The Great Escape (Dilbury Village #2)

by Charlotte Fallowfield

  ‘Georgie Basset of Pretty Paws & Dapper Dogs speaking, how can I help you?’ I breezed, not wanting him to know that I’d saved his number and had been questioning my self-worth as I waited over a week for his call. ‘Hello?’ I pulled the phone from my ear to look at the screen, only to realise I’d dithered too much and missed it. Portia let out a whine behind me and I sighed as I looked over at her, making her cock her head in response. Maybe having men of a certain pedigree lined up to have sex with you wasn’t such a bad thing, as I wasn’t exactly doing great trying to get a date on my own.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I murmured as my mobile pinged to let me know I had a voice message. I hit play and put it on speaker phone as I gave Portia a gentle scratch behind the ears.

  ‘Ermmm, hi, Georgie, it’s Weston. Weston Argent. The guy you met in Mexico,’ he began, sounding adorably nervous. Did he think I had Alzheimer’s? We’d been on a date, for goodness sake, I wasn’t likely to forget who he was so fast. ‘So … I’ve been meaning to call you, but … well, time got away from me and I’ve been rather busy.’

  ‘Ogling scantily clad gym women and falling over,’ I muttered with a roll of my eyes and a pang of jealousy again.

  ‘Well, I was just wondering if you’d like to get that coffee sometime? If so, give me a call. Great … well, ok then … I guess that’s all. Bye.’

  ‘Seriously? Nine days and that’s what I get? “I guess that’s all. Bye.” Don’t sound so enthused,’ I stated, as I stabbed a finger at the phone to end the call. I picked up a comb to tease Portia’s fur into place while I silently mulled over his message. Was it too much to expect a “I really enjoyed our odd date and can’t wait to see you again?” Or a “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since I got home?” As I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him, even though our date hadn’t exactly been the best.

  ‘Georgie, is it safe to come in?’ came Juliet Bradley’s voice from outside, interrupting my ponderings.

  ‘Give me a minute, I need to put Portia in the cage,’ I called. ‘The last thing I need is to have to explain to Mrs. Potts that her pedigree poodle, who’s been saving her virginity for a high-class stud, has lost it to a fat and odorous sausage dog called Simon.’

  ‘I take offence to that! And so does Simon,’ Juliet retorted as she pressed her face up against the window and gave me a mock scowl, her smile giving away her amusement at our regular banter. ‘Besides, that’s the whole point of him coming twice a month, for you to make him smell better.’

  ‘Juliet, trust me, there’s only so much a doggie bubble bath will do. I can pretty him up on the outside, but that breath? That’s a whole other issue out of my remit. There you go, Portia, your mum will be here to pick you up anytime now,’ I reassured her as she pranced over to one of the large cages I was holding open for her.

  ‘Anyway, you’ve seen his little legs,’ Juliet continued. ‘He’s so short, he could walk under her with plenty of headroom. He’d need a set of doggie mounting steps to get him high enough to even do the deed. The closest he’s come to sex with anything at his level recently is with my resident hedgehog, and one attempt was enough to put him off for life. You should have heard the howl he made.’

  ‘Him or the hedgehog?’ I chuckled, quickly grabbing the disinfectant spray to clean down my waist-height, stainless steel grooming bench. ‘I’m sure there’s a prick joke in there somewhere. Come on in.’

  ‘Simon’s so excited about his visit, I can’t tell you. He was yapping all the way here. You have such a way with animals, Georgie. I’ve never seen him as happy as he’s been since we started coming to you. Sometimes I wonder if I should leave him here, I think he’d prefer to live with you,’ she added, as she opened the lower half of the stable door and led the man of the hour in.

  ‘I prefer to have the lining of my nostrils intact, thanks very much,’ I replied with a smile, turning to start filling the dog bath with warm water. ‘My God, what are you feeding him? You’ve seen how sausages on the barbeque burst, that will be him soon!’ His rotund tummy was practically dragging on the floor.

