Lost and Found on Foxglove Street (The Foxglove Street #9)

Chapter 30

30

Grace was stuffing her lipstick into her bag and hurrying downstairs when she heard her phone ringing from somewhere in the house. Realising she’d left it in the kitchen, she picked up her pace to reach it and answer the call.

When Miriam had phoned twenty minutes ago and asked her to join them for an afternoon walk, Grace had tried very hard to turn down the older lady’s invitation. Not only was it important that Miriam spend proper quality time with her grandson without Grace constantly hanging around in their way, but after the strained conversation with Ryan in his kitchen that morning after the York job opportunity had arrived in her email, Grace felt that it was probably better if they had some time apart.

For the past five days, they’d almost been joined at the hip, seeing one another every day for hours and hours at a time. That wasn’t healthy, surely?

And surely it wasn’t healthy for Grace to be confused by Ryan’s encouragement about the job opportunity that she’d told him about. What did she want him to do? Beg her not to apply for the job? Beg her to commit to staying in Hamblehurst with him, forever and ever?

That was obviously ludicrous, and not what she wanted at all, and not what she expected at all, either.

And yet… did Ryan have to be quite so cheerful and blasé when he’d told her to apply for the job in York?

As these were the silly and childish thoughts currently racing around Grace’s head, some time spent away from Ryan had seemed like a very good idea in order to get a bit of perspective before she blew all of this completely out of proportion.

Which was why she’d tried to turn Miriam down when she’d invited her along for another jaunt. Miriam, however, had refused to take no for an answer. When the older lady had informed her that a last-minute change of plans meant she would be leaving Hamblehurst later that day and wanted very much to enjoy her company again before she went, Grace felt she had no choice but to agree to Miriam’s request.

Now, as Grace hurtled downstairs to answer her ringing phone, she wondered if it might be Miriam again, calling to say they were on their way to pick her up a littler earlier than agreed. But when she finally grabbed her phone from the kitchen counter, it wasn’t Miriam’s number on the screen.

Instead, it was the number Grace recognised as belonging to the dog warden’s office.

Stanley was racing around her feet, excited by their speedy rush downstairs together, and as Grace pressed the button to answer the call, she glanced at the scruffy mutt and felt a sharp sense of anticipation about what the dog warden was phoning about.

She knew it could really only be one of two things. They’d either found Stanley’s owner, or they hadn’t.

“Hello? This is the dog warden here. I’m phoning up about the stray dog you’ve got. As the seven-day period ends tomorrow and no owner has come forward to claim the animal, it’s my duty to send him on to one of the local rescue centres we work with and which will now be responsible for rehoming him. I can come tomorrow at three o’clock to pick him up. Does that suit you?”

The dog warden’s barrage of chatter down the phone left little room for her to get a word in edgewise. She realised she’d lost track of time over the past days because of the lovely moments she’d spent with Ryan. Although she’d known that Stanley’s seven days with her were drawing to a close, she hadn’t let herself think about it too much. The distraction of being with Ryan had been a useful foil.

Now, she felt a hard jolt at the thought that Stanley would be leaving her, if the dog warden had anything to do with it.

“Um, is there any way the dog could stay here with me for a few more days?” Grace asked. “You see, the thing is?—”

“Sorry, that’s against our procedures,” the warden interrupted before she could explain any further. “I’ve already gone out on a limb and let you keep the dog during the statutory seven-day period when the council is required to provide shelter and care for a stray, in case an owner comes forward to claim him. Now, we must relinquish our duties and pass the case on to the rehoming charities. That’s all there is to it. So, is three o’clock tomorrow suitable for me to collect the animal?”

The dog warden’s sharp tongue and brusque manner left Grace lost for words. Just then, a car horn tooted out on the street, and when she walked through from the kitchen to look out the living room window, she saw Ryan’s car pulling into a parking space outside her house. A message pinged on her phone at that same moment, too, and a quick glance at the screen revealed a text from Miriam to say they had arrived to pick her up.

