Penny Jordan Collection: Just One Night (29 page)

He headed this way now. Under normal circumstances he would have disdained to touch scraps, his preferred diet being the special food Mrs Latham bought for him plus his extra ‘luxury treats’. But right now his mouth was already watering at the thought of the boys’ leftover bits of bacon and sausage.

As he padded down towards the shallowest part of the river Ben paused when he heard the boys being summoned for their breakfast. Two of them, either not having heard or deliberately ignoring the summons, were standing on an outcrop of rocks beside one of the deepest parts of the pool, skimming stones across its surface. Ben watched them, and as he did so one of the boys grabbed hold of the other’s shirt, shaking him as though warning him that it was time to go, but the other boy shook him off, stepping back from him as he told him that he wasn’t ready to go yet.

‘We’ve got to,’ his companion protested, trying to take hold of his arm a second time, but as his friend laughed and evaded his grasp tragedy struck and he lost his footing, falling backwards into the deep water.

‘Alex!’

As Ben heard the anxiety in the now solitary boy’s voice he leapt into immediate action. He wasn’t a dog bred specifically to retrieve game from water, but he innately knew what had to be done. Quickly he swam strongly towards the spot where the boy had disappeared beneath the water, quickly finding his inert body.

It wasn’t easy getting underneath him and lifting him to the surface, rolling him over on to his back so that he could fasten his teeth into his clothes and tug him back to dry land, but, to Ben’s relief, as he stalwartly doggy-paddled to the river bank, determinedly taking his human find with him, other help was at hand.

The other boy had run back to the camp to alert them to what had happened, and now there were many pairs of willing hands to help Ben and to relieve him of the boy.

‘Good dog... Oh,
good
dog,’ someone was praising him, and on the dry sandy ground beside the river bank the boy was coughing up water and protesting that he was all right.

Shaking the water from his coat, Ben happily accompanied the children, who were coaxing him back to the campsite, even more happily accepting the food they offered him and the praise they heaped on him.

A team of paramedics came to take the now recovered victim of the accident to hospital, ‘just as a precaution’, and Ben’s heroism was again extolled for their benefit.

As he accompanied them to the waiting ambulance the leader of the troop confided to one of the ambulancemen his belief that, without Ben’s timely intervention, the outcome of the accident could have been very different and far more grave.

‘A setter did you say?’ the man questioned the Scout leader, frowning a little as he waited for the man’s response.

‘Yes, that’s right. He’s with the children now. A nice dog...friendly...’

‘Hmm... Well, there’s been a setter reported missing on the local news. Seems like someone must be very anxious to get him back because there’s a reward offered for his safe return.’

‘And do you think this might be the same dog?’

‘Could be. If it is he answers to the name of Ben, and he’s got one of those implanted microchip identity tags.’

* * *

‘Mmm...’ Georgia quivered in mute delight as she heard the male pleasure in Piers’s voice as his mouth caressed hers. Beneath the bedclothes his hand had found the soft mound of her breast and her nipple was already hardening into excited eagerness at his touch.

‘Hello...? I’m sorry to wake you, but...’

‘It’s Mrs Bowles,’ Georgia hissed frantically to Piers as she pulled uncomfortably away from him.

But Piers was already getting out of bed, reaching quickly for his robe, as unfazed by the farmer’s wife’s urgent knock on the door as she was agitated by it.

‘Hang on a sec,’ he called out, turning his head to smile reassuringly at Georgia and to check that she was completely composed before going to open the door.

‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Mary Bowles apologised again, ‘but there’s been a phone call from my brother about your dog. Seems like—’

‘Ben? Someone’s seen Ben?’ Georgia interrupted her excitedly, forgetting her earlier embarrassment and her self-consciousness as she sat up in the bed, hugging the bedclothes around her naked body. ‘What? Where?’ she questioned eagerly.

But Piers shook his head to silence her, saying encouragingly to the farmer’s wife, ‘You say Ben’s been found?’

‘Seems so,’ she agreed, and quickly explained to them both what had happened. ‘Anyway, they’ve got him at the police station in the town now, and you’re to go down just as soon as you’re ready to identify him. Seems like your dog’s a bit of a hero,’ she added with a smile. ‘I expect the parents of the little boy he saved will certainly think so. Now, if you want me to bring you both up a cup of tea...’

