smile was lazy and his eyes sexily hooded, and trained on my mouth as if he couldn’t wait to devour it again. His hand captured mine before I could pull it away and he held it firmly against his chest, right over where his heart was beating. I could feel every thump. The doctor in me couldn’t help noticing how fit he was. He had a resting pulse of forty-five bpm, which was pretty damn good. Right now mine was running as if I had arrhythmia. ‘If you change your mind, call me,’ he said. ‘We could make an interesting pair.’
I curled my lip. ‘Friends with benefits?’
His eyes glinted. ‘Do you need a friend, Dr Clark?’
I needed my head read. That’s what I needed. Because when he looked at me like that I wanted to kiss him again. I wanted to push him backwards towards the bed and crawl all over him and climb into his skin. But somehow I managed to get my wild woman back in her cage and snick the lock back in place.
I put up my chin and gave him an icy glare. ‘Get your hands off me and keep them off me.’
He held my look for a heart-stopping moment.
I felt the tug of war between our wills. It was like two strong forces that had never encountered that level of oppositional power before. The energy in the air was electric. Supercharged. Crackling like a high-voltage current along a tight wire.
I was the first to look away. I had to otherwise I would have confessed all then and there. But I didn’t want his pity. I didn’t want him to think I was on the lookout for a rebound fling. That I was so desperate to be found desirable that I would get down and dirty with a man I had known less than twenty-four hours. I wanted to salvage my dignity in the only way I knew how. Pretence. Anyway, I was good at it. I’d been doing it all my life in order to fit in.
I gave my hand an almighty tug and stalked over to where I had left my bag. I shoved it over my shoulder in an affronted manner, tossing my head—even though I know there is no way on earth anyone can actually toss their head, or roll their eyes, come to think of it—and wrenched open the suite door.
‘Honeymoon over?’ he said.
I looked at him over my shoulder. His mouth was lifted in what I was coming to know as his trademark sardonic smile. I let fly with a very rude two-word phrase that basically told him he could … well, I guess you get the idea.
I closed the door with a satisfying snick. I was glad I’d had the last word.
It’s not often I get the chance.
I’D BEEN HOME half an hour when I suddenly realised how quiet it was. Not just my house, which was like a proverbial tomb—even the rickety floorboards had stopped creaking. No, it was my phone. I would normally get a call from the hospital about a patient, or Jem would text or call or Mum or Dad would check in. Yes, in spite of their anti-capitalist ranting, they both have smartphones.
But nothing. Zilch. Nada.
I picked up my bag and searched in its depths for my phone. I usually slip it into one of the inner pockets so I can access it quickly. Sometimes it switches to silent if I’m not careful, or vice versa, which was incredibly embarrassing the last time I went to the cinema. The looks I got! Of course it went off right in the middle of the most important scene in the movie. And it was set on one of my Looney Tunes ring tones, which kind of wrecked the poignantly romantic mood.
Anyway, my phone wasn’t where I normally put it so I had to go deeper. I swear to God all those jokes about what a woman carries in her handbag are true. I carry my life around in mine. I’m sure one of my shoulders is permanently lower than the other from lugging around the weight of my bag. I fished out my diary—I know there’s an electronic one on my phone, but I still like writing things down because I remember them better that way—and then I took out my lip gloss and a wand of mascara and a little pack of tissues with red kisses on them.
I grimaced as I thought of the kisses I’d just exchanged with Matt Bishop. What on earth did he think of me? I had acted like a wanton slut. I had pressed my body against his in the timeless keen-to-mate manner. I’d acted like a tigress in oestrus. It was utterly shameful. What on earth had got into me? I’d been kissed before and nothing like that had happened. In recent times when Andy had kissed me I’d mentally made lists in my head—the wedding invitations, the flowers, the place-setting cards, which aunt to sit next to which aunt—that sort of thing. I had never burst into molten heat like lava blowing out of a volcano.
I tossed the tissues aside and dug deeper. I took out my purse, which is so loaded with loyalty cards I can no longer close it properly. Finally I upended my bag and let everything fall out on the kitchen bench. But apart from a shower of receipts and loose change and the spare key to Jem’s place, and two tampons and a furry cough lozenge, there was no phone.
I frowned as I thought of the last time I used it. I didn’t have a landline so there was no point in trying to call it. I didn’t fancy going out in search of a public phone box, which were as scarce as alley cats with morals in my area. It was too late to knock on Elsie’s door to ask to use hers and since Margery Stoneham was away … That’s when it hit me. My place wasn’t just quiet because my phone was missing.
Where the flipping hell was Freddy?
I called out as I searched in every room. I looked behind doors and in corners. I pulled back the curtains to see if he was playing a game of hide and seek but all I found that was remotely animal-like were dust bunnies. My heart was going into arrhythmia again. I was a cardiac infarct waiting to happen. My hands were shaking and my legs trembling as I stumbled through the rest of the house. Up the stairs I went, calling out at the top of my voice. I didn’t care if I woke the neighbours. I didn’t care if I woke the dead. I didn’t care if I lost my voice in the effort. I had to find that dog! Margery would kill me if anything happened to her precious baby.
I came back down the stairs with a clatter, my feet almost tripping over themselves. I was breathing so hard it sounded like I was wheezing. I was close to crying too but I didn’t want to admit it. I’m not a crier. Not any more. Not since the fifth grade in primary school when everyone laughed at my hair. My parents were in their no-shampoo phase. They believed every shampoo and conditioner contained toxic chemicals that would give us all cancer.
We didn’t wash our hair with anything but homemade soap for months. Thank God that phase didn’t last any longer. Jem and I got head lice, so our parents decided a few toxic chemicals would come in useful after all.
I checked the back garden but there was no sign of Freddy. Even his paw prints in the snow from when I’d taken him out for a pee before I left with Matt had disappeared as another fresh fall had come down.
I bit my lip to stop it from quivering and rushed back into the house. He had to be hiding somewhere. A dog didn’t just disappear into midair. This wasn’t a sciencefiction show or one of those Las Vegas illusionist’s acts. This was my life! My totally screwball life, admittedly. I had been watching Freddy the whole time … Or had I? I had been so worked up about getting outside on the footpath to wait for Matt. Had I let Freddy out without realising it? There was no other way he could have got out. I hadn’t left any windows open and, anyway, none of them were low enough for him to jump out. Could he have slipped past me without me noticing? He was only a little dog, and a devious one at that.
I raked my hand through what was now a bird’s nest of my hair. I felt sick and sweaty and icy cold at the same time. My overactive imagination was conjuring up horrid images of Freddy squashed flat on Bayswater Road, or mangled underneath a car and dragged for miles. Or kidnapped and held for a huge ransom. Or sold into one of those ghastly fighting dog rings that operate underground. I choked back a sob as the doorbell rang. It was the police, I was sure of it. They were here to tell me the dog I was supposed to be minding was deceased.
I wrenched open the door but it wasn’t the police. It was Matt Bishop. For a moment I just looked at him