Lover Beware

all accounts, she hadn’t taken too long to get over him, and was now happily married to a barrister in Auckland.
    Eyes narrowed, Michael surveyed the sky, which had turned leaden; the clouds churned and clotted, and were struck through with molten shafts of light as the sun dipped into the west. The air was thick with moisture and tasted like brimstone. After weeks of drought, there was going to be an unholy bitch of a storm, and the bad weather suited his mood.
    Michael went down on his haunches beside the guns, picked up the Ruger and examined the walnut stock. There was no evidence of a scratch, which meant Zane could live, although he wasn’t making any promises about Tucker. If he ever turned up on his property again in an official capacity, Michael was likely to put a hot round in his butt and the jail term be damned.
    Jaw tight, he began carting the guns and ammunition into the house and securing them in his gun safe. When he was finished, he took a shower, changed into fresh jeans and a T-shirt, and grabbed the keys to his truck. Jane’s driveway was situated a kilometre north on the main road, although as the crow flies her house was a lot closer, the walking distance from his house to hers, less than half that.
    He could walk over there now, but it was ingrained in him not to take that casual an approach. He’d always taken pains to keep his distance and preserve a certain formality in his dealings with both Jane and Patrick, unwilling to hurt a dying man, because he couldn’t keep his hands off Patrick O’Reilly’s wife, but right now he was too steamed to walk anywhere.
    When he drew up next to the O’Reilly cottage, the long extended twilight had condensed into early dusk, helped along by the thick mantle of cloud. All the lights were off in the house, and Jess was barking.
    Michael knocked on the front door. When there was no reply, he walked around the side of the house, his gaze brooding as he knocked on the kitchen door, then scanned the smoothly mown lawns, the neatly weeded vegetable garden, and the lush shrubbery. Jess was tied up, which meant Jane was out.
    He strolled over to the kennel and went down on his haunches beside the little dog. She whined and shoved her muzzle at his hand. He rubbed behind her ears. “At least you’re not afraid of me.”
    He had a strong suspicion that Jane was frightened out of her skin of him, and the way he felt right now, she should be.
    He did a quick circuit of the outbuildings, automatically testing the locks, the urge to check the security of the buildings ingrained. The O’Reilly place was, in stark contrast to his, as neat and tidy as a new pin. A small herd of southdown sheep grazed in the paddock adjacent to the house, their wool recently clipped. The fences and the stockyard were in good repair, and the barn had just had a fresh coat of paint. He checked her garage and saw that it was empty.
    Cursing beneath his breath, he thumped the side of the small weatherboard building. Damned if he’d leave without letting her know he’d been here. Jane had been avoiding him for days. The blank stare she’d given him in the car park outside the police station was the sum total of their interaction since he’d come back.
    He strode back to his truck, reached into the glove box, pulled out a pen, and ripped a sheet from his diary. Scribbling a note, he anchored the piece of paper on the doormat of the front door with a rock he found in the garden.
    It was hardly satisfactory, but it conveyed his message. He was finished with playing games. He’d waited seven years.
    As far as he was concerned that was seven years too long.
     
    JANE EDGED THE car into her garage. It was dark, the night moonless and overcast as she slung the strap of her handbag over her shoulder and hauled her bags of groceries out of the boot. Juggling the bags, she locked the car and the garage door, then trudged the short distance to the house and set the groceries down on the path while she went to let Jess off the leash.
    Jess strained at the collar, tail wagging as Jane struggled to unclip the leash. A wet tongue swiped across her face, then the clip came free, and Jess bounded off into the night, doing her customary tour of the grounds as Jane collected the groceries and mounted the steps to the verandah. As she set the groceries down, the pale luminescence of a piece of white paper caught her eye. She retrieved the note, and set the rock that had anchored it to the doormat to