He turned his head to look at Georgia, who, now that her initial relief and excitement were subsiding, was beginning to realise that she was going to have to get out of bed in front of Piers without any clothes on. The fact that he had seen, touched, caressed every part of her the previous night, and would have done so again this morning, in the full light of day, and not just with her agreement but with her encouragement, in no way allayed the sense of discomfort she felt now.

As though somehow Piers sensed what she was feeling, to Georgia’s relief she heard him saying to Mary Bowles, ‘No. There’s no need for you to go to so much trouble. I’ll come down with you and make us both a drink.’

Georgia barely waited until Piers had closed the door before leaping out of bed and making a dash for the shower room.

Ten minutes later she was just zipping up her jeans when Piers walked back in, carrying a tray with two mugs of hot tea on it and some delicious-smelling pieces of freshly cooked toast.

‘Is it really true? Have they
really
found Ben?’ Georgia questioned him anxiously as he handed her one of the mugs of tea and offered her the toast.

‘It certainly sounds like it. I rang the local police station whilst I was downstairs and spoke to the sergeant in charge, and he’s confirmed that the dog they’ve got there answers Ben’s description.’

‘Oh, I hope it is,’ Georgia told him shakily. ‘I’ve been dreading having to tell your godmother that—’

‘How do you think I’ve been feeling?’ Piers interrupted her wryly. ‘Give me five minutes,’ he told her, ‘and then we’ll go.’

Since he had been tactful enough to remove himself from the room to allow her the privacy in which to get showered and dressed, it seemed only good manners that she should return the favour, but, for some reason, Georgia discovered that she was oddly reluctant to do so, almost as though she couldn’t bear the thought of being apart from him.

Well, she was going to have to learn to do so, she warned herself sternly. Once they were home...once Mrs Latham was back from holiday...there would be no reason whatsoever for her and Piers to have any kind of contact with one another. And, since she was going to have to learn to live without him, despite her love for him, the best thing she could do was to start right now by sensibly going downstairs to wait for him.

So why wasn’t she acting on this eminently sensible advice? Why was she staying where she was, making a long job of drinking her tea and eating her toast whilst she wandered over to the window and stared out of it?

She could hear Piers moving about behind her, and then the shower-room door opened and closed again. Now she really should go downstairs. As she knew from her own experience, the shower room was not large enough for one to get dressed in. Once Piers had showered, when he re-emerged into the bedroom he would not be dressed. He would be... She tensed as the shower-room door opened and she heard Piers asking her casually, ‘Georgia, could you just pass me my bag? I left it over there by the window last night and my shaving stuff is in it.’

A little nervously Georgia went to pick up the bag she could see lying only a couple of feet away, carrying it to where Piers stood by the open shower-room door. He had a towel draped round his hips, but that didn’t do anything to stop Georgia recognising that beneath it he was naked. His torso and his arms were sleek and slick with moisture, and she knew that beneath the towel his lower body would be the same.

She was aware that her breathing had become audibly erratic, and she could feel hot, self-conscious colour staining her skin as Piers looked at her in amusement and teased, ‘What’s wrong? Anyone would think you hadn’t seen me before...’

‘It’s not that,’ Georgia denied immediately, and then stopped; but it was too late.

‘No. I know,’ Piers agreed softly, the amusement dying from his eyes to be replaced by something that made her pulse race, her heart beat in triple time with nervous excitement.

‘Come here,’ he commanded her huskily.

Unable to drag her gaze from his, Georgia did so. Something about the heat, the desire, the need in his eyes was mesmerising her.

When she reached him he took the bag from her and put it down, taking hold of her, his hands on her arms, his thumbs caressing her skin through the fabric of her top. It felt as though he couldn’t bear not to touch her, as though he felt compelled to touch her as she felt compelled to be with him.

‘What we can both feel, what we both know exists between us,
isn’t
something to be ashamed of, you know,’ he told her in a deep voice. ‘Me wanting you...you wanting me...’

Another minute and she’d be in his arms, and once she was there... Georgia closed her eyes. Her lips ached to press tiny, possessive kisses against his skin, her fingers itched to stroke and explore him, her heart yearned lovingly for him, and every time he touched her it grew harder for her to keep herself from telling him just how she felt...just how much she loved him...

‘They’ll be waiting for us at the police station,’ she reminded him in a stilted voice.

Immediately his hands dropped from her arms.

‘Yes. Of course,’ he agreed quietly. ‘I’d better finish getting dressed.’

‘I’ll wait for you downstairs,’ Georgia told him. This time there was going to be no way she could be tempted to forget the reality of the situation between them. This time she was most definitely going to go downstairs and wait at a safe distance from him.

