He winks at me. It is him, definitely him, and somebody has turned the heating up in here.
I resist the urge to flap my T-shirt to let some air in, and stare.
‘Everything okay?’ He glances from me to Em, and she edges closer. I no longer exist in her world.
‘Epic.’ Em is much cooler than I am, in all senses; her blush is a light smattering of pink along her cheekbones, I think I’ve gone beetroot-coloured all over. ‘Are you taking the girls out next, Jake?’
Gawd. She knows. How can she know?
‘I certainly am.’ He smiles, a lovely warm smile that looks totally genuine. ‘But I just wanted to check Sam and Sarah had arrived before I go and put their leads on.’ Phew, so the girls are dogs. ‘Okay if I meet you at the start of the Woodland Walk, Sam? I’ve got to make a quick phone call but I know Em here will take good care of you.’
All I can do is nod.
‘See you shortly then.’ He raises a hand, and smiles again, and the dimples at the corner of his mouth deepen.
I could stare at him all day, if he hadn’t just headed off. O-M-G I could end up taking this man to the wedding! It is really happening. He is even more gorgeous close-up in the flesh, and he hugs puppies. He couldn’t be more perfect if I’d handpicked him out of an escort catalogue (if they have such a thing).
Sarah is nudging me, and I realise that Em is talking. She has reverted to grumpy teenager mode.
‘I didn’t realise you were with Jake. Why didn’t you say?’ She is sounding slightly miffed. ‘Jake and his sister Amy help us out lots.’ She emphasises the last word, and shoots me a ‘hands off’ look. I feel a totally irrational twinge of possessiveness, then tell myself that she’s far too young for him. ‘He’s wonderful.’ Her voice loses its edge, then the phone rings and breaks her out of her daydream. ‘Come on then, I’ll take you through and we’ll find some dogs that need walking. You are used to dogs?’
We both nod. Honestly, how difficult can walking a dog be?
‘Oh yes.’ I wave an arm flamboyantly to make my case more clearly. ‘We’ve always had dogs.’ She doesn’t look overly impressed, though teenagers don’t often, do they?
‘Retrievers, collies, rescues … difficult dogs.’ I’m getting carried away. We had a very old Labrador at home that used to steal sausages off my plate and lie on my feet snoring and farting. The most difficult thing about him was his inability to resist food of any kind. And we had the mad springer spaniel. By the time he was six months old my parents had made a strategic decision to ‘manage’ rather than ‘control’ his behaviour. Which meant he did what he liked most of the time and this caused less stress all round.
‘We had a sausage dog when I was young,’ Sarah sighed. ‘She was so cute.’ She shrugs her shoulders in a ‘want to squeeze cute dogs’ kind of way. ‘I used to dress her up, and take her to bed with me.’
‘Awesome. I’ll give you Tilly then.’ Em grins, warming to this new cuddly side of Sarah that I didn’t know existed. Dogs do that to people. ‘She really misses her cuddles, you’ll love her. She is just so sweet and sensitive.’
She says something else, but her last few words are lost as we round a corner to where the kennel blocks are, and are met with a wall of barking. I never knew dogs could make such a racket. Terriers are leaping up and down as though they’re on springs, a collie is quaking in its boots, and a brindle Staffordshire bull terrier eyes me up silently as though he has seen it all before.
Em doesn’t seem to notice the chaos. She carries on talking, and we nod in the gaps when her mouth stops moving. I haven’t got a clue what she’s saying, but it can’t be that bad.
It turns out it is that bad.
She was asking if I thought I’d be okay with Tank, seeing as I was experienced and he could be tricky.
I must have nodded.
Tank sat down as she put his lead on, cocked his head to one side and stared as though to say, ‘I’ve got the measure of you’.
‘Go across that field, just follow the signs, the woodland walk is that way. Do a couple of laps, half an hour will probably be enough, but I suppose Jake will tell you. See you later, have fun.’ And she’s gone before we have time to say anything, not that I could have said anything as Tank is off, intent on yanking my shoulders out of their sockets. Half an hour of this? You’ve got to be kidding me, I already feel like one of those rubber stretchy men that kids throw at windows.
It’s also raining, that drizzly stuff that makes you feel a wimp if you put your hood up, but leaves you soaked if you don’t. My hair has started to curl, my fingers are numb and I’ve got a nagging twitch at my temples which normally heralds a headache. And we’ve not started the walk yet. But there is a bright light on the horizon. Jake.
‘Do I look like a drowned rat?’ Will he change his mind, when he sees me like this?
‘A bit.’ Sarah laughs. ‘Chill, he liked you, I could tell. He’ll do it.’
There is a big problem with walks in rescue centres, even when you’re doing the corner of the field bit and not the under trees bit, and that is everybody walks along the same path. Which means it is muddy, unless you’re in the middle of a dry summer. Which we are not.
Now I like dogs, I love dogs, but this is no normal dog. Sarah has a cute, nervous whippet which is side-stepping the boggy bits daintily, while me and the Tank-mobile wade straight through like a Sherman tank, scattering well-meaning dog-lovers as we go, saying sorry a lot. Me, not Tank. Tank doesn’t care. He is having the best time ever. Tank is a donkey crossed with a hippo, a hippo who has discovered freedom and a mud bath. He has been along this path before, he knows the way to the woodland walk, and nothing is going to stop him.
‘Look!’ Sarah has stopped dead in her tracks. Well, not dead. She’s bouncing on the spot.
I look, it’s hard not to though it does involve taking my attention off the Tank for a moment.
Mistake. Up until now I’ve been slipping and sliding a bit, in fact I probably look a bit like a first-time water skier, but now Tank leaps forwards, and I’m yanked off my feet. For a split second I’m airborne, then I’m eating mud.
‘Noooo…’ Tank is away, dragging me along in his wake.
‘There he is! It’s Jake.’
And we are heading straight for him. Jake is standing by one of the signs that marks the woodland walk, and he’s not looking at all like a drowned rat, or wimpy. He glances up, and sees us. How can he not, when Sarah is about as subtle as a panther in the snow, and I’m hurtling towards him like a bobsleigher, determined not to let go of the leash?
Even at this distance and with the mud that’s being kicked up in my face, I can see he’s got three dogs of assorted sizes at his side (all beautifully behaved), and half the staff are milling round him, though he absolutely doesn’t need any kind of help at all. Unlike me.
Tank barks a welcome, speeding up, and I’m pretty sure Jake’s jaw has dropped as we hurtle towards him. I’m not sure if he’s amazed the dog can pull me, or worried he’s going to get trampled.
‘Oh shit.’ He throws the leads at one of the bystanders. ‘Hang on.’ I am hanging on, that’s the problem. But I can’t catch my breath to say it. I close my eyes, this is going to end badly, I just know it is.
It hasn’t. We’ve stopped.
‘Settle down, settle down, good boy.’
I open my eyes. He has got Tank by the collar, and he’s crouched down, peering at me with a worried frown on his face.
‘Are