Finding Love at the Forever Home on Lane (The Forever Home on Muddypuddle Lane #1)

CHAPTER ONE

The ball of fur lay curled and quivering in the corner of the kennel, and Jakob wanted to cry. It broke his heart whenever he saw a dog who was so shut down that it seemed to have lost the will to live. This little scrap didn’t even lift her head when he opened the door, the acknowledgement of his presence a mere flicker of her eye. He couldn’t tell whether she was paralysed by fear or despondency. Both, probably.

‘She isn’t doing so well, is she?’

The woman’s voice came from behind, and Jakob glanced over his shoulder and pulled a face. ‘Some dogs can’t handle being in kennels. She needs to be fostered.’

‘I wish I could have her in the house with me.’

‘They can’t all live with you , Maisie. I’ll foster her.’

Maisie Fairfax already had a houseful, having taken in a whippet bitch and her newborn puppies, and it was imperative that the pups weren’t exposed to other dogs in the shelter until they were fully vaccinated.

She said, ‘What about your two? Won’t they mind?’

‘They’ll be fine.’ Jakob had an elderly golden retriever named Stan, and a Bichon crossed with something unidentifiable called Ripley. Both were rescue dogs, obviously.

Not moving from his position near the door, Jakob crouched down, aware how threatening his bulk and height could be for something so small, and his heart spasmed when the dog flinched at the movement.

‘Have you discovered anything more about her history?’ Maisie asked.

Jakob shook his head. A member of the public had brought the dog in after finding her tied to railings in the park. Thin and terrified, her fur matted and dirty, she’d cowered, wide-eyed and shivering, as the vet had checked her over. No microchip, which wasn’t a surprise, but no obvious infections or injuries, thank heaven.

Now that she’d had a bath and a trim, he thought she might have some Norfolk terrier in her because of her wiry tan coat and floppy ears. Physically, she was okay. Mentally, she wasn’t doing too good. He knew Maisie was doing her best, but she had other dogs to see to, and a business to run.

Maisie had recently opened The Forever Home Boarding Kennel on the mountain above the pretty village of Picklewick. She was kindly helping Thornbury Animal Sanctuary by letting them use part of the kennels, because the sanctuary was awash with unwanted and abandoned dogs.

Jakob had been reassigned to The Forever Home for the duration. This morning, he’d already cleaned five of the six kennels, fed the occupants, and checked them over. Soon he’d take each dog for one of its twice daily walks and continue with their training and assessments.

But, at the moment, his focus was on Trixie. He had no idea what the dog’s name had been prior to her arrival at the sanctuary, so he’d named her Trixie.

‘I’m going to sit with her for a bit,’ Jakob said, hoping Maisie would take the hint and leave him be.

He liked the woman – as much as he liked anyone – but there was only so much peopling he could do and after chatting to her boyfriend, Adam, earlier, Jakob was all peopled out for a while. He needed to recharge his social battery, and the only way he knew how to do that was to be alone with a dog.

Right now, this one needed all his attention, so with his eyes on the scrap of fur in the corner, Jakob began the slow process of helping Trixie learn to love and trust again.

If it wasn’t next door’s dog howling, it was Zaza mewing, and between the two of them Gretta couldn’t concentrate. And don’t get her started on the birds. It was spring and they were nesting for all they were worth, creating so much noise that she had to keep the windows shut, despite it being such a lovely day.

With an exasperated sigh, she saved the newsletter she was working on, pushed her chair away from the desk and got to her feet.

The cat was sitting in the doorway to the small office, staring at her with big, chartreuse eyes. Gretta knew Zaza wanted one of two things – food or attention – and since she’d already had her breakfast, the cat probably wanted to be petted. Or ‘worshipped’ as Zaza saw it.

Now that she’d got her subject’s attention, Queen Zaza let out a chirp and strolled nonchalantly across the room, her fluffy grey tail upright and ramrod straight, the bell on her pink diamante collar tinkling.

Gretta knelt on the floor and stroked her fingers through the Persian’s long fluffy fur, as Zaza arched her back and purred with contentment. But when another mournful howl rent the air, the cat scowled.

Zaza had one of those feline faces that looked perpetually cross at the best of times, but she could also give a pretty good scowl when she was particularly displeased.

‘Is that nasty dog bothering you, sweetie? He’s bothering me, too. Shall we go tell it to shut up?’

The noise had been going on all morning and Gretta was heartily sick of it. The dog didn’t usually make a racket, not like this. It would bark when someone knocked on Mr Butler’s door, or when it spotted Zaza on the fence separating the two gardens, and it would sometimes yelp to be let in if Mr Butler had forgotten it was outside. But this howling was unearthly.

The old man must have gone out, Gretta thought, although it was rare for him to leave the dog for long. If he wanted something from the village, he usually took it with him. She often saw him, hunched into an overcoat, the little dog by his side.

Aaawooohooo…

Zaza arched her back and hissed, and Gretta scrambled to her feet. Right, that’s it! She’d have to go round there and tell him his dog was howling. She knew Mr Butler was deaf, but she didn’t realise he was that deaf.

