Dash and Dingo Read Free Page B

anything that cast aspersions on his homeland, Dingo changed the subject, attracting attention in the noisy pub with his hoot of glee. “And you’re planning to just slip a leash over Tassie’s head and say ‘heel’ and expect him to follow along behind you all meek and mild. Dash, you are a one.”
    How was Dingo so successful at making him feel incompetent, Henry wondered, when they’d only known each other a few hours? “If Tassie’s as smart as you say, why not? A few days training, a little positive reinforcement… I shouldn’t wonder if Tassie, as you call him, wasn’t eating out of your hand by the end of the trip.”
    “Tearing my hand off, more like.” Dingo chuckled. “Have you seen those razor-sharp teeth in that crocodile mouth of theirs?”
    “Not personally.” Henry took a deep breath. “Have you?”
    Suddenly Dingo looked remote, as if he were reliving a distant and unspeakable sight. “Yeah.”
    “Alive?” Henry shivered, his objections to Dingo’s brash personality and habit of sweeping all before him melting away.
    Dingo glanced both ways with a secretive look. “I should swear you to silence, Dash.”
    “Why?”
    “There are some who want the tiger to die out, understand? They don’t take kindly to tales of sightings, and they don’t want a male to reach a zoo.
    Alive, anyway.” Dingo raised his glass and drained it, licking the foam from his mouth.
    Henry watched absently as the pink tongue traced over the well-cut lips.
    “They would try to stop us?”
    Dingo smiled at Henry’s use of the word “us,” seemingly binding them into a unit on this adventure. “If we tell everyone what we’re going into the bush for, yes.”
    “Then what are we going to say?”
    “That we’re going after diamonds,” Dingo whispered. He leaned back with a broad grin. “They’ll just think we’re crazy and pay us no attention.”
    “There are no diamonds in Australia,” Henry said.
    “There are, but not many, like South Africa,” Dingo said. He yawned suddenly. “Sorry. Been a long day. Maybe I should find a room.”
    Dash and Dingo: In Search of the Tasmanian Tiger | 13

    “You can stay here,” Henry said in a preoccupied voice. “It’s close by the college, and it’s a pretty decent inn.”
    “Meet me here for breakfast, and we’ll discuss our approach with old Lardarse,” Dingo invited.
    “Larwood,” Henry corrected automatically.
    Dingo rolled his eyes. “Don’t have much of a sense of humor, do you, Dash?”
    The mischievous grin that spread over Henry’s face made Dingo think perhaps he may have underestimated the other man.
    “I’ve as much of one as I’m going to need,” Henry said. “By the way, how much of what you say can I actually believe?”
    “What do you mean?” Dingo asked.
    “Those fearsome Aborigines you were telling Miss Winton about.”
    “Miss Winton?”
    “Diana. Lardar—Larwood’s secretary.”
    Dingo smiled at the memory of her. “Ahh, Diana.” His face then fell, and he had the grace to look a bit embarrassed. “Well, perhaps I like to embroider somewhat. Working in this business, you have to build yourself up a bit, you know?”
    “Really?” Henry asked drily.
    “Admit it,” Dingo said cheekily. “You were a bit nervous when I mentioned them, weren’t you?”
    “I might have been if I hadn’t done my research on Tasmania and found out that its last full-blooded Aborigine died there in 1878,” Henry said smugly. “Plus, I don’t really think there’s that much to fear from them.
    They’re only human after all, the same as us.”
    Dingo’s tongue made a brief appearance at the corner of his mouth as he looked at Henry thoughtfully. “Not much seems to get past you, does it, Dash?”
    “Henry,” the other man reminded him. “And no, it doesn’t.”
    Dingo grinned unabashedly. “That’s what I like.”

    14 | Catt Ford and Sean Kennedy

    With a shiver, Henry tossed his keys into the Indian brass bowl he kept on the