by Roxy Harte
I don’t ride back to town with Mrs. Morrison. I let Shade drive us back, she and Jessica following behind. It’s a relief. I wasn’t looking forward to being Mrs. Morrison’s passenger. I mean, she is eighty-seven. How does she even have a license still?
Chapter Seventeen
End of an Era
The garage is gone. The damage is so much worse than I expected. I let out the breath I’ve been holding and wrap my cast and one good arm around my guts. It hurts. A sharp, wrenching pain straight through my middle threatens to rip me in two. All that remains is part of the block shell and the sign, a lone sentinel sitting on its pole pedestal.
The yoga school is damaged too. One wall scorched badly and the windows busted out. Damn. I hope no one was inside. I hadn’t thought to ask.
I hear Janice’s shrill voice, yelling my name, and glance up to see her sprinting across the parking lot. More than a dozen students run behind her. I smile when she grabs me. And then we’re surrounded, everyone asking questions at once.
“Have you heard what’s going to happen to the man they arrested?”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Will you go back to New York?”
I back away, giving myself some air and room. I close my eyes and squat.
“Oh, oh! Everyone back up. Give Danni some space.” Janice starts shooing her students back to the yoga school. “Go sweep or something.”
I look up at her then at my friends. Jessica. Shade. Mrs. Morrison. I’m sure we all share the same expression. This is so unreal. So unbelievable. “I know I’m not going back to New York.”
“What?” Shade asks, his disbelief sharp. It’s understandable.
“I’m going to rebuild.”
I see Jessica and Mrs. Morrison share a smile.
“It’ll take some time. In the meantime I’ll write, hopefully work out some paying speaking engagements.”
“Move back to your mother’s?” Shade asks bitterly.
I hadn’t thought about that.
“Danni, for now come with me out to the farm, you can make the phone calls you need to make to the lawyers and insurance adjusters. I’ll make some lunch.”
“That’s very kind, Mrs. Morrison.”
“You’re welcome to join us, Mr. Brown.”
Mr. Brown?
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. It’s been a hell of a vacation, but I’m afraid my voyage back to real life has to begin today.”
“Today?” I squeak.
“I was going to tell you last night.”
“Stay. Stay long enough to film this. Don’t you think the trouble here is an ongoing story worthy of your artistic talents?”
“I am not going to sleep on your mother’s couch.”
“Shade, you should probably join us for lunch too. I had a proposition for Danni, but I just realized you play a role in my scheme as well,” Mrs. Morrison announces.
She leaves it cryptically at that and offers us further insight only after we are all gathered around the big farmhouse table, sandwiches piled high, platters filled with ripe, red tomatoes and slices of rosy cantaloupe, and glasses full of lemonade.
“I’m not getting any younger, and life on the farm is getting much harder. I know it’s hard to believe as well as I get around that I’m struggling to maintain this place properly. And the plain truth, it’s too quiet and too lonely out here. I’ve asked Jessica to bring her boys and move out here with me. I’ve already left her all that I’ve acquired in this lifetime in my will, but why should she wait until I’m dead and buried to know a better life? Fortunately, she has agreed, on the terms that I allow her to do all the housework and chores. My offer to you, Danni, is this. I’d like you to join us here. You’ll have your own room, for propriety’s sake. I know Jessica worries about how her decisions influence her sons, but there is an adjoining door on the two southernmost bedrooms.” She winks and Jessica gasps, blushing a bright shade of pink.
“Grandmother!”
“What happens beneath this roof stays privy to only those living beneath this roof. That’s been the motto here since I moved in and it will always be that way if you have any sense about you at all. Every room in this house has secrets that would blow your socks off.”
My eyes widen at that and my imagination goes a little wild.
Mrs. Morrison meets my gaze. “I know you’re an author and an honored educator, in addition to being the best mechanic for five counties. There’s a room downstairs that was Mister’s office and I know he’d be honored if you’d see it as yours as long as you’re here.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Yes would be the polite answer, as long as your intentions toward my Jessica are honorable. They are, are they not?”
“Very honorable.” I look at Jessica. “I’m in love with her and have been since the first moment I laid eyes on her.”
I kick Shade under the table even though he doesn’t deserve it. I know he knows just how many times I’ve been in love and I know he may believe that this is just another one of those times, but I don’t believe that. I know I thought I was in love with those other girls, but I also know that what I felt for them is nothing like what I feel for Jessica, and last night when I thought both our lives were in danger, I knew I’d die for her if need be to keep her safe.
Jessica leans nearer and kisses my shoulder. I meet her gaze as she whispers, “Is that a yes?”
“That’s definitely a yes.” The rest of the room probably ignores us while we kiss and make googly eyes at each other.
“Very good then. That leaves you, Mr. Brown.”
“Please, call me Shade, everyone else does.”
“I’d like to pay you to film a documentary.”
“Reeeally?”
“Yes, I would like that very much. I believe there’s a story here. And I believe there’s reason to celebrate a certain activist who has recently arrived and started stirring things up.”
Shade smiles. “I think I might already have some appropriate footage to begin such a project.”
“I thought you might. There’s a bedroom on the north side of the house, lower level. I think you will find adequate space and solitude for an extended stay.”
“I thank you for the lovely offer, Mrs. Morrison. I gladly accept.”
Later, I’m sitting on the porch swing with Jessica, looking out over a lush, green field dotted with black-and-white spotted cows. So much has happened today. My mind doesn’t know which thought to settle on.
“Will your mother forgive you for rebuilding the garage?”
I shrug. “Eventually you’d think she’d resign herself to the fact that I am who I am.”
“Can you forgive her?”
I kiss Jessica gently on her lips. “She’s my mother. Forgiveness isn’t required. I’ve accepted the fact she is who she is, and I love her regardless, unconditionally. Sure, we butt heads like crazy. I’m a horrible disappointment. But I came to peace with all of that a long, long time ago.”
“You’re an amazing person, Danni. You really are pretty debonair.”
I wink at her. “That’s me, Dapper Dan, Debonair Dyke.”
About Roxy Harte
Multi-published author Roxy Harte has loved erotic romance novels since she stumbled across her first at the tender age of thirteen. Since she especially loves books that offer strong insight into the characters’ psyches, as a writer she wants to provide readers with characters who are not only charismatic and engaging, but also intellectually, spiritually and sexually complex. When she started writing in earnest twelve years ago, it provided an evening respite from the full-time care of her invalid mother and Alzheimer-diagnosed father, and although both of her parents died a decade ago, she now writes so that her readers may find a small escape of their own at the end of a tedious day.
Roxy lives in southwestern Ohio in a small town bordered by fields and railroad tracks, with her husband and collegiate daughter, two boisterous dogs, Petey
and Jazzi, and five cats, Miss Kitty, Sadie, Dharma, Karma and Tilak.
The Roxy welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Roxy Harte
Prodigal Slave
Sacred Secrets
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www.ellorascave.com
Debonair Dyke
ISBN 9781419938283
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Debonair Dyke Copyright © 2012 Roxy Harte
Edited by Jillian Bell
Cover design by Dar Albert
Photos: kwest, Rudy Lopez and conrado/Shutterstock.com
Electronic book publication September 2012
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