Chapter 14
14
Travis was chasing down the ending to the chapter he was writing and coming to the realisation that he’d actually need to write yet another chapter in order to conclude the exciting sequence of scenes that Maura Shaw and the jewel thief, Phillip Rorkman, had found themselves in.
The two characters were just having too much fun to wrap things up quickly. The romantic inklings Travis had made Maura feel for her villainous and charismatic accomplice had caused fireworks on the page that showed no signs of stopping any time soon.
He didn’t want them to end anytime soon, either. Travis was having fun, too, watching their antics unfold as they worked together to unlock the crypt at Castle Ferleagh. The high jinks and wry humour of the interactions between the unlikely pair was the perfect foil for the darker emotions and pain that motivated Maura Shaw to uncover the truth about the murder of her good friend and the identity of the cold-blooded killer who’d taken his life.
When he’d begun writing this chapter yesterday afternoon, Travis thought it would be quick and short, just a matter of getting Maura and Rorkman into the castle as a prelude to the crypt break-in and the search for clues that would follow.
Instead, their arrival coincided with a grand ball that was being thrown at the castle by the owner, Grant Reagan, the man Maura knew to be her friend’s killer. Maura and Rorkman inadvertently found themselves caught up in the festivities of the ball, something Travis hadn’t anticipated when he’d started writing.
In fact, he hadn’t even known there was a grand ball taking place at the castle, and only discovered it was happening when he snuck Maura and Rorkman into the ancient stone building through an old servant’s entrance at the rear of the kitchens. When they found themselves whisked away from the kitchens and into the ballroom by a member of the serving staff who assumed they were guests who’d taken a wrong turn along one of the castle’s many winding corridors, Maura and Rorkman had ended up face-to-face with Grant Reagan himself, who was just as surprised as they were to discover them both in attendance, considering he hadn’t invited them to the ball in the first place.
The situation, filled as it was with misunderstandings and subterfuge, was funny and energetic and served not only to throw yet another obstacle in Maura’s way as she sought to uncover the truth about her friend’s death, but also forced Maura and Rorkman to work together in an unexpected manner that helped them appreciate one another all the more.
That Travis hadn’t known anything about the grand ball at the castle that Maura and Rorkman would accidentally gate-crash in their quest to break into the crypt was thrilling for him as the story’s author. It was one of the things he loved most about writing—that the characters and the story could so often surprise him with twists and turns he never saw coming.
As the book’s first reader, he loved being caught out like this, loved it when his expectations were upended, and loved it when unexpected developments that appeared as if by magic while he was writing helped to make the story richer and more satisfying.
It was like living inside a dream—a wonderful, crazy, fun-filled dream, and one from which he didn’t want to wake up.
Or, more precisely, one he didn’t want to stop writing about.
Never in a million years would Travis ever have imagined that writing about a wry, steely, sixty-something cozy mystery heroine could bring him such fun and joy.
He was about to launch into a new paragraph in which Rorkman would whisk Maura around the castle ballroom floor in order to escape the attentions of their suspicious host before making good their escape down to the crypt, when he heard the doorbell ring.
Travis blinked as he was pulled out of the page on the computer screen and back into the real world. Rising from the desk chair, he glanced at the clock on the wall and was amazed to discover it was two-thirty already. He hadn’t even paused for lunch, thanks to the antics unfolding in the new Maura Shaw mystery, which had kept his fingers on the keyboard since early morning.
When he opened the front door, he was surprised to find his temporary assistant, Courtney Flynn, standing on the doorstep. His heart bumped hard against his chest at the sight of her smile lighting up her pretty face, the reaction automatic, even as he tried to tamp it down.
It had been three days since he saw her at Peartree Park. He’d be lying if he told himself he hadn’t thought of her every day since.
If it wasn’t for the book he was writing, he wouldn’t have been able to get her out of his mind at all. She’d taken up residence inside his head and Travis had no desire to evict her, even although he knew it was lunacy to feel that way.
“Hello, Travis,” Courtney said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you. I tried to phone, but it kept going to your voice mail, and although I guessed that meant you were probably writing, I didn’t think this could wait.”
He saw now the alarmed look on her face, which he’d missed while being dazzled by her smile.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, concerned. “Is everything okay with the baby?”
Courtney looked confused for a moment before shaking her head. “Oh, I’m fine and so is the baby. No, this is about your author page on Facebook.”
