‘Or maybe Cecil’s gotten all snooty you’re leaving, and that’s him protesting like the Vegan does.’He scratched at his ruddy chin.‘Come to think of it, he is a vegan, you know.’
‘What?’
‘And you two bonded, right?’
‘I did not bond with a buffalo.’But Cecil was blocking the middle of the tarmac sniffing at their jet.
‘You gave him flowers.’
‘I fed him flowers, so he didn’t lick me or do that heavy breathing in my ear, when he’d follow me to work like a labrador.Your brother told me that trick.’
‘But Billy didn’t tell you that all it takes is one flower, and you’re Cecil’s friend for life.’Mickey gave a wicked grin.
‘Nooo.’Her eyes widened.‘Did I get tricked into doing some unknown tribal marriage thingy to a buffalo?’
‘Got the memory of an elephant, that one.’The grumpy old man winked, the kind of wink you’d never trust.Like that grin.
It was enough for her to take a step back.‘How did Cecil get in here?You have a fence.’
‘He’s one of ‘em flaming Houdini buffaloes.Opens gates, doors, fridges too.I could never keep Cecil out.He likes to eat the wildflowers, and I reckon he licks the dew off the tarmac, like one big tongue scraper.’
‘Great.’Taryn grimaced.‘And what does Cecil use to floss?The windscreen wipers off a plane?’
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
It wasn’t the sleep deprivation.And it wasn’t the ridiculousness of chasing livestock off a small town’s runway.It was everything else.
Because she was leaving this town with all its quirks, this job, and that hint of a life that had somehow crawled under her skin and settled in like it belonged there.
And Finn Wilde hadn’t said a word.
She’d accepted that, because Finn didn’t say goodbye.They’d been here before.
He also didn’t want complications in his life right now.Not her, or the baby.
Which was fair, too.
She hadn’t exactly dropped the news gently.She’d hit him with it, mid-sting, mid-murder investigation, and mid-mentor-betrayed-him take-down, which kind of demolished everything he’d valued.
She had no right to judge Finn, not when she hadn’t even fully processed it yet, when denial had been doing a bang-up job about it all.
But she wasn’t running.Not this time.
She had a plan.
She’d rewritten her report, top to bottom.The one Drew had tried to manipulate.And she was going to take it straight to the top, even if she had to walk it into Parliament House herself, she would.The Stock Squad deserved permanent funding, and she would damn well make it happen.
So what if it cost her the promotion, and even if it cost her a second chance at whatever she may have with Finn and this town, it had to be done.
Besides, she had money saved, she had holidays accrued, because she never took them.Long service leave, too.Yes, she was a career cop who really had no life outside of the office.She also had maternity entitlements in a folder she’d updated the other day, even while struggling with denial, because she was that type of person.
She had spreadsheets.
Backup plans.
PowerPoint slides she could weaponise for court.
She could do this.
