by Mimi Barbour
Amy, her wonderful, annoyingly brilliant child, couldn’t be talked into playing hooky this morning, because the summer-school teacher had promised the class a spelling bee, with a surprise for the winner. Wanting to be a writer like her mother, Amy loved this class the best of all.
In need of something to do or someone to talk to, she decided on a quick visit to her uncle, to get his moral support for the plans she’d set in motion.
Using the devil doorknocker reminded her of the day, ten years earlier, when she’d come to this very house for help. She’d ended up embroiled in a preposterous adventure. On Saturday, her life would come full circle. Imagining Troy’s face when he realized that Ellie and Dani was the same person brought a smile to her heart.
Mrs. Dorn opened the door and immediately the good woman’s mouth dropped open and her smallish eyes protruded. She scanned Dani’s outfit.
“Hel-lo, pet. Where’re ya going? To a hooker convention?”
“Too much? Is it the makeup? Or the clothes? What?”
While Dani turned in a circle, she spotted her uncle coming in from the garden. “Uncle Robert, you’re a man. We need your help.”
“Thank you, my dear. I don’t believe you’ve ever been so loquacious with your compliments. A man, indeed!” Reddened cheeks, tight lips, and a raised eyebrow revealed some discomfort while he scrutinized her attire.
Dani, putting his attitude down to his being an old fuddy-duddy, ignored the signs. She followed him into the garden with Mrs. Dorn bringing up the rear.
“I need your help with my pursuit of Troy, which by the way is madly complicated, but coming along splendidly. He’s falling for me and…” Dani wiggled a jive step while singing the words of the popular Beatles tune, “I Feel Fine.”
A strange movement to his left beckoned the doctor. He swung around to watch Mrs. Dorn’s older version of the jive, her arms waving, ample hips gyrating, while her head bopped.
Caught unaware by their high jinks, his grin responded to her silliness before he could check it. Dani cut him off as he opened his mouth with the obvious intention of speaking.
“But…!” Her uplifted forefinger emphasized. She grimaced, then wiggled her head. “Something is bugging me, and I can’t understand why. After all, everything is going according to plan.”
“Dani, go and make yourself comfortable in the garden while Mrs. Dorn and I get the tea tray. Then we’ll all visit and find out what’s bothering you. Excuse us for a few moments. Come, Mrs. Dorn.” Sweeping his astounded housekeeper from the room and down the hallway took some doing.
“Doctor, stop ‘ere, give over. Are you coming down with something? In all the years I’ve worked with you, not once have you ever wanted to help me make the tea.”
“I still don’t, Mrs. Dorn. I only wanted to get you aside to be sure we were on the same track. In our thinking—so to speak.” He made a comical face when he heard what he’d said. And the whispered words “God forbid” slipped out.
“What do you have in mind, Doctor?”
He cleared his throat. “Did we encourage my niece to play the trollop, to engage with her fellow in insignificant sex?”
“No…” First her head moved to the negative. She watched him for signs and, reading his expression, slowed to a stop, then started moving in the positive. “Did we?”
“Mrs. Dorn. Did we or did we not persuade her to act the floozy so she could determine if Ellie the woman attracted Troy Brennan as much as Dani did as a young girl?”
“That we did, and it looks like we did a fine job, sir.” This time her head did move up and down—a beatific smile lighting up her face.
“Oh, twaddle! What the hell were we thinking? The poor girl’s in a pickle now, and it’s entirely our fault. Come, Mrs. Dorn, no lollygagging. We need to get back to her and see if we can straighten out this mess.”
Dr. Andrews, carrying the tray of cups, saucers, and condiments, was the first to brush aside the hanging fern leaves, step into the garden and see red hair splayed over the side of the rose-decked bench.
His fright at seeing the limp body, its seemingly lifeless arm hanging close to the ground, made him relax his hold on the tray, and everything slid toward the side. At the last moment, thankfully, catching the tiny grin on Dani’s face stopped him from dropping the works and joining Mrs. Dorn in her screaming reaction.
