‘Okay.’
He turned for his office further down the corridor and then stopped and looked back at Cathleen. ‘Could you send Ms Drysdale some flowers?’
‘What will I tell the florist to write on the card?’
Drake paused to think about it but couldn’t come up with anything. ‘Just get them to deliver them here and I’ll drop them off myself after work.’
What are you doing? You can’t last a day without seeing her?
He dismissed the voice of his conscience. He wanted to check on her, to see her again, to reassure himself she was still okay with the end of their fling. He wasn’t okay with it, though, and that was a problem, one he had not faced before. Would it be an option to extend their fling? To spend more time together? He weighed it up in his mind. Aerin knew he wasn’t the for-ever type. She knew he wasn’t the type of man who could or ever would tick all her boxes. So why not continue their fling for a little while longer?
Are you out of your mind?his conscience prodded him, with another warning, but he pushed it aside.
He was only dropping off a bunch of flowers, not going down on bended knee.
That was never going to happen.
Aerin heard Mutley barking in Mr McPhee’s flat opposite. She had only seen her neighbour once since she’d got back and he hadn’t looked well. She’d promised to check on him after work but he wasn’t answering the doorbell. She went back to her flat to fetch the spare key he had insisted on giving her a couple of months ago. She was on her way back to open his door when she heard firm footsteps come up the stairwell. Her heart came to a shuddering halt when she saw it was Drake, carrying a huge bunch of flowers.
Under any other circumstances she would have smiled and given him a hug, but her worries about her neighbour took precedence. ‘Drake, can you help me check on Mr McPhee? He’s not answering the door and Mutley is barking. I’m worried something is wrong.’
‘Sure.’ He put the flowers inside her door and then came over and took Mr McPhee’s key from her. He opened the door effortlessly and Mutley came bounding out, yapping loudly and then running back and forth as if to say,Follow me.
‘Mr McPhee? It’s Aerin... Oh, no...’ She had only got as far as the sitting room when she saw the old man’s slumped figure on the sofa.
Drake moved past her and squatted down beside the sofa and took one of the old man’s wrists to search for a pulse. ‘Call an ambulance.’ His air of command somehow helped her to keep calm, well, calmer than she would have been on her own.
The ambulance was there in under five minutes and the paramedics loaded Mr McPhee onto a stretcher. Aerin filled them in on what she knew about Mr McPhee’s health and she was even able to bundle up his collection of medications that he kept in the kitchen.
‘Are you his daughter and son-in-law?’ one of the paramedics asked.
Aerin wasn’t game enough to look at Drake. ‘No, I’m his neighbour and Drake is...erm...just a friend.’
‘Is there someone to take care of the dog?’ the other paramedic said, clearly a dog lover who recognised the distress the poor old dog was feeling with his master semi-conscious on a stretcher.
‘Yes, of course, I’ll do that,’ Aerin said without thinking it through in any detail.
The ambulance left and Aerin let out an exhausted breath. ‘Oh, Drake, I’m so glad you showed up when you did. I’m not good at emergencies. I just panic and freeze.’
His arms came around her and held her close. ‘You did great. He’ll be well taken care of and hopefully he’ll be home soon.’
She swallowed and looked up at him. ‘But what if he’s not?’
Drake stroked her hair back off her face, a wry smile slanting his mouth. ‘That big soft heart of yours is going to get you into trouble one day.’
It already has.
It would be so easy to say the words here and now. They were perched on the end of her tongue like a team of nervous divers, baulking at the distance they had to dive headfirst into. ‘Seriously, though,’ Aerin said, glancing at the woeful-looking dog at their feet. ‘What am I going to do with Mutley? I work full-time and he’s used to having Mr McPhee with him all day to take him out for his toilet breaks. If he barks too much, the neighbour will complain to the landlord.’
‘What about a dog shelter? Or a boarding kennel?’
‘No, he’s too old for either of those, especially since he’s always been with Mr McPhee.’ She chewed at one of her fingernail cuticles, then added, ‘I’d take him to my parents, but Mum’s developed an allergy to dog hair.’
Mutley shuffled over and sat at Drake’s feet and looked up at him imploringly, his tail sweeping the floor like a feather duster.
‘He wants you to take him,’ Aerin said.
Drake held up his hands like two stop signs. ‘Oh, no, I’m no pet-sitter. I work long days and often stay away overnight when I’m—’