Together Again: Spirit Travel Novel - Book #4 (Romance & Humor - The Vicarage Bench Series) (12 page)

Multiple plants hung from the ceiling by the bay window in fashionable holders. Asparagus ferns, variegated spider plants, and many pots of colourful violets crammed the smaller spaces. Frilly yellow curtains framed the bright area and produced a pleasing atmosphere in an otherwise utilitarian room.

As a background for the large-boned, cranky woman, whose support stockings were rolled at her ankles and familiar red kerchief shielded bobby-pinned hair, the room didn’t quite fit. Until, that is, a person looked deeper and noticed the obvious pride she took in her surroundings.

Grace appraised the spotless room and smiled. Her glance settled on Mrs. Dorn. The wrapping on the outside of a parcel didn’t always reflect the jewels hidden inside, a lesson Grace knew well. It had been drilled into her through many years of living with her own misery.

Getting back to the matter at hand, Grace said, “Mrs. Dorn, we really must try to have more patience. Can I count on you to keep your temper with Mrs. Howard, or shall you feel better if I talked with her from now on?”

“Honestly? The cheek of the woman gets to me some days, but me blasted foot’s aching like the dickens today, and I’m a might touchy. I fancy I’ll be back to me normal happy nature tomorrow, see if I’m not.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Dorn. I’m not much good at, ah, telling fibs. Therefore, I do rely on you.”

A booming laugh reverberated across the table. “Telling porkies doesn’t faze me a-tall. It’s the woman’s fancy airs that are a bother. I only hope she doesn’t push me too far.” With a large sigh, the housekeeper plonked herself down across from the slender girl in white and began to pour the tea.

Chapter Seventeen

Bunty Hubble’s usual seductive greeting was noticeably absent when Troy finally trudged back to the Cozy Inn that night. In fact, her smouldering glare levelled him, stopping him in his tracks.

“Your—animal—is tied in the back garden, Mr. Brennan, and will not be allowed inside in the future.” She tilted towards him, her finger waving in warning, her anger very apparent.

“Buddy! We forgot all about the poor baby. Troy, he’ll be frightened, left alone for so long. Do something.”

“Bunty, I apologise for my thoughtlessness. I truly forgot about the poor little pup. You see, I got involved in a fire not far from here. A shocking situation—”

The word “fire” caught the woman’s attention. She scanned the dirty, blackened figure leaning tiredly against the counter. Then she moved, a whirlwind of competency.

“Hang on, what’s happened to you? Come and sit down.” She ducked under the lift-up section of the reception desk and moved over to guide Troy to the brown leather sofa crammed between two overflowing plant stands. “You’re injured? You poor man, you look exhausted. You must have been involved in the Kingsly fire. Such a catastrophe! Those sad misfortunates have no place to go. My heart breaks for them.”

“You’re right, Bunty. It was a bad scene. I got drawn into their predicament and ended up going to the hospital. It’s why I forgot about Buddy.”

“Buddy?”

“The pup. He must have been in a sorry state, being left alone so long. I’d hoped to get him to his new owner before he became a problem.”

“Ooch! He’s no problem whatsoever, poor wee little thing. He seemed scared, and I was miffed, thinking you’d hidden him and weren’t caring about any mess he’d make. But he never did—make a mess, that is. In fact, if I hadn’t gone into the wardrobe to put the extra cover away, I’d never have even known the little devil hid there. Quiet as a mouse, he was. He’ll be fine in the room with you, and if you need to go out, just leave him down in the garden. I’ll be happy to keep an eye on him for you in the future.”

“You are one sweet woman, Bunty. Thank you.” Troy cocked his head, stared straight at her, and smiled, a smile he’d used most of his life in moments when someone touched him. This smile started from his heart, connected with his eyes, and travelled to his lips with such sweetness that an instant bond of friendship swelled between them.

Flustered and pink-faced, Bunty said, “I try, Mr. Brennan.” This time when she leaned towards him, she reached over and very gently patted his shoulder. “Now you go on out to the garden and get your Buddy, take him up with you, and I’ll get Cook to fix you a nice tray of supper.”

The woman’s sincere empathy earned Dani’s grudging respect. “Why, she’s really very nice, Troy. She genuinely cares about the fire victims, and she was sweet about Buddy.”

