I peel it off. Georgina, it appears, isn’t here. She’d waited as long as she dared, then cracked as her self-imposed deadline approached.
Have sent you text with location of key to back door (the number 1 has a big circle round it).
I check my phone; she has indeed texted me. Many times. I’m not quite sure why she left the note as well, it must have been a fail-safe.
Key is under the third plant pot to the left of the bin at the side of the house.
I glance around. My God, this woman is paranoid. Seems a bit extreme as far as key hiding goes, especially when you’re so far off the beaten track and you have automatic gates. But she does seem a bit extreme. There is nobody in sight, there isn’t a road or any other house as far as you can see.
How can you be a paranoid recluse and an Instagram hit? Seems a bit contradictory, doesn’t it?
This isn’t my main concern at the moment though. I still desperately need the loo – I totally resisted the urge to pee in a bottle or squat in a field. I head off to find the key so I can get inside as quickly as possible. I carry on reading the note as I go.
Full instructions on table in kitchen.
This is good. I can relieve my aching bladder then carry on reading with a glass of wine in my hand. I’m sure I can find a glass without the aid of any more instructions. And yay!!! I have found the key!
SKYPE ME THE SECOND YOU ARRIVE BEFORE YOU EVEN OPEN THE DOOR (this is in big shouty capitals and underlined several times).
That must be important, I think as I open the door. Oops! Surely she’s just being dramatic again, why wouldn’t I open the door first? And why wasn’t it the first thing she listed if it was that important?
Sugar, my phone’s ringing now! I pause, one hand still on the door handle. It’s Skype. I push the door ajar a bit. It is Georgina. Bugger, what do I do? How did she know I was here? Can she tell I’ve opened the door? Has it got some kind of alarm system that reports straight to her phone?
I hit ‘answer with video’ in a panic and she’s there, all lit up brightly in the airport.
‘Hi! Sorry, just got here.’
Fuuuuck, something black and hairy has just shot out like a bullet and launched itself at me. I guess this is Bella, and probably why she told me not to open the door!
If I hadn’t been juggling the phone and door though, this wouldn’t have happened.
‘Are you alright, Becky? You sound strange.’
‘Oomph.’ Bella lands two chunky paws slap bang in the centre of my stomach and winds me. Then before I think to grab her, she spins round and takes off. ‘Fine!’ This is my new favourite word, and when it comes to Georgina means anything but. Bugger, I hope I don’t sound borderline hysterical, like I’ve already lost her dog. Shit, I really need to go and find it. ‘Bad signal!’
‘Cool.’ I am beginning to get the measure of Georgina. She looks totally immaculate, even though she lives in the middle of nowhere with only sheep and ducks to admire her. Which is exactly how she looked when we had our ‘interview’ before she agreed to me house- and pet-sitting. And not at all how she sounded when she was in panic mode an hour ago.
It is all about outward appearances. Like her Instagram account. Georgina certainly wants the rest of the world to think she’s living her best, glamorous, life.
Which is fine. She probably is. I am a bit in awe of her. And, I admit it, I use filters and cropping copiously before posting a photograph anywhere (even to my mate Kate on WhatsApp, and definitely to my parents, and absolutely any pictures that my ex might possibly see). Who doesn’t?
‘You read my note? Found the key?’
‘Sure yes, opened the door!’
‘Oh.’ There’s a long pause. She hesitates, mid-stride. ‘Where’s Bella?’
That is a very good question.
‘Bella!’ she screeches at the top of her voice, which carries amazingly well considering we’re chatting on my mobile.
Luckily this has the desired effect. The dog reappears. At top speed.
‘Oh look, look, here comes my lovely Bella girl!’
I hardly hear, I’m too busy trying to dodge the black missile that has just hurtled into view and is heading straight for me and her mummy.
‘Down Bella! Bella, stop it!’ A picture might paint a thousand words, but they don’t convey energy very well. This dog is hyper. It’s doing kangaroo leaps in the air, as I dance around like a boxer warming up for a big match trying to dodge the mucky paws, and holding the phone up high out of reach while Georgina shouts at her to ‘calm down’.
‘She’s not usually like this.’
I stagger backwards, unsure whether to believe her. Maybe she’ll calm down when Georgina’s gone?
