Eventually, after Ryan had fitted the cone to Truffle’s collar, Georgie fell asleep; the next morning, the alarm on her watch woke her, and for a moment she was disorientated. She wasn’t in bed: she was lying on the floor. And somehow, during the night, Truffle had moved. The gap between Georgie and Ryan was no longer there: instead, they were lying wrapped in each other’s arms.
She kept her eyes tightly shut.
What did she do now?
She hadn’t woken in someone’s arms since Charlie’s death. She was willing to bet it was the same for Ryan, since his divorce.
This closeness had happened while they were asleep. Neither of them had planned this.
Like that kiss in the garden, under the Northern Lights.
If she wriggled out of his arms, the movement would wake him and she’d have to face the embarrassment and awkwardness. If she stayed where she was, she’d have to pretend to be asleep after he woke; given that her breathing was shallow, he’d know that she was awake. And that would lead to awkwardness, too.
There was no easy way out of this.
And then Ryan stirred, and gently disentangled himself from her arms.
OK. He was awake and he’d decided to move first. She’d take her lead from him. She opened her eyes, though she didn’t quite dare look him in the eye. ‘Morning.’
‘Morning,’ he said.
But he didn’t comment about the way they’d woken up. That was good. He clearly wanted to avoid the awkwardness, too. ‘How’s Truffle?’ she asked.
The dog’s tail thumped on the floor as she responded to her name.
‘She looks OK,’ Ryan said, and took the cone off. ‘Want to go out, girl? I’m afraid it’ll have to be on the lead. I can’t risk you rushing about and knocking your leg.’
Georgie sneaked a tiny glance while he took Truffle to the kitchen door and pulled on his boots and a coat over his pyjamas. Dishevelled from sleep, he was utterly gorgeous. And it made all her senses hum with longing. But right now they still had fences to mend between them so she needed to put a lid on that reaction.
She got to her feet. Keeping busy was the way she usually dealt with things.
By the time he came back in with the dog, she’d made coffee and laid the table for breakfast.
‘You didn’t have to do that.’
‘I wanted breakfast, and it’s as quick to make it for two as for one,’ she said.
He looked exhausted. The worry and the emotions from yesterday had clearly taken it out of him.
‘Thanks.’
She didn’t push him to talk, but after breakfast when he went to have a shower she finished the washing up, then sat on the floor with the dog.
‘I’m so sorry about what happened,’ she said, stroking the top of Truffle’s head. ‘It was totally my fault and I shouldn’t have been careless with you. I know what it feels like when someone’s careless with you.’ She bit her lip. ‘I feel bad that I hurt Ryan as much as Charlie hurt me. I don’t know how I’m going to make it up to him, but I’m just going to have to try harder.’
I hurt Ryan as much as Charlie hurt me.
The words echoed in Ryan’s head and he couldn’t quite make sense of them.
From what Georgie had told him, Charlie had been a hero. He’d been killed in a landslide while he’d been out helping in an earthquake disaster zone. And she’d been crying a few days ago on her wedding anniversary, which told Ryan that she was still deeply in mourning for her late husband.
But now he wondered. How deeply would you mourn someone who’d hurt you?
She’d said that someone had been careless with her, and that Charlie had hurt her. Were those two statements related or separate? What had happened?
Not that he could ask. He’d have to wait until Georgie was ready to talk about it—if she ever was. But, with this and the couple of things she’d already let slip, it seemed everything hadn’t been quite as wonderful in her marriage as he’d originally thought.
He walked more heavily down the stairs so she’d be aware of his presence; it would give her time to get herself together if she needed to.
‘Thank you for keeping an eye on Truffle for me,’ he said when he went into the living room.
‘It’s the least I could do.’ She paused. ‘I’ve been thinking—maybe we should look at the roster again and try to move our shifts so one of us is on an early while the other’s on a late, so Truffle has company as much as possible. And if you can teach me what sort of things to do to keep her occupied, I’ll do my best.’
She really was trying hard to make up for what she’d done.
And, now he was pretty sure Truffle was going to be all right, his anger had dissipated. ‘Thank you. And I’m sorry I took it out on you yesterday, when I was worried about Truffle. It wasn’t fair of me.’
She lifted her chin. ‘I deserved everything you said. You’d warned me she’s an absconder. I should have checked the door properly. The stupid thing is, in London I would’ve double-checked; I know it’s no excuse, but here it feels safer.’
‘Here, it is safer,’ he said.
‘But I still should’ve checked, and I’m sorry. And I was going to say to you yesterday, I’ll cover the vet’s bill because it was my fault.’
‘She’s insured,’ he said. ‘But I appreciate the back-up for keeping her occupied. She’s going to be bored.’
‘Just tell me what the doggy equivalent to reading a gazillion stories and doing art stuff is,’ she said.
‘Is that what you do with your niece?’
‘That and dancing,’ she said. ‘But you want Truffle to rest physically as much as possible, right? So not the doggy equivalent of dancing.’
He could imagine Georgie sitting with her niece on her lap, reading stories, or at the table, drawing and
