Second Chance For Love. SUSANNE MCCARTHY

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ shouting.

      Why did he have to be so utterly gorgeous? Aver-agely good-looking she could have coped with, but in her present highly susceptible state this just wasn’t fair. She watched him covertly from beneath her lashes as he made the coffee, fascinated by every economical movement.

      There was something so very self-sufficient about him; he was a man who didn’t need a woman around. He had Vi to take care of his domestic comfort, and probably a whole posse of willing young ladies to minister to his other needs, without ever being offered much in the way of commitment. He got all the close companionship he needed from his dog.

      But, though he wasn’t married now, had he been once? She judged him to be maybe in his middle thirties—surely even he hadn’t been able to get off scot-free all these years? There were so many things she wanted to know about him, but she guessed that he wouldn’t easily be persuaded to talk about himself.

      He brought her coffee, and then folded himself into the battered old armchair beside the fireplace, his long, lean legs sprawled across the stone hearth. Jethro collapsed in a bundle at his feet, his head draped over his ankles, his eyes closed in sheer bliss.

      Josey sipped her coffee, searching her mind for something to say, simply to make conversation. ‘This is a nice cottage,’ she remarked, trying to keep her tone light and casual. ‘Have you lived here long?’

      ‘It was my uncle’s place. We were partners for a while, but he retired about five years ago—though he still comes in to help with the small animal clinic a couple of afternoons a week.’

      ‘You…were born around here, then?’ she asked.

      He nodded. ‘My parents have got a farm, over by Withingham. Cows, mostly, and a few pigs. But my brother does most of the work now—he’s the farmer out of the two of us. My father’s nearly seventy—though he insists he isn’t quite ready to retire yet!’

      His tone was quite friendly, and, emboldened, she risked probing a little further. ‘Had you always wanted to be a vet?’

      ‘Ever since I was a kid,’ he responded with a grin. ‘I was always over here, pestering my uncle to let me help him. I used to drive him mad, bringing in birds that had broken a wing, or a rabbit I’d let out of a farmer’s gin-trap. That didn’t make me very popular in certain quarters, either,’ he added darkly. ‘Sometimes I think that, the more I know about people, the more I prefer animals.’

      ‘It must be hard work,’ she mused.

      He laughed drily. ‘Yes, it is—damned hard work, and there’s no money in it.’ He slanted her a look of hard mockery. ‘Not the sort of money that would run to a Porsche, anyway.’

      She blinked in shock—that gibe had stung.

      ‘So what sort of work did you do in London?’ he persisted, a cynical edge in his voice, as if he was expecting something totally frivolous.

      ‘Oh, I…used to be a secretary,’ she stumbled. ‘But I haven’t worked for several years now. My…husband didn’t want me to.’

      ‘How long have you been married?’

      ‘Nearly nine years. A long time, isn’t it? You can get less than that for murder these days.’

      He lifted one dark eyebrow in sardonic enquiry. ‘It seemed like a prison sentence?’

      ‘Worse!’ She was unable to keep the bitterness from her laugh. ‘At least with a prison sentence you get time off for good behaviourl’

      ‘But on the other hand, you wouldn’t get to serve your sentence in some posh Docklands penthouse, or drive around in a flash sports car,’ he pointed out with a touch of asperity.

      She flashed him a look of angry indignation. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Well, you weren’t exactly in a hurry to leave, were you?’ he taunted.

      ‘Well, no…but I——’

      ‘Nine years—was it worth it for all that comfortable lifestyle?’ he sneered. ‘The clothes, and the jewellery, and the fast cars…’

      ‘That’s not true!’ she protested, stung. ‘How can you judge me? You don’t even know me.’

      ‘I don’t need to know you—I just have to look at you.’ His eyes lashed her with icy disdain. ‘What is it they say—“You can never be too rich or too thin”? You’ve dieted so much to fit the fashionable image you’re practically a bag of bones, and you’re so screwed-up you can’t get by without those things.’ He cast a contemptuous glance at the empty cigarette packet on the table beside her. ‘I’ll tell you something—if you put on a bit of weight you might look halfway decent, but until you sort out what’s going on in your head, you’ll never——’

      His words were interrupted by a sharp ring at the doorbell. He rose swiftly to his feet and crossed the room, to admit a tall, ruddy-faced young man, still in his muddy wellington boots. In his arms he was carrying a drooping bundle, wrapped in an old blanket.

      ‘I’m sorry to barge in like this, Tom—I know it ain’t your surgery tonight. But it’s our old Shep,’ he blurted out, agitated and upset. ‘He was perfectly all right this morning, but when the missus came in from fetching the kiddies from school he was like this—couldn’t move, couldn’t get up, wasn’t even interested in his bone. Daft old mutt, he is, and getting on a bit now, but the kids love him. I don’t know if there’s anything you can do.’

      ‘That’s fine, Bob,’ Tom assured him swiftly. ‘Bring him through to the clinic.’

      ‘Do you…think he’s going to be all right?’

      Tom hesitated, casting a doubtful eye at the bundle in the young farmer’s arms. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he promised.

       CHAPTER THREE

      DRAWN by an instinctive concern for the little dog, Josey followed them. The veterinary clinic was through a thick oak door at the end of the passage. A cluttered office led into a much larger room, with a rubber-topped table in the middle of it and all manner of important-looking equipment stowed neatly around the walls.

      ‘Put him down, Bob,’ Tom instructed, gesturing towards the table. ‘You get off home now—I’ll have a look at him, and see what I can do.’

      ‘Right.’ The farmer’s voice was suspiciously thickened, and Josey noticed him surreptitiously wipe a tear from the corner of his eye. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. Maybe I’ll give you a ring in a couple of hours to see what’s what.’ Reluctantly he turned away from the table, barely even noticing Josey as he stepped past her.

      She moved over to the table. The dog was a medium-sized black and white mongrel, with thick shaggy fur and a tail just made to be wagged. But now he was still, and even Josey could see that he was tense with pain. ‘Do you think he’ll be all right?’ she asked, unconsciously echoing the farmer’s words.

      Tom was bending over his patient, his sensitive fingers gently examining the small, trembling body. ‘I don’t know,’ СКАЧАТЬ