Finders Keepers Read online

  Finders Keepers

  N.R. Walker

  Copyright

  Cover Artist: Humble Nations

  Editor: Labyrinth Bound Edits

  Finders Keepers © 2018 N.R. Walker

  Publisher: BlueHeart Press

  All Rights Reserved:

  This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events or locales is coincidental.

  The Licensed Art Material is being used for illustrative purposes only.

  Trademarks:

  All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

  Warning

  Intended for an 18+ audience only. This book contains material that maybe offensive to some and is intended for a mature, adult audience. It contains graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations.

  Contents

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  Contact N.R. Walker

  Also by N.R. Walker

  Blurb

  Needing a change of scene, Griffin Burke moves from Brisbane to Coolum Beach to start a new job. The beautiful white sand, aqua-coloured ocean, blue skies, and summer breezes are everything he longs for. What he finds is a mud-covered dog, lost and hungry, with a nametag and a phone number.

  Dane Hughes is stuck in Surfers Paradise at a week-long work conference when he gets a phone call from his distraught mother. His dog, his fur baby, Wicket, has run away. Unable to leave and feeling helpless and miserable, he gets a text from a guy. “I think I found your dog…”

  Griffin and Dane start talking, and Griffin agrees to look after Wicket until Dane can collect him. With a few days left before his new job starts, Griffin takes Wicket on some coastal adventures and sends Dane photos of their fun, and so the start of something new and kind of wonderful begins.

  Griffin might have moved to Coolum in search of a new life, but what he finds is so much more. What he gets to keep just might take some four-legged help.

  Chapter One

  Griffin Burke

  Moving from Brisbane to Coolum Beach wasn’t exactly a hardship. I mean, Coolum was on the Sunshine Coast, which meant tropical beaches, warm breezes, and hot surfer dudes to ogle. And that was while I was at work.

  I hoped my days off would be much the same.

  I’d broken up with my boyfriend Nick, six months ago. It was an amicable split; we’d been best friends forever and took the plunge into boyfriend territory, and somewhere in our two years together, our spark had petered out to nothing more than a warm friendly glow. And he was still my friend, but there was a void now where our relationship had once been.

  I had an itch I couldn’t quite reach.

  But it wasn’t just Nick. It was everything. At twenty-four, our circle of friends was all focusing on careers, and our social lives had dwindled to a once or twice a month get together. We were all overworked and underpaid, too broke or tired to go out for drinks, all while trying to save every cent we made with little to no hope of breaking into the property market.

  There were jokes about Millennials and avocado toast, but I’m telling you. That shit is real.

  My job working at the front desk at the Stamford Plaza in Brisbane paid well, don’t get me wrong. But in the city, it wasn’t enough to get ahead on. I loved my job, and under the wing and watchful eye of Ludo, it had been a crash course in excellence and the highest of standards. He was a middle-aged Belgian man with a Dali-esque moustache and eagle eyes who, for reasons I couldn’t explain, had taken a liking to me. Maybe it was because I was the utmost professional; maybe he saw something in me. Maybe it was because we were the only two gay men on the front desk. Whatever the reason, I was grateful.

  He’d taught me well. So well, in fact, that I leapfrogged my co-workers to land in management. Ludo had said my demeanour and etiquette reminded him of those films of the Victorian era, and I, like some courtier, treated all hotel guests as if they were royalty. Not in a smarmy way as others did, but in a genuine way. And it was that honest integrity, he’d said, that would take me far.

  And he was right. It took me two hours north, to Coolum Beach Emporium, a five-star resort on the Sunshine Coast. My new job was the next step up for me, and it was Ludo’s professional recommendation that sealed my application. The truth was, if he didn’t get rid of me, I was, in all likelihood, next in line for his job. So, when I’d applied for a promotion elsewhere, he did what any self-serving, job-preserving person would do. He recommended me for the job, not for my benefit, but for his own. I didn’t blame him one bit.

  Because I soon figured out where that itch was.

  I had itchy feet.

  And I’m not talking about some gross fungal foot infection. It was a metaphorical itch that only a sea-change could scratch.

  I wanted more. I wanted a new life. I needed a change. I needed to move on, start over somewhere where the sun wasn’t blocked by skyscrapers and traffic congestion. My days of clubbing and one-night stands were well behind me. I wasn’t interested in that anymore. I wanted coffee in slow and friendly cafés, hikes in the mountains, sunsets over the beach.

  So when the position of front desk, second-level management at Coolum came up, I grabbed it with both hands.

  I packed up my tiny flat into a removalist truck, loaded up my car, and headed north. I’d found a one-bedroom place in Coolum, above some old lady’s house. Apparently, it had once been one big house, built with a self-contained apartment on the second floor for the owner’s parents. It had an open living area, small kitchen and bathroom, and my own laundry. There was even a balcony that overlooked the hinterland. At some point it had been closed off to the rest of the house, probably when the new owners realised the upstairs could be leased out to help supplement their home loan. But there was a yard, a lock-up garage, the greenest trees I’d ever seen hiding all the neighbours from view, and it sure as hell beat living in an apartment complex.

