Zara Stoneley - The Wedding Date - The laugh out loud romantic comedy of the year!

‘Ah.’

‘Arm in a sling.’ He laughs, and Tank jumps up and licks his cheek.

‘So is that what you want to do? TV?’

‘Jake!’ A girl yells his name and I realise with a jolt that we’re back near the kennels. Which is a shame. I’d quite like to know what he wants to do.

‘I’ll take the dogs if you like, and you can clean up?’ He’s grinning as he speaks, which he seems to do quite a lot, and I look down at my clothes. I’d almost forgotten about the mud. Almost. ‘I’ll catch you in the café, and we can chat more?’

‘Great, I’d like to.’

‘And you can tell me more about your indecent proposal.’ The way he says it makes me blush, and the wink leaves me dithering between objecting and wishing it actually was supposed to be indecent.

He whisks Angel up into his arms and has gone before my mushy brain can think up a suitably snappy reply.

When I get back to reception it is to find a new teenager-cum-twenty-something, who is just like Em. She is trying her hardest not to smirk, and makes no comment whatsoever about the wide strip of mud that covers the front of me from head to toe. She does tell me where the bathroom is though, and where to find Sarah.

‘I hope nobody filmed that,’ I whisper to Sarah, suddenly having visions of it being on their Facebook page. ‘It could be all over the internet.’

‘I doubt it, I mean it was funny but it isn’t going to help with rehoming him, is it?’ She grins. ‘I might have tweeted a picture though.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘Naw, don’t worry, I was too busy laughing, couldn’t hold my phone steady. Well?’

‘Well what?’ I studiously avoid her gaze in the mirror and concentrate on washing myself down.

‘Well, what did you talk about? Is he nice? Will he do it?’ She pauses, and leans in closer. ‘Do you fancy him?’

I don’t know which bits to ignore, and which to answer. I decide to offer highlights. ‘His name is Jake Porter, not Taylor-Smith, because Amy is his half-sister, they’ve got the same mum. Her dad was a writer and he ran off with his agent, and it was a massive scandal. Jake doesn’t know his dad as his mum had a fling, but now she’s met somebody that everybody likes and they’ve got this enormous family.’

‘Wow, you two must have hit it off, you got up close and personal.’

I frown at my own reflection. When I say it, it sounds like we did, but I almost feel like Jake was brushing over things. It’s a weird feeling. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I’m sure I’ve got the edited version, as though he’s used to saying it to deflect questions later. ‘Not really, maybe it’s on his CV, you know, ready prepared for the press.’

‘And do you fancy him?’

‘Sarah! It isn’t like that, I’m paying him,’ I drop my voice, suddenly worried we might be overheard. I mean, it’s not the type of thing you broadcast, is it?

‘That means you do. You do fancy him! I don’t blame you, I fancy him and Em definitely fancies him, and it’s good you fancy him. It’ll make it dead easy, you won’t have to pretend.’

I sigh. If I object, she’ll go on even more. And I do fancy him a tiny bit. He’s very fanciable.

‘So will he do it?’

‘We’re going to have a coffee and chat.’ I can’t help myself, I look at her and grin. ‘I think so though!’

‘Yay!’ She gives me a hug, ignoring all my muddy bits. ‘Oh God this is brilliant, I’m so excited for you, I wish I could come to the wedding!’

‘He hasn’t said yes yet.’

‘He will do, I know he will. Come on, come on, don’t keep him waiting.’ I look down at my jeans. We’ve scraped the worst of it off, and there’s not much I can do apart from get changed. ‘I’d better get off as well.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m off to play with puppies! They’ve got a secret kennel area for all the babies, like a giant nursery and they’ve said I can go and see. I’ll come over and find you later, shall I?’

‘Do I look passable?’

‘Best of a bad job.’ She starts laughing again. ‘Oh God, you should have seen yourself zooming across that field.’ Sarah is practically crying, which is very mean, then gives me the thumbs up. ‘Good luck!’ Which is nice, and I know she means it.

I would quite like to play with puppies too, but I have a job to do. A different kind of play date. The indecent proposal type.

‘Feeling better?’ Jake, I’ve decided, is quite posh. He’s sat at a table in the small café which is attached to the reception area and although he looks at home, there is something about him that says he’s not short of a bob or two. Though at the moment he probably is, as playing a patient in the third bed along can’t pay that well, can it?

But there is nothing the slightest bit hoity-toity about him. He has the type of voice you can listen to without wanting to yawn, or walk away. Now I think about it, Liam has a bit of a whiney edge to his.

He will fit into a country estate perfectly. I can imagine his sister Amy, who is definitely posh, in long boots and cream breeches standing in front of a castle with a couple of Labradors or spaniels at her feet quite easily. Jake is probably more the quadbike type, although I can picture him wading across a lake, his white shirt moulded to his muscled chest, his hair slicked back…

‘Sammy?’

He’s waiting for a response, his tawny-brown eyes slightly puzzled.

Nobody calls me Sammy apart from Tim, I think it makes me sound a bit like a dog, or a hamster. This is probably a good time to act a little bit sophisticated myself.

‘It’s Samantha, or Sam.’

‘Not Sammy?’

‘Definitely not Sammy.’

‘Shame, I quite like Sammy.’ The corner of his mouth twitches. ‘Cuddly.’

See? Cuddly does not say Ferrari and Monte Carlo, cuddly is what pyjamas and puppies are. And hamsters. ‘It rhymes with hammy.’ I puff my cheeks out. Sammy the hammy.

‘Ahh, I get where you’re coming from. Amy used to call me snakey Jakey.’

‘Oh. And are you?’

‘What?’

‘Snakey?’

‘Well, I don’t eat live mice, if that’s what you mean.’

‘But are you sneaky?’

‘Only in the way brothers are to bratty sisters. She also called me fakey Jakey when we were kids, and Jake the rake, and on-the-make Jake.’

‘Ahh.’

‘She loves me really. So is it Samantha or Sam?’

‘Sam to friends.’

‘Friends?’ He grins and a cute little dimple appears in the middle of his chin. Very cute. Gawd, I am pretty sure I shouldn’t be considering my potential employee in that way. ‘From what Amy told me, I gather you’re suggesting we get to be a bit more than that.’

I know now that this could work. Jake doesn’t look at all like a young George Clooney, which was one of my concerns as me meeting a Clooney lookalike would not be credible at all. He has got the same crinkly bits round his eyes, which suggest he smiles a lot, and that confident air, but there the similarity ends. He looks cheekier. Unsettling.

Which could be a problem, because even though he’s incredibly dishy, this isn’t really an indecent proposal, and I really don’t want him to think I’m that kind of girl.

‘No!’ Oh my God, what has Amy said to get him here? ‘Oh no, no, just like friends, but…’ Does he think I want a f-buddy (I can’t say the word, not even in my head, while he’s looking at me like that). ‘I’m not sure…’ This isn’t going quite how I expected, it was easier chatting to him on the dog walk, about his family, dogs, things like that. But now we are sat down here, and I need to explain, it all seems a bit trickier.