  ‘It’s not his fault he’s big boned,’ Juliet protested, as she shut the lower half of the door and unclipped his lead. ‘And he’s going through a drastic menopause this week, they say that piles on the weight. At least that’s the excuse I give everyone for my ever-expanding waistline.’

  ‘Menopause? Last I checked, Simon was a boy,’ I laughed. ‘Don’t tell me I’m wrong or I’ll have to rethink this whole career of mine.’

  ‘He’s a boy for sure,’ she nodded with a sigh as she picked him up and put him down on my workbench. ‘I stupidly didn’t put my medication away when I picked it up from the doctor’s the other week. Ten minutes I was out of the room for, ten minutes,’ she emphasised with both hands in the air as she wiggled her fingers. ‘That’s all it took for him to decimate the bag, box, and contents. A whole month’s worth of hormone replacement therapy pills in one go. Talk about an oestrogen boost. I swear he’s put on weight. Where his nipples are he now has rows and rows of inflated boobs, and his sex drive, which was non-existent, has gone into overdrive. He’s virtually turned into a bitch on heat.’

  ‘Ah, humping the hedgehog makes sense now,’ I giggled as I tested the water temperature.

  ‘He’s had the most awful mood swings too. I swear, he’s on a come down, it’s the first time he’s wagged his tail since before he ate them all. Honestly, he’d have been down the local supermarket buying up the entire chocolate aisle if he’d been a woman on that dose of hormones.’

  ‘Oh, poor Simon,’ I sympathised as I gave him a stroke and lowered my face to his level to look in his rich coffee-coloured eyes. ‘You’ll soon be feeling right as rain. The best way to relax a hormonal woman is a pamper session. I’ll give you a good brush and trim, then a nice bubble bath, massage, and blow-dry, then a pedicure. What do you say?’ I received an enthusiastic face licking in response, seconds before he tried to straddle and hump my arm.

  ‘No news from Miller?’ I asked Abbie. She’d come over for a takeaway and we were now curled up on the sofa in front of a roaring log fire, with a nearly empty bottle of wine and two glasses on the coffee table in front of us.

  ‘No.’ She gave me a crooked smile that told me how much she was really hurting, though she did a good job of hiding it from people who didn’t know her as well as I did. ‘I know I need to contact him, I just need a bit more courage and a decent plan. How about you, nothing still?’

  ‘I’m thinking it could well have been nothing,’ I replied, pulling a face as I tapped on my phone to play her the answer machine message.

  ‘He’s been “busy” for nine whole days?’ she scoffed as she air quoted the words, reiterating my thoughts that it sounded like an excuse. ‘You know what “busy” really means.’

  ‘“Busy is another word for asshole,’” we both cried out in unison, quoting one of our favourite lines from He’s Just Not That Into You before bursting into laughter.

  ‘I’m so confused, Abbie. I mean, he rang, right? He didn’t have to ring, but it takes five minutes to make a call to fix up a date, why wait so long?’

  ‘Either he’s the nervous type, which I can’t imagine an ex-Army guy being, or he’s not sure he wants a relationship. But it’s not about him, what do you want?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I shrugged. ‘Despite what I told him, I actually feel like I am ready to start dating seriously again and I mean, obviously anyone in their right mind would find Weston attractive, but … there’s just something about him that makes me slightly nervous.’

  ‘Me too,’ she nodded, sweeping up her wine glass from the table to drain the remaining contents. ‘No one in their right mind should wait nine minutes to snap you up, Georgie, let alone nine whole days.’

  One Month Later – A Saturday in June

  ‘See you soon,’ I called, waving goodbye to my last appointment of the day, Karen and her full-of-life shorkie Max, who’d just been in for his
regular trim and had kept me entertained for the last hour. I cleaned up the parlour in preparation for Monday’s bookings and headed up from the garden, using the back door into the utility room, then through to my kitchen where I flicked on the kettle. I was looking forward to putting my feet up and having a night in after a hectic week. I made myself a cup of tea and cradled it in my hands as I leaned back against the kitchen sink and smiled to myself. Life wasn’t so bad. Ok, I was single, but I felt like Greg was completely out of my system, business was booming, and I’d never been more at home anywhere than in my little cottage, which was all mine.

