The Dog Sitter: The new feel-good romantic comedy of 2021 from the bestselling author of The Wedding Date!

by Zara Stoneley

  ‘Since dawn!’ I hiccup.

  ‘Oh no, oh, you do love your animals, don’t you, Becky? She was so upset when she was little if anything happened to one of the dogs, a thorn in a paw and she’d be distraught, bandaging it up and calling the emergency services.’

  ‘I did not!’ I discover I am capable of stopping the tears. ‘You exaggerate so much!’

  ‘No, she doesn’t,’ says Abby. ‘You can be so drippy.’ But when I glance at her she’s got the daftest of smiles on her face, which nearly sets me off again. Instead I disentangle myself from Mum and go to hug her.

  ‘Eurgh no!’ she yells, backing off. ‘The state of you, honestly Becs, have you been mud wrestling or something?’ Then she looks over my shoulder. Ash chuckles and my cheeks burn.

  ‘No, I haven’t!’

  She grins. ‘Would quite understand if you had.’ Then she mouths the word ‘buff’ at me and does a tiny thumbs-up. Ed, who is standing next to her, laughs. I’ve never heard him laugh like that before, he’s usually pretty stuffy and doesn’t say much. I only love him because Abby does, and I trust her judgement.

  ‘Shut up Abby! This is Ash by the way.’

  ‘Ahh, I thought it must be. The dog-napper!’

  ‘Abby!’ I need a hole to open up so that I can fall into it.

  ‘Really? You’ve told your family I’m a dog-napper?’ Ash drawls.

  ‘Only Abby, although they do all know now.’

  He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t look cross. ‘Ash, this is my mum, dad, Abby, her fiancé Ed, and, oh, and Daniel.’ My jaw drops at the sight of my brother, who I really wasn’t expecting at all. ‘You came!’

  ‘How could I miss something like this?’ He chuckles, and it reminds me of chubby baby brother Daniel. Before he became serious over-achiever hot-shot Daniel, the barrister who I never saw because he was too busy and important.

  Maybe he never has been too busy and important. Maybe that bit has been in my head.

  I grin at him. We’ve never been big on hugging each other. He gives me a thumbs-up too. ‘This family would be so boring without you, Becs!’

  ‘Daniel!’ shouts Mum, and Dad just chuckles.

  I look from one to the other of them. ‘But you’re all early! Way early. You aren’t supposed to be here for hours.’

  ‘I know, isn’t it, er, fabulous?’ says Mum. ‘We thought we’d set off early and beat the traffic.’

  Abby sniggers. Dad grins. But it is Daniel who actually laughs properly.

  ‘Only you, Becs, only you could invite us over for a party and arrive last, caked in mud.’

  ‘Well, actually I didn’t invite any of you, Mum did.’

  ‘And a jolly good thing I did, or we’d all miss out on seeing this fabulous place, and your lovely boyfriend and ador—’ She stops herself, staring at Bella, who is now trying to jump up at her. ‘And the dog.’

  ‘Do you want me to hose it down?’

  ‘Yes, Daniel, I’d love you to hose her down, but she likes warm water and soap suds.’

  ‘Bit of a princess eh? Not like you at all then!’

  ‘And you’ll need to blow dry her.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

  ‘Oh no, you offered!’

  ‘I’ll help,’ Ed unexpectedly chips in. ‘As long as there’s a beer in it.’

  ‘And we can talk about the wedding!’ Mum chips in, which explains why Ed and Daniel are so keen to wash dogs. They saw this coming, In fact, from the look on their faces, they heard it all the way over in the car.

  ‘Cooeee, is anybody in?’

  We all turn around. A vision in pink and black is walking up the driveway, followed by a man staggering along under a big box, with what looks like a camera bag slung over his shoulder.

  ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘Don’t swear, Becky!’

  ‘Expecting somebody else?’ Ash asks, raising an eyebrow, humour in his voice.

  ‘I thought I heard voices,’ says the girl, smiling broadly at each of us in turn. ‘Sorry we’re a bit late!’

  I glance at my watch. It is 11 a.m. How can it be that time already?

  ‘HappyDogzDinnerzzz, I presume?’ I feel a bit light-headed. I want to scream ‘Go away!’ but I am remarkably restrained. I smile.

  ‘Spot on!’ the woman says, pointing at her chest. The name is emblazoned across her T-shirt in gold. How did I miss that?

