Page 30 of Lawless (Dauntless Island #2)

I didn’t know enough about Robbie to agree or not, but I was glad to see Natty sticking up for him. If it wasn’t for Robbie, I’d be living a milkless existence.

Addy chattered on about a few more of the island’s residents while I drank my tea, Susan stared into space, and Natty looked in every direction except mine. Then Addy abruptly decided we were finished by standing up and swiping our mugs back before they were empty.

“Go on, then,” she said to Natty. “Daylight’s wasting.”

“You’ll be okay?” Natty asked, gaze darting to Susan.

“I brought a bunch of quilting squares,” Addy said. “Mum’s been at me for ages to do something with them, so me and Aunt Susan are going to work on them today.” Her expression softened. “We’ll be fine, Natty. I won’t let her out of my sight, I promise.”

She all but chased Natty out of the house, and I followed until we were both standing outside in the sunlight, and Addy was firmly shutting the door behind us.

“So, you’re working at the Finches’ farm today?”

Natty threw me a sideways look. “Yeah.” He drew a breath. “Thank you. For everything you did yesterday. I was going to come and see you, but...”

He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask him to in case I didn’t like his answer. “It’s okay. I was in the right place at the right time, that’s all.”

He started walking and I fell into step beside him. We didn’t head back to the harbour wall. Instead, we took what must have been a shortcut out of the village, ducking and weaving through the haphazardly placed sandstone cottages.

“Don’t you have work to do?” he asked me as we passed Mavis’s shop.

“I’m doing it,” I said. “I’m patrolling my beat.”

I got another sideways look, but it came with a flash of a smile that made my heart beat faster.

It was another gorgeous day. Dauntless Island seemed to have an abundance of those, which I could only assume was nature’s way of balancing the godawful personalities of its residents.

Wait, no. That was yesterday’s me. Today’s me was full of scones and had soup and prawns in his fridge.

Today’s me was an optimist. And, as I climbed the hill outside the village with Natty Harper at my side, I was feeling pretty optimistic about everything.

We crested the hill, and a plateau, patchworked with crops and fields and criss-crossed with little dirt tracks, opened up in front of us.

I turned around to look at the view of the village and the ocean.

To my left, the lighthouse rose up on a hill of its own, overlooking the cliffs on the southeasternmost point of the island.

The village was nestled in a curve of the coastline, the jetty jutting out into the sparkling water.

To my right, the western side of Dauntless vanished under a canopy of pine trees.

“I meant what I said,” Natty said as we continued walking. “About thanking you.”

The sunlight caught in his golden hair, and illuminated the perfect planes of his face, and I had sudden visions of him offering to thank me in the sort of way that would end up with me rolling around in the grass with him, both of us wearing nothing but fresh air.

It was one of those things that probably sounded great in theory until a spider bit you on the arse.

And then a sudden revelation of how wrong that would be hit me, and not just because of the spiders.

I wanted something with Natty that wasn’t transactional, weighted down with expectations on both sides, or hidden.

Jesus. I want something that doesn’t have to be a secret.

I shrugged. “I’m just glad I was in the right place to do something.”

“Yeah,” he said softly, and looked away for a moment. Then he stopped walking and turned to face me. “Dominic...”

He put a hand to my chest, and I didn’t stop him. He leaned in, and I didn’t stop that either, but when his lips came within a fraction of brushing against mine, I took a sharp step back, already regretting the flash of hurt I saw in his eyes. “That had better not be your thanks, Natty.”

His forehead creased. “It... it wasn’t.” He didn’t sound sure, but then he jutted out his chin and repeated it with more force. “It wasn’t .”

And right here was the moment I could have believed him—I did believe him—except that wasn’t the only thing bothering me about this weird situation we’d got tangled in. I wanted him, and he wanted me, but I also didn’t want to be his dirty little secret.

“I had a boyfriend, years ago,” I said. “Back in the academy. I believed him for months when he said he’d come out for me next time . Next time we went out with mates, next time we visited his parents’ place, next time someone asked if he was seeing anyone. And next time never came.”

“It’s not like that.”

“It’s exactly like that,” I said. “I know it’s not about your sexuality—it’s that you’re from Dauntless and I’m a copper, but it’s the same. I don’t do secret relationships, Natty, not anymore. I really like you. I’d like to hold your hand in public one day, you know?”

