Anna wasn’t listening. She was too busy scrolling down her photo library, trying to find the right one to send to him. The nicest pictures of her were way at the top, quite a few of them with Spencer, and her vanity almost made her want to select one of those, but she paused before she tapped the screen. No. This wasn’t like choosing a picture for an Instagram-perfect display that bore no resemblance at all to real life. This was Brody. She needed to find one that showed who she was now, wrinkles and all, one that was honest.
‘I’m going to have to hang up,’ she told him. ‘I can’t work out how to do this without cutting you off. Phone me back when you’ve got it.’
She ended the call before he could protest and chose a photo of herself taken some time in the last year. She wasn’t being cute or sexy (not that she was sure that she knewhowto take a selfie that was cute and sexy). It was a snap Gabi had taken during a walk in the fields around Farnborough one Saturday morning in February. She’d called Anna’s name and had taken the photograph the moment Anna had turned her head. She was staring straight at the camera, a half-smile on her lips and weariness in her eyes that said:You’re really doing that now?It was very her. All the better for having been caught in the moment.
She tapped her phone to select it and then, before she could talk herself out of it, she pressed Send and it was gone. She held her breath and waited.
It took a long time for Brody to reply. So long, in fact, that it got too chilly to stay outside and she had to scurry back indoors to the warmth of her kitchen. She turned off the bright overhead lights and made do with just the one from under the cooker hood, put her phone on the table, sat down and waited.
What was holding him up? She wasn’t that ugly, was she?
She knew she wasn’t. Okay, she wasn’t stunning, and she didn’t have the sparkle that Gabi did around her eyes that made Anna think of the word ‘pretty’, but she didn’t have a bad bone structure. She could look nice on a night out if she made the effort.
Her phone binged and vibrated against the tabletop. She snatched it up. She’d had a text from him. A picture!
It took a few moments before her brain made sense of the image on the screen, all shaggy grey hair and large, soulful eyes filled with mischief. She tapped to enlarge it and then she let out a half-frustrated, half-amused sigh. She shook her head, picked up her phone and dialled his number. ‘I take it that is Lewis,’ she said when he answered.
‘He’s much more handsome than I am,’ Brody said gravely.
‘He is handsome,’ Anna had to agree, with his wavy, silvery fur. ‘What kind of dog is he, anyway?’
‘Cairn terrier. Think Toto inThe Wizard of Oz.’
Oh, yes. Anna could picture that. And, from what she knew of Lewis,he was just as spirited and naughty. ‘Tell me,’ she said, smiling as she asked the question, ‘are your eyebrows also that fluffy?’
There was a heartbeat of silence before he answered. ‘Fluffier.’
Well, that might explain the lack of a photo. Maybe she’d been right about him being self-conscious about the way he looked. Oh, Lord. She was pushing again, wasn’t she? A whole lifetime of being a meek little mouse, and now she’d finally found her assertive side, it was starting to run away with her.
‘I didn’t mean you had to send one back,’ she added quickly. ‘I’m sorry if you felt steamrollered into something…’
‘It’s okay,’ he said, a bit more seriously. ‘I’m not sure I’ve got a photo of myself on this phone anyway. I’m not big on taking pictures of myself. Maybe another time.’
‘Maybe,’ Anna echoed, not quite sure if this was a legitimate excuse or whether he was fobbing her off again. Brody was all arm’s-length facts and hidden motives this evening.
‘But I can tell you my name. I’m Brody Smith, I live in a lane that doesn’t actually have a name and is probably too insignificant to have a road number either, but the nearest village is Hexworthy.’
‘Thank you, Brody Smith.’
‘It was nothing,’ he replied, but he was wrong.
This evening, Brody had changed from being a voice on the end of the phone into a real person. Oh, she knew he’d always been real, but somehow, there was a part of her that hadn’t thought of him that way. He’d been like something out of a dream. Or a fairy tale. A rather gruff and opinionated fairy godmother, maybe. But somehow, by finding out his last name and as much of an address as he had,he had solidified into something from this world. If she wanted, she could get in her car and drive to that place.
Not that she would, of course. Not without him saying she could first. That would be a bit too much like stalking. It was enough to know it was possible for now.
Chapter Thirty-Three
LEWIS BARKED AT Brody, then went to sit by the back door. Brody was still staring at his phone after ending his call with Anna, and hardly noticed. Lewis barked again.
‘Sorry, mate,’ Brody muttered and went over to let him out.
Lewis immediately ran into the middle of the courtyard and, instead of doing what Brody had assumed he’d wanted to do, he just started barking, and then the noise changed into what could only be described as a long, mournful howling, as he sat on his hindquarters and looked up at the moon.
It was a rather spectacular moon, large and full. Almost within reach, it felt like.
‘Stupid dog,’ Brody grumbled. ‘What do you think you are, a wolf? Just because it looks close, because it feels like you can get to it, it doesn’t mean you can.’
But Lewis ignored him and kept going.Well, Brody thought, as he shrugged and headed back into the kitchen,at least he wasn’t disturbing the neighbours, since they didn’t have any.