“Oh, okay. Well, come on in.”
He was relieved all was well with Courtney and the baby, even if he was wondering what the problem was that had brought her to his door and interrupted his writing.
Not that he minded. Interruptions usually drove him mad, especially when his writing was in full flow. But being interrupted by Courtney didn’t concern him at all.
He welcomed it.
Which meant he was out of his mind , obviously.
I have a crush on a pregnant woman , he thought to himself as he ushered Courtney into the living room. A huge, stupid crush which is futile and inappropriate and…
… too wonderful to let go.
“So, what’s the problem?” Travis said, working hard to offer an easy smile as he waved Courtney towards the sofa.
“I think there’s a scammer lurking around on your author page on Facebook,” she replied, looking unhappy. “In fact, I know there is. I wasn’t sure what to do about it, and I can see that some of your fans are already being duped, so I figured I’d better let you know straight away, but when you weren’t answering your phone, I didn’t want to wait any longer so I came here to tell you about it in person, and?—”
“Okay, calm down and take a deep breath,” Travis said gently, seeing how worked up she was getting. “I’m sure whatever is going on, we can sort it out, and I don’t want you getting yourself in a twist about it and causing yourself or the baby any unnecessary stress. Okay?”
“Okay, you’re right,” she said, blowing out a breath. “It’s just… well, when you see for yourself, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.” She pointed to his laptop on the desk. “Do you mind logging into your Facebook account so I can show you what’s going on?”
Travis nodded and moved to the desk. Courtney appeared at his side, peeking over his shoulder as he tapped at the keys. Her proximity made the skin on his neck tingle and it took him a few attempts to hit the right keys on the laptop.
“Eek, I just saw the document you were working on and realise I did interrupt your writing, after all. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. This sounds important. Let’s get it sorted out.”
After Travis logged in, Courtney took control of the mouse and clicked through to the most recent post on his page.
As she’d suggested when they’d spent time together at the park, she’d written a short post to introduce herself to the fans on his social media page, which had prompted a flurry of welcoming comments from his kind readers, most of whom also expressed concern for his recuperating assistant Ruth and sent their best wishes.
Courtney had responded to these comments with courtesy and efficiency, and then followed it up with another post which explained that she was reading the Maura Shaw mysteries for the first time and hoped some of the Travis’s social media followers might like to join her in a read-along.
This suggestion had sparked plenty of interest and enthusiasm, judging by what Travis could now see on the screen as Courtney scrolled through the long stream of comments on the post in search of whatever it was she wanted to show him.
“It starts here,” she said, highlighting a comment with the mouse and stepping back so he could read it. “This person, Jenna Jade, posts a comment and starts a conversation with someone else who’s fairly active on your author page. There’s a bit of back and forth between them, and then this Jenna person says she works for your publisher and has limited edition signed hardback copies of your books available for sale and asks the fan if she’d like to buy one. When she seems interested, Jenna Jade says she’ll send her a direct message to sort out payment and delivery. Obviously, that seemed fishy to me, so I dug into the Jenna Jade profile and I’m pretty sure it’s a scammer.”
Travis scanned the comments between the reader and the Jenna Jade persona, pleased that Courtney had realised something was off.
“I don’t have any limited edition hardbacks,” Travis said. “Just the regular hardbacks that are available in most bookshops. I’ve certainly signed plenty of those over the last few years, but they’re not a rare commodity worth much more than the standard retail price. And anyway, no one from my publishing company would ever directly interact with fans like this and offer them things for sale.”
“That’s what I thought. I found this Jenna Jade person has popped up elsewhere in the comments on this post too,” Courtney said, using the mouse to scroll further down the screen. “She tells another fan that she has Maura Shaw merchandise for sale—mugs and tote bags—and that seems to get quite a bit of interest.”
“My publisher doesn’t sell anything like that, and neither do I, so either this person is flogging unlicensed products or it’s just a basic scam to trick people into sending money for things that don’t exist.”
“I always thought it was weird how people fell for this kind of thing, but when I looked at how the Jenna Jade character slid into the comments and sparked conversations with people and made it seem like they were a legitimate person from your publishing company, I can see how it might trip people up.”
“These scammers wouldn’t do any of this if it wasn’t making money. You did the right thing bringing this to me.”
“There was no guidance in your marketing file about what to do in a case like this, or I would’ve handled it myself.”