* * *

As Piers heard the bedroom door closing behind Georgia he closed his eyes and thumped his fist against the bedroom wall in self-recrimination. Why on earth had he done that? Why hadn’t he just left things as they were instead of trying to force on her emotions that she just didn’t want? It was obvious how uncomfortable she felt every time he started to talk about his feelings. He knew enough about women to know that her reaction to him physically wasn’t something she was at all familiar with, and he sensed that in the aftermath of their lovemaking she was even a little uncomfortable about the intimacy they had shared.

He wasn’t a vain man, but he couldn’t deny how much he had enjoyed knowing, seeing, feeling how completely she was giving herself to him, how totally aroused she was, and how fulfilled their lovemaking had left her. But it still made him ache inside with loss and loneliness to know that she didn’t reciprocate his feelings.

Reminding himself that he had only himself to blame for her rejection of him just now, he shaved and dressed quickly. Had Mrs Bowles not interrupted them when she had with the news about Ben, no doubt right this minute he would be lying in bed with Georgia, her body relaxed and love-sated as she lay next to him. Grimly he closed his eyes, reminding himself of the folly of such thoughts.

CHAPTER TEN

G
EORGIA
looked a little uncertainly at Piers as they pulled up in the car park adjacent to the police station. He had barely spoken to her throughout the drive, and when he had done so his voice had been clipped and curt.

Because he had begun to suspect that her reaction to him in bed might have been caused by something more than mere physical need and he wanted to make it totally plain to her that her love for him was not something he wanted?

Did he think she was so lacking in intelligence, in awareness, that she didn’t know that already?

Ignoring the helping hand he was offering her, she got out of the car, thanking him stiffly for opening the door for her.

Side by side and in total silence they walked into the police station, but as Georgia saw Ben lying happily at the side of a large police dog her promise to herself to keep Piers at arm’s length was forgotten. Beaming with relief she turned to him and exclaimed, ‘It’s him! It’s Ben!’

As he saw them and recognised them Ben bounded over to them both, his tail wagging as he greeted them.

‘Oh, Ben...’ Georgia said tearfully, burying her face in his coat to hide her emotional tears.

‘No need to ask if this
is
the missing dog,’ the desk sergeant chuckled to Piers, who had also, unfathomably, had to reach into his pocket for a handkerchief so that he could blow his nose.

‘No,’ he agreed huskily, allowing Georgia to finish fussing over Ben before he too bent down to stroke the dog.

‘Hello, boy,’ he greeted him, and a little to Georgia’s chagrin Ben immediately ignored her to make a fuss of Piers, almost as though Piers were actually his master.

‘I have to tell you that he’s going to be something of a hero,’ the sergeant told them both once the formalities had been completed. ‘The Cub troop have decided that if they are to be allowed to claim the reward you were offering for the dog’s return they intend to donate it to local charities, but they also want to nominate Ben for an award for what he did. The parents of the boy he saved have specifically asked us to pass on their thanks to both of you. Without Ben’s intervention they feel sure that their son would have been in danger of drowning.

‘He’s a bit of a character, though, isn’t he?’ The sergeant laughed. ‘We
were
keeping him in the restroom, but he picked up one of the lad’s sandwiches and made off with another’s trainer, so Titus here has been set to watch over him.’

At the mention of his name the police dog pricked up his ears but remained solidly where he was—on duty!

Georgia gave a faint sigh. She doubted that, no matter how much she tried, Ben could ever be trained to that pitch of immaculate obedience.

‘Come on, boy, time to go home,’ Piers instructed Ben.

Before they could return, though, they had to call at the farm to thank the Bowleses for their hospitality, and Georgia was amazed when Piers, who had insisted on stopping at a new bookshop on the way back, produced the latest copy of a novel by a well-known writer which he gave to Mrs Bowles as a thank-you.

‘Oh, she’s one of my favourites, and I haven’t got this one!’ The farmer’s wife beamed as she looked at the cover.

‘Yes, I noticed you were a fan of hers,’ Piers said, whilst Georgia marvelled both at his powers of observation and his sensitivity. She had been going to suggest that they send Mrs Bowles some flowers.

‘It was very thoughtful of you to buy Mrs Bowles a book,’ she told him ten minutes later when they were in the Volvo with Ben safely in the back.

‘I just happened to notice that she had several of the author’s books.’ Piers dismissed her praise with a small shrug.

