A Little Romance: Stories for Hopeful Hearts Read online

  And that was still when he was young enough to think he was indestructible . . . no, when he didn’t think at all about the consequences, like getting hurt, or dying. What if something happened? Was it just his age, or his life experiences that had changed him? Maybe it was just the responsibility—he was the adult here, wasn’t he?

  He said, “I’m getting kind of hungry, how about we go eat now and catch a movie after.”

  The kids cheered.

  By the time they got home, Cole was proud that he had worn them out. They would not be up and about tonight, he was sure. He carried Megan up the stairs, and Adam pulled Perry along when his little brother couldn’t quite make it on his own steam. They both looked quite deflated.

  Cole said, “Brush your teeth, and hit the sack.”

  Adam only nodded, and so Perry did the same.

  When they were all settled, he got a beer and sat out on the back porch, watching the last half of the moon waning. The frogs were croaking too, but not nearly as much as they had before.

  It was a nice out here at night. He took the last gulp, then closed his eyes with his head back.

  That’s when he heard . . . singing?

  It was more humming than words.

  Was that the tune Megan was addicted to?

  He glanced up to her room, but there was no sign of sneaking, no lights and no curtain moved.

  Cole couldn’t help himself; he walked over to the shrubs to take a peek. Someone was out there . . . a woman in a light gown. She wore a hat and held a hoe, poking at the ground. Near her feet—her bare feet—was a basket, and he saw the handles of some kind of clippers.

  Ah, the midnight gardener. Some ghost, he thought, probably just a tenant with insomnia.

  Just then, she turned to look at him.

  What a lovely ghost, he mused, and found he was smiling at her too. But she wasn’t looking at him for long; instead, her face seemed to slightly turn up and over—she was looking to Megan’s window.

  Had this woman then lured out the kids?

  That sounded kind of creepy.

  Cole was going to give her a piece of his mind when he heard someone knock at the front door. He still wanted to talk to her about the kids, but he didn’t want whoever it was to ring the bell and wake them, so he went around to the front of the house instead.

  It was late, who could it be? He hoped it wasn’t some kind of emergency. He’d been a volunteer for the fire department when he first got here, living with his sister and kids for a couple of months until Geneva trusted him enough to go to Kuwait. He hadn’t planned on starting college in the city until fall anyway, so really it was easier for him than to find his own place.

  But he hadn’t done that lately—volunteered. The kids couldn’t have him gone like that, and he hadn’t met anyone he could call to watch them instead on just a moment’s notice. But now if something was wrong—

  His mind flew to a scene of burning tents and the heat twisted metal of carnival rides, of animals and kids screaming in fear and pain . . . but when he got to the front porch, he saw nothing at first . . . then he saw the tail lights of a police cruiser, easing down the street.

  He rushed out to the sidewalk and yelled.

  They stopped and backed up.

  He demanded, “What is it?”

  “Sorry, Cole, thought you were up, that’s all. Thought we’d drop in and have a chat.”

  “A chat?”

  He knew most of the cops and the firefighters on this side of town, not very well, but enough to know what that meant.

  A cop said, “The lights were on, and we’re on dinner break, that’s all. Just checking the neighborhood, a matter of routine. There have been some complaints, not sure what they expect us to do about it, but . . .”

  “Complaints about what?” But he hoped it had nothing to do with the midnight marauders upstairs.

  “Missing dog, a puppy, wandered off, probably still lost. Somebody heard it howling, but we’re not convinced that’s what it was.”

  Cole said, “Howling, huh.”

  The cops pointed then: He still had the beer in his hand.

  He said, “All gone, just having some peace and quiet out on the back porch. Took the kids to the carnival out by the mall. They’re exhausted and I’m recovering.”

  They smiled and nodded, but he could swear they both rolled their eyes. Of course, the carnival would be more work and maybe some trouble . . . lots of people coming together always—

  Someone screamed nearby.

