Chapter 27
CHARY
THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY, INCORPORATED
COME HOME LITTLE brO. HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU.
- A
Two days. The telegram had been sitting at the townhouse two whole days.
Had August meant to wait exactly two weeks from the police station ordeal, or was it coincidence?
He couldn’t have known Chary had been staying with Laurie.
It’d been chance Chary had come back to the townhouse at all today; he’d come back only to give notice to the staff there that he probably wouldn’t be back for some time and to please shutter the place.
To ready themselves for his forthcoming, and hopefully permanent, move to Berryfield, provided the whole world didn’t fall down around him.
Come home.
August had made his overture, and Chary was already two days late.
“Well, nobody’s egged the place. Raberding didn’t stoop that low.” Laurie, besuited down to a stiff collar, came through the townhouse’s front door and into the foyer. Even so unfamiliar, he seemed to belong. He spotted the telegram straight away. “Uh-oh.”
“It’s August,” Chary said. “Everything’s fine. I think.” He took a deep breath. “Your story is written. Will you come home with me to Berryfield?”
Laurie’s expression went soft. “You want me there?”
“Yes.” It was that simple. Yes. He felt like he’d do almost anything for one more weekend. Maybe if he had one more afternoon picnic, he could tell Laurie the truth and then let him go.
“Then of course,” Laurie said. “Told ya I don’t want you outta my sight.” Then he sighed. “Berryfield. Damn that twelve-hour train.”
Chary agreed. Damn the twelve-hour train. Sometime very soon in the future—though not tomorrow, nor the next, not yet—it would be the least of things keeping them apart.