The trees were sprouting the first buds in Grace’s garden as Ginger parked outside Grace and Esmerelda’s.
‘Dogs rolled in mud. Pooey,’ announced Esmerelda, opening the door and almost running away. ‘Me busy. We going to your father’s to spend night. No time to clean stinky dogs.’
Ginger was wearing her walking gear because she planned to go walking in the countryside later and she backed off as the two dogs leapt delightedly at her.
‘Down,’ she yelled at Cloud and Pepperpot, who looked more like chimney sweeps than cockapoos. The stink was incredible.
‘Blasted dog walker,’ said Aunt Grace, standing in the hallway with a barrage of boxes in front of her to keep her safe. ‘I don’t suppose you could wash them? They’ll stink out the car . . .’
‘Can you fire that dog walker and hire one who stops them rolling in crap?’ said Ginger, groaning.
‘He’s cute and I think you might like him,’ said Grace irrepressibly.
‘I already hate him,’ said Ginger.
Trying to keep the dogs at bay, she got dog treats from the kitchen, then coaxed the two dogs upstairs and locked them in the bathroom. The special doggy shampoo sat where it was last time she’d had to do this.
She stripped off her sweatshirt and her T-shirt until she was down to her sports bra, then hoisted Cloud in.
‘You are not a cloud, you are putting on weight,’ she murmured to the dog, feeding treats and talking doggie nonsense so Cloud would not be scared as the water started.
Twenty minutes later, Cloud and Pepperpot were clean, about six dirty towels destined for the boil wash were on the floor and everything she was wearing was wet.
Since there was nothing of either Grace’s or Esmerelda’s she could wear, she was going to be wearing this outfit for the evening.
Grace was at the door when Ginger let the dogs out.
‘Esmerelda, let them out!’
The dogs whizzed past Grace and down the stairs, a blur of wet fur.
‘Now, I have two things to show you,’ said Grace, leading the way to her bedroom.
On a desk sat a computer where Grace liked to order things from the internet, but tonight it was set up to a social media site.
‘Look,’ said Grace.
‘I didn’t know you were into social media,’ said Ginger, peering.
‘I don’t do that Instamatic thing or the Twitters but I like this one. I have some old friends on it and I like looking at the rubbish people put up. A lot of people lie, you know.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ said Ginger.
It was Facebook and she realised the page was Liza’s.
Moving swiftly back, she said: ‘I don’t want to look at this.’
‘No, do,’ insisted Grace.
Unwillingly, Ginger looked at where Grace was pointing a spindly but manicured finger.
‘See: single. They’ve split up. Her and that big idiot. Pair of idiots, really.’
Grace was Facebook-stalking her former best friend.
‘I should never have told you,’ she said, half laughing. ‘Stalker.’
‘I thought I might keep an eye out. She has no privacy settings, but then she never did have an ounce of sense. Silly girl. Well?’
Still wet, Ginger sat down on the bed. ‘Well what?’
‘How does it make you feel?’
Ginger considered it. The previous June, knowing that Liza and James had split up would have seemed like divine intervention, but now she merely felt sad for her former friend. Now that she had real friends, good friends, she understood that Liza had never been one.
‘I feel sorry for them both,’ she said.
Grace beamed at her.
‘You are a wonderful girl, Ginger Reilly. Just wonderful. You deserve all happiness in life.’
‘Yes, and wet dogs in my car,’ laughed Ginger.
‘They can come in my jeep,’ said a deep voice.
‘You haven’t met my new dog walker,’ said Grace, her grin truly devilish. ‘Should I fire him? You decide.’
Ginger turned and saw Will stood at the door of Grace’s bedroom.
With a surprising speed for a woman of her age, Grace slipped past Will and could be heard beetling down the stairs.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Ginger, no longer able to summon up any hostility. It had been months, after all. Although why Will was walking her great-aunt’s dogs made no sense to her.
‘Looking for you. Trying to make it up to you.’
‘Why? You were never interested in me,’ she said flatly.
‘Who told you that?’ said Will and he moved so that he was sitting on the bed beside her.
‘Carla—’
‘Very reliable woman, Carla,’ said Will. ‘Great liar. I knew that by the time I’d agreed to go to the ceremony with her, but I couldn’t back out. And then—’ his eyes, those amazing brown eyes that looked so stunning with his blond hair, darkened, ‘when you left with that smug git, I knew there was no point.’
Ginger bit her lip.
‘Except I couldn’t live without you.’
‘You appeared to manage,’ Ginger said tartly.
‘I had to when you blocked my number and ignored my note. I also thought you were seeing Tyson,’ he replied. ‘And then Grace got in touch.’
‘Grace got in touch? Is she secretly CIA?’ Ginger asked.
‘Let’s just say I think she has a good grasp of Facebook and she knows all your secrets.’
‘I have to stop telling her things,’ Ginger said, beginning to grin.
‘So, do you think you would give me the pleasure of taking one of the most beautiful, strong, clever women I’ve ever known out for dinner?’
Smelling of wet dog, Ginger did something she’d never done in her life: she sat on a man’s lap and didn’t think for even one second that she might be heavy, that she might crush the life out of him. Will Stapleton wanted her and she wanted him. Had wanted him since that night in his jeep.
‘I might,’ she said and then his hands cupped her face and he was kissing her.
This was how it was supposed to feel, she realised, as she felt him holding her like she was something precious.
This was worth waiting for.
And a week later, in her pretty bedroom in her tiny house, Ginger found that kisses were not the only thing worth waiting for.
‘I understand all those romantic novels now,’ she said, as they lay together, panting, smiling, bodies touching because they couldn’t bear to be apart.
‘You’ll understand it more the second time,’ said Will. ‘I love you, Ginger Reilly. Every glorious inch of you.’