'Nothing happened, I promise. He looked after me while I was drunk, I fell in stinging nettles, which is why I've been scratching my neck, and he put me to bed. He must have slept on the sofa as I woke up alone when you started banging on the door. Please, Miller. I'm hungover, tired, and tearful. Don't make me worse by leaving me again.'
'Abbie,' he sighed, rubbing a hand over his eyes. I felt myself quiver to hear my name in his accent. He still affected me so badly. 'I was impulsive turning up like this. I want to believe you, but I didn't think this through. I think I should leave and get my head on straight before I come back to see you.'
'You promise to come back?' I asked, with a heavy sigh of resignation. Much as I wanted him to stay, it was rude to kick Heath out through no fault of his own. I didn't want to risk another testosterone display, and I was feeling too ill to have, potentially, one of the most important discussions of my life.
'If you promise to give me time, yes,' he nodded, his fingers flexing around the steering wheel. The fact that he'd kept his car, and obviously the hanger he'd purchased in Welshpool, gave me hope that he really hadn't walked away with the intention of us being over for good.
'Ok,' I said quietly. I straightened up and moved out of his way, cursing as I remembered I was barefoot on the gravel, the little stones biting at my bare soles. I hopped over to the safety of my block-paved drive. 'Don't make me wait too long.'
He gave me a pained, tight-lipped smile and slowly edged forwards as I stood and watched him disappear around the corner of the lane. The only consolation compared to the last time he left was that he looked back. That had to be a good sign.
'It all happens in Dilbury,' Heath stated as he opened the lower half of the door for me while holding an irate Sumo back by his collar. 'Are you ok?'
'No. You?'
'I'll live. I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have answered the door, not dressed, or undressed, like this anyway.'
'It's not your fault. We couldn't have known he was coming back. Right, I need caffeine and something to soak up the alcohol, and I'll get one of those unused steaks for your cheek or it's going to bruise.'
'I'll go pull my jeans on. I don't suppose you have a t-shirt I could borrow?'
'Sure, I'll root one out. It will be a snug fit, mind,' I warned him.
'Oh my God. What the hell's going on?' came Georgie's shocked voice.
'Georgie?' I spun around to see her coming up the path, still dressed in her fleecy Dalmatian onesie she wore to bed sometimes, complete with hood and tiny ears, which made me giggle.
'Morning, Heath. Wow, someone doesn't need to use the gym, do they?' she purred, as she stepped into the open doorway and looked him up and down. His cheeks flamed and he hurried into the lounge, taking Sumo with him and shutting the door.
'What are you doing here?' I demanded. 'And dressed like that?'
'Please, a lover's quarrel and you think I was going to miss all of the action? Daphne woke me up by ringing me to say all hell had broken loose over here. Miller woke her up hammering on your door, so she was watching through the window and rang me to get here as soon as possible. I already knew Heath was here, with that van parked on your drive when I came home last night. Talk about village drama. What on earth's going on?'
'Long story. I'm putting the kettle on and making bacon sandwiches, you in?'
'Hell yes,' she agreed. 'And I have the worst date ever to fill you in on as well.'
'Room for one more?' came Daphne's voice as she hobbled up the path.
'Don't tell me, you want the gossip and to fill us in on your date, too?' I laughed, then winced and clutched my sore head.
'Well, of course. If I wasn't so slow getting down the stairs, I'd have beaten Georgie here. Oh look, an ambulance is coming down the lane. Is Heath badly hurt?'
'No,' I reassured her. 'He's fine, just a bruised cheek and jaw. That must be Charlie coming home. She fell down the stairs last night and had to go to the hospital. Go and stop them, Georgie, she can join us for breakfast, too.'
'I'm dressed in a Dalmatian suit!' she protested.
'Well, I'm only in a shirt, with a suspicious-looking hickey on my neck.'
'I wasn't going to comment,' Daphne stated with a disapproving look at me. 'And don't look at me, the ambulance will be back in Shrewsbury by the time I make it back up the garden path.'
'Fine, I'll go, but you so owe me,' Georgie grumbled. She raced up the path and out through the gate, jumping into the lane with her pink padded paws in the air, which made Daphne and me laugh.
'She'll give the paramedics a heart attack,' I giggled.
'And he'll give me one. Heath Jones, put some clothes on, for goodness sake!' Daphne scolded her nephew as he appeared buttoning up his jeans.
