by Mimi Barbour
Together Again
Traveling forward in time, Dani Howard’s sixteen-year-old spirit becomes magically united with reporter, Troy Brennan. He’s everything a girl could want in a man. During their time together, they fall deeply in love. Though she must return to her own pregnant body, she gains his promise to come to her birthday party in seven days where they will meet in person and continue their romance. Unbeknownst to him, the interval for her will be 10 long, lonely years.
Troy can’t believe he’s fallen for a teenage spirit invader. Because of her shenanigans, he loses sight of the person he followed all the way to England, gets stranded with a homeless puppy and ends up falling in love. He’s so infatuated that when renowned author, beautiful Ellie Ward, enters his world and tries to seduce him, as attractive as he finds her, he’s honor bound to stay true to his young love—or is he? And why does this gorgeous, desirable woman seem so darn familiar?
Praise for Together Again
“An entertaining, finely crafted story of two very different people thrown together by magic but destined to become soul mates.”
~ Reviewed by Jacqui Nelson
“Wow love this Book. Keeps you on your toes…recommend to you all”
~ Reviewed by Marie E. Price
“The author really draws the reader into the story and gets them hooked from square one.”
~ Reviewed by Evelyn
“Time travel Magic - I found it funny, endearing, full of imagination.”
~ Reviewed by Jerrie
Main Menu
Start Reading
Contents
About the Author
Other Works by Mimi Barbour
Contact Information
Copyright
Dedication
To my wonderful editor, Nan Swanson. Without her hard work, support, and faith in the Vicarage Bench series—and especially this fourth story, Together Again—I would still be a sad, unpublished author praying for “the break.”
Chapter One
Bury, England, 1968
Dani ran up the steps of the ivy-covered house and then hesitated, her courage wilting. Seconds passed while her hand hovered above a brass knocker decorated by the devil’s grinning face.
How appropriate, she thought, the handle of doom. Stop it! You know you’ll find hope here, or at least some help. She pulled her trembling fingers back to rub her forehead. If only my conscience would stop nagging. Agitated nerves shot streaks of nausea throughout her stomach, and the thought of what lay ahead made her take a step backwards.
I can’t stand out here all day. I need Uncle Robert’s support. He’s the only one who can guide me through this—this disaster.
Resolved once more, the teen stretched forward, lifted the golden lever and banged it down with force. Her beloved uncle appeared, swung open the door and stood behind the screen. His puzzled expression dissipated quickly replaced by an enormous smile of welcome for the girl making the racket. He had no chance to speak, because as soon as she spied him, the control Daniell Howard had been maintaining broke.
“Uncle Robert, can we talk? I need help, and I didn’t know where else to turn.”
Robert Andrews, Bury’s Doctor of Psychology, flaunted the adoration he felt for his niece every time they were together. She’d always known she could count on his cooperation. Their eyes met, and she saw at once that he’d caught on to her desperation.
The smiling man pushed open the screen door and, in his most gentle tone, said, “Dani! Of course, dear girl, come in, and we’ll enjoy the sunshine while we visit in the garden.”
He stroked her rebellious red curls, hugging her to him, before giving her a little push toward his favourite retreat. “I’m working out there, going over some notes. Make yourself comfy, and I’ll bring along a tray with refreshments, including some of Mrs. Dorn’s homemade biscuits with jam and cream.”
The slender girl nodded, patted the hand squeezing her shoulder and headed in the direction his finger pointed. As she approached the entrance to the enclosure, the sun’s filtered rays could be seen beyond the open doorway. Framed by greenery and hanging purple blossoms of wisteria, the glorious sight beckoned her to his sheltered paradise.
Various handwritten notes were scattered across a round wooden table, weathered to grey that sat in the centre of the paved courtyard. Along with an ashtray, holding her uncle’s cold pipe and a smudged glass half-filled with milk sat an empty plate with a generous sprinkle of sandwich crumbs. Those bits of bread tempted the sedge warbler perched high in a nearby bush, who noisily expressed his frustration over the lure of the unreachable tidbits.
Dani paced the area. She enjoyed the array of foliage aromas bombarding her and, wanting to get closer, subsided onto her uncle’s favourite seat. It was a perfect reproduction of the bench that for many years had sat in front of the town’s old vicarage. Behind this seat grew an exact replica of the magnificent rose bush in the vicarage garden. Not at all surprising, since her uncle had propagated his bush from that same one. The flowers were an incredible anomaly; in each of the two places three different colours of roses apparently grew from one set of roots.
The white blooms glowed with an inner radiance that gave them an abnormal depth like one sees in newly fallen snow.
The pink, a hothouse shade, wove around the other two and appeared too vibrant for words.
And the red hue, her favourite, held her mesmerized until, involuntarily, her fingers reached to stroke the velvety softness. How incredibly beautiful! She sighed when she noticed her hand shaking.
