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‘Hell.’ He’d lifted the lid as she had been speaking, and now as she reached him and looked down she saw several tiny shapes moving and squeaking.
‘Oh, Harry.’ She clutched his sleeve, her eyes wide and horrified. ‘Someone’s dumped some puppies. Out here, in the middle of nowhere. How could they?’
‘Quite easily, it seems,’ he said grimly.
‘Are they all right?’ They were both crouching down by the box now, and could make out four puppies in the moonlight, wriggling about on folded newspaper and smeared with their own excrement. ‘Oh, poor little things.’ Gina was nearly crying. ‘What are we going to do?’
Harry stood up. ‘If I put the car blanket over your knee, could you have the box on your lap?’
‘Of course. Anything, anything.’ She couldn’t believe someone had actually been so heartless as to put the puppies in a box, bring them to a deserted spot and just drive off. Not with all the sanctuaries that took unwanted litters these days.
Once they were back in the car again, the box on her lap, Gina peered in. ‘They’re very small,’ she said shakily. ‘Do you think there’s something the matter with them?’
‘Not with the racket they’re making,’ Harry said drily.
‘Where are we going to take them?’
‘There must be a vet somewhere around here, but I haven’t got a clue where. Look, my cleaner, Mrs Rothman, has dogs. Do you mind if we retrace our footsteps so to speak, and call on her? If nothing else she might be able to point us in the right direction. It’ll mean you’re late back, though. We’re halfway back to your place.’
She hadn’t realised they’d travelled so far. He was right. She had been asleep. ‘It doesn’t matter about being late. I haven’t got to get up for work in the morning, remember? It’ll be a cleaning and sorting day, so please do go and see your Mrs Rothman.’ At least she’d have extra time with him. Not that she would have wished it at the cost of someone dumping the puppies, but still …
The puppies quietened down as the warmth of the car kicked in, but this had the effect of causing Gina to check them every couple of minutes, terrified they’d died. It was a huge relief when eventually they came to the small village, which was a stone’s throw from Harry’s secluded cottage, and drew up outside a neat terraced house.
Mrs Rothman proved to be a plump, motherly type who drew them into the warmth of her smart little house and insisted on her husband making them all a cup of tea while she oohed and ahhed over the contents of the box. ‘Jack Russell crosses, by the look of it,’ she announced once she’d inspected the puppies. ‘All females. I bet whoever owned the bitch could get rid of the males but not the females. Happens like that sometimes. Or maybe it was just a huge litter.’
After cleaning the four little scraps up, Mrs Rothman lined the box with fresh newspaper while her husband mushed up some of their dog food. The puppies made short if somewhat messy work of it, after which Mrs Rothman popped them back in the box on top of an old towel. All four promptly went to sleep, clearly worn out by their unwelcome adventure.
‘How old do you think they are?’ Gina asked Mrs Rothman once she and Harry and the older couple were sitting sipping a second cup of tea in front of the blazing coal-fire, the puppies snuggled together in their box to one side of the hearth.
‘Hard to tell, but they managed the food fairly well, so I’d say about six weeks or so, maybe seven or eight. They wouldn’t have lasted long, left where they were. The nights can still be bitter.’ Mrs Rothman turned to Harry. ‘I know of a dog sanctuary not far from here. I’ll give you the telephone number and address. They’ll take them, I’m sure.’
Harry nodded. ‘Thanks.’
One of the puppies began to squeak with little piping sounds, and Gina knelt down and lifted the squirming little body out of the box and onto her lap, stroking the silky fur until it went back to sleep again. Harry looked at her. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘What sort of so-and-so could watch them grow to this stage and then leave them to die?’
It was exactly what she had been thinking, and his understanding brought tears to her eyes. That and the fact that she could see he too was deeply affected by the puppies’ plight. As another one began to scrabble about, he fetched it out of the box and fussed over it until it settled on his lap.
Mrs Rothman plied them with more tea and a slice of her home-made seed cake, the fire crackled and glowed, the puppies slept, and the big grandfather clock in a corner of the room ticked on. It was cosy and warm, and Gina didn’t want the moment ever to end.
And then Harry stood up. ‘Right,’ he said briskly, depositing his puppy back with her sisters. ‘We’ve bothered you long enough. If you could let me have the address of the sanctuary, and a tin of dog food to tide them over until I drop them off, we’ll be on our way.’