“Why are you so surprised, little one? Most people are kind-hearted and care more than they let on. You’re way too young to have such a blasé, distrustful attitude. You must have learned it from someone else. And I’d stake my life on it that you got the biggest lessons from your mother.”

“Troy!”

****

The supper tray, now empty, sat in front of Troy on the room’s only table. A white linen cloth lay scrunched up next to the rosebud vase where one perfect yellow flower rested. Before he ate, the overwhelming odour of lamb chop and mashed potatoes had dominated, but now the faint sweet scent of the rose drifted through.

Gazing out the window, Troy watched the slow traffic moving along the right side of the street, driven by people seated on the right side of the vehicle—all wrong to him.

The narrow cobblestone road, a picturesque addition to the scene for a man used to concrete and asphalt, glistened from the rain shower washing it clean. Window baskets, full of colour and beauty, graced many of the street’s smaller shops and were being watered simultaneously. Sporadic rays of late sunshine broke through the misty droplets, forming arcs of brilliant rainbow beauty.

A sigh filled him, not his own, but still it vibrated around inside, leaving him feeling sad, a sensation he hadn’t felt in years. He looked down and spotted the small furball plucking a dainty paw at his pant leg, eyes peeking through tufts of fur and long black lashes. Adoration challenged Troy’s returning stare.

Dani took over.
“Buddy!”
Strong arms reached down and gentle hands lifted the small pup, cradling him as one would a baby, rocking the tiny mite back and forth. Intense sensations of misery deepened to overcome Troy, encouraging him to speak words he’d never intended to say. Words he’d been shying away from, because he knew that, once spoken, they couldn’t be unsaid. Words that would involve him even more in the life of a mere girl whose increasing importance scared the hell out of him.

Her yearnings spread like wild vines interweaving themselves around his heart. She interested him like no one else ever had, but he stopped the words, bit down on his lower lip, and swallowed those treacherous urges to let her confide.

Silence grew, eventually becoming comfortable, togetherness carried to a whole new level. Sitting and petting the sleeping puppy, watching the world go by, two souls merged for a short time, melding in a way very few people ever have the fortune to experience.

The room darkened as the night sky slowly replaced daylight. Shadows loomed and streetlamps came on to throw their auras around people meandering along the sidewalks. Sounds of voices, though muted, added a sense of fellowship to the scene. It broke into their aloneness.

Total relaxation engulfed the man who slouched comfortably in the easy chair, embracing a warm furry body and sheltering a tortured young soul.

“Troy? I’ve respected your need to recuperate from today’s disaster, and I’ve stayed in the background tonight as much as I could. But since we’ll be together for another week, I just have to share. I can’t possibly keep this secret hidden for seven more days.”

“Sure you can.”

“I’m serious, Troy. There’s a huge crisis looming in my life, and if I don’t tell someone, I’ll bust. And you’re my perfect someone.”

“I’m nobody’s perfect someone. I don’t even want to be a someone—”

“Troy, please.”

“I know, Dani. Look, I’ve been hoping you’d work out whatever your predicament is on your own, but I feel the buzzing going on in your—my—head, and it’s constant. Your anxiety echoes loud and clear, sweetheart. It’s just that I’m not sure I really want to know what it is. For a guy who keeps to himself, this sharing of my body has been tough enough for me to get used to, but sharing emotions—”

“Quit talking. You’re just hoping you’ll stop me. I want to get your feedback on my situation. I need help, Troy, and you’re the only person I can ask.”

“Can’t you go to your uncle, or ask your minister, or tell a girlfriend, when you get back on Saturday? God forbid, don’t go to your mum.”

“I did decide to tell my uncle, even though he’s never been able to hide anything from my mother. But then this happened. I’m afraid my life is going to undergo a very big change.”

“It can’t be all that bad. After all, how much trouble can a young girl get herself into?”
The question rippled outwards, and returned to slap him in the face.
The Oh-My-Good-God-No! sensation followed. Before he could say a word, she came clean.

“I’m pregnant!”

Unthinking, he yelled out loud, and the sound of his angry “No!” reverberated, pulling him upright, scaring the sleeping puppy, who scrambled from his lap to slide under the bed, his tiny rump wriggling desperately.

