Ah. So that explained the unexpected phone call from Bannister & Poole’s Estate Agency. She’d made an offhand comment to the elderly Elsie Harrington about needing to look for a permanent home, and as if by magic a solution had appeared.
‘I won’t, dally that is. I’d love to look round.’ It really was an opportunity she couldn’t pass on, she had to at least look. And ‘modernisation’ might mean that it had an outside toilet and a well – which would put it way beyond her humble budget.
‘I’ll email the details through, although they are currently just draft ones, they haven’t been approved.’ She could hear him shuffling papers in the background. ‘I can meet you there at 11 a.m. if that suits?’
‘Well, I.’ She would really have liked to share the news with Charlie first, see what he thought, but he’d be busy seeing clients. And she did want to stay in Langtry Meadows, whatever the future held for her and the man she’d fallen head over heels for. ‘Today? This morning?’
‘We do close at midday, it is Saturday you know.’
Which meant Charlie couldn’t go with her, but she could check it out first. It could be totally unsuitable anyway. ‘That suits perfectly, and er, thank you, Mr Ba—’ He cut her off mid-sentence, and Lucy slowly took the phone away from her ear and stared back out at the garden, knowing she had a stupid grin on her face.
Lucy glanced down at her pyjama bottoms, then up at the kitchen clock. This was not how she’d expected her last weekend of freedom to start. The new school term started on Wednesday, and they had an inset day on Tuesday, and she was officially the teacher of Classes 1 and 2. The last few days of the holiday were supposed to be about relaxing, chilling, preparing herself for the chaotic weeks ahead. She hadn’t factored in being woken up by a phone call from a bossy estate agent, and the kind of stomach churning, exciting news that had left her feeling all butterfly stomach-ey and jittery.
Her brain wasn’t exactly functioning either, which was how she always felt before the first strong coffee of the day. Lucy was not a morning person, she wasn’t really a night owl either. She was guaranteed to be the one that had to be in bed by midnight or she risked falling asleep on the shoulder of the nearest person and no doubt snoring and drooling in a very unattractive way. She was the one the rest of the students had drawn a moustache on when she was at college, as she slept through oblivious.
Her mobile gave a cheery bleep announcing an incoming message. Coffee. She needed coffee and a chance to wake up properly, then she’d shower and dress, and then she’d read the email that the efficient and officious Mr Bannister had already pinged off from his clean and tidy office, determined to disrupt the peace of her sleepy cottage in Langtry Meadows.
She’d only got as far as the bottom of the stairs, when a loud honk stopped her in her tracks. A warning honk, not the kind of gentle ‘go away’ noise that Gertie the goose often directed at unwelcome visitors. This had more urgency. And volume.
Rushing to the front door, Lucy threw it open, expecting some kind of carnage.
Gertie was having a fit. The type she normally reserved for straying men – as in they’d strayed on to her property and nothing to do with their morals. Well, to be more precise the goose was flapping her big white wings like some avenging angel and dipping her head backwards and forwards towards a mysterious object just inside the garden gate. Gertie didn’t like mysterious objects. She didn’t like most things, to be honest. And Lucy didn’t know if that was a ‘goose’ thing, or just a Gertie thing.
Lucy folded her arms, relieved that it was nothing more serious. ‘What have you got?’
Gertie glared back accusingly.
Lucy was used to parcels being left just inside the gate. Her regular postman knew all about how to deal with Gertie, but most strangers took one look at the bird as she hurtled round the corner of the cottage in response to the click of the gate catch, and scarpered. She couldn’t blame them.
‘Okay, I’m coming.’ She slipped her feet into the pink wellingtons that were in the porch. The wellies were her secret defence – with them on Gertie was putty (well not exactly putty, but no longer quite as lethal) in her hands. Gertie loved the boots; they were, as Annie had told her, the first thing she had seen and she thought they were her mother. She would happily follow them anywhere.
The parcel moved. Rocked. Gertie gave it a prod. It made a strange, wheezy noise and the goose drew herself up to her full height, gave a loud honk, then turned on her heel and marched off in search of something more interesting.
Frowning, Lucy lifted a corner flap cautiously. It sounded like there was something alive in there, and for all she knew it could be a box of snakes. Or worse. Rats.
Two eyes stared up at her out of the dark shadows of the box. One chocolate brown, the other the clearest blue she’d ever seen, spring water in a crystal clear stream.
Quiet trusting eyes.
She stooped down and opened the flaps of the box wider. It was a puppy, the blinking of its eyes the only movement as it gazed up at her. Over one eye was a patch of black, but most of its coat was the softest grey, splashed with black as though a careless artist had tired of finishing the painting, its paws and chest a damp, stained white with a smudge of tea-stains.
The puppy shivered and its chin sank down onto its paws as though it was exhausted.
‘Hang on.’ It didn’t respond. Not even the slightest wag of its fluffy tail, which sent a shiver of alarm through Lucy. Her instinctive response would have been to reach in and cuddle the poor animal, but something told her not to. It was poorly, very poorly.
She reluctantly closed the flaps of the box back down as gently as she could and ran back inside, grabbing her mobile phone as she dashed up the narrow stairs. She couldn’t ring Charlie to discuss something like a house for sale, but this was altogether different. ‘Charlie?’
‘Morning, gorgeous, you’re up early for a non-school day!’
‘I know you’re not open yet, but …’
‘Are you okay?’ His voice lost some of its cheery tone as he picked up the worry that tinged her words.
‘Somebody’s dumped a puppy in the garden. It’s in a box, but it looks really sick, it’s just lying there and shivering, and it’s …’
‘How sick?’ The cheeky edge had gone altogether now, replaced with professional concern in an instant, and she could imagine his frown, the narrowing of his eyes as he ran his fingers through his hair.
‘It looks like it’s been sick in the box, all its chest is damp and stained,’ she put the phone on speakerphone and dropped it on the bed, rifling through the drawer for clean underwear, ‘and it looks so thin and pathetic. I know I’m no expert, but it hardly even moved when I opened the box up, puppies just aren’t supposed to behave like that, are they?’
‘Bring it straight down, Luce.’
‘I’m just getting clothes on,’ she was breathless as she yanked her jeans up, fumbling with the zip with one hand, ‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’
Vet Charlie Davenport headed out of the surgery as soon as he spotted Lucy. He got the same familiar rush of pleasure he always did when he saw her. Along with the desire to take her in his arms and kiss her. Which would be very unprofessional.
He’d not expected to see her until the evening. It was the last weekend of the school summer holidays, and he knew that Lucy, organised as she was, would be busy with spreadsheets and lesson plans, getting ready for the new term of fresh-faced children, excited after a summer of freedom.
He felt the muscles in his shoulders tighten. This term that included his daughter Maisie, and he was dreading it.
He’d