  It was similar to Abbie’s, but not quite as big. Whereas hers was painted white with sage green windows and front door, mine was the reverse, sage green with a white front door and windows. All four cottages in the lane were classic-looking chocolate-box thatches, and we often got ramblers coming past taking pictures, using the many public footpaths around Dilbury. Inside, my kitchen had been separated from the dining room by a wall when I’d moved in, but I’d had the plasterboard removed to reveal some old beams. I had left the brick in the lower half, but had removed it from the waist up to give an open-plan feel. It also had the benefit of letting the light stream through to the kitchen from the large French doors that led from the dining room to the back garden and terrace. I had a small utility and boot room off the kitchen, complete with toilet, sink, and shower. The shower was really useful for cleaning myself up if I’d had a particularly messy day in the parlour.

  The hallway was small and functional, with just enough room for a coat rack, shoe bench, and telephone table. My lounge was the last room downstairs and was a fairly decent size. I’d kept it cosy, with cream walls, dark wood furniture, and a deep conker brown leather sofa and two armchairs, with accents of gold or bronze in my pictures and ornaments. Also in the lounge was a recess under the stairs that I’d turned into a mini home-office area, to try and keep on top of my business paperwork. To be honest, I tended to just pile all my receipts and bills together and Abbie, being an accountant, sorted them all for me on “mate’s rates.”

  The cottage walls were so thick that it felt sauna-like when I had the fire going, but kept ice box cool in the summer. Upstairs, I had two bedrooms and a small bathroom, with just enough headroom for a shower to be put in over the bath. My guest room was really only used by my parents on their occasional visit, but they preferred me to go to their spacious, three-storey Georgian mansion in the Cheshire countryside when we got together. Greg had dreamed of converting the guest room into a nursery one day, but while I hadn’t vocalised it, secretly I’d never really had that maternal urge. The whole issue of when we were going to start a family once we were married had finally been put to rest once we’d split up.

  I jumped and nearly spilled my hot tea on myself as some loud raps signalled someone at my front door. Abbie and Daphne always used the back door to the utility, the postman had already been, and I wasn’t expecting any visitors. I headed to the hall, opened the door, and let out a soft gasp of surprise to find none other than Weston standing on my front step. He hit me with a killer smile that almost knocked me flat on my backside while his blue eyes roved over my face, trying to read my expression.

  ‘Hi. Sorry to call around unannounced, but I was in the area taking the dog for a walk, and well … you didn’t reply to my voicemail, so I thought I’d chance it. Of course, if you not replying was your way of politely telling me you weren’t interested in another date, you can just shut the door in my face and I won’t bother you again.’

  I opened my mouth but no words came out. I wasn’t sure what to say, and I could barely hear myself think over the thudding of my heart in my chest. He had a way of making me feel like a giddy schoolgirl faced with her celebrity crush whenever I saw him. I was just so shocked to see him standing there after four weeks of radio silence since his less-than-enthusiastic voicemail. Daphne had given me a good talking to a while before, saying I needed to ring Weston back and agree to a date, but my head and my heart were extra cautious after Greg. I’d set Weston a secret mission, so secret even he had no idea he had one. I’d wanted him to chase me again, to let me know he was serious about wanting to see me, before I put myself out there. He’d obviously failed by not calling me again, making me give up hope. But suddenly here he was, standing on my front doorstep, looking every bit as dashing and gorgeous as he had in my frequent dreams of him.

  ‘Ok, I can take the hint. It really was good to meet you, Georgie,’ Weston said with a sigh of resignation. He turned to head back up my front path and almost tripped over the lead he was holding as it extended fully. The small dog that I hadn’t spotted before attached to the other end had braced his stocky little legs and refused to follow him.

  ‘Oh! Hello, gorgeous, I didn’t see you there,’ I cooed, dropping to a crouch to face the most adorable, mud-splattered, young French bulldog. He started wagging his tiny tail and bouncing on his front feet, excited that I’d noticed him. I cradled his face and gently massaged it, and he stuck out his tongue and lashed at my wrist enthusiastically. Abbie’s large English bulldog had been golden and white, while this little bundle of cuteness was a dark shade of grey with a white bib and had soft shining brown eyes. ‘He’s adorable, Weston.’