Dani jumped up and ran to the shocked woman. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Dorn. It was only a joke. I’m fine. Please forgive me. I’m really, truly sorry.”
Mrs. Dorn fell back three steps, clutched her heart, and knocked over the flowerpot sitting in the centre of a table. The doctor wrested the teapot from her frozen fingers in an attempt to save some of the tea, although much of it had already poured out of the tilted spout. Dani guided her toward the bench, but with a look of horror the older woman jostled her aside and instead collapsed on one of the wicker garden chairs.
“Ya wee monster! You’ll feel the back of me hand, ya will. Always knew a good tanning on your backside wouldn’t come amiss. How dare you frighten a poor old woman like this? It’ll be your fault if I lose a few years off me life for this bit of nonsense.”
The grin couldn’t be stopped. “I am sorry, Mrs. Dorn.” Trying to straighten her face and look sincere took all Dani’s acting ability. “Really!”
“After I’ve caught me breath, and me heart stops pounding, I’ll be needing the loo right quick.” With a dark look at the young girl, whose lips still quivered behind her fingers, the housekeeper heaved to her feet and stomped from the room.
“Uncle Robert, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I thought it would be a silly joke, and we’d all laugh about it. I never thought either one of you would get so upset.”
“I’ve never seen you so witless, my dear. One minute you’re questioning everything, and the next you’re playing silly games.”
His words produced the desired effect. Chastised, she sank onto the bench, and her complexion paled. “Oh, God! I am sorry.”
“We reacted like we did because when you left us, ten years ago, those days were some of the most frightening and horrible ones we ever lived through.”
“Yet for me, they were the best days of my life.”
“Daniell, put yourself in our position. We had no knowledge of where you were, what had happened to you, or if you were ever coming back. It was a nightmare. If not for Mrs. Dorn and Nurse Joye, I think I’d have gone mad.”
When he called her by her full name, she knew he felt strongly and she needed to listen. Dani reached over and threw her arms around her uncle and best friend. She nuzzled into him like a child who knows a welcome is always there for her. “You’re right, Uncle Robert. I’m an ungrateful, thoughtless, stupid little—”
“You’ve made your point, child. Let’s move on. Forget the bad things, and let’s dwell on the good.” He patted her back, set her aside, and then reached towards the teapot.
“Speaking of good, how is Grace Joye, Uncle? I haven’t seen her at all lately.” Dani watched as her uncle’s face underwent a complete metamorphosis, from a kind and loving uncle to a man in turmoil. “What’s happened?”
“There’s a secret matter that has been eating away at me for quite some time, dear. Nurse Joye is on an adventure, something similar to what you had. It’s all I can tell you for now, but if anything would happen to me, I want you to be the first person to go into my personal files and deal with my research. I’ve given instructions to Mrs. Dorn, and she will abide by them. She’ll keep all the paperwork safe for you to pass on to my colleague, John Norman.”
“Mrs. Dorn won’t abide by anything unless she gets her tea.” Entering their retreat and making her way to the messy tray, Mrs. Dorn poured herself a cup, sniffed in the direction of the other two indignantly, and sat down on the chair she’d recently vacated.
Watching her uncle imitate zipping his lips, Dani caught on, nodded and changed the subject. “My dear Mrs. Dorn, Uncle Robert has reminded m
e how difficult things were for those of you left behind during the period I disappeared. And how insensitive it was of me to have played such a hideous prank.” She moved over to kneel in front of her best supporter and gazed upwards beseechingly. “Please, don’t be angry with me. I am truly sorry.”
“Oh, get on with ya! I’m fine.” A gnarled hand, smelling of bleach, a faint odour of gin wafting with it, reached to gently fondle the girl’s cheek. “But—no more shenanigans. Now, how come you want our help?”
Dani resumed her seat next to her uncle, took his hand in hers, and closed her eyes for a minute. Two deep breaths and she lifted their locked hands and pounded them back down on her knee.