“It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, there are steps to take. First, we block the profile so this Jenna Jade persona can’t interact with the readers and fans anymore, then I’ll submit a report about the profile and hopefully it will be taken down. I’ll also post an alert, letting fans know about the scam and reminding them that neither me nor my publisher would ever offer anything for sale directly on social media and would never ask for personal details or bank information.”
Courtney nodded. “When I noticed in the comments that some of your fans looked ready to hand over bank details, I wanted to jump in with a post and warn them not to do that, but figured I should speak to you first in case that was the wrong move.”
“We’ll sort it now.”
Travis tapped out a quick post, warning fans that there was a scammer trolling the page and trying to trick people out of money. He assured them that neither he nor his publisher would ever offer anything for sale directly on social media in this way, and would only ever provide links to legitimate retail sites where his new books could be purchased. After reminding people to be vigilant on social media, he apologised for the nuisance of finding a scammer at large amongst his fans and promised he was taking action to get the profile shut down.
Once the post was live, he blocked the offending persona of ‘Jenna Jade’ and submitted a report to the social media platform detailing the suspected scammer.
“There, all taken care of,” he said as he finished the sequence of tasks. “I’ll add this stuff into the guidance document so it’s there in case you need it in the future. Fingers crossed you don’t, but these scammers always reappear eventually, unfortunately.”
“Sorry I interrupted your writing,” Courtney said.
“Don’t apologise. You did the right thing coming to me with this. I should’ve given you a steer in the guidance document about how to deal with this problem. My mistake.”
“I hope none of your fans handed over money or personal details to this Jenna Jade person. Maybe I should’ve jumped in sooner and warned people?”
“We can only do so much. You came to me about this quickly and now we’ve done all we can to warn people.”
Courtney nodded, but still looked unhappy. “Thanks for your help. I’ll leave you in peace to get back to your writing.”
Before she turned for the door, Travis’s stomach let out a rumble so loud it echoed around the walls of the room. The unexpected noise had her looking at him in amusement.
“I forgot to eat lunch,” he confessed. “I should probably make a sandwich.”
“You really should,” she laughed.
“Care to join me?”
The invitation was out before he realised he planned on making it. Courtney’s expression turned from amusement to surprise.
“I ate lunch already,” she said.
“Of course you did,” he said, feeling mortified. “It’s halfway through the afternoon. Everyone’s ate lunch already, except me, and I would’ve eaten already except I got caught up writing and?—”
“But I’m always hungry, thanks to the bump,” she said, patting her stomach.
He was grateful to her for interrupting the stream of drivel he’d begun spouting to cover up his embarrassment. A smile spread across his face.
“How about a cheese sandwich? There might be some tomatoes lurking in the fridge, too.”
“Cheese and lurking tomatoes. Sounds perfect.”
Travis laughed as he walked to the kitchen with Courtney following behind. While he dealt with the sandwich preparation, she gazed around the kitchen, which faced towards the back garden.
“This is a lovely, cosy kitchen,” she said. “And it feels well-loved. I bet the owners enjoy cooking in here and pottering around.”
“I’m sure they do. The house has a good vibe about it. When I first arrived, I thought it might be strange living in someone else’s house for several weeks. But I felt right at home as soon as I walked through the door.”
“Some houses just have that feel, don’t they? My old home…”
When she trailed off suddenly, Travis turned from the counter and the tomatoes he was slicing, and saw the warm smile she’d had just a moment ago was gone, replaced with a wistful look as she gazed out of the kitchen window to the garden beyond.
“My old home had a nice feel to it,” she said, and offered a too-bright smile. Pointing to the sandwiches he was making, she said, “Anyway, what I can do to help?”
Travis watched her for a beat and saw how she fought to keep that bright smile on her face. He wondered what she was pushing back against, and about what more she might have said if she’d let herself keep talking.
“Just grab a seat at the table and make yourself comfortable,” he said, nodding to the scrubbed pine table in the middle of the kitchen. “I’ll take care of everything.”
She pulled out a chair and sat down. Travis brought their sandwiches to the table and then served cold drinks from the fridge. After turning on the speaker on the windowsill and playing some music in the background while they ate, he joined her at the table.
“Thanks for this,” Courtney said as she took her first bite. “I didn’t realise I was hungry again until you suggested making these sandwiches. This baby takes an awful lot of feeding. Or maybe I’m just greedy.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Have I put enough lurking tomatoes in your sandwich?”
