Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts (52 page)

What to do? Stay? Go? Sell?

Today had shown her just how much her world had shifted – she didn’t want to go back to London, to Oliver, to her old life. Dot hadn’t left her the kennels to bail out on her dream. She’d left it to Rachel so she could feel she was making a real difference, somewhere.

But it was still a commitment, just when she didn’t need extra pressure. She hadn’t even worked out where to find the money to pay off the rest of the inheritance tax, or the money to pay to fix the various problems with the house itself. The boarding kennels might make a decent turnover, but she still had to get them up and running.

Maybe I should sell up, lock, stock, and barrel to that client who wanted the country retreat, she thought. It’d be cleaner. I could give some money to a different dog charity, help find Megan a new job . . .

There was a knock on the door. George put his head round. ‘Sorry it’s late. Can I have a word?’ He sounded stiff but determined, as if he’d been sent to the headteacher’s office to apologise.

‘’Course.’ Rachel sat up and pulled her hair about. She wished she didn’t always look so shattered when she saw him. Their relationship was so back to front that he might never get to see her looking fabulous. She caught herself. What relationship was that?

‘I came to say sorry about before,’ he said, without preamble. ‘That was the serious long-term ex, I take it?’

‘Yes,’ said Rachel. ‘Oliver. And I want to say sorry too. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to call you my boyfriend,’ she went on, feeling she had most to apologise about. ‘I just didn’t know whether . . .’ It was so stupid. ‘I didn’t know whether you’d be happy about being my . . . whether you think of yourself as my boyfriend or not. We’re both a bit too old to be at this stage, don’t you think?’

George squeezed his chin, though his eyes were still flinty. ‘Yeah. When you put it like that, I’d rather be introduced as your vet than your baby daddy, or whatever they call it now.’

‘I’ve heard worse.’

She waited for him to say he was happy to be introduced as her boyfriend, but he didn’t. Instead he pulled at the sleeve of his good jumper and blew his cheeks out thoughtfully.

‘Do you want to sit down?’ suggested Rachel. ‘You’re making me feel like I’m interviewing you for a job.’

George pulled out the chair where prospective new dog owners sat, but didn’t cross one leg over his knee as he usually did. He folded his arms and looked at her, and Rachel couldn’t meet his searching gaze.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said, and pulled a cheque out of his back pocket. He unfolded it, and chucked it into her in-tray.

‘Oh, I’ve had this already,’ Rachel began. ‘Darren gave it to me – very generous. We’ll get a special plaque for the Fenwick kennel . . .’

‘It’s a different cheque,’ said George, without unfolding his arms.

Rachel didn’t look up as she reached out and picked it off a stack of sponsorship forms. It was a personal cheque, on the account of George R. W. Fenwick, for one hundred thousand pounds.

‘I can’t take this!’ she said automatically.

‘You can.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You can. Stop being so bloody stubborn.’

‘I can’t . . .’ she started, and suddenly remembered something Megan had said – how Dot had ‘got into the habit of saying no’ to things. She was just the same, guarding her privacy, in case anyone discovered her secret life with Oliver, or intruded on her bachelor life, where she did what she wanted. But really it was because being alone was easier. It was a masochistic form of selfishness, dressed up as independence, and it was fiendishly hard to break.

She looked up from the cheque to George’s broad, windswept face, pink where the day’s sun had caught him out, and told herself that she was mad to say no. Mad, and selfish.

Her instinct was to turn George’s offer down because she didn’t want anyone to have control over her life, but it was too late for that now. The tiny dictator inside her was already controlling her moods, her appetite, even her balance. And if anyone was going to be let into her life, then who better than a man like George? Who’d be able to wrangle this baby just like he wrangled calves and dogs – and Rachel herself. She felt hot at the thought of him, the way he knew exactly how she worked.

‘I . . .’ she began.

He raised his hand before she could go any further.

‘I’ve got something to say and I’d be grateful if you’d hear the whole lot out at once. I’m not very experienced at big emotional discussions. I need a good run-up.’

