Pitch Black (Romantic Thriller, Completed)

Chapter 7

Without Toby on my back, I was eating too much junk food, and I didn't have the energy to work it off. At this rate, I'd be straining at the seams of my newly purchased yoga pants and reciting the number of the local takeaway in my sleep. It was a slippery slope to the life of a couch potato, and I stood perilously close to the edge.

I took a seat next to Carol and tuned out as the conversation turned to gardening. My horticultural knowledge covered three areas—what I could eat to survive, which plants had healing properties, and those I could use to poison people. The characteristics of a prize-winning dahlia passed me by.

A huff from Carol brought me back to the present.

"Fenton Palmer doesn't know his aster from his elder."

The man at the head of the table sighed. "But he's agreed to sponsor the show, so we have to let him be on the judging panel. We've booked the hall, and now we just need to agree on the classes."

Oh dear. Eight voices got louder and louder as the committee began arguing. They must have been getting tips from the parish councillors, because nobody wanted to listen to anybody else, and they couldn't agree on anything.

While fascinating to watch, my nerves were wearing thin. If this discussion kept up, I'd miss lunch, and Carol had promised sticky toffee pudding for dessert. Fingers tapping, I waited for the next gap in the conversation, which took such a long time to appear I began to think the manned probe to Mars would arrive back sooner, and that hadn't even taken off yet, for crying out loud.

"Why don't you have a vote?" I asked. They looked at me like I'd grown another head, so I elaborated. "How about we put all the ideas on a list, and each one that gets six or more votes goes on the schedule?"

There were murmurs of assent from around the table.

"About bloody time someone came up with a sensible idea," a man wearing a tweed cap muttered. He looked as if he'd be more at home on a tractor.

We soon had the number of classes down to thirty-five, which everyone agreed was reasonable, and I looked at my watch. Eleven thirty. I just had time for another slice of cake before we went back to Carol's. And yes, it was damn good cake.

I was trying to balance my teacup and plate in one hand while I pulled out a chair with the other when the tweed-cap man sidled up to me.

"George," he said, sticking his hand out.

I gave up and put everything down on the table. "Ashlyn." I held out my hand. "Nice to meet you."

"I was wondering if you're going to be a permanent member of the committee? We could do with some younger people, especially ones who've got their heads screwed on straight and don't try to include a class for the potato that looks most like Elvis."

A genuine suggestion, and one that had garnered three votes.

"Afraid not. I'm staying with Carol at the moment, but I'm not sure how long for. I need to look for a job, and I doubt I'll find anything suitable near here."

"What kind of a job?"

"I'm not exactly sure. Maybe waitressing or bar work. Or cleaning. Something casual."

"Do you know anything about horses?"

Horses? As a matter of fact, I did. I had one back home in Virginia—just one more thing I was missing.

When I acquired him, I hadn't been planning to buy a horse. I'd been planning to buy a cold drink and a plane ticket to the Arctic, seeing as I was driving back to the airport from a meeting in southern Spain in heat so oppressive I thought my brain was going to melt out through my ears.