“Right! I’m happy, don’t get me wrong. I invited Troy to have dinner with me last night, and after we returned home I inveigled him into an embrace. I sensed how extremely difficult it was for him to turn away from me, but he did. I understand this goes to prove he’s a man to be trusted. The thing is, I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted him to be so overcome with passion for me that he’d lose control and stop thinking at all, particularly about Dani.”
Mrs. Dorn couldn’t help her crowing. “Bosoms always work. I told ya so, now, didn’t I?”
Dani’s uncle winced, then turned to his housekeeper and answered, “Yes, my dear lady, we bow to your perceptiveness. Cleavages do seem to have their place in the natural scheme of things. All that aside, there still seems to be a problem.” He turned back to Dani. “I don’t understand why you’re upset.”
“Last night I planned to storm his boundaries, attract his pants off—literally, and it worked to a point. Today I want to turn up the heat, make it even harder for him to refuse a physical relationship. He wanted me. I know it. He tore himself from my arms, and I have no doubt about how difficult it was for him to do so.”
“Dani, as the only man here, I must support him for his convictions. Why do you want to overcome those? And why are you questioning his attraction to you?”
“Because he left me for her! He’s smitten with a seventeen-year-old who’s got her claws dug into him, who in my heart I know is me, but in my mind she seems to be someone else—a completely different person. Can’t you understand? I’m in competition with myself. I guess I need to know that he’s as taken with me—the woman I am now—as he is with Dani.” Her voice rose, the beseeching quality clear to both who listened. Releasing his hand, she aimed her finger towards her chest. “I need for him to love me.”
“And you’re basing all this anxiety on his physical responses, as if that’s all that matters. What about his reactions to you as an individual, a lady, and a mother? It seems to me it should be as important as his sexual interest, or am I an old stick-in-the-mud psychologist who doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about?”
Dani watched the crafty look he couldn’t hide and knew what he’d said was important. She focussed. She revisited his words. And, as with a child who finally grasps a contrary mathematical problem, so came her awakening, her proverbial inner light bulb turned on.
She’d put sex at the root of her dilemma, because after ten years of celibacy she’d been so tied up with lustful cravings that her brain had all but turned to mush. Realization, once started, couldn’t be stopped. Other important points came to mind. He’d never made love to Dani, and yet he’d loved her enough to spurn Ellie. Without a boastful thought in her head, she knew it hadn’t been easy.
Last night, Troy’s hard body and spontaneous reactions proved he wasn’t immune to her charms—quite the opposite. Except the situation wasn’t about the body’s performance but the heart’s elation. Peace stole over her, and for the very first time since this week began she knew which direction to go.
A huge weight dissipated inside her. All the upset muscle-clenching and nervy tingling that had been going on throughout her for the last few days miraculously slowed and let go, relinquishing their hold. Finally, she felt solid again.
Happiness flowed, but this time it wasn’t attached to strings. She just felt light and carefree, looking forward to her coming reunion with Troy without any stipulations of behaviour, without any expectations. Just two adults learning to know each other, to like each other, and, with a little luck, to love each other.
She looked over at the two people watching her closely. She knew why she’d come to this discerning scholar today. The cunning old charmer had never let her down, and his sidekick, Mrs. Dorn, would agree with whoever seemed to need it the most. How lucky to have two such caring people in her life to support her, listen to her, and stand by her.
“Thank you, Uncle Robert. You’re a genius.” Kisses for each of the startled people left them both happy. While one still felt slightly bewildered, the other nodded knowingly and smiled. She might be his sister’s birth daughter, but his endearing niece had always been the joy in his world.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
All morning Troy doggedly tried to focus on his work. His responsibilities came first; then he’d have the rest of the day to teach his naughty little friend a lesson she wouldn’t soon forget: Don’t tamper with a man’s emotions—don’t play him for a fool.
Resentment still fired all his nerve endings. It made his stomach violently reject any food and had his head pounding from the punishment he’d inflicted by staying awake most of the night.
Trying to understand what prompted her wicked thoughtlessness was time wasted. He stood up, wiggled his cramped hands, and stomped to the end of the room and back again. This time the sleepy puppy only watched from his nest on the soft green shirt. He whined softly. His little feet were still sore from their last march.
