Free Vets in Love by Cathy Woodman Page B

to text you?’
    ‘No,’ I decide. I warm to Robert immediately. Anyone less like a serial killer, I can’t imagine.
    When I finally join Matt at the bar, he looks straight into my eyes and gives me the biggest smile, making my heart skip a beat.
    ‘Hi there, girlfriend.’
    ‘Can we go back a step, please?’ I say, smiling in return. ‘I’d like to go back to friends.’
    ‘Oh no, I don’t want to give up on our relationship so soon. I mean, we’ve only been going out together for a few hours.’ He chuckles. ‘Tell me what I’ve done and how I can make it up to you? Why don’t we talk about it over a drink? What would you like? I’m buying.’
    ‘A lime soda, please.’
    ‘I can stretch to a glass of wine, or a bottle of champagne to celebrate your win.’
    ‘I don’t drink. I’m teetotal.’
    Matt whistles between his teeth. ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Of course I am.’
    ‘You’re a rare creature around here,’ Matt observes, ‘quite an exotic species of animal. I thought everyone in the medical profession resorted to drink at some time or another. You know, you’re full of surprises. I like that.’ His voice is soft and gently caressing. I am mesmerised.
    I take a step back to put some space between us as he hands me a glass of lime soda rattling with ice.
    ‘Shall we go outside?’ he says, and we walkthrough the back of the pub into the beer garden where we find a bench by the river and sit down with the sun sinking behind the trees and a duck squawking somewhere in the shadow of the reeds at the bottom of the far bank.
    ‘So let’s hear your version of the story. Why did you tell Henry that you were my girlfriend?’ Matt leans towards me. ‘I’m curious.’
    ‘We have history,’ I say eventually. ‘I went out with him for a while, but it turned out he was cheating on me with one of the many grooms and working pupils who pass through his yard. I should never have agreed to go out with him in the first place, because it was never going to work.’
    ‘Never mind. It’s his loss.’ Then he asks, ‘Have you ever thought of competing professionally, like Henry?’
    ‘It was a dream of mine when I started riding, but I needed a proper job. I wasn’t sure I was talented or tough enough to make it.’
    ‘You seem pretty talented to me,’ he says, pushing his glass towards me, chinking it against mine. ‘Congratulations on your win.’
    ‘Thanks. It’s one of those days that makes all the training and preparation seem worth it.’ I pause, sipping my drink. ‘That’s enough about me. What about you? Would your real girlfriend be happy about me having a drink with you? I mean, I can’t officially be your girlfriend if you’re already taken.’
    ‘You are the one. There is no other. I was rather pleased that you offered to take up the vacancy. Do you have many patients who have a crush on theirdoctor?’ he goes on, holding my gaze. ‘You know what I’m talking about. One look at you and I was smitten. I am smitten, Dr Chieveley.’
    ‘You can’t be,’ I say lightly. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’
    I’m beginning to think that being friends with Matt is going to be tiring. He has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of good humour and I’m not sure how I’m going to know when he’s serious and when he’s joking.
    ‘Well, this is a fact-finding mission,’ he responds. ‘You go next. Ask me a question.’
    I go for the obvious one first. ‘If you haven’t got a girlfriend, are you married?’
    He shakes his head. ‘No.’
    ‘Engaged?’
    ‘I’ve never been engaged.’
    ‘So you’re afraid of commitment?’
    ‘That’s rather a harsh judgement. Maybe I haven’t met the right person yet.’ He breathes a sigh of regret. ‘I was close to getting engaged once.’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘She turned me down.’
    ‘She must have been mad,’ I say lightly.
    ‘That’s what I told her. It was a long time ago – when I was a vet student. She was right anyway.