“Ms Burton? Are you still there?” the dog warden said impatiently on the phone. “Is three o’clock tomorrow suitable to collect the dog?”

Grace looked down at Stanley, who’d come with her when she’d hurried through to look out the living room window. He was smiling up at her, his tail wagging. He was such a sweet dog and…

… and Grace had a big decision to make about whether she was able to say goodbye to him.

But between the grumpy dog warden on the phone and Miriam and Ryan waving at her from the car out on the street, this was not the time to make that decision.

“Yes, three o’clock tomorrow is fine,” Grace said at last to the dog warden, knowing that agreeing to his arrangements would give her breathing space to work out what she wanted to do next.

The warden uttered a brief goodbye and hung up. Grace waved out the window to Miriam and Ryan, signalling she was on her way, and then grabbed her bag and clipped Stanley’s lead to his collar. The little dog licked her hand before scurrying to the door, excited to get out and about.

She locked the front door and watched the dog tear off along the garden path and bark in excitement when Ryan appeared at the back of his parked car to open the boot and help Stanley inside. It made her heart glad to see the friendly little animal looking so happy.

Can I really give him up? Grace wondered. And is keeping him even a possibility, or am I romanticising something that’s a lot more work than I’m able to take on?

The early afternoon walk that Miriam chose was a relaxed stroll around a nearby country park which featured an assortment of woodland and wildlife areas and a pretty lake at its centre. Miriam wanted to look at the educational wildlife exhibit on display in a small wooden building used by volunteers for their various ecological projects and told Ryan and Grace to enjoy an additional loop around the lakeshore in her absence.

This sounded like a rouse to Grace, and a not very subtle attempt to give the two of them time alone, but after a week in Miriam’s company, she knew the woman wouldn’t be deterred from her scheme.

As they set off for a second walk around the pretty lake, Ryan gave Grace a smile and squeezed her hand.

“Have you thought any more about the job opportunity in York that you found out about this morning?” he asked.

“It’s on my mind. I looked into the job specifications in more detail after I went home, and it certainly looks like a wonderful opportunity.”

Ryan looked ahead along the path to where Stanley was darting around and straining at his lead as he attempted to sniff everything in sight.

“Listen,” Ryan said. “This morning, when you told me about the job in York, there’s something I should’ve said that I regret not saying.”

Grace looked up and saw the nervous expression on his face.

“This job sounds like a great opportunity for you, Grace, and I know how much you want to get ahead in your career. I really think you should apply for the job and see what happens.” He blew out a breath before continuing. “But if you apply for the job and you get it and you decide to leave… I want you to know I’ll miss you.”

His words brought Grace the strangest feeling of relief. Knowing he felt this way made all the difference.

“I know we only met a week ago,” Ryan added. “But you mean an awful lot to me already, Grace. Whatever happens, I want you to know that.”

Touched by the tenderness and simplicity of his words, Grace tilted her head and kissed him. When he paused on the pathway to pull her closer, his arms encircling her, she felt bliss in every cell of her body.

They parted when Stanley barrelled back towards them, wondering what the holdup was as he endeavoured to make progress along the pathway. Laughing at the dog’s cheeky antics, they continued their walk hand-in-hand.

“I like you too, Ryan, very much,” Grace said. “These past few days have been the best I’ve had in a long time. It’s been wonderful being with you each day.”

“Even with my grandma tagging along?” he joked.

“If it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t have gone out on any of these lovely day trips to begin with, and then who knows if anything would’ve happened between us at all?”

“It would’ve happened,” Ryan said, his tone unequivocal as his eyes held hers.

His gaze made her stomach perform silly tumbles over and over, such was his effect whenever he looked at her that way.

“Stanley had already helped us find each other, anyway,” Ryan added, his expression now turning humorous.

