Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
T he intensity of the sun was starting to seep into the day. An uncomfortable promise of stickiness and prickly heat beckoned as I sipped my iced coffee, sitting quietly and alone at the edge of the white-roped show ring, slowly letting go of my inner rage underneath a large sign saying “Dog Show” in gold letters. The moment of solitude was welcome, and I was quite sure I was emitting “bugger off” vibes to anyone who looked in my direction, because I had been unequivocally and blissfully avoided for the last five minutes.
Across the other side of the field, in a quiet and shady spot, a battered Land Rover was parking up next to a small gazebo, surrounded by metal sheep hurdles, and my heartbeat spiked in my chest when Teddy got out of the driver’s side. He helped Agnes out of the passenger seat and then they went around to the back, opening the door and the distinctive bleating of goats plucked a reluctant smile from my lips. Agnes proceeded to lift the little ones out of the vehicle and place them on the straw under the gazebo, then she turned to Teddy and I watched their exchange with growing amusement as his posture stiffened with what I now recognised as his goat-related anxiety. After a few minutes, during which I imagined Agnes’s gently persuasive tone wearing down Teddy’s resolve, he reached into the dark recesses of the Land Rover, emerging with Deidre in his arms, his head turned away from her angry bleating, back straining in his shirt as he placed her in the pen with her kids. Agnes gave him a little hug and glanced over in my direction. She waved when she saw me, making Teddy turn as well.
Facing him, even at this distance, made me hot all over – molten lava level hot. His little wave and smile caused a barrage of internal somersaults inside me, and I realised I was nervously jiggling my leg, causing me to spill some coffee on my knee.
“Shit!”
“Hannah? How lovely to see you!”
Mrs Fraser appeared behind me, dressed in a beautiful flowery summer dress and wedged heels and looking like she’d just flown in from a week on the C?te d'Azur. She beamed at me, then waved at her son, who now seemed to be staring in our direction, frozen to the spot.
“Hello, Mrs Fraser.”
“Fiona, please,” she replied, warmly. “Are you ready for the dog show?”
“I’m judging the first class.”
“Oh? I thought you were doing all the classes?”
“No, we have a guest judge who’s far more impressive and important.” I tried to keep the blade of bitterness out of my voice, but the eyeroll was evident to all around, and Fiona’s sharp-eyed gaze was no exception.
“So you’re free from about eleven?”
A slightly devious expression crossed her face.
“Er, well, I was going to…” My voice drifted off. What was I going to do? I hadn’t planned my next steps after I’d employed advanced level ex-boyfriend-avoidance techniques and secured my exit strategy from this latest shitshow.
Fiona waited patiently for me to carry on.
“Yes, I’m free from eleven,” I finished weakly, unable to come up with any viable excuses. My cranium was an empty, echoing void of nothingness, leaving me wondering what the actual use was of a PhD after all.
She clapped her hands together.
“That’s great news! We could do with an extra pair of hands in the produce tent at lunch time. Could you come over at about midday?”
I nodded and she practically radiated happiness.
“Thank you so much.”
A queue of dogs and their owners was starting to form nearby, and I could see Giles hesitantly wandering our way. Luckily, he was alone.
Fiona contemplated me as I got to my feet, letting out a soft sigh. “You make him so happy – you know that, don’t you? I’ve always worried that he was living in Henry’s shadow, but since meeting up with you again Edward has lit up from the inside.”
Teddy’s treehouse confession rang in my ears. His insecurities had been alive and evident, and yet still so difficult to reconcile with the friendly, charming facade he lived behind. The fact that his mother recognised a small part of this, but was probably not aware of the extent of her son’s feelings, made me want to yell and shout at her, shake her until she could see what was really going on with him. I wanted to tell her all the sad truths he kept buried, ask her to believe in him, to tell him that he was as special and important as his twin brother. But I didn’t. I kept it inside, unwilling to break his confidence with this secret he had entrusted to me.
Instead, I just said, “Ted’s a truly brilliant man in his own right. I’m grateful we’ve rekindled our friendship too.”
“No need to be coy with me, Hannah. I know you two aren’t just friends ,” Fiona said with a laugh while patting my arm gently. “I may be his mother, but I see the way you look at each other.”
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t exactly relay the fact that he’d spurned my pathetic drunken advances, then essentially ghosted me this week, and it was as clear as day that he didn’t want me, not the way I was coming to realise that I wanted him. A quick fumble would most definitely get it out of his system but it would never, ever, be enough for me.
“Fiona!” Giles’s outdoor voice, which was loud and intrusive and usually bloody irritating, was like a welcome lighthouse in the fog, saving me from any further squirm-inducing, Teddy-related discussions. “How lovely to see you.”
“Giles.” A bout of air kissing ensued and I wanted to vomit a little. But instead, I stood like an uncomfortable lemon and pasted a smile on my face as they made small talk.
“Hannah’s agreed to help with the judging in the produce tent.”
Have I? Crap! Is that what I’ve signed up for? More bloody judging? In the produce tent?
Christ, it was all Victoria sponges and enormous marrows, wasn’t it? What the hell did I know about that shit?
“Has she?” Giles looked as bewildered as I felt, then gestured at the now very long queue that had formed to our right. “But first you’ve got to pick the dog you’d most like to take home, and that’s going to be tough, isn’t it?”
On safer ground with this, I nodded and scarpered into the centre of the ring, pinning my judge’s badge to my shirt and swallowing nervously as hoards of my clients entered through the white rope gate, all smiling excitedly.
Then I heard it – the distinctive blood-curdling scream of Bentley Ryan, loudly announcing his presence to the entire field of other canines and their owners, who turned as one to stare at a tight-lipped Mrs Ryan in a floral dress and large straw hat as she tried to drag the reluctant dog towards the ring. The appearance of this pair caused my stomach to drop like a giant leaden suppository into my pants. The animosity in her glare was truly terrifying. It was a laser-like stare that focussed on me with complete and utter disapproval.
