vibrated in her trouser suit pocket. The darkening line of the horizon smudged as she put the phone to her ear. ‘Great and Small. Vanessa speaking.’
‘Oh, I’m tho glad to have caught you.’
Vanessa flipped through her mental PDA. An elderly woman, enthusiastic, with a slight lisp didn’t ring a bell. Another creditor after a payment?
She suppressed a worn-down sigh. ‘Yes, this is she. How can I help?’
‘My son, Mitchell, gave me your number. He said you were the lady I needed to see.’ Her voice lowered. ‘He altho mentioned you do house calls.’
Vanessa straightened from her slouch. Mitchell Stuart, aka Mr Goldfish?
At one stage, when she and Mitch Stuart had spoken about sirens, she’d felt increasingly drawn to him. He’d looked at her with those startling blue eyes and her nerve-endings had reached out and tingled. Then his expression had dropped from simmering to a degree below tepid and she’d known why.
She’d shared personal information regarding her financial situation with a veritable stranger. She’d come across as needy…perhaps even soliciting. Her upbringing had been humble and she’d been raised to value tenacity and dignity; she should’ve known better.
God, she should never have returned to get the smaller tank. Worse, she shouldn’t have allowed him to kiss her as she’d never been kissed before. Though it was clear they’d both enjoyed the interaction, that wasn’t enough. She’d read him right when he’d first walked into her shop.
Water meets its own level. Guys like him—guys with money and family and the world at their feet—didn’t end up with girls like her. But she couldn’t very well hang up on his mother.
She quietly released that pent-up breath. ‘What can I do for you, Mrs Stuart?’
‘Cockapoos.’
‘Also known as spoodles,’ she confirmed. Cocker spaniels mixed with poodles.
‘In the past I’ve always purchased toy poodles.’
Vanessa remembered. The little yappy ones. Was Mrs Stuart in the market for a puppy? ‘I don’t have any cockapoos in store at the moment.’
‘My son regards your expertise highly. He said you’d be able to help. I’m after four as soon as possible. I’m willing to pay for the best.’
Vanessa’s toes curled as she squeezed the phone tight. The bank representative she’d spoken with late this afternoon had turned her application for a loan down flat. His exact words: it’s best to face reality, cut your losses and find a paying job. But pedigree cockapoos sold for a great deal. If she tracked down and sold four, the extra funds could keep the wolf from the door, perhaps long enough to find a way to keep Great and Small alive and in its current location.
If there was any way, she wanted to stay where she was. The shop was set up exactly how she’d always envisaged. It was far more than a business.
It was her home.
‘Miss Craig? Are you there?’
Vanessa pushed to her feet. ‘How soon do you want them?’
‘The sooner the better.’
She was already jogging down the steps, phone still pressed to her ear. ‘I’ll make some enquiries and call you back.’
‘I’d prefer if you’d drop by.’
To pass on a few details? She didn’t see the point. But Mrs Stuart did indeed sound pampered and Vanessa wasn’t in a position to argue.
The customer was always right, particularly one with a few thousand to spend. She should be grateful Mitch Stuart was man enough to let bygones be bygones. He’d forgiven—and most likely forgotten—their embarrassing moment and had put his mother’s needs before any hard feelings. She, in turn, would be professional and do her best to track down those dogs.
Thirty minutes and three phone calls later, Vanessa turned her Honda CRV into the address Mrs Stuart had provided. A mansion greeted her, its stately sandstone walls surrounded by immaculate mint-green lawns. A Union Jack and Southern Cross flag, perched atop a mast that touched the sky, flapped in the cool early evening breeze.
She’d thought Mitch’s stylish contemporary abode was something special, but this place might have belonged to royalty. She remembered her own single bedroom granny flat and mismatched furniture and sighed. His world and hers were not only miles apart—they were light years.
After parking on the paved circular drive, she swallowed her jangle of nerves, ascended the stone steps and rang the bell that droned a sombre tune behind the imposing ten-foot-high oak door. A uniformed maid, with a severe overbite that reminded Vanessa of Mr Cheese, answered the door. Before either of them could speak, Mrs Stuart scurried across the polished timber floor and into view.
‘Come in, come in.’ Mrs Stuart waved Vanessa in, then called over her butter-yellow blouse shoulder, ‘Cynthia! The dog lady’s here.’
Vanessa cringed. Had Mitch suggested she call her that?
Mrs Stuart addressed the maid. ‘Thank you, Wendle. I’ll take care of our guest.’
Wendle left them and Mrs Stuart linked her arm through Vanessa’s, guiding her down a wide hall trimmed in ornate dark timber, into an elab orately furnished living room—decorative high ceiling, polished brass and crystal fittings, baroque couches and window seats pulled from the pages of Celebrity House and Garden.
On the far couch, a woman around Vanessa’s age lifted her reddened nose from a lace handkerchief. She was finely boned and, although unwashed, her hair looked blonde like her mother’s. However, rather than hazel, her eyes were ocean-blue like her brother’s, and rimmed with red.
Cynthia found the strength to mutter, ‘Nice to meet you.’
Mrs Stuart clasped her bejewelled hands under her chin. Diamonds and rubies flashed in the dying sunlight slanting in through a tall arched window. ‘Our Cynthia has had a bad time of it. Day before yesterday she was engaged. Today, sadly, she is not.’
Vanessa cocked a brow. These people mightn’t mind laying open their private lives in the parlour but, after yesterday’s blabbermouth experience with Mitch Stuart, she’d learned her lesson. She wouldn’t divulge the fact that she’d once lived through a similar ordeal.
She’d once dated a good-looking man of some means. He’d been charming, but something beyond mysterious about him had sent up a red flag. When, after two months, she’d suggested they have a break, he’d vowed he couldn’t give her up, then he’d popped the question. She’d been flattered but unconvinced. Good thing she hadn’t made a fool of herself and accepted, because the following day she’d received a call: apparently he was already engaged to someone more befitting his station. The ruffled female caller with the superior tone had said Vanessa was his ‘fluff on the side’.
At least animals didn’t omit the truth or flat out lie. What you saw was what you got.
‘I’m sorry about your news,’ Vanessa said sincerely. Then, squaring her shoulders, she moved forward with business. ‘You
