“Vet’s miracle recovery—I can see the headline now,” Ally says, handing me a bottle of wine. “Two miracles in one day. Words can’t express how grateful I am,” she goes on, which strikes me as a bit of a problem for someone whose livelihood depends on them. “I’m going to make sure everyone in town knows what you did. To think he could”—her eyes fill with tears—“have been crushed alive.”
I hand her the shoe box across the consulting room table. Harry gives me the evil eye when I open the lid to prove to myself, more than to Ally, that he really is okay.
“Do I need to bring him back for a checkup?”
“Not unless you’re worried about him.”
“I’m always worried about him. I tell you, I shan’t be leaving him in the garden shed overnight again. It must have been pretty chilly for June.”
“What was he doing in the shed?” I can’t believe someone as dotty about her hamster as Ally is would banish him from the house.
“My other half’s threatening to divorce me. Harry keeps us awake all night, running on his wheel.”
“Why don’t you take the wheel out?” I suggest helpfully.
“I couldn’t do that, poor thing. He loves his wheel. No, I’m going to buy a couple of pairs of earplugs.” Ally smiles. “That way I’ll save Harry and my marriage. Maz, how can I repay you? Can I help with the animals you’ve rescued from the fire? Raise money for their care? Anything?”
“You could adopt another hamster, or one of the other small furries.”
“I don’t think I could stand the stress.... No, Harry’s more than enough for me to cope with. Isn’t there anything else?”
“Actually,” I say, thinking of all those animals, including Raffles, Ugli-dog, Petra, and Jude, who are out the back, desperately needing good homes, “there is something you can do.”
They don’t like being confined. I do a last round of Kennels the same evening, taking each dog out into the garden in turn—well, Raffles and Ugli-dog are happy to go out together, but I don’t risk taking Petra with any of the others. Now Emma’s back, I rather miss having Miff’s company in the flat. I’m tempted to let Raffles upstairs, especially when he looks at me with brown eyes filled with despair as I shut the kennel door on him, but that seems mean on the rest of them. I give them each a biscuit and leave the radio on low before I turn out the light.
“Good night, guys,” I say softly. It’s all quiet and I can relax at last, except for the persistent stinging sensation from the burns on my arms, and wondering how I’m going to persuade Emma to keep Otter House Vets open and what I’m going to do about Alex.
CHAPTER 20
A Breed Apart
“Are you going to see Alex again?” Emma says between consultations the next morning. She seems happier, I think. Perhaps she’s changed her mind about closing the practice down.
“Can’t you tell?” Izzy cuts in. “She’s put her makeup on specially.”
“Izzy! I said I’d drop a few bits and pieces in to him as I was going to be there anyway.” You know that feeling you get when you’re about to blush and you can’t do anything about it? I’ve got it now. “I’m doing my bit for neighborly relations, that’s all. I’ll see you later.”
“Don’t forget you’re coming round to ours tomorrow night. I’ve told Ben to put a veggie cutlet on the barbie for you.”
“I haven’t forgotten, Em. I’ll be there.” I pause. “Are you feeling better?”
“I am, thanks. I guess it’s a touch of Delhi belly,” she says. “Go on then, angel of mercy. What are you waiting for?”
When I arrive at the hospital, I check in with Debbie.
“Hello, Maz,” she says. “I’m glad you’re here—you might be able to knock some sense into him. No one else can.”
Before I can ask her what she means, the phone on her workstation rings.
“Go on through,” she says, picking it up.
I find Alex clean-shaven and dressed in jeans and a casual shirt. He sits on the edge of his bed with a sports bag beside him.
“Hi,” he says, smiling.
I walk toward him, catching his scent of aftershave and mint toothpaste. The closer I get, the faster my heart beats.
“I’ve brought you your stuff,” I begin. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner, but I’ve been tied up at Otter House since I saw you yesterday. I’m trying to stop Emma overdoing it—she hasn’t been well.”
“It’s nothing serious, I hope.”