She pushed her chair back under the desk and made sure her work surface was tidy. After she’d given the old man a piece of her mind, she’d have an early lunch. She may as well since her concentration had been broken, then she’d resume work after she’d eaten. She could do with a break and a stretch of the legs anyway, because she’d been hard at it since seven this morning.

That was the beauty of being her own boss and working from home; as long as the work was done, she could please herself as to when. Sometimes, if she couldn’t sleep, she worked at night. It helped keep those unwanted memories at bay, the ones that always seemed to rear their ugly heads in the middle of the night.

Gretta left her office (which was technically the third bedroom of her terraced house) and trotted downstairs, Zaza padding behind, but the cat hesitated when she saw Gretta remove her slippers and place them neatly by the front door. Zaza wouldn’t follow her into the street. She preferred prowling around the gardens and the field behind the house. She didn’t care for the road, which Gretta was thankful for. If anything happened to her cat, Gretta didn’t know what she’d do. Zaza had been with her from the start of her new life in Picklewick. The cat was more than a companion: Zaza symbolised freedom.

Swapping the slippers for a pair of pumps, Gretta slid her mobile into her pocket and grabbed her keys, making sure to lock the front door behind her, even though she was only popping next door and even though she wouldn’t be out of sight of it for even a second.

Automatically and without really realising she was doing it, Gretta glanced up and down the street. There wasn’t a soul in sight, apart from the postman. He was heading away from her house, so she safely assumed he hadn’t anything for her today.

Mr Butler didn’t have a doorbell. He had an old-fashioned brass knocker: a very loud knocker. Its rat-a-tat sound sometimes made her jump, as it seemed to reverberate through the wall if she was in the living room. He didn’t get many visitors though, she reflected, as she raised the knocker and let it fall.

Aaawooohooo…

Gretta shuddered. What was wrong with the dratted thing for it to make such a noise?

The wolf-like howl was immediately followed by a volley of yapping barks that faded away into silence as she waited on the doorstep.

Typical; Mr Butler wasn’t in. Or was he? Was that music she could hear?

Gretta bent forward and hesitantly opened the letterbox flap. The music was instantly louder and she recognised it as the theme tune to one of the morning programmes on TV.

Exasperated, she dropped the flap, eliciting more barking, and banged on the knocker again.

The door remained stubbornly closed.

Unease stirred inside her, and she froze, her hand on the knocker. She had a feeling that something was amiss.

Gretta stepped back from the door and glanced at the window. The houses on this street didn’t have front gardens; nothing stood between them and the pavement, so with another glance up and down the road, Gretta walked over to her neighbour’s living room window.

Cupping her hands around her eyes, she peered through it, trying to see beyond the yellowing net curtain.

Was that—?

Oh, hell, it was! The poor man!

Mr Butler was lying on the floor and he didn’t appear to be moving. His little black and white dog sat next to him, staring up at the window.

Gretta stumbled back, reaching for her phone, and as she did, the howling started again. The dog obviously thought she was abandoning him and his master.

As she rang for an ambulance, she tried the handle, fully expecting the front door to be locked, and was surprised to discover that it wasn’t.

‘Is the patient breathing?’ the operator asked.

‘Hang on, I’m going in now,’ Gretta said, hurrying inside. The howling turned to whimpering, and a skitter of claws on the lino in the hall made her hesitate. Was the dog friendly? Might it attack her?

She flinched as it launched itself at her, then realised its back end was waggling as it jumped up at her legs.

Gretta ignored it and hastened to Mr Butler’s side.

His eyes were closed. Tentatively she reached out and pressed two fingers against the side of his neck. She thought she felt a pulse, but she wasn’t entirely sure because she was shaking so much.

‘Is the patient breathing?’ the operator repeated.

Gretta scrutinised Mr Butler’s chest and was relieved to see a shallow rising and falling. ‘Yes.’

‘Is the patient conscious?’

She shook him gently. ‘Mr Butler, can you hear me? Mr Butler?’ There was no response. ‘No, he isn’t.’

‘Keep talking to him. An ambulance will be with you shortly.’

Wishing the operator had stayed on the line, Gretta hurried to the front door to open it, then dashed back to the old man; she’d sit with him until help arrived.

The dog was lying next to him, licking his face, and she grimaced. ‘Shoo!’ She waved a hand at it.

The animal ignored her. It carried on licking its master, a low whine issuing from its throat.

Gretta decided to leave him be. Mr Butler had more than dog saliva to worry about. His skin had a deathly pallor and his lips were purple, bordering on blue. Heart trouble?

Mindful of the operator’s advice, she said, ‘It’s Gretta, from next door. Don’t worry, help is on its way. You’ll be okay, Mr Butler. The hospital will sort you out.’

He must have heard her, her presence registering on some level, because he stirred, his eyelids fluttering, his mouth working. His breathing deepened and he hitched in a rattling breath. The exhalation carried a wheezing whisper.

‘Don’t try to speak,’ she told him. ‘Save your strength. The ambulance will be here any minute.’ God, she hoped that was true.

The dog whined again, the sound piteous, and it tried to squirm closer. Gretta pushed it away, but it scrabbled back into position.

