The following morning, Eleanor woke up feeling sore from the long walk. But also rattled and unsettled. She had accidentally blabbed about losing her job to Tom. What were the chances that he was going to tell everyone? Quite high considering she had lost her temper with him.
On reflection, he had seemed quite dozy when she had marched into the recording studio. She also remembered Annie saying that he was on really strong painkillers.
That was no excuse for not showing up though, she reminded herself. But even so, the seed of doubt remained that he might have been telling her the truth.
To add to her guilt, she had received a short text back from Theresa saying that whenever she had a story, she would be listening.
Eleanor automatically scratched at the patch of eczema on her neck. What was she going to tell her friends? How was she going to even begin to let them know she had lied to them?
She was feeling so muddled about everything and just couldn’t think straight.
Thankfully, the long list of chores dealing with the animals helped keep her occupied for the morning. They were running low on food, so Eleanor had offered to head to the local farm shop where animal feed was plentiful and cheap, thanks to her mum’s employee discount.
Unfortunately her mum didn’t have a car, so Eleanor had no choice but to use the rickety old bicycle.
‘It’s a nice day to be outside,’ her mum had told her.
But the weather had other ideas and the sky was growing very dark, very quickly as Eleanor made her way through the village. She was just struggling up the hill on the other side when the first raindrop splattered down onto the rusty handlebars. She glanced upwards and quickly upped her speed as it grew dark around her. Then it really began to rain. Hard.
She huffed and puffed as she tried to go even faster. The farm was just around the corner when suddenly something pinged around her ankles. Almost immediately, the bike came to an abrupt halt and she was catapulted out of the seat and onto a nearby grass verge.
She was struggling to a sitting position when a car drove past, splashing through a muddy puddle that had quickly formed in a nearby pothole.
‘Thank you very much!’ she shouted at the car, her anger spilling into the air.
Great, she thought staring down at her torn jeans. Another pair of ruined trousers. But at least it didn’t feel as if she had broken any bones.
To her horror, the brake lights of the car suddenly lit up and the vehicle was put into reverse. Her anger quickly disappeared and she feared the driver had heard her.
Oh well, she thought. Take a ticket and join the back of the queue. She’d reached her limit this month as to the number of people she could upset.
‘Come on then,’ she shouted as the driver got out. ‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!’
To her horror, it was Tom limping around the vehicle instead of some road-rage thug. Through the heavy rain, she could see him looking surprised but amused at her words.
‘Well, I’m still a bit crocked, what with my foot and all,’ he drawled. ‘But I can put up a pretty good fight if you’re in the mood for a scrap. What happened?’ he asked, giving her the once-over. ‘Are you okay?’
Eleanor decided that she was too wet, shocked and cold to be embarrassed. ‘I think the chain fell off or something,’ she told him, with a shrug. ‘I’m fine. I’ll live.’
She struggled to stand up and realised that she was coated in mud.
‘I’m not sure your bike will survive,’ said Tom, glancing over at the crumpled steel mess that was left. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a lift. Where are you going?’
‘I can manage,’ she muttered.
‘How do you figure on doing that?’ he asked.
The silence stretched out between them.
‘You think I should just leave you here in the pouring rain?’ he added.
She could feel her hair plastered against her head by the heavy rain. ‘Okay,’ she said before realising how ungracious that sounded. ‘I’m going to the farm shop just down the road. Thanks.’
He glanced down at her filthy mud-coated jeans. ‘Maybe I’d better put down some kind of cloth over the seat,’ said Tom. ‘I’m not sure Sam wants his car completely wrecked inside.’
‘I’m surprised to see you up and about so early,’ she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. Just because he was being nice to her, didn’t mean that she wasn’t still cross about his no-show at the charity walk.
‘I’ve taken myself off the codeine,’ he told her, lifting the bicycle into the boot of the car before turning to face her. ‘It was making me sleep all day. Hence missing the walk yesterday, which I think I did apologise for.’
Had he? She had been so cross, she couldn’t remember.
Still feeling a little defensive, she asked, ‘Are you all right to drive with your foot?
‘I am now that I’ve stopped taking the heavy painkillers,’ he told her, slamming the boot shut. ‘Also it’s an automatic.’
As the rain continued to pour down around them, there was a rumble of thunder overhead. A second later, a large grey blur dashed across the road and went straight underneath the car.
They looked at each other in shock.
‘What the hell was that?’ asked Tom.
They both bent down, peering underneath the car to discover a large, hairy, grey and white dog shivering, his big brown eyes wide with terror.
‘Poor thing,’ said Tom, reaching out his hand.
The rain had plastered his T-shirt to his torso and Eleanor was disgruntled to find herself staring at his toned stomach.
To distract herself, she looked around. ‘I wonder where it came from.’
They tried to coax the dog out, but in the end Tom had to lie down on the wet road to reach hold of it by the scruff of its neck.
‘Come on, big fella,’ said Tom in a soft tone as the dog was slowly pulled out from under the car.
‘There’s no collar,’ said Eleanor. ‘I wonder if he slipped his lead whilst on a walk.’
But on closer inspection, the dog looked filthy, unbrushed, and possibly underfed as well. Definitely unloved.
‘It looks more likely to be a stray,’ she said.
‘I agree,’ said Tom.
He crouched down and held the trembling dog against him as the rain continued to splatter down.
Eleanor thought that was quite brave considering he didn’t know if the dog would snap or bark at him. But the stray did neither, just dug in even deeper into Tom’s arms.
Tom looked up at Eleanor. ‘What do you think we should do with it?’
‘We’d better take him to my mum,’ said Eleanor. ‘She deals with all the waifs and strays around here.’
She was reluctant to add any more animals to the growing menagerie at home, but the dog was clearly in trouble and so there wasn’t really any other choice.
‘Okay. Well, let’s do that then,’ Tom agreed.
It was only when he reopened the boot that they remembered the mangled bicycle.
The dog was still shaking as it leaned up against him. ‘He’s obviously pretty freaked out,’ said Tom. ‘Do you think you should sit on the back seat next to him?’
Eleanor grimaced. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘It’s not like my jeans can get any worse at this stage.’
‘And I’m sure Sam can always get the car valet cleaned tomorrow,’ said Tom.
She got in the back seat of the car and the dog leapt in beside her. At another rumble of thunder, it snuggled in close to her. The dog smelt pretty bad and was soaking wet, but she still put her arm around it and gave it a reassuring stroke.
‘You poor thing,’ she told him softly. ‘You’re safe with us now, okay?’
‘So what’s the deal with your mum?’ asked Tom, after she had given him directions. ‘Is she a vet?’
Eleanor shook her head. ‘No. Just an animal lover.’
He looked at her in the mirror for a second before concentrating on the road.
She wondered what he was thinking. And how she could possibly bring up the subject of her lack of job before he spilled her secret to her mum.
Because once that secret was revealed, chances were all the others would come rushing out to follow it as well.