“Ben was worried enough to suggest that they come home early.”
“Emma’s very lucky to have you around to share the workload. I don’t know how my father’s coping on his own. I dread to think what’s been happening at the manor, and I can’t sit here any longer, worrying about it, so”—he catches my hand—“I want you to help me make my escape.”
Now I know what Debbie was getting at, I think, as he continues. “I can’t stand it here any longer. I want to get out in the fresh air, eat some decent food, and sleep in my own bed.”
He looks over my shoulder. I turn to find Debbie listening in.
“He shouldn’t be alone for the next twenty-four hours,” she says, “and I’m warning you, he isn’t the easiest of patients.”
“Please, Maz.”
“I thought you’d have a queue of people lined up to take you home.”
“You mean Eloise?” He grins. “I didn’t think you’d be in the slightest bit bothered.”
“I’m not,” I say sharply, and he laughs, making me flush hot because he knows I’m lying.
“You know, if you were a chocolate, Maz, you’d be a hazelnut whirl, one of those with the nut in the center that you crack your teeth on.”
“Thanks a lot.” I try to sound arch and devil-may-care, but it comes out flat because I’m not really like that. I do have a soft center, but since Mike, I keep it buried deep inside.
“So you’ll do it?” Alex says. “At least give me a lift home and stay with me until my parents get back from London.”
I’ll do it, but out of the purest of motives—because I owe him for saving my life.
“Okay then,” I say, giving in. “I’m off for the rest of today.”
“Great,” Alex says, standing up. I notice how he puts out his hand momentarily to steady himself. “I’ve been lying down for too long,” he says, when Debbie and I rush to help him, one on each side.
“Alex, I wish you’d change your mind,” Debbie says. “Another day won’t hurt.”
“I’ll be fine. Maz’ll look after me.”
I didn’t make a very good job of it the last time, I think, when he picks up his bag. He links one arm through mine, and we walk side by side out through the corridors and into the sunlight.
“Did you get that mobile for me?” he asks as soon as we’re clear of the hospital buildings. “I need to check up on Liberty.”
I dig it out of my bag and hand it over. “I did call Westleigh, and she’s doing well, according to John,” I say, but Alex insists on phoning himself to find out every last detail on the way to my car.
I unlock it and open the doors, then watch Alex fold himself up and slide into the passenger seat.
“There isn’t much room in here,” he comments. “What do you do with all your kit?”
“There’s space for a visit case—that’s all I need. Anyway, it means I don’t have to carry the hairy, incontinent, or bleeding in the back. Where are we going?”
“Up to the manor. I don’t live in the main house—that’s my father’s domain. I live in the barn.”
“A barn?” I have a vision of Alex and his horse eating breakfast over a bale of straw.
He grins. “It’s a conversion. My mother sometimes threatens to take it back to store extra hay for the horses.”
“Silly me,” I say.
“Maz, it’s one of the things I like about you, your ditsiness.” He reaches out and runs his fingers lightly across my hand as I change gears. “That’s a compliment, by the wa
y.”
“Thanks,” I say, driving on.
“I’m sorry,” Alex says suddenly. “I shouldn’t have imposed on you.”
“I don’t mind.”
“You must have far better things to do with your time.”
“I promised Fifi I’d help her and her volunteers with some of the rehoming visits sometime, but it can wait. We want to make sure the rescues are going to good homes.”
“That’s a bit over the top, if you ask me.”
“I’m not asking you,” I say, grinning. “And I can understand why Fifi wants to do it—Gloria’s animals need the best homes possible after what they’ve been through.”
“Now you’re making me feel really guilty.”
“Don’t be.” Little does he know that it’s no sacrifice. “I checked with Frances about the funeral—it’s next week. I’ll give you a lift.”
“Would you?” At this moment I’d do anything for him, I think, as he goes on. “This is it. Turn left here.”
