Reverend Toby Bishop was a short stocky
thirty-four-year-old hard-working cleric, with mousy hair and brown eyes, who
some might have accused of being too eager to please, but the fact was that he
was dedicated to his calling and had a heart as big as the moon.
He had two distinguishing features, a
sometimes-frowny countenance and protruding ears, and one overpowering
weakness, Steph Baldwin.
However, he had reluctantly come to accept that
she was a lost cause romantically.
Having had her eyes opened by Kitty and Erin she
decided to go for a long walk to clear her head and get her jumbled thoughts in
some kind of order, she was on a day’s leave, so she had time.
It was normally a 40-minute walk from the Shepherds
Row area of the village to her cottage in the Vicarage Terrace, which were at
one time Alms houses, it wasn’t a huge cottage, but she loved it.
However,
that day she took a very unconventional route as her brain was not
concentrating on geography, so it took longer, not that she noticed.
She was recalling every meeting, each verbal
exchange, to see if there was something she’d missed that others hadn’t.
In truth it didn’t reveal anything but then she
had never been very good at reading the signs.
As she turned a corner, she spotted PC Grant
outside the corner shop talking to another customer, but he didn’t see her and
she didn’t make herself known she just pressed on past the shop and reengaged
the viewer in her head.
Then she picked up the walking pace and performed
an assessment of Toby Bishop, first of all she liked the name, Toby had always
been one of her favourites.
He was also a kind hardworking cleric who was
well loved and respected in the parish, he was not the best-looking man in the
world, with a sometimes-frowny countenance and protruding ears but his face
like his demeanour had character.
A definite plus was his short stature, she was
only 5 foot 2 so men tended to tower over her, the addition of four-inch heels
helped but she didn’t like wearing heels and she wouldn’t need to with him.
The sound of a car horn ended the deliberations
in her head, and she suddenly snapped back to reality, and realised it was
getting dark, so she took a few moments to get her bearings and rushed homeward
wishing she was home already.
Then as she rushed headlong round a corner she
met someone coming the other way and they both ended up on their backsides on
the pavement.
“I’m so sorry” she said getting quickly to her
feet and proffering a hand to the prostrate figure which they took, who turned
out to be the Curate.
“Nonsense” he replied, “I wasn’t looking where I
was going, my mind was elsewhere”.
“Mine too” Steph said “are you ok? Are you hurt?”
“Only my pride” he replied
They dusted themselves off and there was a brief
moment of awkwardness.
“Anyway” he said “Duties to perform, things to
do”
“Yes” she agreed and launched herself at him and
kissed to within an inch of his life
“I’m sorry but that was a thing I had to do” she
said while he was still catching his breath and then she wondered if she’d gone
too far
“I hope it was something you wanted to do too”
She got her answer when he gave her a dose of her
own medicine.
When they parted company, less clumsily than the way they had come together, he went on his way because he really did have things to do and on her journey home she mused on what had been a remarkable few hours, she had gone from complete indifference towards him to not being able to wait until she saw him again, not that she would have to wait long as they were meeting for a drink that evening.
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