Well, isn’t this totally splendid.
And then she did something wholly unexpected. Reaching into her handbag, she pulled out a ragged, chewed, and soggy pink tennis ball from a clear plastic bag and offered it to the screaming dog. She knelt down in the grass and stroked his ears as he sniffed this object and tentatively took it in his mouth. The silence that followed was deafening, and the collective dog show participants breathed a sigh of relief, before the furore of excitement from everyone else started all over again.
Dogs of every shape and size were paraded around me, each owner desperately trying to catch my eye. There were purebreds, scruffy mutts, and a fair share of rescues, and the ring was so full it was bursting at the seams. Some of the dogs trotted obediently while others pulled at their leads; some yapped and spun around, and the puppies excitedly jumped up at their handlers; a couple of three-legged dogs and a basset hound in a pram completed the line-up. It’s fair to say it was absolute carnage and my frontal lobe went into meltdown. How the hell was I going to choose between them and not piss off a load of people? I was regretting my decision to judge this class because scientific objectivity would not help me here; it was a purely subjective decision. I had to go with my heart on this.
Glancing out to where Giles was standing, I noticed that Jonathan had joined him. He was smirking, arms folded, clearly not oblivious to my discomfort and blatant panic.
Yeah, well, bollocks to him.
With a little shake of my shoulders, I forced my reluctant face to smile as I tried to ignore the horrified looks of some of the dog owners and began to actively peruse each of the contestants.
“Ok, everyone. All handlers under sixteen years old come over here.” I gestured to a corner of the ring and noticed with a not insignificant amount of satisfaction how everyone jumped to my command. “Great. Now, all rescue dogs over here.” I pointed to another corner. “And dogs under six months over here. Finally, everyone else in the other corner. Excellent, thanks.”
Once they were segregated, I went and examined each of the dogs, now in much more manageable groups. From the rescue group, I selected a nervous border collie cross, who wiggled and wriggled around my feet, gently licking my hands as I stroked her, and a beautiful, graceful ex-racing greyhound. I gestured to Giles to bring the rosettes over. I selected a beagle and a Jack Russell terrier from amongst the puppies – these were two pups that I knew were attending training classes and had been particularly well behaved for their vaccinations recently. Approaching the child handlers, I picked a beautiful greying black labrador who gazed adoringly at the small girl who held him, and a mixed breed dog with three legs that was surely the happiest creature I had ever encountered in my years of practice.
With trepidation, I approached the last group, selecting the basset hound in the pram (because how the hell could I not?). Then, bending down to be on eye level with the rest of the dogs, I caught Bentley’s attention. His tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth as he dropped the ball on the ground, seemingly smiling at me, and it made my lips quirk in reply. Suddenly he pulled on his lead, slipping from Mrs Ryan’s hands, and bounded over, all flapping ears and drool as he launched his barrel-shaped body at me with gay abandon and knocked me backwards.
“Oh! Dr Havens, I am so sorry.”
A worried-looking Mrs Ryan loomed over me. Her enormous hat was backlit against the bright sun and blue sky above, while I fought off the slobbery attentions of Bentley.
“It’s really ok, Mrs Ryan. He obviously would like to come home with me and the feeling is absolutely mutual!”
I laughed, getting to my feet and placing him on the grass, while I gently rubbed his ears which made him grunt softly in pleasure, his back leg drumming the ground as he enthusiastically scratched at an imaginary itch.
The older lady looked conflicted for a moment, before a slightly haughty expression crossed her face.
“You don’t have to give me a rosette just to appease me, you know.”
“I know. But Bentley really is a dog I would like to take home. He’s so friendly and always happy to see me. He’s a pleasure to have in my consulting room.”
I paused and took a breath. This might not be the right time, but fuck it, I was going to say it. It was time to be myself and address the elephant in the room.
“The ball works for his anxiety, huh?”
She nodded, uncomfortable for a moment, but I carried on, lowering my voice.
“And his weight is definitely improving too, I can almost feel some ribs in there and I see how hard you’re working to keep him happy and healthy.”
The tension melted from Mrs Ryan.
“Thank you, I really am doing my best.”
“I know you are.”
Behind me, Giles appeared with a rosette. “Congratulations, Mrs Ryan. Bentley is looking super now he’s dropped a few pounds, isn’t he?”
She nodded and looked a little guilty.
“I only want him to be as healthy as possible. He’s all I have in the world.” She paused and sniffed a little. “Thank you for caring about him, Dr Havens. I’m very grateful, you know.”
I smiled and handed her prize over.
“You’re welcome.”
She graciously took the rosette and then suddenly her eyes went wide as she looked over my shoulder where a cacophony of frenzied barking had begun. Then noise and chaos erupted all around us. I turned just in time to see a blur of white as Deidre the goat raced across the field in my direction, bumping into a few of the dog show competitors, who toppled like felled trees. She bleated in panic as she took a sharp turn around me, with Teddy in hot pursuit. In a rather impressive move, he launched himself at her, but seemed to misjudge, completely missing her surprisingly speedy, zigzagging form. Instead, rugby-tackling me to the ground, landing squarely on top of me and slamming the air from my lungs. His breathless body and startled blue gaze pinned me down completely.
Yes, in a rather unexpected turn of events, Teddy Fraser was lying on top of me, with every bit of him touching every bit of me, and he was panting, more than a little suggestively, in front of the entire village fayre. Which at this moment in time was nothing short of bloody awkward, but under any other circumstances (as my sex-starved brain helpfully added) would have been most definitely hot as hell.