I’ve seen the manor before, of course, but not up close. Traveling up the long drive, I realize that it’s bigger than I recall, an elegant Regency house with white walls, a slate roof, and fluted pillars supporting the porch at the front. There’s a cedar tree on the lawn and roses in the formal flower beds. Eat your heart out, Mr. Darcy.
In the field to the west is a herd of South Devon cattle. To the east and continuing round behind the house are paddocks divided by electric fencing tape for horses, and a riding arena set up with a course of show jumps.
“You can park around the back,” Alex says, and I follow the left-hand sweep of the drive, turning in to the courtyard behind the house and stopping alongside some other vehicles, including a battered Range Rover with a broken brake light, the purple horse lorry, and a vintage Bentley, just as a pack of dogs—a mixture of Labs and spaniels—come racing toward the car, barking.
Alex flings open the passenger door, unfolds himself to get out, and then almost disappears into a flurry of flying dogs and thrashing tails. They’re all over him, barking and tugging at his clothes.
“That’s enough now,” he says, holding up one hand, and immediately they settle down and start milling around instead.
“You don’t want another dog, do you?” I say, joining him on the gravel, taking in the surroundings. The rear of the manor forms one side of the courtyard, a row of stables with a second story above forms a second side, and a barn made of brick and an oak frame with long windows forms the third.
“Probably not. Not unless you’re desperate.” Alex heads toward the stables.
“Where are you going?”
“I want to check up on a few things in the surgery. I left some stuff undone. It’s been preying on my mind.”
I reach for his arm to slow him down, but he strides on toward a sign reading SURGERY, with an arrow pointing vaguely skyward.
“Are you sure that’s wise? You’re supposed to be resting,” I say, but he’s already halfway way up the steps to a door at the end of a balcony above the row of brick stables, some of which are occupied, some closed up. Alex takes the steps two at a time, and I follow. He unlocks the door and pushes it open, letting me past.
I step inside, tripping over a cardboard box of yellowing paperwork on the way into a long, shadowy room. The shelves are overflowing with books, old leather-bound manuals with titles such as Poultry Management and How to Physic a Horse, and on the walls are photos of Old Fox-Gifford dressed in shooting gear with a gun slung over his shoulder, pheasants hanging from one hand and a Labrador at his feet; Sophia riding sidesaddle, rosettes pinned to her horse’s bridle; and Alex jumping various ponies and Liberty. I smile to myself because it seems to me that the Fox-Giffords are a breed apart.
There’s a desk too, a vast mahogany affair covered with diaries, notebooks, biscuit wrappers, and boxes of cattle antibiotic, and there’s an all-pervasive odor of dog. I can see why Frances might have wanted to move from Talyton Manor to the more salubrious surroundings of Otter House.
Alex rifles through the papers on the desk and selects two.
“Lab reports,” he says. “I don’t suppose my father’s thought to phone the results through to the clients. He isn’t a great believer in blood tests. He’s more of the old school, like his father before him—if a cow’s down, you chuck a cat on its back to see if it’ll get up.” He pauses to check the answerphone. A voice—I think it’s Sophia’s—gives out the numbers for Westleigh and another vet practice. Alex turns it off and deletes the message.
“What did you do that for?” I ask.
“I’m here—I can take the phones now.” He silences me with one of his withering looks. “I don’t want to risk all our clients deserting us for good. The sooner I’m back in harness the better.” His expression softens. “I won’t overdo it, Maz. I promise. One thing I learned, lying in that hospital, is that I’ve got too much to live for.”
I guess he’s referring to his family, especially his children.
“Let’s go,” he says, and we head for the barn. He opens up the double doors along the side and hooks them back to the wall. “After you.” He follows me inside, where the air is cooler. “What do you think?”
I look around at the open-plan space downstairs, the contrast of old and new, and the galleried landing upstairs. There’s a large brick fireplace, wooden floors, and a couple of leather sofas in chocolate. It’s quite masculine. A bachelor pad.
“It’s amazing,” I say, taking in the vaulted ceiling, crisscrossed with beams, “like Dr. Who’s TARDIS.”