  ‘I’m a little bit confused now. Do you want me to stay or go? If you ask me to stay, I’ll always be wondering if it was the dog you were more interested in,’ he said with a nervous laugh.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude or confuse you,’ I smiled, as I ran my eyes up over his snug-fit dark blue jeans, past his navy jumper with white shirt collar peeking out, and up to his handsome, chiselled face. My dreams hadn’t recalled just how vivid those blue eyes of his were. ‘I’m happy to see you, both of you. You just kind of took me by surprise. I mean, I hadn’t heard from you in a month, then you just show up?’

  ‘I actually think it was me that hadn’t heard from you in a month. I left a voicemail asking if you wanted to go out sometime, I’m assuming you didn’t get it?’

  ‘I got it,’ I nodded, blushing as I considered how I was going to explain not responding without seeming like I had a bag full of relationship issues. ‘I just … my relationship track record isn’t great, I guess I wanted to see if you’d be persistent, to make sure you were interested before I agreed to a date.’

  ‘You said you didn’t want to rush another relationship, so I was trying to give you space,’ he replied, tilting his head as he waited for my reaction.

  ‘Oh, so you were backing off to not pressure me? That’s why you’re only just asking me on a date?’

  ‘Yes, and another date,’ he corrected. ‘Although the first one won’t go down in the annals of successful first dates, I still came back for more. I’m here, aren’t I?’

  ‘You are,’ I nodded, surprised by how happy I was about that now that I was over the shock of finding him outside my door. I let out a laugh as his dog put his front paws on my knees and jumped up to try and lick my face. ‘He’s so friendly. What’s his name?’

  ‘His name? It’s … ermmm … Bertie, Bertie the …’

  ‘Bulldog,’ I finished for him as he paused and looked down at the podgy pup at his feet. ‘A French one too. My favourite breed, closely followed by the English bulldog.’

  ‘I remember,’ he replied, obviously recalling our conversation over dinner in Mexico.

  ‘You never said you had a dog. How long have you had him?’ I asked, giving Bertie a kiss on the forehead before gently setting his front paws down and standing back up.

  ‘He’s new, so new it feels like only this morning,’ he laughed as he tugged on the lead, trying to stop Bertie from venturing into my house and failing miserably.

  ‘Well, you have a lot to learn by the looks of it,’ I observed. ‘You’re the master, not him. You have to keep him at your heel at all times or he’ll never be obedient.’

  ‘Trust me, I’m trying. He’s pretty stubborn and pig headed, and strong for su
ch a tiny thing,’ Weston responded with another smile that had me smile back shyly in return.

  ‘So, is this a fleeting visit or do you have time to come in?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d agree to come into Shrewsbury with us for afternoon tea and a walk.’

  ‘Oh, that sounds lovely, but I’m actually shattered after working all morning and I don’t exactly look my best. To be honest, I was looking forward to putting my feet up. And haven’t you already taken him for a walk? You don’t want to wear him out.’

  ‘I thought dogs loved walks.’

  ‘They do, but he’s still a puppy and there’s a limit to how much you should exercise him at that age. And looking at the state of him, you’ve already dragged him through some rough terrain. For someone who loves dogs, you really don’t seem to know a lot about them,’ I added, eyeing him curiously.

  ‘It’s one thing loving your friends’ and family’s dogs, a whole other thing becoming a dog owner,’ he confirmed, grimacing as he tried to pull Bertie back by his side.

  ‘Well, why don’t you come in?’ I suggested. ‘I’m sorry I’m in my scruffy work clothes, I’d just finished for the day. I must look frightful.’ I looked down at my old, ripped, skin-tight jeans and worn black t-shirt that had Max’s hair on it. I had no makeup on and my hair was pulled up in a messy bun. I felt my cheeks turn scarlet, mortified to be caught looking like this, while he looked like he’d just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue.