Flirt (Chasing Hope Book 1)

by Lavinia Leigh

  “I’ll figure it out,” Emmeline answered stubbornly, pulling out a plastic garbage bag and starting to shove more stuff into it.

  “Don’t be so stupid! Give me an hour,” Ginny said as Callum opened the door.

  “Emmeline! What’s going on?” he asked.

  Ginny left, and Emmeline gave Callum the keys to Nicholas’s car and told him to return it to his parents. She didn’t want to be accused of stealing his car too!

  The next hour was a flurry of activity: packing, figuring out what she could to take, tossing out the rest, and taking care of Millie’s needs too. Ginny came back, flushed. “You need to stop.”

  “No, I told you, I can’t stay here.”

  “No, stop what you’re doing and sit down. I think I have a solution for you. I have an aunt who lives just outside Oakville. She’s old, she has this grand old house, and she needs help. Seriously. Please! Right now, my parents are making the long drive there every weekend. She has cancer, and insists that everything is fine, and yet she doesn’t even have anyone to take her to her doctor’s appointments. You can go there, Millie can even have her own room, and my parents can regain their sanity. See, done.”

  Emmeline stared at her in disbelief. It didn’t sound half bad. Ginny to the rescue again—how would she ever repay her for everything she had done over the past year?

  “Ginny, you’re amazing! That sounds just about perfect. I can’t believe you arranged all that. Are you sure your aunt is okay with this?”

  Ginny nodded. “Trust me, this will be a big help for her, and for my parents.”

  The idea suited Emmeline as it rolled around in her mind. She might not have gone if the offer was just out of pity, but if she was needed, then perhaps it would be okay.

  It really dawned on Emmeline for the first time: she was leaving.

  “I’m going to miss you so much!”

  That was it. She had a plan, a place to go where they could start a fresh. Ginny handed her a piece of paper with the address and phone number on it.

  Callum opened the door, and they heard the whistle of the five o’clock train speed by.

  “I’m not going to miss that,” said Emmeline, feeling more resolved in her decision.

  Callum returned the keys to her, and Emmeline frowned, confused.

  “They didn’t want it,” he explained. “Dorothy was sleeping, and Nicky’s dad just signed the ownership and handed it back. He said it was the least he could do. I gotta tell you, I think he feels pretty bad about the whole situation.”

  Fresh tears popped out, and Emmeline quickly wiped them away. She had done enough crying. She graciously accepted the keys back—at least it was something. Besides, she needed the car. It would make her life a lot easier. She looked around the place she had called home and realized she was nearly packed. They didn’t have much to pack anyway, and she decided that it would be best to leave in the morning. Fresh start, fresh life.

  “Well, what do you think, kid? Do you think you will like Oakville?” Emmeline said to Millie. She was happily eating Cheerios in her high chair, taking two or three attempts to pick up just one, then going back for the next.

  “Come back, promise me,” Ginny said wistfully.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to come back. There’s so much here—Nicholas, his family. I don’t know if I can deal with them again. But you come all the time, please! I am not leaving you guys.”

  Ginny and Callum nodded. She was pretty sure that there was no way she could keep them visiting.

  “You know, no one agrees with Dorothy,” Callum said.

  “I know. So many people have called to tell me that. I am beyond grateful. It’s just too much right now.”

  “Don’t forget it, though. People are really impressed with how you’ve handled the whole situation. You finished high school before any of the rest of us!”

  Emmeline blushed a little. She had worked straight through her assignments, and managed to finish the last one a few days after Nicholas had died. She wouldn’t get the fancy graduation, or even get to graduate from the private school that she loved with her friends. She did, however, finish, and that made her ready to face the next step. Perhaps Oakville was the answer. She could get a job, take care of Ginny’s aunt, have a nice place for her to raise Millie. Get on her feet. It was as good a situation as she could imagine, and she thought it was much better than she deserved.

  “I hate to ask, but I can’t deal with more fighting right now—can you tell everyone for me?”

  “They’ll try to stop you, won’t they?” asked Ginny, who clearly meant it more as a rhetorical question.

  “My parents have been bugging me to move back home since the moment I left. But I can’t. They take over, make me second guess myself. Millie needs me to be strong. If they don’t find out until I’m already there, they can’t argue as much. I’ll call them as soon as I’m settled.”

  Ginny nodded.

  Callum filled the car and put the rest of the stuff she didn’t want in his truck. He had volunteered to drive behind them with the trailer his parents used to haul things to their antique shop downtown, but Emmeline decided that she would just take what she and Millie needed. She didn’t want to overwhelm Ginny’s aunt with too much stuff. He agreed, but made her promise that if she needed anything when she got there she would ask. His parents had tons of stuff tucked away for the shop that they wouldn’t mind donating to her. They felt Nicholas’s absence too and were willing to do almost anything for Emmeline at that moment. He was like a second kid to them. Really, the entire community felt it, and they had done their best to rally around Emmeline and Millie—dropping off food, donating money anonymously. It was touching to see everything they were trying to do for her, and part of Emmeline felt like she was betraying the town by leaving. She hoped they would understand.

  The night flew by, and Callum and Ginny called it quits, saying they would come back in the morning to see her off. It was just as well. Emmeline was exhausted, but try as she may, she spent a fitful last night in their tiny bed, and was relieved when the sun started to glow pink over the horizon.

  The air was frosty the next morning, and Emmeline was grateful they had done most of the work the night before. She looked at Millie, happily playing away in her high chair with no idea how much her life was going to change in a few hours. Emmeline was slightly jealous for a moment. The idea of understanding nothing of what had happened in the past few weeks seemed like a blissful gift. She was proud of her kid—she looked so much like Nicholas, she was a beautiful reminder of the good he left in the world. She was smart like him too, only eight months old and already starting to talk.

  A moment later, there was a knock on the door, and she opened it to a crew of about thirty people standing outside the train museum—even her parents. Emmeline threw a “What-the-crap-did-you-do?” look Ginny’s way, who just grinned back.

  “I get it,” Emmeline’s mom said, approaching her. “I don’t like it, but I get it.” She hugged Emmeline, in a stiff, everyone-is-watching kind of way.

  Emmeline was touched that people came to see her off, and although she hoped for more from her mother, it didn’t surprise her. The hugs and well wishes from everyone else, however, and people who went out of their way to see them off, made her almost wish she was staying.

  Ginny came up alongside her and said, “I know you wanted to sneak off, but I figured this was better.”

  The crowd said their goodbyes and watched as Emmeline and Millie got into the car and drove off.

  “Well, Millie,” Emmeline said as they settled themselves on the road. “Are you ready for this?”

  “Da-dee!” said Millie.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Emmeline drove across the city, thankfully avoiding the bulk of the traffic that normally burdened the roads, following Ginny’s precise directions. She got off the highway and took some surface streets until she turned down the long drive to a farmhouse at the edge of an urban area th
at threatened to overtake this peaceful area at any moment. There she put the car in park after double checking the address. It would be her luck that she’d walk straight into a stranger’s house and move in!

  She unbuckled Millie from her car seat and pulled her out, hearing the crow of the rooster perched on the garage roof. Emmeline wondered what she had gotten herself into. It seemed Ginny had left out a few crucial details. On quick glance, there was more than just a rooster living here, and Emmeline wasn’t sure how to deal with that. She didn’t even have a dog growing up, forget about barnyard animals. Millie babbled and reached for the bird, well beyond her reach, obviously happy with the situation.

  Leaving their suitcases and boxes in the car, she made her way up to the house. It sat, looming, built from gray fieldstone and two stories high, with black shutters decorating the windows. A long, wide porch wrapped its way around the front, and a large oak door suddenly swung open.

  “You’re here!” an elderly woman greeted them, dressed in jeans splatted with paint on them and a hot pink kerchief in her hair, rubbing her arms in defense against the cold.

