Page 13 of Lawless (Dauntless Island #2)

DOMINIC

L usting after my neighbour-slash-yard guy had not been on my To Do list, but here I was, eating the best fresh mudcrab I’d ever had in my life, and trying not to stare at Natty Harper as I did.

The taste of the crab, dipped in the spicy sauce, was almost enough to make up for how gross it had been preparing it.

I’d thought putting the crab in the freezer to die had been awful.

Then I’d thought that nothing could top the cracking sound the shell had made as Natty had showed me how to remove it.

But no, the most revolting part had definitely been pulling off the grey, floppy dead man’s fingers, and then all the other little stringy bits that had once been important parts of the crab’s insides.

It had almost been enough to make me lose my appetite—but it turned out the best thing for getting over crab-related preparation trauma was eating fresh crab.

It was incredible , and so was Natty’s smile when I made appreciative noises as we ate.

My first week on Dauntless had been awkward, unsettling, and generally hostile, but today’s lunch almost made up for all of that.

It had only taken a week to win Natty over.

At this rate, if I worked my charms on every remaining islander, it’d only take five and a half years to get the community onside.

Which was two and a half years longer than I actually had on Dauntless.

Still, eating lunch with Natty felt like a victory.

He wasn’t another outsider like Eddie, and he wasn’t obliged to talk to me like Red Joe the mayor, so I was allowed to feel optimistic about him, right?

And of course it had nothing to do with how gorgeous he was. Nothing at all.

Still, it was hard to concentrate on how good the food was when I wanted to reach over my kitchen table and tug at a lock of that golden hair, just to see if it felt as soft as it looked.

Maybe if I did, he’d jut out his chin in that mulish way he did, and call me “copper” instead of using my name, like he was still trying his hardest to pretend he didn’t like me.

Just like I was pretending not to stare when he licked a smear of dipping sauce off his bottom lip.

“Hey,” I said, and he gave me a wary look over the leg of a crab. “So if I wanted someone to show me around the island, would you do that?”

He shook his head.

“Because I’m a copper and you’re an islander? That’s so dumb.”

“It’s how it is,” he said.

“It’s dumb,” I repeated.

“Doesn’t matter if it’s dumb or not. It’s how it is.” There was no heat in his tone—he was just telling me the facts. The sea was wet, the sky was blue, and nobody here was ever going to be my friend.

It was crazy.

“So, like, historically ,” I said, “has bad shit gone down with the islanders and the police? Because with historically marginalised and disadvantaged communities?—”

“We’re not disadvantaged,” Natty said. “We just don’t like coppers.”

“I’m very likeable!” I insisted.

He rolled his eyes. “Not in that uniform.”

I snorted. “What about if I took it off?”

Natty dropped his crab leg into his plate with a clatter, and then found something very fascinating about it to stare at.

His hair curtained part of his face, but I could still see the flush rising on his cheeks, and I was caught between delight and regret.

Because yes ! Unless I was severely misreading that reaction, Natty thought I was cute.

But he was also clearly embarrassed by that, and I didn’t want to make him feel that way.

“Yeah, my naked arse might not win me many friends,” I said. “And I’d have to arrest myself, which would be awkward. How would I even fill out the charge sheet?”

His mouth quirked, and he looked up. “You’re an idiot.”

“Oh, guilty on that charge as well,” I said. “No contest. Straight to fucking prison.”

He rolled his eyes again, his smile widening, and warmth spread through me.

So maybe the rest of the islanders would hate me for the whole time I was here, and maybe Natty wouldn’t talk to me in public, but as long as we could be friends behind closed doors, that seemed like enough for now.

A gorgeous guy who thought I was cute and made me mudcrabs for lunch? There were worse ways to spend my days.

* * *

I wheeled the dirt bike out from behind the house after lunch and went for my first patrol of the island.

The sound of the engine starting was deafening, and I realised in that moment just how weird it was that there were no sounds of traffic on the island.

As I headed out of the village, leaving Natty working in the yard, I attracted more than one glare from someone in the street as I disturbed the peace.

