do it straight away?’ the vet said. He glanced down at the little dog and his eyes softened. Like Misty, Fred fell in love with them all. That Nick had appeared from nowhere with the wherewithal to pay…and that Misty had offered the dog a home…
Uh oh. Misty saw his train of thought and decided she needed to back off, fast. Fred Cray had been a friend of her Grandpa’s. He was a lovely vet but he was also an interfering old busybody.
‘I need to go home,’ she said.
‘You’ve visited your gran and you ate a hamburger at Eddie’s half an hour ago,’ Fred said, and she groaned inside. There was nothing the whole town didn’t know in Banksia Bay. ‘The little guy and his dad had fish and chips on the wharf, so they’ve eaten, too. So why don’t you go by his place now and give him a few hints?’
‘There’s no rush,’ Nicholas said, sounding trapped.
‘Yes, there is. We need a couch.’ Bailey was definite.
‘See,’ Fred said. ‘There is a rush. Misty, I’m keeping this little guy overnight. Come back in the morning and we’ll see how he is. Nine tomorrow?’
‘Yes,’ she said, feeling helpless. She turned to Nicholas. ‘But there’s no need…I’m not really an interior decorator.’
‘Bailey and I could do with some advice,’ he admitted, looking as bulldozed as she felt. ‘Not just on what couch to buy but where to buy it. Plus a fridge and beds and a proper kitchen table. Oh, and curtains. We need curtains.’
‘And a television,’ Bailey said.
‘You really have nothing?’ Misty asked, astonished.
‘I really have nothing. But I don’t want to intrude…’
‘You’re not intruding. You’re the answer to her dreams,’ the vet said, chortling. ‘A man with a blank canvas. Go with him, Misty, fast, before some other woman snaffles him.’
‘I don’t…’ She could feel herself blush.
‘To give him advice, I mean,’ Fred said, grinning. ‘You’ll get that round here,’ he told Nicholas. ‘Advice, whether you ask for it or not. Like me advising you to use Misty. But that’s good advice, sir. Take it or leave it, but our Misty’s good, in more ways than one.’
CHAPTER THREE
PICK a quiet town in rural Australia, the safest place you can imagine to raise a child. Rent a neat house on a small block without any trees to climb and with fences all around. Organise your work so you can be a stay-at-home dad, so you can take care of your son from dawn to dusk. Hunker down and block out the world.
His plan did not include inviting a strange woman home on day one.
The vet had obviously embarrassed her half to death. She emerged from the clinic, laughing but half horrified.
‘Fred’s the world’s worst busybody,’ she said. ‘You go home and choose your own couch.’
That was good advice-only Bailey’s face fell.
If she was old and plain it’d be fine, he told himself, but her blush was incredibly cute and when she laughed she had this kind of dimple… Danger signs for someone who wished to stay strictly isolated.
But maybe he was being dumb. Paranoid, even. Yes, she was as cute as a button, but in a girl-next-door way. She was Bailey’s schoolteacher.
Maybe they needed a couch, he told himself, and found himself reassuring her that, yes, he would like some advice. There were so many decisions to be made and he didn’t know where to start.
All of which was true, so he ushered her in the front door of their new home and watched her eyes light up with interest. Challenge. It was the way he felt when he had a blank sheet of paper and a yacht to design.
For Fred was right. This place was one giant canvas. They’d set up camp beds in the front room and slung a sheet over the windows for privacy. They had a camp table and a couple of stools in the kitchen. They’d picked up basic kitchen essentials.