Her eyes twinkled as she grinned. “The perfect amount.”
They ate for a few moments. Once he was satisfied she’d taken a few more bites of her sandwich and was enjoying the food he’d prepared, he risked a question.
“You mentioned your old house before we sat down. The way you spoke, it sounds like you miss it?”
The sad and wistful look returned to her face, and Travis wondered if he ought to have left the matter alone. But he couldn’t escape the feeling that she’d mentioned it for a reason, consciously or otherwise.
“I do miss it,” Courtney said, her gaze on her half-eaten sandwich. “It wasn’t a mansion or anything special, really. But it was home.”
She looked up and the smile she gave him this time wasn’t nearly so bright. “I wish I was still there. I didn’t want to move out. But, like you said the other day when we were at the park, sometimes you can’t have the things you want in life, no matter how badly you want them.”
“Why did you have to move out?”
“My mum passed away suddenly a few months ago, and the landlord wanted to bring in new tenants who could pay more, so I had no choice but to leave.”
Travis hadn’t expected this painful twist in the tale and hadn’t expected to hear about such a dreadful loss. “I’m so sorry about your mum.”
The bright, brave smile returned. “Thank you. I appreciate that. It was a terrible blow to lose her, and it was worse having to leave the home we shared. But I’m doing okay now.”
Are you, though? he almost asked. The pain burning behind her eyes was unmistakable. Not even her brilliant smile could hide it from him this time, not now that he knew about the grief she carried.
He thought of what he’d learned about Courtney since he’d met her—that she was no longer with the father of her child and would raise the baby alone, and that she’d recently lost her mother and been forced to leave the home they’d shared. Until now, he’d just assumed she was another resident of Foxglove Street. But if she’d been forced to leave the home she’d shared with her mother, then who was she living with here on the street?
A vague memory flickered in his head, and he latched onto something Olive Nimmo had said in passing when they’d spoken at the library during his book club talk. Now that he focused on their conversation, he remembered her saying that Courtney was visiting family for a short time, which was why Olive thought she’d be a perfect fit to step into Travis’s assistant’s shoes.
“I think I remember Olive Nimmo mentioning that you were staying here with family?” he now said.
Courtney nodded. “My cousin, Rosie, lives here on the street, and kindly offered me her spare room. I was in temporary accommodation before that for a few months in Southampton near where my mother and I used to live, but it wasn’t particularly nice. Basically, it was a bedsit, and that’s putting a positive spin on it.”
She let out a laugh and then her gaze clouded over, and a look crossed her face as if she was embarrassed to have said so much about her situation. “Anyway, it’s lovely to be here in Hamblehurst instead. Rosie’s house is so pretty. And my aunt and uncle are nearby, too, and my other cousin, Zara, that’s Rosie’s sister, she lives here in the town, too. So, that’s nice.”
Travis sensed from her careful words that there was more to this, much more, than she was telling him. What sort of temporary accommodation had she been living in? A chill crept up his spine as he thought about the facts he now knew—she was a pregnant young woman who’d found herself homeless after her mother’s death. Had she been forced to rely on the local council to help her with housing? He’d seen enough news reports lately to know that wherever the council had placed her, it probably had been downright awful, considering the endless problems people faced when it came to finding suitable housing these days.
And more to the point, who were these family members of hers, who’d allowed their relative to endure a bereavement and homelessness—while pregnant and alone —before finally taking her in?
“I’m sorry you had to live in temporary accommodation, Courtney,” he said, choosing his words carefully, aware that this wasn’t really any of his business. “It’s a shame your cousin couldn’t let you use her guest room before you found yourself in the bedsit.”
Courtney opened her mouth to reply, then snapped it closed again. She set down her sandwich and dabbed a napkin across her lips before looking over at him.
“Actually, that’s a bit of a long story,” she said and gave an airy laugh. “Even a fiction author like you probably wouldn’t believe it.”
“Try me.”
He wanted to know her story, wanted to know every single detail of it. Listening to her talk as they sat together in the quiet kitchen, and hearing the tenderness and pain in her voice, he wanted to know and understand and find some way to salve her wounds.
Courtney studied his expression for a beat, as if judging whether he was just being polite or not. The naked honesty in his eyes convinced her to keep talking.