‘Bertie.’ The word was faint, barely a whisper.

‘I’ll put him in the kitchen, shall I?’ she suggested. The last thing the paramedics needed was a dog getting in the way.

‘No.’ The old man grasped her arm with surprising strength. ‘Promise me.’

‘Promise you what, Mr Butler?’

He said something, but she didn’t catch it, so she shuffled nearer and bent her head, her ear close to his mouth. ‘Can you say that again?’

‘Bertie…promise me…you’ll look after him.’ His mouth dropped open as he gasped for breath.

‘Oh, I’m not… I don’t know…’ The request caught her unawares.

‘Please. Tell him I love him.’

‘Tell who?’

‘Bertie. Look after him.’ The old man’s eyelids opened, revealing cloudy, panicked eyes, and the grip on her arm tightened. ‘Please.’

‘Of course I will,’ she assured him reluctantly. What else could she say?

‘Promise?’ His voice was urgent.

‘I promise.’ It wasn’t a hard promise to make. After all, it would only be for a few hours. Maybe for the rest of the day, if Mr Butler was kept in overnight. Someone would turn up to take it off her hands. She’d pop in a couple of times to check on it until they did.

To her relief, noise and a flurry of activity alerted her to the arrival of the paramedics.

Worried that the dog might panic and bolt, she scooped up the solid little body and deposited the pooch in the kitchen, shutting the door firmly. The howling began immediately.

Gretta wanted to yell at it to shut up but was conscious that if it hadn’t been for the racket the dog had made, she would never have found Mr Butler. He might have lain on his lounge floor for hours. Days. It didn’t bear thinking about.

But long after the ambulance had taken Mr Butler away, it was all Gretta was able to think about.

The dog hadn’t shut up. It had barked and whimpered the whole time the paramedics had been there, carrying on when Gretta returned home. She’d left it in Mr Butler’s kitchen, after checking that it had food and water and hadn’t needed to go out for a wee. However, that had been over two hours ago, and the noise hadn’t stopped.

Gretta had to admire the little creature’s stamina. It was a wonder it hadn’t given itself a sore throat. Could dogs get sore throats, she wondered, sighing in irritation: she couldn’t remember whether she’d sent a draft copy of the newsletter to the author in question and now had to go back into the programme to check.

She had sent it, she discovered crossly, and as soon as the author gave her the okay, she would email it to the woman’s many thousands of subscribers.

Gretta was a virtual personal assistant to several authors, performing a variety of tasks including managing social media accounts, updating websites, marketing, and creating newsletters. Some authors wanted her to do all the things that a writer had to do (apart from actually writing the book) and others wanted a reduced service, such as content creation for blog posts. It was varied and interesting work and Gretta loved it, especially since it played to her excellent organisational skills.

Aaawooohooo…

Gretta slapped her palm on the desk in irritation. This couldn’t go on. Goodness knows how long it would be before someone came to see to the dratted thing. It could be hours yet, and she still had a considerable amount of work to do before she wanted to finish for the day.

After accessing the online project planning software, Gretta updated the author’s task sheet with the newsletter details. It was imperative that everything was dated and documented, otherwise how could she keep track? It was also imperative that she was able to concentrate and when the howling turned to barking, Gretta flinched. She didn’t know which was worse.

What she did know was that she wanted it to stop. She would have to go round there, she decided. Maybe it needed another garden visit?

Swapping her slippers for the shoes in the hall, she checked she had Mr Butler’s key. It had been in the lock, on the inside of his front door, and she’d taken it with her after he’d been bundled into the ambulance, not wanting to leave his property unlocked. She’d give it to whoever came to see to the dog. Having it in her possession made her uncomfortable. She didn’t want the responsibility.

The noise briefly stopped when she entered his house, resuming in earnest before she’d taken more than a couple of steps into the hall, the timbre of the barks changing from despondent to excitement, then on reaching the kitchen, she could hear whimpering and scrabbling as he clawed at the door. But when she opened it, all noise ceased as the dog realised she wasn’t who he was hoping for.

‘Sorry, Bertie, it’s me, Gretta, from next door.’

The dog backed away and sat on his haunches, regarding her solemnly.

Gretta was grateful for the silence. ‘Do you need to go out?’ She unlocked the door to the garden and pushed it open.

The dog continued to stare at her and didn’t move.

‘No? What then?’ He hadn’t touched his food, and his water bowl was still half full so he couldn’t be hungry or thirsty. ‘Are you missing your owner? Is that it?’

Bertie blinked at her.

‘Shall we see how he is, eh? What if I give the hospital a call?’

The dog wouldn’t understand, but she was rather concerned. The old man hadn’t looked well, and the expression on the paramedics’ faces had been grim.

She found the number for Thornbury General, then spent ages being passed from department to department. While she was waiting, she pulled out a chair at the Formica-topped table and sat down. Bertie, she noticed, came forward for a sniff, then promptly plonked his backside down on her foot. He was a warm, solid weight, staring up at her with mournful eyes.

‘It’ll be alright,’ she told him.

But when she finally got through to someone who could tell her how Bertie’s owner was, the news wasn’t good.

Mr Butler was dead.