‘She’s just excited because she saw my suitcase and was upset, she probably thinks I’m coming back and taking her somewhere exciting now. Oh God, Bella!’
Bella has scored a direct boob hit with one very hairy, very muddy paw and nearly knocked my phone out of my hand, but Georgina’s outraged bellow stops her in her tracks.
She sits down. I reckon if Georgina was here in person (and I wasn’t), then cutie-wootie Bella might be getting a bollocking.
Her tail is wagging so hard it’s polishing the floor she’s sitting on, and her backend is wiggling. She is honestly even prettier and more endearing in real life than in her Insta pictures. Well, when she’s sat and not pogo-ing.
There’s something just loveable about her, with her black curly coat and the biggest brown eyes imaginable framed by luscious eyelashes. No touching up needed here.
She shakes her curly head, still grinning at Georgina, and one of her big ears flops inside out. I can’t help but grin too; it’s fair enough to laugh at a comical dog, I reckon.
Georgina sighs, which Bella seems to take as a cue that she’s forgiven. She stands up, gives one bark and is off again. She spins round and whizzes past me and out into the garden.
‘Where’s she gone?’ screeches Georgina as her dog disappears from sight.
I chase after Bella, worried I’ll have lost my job before I even make it into the house. Luckily, I haven’t. Yet. The dog gallops back into view. She’s a bit of a whirlwind, and now she’s dashing round at top speed with her tail between her legs.
‘Haha. Doodle dash!’ Georgina pulls a face as flower heads scatter in all directions. ‘Cockapoos are a bit crazy, zoomies are their thing.’ She frowns. ‘Now what else do I have to tell you?’ Bella starts to bark. ‘Bella, shush!’ Bella ignores her.
Zoomies seem to involve running around at full pelt in no particular direction and flattening anything in your path. Like plants. Or people.
She hurdles a lavender bush and gallops over to me, before flopping over on her side on the lawn and rolling madly, her tongue lolling out of her mouth comically. Then she’s gone again.
Disappeared from view. Bugger. ‘Er, should I? She’s…’
‘Promise me you’ll read the list.’ For somebody devoted to their dog she doesn’t seem that bothered I might have already lost it – she’s more bothered about her flaming lists. And maybe she totally trusts Bella to come back. I suppose she’s got a lot on her mind. It’s not easy going away for a month and leaving your pet and home in the care of somebody you’ve never met before.
And this place is pretty secure. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get out, let alone a dog.
‘Sure. Bella? Bella?’ I yell. She doesn’t reappear.
‘Make sure you always lock up.’
We’re in the middle of nowhere, but I’d lock up anyway; where I live it’s second nature – if you didn’t lock up while you took a two-minute walk up the road you’d come back to find the place stripped bare of everything but the dirty washing. Well, actually, the dirty washing would probably go as well. ‘I will.’ Christ, where is that dog? I’m back round the front, by my car, and there’s no sign of her.
‘Always?’
‘Yes, yes, I’ll definitely lock up.’ Maybe she went all th
e way round the house and is in the back? I’m sure I can hear barking. I break out of my casual stroll and speed up.
‘Even if you’re just wandering round the garden.’
This girl is sounding more unhinged by the second. A tiny bit psycho, if I’m honest. Maybe she’s a bit of a recluse since hitting fame with her Instagram account? Maybe there are stalkers! ‘Sure.’ I’ll have to google her again later, but right now I have more urgent things on my mind. Where’s the bloody dog gone now?
‘It’s a big garden.’ She adds that as though she’s realised she is sounding a bit batty. ‘You might not hear if somebody comes.’
‘Okay, I promise I’ll lock the door, every time.’ Maybe Bella’s gone back in the (unlocked) house and is hiding?
‘And the front gate?’
‘Oh, definitely the gate.’ I’ll have to work out how to open it first, though I’m sure that’s on a list.
‘Oh shit, they’ve called my flight. Right, I had three rules! I’ve told you about locking up…’ She ticks one off on her fingers. ‘Oh yeah, the second one was don’t let Bella out of your sight. You won’t, will you? And don’t let anybody else touch her!’
Number two has been well and truly broken. I don’t know about touching her, I have no idea where Bella is, she has already disappeared, vamoosed, gone. Which for some strange reason her owner doesn’t seem bothered about. Maybe she knows Bella will always come back to her, but how does she know she’ll come back to me? ‘Never, ever, yah? If I lost her or she got hurt, it would be a total disaster.’ She frowns at me and leans forward a bit as though she doesn’t want any passers-by to hear. ‘My whole life would be ruined.’ Strange choice of words.
