19
At nine-thirty the next morning,Grace was sitting at her kitchen table with her laptop open and a mug of tea going cold beside her, staring at the computer screen and feeling completely unmotivated.
She’d been sitting there for the past hour, attempting to work her way through a series of hospitality industry business bulletins. Usually, she lapped this sort of stuff up. This morning, though, she had to keep rereading the pages on her laptop screen because none of the information appeared to be penetrating her brain.
Her mind kept wandering to other things. Mostly, it kept wandering to her stalled promotion at work and how the bad news had left her feeling so empty. Reminding herself that she still had a job, and a good job at that, made little impact on that emptiness.
But her mind also kept wandering to Ryan, and each time that happened, her heart did a stupid little backflip inside her chest.
No matter how often she attempted to focus once more on the materials she was trying to read on her laptop, her mind zoomed off again, and when she finally returned to the here andnow, she had no clue about any of the content she’d just scanned on the screen.
The past hour spent supposedly studying had been nothing but a huge waste of time.
Grace wondered if Ryan was right when he’d said she ought to take a proper break from work, and a proper break from the studying and researching she’d planned for this extended time off. What was the point of sitting here in front of her laptop if she wasn’t actually doing anything productive?
Perhaps a proper break from everything related to her job was exactly what she needed after all? Grace wondered what she could do with her time instead.
On the back of this thought, another arrived instantly: she could take Ryan up on his offer to join him and his grandmother on their little jaunt out into the countryside.
The idea was ridiculously appealing. She liked Ryan, more than she was willing to admit, and acknowledging this to herself caused a hot blush to warm her cheeks.
What’s more, she certainly liked his grandmother, whose company she enjoyed a great deal. Getting out of the house, and out of her own head for a while, would surely only do her good?
Yet, despite Ryan’s insistence that she was welcome to join them on their little day trip, Grace winced at the idea of imposing on the special time Ryan was spending with his grandmother. Just because she was fed up and feeling sad and, okay, yes, feeling quite lonely too right now, that didn’t give her the right to shove her way into someone else’s precious family time, and…
Grace glanced up at Stanley’s sudden movements across the kitchen. For the past hour, the little dog had been curled up on his bed, which Grace had squeezed in between the fridge and the radiator. Following the nice walk they’d taken together this morning around Hamblehurst, Stanley had seemed happy todoze off, his eyes occasionally blinking open to see what she was up to.
Now, the little dog was speeding out of the kitchen as if on a mission. Grace heard a scrabbling noise in the hallway and was about to get up to see what was going on when Stanley reappeared.
He was carrying his dog lead in his mouth, and he trotted smartly to where Grace sat at the kitchen table and stood before her, wagging his tail. Grace couldn’t help but laugh in astonishment.
“You don’t need another walk already, do you?” she asked, and got up to open the back door. “We only had a walk an hour ago. If you need to go and do your business, then just use the garden.”
Stanley glanced at the open door and then back to Grace, before trotting over to where she stood and planting his bottom on the ground, the dog lead still dangling from his mouth.
“What a funny little mutt you are, Stanley,” Grace said. “And where exactly did you learn this trick with your lead?”
The dog wagged his tail again and chuntered. The creature’s clever gaze made her wonder if Stanley had more going on inside his little canine head than she’d given him credit for.
“So, you don’t want to go out into the garden, is that right?” she said, amusing herself with the idea she might actually be having a conversation with a dog.
Stanley let out a low yip and remained rooted to the spot where he sat.
“Do you want to go out for another walk around Hamblehurst?”
Stanley yipped again and moved his head in a motion that looked an awful lot like a headshake to indicate the answer was no.
A ridiculous idea occurred to Grace. “Shall we go with Ryan and Miriam on a nice trip to the countryside?”
This time, Stanley exploded in a frenzy of barking and began spinning in circles, the dog lead dropping from his mouth and getting tangled up in his little legs as he whirled around. If Grace hadn’t just seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed it.
Had Stanley just said yes to a trip out with Ryan?
Or was she simply using the cute little dog as an excuse to do something she really wanted to do, but for some unfathomable reason couldn’t seem to pluck up the courage for?
“Okay, you win, Stanley,” Grace laughed, and grabbed her phone from the table. “Let’s hope they haven’t already packed up and left for the day.”
Stanley barked again and spun a few more circles on the floor, and then raced to his bowl to lap up some water. Grace typed a message to Ryan and sent it.