  The cops looked to one another then ran toward the sound . . . and the splash.

  Cole dumped his beer bottle on the front porch, but didn’t follow them around the side of the house—he went inside to check on the kids.

  They weren’t there.

  Damn it!

  Cole rushed out the back and through the shrubs to see the cops helping the woman from the lily pad pond. She was soaked, of course, and but her hat was still tied onto her head—it had part of a lily pad still dangling, and she brushed it off with a bit of annoyance.

  The kids were all there, and Cole immediately rounded them up. He demanded, “What’s going on?”

  Megan said desperately, “I didn’t mean to do it.”

  “What did you do?” Cole said, and the cops did too.

  It sounded severe, the three men picking on her.

  Megan took a step behind her older brother, who put his hand behind for her to grab.

  Adam said defiantly, “She didn’t do anything, we just wondered . . .”

  Cole said more calmly, “Wondered what?”

  “Well, if the lady was really a ghost at all. I wanted to know, because ghosts are just vapor, and they can go through walls, but this lady wears a hat, and she was using the hoe and—”

  “And she helped us out of the pond before,” Perry said. “Megan didn’t mean to do anything.”

  He was so proud of the boys for sticking up for their sister.

  Still, Cole had to know. He knelt down and said, “So what happened? Just tell me.”Ó

  Perry said, “Megan poked it.”

  “It?” a cop said. The other was snickering, but trying to hide it, Cole could see.

  “The ghost,” Megan said. “Didn’t poke her though, that’s rude. I touched it, her.”

  Adam said, “No, you poked.”

  Then he demonstrated on Perry.

  Perry said, “Adam, don’t!”

  But the little boy giggled and squirmed away.

  A cop said, “Must have startled you, miss, and you lost your balance.”

  The woman said, “I’m so embarrassed.”

  She was studying the foliage still stuck in her hair.

  Somewhere close, a frog croaked. She flinched, but didn’t move an inch—it was there, between her bare feet.

  She said, “I’ll just go in.”

  Megan called, “Sorry.”

  Cole noticed that the cops were now chuckling openly.

  One cop said, “So you got this covered, Cole?”

  “Yeah, I guess I have to make an apology too, but I think it’s better to wait until later, don’t you?”

  Meaning he’d make it in the daytime like a normal person, not the middle of the night, like now. The cops laughed.

  He rounded up the kids, but the people from the boarding house were outside now and bumbling around the pond, confused.

  He said, “Shouldn’t you folks be getting inside too? It’s a bit chilly out still this time of year.”

  The cops began to move them along back into the house.

  “We want to know what happened,” Ralph said, but it was clearly his wife who had demanded to know, poking him so sharply in the ribs that he flinched.

  Cole said, “Nothing happened, it’s just a misunderstanding. The kids were out of bed when they shouldn’t have been, and the lady got spooked, that’s all.”

  “Hooligans,” someone said—of course, it was Helen.

  Mildred Fillmore said, “No
nsense, they are nice kids. They have manners, mostly; you don’t see that in the youth of today—not much anyway. That little girl is really quite clever.”

  But the others from the boarding house seemed to agree about the manners of kids these days, and thankfully, it changed the topic. They continued talking about that as they headed inside.

  Before she went in, Miss Fillmore turned and gave a little wave to the kids. The little girl waved back and then giggled as Perry tried to grab onto the frog.

  Someone else who was going inside said, “I could use a cup of cocoa.”

  The kids heard that too, and so when they went back to their own house, Cole knew what he had to do. He was still up with them, trying to make cocoa when the tap came at the backdoor.

  It was the woman—this time in a robe covering her nightgown, but now she had muddy boots on her feet.