Worrying choice of words as well, considering I haven’t a clue where the priceless pooch is.
‘And there’s one more thing.’
I’m not sure I need her rules.
‘Hang on. I think I’d better try and find Bella, she’s disappeared again! Maybe you could call her again?’ I jog round to the back once more and take a couple of steps into the house, hoping she’s curled up by the Aga, or sat on the table or something.
She is not.
Chapter Three
‘Looking for something?’
The deep voice sends my heart shooting into my mouth and my mobile phone clattering to the floor. Bloody hell, I put my hand on my chest, my heart is hammering. I’m in the middle of nowhere, I thought I was alone! All alone, with nobody to help me…
I spin round, fists raised in self-protection mode. ‘Oh.’ My throat is dry. I’m not sure they’ll have much effect, faced with this.
Or rather him. There is a man standing in the doorway, holding a wriggling Bella, who is wagging her tail, squirming and trying to lick his face all at once.
I should be scared. But Bella clearly knows him, so he can’t be too dangerous. Unless she does this to everybody? Heck. But he doesn’t look like a murderer or rapist. Bloody hell though, he must eat his Weetabix.
He is big. Very big. I can’t stop staring at him. How the hell did somebody that size manage to creep up without me hearing him? If my heart pounds any harder, it’s going to explode out of my chest.
I think I might be gawping. Okay, I know I am. I’m taking in every inch of him in a very obvious way, and to hell with the danger, I can’t help myself. He’s wearing a black T-shirt which shows off tanned, muscled biceps to perfection, and I bet he has pecs to match, except Bella is blocking my view of them. She’s also stopping me seeing most of his face, but the bits I can see are pretty jaw-droppingly good.
He’s got messy hair, not that different to Bella’s (except his is brown not black), kind of cropped but dishevelled enough to make you want to touch it; large, capable, strong-looking hands are holding the happy dog firmly enough to stop her leaping out of them. Trousers that barely do anything to disguise his muscled thighs and… OMG! Big boots.
Those boots. It’s the boyfriend-stroke-gardener-stroke-SAS-stroke-woodchopping-man who was on Georgina’s Insta account.
Flipping heck, he can special service me any time he likes.
I was so distracted by shock and the sheer maleness of him, and the fact that he looks even bigger in real life than in a photo, that I didn’t recognise him at first. But those dirty boots have made me realise why he looks vaguely familiar.
He’s studying me intently, probably because I just squeaked with recognition. Then he flips his sunglasses off, and I think I’ve come over all swoony. Those eyes. Piercing blue eyes which are serious and unflinching, and a little bit scarily interrogatory, but his dimples have got to mean he does smile sometimes, and the lines etched into his suntanned face around his eyes can’t have come just from squinting, he has to be a man who laughs as well. Bloody hell, talk about ‘all man’, you can forget your Netflix action-man binges, I’ve got the real deal. On my doorstep! Holding my dog! Well, Georgina’s doorstep and dog, but let’s not be picky.
And he can’t be her boyfriend, can he? Or he wouldn’t be here!
Nobody would forget to pack a plus-one this hunky.
I’ve come over all hot and bothered and breathless. And speechless.
Too much testosterone in the air, I reckon.
Bugger, it’s made me brain dead as well. He’s holding the dog! The dog that must not be touched by anybody but me.
‘Hey!’ His voice really is sexy. Goose-bumpingly deep if you get my drift, like all the erogenous zones of my body seem to have done.
‘Hi!’ My voice is, in contrast, all breathy and pathetic. I want to lick him.
No! I don’t!
‘Sorry.’ The corner of his mouth quirks up, ‘I didn’t mean to make you jump.’
‘You didn’t!’ I squeak again. That voice is more than just deep, it’s a velvety rumbling that, if I was semi-drunk and not in responsible house-sitting mode, would make me go even wobblier at the knees. As it is, I just feel weak from relief that he’s caught Bella, and shock. Because he scared me. I didn’t see him coming.
‘What’s that?’ He leans forward – oh my God, he is close and he smells as good as he looks – and plucks something out of my hair. Holding it closer to his face, he pulls a very strange expression.
