Page 6 of Catch of a Lifetime
Jerry whooped. “Quad bike and a trailer.”
I shook my head. “Quad bike, yes. Trailer, no. Even if we could heave him up onto it in the first place, which we’ve already established we can’t, a trailer will be too wide, like the cars. And too long. It definitely won’t be able to take the narrow turns.”
After a thoughtful minute, Jerry shrugged. “We tie a rope around his tail and we drag him.”
“Jerry. You complain enough about what the road does to your piece of shit Land Rover. Think about what it will do to Dave. It’ll shred him. He’s already…lookat him.” My voice broke.
“My car isn’t shit, it’s vintage, the road won’t shred him because it’s asphalt, not rocks, and obviously I meant drag him on a tarp or something. All right?”
“Okay. Quad bike and tarp. Um. You have either of those hanging around? Because I don’t.”
“I know a guy.”
Of course he did. Jerry knew everyone.
“Who’s the guy?”
“Johnson. Sheep and a few head of dairy, up over Millburn way. ‘Bout twenty minutes, give or take.”
I wanted Davehome. “Do you know anyone closer?”
“No one who owes me a favour, I don’t.” Jerry whipped out his giant iPhone in its bright yellow case that matched his wellies. “I’ll give him a call.”
I hated the idea of dragging Dave behind a quad bike like a dead deer or something, but if I wanted to get him home and safe, it was our best bet.
His breathing was short, the broad span of his ribs rising and falling much quicker than usual. While I’d never taken his pulse before today, I’d logged many hours lying on him, being lifted and lowered with each inhalation and exhalation and I knew that, at least on land, he breathed once a minute. Twice if he’d been working hard.
Now, he was breathing at a rate that would be normal for a human, and his pulse was going at a rate that would be normal for a hamster.
I couldn’t hold back the worried whine that slipped out of me. I felt so helpless.
I’d spent years worrying about him coming back to me. I’d focused mostly on whether or not he had the will to do it, not whether or not hecould.
It seemed laughably short-sighted of me.
Jerry was talking loudly in the background but I didn’t pay enough attention to make sense of the words. He’d get us a quad bike and a tarp, I knew it. And if for some reason he couldn’t, I’d drive to the nearest dealer and buy one.
No, I’d give Jerry my credit card and make him go.
I wasn’t going to leave Dave. Not for a single second.
Jerry finished his call and turned to me. “Right. I’m gonna go pick it up. Got Johnson’s ATV for the afternoon. He doesn’t have a tarp I can borrow and it’s a fair bit out of the way but I can swing by the harbour.”
I blinked at him.
“Got plenty of nets on theMary Jane,” he explained.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Come on, it’s perfect.”
“No! He hates nets! You know he does! He destroyed three of my hammocks before—” I broke off and snapped my fingers. “Hammock.”
“Hammock,” Jerry said at the same time, pointing at me.
Back in the courting phase of our relationship, by which I mean back when Dave was stalking me, he’d come upon me lounging in my hammock in the back garden on a glorious summer afternoon.
One moment I was swinging there lazily, the next thing I knew, he was crossing the lawn at a full sprint, fangs dropped and snarling like a tiger. He snatched me out of the hammock and tore the thing apart with his bare hands.
