Nikki and the Lone Wolf / Mardie and the City Surgeon: Nikki and the Lone Wolf / Mardie and the City Surgeon

When Gabe woke again the sun was sinking low behind Black Mountain. He’d slept the whole day?

His head felt great. He felt great all over. He was relaxed and warm and filled with a sense of well-being he hadn’t felt since … who knew?

He rolled lazily onto his side and gazed out of the window.

And froze.

For a moment he thought he was dreaming. There was a woman in the garden, her back to him, crouched over a pile of stones. Sorting.

A dog lay by her side, big and shaggy.

Nikki and Horse.

Nikki held up a stone, inspected it, said something to Horse, then shifted so she could place it into the unfinished stretch of stone wall.

He felt as if the oxygen was being sucked from the room.

A memory blasting back …

His mother, crouched over the stones, the wall so close to finished. Thin, drawn, exhausted. Setting down her last stone. Weeping. Hugging him.

‘I can’t …’

‘Mum, what’s wrong?’

‘I’m so tired. Gabe, very soon I’ll need to go to sleep.’ But using a voice that said this wasn’t a normal sleep she was talking about.

Then … desolation.

His father afterwards, kicking stones, kicking everything. His mother’s old dog, yelping, running for the cover Gabe could never find.

‘Dad, could we finish the wall?’ It had taken a month to find the courage to ask.

‘It’s finished.’ A sharp blow across his head. ‘Don’t you understand, boy, it’s finished.’

He understood it now. Nikki had to understand it, too.

People hurt. You didn’t try and interfere. Unless there was trouble you let people be and they let you be. You didn’t try and change things.

He should have put it in the tenancy agreement.

Stone wall building was weirdly satisfying on all sorts of levels.

She’d always loved puzzles, as she’d loved building things. To transform a pile of stones into a wall as magnificent as this …

Wide stones had been set into the earth to form the base, then irregular stones piled higher and higher, two outer levels with small stones between. Wider stones were layed crosswise over both sides every foot or so, binding both sides together. No stone was the same. Each position was carefully assessed, each stone considered from all angles. Tried. Tried again. As she was doing now.

She’d set eight stones in an hour and was feeling as if she’d achieved something amazing.

This could be a whole new hobby, she thought. She could finish the wall.

Horse lay by her side, dozy but watchful, warm in the afternoon sunshine. Every now and then he cast a doubtful glance towards the beach but she’d fashioned a tie from the curtain cords, she had him tethered and she talked to him as she worked.

‘I know. You loved him but he rejected you. You and me both. Jonathan and your scum-bag owner. Broken hearts club, that’s us. We need a plan to get over it. I’m not sure what our plan should be, but while we’re waiting for something to occur this isn’t bad.’ She held up a stone. ‘You think this’ll fit?’

The dog cocked his head; seemed to consider.

The pain that had clenched in her chest for months eased a little. Unknotted in the sharing, and in the work.

She would have liked to be a builder.

She thought suddenly of a long ago careers exhibition. At sixteen she’d been unsure of what she wanted to do. She’d gone to the career exhibition with school and almost the first display was a carpenter, working on a delicate coffee table. While other students moved from one display to the next, she stopped, entranced.

After half an hour he’d invited her to help, and she’d stayed with him until her teachers came to find her.

‘I’ll need to get an apprenticeship to be a carpenter,’ she’d told her father the next time she’d seen him, breathless with certainty that she’d found her calling.

But her father was due to catch the dawn flight to New York. He’d scheduled two hours’ quality time with his daughter and he didn’t intend wasting it on nonsense.

‘Of course society needs builders, but for you, my girl, with your brains, the sky’s the limit. We’ll get you into Law—Oxford? Cambridge?’

Even her chosen engineering degree had met with combined parental disapproval, even though it was specialist engineering leading to a massive salary. But here, now … She remembered that long ago urge to build things, to create.

Air conditioning systems didn’t compare. Endless plans.

Another stone … This was so difficult. It had to be perfect.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

She managed to suppress a yelp, but only just. Gabe was dressed again, in jeans and T-shirt. He’d come up behind her. His face was like thunder, his voice was dripping ice.

He was blocking her sun. Even Horse backed and whimpered.

The sheer power of the man … the anger …

It was as much as she could do not to back and run.

Not her style, she thought grimly. This man had her totally disconcerted but whimpering was never an option. ‘I thought I’d try and do some …’ she faltered.

‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t you want it finished? I thought … I’ve been reading the books from your living room.’

‘You’ve been reading my mother’s books?’

Uh-oh. She’d desecrated a shrine?

‘I’m sorry. I …’