“I only discovered I had family here in Hamblehurst a few weeks ago,” she said. “My father died when I was small and I never knew him, and it was only after my mother passed away that I discovered he had a brother, my Uncle Colin. He never knew about me, and I never knew about him. It was a shock for him to find out about me, and hard too, because his brother, my father, led a hard life and spent time in prison before he died. There was a lot of bad memories for my uncle, even after so many years, and because of the upset his brother caused in his family, he struggled with how to tell his wife and daughters about the niece he never knew he had.”
Travis frowned at this, even as he sympathised with the shock the man must have received. Again, Courtney must have noticed his reaction, because she shook her head at his expression, as if determined to defend her uncle.
“My uncle is a good man. I can’t pretend to understand what it must have been like for him to lose his brother all those years ago and to never have made his peace with him before he died, and to then have some long-lost relative pop up out of the woodwork. Plus, when I got in contact with him and he learned that I’d lost my mother, and had just become homeless, and was pregnant and about to become a single parent, well, it’s a lot for anyone to take in.”
Travis nodded, conceding the point.
“Anyway, my uncle Colin was waiting for the right moment to break the news to his wife when events took another turn and I ended up meeting his family completely by accident. There’d been an, er, incident at the bedsit where I was staying?—”
“What sort of incident?” Travis interrupted, sensing from her tone that she’d been about to gloss over the details, and sensing, too, that this ‘incident’ had been no small matter.
A pained look crossed Courtney’s face. “One of the other residents at the bedsit broke into my room and tried to steal my stuff. He grabbed me and frightened me half to death. Another resident had to pull him off me.”
“My God!” Travis said, his eyes wide in alarm. “Were you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“I was okay. I wasn’t injured, just scared and worried about the baby after getting such a fright. In a panic, I spoke to my uncle on the phone and told him what had happened, and because I was so desperate to get out of the bedsit and away from the misery of it all, I caught the bus over here to Hamblehurst. Although I’d only known my uncle for a few weeks, I always felt better whenever we talked and felt even better in his company. He has this comforting spirit about him and is incredibly kind and caring.”
A smile lifted the edges of her lips and then vanished as she waved a hand. “Little did I realise at the time I was being so selfish.”
“ Selfish? ” Travis almost shouted, stunned that she could think such a thing considering what had happened to her. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“It was my uncle’s birthday that day, and I just invited myself over and plonked myself into the middle of things. I had no idea it was his birthday, and if I had known, I never would’ve got in the way. I almost ruined his surprise birthday party.”
“I think getting yourself out of a dangerous situation is more important than some stupid birthday party,” he said, with feeling. “There’s nothing selfish about asking for help when you desperately need it.”
Courtney’s gaze skimmed his face, the strength of his reaction clearly surprising her.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “I still felt bad, though. Little did I know that while I was sitting in a café with my uncle, pouring my heart out about all my troubles, his family were wondering why he’d run out of his own surprise party without explaining where he was going or why. My aunt Lorraine and my cousin, Rosie, ended up following him to find out what was happening, and that’s how we ended up meeting each other for the first time. When I realised I’d hauled him out of his birthday party, I could’ve died of embarrassment.”
Travis listened to all this, amazed by Courtney’s concern for other people and how her actions impacted on them. She’d described her uncle as kind and caring, and although he knew Courtney had only met the man recently, it was obvious that she shared those valuable traits with him.
“Anyway,” Courtney continued, “to cut a long story short, once my aunt and cousins got over the shock of discovering who I was, they insisted on helping me. My uncle hated that I was living in the bedsit in the first place, and with everything out in the open at last, he explained how he wanted to help me find somewhere new to live, instead of waiting on the council to identify a flat for me, which might not have happened until after the baby was born.”
“And that’s how you ended up living with your cousin?”
“Sort of. I was only supposed to stay with Rosie for a few nights, just to get away from the bedsit situation for a bit, but then I lost my job and…”
She trailed off, colour flushing her cheeks. “This is a real sob story. You must think I’m completely hopeless.”
Travis shook his head. “Not at all. I think it sounds like you’ve had a terrible time. A really terrible, awful, heart-wrenching time. I can’t imagine it.”
He truly couldn’t imagine it. When he put all the tragic pieces of Courtney’s story together, he was amazed she was still functioning.
“It’s been a tough year,” she said, her voice small. “When I found out I was pregnant and that the father wanted nothing to do with the baby, it was really hard. But with my mum on my side, I thought everything would be okay. It wouldn’t be easy , but it would be okay.”
