The Secret of Happy Ever After (25 page)

‘Rory, we
have
to do something about Tavish,’ she gabbled. ‘We have to keep him somehow, I don’t know how, but poor Mr Quentin . . . he actually offered me money to make sure Tavish got a good home. And he’s already run away looking for his master once, and I’ve seen how far it is from the rescue. He’s old. He must be exhausted, sleeping rough and not being fed . . .’

Anna was vaguely aware that she was now mingling
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
with the real story of Tavish, but she didn’t care.

‘You’ve been reading too many books,’ said Rory, but he squeezed her shoulders. ‘Look, I don’t want to see the old mutt passed from pillar to post either. Let’s think logically. Can
you
take him?’

‘I wish I could, but I don’t know if he’d get on with Pongo. He’s a ball of energy at the best of times. It would be like moving Prince Philip in with Jedward.’

‘Well, I’d have him, but I’m out all day.’

Anna shook her head. ‘Rachel would never let you take him if you work full time.’

‘Fair enough. What about Michelle?’

‘No,’ she said at once. ‘She hates dog hair in her house. She won’t even let Pongo into the house unless he’s in his dog bag.’

‘Dog bag. Why am I not surprised?’ Rory pinched his eyebrows together as if he was thinking, then said, ‘Why don’t we go and have a chat with Michelle, anyway?’

‘She’ll just say no.’

‘Where there’s a lawyer, there’s a plan.’ He grinned, and his funny
Brief Encounter
face seemed boyish. ‘Maybe I can persuade her.’

Michelle knew she shouldn’t start tempting herself until she had her shop plan fully thought out, but a supplier had sent her a preview email of the most gorgeous merino wool blankets she’d ever seen, and it was very hard not to whip out her business credit card and place a sizeable order then and there.

I could get a few for Home Sweet Home, see how they go, she thought, scrolling through the email and mentally piling the cherry-blossom-pink blankets on the dresser where she currently had hand-knitted hot-water-bottle covers.

The image shifted in her head to the big brass-framed bed she planned to have where the children’s section currently was next door, whereupon it turned into a much more lavish display, with matching hand-stitched quilts from the Pennsylvania craft co-operative she’d found online, and sheepskin booties from Cornwall arranged on the shelves behind. The bookshelves could stay: they’d be perfectly sized for nets of beeswax soap and a few cosily appropriate paperbacks. Lilac- and cream-coloured ones, ideally. Maybe a few of those vintage orange Penguins.

Michelle jotted down ‘A Book at Bedtime?’ on her notepad and poked a fork into the remains of her pasta salad from the deli.

Her New Year’s resolution not to work through her lunch break had slipped by mid January, but there was so much to do with two shops that she had no choice. Currently she was in the whitewashed office at the back of Home Sweet Home because she didn’t want to leave Gillian alone in the shop now Kelsey was next door covering for Anna.

Anna, who – she checked her watch – should be back from her mission of reading mercy any minute now.

She jotted down some more bedlinen thoughts, one ear cocked for sounds of retail emergency from the shop, then heard footsteps approaching the back office.

Please not Owen, she thought. He’d already started making noises about needing a ‘temporary loan’ to cover some expenses. She wasn’t sure what they could be, either, since he seemed to turn up at her house for supper at least every other night and spent more time than she’d bargained for lounging around her sitting room. She didn’t mind that; since the fright she’d had in the shop, she was secretly relieved to have someone there, in case Harvey did turn up. But still there was no sign of a new website, despite her frequent prompts.

She circled ‘Website – Owen!’ on her to-do list, then underlined it.

‘Michelle?’

She looked up. Anna was standing in the doorway, looking flushed and excited, strands of blond hair escaping from her knitted beret. Her eyes were shining as if she’d been crying, but she seemed happy, not upset.

Anna’s face was like a plate-glass shop window into her soul, thought Michelle. No curtains, nothing. No wonder those girls ran rings around her.

