It was ridiculous of her to have imagined for as much as a second that she might finally make good on that fantasy to skate by moonlight, hand in hand, with someone who genuinely liked her for herself. Let alone share a starlit kiss.
‘Delightful.’ Brisk efficiency was the only way she’d get out of this garden with a modicum of her dignity intact. She called Skye to her side. ‘We’ll expect them on the fifteenth and you on the twenty-third in Glasgow.’
She turned and gave a wave over her shoulder so he wouldn’t see the smile drop from her lips.
Stupid, stupid girl. The last time she’d let her heart rule her actions she’d ended up humiliated and alone. She’d been a fool for letting herself think that Max Kirkpatrick could be the one who would bring that sparkle of joy back into Christmas.
MAX WASN’T SURE who was more nervous. Him or the twelve-year-old kid squirming like a wriggly octopus on the wheelchair beside him. His eyes flicked to the chair behind them. Euan’s mum was there. Carly. Timid as ever. Gnawing on a non-existent fingernail, her eyes darting around the office he’d managed to commandeer for the video call.
The poor woman. She didn’t look as though she’d had a good night’s sleep in years. The same as his mum back in the pre-dictator days. Getting Carly here today had been a feat and a half. How on earth she was going to get two weeks off work was beyond him.
‘You ready for this?’ Max asked. He wasn’t. He was no stranger to sleepless nights, but he definitely wasn’t used to erotic dreams. Or a guilty conscience. There was a hell of a lot more information he should’ve told Esme that would’ve explained his spiky behaviour when she’d appeared at Plants to Paws last week, but having jammed himself into an emotion-proof vest quite a few years back, sharing didn’t come easily. Sharing meant being closer to someone. Opening up his heart. There was no point in doing that because he’d learnt more than most that opening up your heart and trusting a person meant someone else got to kick the door shut.
It had happened with Gavin. And with his fiancée. Now very much an ex-fiancée. And out on the battlefields of Afghanistan where lives had been lost because he’d trusted his commanding officer and not his gut.
He gave Euan and Carly as reassuring a smile as he could. They were living breathing reminders that if everything Max had been through hadn’t come to pass, Plants to Paws wouldn’t exist and Euan wouldn’t be getting this once-in-a-lifetime chance to get his life back on track. Not the world’s best silver lining, but… ‘Start small, aim high.’ One of his mum’s better sayings. ‘Forgive him, Max…’ being one of the worst. There was no chance Gavin Henshall deserved his forgiveness. Not after everything he’d done.
Euan’s mum fretted at the hem of her supermarket uniform. ‘Could you run us through what the call’s going to involve again, please?’
‘Absolutely. It’ll be similar to the one Fenella’s going to have tomorrow.’
‘She’s the poor woman with epilepsy?’
Max nodded. Fenella had first came into A and E on a stretcher after a horrific car accident. Since then the forty-one-year-old had come in with cuts and bumps after experiencing severe epileptic seizures resulting from the head trauma she’d suffered. The poor woman was nearly housebound with fear. A service dog could change her life.
‘She’ll be getting a dog specifically trained for her requirements.’
‘And Euan’s dog will be trained to help with his…situation?’ Carly asked.
Bless her. She never could bring herself to say PTSD.
‘My crazy brain, Mum. My crazy brain!’ Euan pulled a wild face and waggled his hands.
The poor woman looked away. She blamed herself for what her son was going through, as parents so often did, when, in reality, the attack on Euan had simply been very, very bad luck. The kind of bad luck that could change his life for ever.
Max looked Euan square in the eye. ‘Esme knows what happened and will find a dog that can be there for you. It’ll make being at home on your own more relaxing.’ He glanced at Esme’s email again, trying not to picture her lips pushing out into a perfect moue as she concentrated. He cleared his throat and continued. ‘She mentions having a chat with the headmaster at your school. Some therapy dogs are permitted, so…if you need it, he might be coming along to school with you.’
Euan’s antsy behaviour suddenly stilled. The poor kid. The past couple of times he’d shown up in A and E had been for black eyes and cuts from fights at school. Despite the best efforts of the headmaster, it definitely wasn’t Euan’s safe place.
His story set the bar for cruel cases of mistaken identity. He’d been walking home from school about eighteen months ago when a local gang had mistaken him for someone else and had near enough pulverised the life out of the poor blighter.
Even in the war zones he’d been in, Max struggled to remember a kid who’d met the wrong end of a fist to such ill effect. He was a poster boy for PTSD. He bunked off school regularly. He had frequent panic attacks. His nightmares woke everyone in the flats around them, the screams were so piercing.
Carly was a single mum and worked shift hours so couldn’t be there for him when he needed it most. He was a scared kid with no one to back him up and the only way he knew how to deal with all that fear was rage. With waiting lists longer than Max’s arm, Euan needed someone beyond the psychiatric profession on his side. Someone to give him a bit of confidence. A reason to see the bright side of life. Someone with the unerring loyalty of a dog.
Max glanced up at the clock. ‘Right. It’ll be a short call. Enough time to meet the dog, find out his or her name.’
‘I hope it’s a boy. A huge bulldog!’ Euan’s eyes gleamed with possibility.
‘There’s only one way to find out.’ Max pressed the button and waited for Esme to answer.
Seeing Max Kirkpatrick’s face appear on her screen brought back a whole raft of emotions Esme thought she had dismissed a week ago. So she’d thought he was hot. So what? Lots of people were hot. Like…um…movie stars. And models. And ex-soldiers with dangerously sexy hair working in inner-city A and Es who were doing their damnedest to keep their hearts off their sleeves.
But now that she was seeing him again?
Heart hammering. An entire swarm of butterflies careering round her tummy. A flock of birds might as well have been circling her head. She tore her eyes away and did her best to focus on the young lad sitting next to Mr Extra-Gorgeous with a cherry on top.
The boy he’d selected, Euan Thurrock, really pulled at her heartstrings. Skinny. Buzz cut. Looked ready for a fight, but it was so easy to tell there was a scared little boy hiding beneath all of that bravura. She couldn’t imagine having to live in the same neighbourhood where he’d nearly lost his life. When the proverbial rubbish had hit the fan when she’d lived in Glasgow, she’d had a five-thousand-acre estate to hide in. Euan had to confront his biggest fears on a daily basis. She wasn’t entirely sure she ever had.
She glanced at Max then looked back at Euan. ‘So, are you ready to meet Ajax?’
Euan punched the air. ‘Ajax sounds awesome. Like an attack dog. Is he a Rottweiler? A Doberman Pincer?’
Esme smiled. ‘None of the above, I’m afraid.’ She whistled the dog over and watched Euan’s face melt with affection when the golden Lab popped his furry face up to the screen. ‘Euan, meet Ajax.’
Despite having done