“You’re pregnant? Are you sure?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“How the hell did that happen?”

“You don’t know? Humm—let me see, how to explain. I behaved rather naughty with a sex-starved fellow who put his male appendage in my vagina—”

“That’s enough!”

“Not quite, but you’ll know the rest, I’m sure.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass. I want to know who—and why!” He’d lost control. Rage pulsated through him.

“Oh-oh. You’re cussing. That’s a really bad sign, isn’t it?” The sobs he heard mixed in with her words didn’t help.

“I only control my swearing in front of ladies.”

“Ouch! Troy—that hurt!”

“You ain’t heard nothin’ yet, sweetheart. Wait’ll your family and friends find out.”

“From them I’d expect censure, but not from you. From you I expected—more.”
He reacted as if hit with a large brick to the side of his head. He sat back and twined his fingers together in front of his mouth, as if to stop it from opening. He swallowed the bile swimming in his throat, but the nausea eating away at his stomach wasn’t quite as easy to quell.

He counted slowly: one, two, three…until he reached ten. Leaning back in the chair, he swiped his cold hand across his lower face, wishing he could close off his mind as one would close off a tap. The shock of her announcement had stunned him so much that every emotion running through him had been as visible to her as pictures on a motion picture screen.

She waited, playing him at his own game.

“Tell me about the father.”
His hard-won calm pleased him.

“He’s my friend, someone I’ve known for years. Troy, he was such a sad fellow. He lacked self-confidence, had no self-worth, I mean to the point of being borderline suicidal. You should see him now, strutting around the school, nobody’s bully-boy any longer.”

“You mean to tell me you went to bed with some guy to boost his self-esteem?”

“No, I made love with him to save his life.”

“One, two—”

“I never believed people actually did that. Count to ten, I mean. Does it help?”

“What do you think?”

“It calms you. It’s incredible, really. I’ll have to try it. Maybe when I come clean with my mother.”

“
Can you
count to a million?”
When he chuckled, the tension gripping his core finally started to unwind.
“Does this loser know about the baby?”

“Not yet! He’d want to do the right thing, and that’s the last thing I want.”

“Heaven forbid you should want to do the right thing.”

She ignored his satirical shudder and instead giggled, a sound filled with the relief of sharing. “Before letting the situation take place—you know, making the decision to let him go ahead—I’d decided the encounter would help him enormously and at the same time benefit my writing. I mean, how can an author truly write about love and ‘doing it’ if she’s never experienced ‘it’ herself?”

“None of your characters intend to rob a bank, do they?”
His hand first pantomimed holding a gun, and then he waved his finger around in circles near his head as if he could express, by movement alone, that she was a lunatic.

“Now you’re just being silly.”

“Am I?”
Unhappiness festered inside him, while the pounding in his head increased. Finally he broke the silence.
“Do you love him?”

“No…. But the change in him—that I loved.”

Chapter Eighteen

Dani shrank into the sphere where she was untouchable, shut down communications, and left Troy his personal space to deal with the bomb she’d just dropped.

Looking back over the last few months, she realized how foolish she’d been to allow things to get out of hand the way they had. Barry, her baby’s father, a nice enough lad, was exactly that—a lad. After living intimately with Troy, she knew how a grown man reacted when being threatened. Barry had a lot to learn in the catch-up years until he reached Troy’s age.

Since grade school, Barry had been her on-again-off-again friend. Aching for his unhappiness, pity mushrooming every time she’d come across him being bullied, she’d tried to help bolster his low opinion of his worth. She’d even gone as far as intervening, sticking up for him, fighting for him. The more she stepped in, however, the more his morale sank, so she stopped. But year after year he became worse, until he simply began wallowing in the murkiness of his self-pity.

This behaviour more than annoyed her: it was abhorrent to a gutsy girl like Dani. Her mother might be a possessive clinger, but she made Dani aware by this goofy conduct that she was the most important person in her world.

Her father, a quiet retiring character but nevertheless a strong ally whenever Dani had reached the point of suffocation from being over-mothered, reinforced her value both as a daughter and as a person by his gentle, loving manner. And her Uncle Robert instilled in her the importance of demanding the same respect you gave to others.