  She looked . . . fetching. It was an old-fashioned term, something his grandparents would have used.

  ~~~

  Lucy said, “Sorry to disturb you, but I saw that your lights were still on and . . . I hope I didn’t make trouble. I didn’t mean to, I just . . .”

  The man stepped aside and waved her to come in. She slipped out of her boots, and with only socks on her feet now, came in.

  He said, “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Cole, and the kids are Adam, Perry and Megan. They didn’t mean to be rude and scare you like that.”

  The younger boy slid from his stool and stepped closer. He said, “I’m almost eight.”

  The bigger boy said, “No, he’s not, he’s seven and a half and barely that. I’m Adam, and I’m nine, but I’ll be ten in a few months from now.”

  Then he also slipped off his perch and bowed. As Lucy curtsied in return, the little girl giggled, and Adam blushed.

  Lucy said, “Lucy Monroe, lady of the tower.” Then she paused and said to them all: “Can you tell me what happened?”

  Perry’s eyes got big, and he said, “You don’t know?”

  Adam said, “Walking in your sleep, I bet. Or maybe it was the ghost after all, making you do stuff.”

  Cole said, “Adam, that’s nonsense.”

  But Megan took the lead on explaining what happened, and Lucy took over making the cocoa. It wasn’t a school night, after all, and it wasn’t a work night either.

  As Megan told her version of events, Lucy knew a man who was skeptical when she saw one. She couldn’t blame him; she was skeptical too.

  Working in the garden in her sleep—that made sense, given all the years she had done work like that in Africa. So much deskwork now when she was used to constant activity—well, it made for restlessness, and surely that’s all it was.

  Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop—wasn’t that the old saying?

  As for the ghost, well, that was another story, and maybe the folks in the boarding house would know more about that. She didn’t want to go into that now, in case the kids might have nightmares . . . yeah, that’s the reason.

  She said, “But why did you need the frogs? You’re not going to cut them up in biology class or something.”

  “No, you can’t,” cried the little girl to the boys.

  Megan then ran to Cole and pulled at his hand, as if trying to get him to do something.

  He managed to pull his hand away, but put it on her head instead, reassuring. The little girl leaned into his leg.

  He said, “Don’t worry, honey, I won’t let them do anything bad.” Then he said to the boys, “But it’s a good question, that.”

  The boys exchanged glances, and then the oldest one sighed. He said, “Gleason Dowdy said if we gave him some frogs, we could use his bike, that’s all.”Ó

  Perry said, “We don’t know what he’s going to do with them, but he doesn’t have any around where he lives. He’s just jealous, that’s all.”

  “You don’t have your own bike?” Lucy said.

  “They have bikes,” Cole said. “But they are being punished for riding them where they shouldn’t have been. Their mother’s orders—bike-less for a month, and they have a week to go.”

  Adam said, “Mom said we can’t use our bikes.”

  Cole smirked, but said, “A fine point, sneaky boy, but you forget that I know all the tricks. I was a boy long before I was your uncle.”

  Perry said, “But all the guys are going—”

  “Perry, shut up,” Adam snapped.

  Cole said, “Hey, don’t talk to your brother like that.”

  Megan, looking quite concerned, turned to Cole. “Are they going to fight? I hate it when they fight.”

  “There, happy?” Cole said to the boys.

  Adam and Perry clearly weren’t. They mumbled something about “Sorry, Megan.” And, “It’s all right, Megan.”

  Lucy was wondering what that was all about, but really it was none of her business. She decided to change the subject again, “Why did you think I was a ghost?”

  “Well, you wore that hat, like in the picture, and you never said anything, even when we asked, and you sang that song from when she was alive.”

  “What song?”

  Perry said wisely, “It’s an ancient chant about the magic in apple trees.”

  Adam said, “Idiot, it’s not. It’s about sitting under the apple tree. Isaac Newton sang that, I bet, but he wasn’t ancient, just old.”

  The adults were clearly both amused and puzzled.

  Megan hummed some.

  Lucy brightened. “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me.”

  The boys both said, “That’s the one.”

