But she did desire him. Or at least she had done so when...
A small, discreet cough from the estate agent reminded Piers of where he was. He wasn’t going to put in an offer for the farmhouse—of course he wasn’t, he assured himself as he got into his car. It just made sense to view the only property locally that could provide him with a yardstick to measure the suitability of the house he had just viewed; that was all. Of course it was.
* * *
Georgia was feeling very pleased with herself, and with Ben. Shortly after Piers had left she had received a telephone call from the local paper asking if they could interview her that morning about the scheme she had originated for pets and their owners to visit the old people’s home. Even though Georgia had told the reporter that the idea wasn’t original, and that she was simply copying a scheme already in force in several other parts of the country, she had nevertheless agreed to be interviewed.
The reporter had arrived promptly half an hour later and the interview had gone very well. Rick Siddington was quite obviously an animal lover himself, and he had quickly endeared himself, to the owners whom he was also interviewing by making a big fuss of their pets.
Georgia had diplomatically left Ben behind on this occasion, sensing that he was all too likely to try to steal the other dogs’ thunder. Philip had actually come out of his office to speak with the reporter himself, and Georgia had been able to tell from the way he had smiled at her and patted her paternally on the arm that she had been forgiven her transgressions over the training class which Ben had disrupted—for the time being at least! Now, back home and having just finished grooming Ben, she sat back on her heels and surveyed his silky coat admiringly.
‘Good dog, Ben,’ she praised him repeatedly before giving him a small doggy treat for his good behaviour whilst she had been brushing him.
As Ben went to the door and asked to go out Georgia reflected modestly as she opened it for him that he really was making good progress, thanks just as much to his own canine intelligence as to her training skills—skills which, according to Piers, she simply did not possess. That jibe still had the power to hurt her, but nowhere near as much as the accusation he had thrown at her that she had deliberately encouraged his godmother to give Ben a home whilst knowing that he was a totally unsuitable dog for her. Those words had stung, all the more so because they simply weren’t true.
How could he be so hateful to her so soon after he had...after they had...? But hadn’t she already warned herself that the intimacy which had left her so helplessly incapable of denying the sweetly heady sensual desire he had aroused in her, had meant nothing emotionally to him? He had probably kissed a dozen women as passionately as he had kissed her, probably more—whilst she...
A self-conscious pink wash of colour stained her skin as she remembered how she had lain there on the bed, totally naked, practically basking in the look she had seen in his eyes. That kind of behaviour was totally out of character for her, but she would be foolish to imagine that what had happened meant anything to him. If it had—She could hear a loud angry roar through the open kitchen window. Someone was shouting at Ben.
‘Come here, you—’
Anxiously Georgia ran to the kitchen door.
A smartly dressed elderly gentleman was marching up the garden path, his face red with temper.
‘Is this your dog?’ he demanded angrily.
From his bearing and his clipped voice, Georgia guessed that he was an ex-serviceman.
‘Er...in a manner of speaking,’ she agreed hesitantly as she studied Ben’s soil-encrusted nose and paws.
‘What do you mean? Either he is or he isn’t,’ the man snapped impatiently. ‘Damn hound! Caught him digging up my vegetable garden.’
‘Oh, no, I’m so sorry,’ Georgia apologised immediately.
“‘Sorry” won’t undo the damage he’s caused,’ she was told acidly. ‘If you own a dog you should keep him under control... He deserves to be shot.’
‘Oh, no!’ Georgia protested, her face paling whilst she tried frantically to work out how on earth Ben had managed to escape from the garden, which she knew Mrs Latham had had surrounded by a special ‘dog-proof’ fence at considerable expense.
‘I’ll pay for whatever damage he’s caused,’ Georgia offered, inwardly hoping it wouldn’t prove to be too much. She could understand the man’s anger. Her own father was a very keen gardener and she knew how he would have felt if someone’s dog had dug up his prize vegetable patch.
‘Hmm... The estate agent told me when I bought my house that this was a quiet area, with most of the properties owned by older people...’