He looked as shocked as though I’d slapped him. “You didn’t say any of this before.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Because before, you were just the hot guy next door. But now I like you.”

He blinked. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” I said, a hollow vortex opening up inside me because I was torpedoing this thing with Natty.

Why had some stupid part of me decided to be honest about my feelings?

Self-respect was great and all, but I had a feeling that wasn’t going to be much consolation in the short term.

Or even later today, when I worked my way through my fridge eating my feelings. “ Oh .”

“I like you too,” Natty said, his eyes shining in the sunlight and his mouth twisted into an unhappy shape. “I do .”

And the fact he didn’t have anything to add to that summed it all up anyway, didn’t it?

His hand felt warmer against my chest than any touch had a right too, and then he pulled it away, his fingers twitching. There was a battle going on behind his eyes, but I already knew how it was going to end.

“Come on, let’s keep going,” I said with a fake smile I hoped would combat some of his misery at least a little. “You have places to be.”

We continued along the way to the Finches’ farm, and left my heart right where I’d dropped it, for the cows and goats to trample.

* * *

W hat a weird day.

I climbed the stairs to my living room, sat down, and took my boots off. Frank followed me and glared, clearly pissed off that she hadn’t been fed yet.

“I’ve had a strange day, Frank,” I told her.

“On one hand, I think more people said hello to me today than the entire rest of the time I’ve been here.

Granted, it was only about a dozen of them, but after being frozen out for so long, that felt like a lot .

So I should be a lot happier about it, right? ”

Frank mreeped.

“Except I also dumped Natty,” I said. “Can you dump someone when you’re not actually going out with them?

Anyway, whatever we had going on there, it’s done and dusted now.

And it just shits me to tears, because the people in this stupid fucking place are just starting to open up to me now—wow!

Great! Fantastic!—except obviously it’s never going to be enough that they’d accept I could date one of them.

” I let out a long breath as another thought hit me, and this one was even more depressing.

“Or maybe Natty just doesn’t like me as much as he says he does. Who the fuck knows?”

Frank mreeped again.

“Am I likeable, Frank?”

Frank stared.

“You were supposed to make some noise that I would take as sympathetic and encouraging.”

Frank continued to stare.

“Thanks for your support, Frank.” I pulled my socks off and paddled my bare feet against the floor. “Dinner time?”

Frank was downstairs like a shot.

I followed at a more sedate pace, enjoying the way the late afternoon sunlight was so very, very gold, turning the dust motes floating in the air into sparkles.

It made the house look magical. Sidenote: I needed to remember to dust. Sooner or later the bosses on the mainland would remember I was here, and I didn’t want a surprise inspection showing up my terrible housekeeping skills.

Things were winding down on Dauntless Island as the afternoon shifted slowly into evening—as I fed Frank, I could hear the horns of the boats on the harbour, signalling they were coming home.

There was a timeless sort of rhythm to the way the island operated, day in day out, unchanged for almost two centuries.

When you read the news, the rest of the world seemed like more and more of a clusterfuck every day.

There was no news on Dauntless Island—apart from whose goats were eating whose chives—and there was something very comforting about that.

A knock at the front door startled me, and when I went into the station foyer and opened the door I was surprised to see Red Joe Nesmith standing there.

“Hi!” Eddie leaned around from behind him.

“Hi.”

“It’s Saturday night,” Red Joe said. He tilted his head in the direction of the old church next door. “Everyone meets up on Saturday night.”

“I noticed,” I said.

He looked me up and down. “Hurry up and get changed then. You can’t come wearing that.”

Eddie elbowed him off the doorstep and into the garden bed. He beamed. “What Joe is trying to say is, ‘Please come to the church with us tonight and meet everyone properly, Dominic. It’ll be fun.’”

Fun? That seemed like it would be pushing my luck. But it wasn’t like I could refuse by admitting that my only plans for tonight were going on an imaginary talk show hosted by my cat. “Okay,” I said, my stomach doing a panicked somersault inside me. “I’ll go and get changed.”

“It’ll be fun!” Eddie called out once more as I headed up the stairs to change.

I wondered which one of us he was trying to convince by telling me twice.