Aunt Margaret’s dogs hadn’t bothered to bark as he rode up the drive, single headlight bouncing across the veranda. Way too wired for sleep, he’d lain in bed imagining Liv in his arms. Her softness. Her scent. The way she felt beneath him… A sharp tattoo on the door woke him. “Hey, stop-out. You gonna sleep all day? It’s almost eight.” Eight? Owen threw back the covers. Last time he’d looked at the clock it had been five and he’d debated getting up. After the fastest shower on record, he’d slung his helmet and jacket over his arm and made a grab for Mark’s toast as he left the house at a sprint. Now, two hours later, he was stuck in a snarl of crawling traffic on the Freeway uptrack and he was so pissed off with tunnel maintenance and orange-flashing delay signs it was an effort not to swing the ute into the emergency lane and plant his foot. He checked the rearview mirror. Liv’s Ducati and the new ex-police BMW 2003 cruiser were roped in the back. Behind them, the mirror filled with cars and trucks snaking back as far as he could see.
