Page 53 of Fundamentals in Flirting

Agnes pottered into the living area with a warm smile on her face and placed two mugs of steaming hot tea on the small coffee table. “Thanks for putting me up last night, but I need to go home and check on my goats.”

Teddy smiled and reached for his T-shirt, pulling it over his head.

“I should get going too. I’ve got some work to do this morning and I want to ring the electricity company again to see where we are with getting the supply back up.”

I watched his easy gracefulness as he pulled his jeans on and took a mouthful of tea, placing an arm around Agnes. “Shall I walk you back?”

She nodded gratefully.

“Thanks. Would you be a dear and bring Aphrodite too?”

Teddy looked momentarily confused until the diminutive cat chirruped and rubbed against his ankles. “Yes of course. Aphrodite.”

They bustled around, collecting their belongings, while I sat on the floor and watched.

“You haven’t forgotten that you’re helping me with the kitchen renovations later, right?” Teddy said, holding the door while Agnes gave me a little wave and disappeared down the stairs.

“I am?”

I’d really hoped he’d forgotten about our agreement. No such luck.

“See you at six? You might even have fun. You never know…”

He picked up Aphrodite before giving me a wink and closing the door behind him, leaving me alone, and in a right bloody panic.

ChapterSeventeen

The electricity came back on around lunchtime and Teddy gleefully texted to let me know we were definitely still on to move some kitchen furniture around. So, like the brain-dead people pleaser that I seemed to have become, I headed to his house after work, wearing old clothes and a determined expression. But when I got there, Teddy was no where to be found and all the doors to the house were locked.

Wandering around the back of The Old Rectory, I called out, hoping I might find him in the garden or in the goat shed, but to no avail. After feeding Deidre some dandelions and giving her a quick scratch behind her ears, I pottered back, heading for the French doors into the kitchen. Peering inside, nose pressed against the cool glass, I called his name again, but there was still no sign.

“Where the hell are you?” I muttered, feeling sure he had to be here as his Land Rover was in the drive and his text message had definitely said to come over for six. Sitting on the low stone wall of the ramshackle patio, I pulled out my phone and called his number, hearing the ringing of his phone coming from somewhere deep inside the house. But it went to voicemail.

About to give up and go home, I heard the very faint call of my name.

“Teddy?” I shouted back.

There was another desperate cry, but louder this time, as I followed the sound down a narrow path between the high wall of the surgery car park and around the side of the house.

“Hannah! Down here!”

In the overgrown border of the garden was a smallish opening in the wall of the house at ground level that dropped away into darkness.

“Teddy?”

His face appeared at the bottom of the hole. “I’m so glad you’re here.” He paused and scratched his head, his shadowed face a little sheepish. “I may have got myself into a slightly tricky predicament in the name of the Goddess of Love.”

A loud meow echoed from the hole.

Teddy looked up at me from the dark pit he was in and seemed in two minds whether to fess up about what was going on.

“So…” I prompted, “what’s she done?”

“She fell down the coal chute here, and without really thinking I scrambled in to get her, and now we’re both stuck in the cellar.”

Teddy disappeared from view and the next moment, Aphrodite’s patchwork tortoiseshell face was being thrust up towards me. Leaning down to take her from Teddy’s outstretched hands, I placed her on the path, where she gave a little shake and trotted off down the garden without a backward glance.

“Are you coming out now then?”

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