“It isn’t all that big,” Alex says seriously. “My parents had it converted when I got married, but Astra and I only lived here for a couple of years before the children came along. It wasn’t spacious enough for her, so we moved out to a house a couple of miles north of here.” He smiles ruefully. “I did my best, but it was never good enough for her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s all in the past now. I married her because I liked her—as well as all the other stuff. I was devastated when she went off with someone else.”
“The footballer …” I wish I hadn’t said it, ashamed at myself for listening to gossip, the same tittle-tattle that made Alex out to be a womanizer, when he clearly isn’t.
“Yeah,” he continues. “The divorce nearly finished me off. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, and if it hadn’t been for Lucie and Seb, I’d have walked out on the practice, Talyton”—he waves his hand—“everything.” As if reading my mind, he goes on. “We might never have met. And I suppose, if you hadn’t split with the robot—”
“Mike, you mean?” I cut in, suddenly realizing that I no longer wince when I say his name, which has a lot to do with the man standing in front of me.
“Izzy told me a bit about him—when I was up at Chris’s. She was afraid she’d ruined the course of true love with her revelation, but I told her I already knew.” Alex moves a little closer. “Idle gossip is rife in Talyton, but it does have its uses.”
He’s so close now I can feel his breath, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. If he should take my hand and lead me up the stairs to the gallery, I wouldn’t resist …
“I’ll get the coffee on,” he says, breaking the spell.
“I’ll do it,” I say, but he insists.
“You look tired,” he says, gazing at me. “I’m fine—I’ve been in bed for days. Go and sit down.”
His hands are on my shoulders, turning me toward the sofa closest to the long window, where a shaft of sunlight slants through, illuminating a child’s plastic trike and an abandoned My Little Pony toy in the corner. I long for Alex to sit down with me, never to take his hands off me, but instead he wanders over to the kitchen area at the far end of the barn.
I’m not tired, but I tip my head back and close my eyes, feeling the heat from the sun on my face and listening to the sounds of Alex preparing coffee, of the pigeons cooing outside, and of the horses whickering and ba
nging at their stable doors.
I wake to the sensation of something warm and heavy leaning against me. The leather squeaks as the weight shifts further toward me. There’s the briefest touch of something against my lips, the scent of coffee and mint. It isn’t unpleasant. In fact—the contact returns for longer this time—it’s amazing and reassuringly familiar. I open my eyes. Alex’s gorgeous, smoky blue eyes smolder at me.
“I’m sorry,” he tells me.
“Don’t be,” I say softly, reaching out and resting my hand on his shoulder.
“I couldn’t resist,” he whispers, touching the side of my face with his fingertips. “Sleeping Beauty.”
“I’m supposed to be watching out for you …” I catch the edge of Alex’s collar and pull him toward me, my pulse beating a chaotic rhythm of will I, won’t I? Should we, shouldn’t we?
Alex answers, pressing his lips to mine, his breathing ragged and matching mine, and I’m just about to lose my mind with desire when he pulls away.
“Don’t stop,” I murmur brazenly.
“I’m so happy,” he says. “I’m so glad you’ve decided to stay here.”
“Stay? To look after you, yes.”
He frowns. “I meant in Talyton.”
“I’m not,” I say, unsure what I’ve said or done to give him that impression.
“I thought you’d decided to stay on at Otter House?” His eyes are dark with disappointment, and my heart aches because I feel as if I’ve let him down. “Perhaps I dreamed it,” he goes on. “There have been some funny things going on in my head since, you know”—his voice grows husky—“the fire …”
Even as he mentions it, I can hear the terrifying roar of the flames and clatter of tumbling masonry all over again, and my heart beats even faster and I want him to hold me, to make love to me and obliterate those memories, and start all over again with new and happier memories of our own.
I begin to unfasten the buttons on my blouse as his fingers trace the curve of my jaw, down the side of my neck, and along the ridge of my collarbone, then hesitate.
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