'Sorry, Auntie Daphne, it's not what it looks like, honestly,' he mumbled, his cheeks flushing as Sumo scuttled past him to go and put his nose out of the door to see what was going on.
'I should hope not!' she stated with a disapproving glare.
'Come on up, Heath, we'll find a t-shirt for you before your aunt passes out from seeing what a six-pack looks like. Then again, she did go on a date with Mr. Bentley last night, maybe she already got an eyeful,' I teased.
'Be gone with you,' she scoffed with a flick of her wrist. 'I'm going to put the kettle on. I've got a feeling it's going to be a long morning with all of these stories to share.'
Heath came up to my room and I pulled out a selection of my largest t-shirts for him to try, then I grabbed myself some headache tablets from the bathroom before rushing back down. The front door was shut and I could hear excited voices in the kitchen. I needed coffee. This was all too much at this hour in the morning.
'Charlie, are you ok?' I gasped. She was sitting at the dining table with Daphne and Georgie, her hand in a plaster cast and a purple bruise on her face.
'You should see the other guy!' she teased, then flashed me a wink.
'Is it broken?'
'It was too swollen to be sure if it was fractured, so I'll have to wear this for a while, but enough of the injury talk. I think I'm in love,' she stated with a wide grin. 'I met the hottest doctor ever at Accident and Emergency.'
'Tyler Jackson,' Georgie and I sighed at once, thinking of the gorgeous blue-eyed stud of the town who had treated Georgie when she got a dog bite after trying to extract her leg from the clutches of an over-amorous Yorkshire Terrier last year.
'Who's Tyler Jackson?' Charlie said, looking confused. 'This was Dr. Fitton, and my God, he really was a fit one. If I hadn't got my hand in this damn cast, I'd be tapping out a whole new "sexy ER doctor" novel about him on my MacBook right now!'
'Damn it,' I moaned, as I gathered five mugs from the shelf and set them on the kitchen island. 'I was going to set you up with Heath, the gardener, Daphne's nephew.'
'Oh, Charlie, he's looking super hot today, all buff and toned,' Georgie nodded, her little ears flapping with the motion. 'Sorry, Daphne, is this grossing you out?'
'No, but that is,' she retorted, pointing towards the kitchen door. We all looked over and our mouths dropped. Poor Heath was standing there with a defeated look on his face, my black t-shirt straining around his toned biceps, his midriff completely exposed, and the words "Textually Active" in silver stretched across his broad chest.
'I swear, if you breathe a word of this, I'll make up gossip about you all and feed it to Sheila Vickers,' he warned with a pointed finger as we all burst out laughing.
I made the coffees, humming to myself. Life wasn't so bad. I had my friends, and Miller was going to come back to talk about where we went from here. And I still had Sumo, who'd been far more loving towards me since Miller had left last month.
'Ok, boy, you're next,' I told him as he looked from me to his food bowl and back again. He wiggled his butt and shook his head, making me scream as he covered me in globs of slobber that went flying from his slack jowls, then everyone groaned and covered their mouths as his bottom let rip.
'Sumo!' came a chorus of voices.
Chapter Eleven
A Dog Named Mr. Sumo
March
I STOOD SHIVERING IN the back garden and watched him ride the train around a few times as he sniffed the air, letting out the odd bark when he saw any movement of birds in the bushes. I was so glad he'd asked to come out. He'd been lethargic again the last few days and completely off his food. I'd been on the verge of taking him to the vet, which I was dreading doing in case they told me it was time to let him go, but it was like he'd got a second wind under him today. He'd eaten four helpings of food already and had been out here for much longer than normal.
'Ok, Chubbers, I think that's enough now,' I warned as he chugged past me towards the train stop by the utility door.
He'd lost so much weight that Daphne had had to knit him some new smaller jumpers, but even with the thick red one he was wearing today, I was worried he'd be cold, as it was quite fresh and nippy. I giggled as I looked at him. He looked like some kind of canine bank robber. His jumper came complete with its own form of balaclava that only left his muzzle and eyes uncovered, along with holes for his ears to stick out of.
'You monkey,' I gasped as he firmly patted the go button and started another circuit. He let his pink tongue flop out as he looked back at me smugly, almost as if he was sticking it out at me in a "screw you" gesture. 'Damn it,' I muttered as I heard the phone ring.
My eyes darted from the back door to where he was enjoying his ride, then down the lawn to the locked back gate. It wasn't like he could go anywhere. I bolted for the door and swiped the phone off the kitchen island.