With a wave goodbye, Olive walked to the front gate and out onto the street, before disappearing off down Foxglove Street towards her own house.
Grace returned to the living room with Stanley trotting close to her feet.
“Well, Stanley, if that’s all your various needs seen to for the time being, I think I’ll get on with some work if you don’t mind?”
Stanley wagged his tail, then watched as she set up her laptop and study materials and got cosy on the sofa. It was only once Grace sat down that she realised there was obviously no dog bed for Stanley to get comfortable in.
Dogs needed beds to lie in, didn’t they? In the last hour, Grace had come to realise that dogs actually needed an awful lot of stuff to keep them ticking over—food, shampoo, collars and leads, cosy beds,poo bagsfor goodness’ sake—and that was probably just the tip of the iceberg.
But before she could worry about where the little dog would lie down, he scampered over to where she sat on the sofa, turnedthree times, and curled up on the floor at her feet. Adjusting his position on the carpet, he nestled closer and rested his head against her leg. The warmth from his furry little body pressed against her made her heart squeeze. The soft sigh he let out as he tucked his head into his paws and closed his eyes only made her heart squeeze all the more.
“Oh, Stanley,” Grace murmured. “You’re an incredibly sweet little rascal, aren’t you?”
His stubby tail thumped once on the floor, but he remained curled up in a cosy ball at her feet. A few minutes later he started snoring, the comical, soft wheezing sound causing a grin to spread across Grace’s face.
Okay, that’s enough of that nonsense,Grace thought as she turned to her laptop screen and the work waiting for her there.Stanley might be cute—okay, very cute—but now it’s time to get on with some serious study.
Grace looked back at her laptop screen, her mind locked onto the task at hand, and she dug into the work that was waiting to be done.
