Truly, Madly, Like Me - Jo Watson Page 0,53

bent down next to me and started pointing to the marks. “I would say these are from jumping over a wire fence, this looks like it’s a bite from another animal, this could be from a porcupine.”

“But there’re so many.” I stared at the map of lines on his belly.

“And I bet if I had to shave other parts of his body, you would find more. This guy has had a long, hard life. I think he might have lived out in the wild his entire life. Maybe he belonged to someone once, but he hasn’t belonged to anyone in a while.”

A tear rolled out my eye. I reached for his paw and he lifted it up to me.

“Still think he’s not your dog?” Samirah asked. I looked up at her and rolled my eyes.

“Perhaps it’s time to give him a real name now,” she said.

I heard Mark come up behind me now. “Yeah, you can’t keep calling him Cujo.”

“What should I call him?”

We all kept quiet for a while and then Samirah spoke.

“In Arabic, we have a boy’s name that comes to mind.”

“What?” I turned and looked at her.

“Harun. It means warrior lion. Fighter.”

I turned and looked at the big black dog on the floor. Full of the scars of a hard life lived and I couldn’t think of a better name to describe him.

“Hey, Harun,” I said, as I laid a hand on his big head.

Suddenly, his whole head lifted and he gave a feeble bark.

We all laughed. “That’s his name,” Mark said.

“That’s his name.” I agreed.

Samirah reached out and laid a hand on his nose, as if taking his temperature. “And it seems that Harun here has plans of his own.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, you can’t travel with him now. He needs some rest and recovery time. He’s going to be tender for a while and needs to be kept still and calm for a few days. So, I’m afraid you’re not getting away from us that easily.” She glanced at me and then her eyes drifted over to Mark and then back to me again.

“Oh,” I said flatly.

Samirah gave me another one of her guru-ish smiles with that mysterious twinkle she had going in those hypnotic green eyes of hers. Her eyes and smile that seemed privy to some kind of cosmic information that none of us were privy to. Like she was tapped into something that none of us saw. “Seems that someone is telling you to stay right here, aren’t they?”

I sighed. Something about that statement seemed right on some level. For the last few days it had felt like something had been pulling me in a weird direction I didn’t quite understand yet. From elevators, to here. I didn’t know what it all meant right now, but I was starting to think that it might actually mean something.

“You can come back in the morning to fetch him,” Samirah said, pulling a blanket over him. “I’d like to keep him here overnight just for observation.”

“I’ll come and fetch him with you,” Mark muttered.

“Oh, thanks,” I smiled at him appreciatively, “but I do have a car now.”

He shook his head. “I’d like to come and see how he’s doing anyway.”

My smile grew. He was nice. A nice guy. Only a nice guy would come here in the middle of the night to comfort a total stranger who had almost ruined his movie night with a shit show, so to speak.

I gave Harun’s paw a big squeeze and then stood up and eyeballed Samirah. “Take care of him tonight! Please.”

She nodded. “I’ll look after him as if he was my own,” she said, and I believed her. And then she turned to Mark. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to give Frankie a lift back to her hotel?”

“I can walk,” I said quickly. “It’s literally a few feet away.”

“I don’t know if you’re aware, but there seems to be a jackal on the loose. Perhaps it’s safer if Mark drives you.”

I smiled. I slowly raised my eyes to Mark’s. He was also smiling at me. We locked eyes and our smiles grew and then my cheeks felt like they were heating up. I put my cool hands to them and looked away, a strange feeling roiling in my stomach.

“I should defo give you a lift, what with the jackal on the prowl and all,” Mark said, and I could hear he was fighting back laughter in his voice.

“Defo?” I asked, feeling amused.

“Sorry, my Australian