There weren’t any proper roads on Dauntless, only dirt tracks that meandered in all different directions.

Some were wider than others, with wheel ruts instead of just a single track, and I followed one of these to a cluster of farmhouses in what had to be the centre of the island.

There were crops growing in the fields, and goats and chickens wandering in the unfenced areas between them.

There were cows too, the ones with black or brown patches over white, and bells around their necks that clanged when they took a step.

I caught sight of Robbie Finch lugging a couple of buckets.

I waved, but I wasn’t expecting him to put his buckets down and wave back, and I wasn’t surprised.

He stared at me warily, then nodded, and I figured that was about as friendly a greeting as I was going to get, so there was no point pushing my luck by stopping and trying to start a conversation.

I headed west, bumping over a narrow track dotted with clumps of grass.

On the western side of the island, beside a thin strip of beach, I found a couple of tin sheds that looked new.

A woman stepped out of one of them when she heard the dirt bike approaching, her red hair gleaming in the sunlight.

She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and yellow gumboots. She surprised me by smiling and waving.

“Hi,” she said, when I got off the bike and walked over to her. “I’m Amy. Amy Nesmith.”

“Red Joe’s sister and Baby Joe’s mum,” I said, pleased to be able to put the pieces together myself. I shook her hand, shocked that she’d offered it. “Dominic Miller. I’m the new police officer.”

“The uniform gives it away,” she said.

“Very good point.” I looked at the sheds. “What is it you do here?”

“Aquaculture,” she said. “Well, that’s the plan. I’m still starting up with the grant money I got, but hopefully we’ll go into production soon.” She pointed out past the beach to the ocean. “See those things sticking out of the water?”

“The nets?” I asked, squinting.

“They’re actually fences,” she said. “For our yellowtails. As soon as the ones inside are big enough, we’ll move them out there, and see how they go. We also want to move into crabs and prawns.”

She gave me a tour of the first shed, which was basically a series of shallow water tanks full of fish. A bearded guy who was almost definitely a serial killer glared at me from where he was doing something with a rake in one of the tanks.

“That’s Elias Dinsmore,” Amy said, and made no effort to introduce us.

Lucky, probably, because the guy looked like he wanted to wear my skin as a suit. I ignored him, and tried to learn some things about fish. Amy gave me the impression she could talk about the subject for hours, but most of the technical stuff went over my head.

“Catches have been down the last few seasons,” Amy said.

“Climate change, overfishing and a bunch of other things have all combined. The fishing industry needs to become environmentally sustainable but, more than that, here on Dauntless we have to eat. I hope that eventually we’ll get our production levels high enough that we can sell to the mainland, but in the meantime, I’d be happy to be producing enough that if our boats have a bad day, people will still have enough food on their tables. ”

I jolted at that. “Does that happen? People have to go without?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Not often, but sometimes the fisherman have to decide whether or not to sell their entire catch in Newcastle in the hope they can pay next month’s fuel bill for their boat, or bring some of it back here for the community.

” Her narrow brows tugged together. “It’s a dangerous job out there, and they do it seven days a week. ”

I might have thought it was a non sequitur, except for the sudden passion in her voice. I got the impression that Amy Nesmith wasn’t just about saving the environment, but maybe about saving the fishermen too—and not just from hard work.

In the sudden tension in the shed, I saw that Elias Dinsmore had put his rake down, and his murderous expression was now fixed on Amy. And was maybe even slightly less murderous? It was hard to tell.

I nodded. “Yeah, it can’t be an easy job.”

Amy let out a slow breath and squared her shoulders. “Anyway, that’s what we’re doing in here. It’s a bit of a mess at the moment, but hopefully soon we’ll be properly set up and start to turn a profit, and I can actually hire a few more people.”

We talked for a little longer, mostly about how gorgeous the island was, and how paradise was one thing, but so was the ability to order takeaway.

I figured that Amy knew exactly how isolated I was, so she let me prattle on for a bit before she had to go and deal with something fish-related and I continued my tour of the island.