“No, but I might throttle you.”
“Get in line, copper.” Nipper Will sat down beside me. “Me and Young Harry Barnes will be having words tomorrow, and you and Button John had better not do anything stupid like this again.”
I was too tired to argue with him. “Okay.”
“Shift up,” Nipper Will said. “You’re cold.”
“Okay,” I said again.
Dominic leaned forward and dragged a couple of the packages over. “Elevate your ankle.”
I nodded. I was too tired to argue with him as well. Too tired, and too cold. So I shut my mouth and did what both of them told me, and eventually dozed off between them, sharing their body heat as we waited for the tide to turn.
Chapter 19
DOMINIC
When Natty had announced, hours ago, that he was coming back to my place, I sure as hell hadn’t imagined spending the night like this—soaked to the skin, sitting in a dark cave with Natty, his hostile brother, and a modest hoard of New Caledonian cigarettes. Natty fell asleep pretty quickly, his head resting on my shoulder, me and Nipper Will sandwiching him between us to try to keep him warm.
When it was time to leave, we woke Natty up and helped him back down the steep path.
“You okay to swim?” I asked him, and he nodded.
Turned out he could still move as easily through the water as a seal, even with a sprained ankle. It was me who managed to hit every rock coming back out of the cave.
Moonlight! It felt dazzlingly bright as it hit me in the face. I’d never been happier to see the sky.
When we got back onto the rocky beach, we found Button John splayed out sleeping, my radio clutched to his chest like a teddy bear. He stank of rum still, and Nipper Will nudged him gently with his foot. Then not so gently, until he woke up with a snort.
“What happened? What time is it? What’s going on?”
Nipper Will sighed, then leaned down and hauled Button John to his feet. “I’ll walk him home,” he said. “You take Natty on your bike.”
I didn’t envy him volunteering to get Button John home, but I didn’t argue either. Natty needed a hot shower, a warm bed, and to have his ankle strapped.
I took it as slowly as possible on the way back to the village, but there was no avoiding the holes and ruts along the track, and Natty gripped me tightly and hissed in my ear every time we hit one.
“Stop saying sorry,” he said when I’d blurted it out too many times. “Just take me home, Dominic.”
The village was quiet when we made it back—quiet enough that I was sure Mavis would complain at the next council meeting about the noise of my bike. The party at the church had ended, and the place was dark and empty when we puttered past it. Out in the harbour, the moonlight sparkled on the water. The statue of Josiah Nesmith stood watch over the ocean, a silent sentinel.
I pulled the bike into my front yard and turned off the ignition. Natty climbed off, holding onto the seat to avoid putting all his weight on his bad ankle. “Am I staying here tonight?”
“If you still want to.”
He bit his lip. “If you’ll still have me.”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you warmed up.”
I helped him limp towards the front door, where an impatient Frank waited, yowling to be let in.
I woke with the first glimmerings of dawn, which was annoying as hell since I was pretty sure I’d only had about three or four hours sleep in at most. But Natty was asleep in my bed, his back facing me, which almost made waking up worth it. So did the way my track pants were too big on him, and had slipped down his hips as he slept, exposing the twin dimples just above the curve of his arse. I leaned over and gently swept a tress of golden hair off his face. He mumbled something sleepy in response and burrowed into the pillow he was hugging. Which was my pillow, and very probably the reason I’d woken up so early—but it was impossible to be annoyed when he looked so angelic.
I climbed out of bed, careful to be quiet, and headed for the bathroom. Frank met me at the top of the stairs, and I went down to the kitchen to feed her and to make myself a coffee. I’d have to write up an incident report for last night—if only to have it on record if I needed any of my equipment replaced in the future. I’d washed everything off last night after getting Natty into bed, and I’d be digging the Dubbin out later today for my leather belt, but I wasn’t sure how all the metal button studs on my pouches and my vest would hold up after their prolonged soak in saltwater. I wouldn’t be mentioning the cigarettes in my report. What was the point? Someone from Border Force would come over to the island and slap Young Harry Barnes with a fine. That didn’t seem like a valuable use of their resources. Besides, Natty wasn’t going to do that again, and Nipper Will was going to have a word with Young Harry Barnes today. If Nipper Will’s words were anything like his glares, I was pretty sure that Young Harry wouldn’t be getting any more undeclared deliveries from passing yachts.
And... speak of the devil.
When I opened the kitchen door to let Frank out, I saw Nipper Will pulling on his orange fishing gear in the outdoor laundry. Since it was too late to turn my light off and pretend I wasn’t awake, I wandered outside and called out to him. “Do you want a cuppa before you head out?”