Anxiety returned, and so did the sickness in the pit of her stomach. Hugging herself for a few seconds, she rocked back and forth. How could I have been such a fool? The question raged at her, along with the knowledge that, as soon as she confessed, there would be no taking it back. Well, there’s no taking back what I’ve done, either, and now I have to figure out what to do about it. Unable to relax, she began to wander the small area. God, I hate feeling so out of control.
On her third trip around the small patio, she passed too close to the table and accidentally knocked a pile of papers and a notebook to the floor. They scattered from one end of the terrace to the other. As she slowly gathered them, trying to put them back into order, her eye caught a name familiar to her.
Apparently, Lucy McGillicuddy, whom she knew as the pleasant town librarian as well as a close friend of the family, was also one of her uncle’s patients.
Uncle Robert’s profession as a psychiatrist tended to be the focus for many animated discussions that stirred derision and scepticism from most of their relatives. But not Dani. She thought it a very interesting occupation and both respected and loved her uncle for his progressive thinking.
Her eyes caught the words “time travel.” Avidly, she began to read her uncle’s squiggly, handwritten notes pertaining to the paranormal activities he’d researched. I shouldn’t be reading these, she thought, but also accepted that no red-blooded teenager with any curiosity whatsoever could have ignored the magnet of those words any more than she could.
According to the doctor’s observations, the rose bushes behind the bench in front of the vicarage held an unexplained power. And Lucy had experienced the plant’s enchantment first hand.
“Wow!” Dani skimmed her uncle’s comments, becoming totally engrossed in the story. She muttered in a voice filled with wonder. “Lucy’s body was invaded by another spirit? A girl called Jenna McBride, a super model from the future? Cool!”
When spirit travelling and invading another’s body no deterioration or any lasting afflictions occurred at all to either the physical landlord or the spiritual tenant, whose own body would remain in a coma throughout the duration.
Absorbing the contents of the papers while restoring them to the table took only a few moments, but devising a plan happened almost instantly.
Not hearing anyone approaching from inside the house, Dani deemed it safe to try out a little experiment with the bush nestled behind the bench in her uncle’s garden. If the magic worked the same as it did with the mother plant, her problems wouldn’t go away. But she needn’t deal with them right this instant, either. Procrastination worked for her at the best of times and this, quite possibly, had to be the worst.
Dani took her small scissors from the crammed schoolbag she’d flung on the ground near the table. Snipping off a gorgeous red rose, she placed herself on the bench and pricked her finger.
Chapter Two
Bury, England, 1978 (ten years later)
Troy Brennan heaved an exhausted sigh as he settled on a convenient bench situated near the picturesque gardens. When he’d started this adventure, he’d never expected to end up in front of an old vicarage in Bury, England. A quaint little town, to be sure, but it didn’t rank in his top-ten list of places to see before he died. However, as a reporter, he’d been to some hellholes in the past, following what he called “hot leads,” so he really shouldn’t complain.
The flight from Chicago had been tedious and uncomfortable and he already missed the big city’s amenities. He preferred screeching traffic, hordes of people, and a range of nightclubs and good restaurants. His mood soured. This little burg offered none of the above. The Cozy Inn, a place he’d passed by earlier, had “old-fashioned” screaming from every balconied window and whitewashed wall—but at least they’d advertised affordable rates. Something to check out later.
As a freelance reporter, he didn’t have a big paper backing him to cover the expenses for this little expedition. The money had to come from his personal dwindling resources. His fault, he supposed, for not being on top of things. Considering he had a fortune sitting in his inheritance account back home, it seemed ironic that at this moment he was almost broke.
His grandfather, a newspaper tycoon from the thirties, had bequeathed him his riches, but Troy had little use for that money. He’d lived for several years following one story after another—no home, no roots, and until recently, no intention to have either.
He subsisted on what he earned, banked the excess, and normally didn’t have a worry in the world. But this time things were different. Who even thought about running to a bank while in hot pursuit of a story? Normally, he kept a cash reserve of a few hundred dollars hidden in his wallet, but he’d dipped in over the last few days and hadn’t got around to replacing it.
His check book, which he rarely carried around now that he had access to plastic, sat in his desk drawer at home, absolutely worthless to him there. And paying off the balance on his charge card hadn’t entered his mind lately, either. Once he acquired the story he’d come for, it would be worth all the extra expense, but until then he’d have to be careful.
As far as he knew, no other reporter milling around Chicago’s luxury hotel the day before had seen the famous author sneak off to the airport. His uncanny luck had held.
He’d glimpsed a young woman entering by the employee’s side door. Her cheap, red plastic raincoat and matching headscarf caught his attention—that, and the fact that attractive women unfailingly caught his eye. Her sexy allure was no exception, plus long-legged blondes were his preference. This girl had decent gams, firm and nicely rounded, ending in silver-tipped stiletto heels.