‘You’re very observant,’ Georgia told him colourlessly, and Piers gave her a long, thoughtful look as she turned her head away from him.

‘Mmm...well, I’m certainly observant enough to see that there’s something wrong. What is it? We’ve got Ben and—’

‘I’m just a bit tired,’ Georgia fibbed quickly. How could she tell him that the reason for her misery was the knowledge that in a very few hours’ time they would be back at home, and once they were they would be back to their previous relationship? Tonight she wouldn’t be spending the night in bed with him. Tomorrow morning he wouldn’t be bringing her tea and toast in bed whilst walking semi-naked around the bedroom, tantalising and tormenting her.

‘Tired...?’ Piers repeated, and then checked as Georgia’s face burned a slow, betraying, mortified shade of pink.

The words ‘I didn’t get much sleep last night’ had been trembling on her lips, but thankfully she had not actually uttered them, even though she could tell what he was thinking even without bringing herself to look directly at him. But to her relief, instead of making any comment, he merely responded, ‘Why don’t you try to get some sleep whilst I drive back?’

Well, no doubt he would prefer to have her asleep than awake—that way he wouldn’t have to bother talking to her. And she imagined that having her asleep was the next best alternative to not having her in the car at all!

Very coolly she told him, ‘Yes, I think I will,’ and promptly turned her back on him and closed her eyes.

* * *

‘And the couple whose little boy Ben rescued have nominated him for a “brave dog” award...’

Sipping her tea, Georgia listened patiently whilst Emily Latham talked excitedly about Ben’s nomination for the Brave Dog of the Year award.

Emily had returned the previous weekend, leaving Georgia free to return to her own home, and she had not been sorry to do so.

In the remaining time between their own return to Emily Latham’s home and her arrival back from her cruise, Georgia doubted that she and Piers had spent more than a handful of minutes together. Not that she was remotely unhappy about that. No, of course she wasn’t. Not having to spend time with him had suited her very nicely, thank you...very nicely indeed.

Moreover, she had been more than pleased on her return to work to be told that, because of the interest being shown locally in the pet visits scheme she had inaugurated, Philip had decided that she should be the one to go as an observer on a four-week course being run by a charity that trained dogs to become canine helpers to severely disabled people. Naturally Georgia was thrilled to be offered such an opportunity to observe these dogs going through the final weeks of their training alongside their human partners. One of the dogs and her human counterpart actually lived in the town, and the dog would become one of their potential patients once his own training was over. Georgia knew that it was quite a feather in her cap, professionally speaking, to have received Philip’s mark of approval in having been chosen to attend the course.

‘Ben is behaving so much better,’ Emily Latham enthused as she bent down to pat the dog’s head. He was seated at her side and he had greeted Georgia with great enthusiasm on her arrival. Georgia smiled but said nothing. She had a suspicion that part of the reason for Ben’s changed behaviour was the effect the traumatic change in his lifestyle had had on him. He was, she believed, more than intelligent enough to have realised now just what a lucky animal he was.

‘He has been rather worryingly subdued recently, though,’ Emily Latham murmured. ‘I was going to bring him into the surgery to be checked over, but Arthur says that he thinks Ben is missing Piers.’

Missing Piers! Georgia tensed, but Emily was getting up out of her chair to answer the doorbell which had just started to ring.

‘I’d better go,’ Georgia told her quickly, afraid that her hostess’s visitor could well be the person she had been at such pains to avoid recently.

‘Oh, dear, must you?’ Emily fluttered. ‘Well, do at least stay to say hello to Arthur, won’t you? He told me how fierce you’d been in Ben’s defence when he came round to complain about him.’

As she spoke she was hurrying towards the door, her face flushed a very attractive shade of pink, imploring Georgia to stay where she was just for a few minutes.

Obediently Georgia did so, having realised that Emily Latham’s visitor could not, as she had dreaded, be Piers, but must instead be the colonel who had called round whilst Emily was away to complain at Ben’s desecration of his garden.

‘Good afternoon to you, my dear.’ The colonel beamed as he followed Emily into her drawing room. ‘Delightful to meet you again, and under such auspicious circumstances. Ah...stay, sir...’ he commanded Ben, who was about to get up, fixing him with a very stern ‘services’ stare.

It didn’t take long for Georgia to realise that it was more than any mere desire to make sure Ben was behaving himself that had brought the colonel round to see Emily, and Georgia suspected the older woman was by no means indifferent to her ex-military admirer.

Leaving them to enjoy their afternoon tea
à deux
, Georgia drove home.

