One Intimate Night

Refusing to rise to Helen’s bait, Georgia shook her head and exclaimed, ‘Is that the time? I must go otherwise I shall be late for this afternoon’s clinic.’

CHAPTER TWO

BY THE time he had driven Ben back to his godmother’s, Piers had made up his mind. The dog had to go. However, when he let himself into the house he found Emily Latham in a state of some agitation. Her sister, it transpired, had telephoned her in Piers’s absence asking her if she would like to take the place of her friend who had had to drop out of a three-week cruise of the Mediterranean at the last minute.

‘Everything’s paid for,’ she told Piers. ‘All I would have to do is pack and take the train to Mary’s…’

‘So what’s stopping you?’ Piers asked her with a smile.

Poignantly she looked at Ben.

‘I just can’t leave him,’ she told Piers solemnly.

‘You could put him in kennels,’ Piers suggested.

Immediately his godmother shook her head.

‘Oh, no, he’d hate that,’ she told him, adding simply, ‘Who would give him his chocolate at night and make sure he has everything he wants? No, he wouldn’t be comfortable in kennels. He sleeps upstairs in my room at night and…’

Piers closed his eyes. It was getting worse and worse. No wonder the dog thought he was the boss.

‘It’s no good. I’ll have to ring Mary and tell her I can’t go,’ Emily said dispiritedly.

Piers frowned and came to a quick decision. He had planned to spend only a few days with his godmother, looking at local properties, but, in reality, there was nothing to stop him from staying longer, nor from working from her house whilst he did so, and besides…He looked at the dog lying sprawled out on the rug in front of the fireplace, a whole array of semi-chewed toys spread around him.

With his godmother safely out of the way he could look around for another home for Ben.

‘Yes, you can,’ he told his godmother firmly. ‘I’ll stay here with Ben.’

‘For three weeks? Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that,’ Emily Latham demurred, but Piers could see the gleam of hope in her eyes.

‘You aren’t asking me,’ he told her prosaically, ‘I’m volunteering. And besides, it will give me more time to look around for somewhere to live and work.’

‘Well, if you’re sure…’

‘I’m sure,’ Piers confirmed. ‘You go and ring Mary.’

As his godmother headed for the door she paused and stopped, saying, ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. How did the training class go?’

Piers grimaced. ‘It didn’t. In fact the whole thing was shambolic. The young woman who took it was very easy on the eye and equally easy on the dogs. I always thought red hair was supposed to signify temper in a woman, but she—’

‘Red hair…Oh, it must have been Georgia who took the class. She’s lovely, isn’t she? She’s only been with the practice a few months. In fact it’s really thanks to her that I got Ben…’

Piers tensed. ‘Thanks to her? You mean she was responsible for that…that…?’

He stopped as the telephone started to ring and his godmother went to answer it. He might have known, he fumed. No wonder the wretched woman had been so keen to protect Ben, if she was the one who was responsible for his godmother having the dog in the first place. Of all the irresponsible…

Wrathfully he remembered the chaos of what had purported to be this morning’s dog-training class. Philip must have used his eyes rather than his brain the day he had decided to employ her. She certainly was very eye-catching, with that mass of thick, dark red hair and that delicate face, those lusciously dark-lashed eyes and that body that was so curvy that it was just made for a man’s hands to caress…

Abruptly Piers frowned; this was no way for him to be thinking. His godmother had more than likely committed the same folly of being instantly attracted to her crafty canine, for no one could deny that Ben was an extremely good-looking dog.

He, Piers, attracted to Georgia? Impossible…He liked cool, intellectual brunettes, tall and slim, fully up-to-speed independent women who would have shuddered in distaste at the mere thought of an animal’s hair anywhere near their immaculately presented persons.

A short, curvy redhead with tousled curls who thought nothing of cuddling one of her furry friends was quite definitely not his cup of tea…No way…no way at all…

‘That was Mary on the phone,’ his godmother announced happily as she came back into the room. ‘I’ve told her that I’m going to be able to join her after all.’ Her face clouded slightly. ‘Are you sure you really want to do this, Piers? I know that Ben can be rather a naughty boy at times, but his heart’s in the right place…’ She beamed adoringly at the dog, who had followed her into the room and was looking approvingly up at her.

‘His heart may be, but unfortunately the rest of him does not appear to want to follow suit,’ Piers murmured dryly, giving the dog a quelling look. Ben scratched vigorously behind his ear, causing Emily Latham to give Piers a horrified look of concern.

‘Oh, Piers, you don’t think he’s caught something, do you?’ she exclaimed worriedly.

‘If he has I’m sure his friend at the vet’s will be more than happy to relieve him of it,’ Piers assured her grimly.

‘Oh, dear, I’d better give them a ring, and then I must pack and you’ll need food…and…’

‘I’ll ring them—in the morning. You go and pack by all means, but as for food I can shop for that myself tomorrow. This evening we’ll eat out…my treat.’

‘Oh, no…we can’t do that,’ his godmother protested. ‘Not on my last evening at home. It wouldn’t be fair to Ben.’

‘No, of course not,’ Piers agreed sardonically. ‘I wasn’t thinking. Do forgive me, Ben!’

‘We could have a take-away,’ Emily suggested. ‘There’s a very good pizza place in town that delivers. Ben loves them, don’t you, Benny? He likes the anchovy ones best…’

Defeatedly Piers closed his eyes whilst Ben’s tail thumped enthusiastically on the floor.

‘Thanks for taking this afternoon’s cases,’ Philip told Georgia as she emerged from their second surgery. ‘Oh, and by the way, if I could just have a word with you before you leave…?’

Despite Philip’s smile and his thanks Georgia was conscious of a small frisson of unease. However, the afternoon’s patients had all turned out to be fairly straightforward, and any who had needed minor treatment had all responded well.

‘Ah Georgia.’ Philip smiled as she popped her head round the door to his office a few minutes later. ‘Yes…come on in…

‘Well, the good news is that you can take your missed day off tomorrow, if that suits you.’

‘Yes, thank you, that will be fine,’ Georgia accepted. ‘The good news’, he had said; that meant that there was some bad.

‘Sit down,’ Philip invited her, indicating the chair in front of his desk. ‘I appreciate that you were somewhat thrown in at the deep end, so to speak, today, and I’m sure that, like all of us here, there are some aspects of the work you prefer to others. For instance I’ve always enjoyed operating and large-animal work, whilst Helen, as you know, prefers dealing with the smaller domestic pets…’

Georgia frowned, wondering where exactly Philip’s conversation was leading. In another few seconds she knew.

‘I understand that this morning’s dog-training class wasn’t entirely successful.’

Georgia’s heart started to thump a little uncomfortably. Had someone complained?

‘There were one or two problems,’ she admitted huskily. ‘Ben…’

‘It does require a certain type of very strong personality to control a group of over-excited dogs,’ Philip continued before she could explain. ‘I know. I’ve been having a look at your file and I see that you had an excellent report from the intensive dog-training course we sent you on, but sometimes translating what has been learned in that kind of protected, cocooning environment into real life can be more difficult than we envisage.’

‘Someone’s complained.’ Georgia couldn’t help preempting him flatly. ‘I know that things did get a bit out of hand this morning, but…’