Rachel inclined her head. ‘I’d noticed.’

George flicked a dark look across the table, then pulled his spine straight. ‘I want you to take that cheque. Not just for yourself, but because Dot’s kennels deserve it. And I want you to take it even if you decide to go back to London with Lover Boy. I’m not stupid. I could see this afternoon that there’s still something there between you, and if you want to call it a support payment for the baby, then call it that. I can . . .’ He paused. ‘I can see why it might be better that way. As you keep reminding me, we don’t really know each other that well, and maybe a clean break before it gets messy’s the best thing.’

Rachel’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach.

‘Is that what you want?’ She searched his face neurotically. Was he trying to palm her off on Oliver? Was that it? Didn’t he want the complications she’d brought?

Maybe someone had filled him in on her murky cheating past. That would be exactly the sort of behaviour he’d despise. Didn’t your sins always find you out? she thought bitterly.

‘Is it what
you
want?’ he countered.

God, we’re crap at this, thought Rachel, gazing at him through swimming vision.

‘OK, well, I’ll tell you what I want,’ he went on when she didn’t reply. ‘While I’m making a fool of myself. I want you to take that cheque, let me invest in the kennels – as a serious partner – and try to work out a way this sad old bachelor can be part of your life. Properly. Hard as that might be for both of us.’

He raised his eyes to hers, and Rachel saw they were bluer than Gem’s, and just as frank. ‘You’ve got to realise that meeting a woman like you was something I’d assumed would
never happen to me, not now, not here. Not just because you’re
beautiful, and smart, and bloody . . . unusual . . . but because my life is just so cramped. It’s been full of stress and responsibility, building up that practice, and what time I had at the end of the day – I wanted that space for myself.’ He gave a self-deprecating half-laugh. ‘I was even too selfish for a dog, for God’s sake. Dot used to tell me off for that. But then I met you and I suddenly realised how small it was. How small
I’d
got.’

George’s voice dropped and Rachel instinctively reached her hand out across the table. He was taking a real risk, she thought, given that he believed she was about to bail out with Oliver.

‘I’m not going to spin you a load of horse shit about Fate and true love and what have you,’ he went on. ‘We’re both a bit long in the tooth to fall for that, and I know that it’s going to be a steep learning curve. But I feel as if we’ve got a connection that I’ve never felt with anyone else. Ever.’ He looked at her, simply. ‘When I’m with you, I feel like I’m at home. Even in your home. And I could talk to you for ever, and never get bored.’

‘I know,’ said Rachel. ‘I feel exactly the same. And this isn’t even my home.’

‘It is. It’s always been.’

He tightened his grip on her hand and she slid the other one across the table too so that they were clinging together like a pair of shipwrecks, not close enough to kiss, but close enough to stare into each other’s faces with passionate intensity.

Rachel’s whole body tingled at the touch of George’s capable hands, but she glowed at the same time, as if there was a lightbulb at her core, radiating a Ready Brek warmth. It was a security she’d never felt with Oliver, a security that started in the proud, bewildered expression in his eyes. It was going to be an unimaginable journey, but they were doing it together, because they wanted to.

They sat gazing at each other for whole minutes, neither one wanting to break the moment by saying the wrong thing.

Rachel sensed that George was nudging her to speak. It was her turn, after all.

‘I’m not getting back with Oliver,’ she said. ‘And there’s nothing between us. That was a goodbye, nothing more. I couldn’t go back to my old life either. It was empty. I was empty.’

These weren’t feelings rehearsed in the orchard with Gem; something totally fresh was flowing through Rachel, feelings she’d never found words for before.

‘My job that everyone thinks was so glamorous was basically just telling white lies for people. Selling ideas and internet stuff, nothing you could actually touch. Being here, seeing how the dogs put up with so much abuse, and then change with a little bit of love, and some attention – it’s changed me too.’