The brief interlude was over.
CHAPTER FOUR
HARRY was experiencing a whole host of emotions new to him, and none of them was welcome.
This evening had been a mistake of gigantic proportions from start to finish, he thought grimly as he and Gina made their goodbyes and walked to the car, the box tucked under his arm, and Gina carrying a bag containing several tins of dog food which Mrs Rothman insisted on pressing on them. And finding the puppies had been the icing on the whole damn cake.
Once he’d settled Gina in the car with the box on her lap, he walked round the bonnet to the driver’s side.
Gina Leighton was beautiful, sweet, intelligent and heart-wrenchingly vulnerable, and a woman like that definitely didn’t feature in his life. No way. With someone like Gina came commitment, responsibilities, ties, problems, and he was done with such things for good. He’d rather jump out of a plane without a parachute than ever consider travelling down that road again in a hundred lifetimes.
Once in the car, the puppies were yelping and mewing and scrabbling about in the box like crazy. ‘I think they want their mum,’ Gina said as he pulled on his seat belt. ‘They must wonder what on earth is happening.’
He knew how they felt. Life had seemed so straightforward this morning. He’d thought that if she followed through on actually leaving—which he’d doubted till the last moment—than a warm goodbye, a little word about the watch and all she’d done for him and how grateful he was, and that would be that. Pleasant departure. Smiles all round. Simple. Clean.
So why had he asked her to have dinner with him? He went to start the car, but one of the puppies made a good attempt at using her sisters as a springboard to catapult on to the rim of the box, causing Gina to squeal before she said quickly, ‘Sorry. She made me jump.’
‘Nimble little blighters, aren’t they?’ Harry couldn’t help smiling. Abandoned they might be. Quitters they most certainly were not.
‘How are you going to travel all the way back from my place without them escaping in the car?’ Gina tilted her head at him. ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler to take them to your house first and settle them somewhere, in the kitchen maybe, before you take me home? Or I could call a taxi. Or, failing that, I’ll have them and take them to the sanctuary in the morning.’
He stared at her. None of the women he’d seen over the last few years would have been bothered about him in this situation—or the puppies come to that. Their prime concern would have been their clothes, hair, nails—in that order.
Then he shook himself mentally. He was probably being grossly unfair to the odd one or two. But only the odd one or two. ‘It might be a good idea to nip home and put them in the utility room before I take you back,’ he admitted. ‘The boiler’s in there, so it’s always warm, and I’ve got some bits of wood in the garage I can use to pen them in and contain them. It’ll give them room to be comfortable.’
She nodded. ‘Do that, then.’ She gave a weak giggle. ‘But quickly. This big one is determined to make a break for it. She’s obviously got leadership qualities.’
He smiled back at her. ‘There’s always one …’
As he started the car, Gina said, ‘They’re very sweet, aren’t they? And that puppy smell. It’s gorgeous.’
‘It wasn’t so gorgeous before Mrs Rothman cleaned them up,’ Harry said practically.
She giggled again. He wondered why such a simple, innocent sound should make him so sexually excited. But then, if he was truthful, he’d been fighting the attraction this woman held for him since day one. Her soft, generous curves, the pale, ginger-speckled skin, that mass of silky hair that shone with myriad shades of red and copper when a shaft of sunshine touched it …
He swung the car on to the road, driving automatically, taken up with his thoughts. Sometimes he’d only had to walk into the office and see Gina sitting demurely at her desk to become as hard as a rock. If she knew the sexual fantasies he’d indulged in … The situation had annoyed him, irritated him on occasion, and certainly disturbed him not a little. It had also frightened the dickens out of him, he realised with a little shock of self-awareness.
If she’d been some brassy, hard-boiled piece it would all have been different. They could have enjoyed each other’s bodies for as long as it had taken for the attraction to burn itself out. If she was attracted to him, that was. He frowned to himself. He’d thought there was a spark between them, but he might be fooling himself here. She’d always been the model of decorum. Damn it, it was an impossible situation. Which was why he had to admit to an initial feeling of relief when she’d said she was leaving.
Did he still feel relief? The car headlights caught a fox crossing the road in front of them, the animal’s red fur and thick bushy tail disappearing into the shadows in the next instant.