  ‘I don’t think we’re in a fit state.’

  She suddenly spots Bella and beams, then starts to laugh. ‘Well, we do like natural! No additives.’

  ‘No, no way, no, no, no – Georgina will kill me if you take a single picture of her baby looking like this!’ I grab Bella, cover her head with one hand and hang on as she starts to wriggle like mad, splattering me with even more mud, if that’s possible. ‘I need to bath her first!’

  I look down at her, and she gazes straight back at me with her gorgeous big round tawny-brown eyes. She’s happy, but she’s tired. She’s been out all night, on her own, scared and hungry. I know exactly what I need to do.

  ‘Look, I don’t know how far you’ve come, but you really will have to go.’ Georgina will sack me. But right now, I don’t care. I am a bit shocked to find I have a firm edge to my tone, rather than an apologetic or embarrassed one though. Maybe I’m getting better at this ‘doing things my way’ thing. ‘She’s had a traumatic night, and she needs food and a good sleep.’ I think she might have had food. Ash reckoned there was half a pack of ham, a rabbit stew and a good portion of carrots missing. ‘You’ll have to come back another day.’

  ‘Stop for a canape and some bubbly though if you like!’ Mum says.

  ‘I’ll go, if everything’s in hand?’ Ash’s voice is soft in my ear, but somehow bat-ears Mum hears.

  ‘Oh no, you have got to stay! He’s got to stay, hasn’t he Abby? You sound so interesting. I need to get to the bottom of this dog-napping thing!’

  I look at him. ‘You don’t have to; I wouldn’t inflict my mum and her interrogation techniques on anybody.’

  He shrugs and grins. His dimples deepen. He really does suit the mud-splattered, not-shaved-for-a-few-days look. ‘I’ve suffered worse.’

  ‘You think?’

  His chuckle sends a tremor straight between my thighs.

  ‘Now go on you two, go and get a shower while the boys bath the dogs, and I’ll get the food out of the car. I think we should crack the champagne open at twelve, don’t you?’

  It’s a bit embarrassing, ‘going to get a shower’ with Ash, on my mother’s instructions. But we decide to do it anyway.

  ‘My goodness, this place is idyllic, Becky. Aren’t you clever, finding it?’ Mum is happy. She has laid her food out on the table on the terrace, picked some flowers from the garden for the vase, supervised the baths for the dogs, and ‘organised Dad’. I think that means she sent him on an errand into the pantry to find the few bits she’d ‘forgotten’. Mum doesn’t forget anything, but she’s very good at finding things for people to do. ‘Busy hands make happy hearts’ was one of her sayings when we were younger, which made me and Abby snigger and wriggle our fingers about suggestively when we got to a certain age. ‘You two have got filthy minds’ was always Daniel’s retort, before he’d stick his head back in a boring book.

  ‘Isn’t she clever?’ she asks Ash.

  He smiles. ‘Very, it’s wonderful.’ He sits back, quiet, but totally relaxed with my family.

  ‘Such an amazing view! And it has inspired you, hasn’t it, Becky?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Oh, those pictures are adorable! That flying unicorn!’

  ‘Pony. You’ve been looking in my study?’

  ‘Of course I have! You don’t often give me the opportunity; very secretive, she is,’ she says as an aside to Ash. ‘Has she shown you them?’ She doesn’t give him time to reply. ‘So much better than that dry stuff you did when you were with that Teddy boy. He drained you, didn’t he?’ I nod, speechless. ‘He was so possessive
—’ she directs that at Ash ‘—couldn’t cope with the competition of family, could he?’ She smiles back at me, squeezing my hand. I’d never thought about it like that. ‘And that painting of the lake! Oh, my goodness me, Becky you are a clever girl. The way you did the water, and that lovely little boat place. Your grandfather would have been over the moon.’

  ‘Grandad?’ My grandparents died when I was young. Daniel, Abby and I never really knew them that well. We had hazy memories of sitting on the beach with them, of being served tinned potatoes and peas, of special lemonade, and of ice-creams and donkeys. But how many of the memories were real, and how many we re-imagined as we looked at photographs, I’m not sure.

  ‘Oh yes, pour the bubbly, dear!’ Dad uncorks the bottle on command and smiles at me. ‘Oh, your grandad was quite the artist, wasn’t he?’

  Dad nods. ‘He was very keen, sad when his eyesight went like it did.’