She ran her thumb along the hollow between his thumb and forefinger, feeling the texture of his skin. They still had so much to learn about each other, but he wasn’t a stranger. ‘Watching you with the dogs, how you care for them without denting their dignity – it’s wonderful. I wanted someone to care for me like that.’

George said nothing but he moved his own thumb against hers, in silent agreement.

‘You’re an amazing man,’ she went on, feeling herself getting carried away by the moment and a cocktail of pregnancy hormones. ‘If I’m acting defensive, it’s because I can’t believe I had to wait all these years and come to the middle of nowhere to find someone so handsome and kind and good at cooking and sex and funny conversation – and for him to be available. It’s too good to be true. I’m even cool with the grumpiness and the red socks – they just mean you’re not a figment of my imagination.’

Rachel paused now, her turn to wonder if she’d said too much. ‘So if you can put up with a total novice, I’d love you to invest in the kennels. And if you can put up with someone who’s never even shared a bathroom . . .’ she hesitated, ‘I’d love you to try to be with me. And Gem.’

‘So you’re staying?’ he asked, without looking up.

‘Yes. I’m staying.’ Her mouth curved into a slow smile and she leaned forward across the desk, tilting her head so she could brush her lips against George’s mouth. He didn’t move at first, and his shaggy blonde hair tickled against her cheekbone as she lifted herself partly onto the chair, for a better, more forceful angle.

Rachel got a brief flash of how ironic it was that she’d come so far from Chiswick to be snogging over a desk again, when George’s lips parted, and he kissed her back with a ferocity that took her by surprise. He slid his hand up into her hair, cupping her jaw and then tracing the line of her throat until her whole body ached to be pressed against him.

This was Dot’s real legacy, she thought. Not the kennels or the house, or any money. It was her second chance, and she wasn’t going to look back.

Epilogue

Val waved away Rachel’s attempt to pay for the coffees, and for once Rachel decided it was better to let her have her own way.

She had, after all, struggled with nearly all Val’s suggestions about prams, maternity clothes, baby extras, hospital bags – her mother had only been in Four Oaks four hours and already Rachel felt as if she’d signed up for a childcare seminar.

But it was worth it, she reminded herself. Building bridges with her mother was top of her list now, along with everything else that was going on at the kennels, starting with the redecoration and working downwards. It saved reading the stacks of baby manuals, for a start. Val was like a sort of talking book version of Zita West, Miriam Stoppard and Mumsnet, in slacks.

‘This is nice,’ said Val, looking round the pretty blue-and-white interior of the café. It was barely recognisable as Ted and Freda’s family greasy spoon, apart from the stained glass deco sign over the door. ‘Is it normal to have so many dogs inside, though?’

‘It is in this café, Mum,’ said Rachel.

‘It can’t be hygienic. There must be some regulations . . .’ Val gazed around the airy, freshly repainted room. A row of mini kennels by the door housed a selection of terriers and a Labrador, while two spaniels sat patiently beneath the table next to them, attached to handbag hooks.

‘If there were, then Natalie would know all about them.’ Rachel sipped her decaff latte and smiled over at the counter, where Natalie stood in her crisp white apron, making the most perfect cappuccinos in Longhampton. Pride of place in the café went to Bertie, whose basket in the window attracted toddlers from all over the town.

Children weren’t really encouraged in Natalie’s café. She pretended it was for their own safety, because of all the dogs, but Rachel knew, as a regular, that the doggie customers secretly preferred it that way. If –
when
– Natalie and Johnny had their own baby, Rachel was pretty sure Nat would just open a second branch, for yummy mummies.

‘Well, it’s doing good business, I must say,’ said Val. ‘Not everyone must care about hairs.’

‘Plenty don’t, Mum. She’s a smart cookie, Natalie. Would you believe this was a greasy spoon two months ago? When Nat puts her mind to it, she certainly doesn’t waste any time.’

‘She owns it?’ Val looked impressed and swivelled in her chair to look more closely. ‘Natalie from the kennel? Oh yes!’ She waved.