The four-week training course she was observing began on Monday, and she was going to spend the weekend with her parents before driving straight to the course from her parents’ home.

Naturally she was relieved that her visit with Emily Latham had passed without any mention of Piers, and even more relieved that she hadn’t had to endure actually seeing him.

But where was he? Emily had said that Ben was missing him. Did that mean he had decided against taking up permanent residence in the town? Had he perhaps decided to move somewhere else? Somewhere as far away from her and her unwanted love as he could possibly get? Well, if so, he needn’t have troubled himself. There was no way she was going to make a fool of herself over a man who didn’t want her. What did he think she was going to do? Fling herself at his feet and beg him...?

Angry colour scalded her skin. Did he really think that just because she had not been able to control her longing for him, her
love
for him, once, that meant...?

Once? a sharply clear inner voice demanded delicately. Her face burning even more hotly, Georgia compressed her mouth and started to make mental lists of everything she had to do before she started her journey to her parents’ home.

It was the town’s evening rush hour, and a Friday as well, and the traffic was at a standstill, gridlocked, but Georgia valiantly refused to give in to the temptation to allow her thoughts to double-back to Piers.

She would need to pack clothes for the weekend, and for the course she was attending. She had warned her neighbours and her landlord that she would be away. She had put batteries in her small tape recorder so that she could make notes of what she saw. She had checked up on the progress of her patients. She had operated on two dogs and a cat earlier in the day, all three minor procedures, which had come through without any complications, the animals having been reunited with their grateful owners before she had left work.

She had bought her father a copy of a new political biography which she knew he would enjoy for his upcoming birthday, and she had treated her mother and herself to a video of one of their favourite Jane Austen books. She still had to fill her car with petrol and— Abruptly Georgia tensed as she saw Piers’s familiar figure emerging from the local estate agent’s office.

Had he been in there to tell them that he wasn’t now interested in any local property?

Greedily Georgia absorbed every detail of him: the thickness of his hair and the way it grew down into the nape of his neck, the tanned column of his throat, exposed by the casual shirt he was wearing, its short sleeves revealing the strong muscles of his arms, the late afternoon sunshine glinting on the fine, silky hairs that covered them.

He was close enough for her to be able to see the way he was frowning, as though deep in thought. A pretty girl emerged from a shop next door to the estate agent’s, almost bumping into him, and his frown changed to a warm smile as she apologised to him.

The warmth of that smile pierced Georgia’s heart. Jealousy was a red-hot burning coal inside her body, a fierce anguish that shocked and hurt her. Determinedly she averted her face, unable to endure looking at them. What if Piers was suggesting that as recompense for bumping into him the girl allowed him to take her for a drink? What if she accepted, smiling another flirtatious smile at him? Georgia could all too easily imagine how tempted she would be, how tantalised at the thought of attracting the interest of a man as good-looking as Piers.

The car in front of her moved off, but Georgia didn’t notice. She was too entrapped in the horrible mental images tormenting her. Piers and the pretty girl...a bride and groom looking adoringly into one another’s eyes...looking lovingly...

Georgia jumped as the driver behind her sounded his horn, and Piers, alone now, now that the girl who had walked into him had gone on her way, looked over to see what all the commotion was about, his body tensing as he saw Georgia.

He had done everything he could to get her out of his mind...and out of his heart... Those remaining days they had shared together at his godmother’s house had been sheer purgatory for him, and, even now, he had no idea just how he’d managed to stop himself from going into Georgia’s bedroom and pleading with her to at least
try
to love him. But somehow he had.

He had told himself that it was the best possible thing that could have happened, for both their sakes, when his godmother had returned home and Georgia had moved out, but there wasn’t a day that went by without him thinking about her, longing for her. A
day
! He was lucky to make it through an hour, a
minute
, without aching for her, he told himself bitterly.

‘Georgia?’ He had called her name and started to cross the road to her before he could stop himself.

In her car Georgia was uncomfortably aware of the displeasure of the drivers behind her. Hot-faced, she changed gear, refusing to give in to the temptation to look back across the road to see if Piers was still there...with that oh, so pretty girl...but as the traffic started to move forward she couldn’t quite prevent herself from stealing a glance in her driving mirror. Piers was crossing the road behind her but there was no sign of the girl. Perhaps she had rushed home to change for her date with him, Georgia decided forlornly. Oh, how she envied her. Oh, how she wished that things could have been different and that Piers could have loved
her
.