  Rent was cheap enough, given the terms of my lease agreement: for a reduced weekly rent, all I had to do was help the old lady downstairs out by mowing her lawn once a week. How hard could it be? I mean, I’d mown my parents’ lawn every week since I was a kid. The lawnmower was provided. I’d seen the yard on my rental inspection when I’d signed the lease. It’d take me thirty minutes, tops.

  Easy peasy.

  So I got all moved into my new place and had everything unpacked on day one. I’d met my downstairs landlady for the first time as the two bulky removalists were lugging my bed up the stairs. I was at the bottom of the stairs watching them, not entirely ogling, when a tiny, five-foot-tall woman stood beside me.

  She didn’t say anything for a while, just stared at the men straining to get the wooden bedhead up the flight of stairs. Still without looking at me, she hummed. “Nice arse.”

  I almost choked on my sip of water. “Uh…”

  “Don’t tell me you weren’t looking. I might be a little hard of hearing, but I ain’t blind.”

  Right then.

  I held out my hand. “Name�
��s Griffin Burke.”

  She shook my hand, and her hard, firm grip surprised me. She looked kind of frail at first, but then I noticed her tattoos. Her entire right arm was now a mottled, wrinkled mass of blue and coloured ink on sun-leathered skin. Given she looked to be in her seventies, she must have had a full sleeve done forty or fifty years ago.

  Jesus.

  “Bernice Warren.”

  She was wearing a sleeveless tank top and a flowing skirt. Upon closer inspection, she looked like a hippy that peace, love, and time forgot. Her face had seen too much sun as well, wrinkled and leathered, though I imagined she would have once been stunningly beautiful. Her blue eyes still had spark, her long hair, once blonde, was now ash grey.

  “Come with me,” she said, turning on her heel and walking toward the roller door. When she turned, I noticed her left arm. Old, mottled blue tattoos went to her elbow, as well as two scars that looked like lightning strikes. They looked surgical and my first thought was shoulder reconstruction, but then I noticed one scar ran underneath her shirt and up her neck. She turned the latch on the roller door, and using her right arm only, lifted the door to review a storage space. Inside was a lawnmower, wheelbarrow, and some gardening tools.

  Ah, right. I was the resident mower of lawns.

  “I’d do it myself,” she said. “But the old arm doesn’t work like it used to.” She lifted her left arm rigidly. It didn’t hang useless but there was definitely restricted movement.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I don’t mind mowing lawns at all. My weekends will be Monday and Tuesday though, not Saturday and Sunday. If that’s okay?”

  “It’s fine. Don’t much care what day you do ’em.” She nodded to herself. “Last tenant was a nice girl. Started out with good intentions, and she was gonna do all sorts of things to help me out, but that didn’t last long.” Bernice looked up at me and stared for a good long minute. “You’re not the churchgoing type, are you?”

  “Uh…”

  “I don’t mind if you are, I just don’t wanna offer you one of my special brownies and for you to totally hash out on me and start mumbling biblical shit at me every time you see me.”

  I fought a smile and lost, and I tried not to laugh but couldn’t help that either. “Not biblical. Not in that sense, anyway. Unless you consider my earlier staring at that guy’s arse a religion. As for the special brownies, I haven’t had any for a while. Not since college, anyway.”

  Bernice grinned and nodded slowly. “So you know what I mean when I say special brownie. Not like the last poor girl who thought it was my grandma’s special recipe or some shit.” She shook her head slowly. “Dunno what she was thinking. Do I look like Betty Fucking Crocker to you?”

  I barked out a laugh and was now pretty sure I knew why the real estate receptionist had given me an apologetic squint when she handed me the keys and offered a weak, “Good luck.”

  “No, you don’t. But I think you and I are gonna get along just fine.”

  “Good, good.” Bernice closed the roller door and gave me the low down on rubbish collection days, which neighbour was nice, and which was an arsehole. She didn’t have any issues with music, as long as I didn’t mind it either. She didn’t give a shit—her words, not mine—about pets, as long as I cleaned up after them, and as long as I didn’t cook meth or with too much garlic, we’d get along just fine.

  I liked her immediately.

  I told her how I’d moved from Brisbane and had a week before I started my new job. I explained I wanted to get to know the area first and find the best spots along the beach for swimming and hiking, and she gave me the ‘I’ve been here for forty years’ rundown. She told me where the locals swam, where they avoided. She told me which supermarket was the best, which café had the best coffee and the cutest baristas, and which bars to avoid during peak tourist season.

  So much for it taking me a week to find all that out for myself. I just got the true-local scoop in five minutes.