  ‘He always said he wished he’d followed his heart earlier and done more, too late when you’re dead he used to say.’ She pauses for a moment. ‘He was one of a kind, was Dad.’ She studies me, strangely silent for a moment. Mum isn’t one for silences. ‘You’re like him, you know. He would have been so proud of you, love, over the moon.’ She sighs. ‘He did love this part of the world. We used to bring him here for the day, and he’d set up a little easel down by the water. He’ll be looking down on you and overjoyed that you followed your heart and did that art degree. He told me to encourage all of you to do what you really wanted, he said it was braver to follow your gut, than follow the money. Although he did also say that an empty bank account meant an empty gut and sometimes a broken heart, so who was he to say?’

  ‘I didn’t think anybody in our family painted!’

  ‘Well, not seriously, Becky. Not like you have as a career. Try that couscous, I put some mint in it.’ She fusses around for a moment, then settles back in her chair. ‘Have you seen that picture of the lake she’s done, Ash?’

  He nods. ‘It’s very good.’

  ‘I knew you’d appreciate it, not like that silly boy she went out with before. He was all modern stuff, straight lines and deep meaning.’ She says ‘meaning’ as though it’s a dirty word, and it makes me smile. ‘Honestly, talk about the emperor’s new clothes, who on earth wants to look at pictures they don’t understand? I think you should have put a boat in it though Becky, not that I’m interfering or anything, but people like boats. Don’t you think? It might sell better.’

  ‘Oh Mum.’ Abby laughs. ‘Have another drink and shut up.’

  ‘I don’t want to sell it,’ I say softly.

  But Ash is studying me silently and his look says it all. People do like boats. Sitting on the lake with him in the middle of nowhere – our own little island – had been the place he’d finally decided he could show me a deeper part of the real him.

  ‘She’s right,’ says Daniel. ‘The one thing I really remember about coming here, is the boats. These sausage rolls are weird, Mum.’

  ‘You just remember the boats, not the gingerbread?’ asks Abby.

  I grin, and so does Ash.

  ‘Oh, you sod! You told him about pushing me in the river!’

  ‘That’s enough, children! And they are not weird Daniel, it’s a recipe I got from the TV, though I hadn’t got smoked paprika so I put chilli powder and turmeric in – they’re the same colour if you mix them together.’

  He rolls his eyes. ‘It’s about taste, not colour!’

  ‘Says the boy who grew up putting tomato ketchup on absolutely everything!’

  Abby slips her arm through mine, leans her head on my shoulder like she did when we were younger and shared secrets. ‘I like him,’ she whispers.

  ‘So do I,’ I whisper back.

  ‘I’ve always been jealous of you, big sis. I wanted to be the creative, daring one instead of the predictable boring sister, but you’ve really done it this time!’

  ‘I have?’

  ‘Phew, yes, I mean look at him!’ She spells it out slowly, word by word. ‘And all this, the pictures… dog… this place. It is so you.’

  ‘I’m going home soon!’

  ‘Yeah? You sure that’s what you want?’

  For a moment our gazes lock, and I know she’s searching my face for an honest answer. I don’t respond, because I can’t. I’m not sure I want to go home. Where is home? I’ve had the best time ever since I’ve been here. It’s an amazing place, better than I could ever have imagined when I hit submit on that house-sitting site. I’ve never for one single second felt out of place, like I don’t belong here.

  And I’ve met a man who makes my pulse race in a way nobody else has ever done. A man who believes in me, a man who makes me feel safe.

  I thought I belonged in the city, in my cramped flat, with my hectic lifestyle.

  I thought all I wanted from Ash was a fling and some fun.

  ‘Sausage roll? They’re disgusting by the way!’ Dan, a sausage roll in each hand, plonks himself between us, just like he used to do when we were kids.

  ‘Oh, you are cheeky!’ Mum lobs one at him, scoring a direct hit on his nose. Not at all what she used to do when we were children. Or ever.

  This place has a very funny effect on people.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It is late by the time everybody goes. I wander back round to the terrace, stand and take in a deep breath of pure air, then smile at Ash.

  Abby’s question pops back into my head. Am I sure about what I want?

  ‘I spotted a nice red wine in the utility room. Fancy a glass?’ He pads into the house in his bare feet and Bella follows close behind. He comes back with glasses and a bottle. ‘I’ve left her in her basket to chill, she’s worn out.’ Then we wander down the lawn without even discussing it and settle on the grassy bank where you get the best view of where the boathouse used to be.