He wasn’t sure what he felt any more. He wanted to take her to bed, no question of that. He did not want a woman in his life permanently, set in concrete. And now she had revealed she was leaving because of a man which, he was forced to acknowledge, had thrown him somewhat. It had been a long time since he’d felt the nasty little gremlin of jealousy jabbing at him, but it had been there tonight. Their whole conversation had made him realise he didn’t know Gina as well as he’d thought he did.
She’d said the man wasn’t married, and he believed her. Gina wouldn’t lie. But selfish he most certainly was. She had clearly been seeing him for a long time, and to let her walk away the way he had … A muscle contracted in his jaw. He’d love five minutes alone with the swine.
Another little squeal from Gina brought his eyes to her as she carefully pushed the biggest puppy down in the box again. ‘We’re nearly home,’ he said, just as he swung the car off the road and on to his drive.
‘Not before time.’ She glanced at him as he drew up outside the cottage. ‘How are you going to get them to the sanctuary in the morning? This box won’t be any good.’
‘I’ll find something else. Failing that, a generous contribution to the place might persuade someone to come out and fetch them.’
Once in the cottage, he left Gina in the utility room with the puppies while he went to the garage and sorted out a couple of pieces of wood. When he returned, it was to find her kneeling on the tiles with the puppies scampering about her.
‘They’re so cute.’ She glanced up at him, her eyes alight, and his stomach muscles registered her tousled softness. ‘I thought they were all the same at first, but one’s bigger than the others, and that one—’ she pointed ‘—is smaller, and the other two are the same size.’
He nodded. ‘There are two puddles on the floor,’ he said.
She grimaced. ‘They can’t help that, they’re only babies. Aren’t you?’ she added, lifting the smallest puppy into her arms and stroking the small, downy head. ‘You’re just little babies without your mum. Take no notice of moany old Harry.’
Harry fought down the urge to take her straight upstairs into his bed, and show her that there was pleasure and enjoyment and life after this rat who had let her down. Instead he positioned the wood so it effectively enclosed a third of the utility room, spreading a wad of newspapers in one corner in the hope further puddles would be kept to one spot. In another corner, he made a bed of towels.
In the meantime Gina had wandered into the kitchen and found a couple of saucers, one of which she filled with water and one with pulped dog-food. The minute she came back and put them down, the puppies were on them.
They stood for a good few minutes, watching them feed and explore their new surroundings, laughing at their antics.
They really were four little clowns, Harry thought as he watched the smallest puppy hanging onto the biggest one’s tail by its teeth, before she was bowled over by one of the others. He’d grown up with dogs, but his parents had always chosen ones on the large side—Labradors and German Shepherds. These little mites were quite different, but seemed full of personality.
A stifled yawn at the side of him brought him back to the realisation it was very late. He glanced at his watch and was amazed to see it was after one o’clock. ‘Why don’t you stay the night?’ he said suddenly.
‘What?’
Gina looked as startled as he felt, he told himself with dark humour. Where on earth had that invitation come from?
‘Stay the night,’ he repeated quietly. ‘It’s very late, and you’re obviously dead beat. It seems sensible to stay here.’
He saw her mouth open and close. Something in the blue eyes made him sure she was going to refuse, and he added quickly, ‘Mrs Rothman always keeps the guest-room bed aired and made up.’
He saw her swallow. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ She appeared lost for words for a moment. ‘Because I’ve loads to do in the morning.’
That wasn’t the true story. His mouth dried. He’d bet his bottom dollar she’d arranged to see Lover Boy in the morning. Perhaps before this guy went into work. Damn it, couldn’t she see this man was just using her? Perhaps he even expected a bon-voyage quickie. Without a shred of remorse for the crudity, he said carefully, ‘You’ll be home first thing—I’ve got to go to work, don’t forget. Perhaps we could even drop the puppies off at this sanctuary on the way. That’d be a great help to me. In fact, I don’t know how I’m going to manage it without you.’
She stared at him, her blue eyes dark with some emotion he couldn’t fathom. She was probably weighing up the pain and pleasure of seeing Lover Boy compared to lending him a hand. Feeling he needed to press his cause, he said gently, ‘Like you said, they’re just little babies without their mum. I’d hate for things to be more difficult than they need to be in the morning, and handling the four of them might prove a problem.’ Deciding the end justified the means, he lied through his teeth as he added, ‘You’re used to dogs. I’m not.’
He saw her eyes narrow and realised he’d overdone it when she said, ‘I thought you once told me your parents have always had dogs?’