Strange thing about those pretty legs! When the coat reappeared, the gorgeous legs weren’t quite so long, and the plain black heels weren’t nearly as high. The few seconds it took his brain to compute had given her a head start, but again his luck held as he flagged a taxi. In seconds, he told the driver to “Follow that cab.” Troy had never imagined having to say those hokey words. He flinched as the driver did the uplifted eyebrow thing in the rear-view mirror. Troy shrugged, hands held out in supplication.
By pursuing the car closely, Troy found it didn’t take a skilled detective to conclude that his quarry was headed towards the airport. What did take skill was getting a seat on the same plane. He managed it by duping the ticket-lady into giving him the same itinerary as the woman she’d just served.
“Hey, go figure,” he said, pointing to the raincoat-clad figure now walking toward the boarding area. “She’s going to the exact place I am. You can go ahead and make out my ticket like hers.”
“It’s not really so strange, sir. We only have two flights a day to England, and lots of people fly through London to Manchester.” Her perfunctory smile didn’t warrant his full-face response; relief prompted his pleased reaction.
For him, flirting came easily, but this time he hadn’t intended any tomfoolery. It took some doing to slide himself out from under the uniformed woman’s clutches. With her phone number written on the ticket flap, and his maxed-out Visa card burning his hand, he made his way to where he could keep his eyes on the notorious subject of his next blockbuster exposé. One that, with any luck whatsoever, could win him his own by-line with the Chicago Sun-Times.
Troy and the small woman in the red plastic coat were separated by four rows on the plane. She sat on the opposite side, aisle seat. By using his most charming manner on the chubby lady ticketed in the aisle seat in his row, he was able to switch to keep his subject in plain view. He turned around periodically, pretending an interest in the lavatory light, then made numerous visits, keeping tabs on her behaviour throughout the long night.
To watch without her knowing wasn’t an easy task, but he’d perfected his undercover surveillance technique years before. Her aura of melancholy made him wonder at her behaviour. She only pretended to sleep. Politeness to everyone she met seemed to come naturally, but her introspective attitude was a warning in itself—“Back off and leave me the hell alone.”
Troy still couldn’t understand why he hadn’t moved in on her. As a rule, in his trade, he’d be forced to ignore her kinds of signals. How else could he manage to obtain the powerful stories he’d gotten over the course of his distinguished career?
He knew his name stirred interest in the Chicago newspaper circles, interest he’d worked hard to inspire. He prided himself on getting features no one else managed to get.
So what was it about this broad that had him pussyfooting around—giving her breaks, treating her differently? Like now, for instance. After trailing her for hours, he found himself on a bench watching her from afar while she meandered alone.
He guessed her brave act appealed to his sensitive side and, instead of approaching to hound her about her story, he sat and stared, held back by the beautiful picture of serenity she now presented.
She’d removed her scarf and shaken her head to free her mass of blonde curls. They bounced every which way, a springy jumble of beauty framing her heart-shaped face. The wind took control and played havoc until, apparently tired of eating the strands, she swept the works behind her ears and collected it into a ponytail.
As if she heard silent music, she seemed to float from place to place rather than walking like a mortal. She wandered through the vicarage grounds and around a natural pond surrounded by variegated green plants. Some flaunted colourful flowers and others highlighted berries.
Rather than approach, to manoeuvre his way into her confidence, he waited. The bench’s position allowed him a full view of her every move. For now, he felt content to give her space.
Just then a
grey-striped kitten jumped onto the bench near him and began to wash itself. Surprised, Troy watched as the feline’s tongue licked in sensitive areas. The animal paid him scant attention, and, once satisfied its body and paws were clean, his furry companion crouched to survey his surroundings. In a flash, the silly puss decided to swipe at a magnificent red rose that hung over the back of the seat, the breeze fluttering its luscious petals over the pointed ears.
The thorns looked deadly, and since Troy had a thing about protecting small creatures, he snagged the branch to push it backwards, out of harm’s way. A wickedly sharp barb pricked him, and reflex had him pulling his hand away, making things worse. It pierced deeper, until drops of blood emerged. He swore and extricated himself, then whipped his hand up to his mouth, scaring away the tabby.
As he sucked at the wound, he felt a strangeness enter him, like a low vibration of electric shock. It reminded him of a few occasions in congested traffic when he’d avoided a looming accident by a split-second decision. The resulting fear had made swallowing difficult and blinking impossible. Panicky nerve endings began rioting in his stomach, and sweat poured from his trembling body. He bent over, head between his knees, hoping to gain some relief. Could there have been poison in the spine that pricked him?
A loud humming slowly diminished, and then faded completely as seconds ticked away. A voice, clearly heard, brought him upright in an instant.
“What happened?” A young girl spoke.
Troy peered all around and saw no one. “Excuse me?” His voice sounded loud in the solitude of his surroundings. He turned in every direction, not understanding how words could be so distinct when there was no one in sight.
“It worked. Oh, my God! It really worked. I’m—ah—visiting your body. This is way too cool.”
“Are you suggesting I’m possessed? Seriously?” His voice lowered and a droll note entered. “That I have—”