‘What?’

‘Um, can you come next door? There’s something I need to talk to you about.’

‘To do with the shop?’

‘Sort of.’ Anna hopped from foot to foot. ‘And no, I can’t do it here.’

Michelle sighed and put the remains of her lunch back into the paper takeaway bag for later.

It didn’t take Rory and Anna long to set out their suggestion and it took Michelle even less time to say no.

‘I don’t want a dog,’ she repeated, in case it hadn’t yet broken through their wall of pleading.

‘But why not? It’s not like you’re jetting off on minibreaks every weekend.’ Anna’s soft-as-butter heart was right out on display. ‘You said it yourself, you
like
staying in. Tavish could stay in with you.’

‘I might want to
go
on minibreaks.’ Michelle cast a sideways look at Rory, in case he was sniggering at her. ‘And anyway, I’m away most weekends, at trade fairs.’

‘You could take him with you. He’s small. You could get him a carrycase!’

‘I don’t want a dog who goes in a handbag,’ said Michelle. ‘That’s not what dogs do.’

‘He’s lived in a shop all his life,’ said Rory. ‘You and he are soulmates. You’re retail trained. You’re his ideal owner, even if you didn’t lease his old house. Which you do.’

Michelle struggled against the feelings of tightness that were compressing her chest. It wasn’t just the sense of being ganged up on by two people who’d read one too many
Lassie
books, or even guilt that she was betraying Flash somehow, but a darker panic that filled up inside her like an inflating balloon. She didn’t like other people, other
things
, impinging on the calm order she’d built around herself. It was too hard to explain without sounding like a nutcase, so maybe it was easier to let them think it was about her carpets.

‘A dog is a tie I don’t need right now,’ she snapped, her voice suddenly sharp. ‘I mean, having to think about something else all the time. Feeding it, training it . . . And before you even suggest it, no, that dog
cannot
go and live with Owen in the flat. It’s bad enough worrying about what
he’s
doing to the carpet.’

‘Tavish doesn’t need training,’ said Rory. ‘He’s nearly eleven – he’s as trained as he’s ever going to get. That’s like eighty in human years.’

Michelle raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not selling it to me either. I know what elderly dogs are like.
Unreliable
. Anna, how often do you hoover?’ She pointed accusingly at her. ‘And don’t pretend it isn’t twice a day.’

‘
Twice
a . . . ?’ Anna looked guilty. ‘Er, right, yeah. But he won’t shed as much as Pongo. I’ve had a look on the internet.’

‘No.’

‘But, Michelle . . .’ She pointed to where Tavish was sitting in an empty orange crate, his bearded head regarding the shop with an imperial air. ‘Look at him. Look at him. No one’s going to adopt a dog his age. He’s been loved all his life, and now he’ll probably die in a concrete run. All alone. No wonder he’s desperate to come home.’

‘No.’

‘What about a dog share?’ said Rory.

‘Give me a break.’ Michelle turned her attention to him. ‘I thought you were the logical side of this.’

‘I am. Tavish would be fine in the shop during the day. And I’d have him at night. Or some weekends, because I’ve never been on a minibreak in my life.’ He put the word ‘minibreak’ into air apostrophes, which irritated Michelle. ‘I didn’t think anyone had minibreaks outside
Bridget Jones
.’

‘I’m not Bridget bloody Jones,’ she snapped.

‘You have read
Bridget Jones’ Diary
?’ asked Anna hopefully.

‘No, I saw the film,’ said Michelle. ‘Customer,’ she added, glad of the distraction as a woman struggled in through the door with a pushchair.

Anna rushed over to hold the door, and immediately started chatting about whatever it was that bookish people chatted about, which usually led to them buying something from her.

Rory took Michelle’s elbow and steered her discreetly into the Local Interest section.

‘Don’t start,’ she said, in a warning tone. ‘I thought you’d realised by now that when I say no I mean no.’

