Heaven Here On Earth

‘How appropriate,’ Mandy taunted.

Ryan flashed her a look of dislike. ‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Yes, well,’ Grant Montgomery’s mouth showed signs of a smile, although it never materialised, ‘Rex and Riba don’t like strange dogs in their home. But that isn’t to say your dog isn’t welcome to stay, as you are,’ this last seemed to come out rather grudgingly. ‘Would you mind if he slept in the stable until the cottage is ready? It will only be for a couple of nights.’

Considering Ragtag was probably used to sleeping under the stars, a stable would probably be a luxury to him. And yet Ryan was aware that Grant Montgomery was only making a token show of seeking her approval, that it was the stable or nothing. Her mutt mustn’t be allowed to mix with his purebred Labradors!

‘I realise he needs a bath—–’

‘That’s an understatement,’ Mandy mocked.

Again Ryan looked at her with dislike. Snobbish little cat! ‘We happen to have travelled a long way,’ she flashed. ‘Both of us got rather dusty on the walk from the station.’

‘You walked?’ the other girl gasped.

She stiffened. ‘Of course.’

Grant Montgomery was frowning, the problem of Ragtag forgotten. ‘You came by train?’

‘Why else would I be at the station?’

His eyes hardened as he met the anger in hers. ‘Mark didn’t tell us you would be coming by train.’

‘Does it matter?’ she dismissed, becoming more and more disenchanted with this situation.

‘Not at all,’ he answered coldly. ‘Except there was no need for you to have walked all that way. A telephone call and one of us would have come and got you.’

She shrugged. ‘I managed to get a lift in the end.’

‘Oh yes?’

Ryan sensed his disapproval. However, she was twenty-one, not twelve, and she certainly didn’t have to ask this man’s permission to accept the offer of a lift! She didn’t relish the thought of being a guest in his home for the next few days either. Staying in a cottage on the estate was one thing, living in the house, if only for a couple of days, was something else completely. It meant she would be thrown into close daily contact with both Grant and Mandy Montgomery. And what she had seen of them so far didn’t endear them to her.

‘With the vet,’ she told them casually. ‘A very nice man. He sent his regards.’

‘So you’ve met Peter,’ Mandy said slowly.

Ryan looked at her curiously, sensing a deep interest behind the casual question. The other girl had a delicate flush to her cheeks, a glow to her eyes. Could it be that she was more than a little interested in the local vet? If she were it was obvious from Grant Montgomery’s haughty expression that he knew nothing about it. Would he approve or not? Peter Thornby was a lot older than Mandy, but then the girl was headstrong, maybe maturity was what she needed.

She firmly dismissed the other girl’s interest from her mind. It was none of her business who Mandy—or Grant, for that matter—fell in love with. She was just here to paint, and the sooner she could move into that cottage the better it would be as far as she was concerned.

‘Yes, I met him,’ she nodded. ‘He was in a hurry, though, so he couldn’t stop.’

Mandy’s mouth tightened angrily. ‘He never can!’ She turned on her heel and walked back into the house.

More than interested, Ryan would say. An unreturned interest, by the look of it.

Grant Montgomery looked taken aback by his sister’s behaviour, an emotion he quickly masked as he turned back to Ryan. ‘I’ll show you where the dog can sleep,’ he said abruptly, leading the way over to the stables.

She slowly followed him, aware of the power he exuded, his strides long and purposeful, muscles rippling beneath his shirt as he swung the door open.

‘One of the stalls should be all right,’ he told her.

Ryan had the feeling he would like to allocate her to one of the stalls too! It really hadn’t been a good idea to come here, it wasn’t working out at all as she had expected. So far there had been none of the peace and quiet she wanted.

‘Yes, fine,’ she agreed dully, the stable pristine clean.

Grant Montgomery looked down at her. ‘If you would rather he came up to the house—–’

‘No, it doesn’t matter,’ she dismissed curtly. ‘I think he needs a bath first—like me,’ she added ruefully, blatantly aware that even though Grant Montgomery had supposedly been working on the estate all day he was much tidier than she was, and the heated smell of his body was rather pleasant to the senses. Potent, was a much more appropriate word.

He really was an attractive man, magnetically so, somewhere in his mid-thirties, she would have guessed. Mark had told her that his brother wasn’t married, and now, having met him, she found that surprising. Some lucky woman should have snapped him up long ago, maybe then he wouldn’t have adopted this arrogant air of condescension. Although she wouldn’t have counted on it! He had the look of a man who had always had supreme self-confidence.

He nodded now, not disclaiming her comment. ‘I’ll get Shelley to show you to your room. You can get some food for your dog in the kitchen once you’ve freshened up.’

Ryan was relieved he had mentioned that. She had been wondering what to do about feeding Ragtag, especially as it already seemed she had to accept the Montgomerys’ hospitality for herself for several days.

‘Thank you,’ she accepted.

‘Perhaps you would like to settle the dog and then come up to the house,’ Grant suggested distantly. ‘I have to get back to work, but Shelley will be only too happy to help you should you run into any difficulties.’

‘Er—–fine,’ she said. ‘I-I’ll see you later, then.’

‘At dinner,’ he nodded tersely.

Ryan’s last view of him was as he strode off to climb in behind the wheel of his Land Rover, a grey one this time, as opposed to Peter Thornby’s green one, then Grant Montgomery drove off towards the fields at the back of the house. Considering the amount of sheep she had seen on her way here it was natural to assume the estate farmed them.

Mark hadn’t really told her much about his family, least of all their complexities. Mandy was a strange girl, old beyond her years in some ways, still very young in others, and Grant Montgomery was too full of complexities to even begin to fathom him. And she would bet that a lot of women had tried.

‘Interesting man,’ she told Ragtag as she looked for a comfortable spot for him in one of the stalls. ‘Oh, I know you didn’t like him,’ she smiled, ‘but then he didn’t seem too keen on you either. Ah, here we are,’ she had found a stall full of fresh-smelling hay. ‘Now you settle down here,’ she instructed. ‘And I’ll bring you some food down soon. And just between you and me, Ragtag,’ she said in a whisper, ‘I don’t think the haughty Mr Grant Montgomery liked me either!’

It had been there from the beginning, an antagonism that was not of her making, almost as if he suspected her motives for being here. Oh, how she wished that cottage had been ready for her when she arrived, or that she had known of the delay and could have come a couple of days later. In the meantime she would have to make the best of it.

‘I’ll be back soon,’ she absently assured the dog, and went back into the house to seek out the butler.

The bedroom they had given her was as elegantly furnished as the rest of the house, the carpet cream and fluffy, the deep pink bedspread and velvet curtains at the windows matching perfectly, the furniture a light pine.

Her suitcase had already been placed on the ottoman at the bottom of the double bed, with her canvases propped against it, reminding her of her reason for being here. Tomorrow she would be able to start work, that would compensate for all the difficulties she had so far encountered.

She was just putting on her clean clothing after her bath when Mandy Montgomery walked into the room unnanounced. Ryan hastily straightened her tee-shirt over her breasts, smoothing it over her denims. If Mandy had hoped to unnerve her she had failed. After sharing a dormitory with five other girls, Diana being one of them, she had become used to a lack of privacy, and was completely lacking in inhibitions about her body.

Nevertheless, she faced the other girl challengingly, knowing the intrusion had been a deliberately rude one. ‘Yes?’ she enquired coolly.

‘You’re wanted on the telephone—–’

‘Mark?’ Her expression brightened, and she forgot her antagonism.

‘Of course,’ Mandy taunted. ‘You can use the telephone in the drawing-room.’