  Lucy laughed a little. “That was a World War Two song by the Andrews Sisters. My grandparents used to dance to that when they were kids, that’s all.”

  “Are you sure?” Perry demanded.

  Cole said, “Perry, that was rude.”

  The little boy blushed and bowed his head, but when his older brother poked at him, Perry said, “Knock it off, you thought so too.”

  “Thought what?” Cole demanded. “Come on, give it up.”

  Megan said, “Just tell them.”

  Still, the boys weren’t talking, so the little girl told them about the painting in the schoolroom of the old house—the boarding house.

  Lucy said, “Which is the schoolroom?”

  “It’s in the tower . . . well, part of it. You can’t get into it unless she lets you in.”

  Lucy said, “I didn’t know there was a schoolroom.”

  “Oh yes, it’s way up, the very top of the stairs. There’s some colored glass windows up there. Miss Mildred took Mom and me there when we first moved here. The boys were at school. We had a wonderful tea party there.”

  The little girl then went to the cupboards and pulled out a stepping stool. Then she stepped up to rummage in a drawer. Megan pulled out a few small envelopes and brought them to Lucy.

  Lucy looked at a few—they were addressed to ‘Miss Megan, Pond-Overlook Castle,’ and the return address was ‘Miss Mildred, Bower, the Tower House.’

  Lucy said, “How charming.”

  The boys didn’t agree, and made the noises accordingly.

  Cole just laughed.

  Inside the envelopes were formal invitations to tea, maybe like in the old days, like it used to be.

  “Mom came too sometimes, but usually she was too busy, or had to run-ands.”

  “Run errands?” her uncle said.

  The little girl nodded. “We had tea, that was really lemonade, with cookies that Miss Mildred called biscuits, and when Mom was there, they talked about the wars.”

  Lucy said, “Which wars?”

  Megan shrugged.

  Cole said, “Miss Mildred, she’s the spinster next door?”

  Lucy frowned at the word—too close to her reality too.

  He blushed at her reaction, but added, “My sister told me about her. Miss Mildred, I mean. She lost her fiancé to war, that’s all. My sister told me that—”

  He already said that.


  “Your sister?” Lucy said, also realizing that he’d mentioned that before.

  Perry said, “Yeah, Uncle Cole is Mom’s brother, just like we’re Megan’s brothers, only Mom is two years older. I think I would have liked that better—having an old sister, I mean.”

  Adam said, “Hey!”

  Lucy said, “Heavens, I thought . . .”

  In fact, she was relieved, and felt foolish that she didn’t notice the uncle references before. He was far too good-looking for her own good, and he was clearly good with kids too. She thought he was their dad. Not the first time families had been split, but the way he talked about their mother, there clearly had been love between them still.

  There was—it was the love between brother and sister. Lucy found herself smiling for no good reason.

  Cole explained, “I’m watching my sister’s brats while she’s in Kuwait with my brother-in-law for a few months, that’s all.”

  The kids laughed at that. Clearly they didn’t feel abused by him or his term—brats. Lucy suspected just the opposite, in fact, and that maybe he wasn’t very good at discipline.

  She said, “That sounds generous of you and your time.”

  He shrugged. “My sister married my best friend. We served together for years, and I thought I was going to make a career of it too, but I just felt the need to come home. I can’t explain it any better.”

  He didn’t have to.

  She said, “So what do you do, I mean, are you working, or just taking time . . .”

  Lucy felt herself blushing. She quickly said, “Cocoa is ready, where’s the cups?”

  The kids helped with that as Cole said, “I’m thinking about school, what I want to study—maybe some sort of environmental science. Water filtration, farm techniques for conservation, that sort of thing, I saw the need for that a lot in some places.”

  “We could have used your help in Africa, we got most of our help from books. It’s too bad that the people whose skills are really needed don’t often volunteer. I wish I had been more useful, but the church group used the hands they were offered.”

  “Africa? You’ll have to tell me about that some time.”

  “Deal,” she said, but then to the kids, she asked, “But what about that picture in the schoolroom you mentioned, Megan?”