  I still spent the next few days checking it all out though. I wanted to familiarise myself with everything. Not just for me, but for any guests at the hotel who asked tourist-visitor questions. I found myself at the tourist information centre, asking a dozen questions and taking two dozen brochures. I drove all over the Sunshine Coast, visiting each town, walking the streets, and getting a feel for coastal living.

  The standard dress code of Coolum seemed to be board shorts, singlet tops, and thongs. It was a coastal town in permanent holiday mode. Kids rode pushbikes or skateboards holding surfboards, their skin sun-kissed and their hair bleached from too much time outside. Even the professionals, like real-estate agents and business owners, seemed to do things on holiday time. The summers were more humid than in Brisbane but the coastal breeze made it bearable. Palm trees and ferns grew out of every available space, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like I could breathe.

  This was exactly what I needed.

  Three days before I was to start my new job, I drove to the Coolum National Park and pulled into a spot. I grabbed my cap and backpack, double checked I had two bottles of water and gave myself a quick re-spray of insect repellent, locked my car, and set off on the walking trail.

  There was nothing quite like hiking in a rainforest. The sounds alone were amazing: cicadas and birds competing in some kind of symphony. And the smell of salt and damp earth was invigorating.

  According to the brochures and the internet, the hike starts out pretty easy but as the walk starts to climb Mount Coolum, it gets pretty intense. And they weren’t wrong. The track was uneven and steep, the exertion burning in my legs and lungs. I passed people coming back down as I went up, all smiling or with a ‘hi’ or ‘g’day,’ and after a kilometre or so, I reached the summit.

  The view was spectacular.

  I had a three-sixty view of the coast and the hinterland for miles. I took a bunch of photos and selfies, then sent them to my parents and my friends back in Brissy, and I even sent one to my sister. And before my sweat-soaked shirt could dry in the sweltering sun, I headed back down. I made it to the car park, panting and grinning to myself, and sat my arse down on the wooden picnic table in the shade, not far from my car, to catch my breath and let my legs recover.

  A small brownish dog came over to me and sat in front of me. He was cute and had a happy face. His pink tongue lolled out of his mouth, and he just sat there and stared. I looked around the car park, but no one seemed to be paying attention.

  “Hey there,” I said to him.

  I’m sure he smiled.

  “Where’re your parents?” I asked, then realised I was talking to a dog like he was some lost kid.

  He just sat there, smiling, tongue lolling.

  I took a long drink of my last water bottle, and the dog edged a little closer and licked his lips. “You thirsty?” I asked.

  I looked around the car park again and figured no one would be mad if I gave their dog a drink of water. So I cupped one hand in front of his face and poured what was left of my water into it, and the dog lapped at it eagerly until the bottle was drained.

  Poor little guy was thirsty.

  I looked around again, this time concerned. I mean, it was hot. It was summer. He shouldn’t have been left without water. Maybe someone wouldn’t be mad at me for giving their dog water, but I could be pissed at his owner for neglecting to do the same.

  But there was no one there.

  “Where’s your mum or dad?” I asked him again, giving his forehead a pat.

  He just smiled at me.

  “You’re a cute little thing, aren’t you.”

  His smile widened.

  I wanted to go hit the beach to let my muscles soak in saltwater for a bit, so I collected my bag and walked to my car. The dog followed. Again, I looked around to see if anyone was watching. I couldn’t see any people, but there were cars and maybe his owners were hiking. Maybe they’d be back any minute.

  Convincing myself that was the case, I said goodbye to my n
ew four-legged friend and got in my car. I cranked up the air conditioning and reversed out, and when I looked up, I saw he’d sat down, watching me with a sad face as I drove away.

  I frowned all the way to the beach. But as soon as those aqua-coloured waves came into view, I forgot about the dog and walked into the ocean. I swam for a bit and the cool water soothed my body and cleared my mind. There sure was something medicinal about saltwater.

  I dried off and went home, starving hungry, and didn’t give that dog one more thought until the next day when I was hoping to do the hike again. It had rained during the night and the path to the top of Mount Coolum was closed. Impassable from wet-weather the sign said, and I remembered reading online that after rain, the trail was closed. I sat in my car wondering if I should find another hiking trail or just go straight to the beach when I saw him.

  The little brownish dog was now a whole lot more brown, straggly and wet. He sat near the picnic table where I’d given him a drink of water the day before, just watching me.

  I opened the door and got out. Not really knowing what I was going to do with him, but I sure as hell wasn’t leaving him here. He’d clearly spent the night in the rain, alone, with no food, and most likely scared as hell. I thought he was going to bolt, so I crouched down near my open car door and patted my knee. “Here, boy,” I said, trying not to sound or look threatening.

  He took off all right, but not away from me. He ran straight toward me, darted around my legs, and jumped into my car.