  Emmeline came closer and introduced herself, but was told to forgo the formalities; Pernella knew exactly who they were, and welcomed them home. She ushered them into the kitchen. Emmeline followed her, taking in what was to be their home, at least for the next little while.

  Pernella put on the kettle, and then asked, “So, what do you think?”

  “There are goats in the kitchen,” Emmeline blurted out, forgetting her manners. A group of fifteen goats, as well as she could count, were bleating and jumping around a fenced off area at the far end of the kitchen, blocking the back door. Pernella looked at her as if to say, Of course.

  “Aren’t they adorable? I’ve been waiting for days for them to arrive!” she cooed, reaching down to pet one of the salt and pepper goats.

  “But—but they’re in the kitchen,” Emmeline stammered again, overwhelmed by the feeling that she had made a huge mistake by coming here. She couldn’t raise her kid in a house full of goats. What else was going on in this house that she didn’t know about? She started to calculate how much money she had from Nicholas’s life insurance, plus the little that some of the people from town had given her just to help out, and how long that would last if she needed to immediately rent an apartment.

  “It’s too cold for them outside. They’re only three days old. Poor darlings. I don’t want them to freeze to death! As soon as it warms up, they go outside,” Pernella insisted, picking one of the goats out of the pen and snuggling it in her arms. The goat bleated happily in response.

  Millie squirmed to get away from Emmeline, reaching her arms out. She obviously wanted to touch one too. Emmeline was torn between running screaming away from this place, and running away quietly. She was reluctant to let Millie down, no matter how much she squirmed, despite how heavy she was getting and how hard it was to keep holding her when she wanted down. Millie was just starting to crawl around and pull herself up to standing.

  The February temperature had plummeted, and it was well below freezing. Emmeline looked at the baying creatures and her kid fighting her to get closer to the animals. What have I got myself into? she wondered. Goats in the kitchen! What’s worse is the crazy lady makes sense! Emmeline wouldn’t have the heart to put these babies outside either in this weather.

  “I’m Emmeline,” she finally said, feeling the need to back up and start afresh. “And this is Millie.”

  “Adorable! Babies, I love them. So happy you’re here. Maybe it’ll get my family off my back!” Pernella chuckled, bringing the goat closer for Millie to pet. Millie squealed with delight.

  “I’m sorry, am I’m missing something? I thought you needed someone to move in with you to help you recoup?” Looking around the room, she realized that this woman with healthy goats in the kitchen, a half-done painting on an easel in the corner, and the smell of fresh bread coming from the oven probably didn’t need any help.

  “They want someone here to help me, because that pesky little cancer scared the living begeebees out of them.”

  “You don’t need help?” Emmeline asked. She had no idea how to take this situation—goats, roosters, a lady who didn’t need them. Why was she here? Should she turn around and head back? Her heart sunk: there was no place for them anywhere.

  “Stay! I can always use a hand with the animals. Besides, this ol’ house is way too big for me. The more the merrier, and besides, like I said, they are constantly worrying about me. It’ll be good for my family.” Pernella chuckled and shook her head.

  Emmeline relaxed slightly, although she wondered what other creatures she might find in the house after she got past the kitchen. She officially made up her mind that if she saw a snake, she’d be out of there, but in the meantime, maybe she could stay for a little while until she got her feet under her.

  Pernella showed Emmeline around and left them to get settled in their rooms. The second floor was almost never used, Pernella explained, since her knees had gotten bad. She slept in a room off of the living room that used to be an office. This meant Emmeline and Millie would have the entire upstairs to themselves. It consisted of two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a spacious sitting room, equalling out to more space than they had on the entire train. There were high baseboards and crown moulding and ceilings at least twelve feet high. Every room was painted a different bold color—sunny yellow, mint green, terra cotta—and each had its own special feel.