He holds his hand out and I look in horror as it dawns on me.
‘Shit.’ Cow shit. I still have cow shit in my hair. Or I did have, until…
He raises an eyebrow and my face scorches. I’ve just been touched by the hottest man I’ve seen in ages, scratch that, ever – and it was to take cow poo out of my hair.
He was staring at that, not gazing in admiration at the rest of me.
‘Sorry, er, incident on the drive over,’ I croak. Please ground, swallow me up. Let this be like Groundhog Day where I get a chance to start again.
He raises an eyebrow. ‘Shit? Real country girl, are you?’ Humour is lurking in his eyes; he’s not actually laughing or properly smiling, but he’s on the verge of it. How can a nearly-smile be so bloody sexy and make me so jittery?
‘That probably sounds worse than it is.’ How can anything be worse than cow poo in your hair? Must change the conversation. ‘I didn’t recognise you without your clothes on.’ Maybe not quite that way.
‘Isn’t the line “with your clothes on”?’ The corner of his mouth is twitching again.
‘I mean your uniform, your combats, whatever.’ It’s definitely the guy in Georgina’s Instagram photo. So the fact he has Bella can’t be that bad. It’s not like he’s a stranger.
He stares at me as though I’ve got two heads. ‘My uniform?’
This is embarrassing. ‘Your SAS gear!’ Did I just actually say the words ‘SAS gear’? ‘Georgina had a photo of you…’
‘Ah.’ I’m not sure what ‘ah’ means. ‘So, you are?’
Awestruck, unable to think properly. ‘Sorry?’
‘Cleaner?’
‘No, I’m not!’
‘Guess you’re a bit too, er, windswept and sexy for a cleaner!’ He grins.
Sexy. He just called me sexy. I’m all hot and bothered again. It doesn’t matter that he used ‘windswept’ as another word for ‘look like you’ve been pulled through a hedge backwards and showered in muck’, he said sexy.
‘Friend of Georgie?’
I shake my head. He called me sexy.
‘Bodyguard?’ The dimples that have just deepened at the sides of his mouth suggest that is not a serious suggestion. They are also very distracting.
‘House-sitter,’ I squeak lamely. ‘I’m Becky, I’m Georgina’s house-sitter and—’ I look pointedly at the dog, ‘—dog-sitter.’
‘Well, no need for the second bit, I came to pick Bella up.’ He kisses the top of her head and she goes back to wriggling and trying to stick her tongue down his throat, which (let’s face it) is what I’d probably do, to be fair, if he was clutching me to his chest. Except I’d melt against him, not wriggle. ‘Okay? Don’t worry about a leash, I’ve got one.’
‘Pick up?’ I am confused.
‘Take her, er, out?’
Aha! ‘Oh wow, you’re a dog-walker.’ He doesn’t look like a dog-walker, and the way he’s lifted an eyebrow suggests he thinks the idea’s as weird as I do. ‘As well as a gardener and er… soldier!’ I drop those in to cover all bases. This might be easier though if he’d actually confirm or deny one or more of the options.
The other eyebrow has gone up, and he looks a bit taken aback, though to give him his due, he’s not started laughing yet. I reckon he’s about to any second, though, if I don’t shut up.
‘Give me a sec to change my shoes and I’ll come with you.’ The woodchopping gardener walks the dog. That means he will be a frequent visitor!
I grin. Then stop. Good heavens, what am I saying? I’m the one that’s supposed to walk the dog! ‘Er, Georgina never mentioned…’ She did mention not letting Bella out of my sight. And not letting anybody else touch her. She must have forgotten to tell the dog-walking woodchopper that I was taking care of business. ‘Sorry, I’ll just, er, check with her. We were talking when you arrived.’ I wave my hand in the direction of my mobile. ‘I think she still is actually.’ From the noises emanating from my phone, I’d guess she’s still shouting out instructions about what I must and must not do. ‘She’s stressed,’ I add apologetically as I stoop down and grope around to try and pick up my phone without taking my eyes off him. ‘I was late.’ I swear he looks a bit edgy; his hands have tightened around Bella, and he takes one step back. ‘It’s been a long day.’ For both of us.
The Dog Sitter: The new feel-good romantic comedy of 2021 from the bestselling author of The Wedding Date! Page 3