“That’s true.” Grace remembered the phone call from the dog warden before she’d left the house—not that it was possible to forget about it. “If it wasn’t for everything that’s happened over the last few days, applying for that job in York would be a no-brainer for me. If I got the job, it would involve a lot of upheaval to move away and sell my house, a house I only bought a year ago, but I would’ve done it in a heartbeat if it meant getting such a huge jump up the career ladder in my industry, especially after being so disappointed about how my promotion prospects have stalled where I’m working at the moment.”

“But now things are different?” Ryan asked, and Grace couldn’t mistake the hopeful note in his voice.

“Yes, now things are different,” Grace said, and squeezed Ryan’s hand. “I didn’t expect to find… this… us…” She gestured to the two of them. “Whatever ‘us’ is. I know it’s early days, and there’s so much we still don’t know about each other but…” Looking up into his eyes, she felt sure about one thing, at least. “I do know that what I feel for you is real, and that it could become so much more.”

“I feel that way about you too, Grace.”

She savoured the lovely moment of shared intimacy.

“And this might sound daft, but things are also different because of Stanley, too,” she said at length. “When I found him on the street a week ago, I just felt sorry for the scruffy stray dog. Now, he’s burrowed my way inside my heart. For the past week, part of me has been hoping his owner would turn up and claim him because if there were people out there who loved him, I wanted him to be returned to where he belonged.”

She waved a hand towards Stanley, who was still scampering along the pathway ahead of them both.

“But it doesn’t look like there is anyone searching for him, after all. I suppose the lack of a microchip and a collar suggested as much right from the start. I hoped that perhaps the dog warden might get a phone call from someone who was looking for him, but that hasn’t happened. The warden phoned this morning and arranged to collect Stanley tomorrow to take him to the animal rescue centre to be rehomed.”

The unhappy tone in her voice had Ryan turning around to study her face, his hand cradling hers closer in comfort.

“How do you feel about that?” Ryan asked.

“Awful,” she admitted. “We’ve all been enjoying so many lovely trips out and about over these past few days thanks to your grandmother, that I lost track of time and didn’t realise that Stanley’s seven days with me were almost over. I don’t want to give him up.”

“So, why don’t you keep him? Tell the warden you want to become his new owner.”

“Ryan, believe me when I say that I am so tempted to do that. But this past week hasn’t been anything like my usual life. I’ve been in holiday mode, hanging around my house, hanging around your house, going out for long walks every day. But that’s not how I live day to day. I work long hours at the hotel and often add overtime, too, and none of that would be fair on a dog.”

“There are ways around all of that,” Ryan said. “Lots of people work demanding full-time jobs and still manage to own a pet. There are dog-walking services. You mentioned doggy daycare when you first took Stanley in. Maybe he could go there when you’re at work and make lots of new doggy friends.”

Ryan laughed, and although Grace understood he was trying to suggest solutions, the essential concern remained.

“You’re right, but I need to think about what’s best for Stanley. Maybe I’m not the right owner for him. Maybe the people at the rehoming centre could find a much better person to care for him, someone who’s home much more than I am and who can give him the time and love he needs. Plus, if I decide…”

“If you decide what?” Ryan pressed when she trailed off.

Grace sighed, searching for the right words to explain it. “If I decide to apply for this job in York, and if I get the job in York, there’d be a huge upheaval ahead in my life. I can’t take on a dog when I might be about to make such a huge change and start in a job that would definitely be much more demanding and time-consuming than the one I have right now.”

Ryan nodded, his expression unreadable. “It sounds like you’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”

“And not much time to do it in. The dog warden is coming tomorrow afternoon to pick him up.”

“You’ll find the right answer. I’m sure of it.”

Ryan gave her a smile filled with such certainty and reassurance, it sent a surge of emotion crashing through her. And when she looked along the path to where Stanley was trotting ahead of them and the little dog spun around and barked and wagged his tail, before racing towards her playfully and zooming off again, she thought she might actually well up with tears.

She didn’t want to say goodbye to little Stanley, or to Ryan, for that matter. But pursuing that job opportunity in York might mean having to do just that if things turned out her way.

So what did she want?

Grace had no idea—and that was the most unsettling part of all of it.