  It was obvious that Pernella at one point spent a lot of time on her house, making it just right, and definitely in her own unique style. She had even hand painted a mural of trees and water with tiny mallard ducks going up the stairs. Millie’s room was a dazzling pink with the wainscoting painted out white. Tall windows let in the sunshine, and two twin sized beds with canopies dominated the room. Emmeline’s room was light green, with toile paper covering the wall behind a queen bed with ornate carvings on the tall headboard. There was more than enough room for the two of them upstairs, and Pernella insisted that if they needed anything to just ask. She seemed pleased someone would be enjoying the rooms.

  Emmeline felt satisfied. This just might work after all. It was a bit dusty, and in the corners were cobwebs, signalling a lack of attention that didn’t seem to be an issue downstairs. It would take a few days to get things together, but it would work. Maybe, as long as she could get over the goats.

  It didn’t take long to feel as though they had settled in and were as comfortable with Pernella as they had been anywhere else. As it turned out, this feisty lady of seventy-two was hard to keep up with, but Emmeline started to fall in love with her busy lifestyle. Pernella made her own soaps, tapped the four maple trees in the yard, ran after the animals, painted, made bread from scratch, and insisted that one day when she grew up she wanted to be an actress! Emmeline wondered what she was like before the cancer for her family to be so worried about her.

  It only took a few weeks for Emmeline to see through the front that Pernella put up, and the reason why she needed help.

  Pernella was still going through chemo treatments that would knock her socks off. Days on end, through the nausea and vomiting that the treatment induced, she struggled to get anything done. She didn’t complain, and refused to ask Emmeline for help, but a grateful look would cross her face as Emmeline ran to the pharmacy to get meds or picked up the groceries. Although Emmeline felt bad that Pernella had to go through this, it was a welcome distraction. She was busy, busier than she had ever been in her whole life, and it helped her forget the pain of losing Nicholas. By the time a few months had passed, and Pernella’s test results showed some serious improvement in her condition, Emmeline and Millie were happily settled into a routine.

  Millie thrived. Emmeline healed. But the ache from not having Nicholas by her side, watching Millie take her first steps, or see that precious mouth fill up with teeth, was something she was sure she would never fully get over.

  Emmeline got
a job at a local bakery where Pernella sold her jams. She learned to make bread and donuts, and fell totally in love with cooking. Her job at the bakery was something that really spoke to her soul. She liked to get up early and set the dough to rise. She found therapy in pounding it down and watching it rise again, feeling somewhat akin to the dough.

  Millie loved the animals, and by her first birthday, she would trail, tripping, behind Pernella, as she did chores. And Pernella learned to rely on Emmeline, regularly telling her that this must be what it would feel like to have kids.

  Pernella had never married. She had had a mad affair in her late teens with a man who came from a very wealthy family. They snuck off together to be married after learning of his family’s disapproval. His family tracked them down as they walked up the steps of the church in Niagara Falls, and instead of standing up to his father, he bowed his head and dutifully followed him home, leaving Pernella alone to fend for herself in front of a church in her mother’s wedding dress hundreds of miles from home. At that moment she knew she would never marry, and she didn’t. She had a full life, went where she wanted, did what she wanted, and never looked back.

  Millie celebrated her first birthday and her second in this house, with Grammy Pernella by her side, along with several more. When it came to her first day of school, both Emmeline and Pernella cried in the schoolyard while Millie rolled her eyes, telling them they couldn’t take her the next day unless they both promised to behave! Emmeline sniffed. How did she grow up so fast?

  Emmeline’s parents came from time to time to visit, and play with Millie, whose intelligence startled them. Millie had a wide, round face and poker-straight dark hair, and still looked every bit of Nicholas’s little girl. The little mole that matched Emmeline’s was still their main similarity. Millie grew, going back and forth between tomboy and princess, regularly caring for the goats in her Cinderella gown that she constantly wore. At times Millie was bold as brass, calling her kindergarten teacher out for making a mistake. Emmeline had to come to the school more than once and fetch her little girl from the office.