She let out a sad sigh and shook her head. “And then my mum died. And then I had to move out of our house and couldn’t afford anywhere to stay. Living in the bedsit was awful, and being attacked there was…”
Travis watched the panic swim into her eyes and saw what it took for her to push back against the frightening incident and not relive it.
“I could have done without that happening, let’s put it that way,” she said with a half-smile. “But from that awful incident, good things somehow happened, because it led to me finally meeting my aunt and my cousins, and I ended up staying with Rosie for the weekend and having such a lovely time. It was wonderful to escape the bedsit for a few nights, and leave behind my worries for a little while. And then my aunt and uncle said they wanted to help me find a new place to live, and help with the costs, too, which was like a gift from heaven…”
Her voice cracked with emotion. “It felt like maybe my life had turned a corner after all the upset and bad luck I’d gone through.” She gave him a weary look. “And then I lost my job because the shop where I worked went out of business. I mean, how is that fair?”
“It’s not fair.”
“With the job gone, I’ve probably lost my rights to any maternity pay, too. And as I’m so close to having my baby, I don’t think I have much chance of landing a full-time job, which means I still can’t afford to find a new place to live, even with help from my aunt and uncle, and…”
Courtney paused and blew out a breath before giving him a wry smile. “And if you think you might like to write a tragic epic saga novel one day, Travis, you should feel free to jot down some notes about my tale of woe to save you from having to come up with a properly melodramatic plot.”
Travis laughed, even as he wondered how she could find humour in any of this. It was, he supposed, a coping mechanism, a way to get through the tough times and fend off the darkness.
“Anyway, at least I’m not on the streets,” Courtney said. “I have a roof over my head and I’ve found family I never knew I had and who I already love so much. And I’ve got this job working for you, Travis. It might only be a few hours a week, but you’ve no idea how much it means to me to be doing something and earning a little money. Working as your assistant has saved my self-esteem and made me feel useful.”
“You are useful. If it wasn’t for you, my readers would be getting ripped off right now by some social media scammer.”
She gave a demure nod of her head, conceding the point even as she blushed. It wasn’t easy for her to accept the compliment, he realised. After everything that had happened to her lately, she found herself questioning herself and her decisions and her abilities, even although Travis knew instinctively she had no reason to.
“I hope things have turned a corner for you, Courtney, and that life gets better.”
“Me, too. And anyway, even in my darkest moments, I’ve always had this little one to look forward to. She’s what kept me going.”
Courtney rubbed her baby bump, and Travis saw how the light returned to her eyes as she thought of her child. It made her look even more beautiful, if that was possible. Travis felt his heart punch against his chest again, a hard staccato rhythm of pure longing.
I’m in serious trouble, he thought.
“Your baby will be very lucky to have you for her mother,” he said. “You’re a fighter and a warrior and far stronger than you realise.”
Surprise filled her features as her eyes held his for a long beat.
“Thank you, Travis. That’s a lovely thing to say.”
He could’ve happily sat at the kitchen table with Courtney for hours, just talking and learning more about this woman who had bewitched him. But when she glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall and set her napkin down on her plate, he understood it was time for her to leave.
“I ought to get back to Rosie’s,” Courtney said, rising from her chair. “And you probably want to get back to your writing.”
“I’ve got a few more hours of work to keep me busy before I call it quits,” Travis said as he walked her to the door. “Thanks again for spotting the social media scammer. I appreciate it. And listen, if you ever want to chat about anything—not just the job, but about anything—I’m right here.”
She smiled, a mixture of surprise and gratitude. “Thank you, Travis.”
“Anytime.”
Stepping outside, she nodded to the little pots of pansies beside the doorstep. “You saved the flowers! Well done.”
“ You saved the flowers. They’d be dead if you hadn’t told me to water them.”
“Haha, we make a good team.”
Yes, we do, he thought, and even although he knew she’d only been joking, just making a throwaway comment before departing, he couldn’t help pouncing on her words and holding them close.
He waved her off, watching her disappear from sight along Foxglove Street before he closed the door. Returning to his laptop, he sat down, wanting to get back to work, to fall once more into the story he was writing.
But thoughts of Courtney dominated his mind, and it took a long time before his fictional creation Maura Shaw and her latest murder mystery adventure tugged him out of one fantasy land and safely into another.