The questions still seethed. Why hadn’t she approached him openly, honestly, to tell him the situation? What about the week she’d requested? He’d believed she wanted that time to strengthen her ties with her parents and organize her life so she could come to him unhampered. But that was when she was a pregnant seventeen-year-old.
His jumbled thoughts floated here and there like a tarnished autumn leaf riding air currents. Anger battled with sadness, but hurt won.
He couldn’t see any way around it. She must have known about the time difference right from the beginning. In fact, when they were first together on the bench, and they’d both seen Ellie in the distance, had she understood the irony even then?
That said, how could this paranormal baloney even happen? Hadn’t he had trouble accepting the truth despite her explanations? Maybe he needed to rethink everything.
Since he’d awakened to Dani and Ellie being the same woman, he’d been tagging her as a two-faced bitch—literally. But to give the devil her due, how could he expect a teenager to think straight at a time like that? He sure as hell hadn’t.
She would have recognized her parents, though, and must have figured the little girl had to be hers. Maybe she didn’t tell him at first because he would have wanted to interview her as Ellie, which obviously wouldn’t have worked.
Okay, he’d accept that she didn’t want to share with him at the beginning of their time together, but why hadn’t she confessed about the ten-year gap before she left? She must have known, and she didn’t tell him. That’s what he couldn’t get past.
Thoughts didn’t revolve in his mind in any orderly fashion. They jumped around randomly. Neither coherence nor credibility seemed important.
His anger abated for a few seconds as reminiscences flooded. He dredged up recollections of how Dani cared for other people, and how she’d always wanted to put their needs first. How important it had been for her to help Archie, the little nipper who’d rescued Buddy. How she’d willingly put off her return home to answer the call to rescue the victims of the fire. And how she’d made Troy feel special, and loved, and happier than he’d ever been in his whole, lonely life.
He groaned, clutched his head in his hands, and fell back on the bed. A tiny pink tongue eased his pain somewhat as it snaked around his thumb and worked its way toward his palm. Soon a furry face followed, and then a w
riggling body filled his hand to overflowing. As he picked up the jubilant little fuzzball and cuddled him, the troubled whine and adoring gaze made him smile.
“I guess it’s time to take you to your new home, my friend. I bet there’s a little girl who’s going to be very happy tonight. Once I pay back both Miss Dani and Miss Ellie with a lesson they won’t soon forget, I’ll be on the plane heading to Chicago. I want no baggage and no regrets. I’ll give them both what she tried to take last night, and I’ll chalk the whole experience up to a lesson on the devil inside a woman…”
Buddy cut him off with a bark and a nip on his ear.
Troy held the dog away from him and looked into the gentle black eyes. “Cut that out! She deserves everything she’s gonna get, and more. Then I’m going to make like a tree and leave.” The small head turned to the side enquiringly. “Sorry, my sense of humour seems to have vanished.”
A knock startled him into putting Buddy down on the bed and moving over to within a foot of the door before demanding, “Who’s there?”
“It’s Bunty, Troy. A package came for you, and it’s marked urgent. I have it here.”
His hand made short work of the hair falling over his forehead as he opened the door, but he needn’t have bothered. No sooner had his fingers forged through the strands, everything returned to its earlier attractive messiness. He leaned one hip against the frame intentionally, a blatant message—do not disturb.
“Hi! Troy, it’s your tickets from the travel agent. I can’t believe you’re really leaving us; we’ll miss you so much. It’s been rather special having a celebrity staying in our little inn.” Bunty passed over a thick envelope, and when he reached to take it she wouldn’t let go. “Troy, something isn’t right. You haven’t eaten all day, and your pacing can be heard all the way downstairs. If you need a shoulder—or any body part—I’d be happy to help.” He couldn’t keep from returning the teasing smile she threw his way.
“Bunty, my love, if you weren’t such an incorrigible flirt, I’d wonder if you might be serious.”