  Our shoulders are touching.

  I feel like he’s a buddy, somebody who I can rely on, a man who’ll always have my back. It’s the most comfortable I’ve felt with anybody ever, apart from with Mum, that is – when I was young, and she’d fold me into her arms, read me a story and tell me that yes, I could be that princess, I could be anybody I wanted to be.

  ‘Thanks, for everything. For finding Bella, for staying.’

  ‘I told you, it was teamwork! They’re nice, your family. I didn’t expect them to be quite that chilled to be honest.’

  ‘Nor did I. To be honest.’ I smile back at him. ‘It must be this place.’ I take a sip of my wine. It’s warm and fruity. ‘They’re always hyper busy doing important stuff. Abby’s a solicitor like Dad, and Daniel’s a barrister.’

  ‘Smart family.’

  ‘And I’m the odd one out.’ I pull a goofy face.

  ‘Definitely odd.’ He chuckles, that sound that never fails to make me feel happy inside. His arm has somehow found its way over my shoulder. He squeezes.

  I’m beginning to wonder if a lot of being the misfit is in my head though. Today has been good. Today, here, in this wonderful place it was like back when we were kids. Competitive, but in a healthy, not destructive, way. It has reminded me how much I love them. All of them.

  ‘Hey.’ He’s put his wine down and reaches over, placing his hand over mine. I freeze, not quite sure if this is good or bad. ‘You’re different, not odd, you know. Different is good.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘I know.’ He kisses the top of my head, then rests his chin there.

  This seems very good. I think. I clear my throat and try not to think about just how close he is, and what it could mean. ‘Mum never told me that Grandad used to paint.’

  ‘They’re proud of you.’

  I play with the blades of grass. ‘I know. But they’ve never said so before.’

  He shifts sideways slightly, so I can see his gorgeous face. His serious, steady gaze. ‘People don’t always. Do they? Say, I mean.’

  ‘But sometimes you need them to. I was sometimes a
bit jealous of Daniel and Abby, the perfect children.’

  ‘Unlike you, the little tearaway?’ He grins, but it’s not his normal full-bodied, cheeky grin, there’s a gentleness in it.

  ‘You know what I mean. They met all the expectations.’

  ‘You’ve done what you truly wanted, what you believed in, not what you thought other people wanted you to.’

  ‘Not entirely, I’ve gone off-piste a bit now and then, trying to please other people and believing they know best.’ Like bloody Teddy. Honestly, I feel more of an idiot for not realising he was controlling me like he was, than I do about the fact that he didn’t really fancy me at all.

  ‘But not for fame and glory?’

  ‘Oh no.’ I laugh. ‘I’ve always felt I was the one who couldn’t even get a proper job, let alone a house or a husband.’

  ‘Do you want any of those?’ His voice is soft.

  ‘I’d like a house, a home, like this.’ I gaze over the still water. ‘I bet you miss this place. I mean, I know you’ve got your camper van, and it’s lovely and…’ He must have felt like he was living in a different world when he was here with Georgina.

  ‘Small, and hidden in a glade?’

  ‘Yeah. But it is cute. But…’ I wave a hand. ‘All this.’

  ‘I do miss it.’ His half smile is wry and he settles back, propping himself up on one elbow. ‘More than you can possibly imagine.’

  ‘Tell me about the boathouse. If you want to, that is.’

  ‘You know how you laughed when I told you that boat you borrowed was called Ginny?’

  He’s changing the subject. Fair enough, if he doesn’t want to talk to me about the boathouse. ‘I do.’

  ‘She’s actually called Virginia, after my grandmother.’ He pours more wine, somehow settling in closer to me afterwards.

  We’re lying side by side on the grass, and his fingers are practically touching mine. He traces a circle in the grass with his finger, so close to touching the back of my hand that the blades of grass tickle it. ‘My grandparents lived in the Lakes all their lives. They lived and breathed it; they didn’t want anything else. And…’ His gaze locks onto mine, his startlingly clear blue eyes deeper than the colour of any ocean. Better than the colour of any sky. ‘I spent as much time with them as I did my parents. More, probably. They were abroad a lot, Mum and Dad, foreign service, and I was in boarding school here. My grandparents visited, I stayed with them in the holidays.’