‘Like when you said you didn’t want to run this as a bookshop, then changed your mind?’ Rory fixed her with his unsettling half-smile. ‘Look, Mr Quentin is very fond of that little dog. Very fond.’

Michelle stared back at him. She didn’t like the faint note of reproach in his tone. ‘There’s nothing in the lease that says I have to house his pets as well as his unsellable collection of military history books.’

‘Not in so many words.’ Rory cast a sideways look to make sure Anna was occupied with the customer. ‘But surely a businesswoman like you can see that there might be significant advantages to doing a personal favour for your landlord. It might perhaps lead him to do you a return favour somewhere down the line?’

Michelle’s brain raced, trying all the possible explanations like locks. She didn’t want to pick the wrong one.

Was he saying that if she took in the dog, Mr Quentin might drop his ridiculous insistence on the premises remaining as a loss-making bookshop rather than a profitable linen heaven?

Was that really it? Rory was almost as much of an evangelical paperback worshipper as Anna and Mr Quentin. Was this dog really that important? Or was Rory just unable to pass over a deal?

Michelle’s opinion of him dropped again, irrational as that seemed.

Her gaze strayed across to where Tavish was patiently receiving the attentions of Anna and the woman who’d just come in; Anna had put a cushion in the crate for him, and he already looked like he’d been there since about 1954. Michelle had to admit it – he added a certain bookish ambience to the place. He was a canine Kelsey.

She thought hard. It was already March. Even if the bookshop carried on making the tiny profit it was currently making she still had to carry it for another nine months; there was no money here to cover any emergency repairs, or more wages. She could just about juggle the numbers to give Anna enough to order a constant basic level of stock, but if Mr Quentin could be persuaded that A Book at Bedtime was pretty much the same thing as a bookshop, just with added beds . . .

Michelle felt a flash of guilt, but she tamped it down quickly. Books and beds. They went together well enough – it would just be a case of . . . proportion. There wouldn’t be quite so many books as there were now.

‘Are you thinking yes?’ Rory pressed her.

‘Weekends or weeknights?’

‘Either. We can rotate.’

‘And who’ll walk him?’

‘He won’t need much. I can do alternate lunchtimes.’

‘Food?’

‘Doubt he eats that much. We can do a monthly kitty contribution. Say, twenty quid?’

Rory’s responses were quick and professional, unlike the bumbling manner he’d had in his offices. It gave a sleek confidence to his face, which she had to admit was quite attractive. For a baby-abandoning love rat.

‘And you’ll work on lifting the bookshop clause earlier if possible?’

‘I will speak to Mr Quentin both in my capacity as his executor and as co-guardian of his dog.’

Michelle wondered if he’d been so accommodating or enthusiastic when it came to custody of his kid.

‘Done,’ she said.

Anna came rushing over. ‘Michelle,’ she hissed. ‘It’s Rachel, from the rescue kennels. She’s come for Tavish. What should I tell her?’

Rory and Anna stared at her expectantly. Between Rory’s stupid floppy hair and Anna’s appley blondeness, they looked like two of the Secret Seven, thought Michelle. How did this happen?

Was it the shop? In which case, she didn’t want to know what she was turning into.

‘Tell her . . . Tavish can stay,’ she said, and hoped she wasn’t making a big mistake.

13

‘You know, I never thought I’d say this to a potential new owner,’ said Rachel from the kennels, gazing around Michelle’s elegant sitting room, her face soft with envy, ‘but I think your house is almost
too nice
to bring a dog into.’

‘Thank you,’ said Michelle with a proud smile.

Though Rachel was technically part of the mafia-like Longhampton dog set, since she owned the kennels and was married to the town vet, she didn’t wear a quilted gilet or match her winter coat to her dog’s. She was one of Michelle’s best customers at Home Sweet Home, and was the only person Michelle knew who didn’t talk about London as if it was some imaginary destination like Narnia, or Heaven.