They had had too many long chats over coffee breaks. Recovering quickly, he smiled. ‘That’s true, but I left home well over a decade ago, besides which these little things bear no resemblance to the sort of dogs I grew up with.’
‘Mrs Rothman thought they were Jack Russell crossed with fox terriers, something like that. They’re not exactly going to be tiny dogs.’
‘But they’re tiny now. And wriggly.’ He wondered how far he could push the helpless-male scenario.
Gina glanced from him to the puppies, who were now quiet again, curled up together and looking pathetically helpless on their bed of towelling. Knowing her soft heart, he murmured, ‘I’d hate to drop one of them.’
He saw her shut her eyes for an infinitesimal second. Whether it was with despair at his feebleness, or irritation at her predicament, he wasn’t sure.
‘All right,’ she said ungraciously. ‘I’ll stay. But I need to be away first thing.’
Definitely expecting a visit from the rat. ‘Sure thing. I don’t want to be late. Busy day in front of me tomorrow, and Susan’s not clued up on things like you are, although she’s doing great.’
‘Isn’t she?’ Gina said.
He could tell she was still mad at being trapped here, because there was an edge to her voice. ‘Want a cup of coffee or anything before we turn in?’
‘Do you have any cocoa?’
‘Cocoa?’ he asked in surprise.
She flushed. ‘I usually have a mug of milky cocoa in bed,’ she said a trifle defensively.
Dampening down a mental image of Gina sitting up in bed stark-naked, her hair about her shoulders while her pink tongue licked at the froth on top of a mug of cocoa, Harry cleared his throat. His voice husky, he said, ‘Sorry, no cocoa, but there’s plenty of milk. How about a mug of hot milk instead—will that do?’
Gina nodded. He thought she looked very unhappy, and a mixture of anger and resentment slashed through him. Anger at this no-good character she was mixed up with. Resentment that someone he had thought so sensible and discriminating could allow themselves to be treated this way. The sooner she was well away from Yorkshire, the better. And yet he didn’t want her to go. How much he didn’t want her to go he hadn’t realised until just this very moment.
Feeling confused, he led the way into the kitchen. Gina perched on a stool and watched him as he placed two mugs on the breakfast bar, and then poured a pint of milk into a saucepan. ‘I’ll join you in the milk,’ he said obsequiously, aiming to get into her good books.
She nodded but didn’t comment.
‘And I appreciate you staying and helping with the puppies in the morning.’
His tone had been light, and he saw her rouse herself and stitch a smile on her face. ‘I couldn’t leave a mere male to cope with four offspring, now, could I?’
‘True.’ He’d never noticed just how superb her legs were before, but with her sitting on that stool he was probably seeing more of them than usual. Ignoring the stirring in his body, he said cheerfully, ‘At least babies of the animal variety don’t necessitate the use of nappies.’
‘Nappies are no problem these days, even to the most incompetent man. There’s no pins or folding them over in a certain way. It’s all done for you. You just stick two tabs together, and job’s a good ‘un.’
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he said drily.
‘Don’t tell me—you believe nappy changing and the rest of it is women’s work.’
‘Actually, I don’t,’ he said mildly.
‘No?’ Her lifted eyebrows expressed her disbelief.
‘No. If a couple decide to take on the enormous responsibility of bringing a new life into the world, then it’s a joint decision all the way, or should be. Taking it as read that certain functions can only be performed by a mother—breastfeeding, for example … I think parenthood should be a fifty-fifty undertaking.’ He poured the milk into the mugs.
‘Oh.’
‘You don’t believe me?’ he asked, turning to look at her.
‘I didn’t say that,’ she protested quietly.
‘You didn’t have to. You had a funny look on your face.’
Her face cleared of all expression. ‘I can’t help my face,’ she said with a weak smile. ‘So you’re a new-age man, then?’
‘Ah, now that’s a different question. I only said having a child should be a mutual undertaking, not that I’d consider it for myself.’
She nodded. ‘No, of course not. You’re strictly autonomous. You take what you want when you want, and then move on.’
He’d been in the process of handing a mug of milk to her, and for a moment his body stilled before carrying on. ‘Is that how you see me?’ he asked very quietly, a surge of emotion warning him he needed to control his temper.
She stared at him, her eyes unreadable. ‘That’s the picture you’ve presented to me.’
