Dash and Dingo Read Free

tipped back his head and laughed heartily.
    Henry eyed him suspiciously. “Quite frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
    “For heaven’s sake, Henry,” Larwood finally spoke up. “You heard me introduce him as Jack Chambers.”
    “I’ve been Dingo longer than I’ve been Jack,” Dingo said abruptly.
    “Well, no doubt you two have a lot to discuss,” Larwood said
    hopefully. “Why don’t you take Mr.… er… Dingo, to your office, Henry?”
    “Professor Larwood, I was hoping to—” Henry started.
    “Right, that we do.” Dingo scooped his hat from the floor and clapped it onto his head. He grabbed Larwood’s hand and pumped it heartily. “Thanks for the nice welcome, mate, and I’ve no doubt we’ll be meeting again as soon as Dash here and I finalize our plans.”
    “Wait, we can’t just—” Henry protested.
    “Sure we can,” Dingo said cheerfully. He grabbed Henry’s bicep and dragged him to the door. “We should get to know each other better. We’ll be spending a lot time together, and it’s a trial to be out in the bush with a man you can’t get on with.”
    Henry looked back pleadingly at Larwood over his shoulder, and the older man shrugged philosophically, but a tiny smile played over his lips.
    Henry imagined that Larwood was thinking “rather you than me” as Henry was hauled from the room, feeling Dingo’s fingers squeeze his arm as if assessing how much muscle he had.
    In the anteroom, Dingo released him to smirk engagingly at Diana, saying, “Thanks for the cuppa earlier, Miss Winton. Warms a man’s bones on these nippy days.”
    “Diana, please call me Diana,” the usually unapproachable Miss Winton purred, practically melting under the sun of Dingo’s smile.
    Dash and Dingo: In Search of the Tasmanian Tiger | 9

    “The name of a goddess too,” Dingo said admiringly. “Huntress of the moon. You’ve got the look of her. Saw a statue once, in Rome.”
    Henry seethed as Diana’s slender figure seemed to shiver with delight at the broad compliments, although he wasn’t certain what ticked him off more, her reaction or Dingo’s easy confidence in his own powers of attraction.
    “Will we be seeing you again, Mr. Chambers?” Diana tried to seem nonchalant as she asked.
    Dingo winked at her. “Try and keep me away. Although Dash here,” he clapped Henry on the back, nearly sending him staggering awkwardly toward the door, “and I have a lot to discuss about our expedition.”
    Thrilled, Diana’s eyes opened wide. “Where are you going?”
    Leaning closer, Dingo confided, “Deep into the wilds of Tasmania. It’s a dangerous country, full of snakes, spiders, and wild animals. And the Aborigines; a savage lot they are. We may never be seen alive again.”
    “You—and Henry ?” Diana emitted a dainty trill of laughter.
    Henry glared at her, clutching his satchel under his arm. What was so funny about the thought of him in Australia? Not that he’d agreed to go anywhere with this crazy colonist, and as soon as he got him alone, he would tell him so. And of course, he didn’t much like the sound of those spiders.
    “Why, don’t you think Dash has what it takes?” Dingo turned to glance at Henry and something about his laughing face made Henry want to hit him.
    And he wasn’t a violent man.
    “Why do you keep calling him Dash?” Diana leaned her chin on her hand, prepared to be enthralled with Dingo’s answer.
    “Why, it’s that fine, fancy, double-barreled last name of his, isn’t it?”
    Dingo laughed. “Percival Dash Smythe. Too much to mouth over every time.
    We Aussies like to cut to the meat of things.”
    “Dash.” Diana giggled when she said it, but her gaze was newly speculative when she looked at Henry.
    Dingo turned to hoist a well-worn bag to his shoulder from where it leaned against the wall and hooked his arm through Henry’s. “Come on then, Dash. You’re wasting this pretty lady’s time, standing here flirting with her.”
    “Me?”