Kyle was right, of course and after her minibus driver tirade, Sibyl sought out Jemma and collapsed in a chair in her office, sipping at a fortifying cup of coffee that Tina made her to calm her down (something Tina had become adept at doing in the past year).
“I’m out-of-control,” Sibyl admitted to her friend.
Days before, when Jemma had asked at the bandage at her temple, she’d told her friend everything about Lacybourne. She had not told her mother or her sister, especially considering her premonitory dream and Colin Morgan’s part in that. Both women would have been in fits (especially if she described him in every luscious detail) and likely would have wanted her to go back and explore her options, crazy man or not, especially if she’d relayed the information that he’d told her he was “tempted”.
Tempted! Insane!
Jemma’s response to the story was odd.
“You say he covered you up at night when you were cold?” Jemma asked.
Sibyl stared at her but didn’t answer.
“And watched you playing with Mallory?” Jemma went on.
“Yes,” Sibyl drew out the word warningly, feeling the need to focus on the deviant parts of Colin Morgan’s personality, not the contradictorily kind ones that seemed to underlie them.
“And made sure you had something to eat and even… wine?” Jemma continued.
“What are you driving at, Jem?”
“Well, his behaviour is very bizarre, I’ll grant you that.”
“Why, thank you,” Sibyl voice was laced with disgruntled sarcasm.
“However, he did keep you in his home to watch over you after you banged your head.”
“He didn’t ‘keep me’, he imprisoned me and he only did it because he didn’t want my parents to sue,” Sibyl contradicted because she thought it was important to keep the facts straight.
Jemma ignored her. “He also fed you, looked in on you in the night, gave you something comfortable to wear and made sure you were warm.”
Sibyl let out an exasperated explosion of breath.
“I’m just saying,” Jemma placated with a shrug.
Sibyl abruptly changed the subject.
Now, days later, in Jemma’s office after the minibus debacle, Jemma watched her with her usual kindly reserve.
“Perhaps that bang on your head shook something loose,” Jem suggested unhelpfully.
“I don’t think I’m going to come to you for reassurance anymore,” Sibyl grumbled.
Jemma laughed. “I’m a mother. We tend, in certain situations, to lean more toward honesty than reassurance.”
“I’d say now was one of those ‘reassuring times’,” Sibyl countered.
Jem just shook her head wisely.
The day after Lacybourne, Sibyl called Steve, the paramedic, to tell him she was all right.
In return, Steve had asked her out on a date.
Even though she didn’t know him from Adam, because of her mother’s advice and her continued conversations with her animals (and perhaps a bit of desperation after Lacybourne), she’d accepted his invitation and, tonight, she was with him in a fashionable, popular club in Bristol.
Sibyl did not often date, no man ever met her expectations of what she’d always hoped for, or, more to the point, knew was her ideal. Although she loved to dance, she rarely went out to do it. She preferred doing things like breakfasts with Mrs. Byrne, chats over coffee with Kyle, Tina or Jem or her afternoon rendez vous with Meg then sitting in a pub getting snockered on pints. She spent a great deal of time in her Summer House, concocting lotions, shampoos, and experimenting with the varying, complicated scents that made her spa treatments so popular.
But she thought Steve was a safe bet. He was a paramedic, which was a caring profession. Logically, she thought, being in a caring profession meant he had to have a good heart.
Therefore, being in a busy, loud club with a man who, as a paramedic, had been quite attentive and appealing, but, as a date, was anything but, was a form of torture.
The evening had not started on a high note.
Steve had shown up at Brightrose Cottage and Mallory nearly took a bite out of him.
Scuttling to his car while Sibyl struggled with the snarling dog, he called out from the safety of the space between the car’s open door and body, “Whenever you’re ready!”
Clearly, he’s fearless, she thought sardonically, watching Steve quickly enter his flashy, chrome-plated Masda and slam the door and she gave up that little bit more of the fast-dwindling hope of ever finding the strong, brave, wonderful man she’d always thought she was destined to find.
“God, you look great!” Steve said enthusiastically when she finally entered the car.
She was wearing a pair of low slung, black trousers that had been way too expensive (even on sale) but she had to buy them since they fit her like they were made for her (something that didn’t happen often with her incongruously tiny waist but generous h*ps and bottom). Sibyl also had on a cherry red, satin blouse she’d stolen from Scarlett before moving to England. It had deep darts up each side of her midriff and each side of her spine, causing the blouse to fit snug around her middle and under her br**sts and forcing her to keep a daring amount of buttons open from neck to cle**age. She’d kept her hair down and slid her feet into a pair of high-heeled, sling-backed, bright red pumps that killed her feet because of the seriously pointy toe.
With a good deal of conversation in the car from Steve about Steve (without him asking about her once), after Sibyl and Steve made it to Bristol, he drove around for half an hour looking for the hard-to-find, inexpensive (as in free) parking spot. Once they located this elusive entity and Steve took four attempts at parallel parking into it, they walked, or more truthfully, hiked the long distance from car to club. This meant by the time they arrived they were late meeting his friends and, worse, Sibyl’s feet were killing her.
At the club she stood next to Steve as his mates (who collectively seemed to have more product in their overly-styled hair than Sibyl had used in her life) appraised her. Steve held her close with his arm around her waist, something that was too familiar since they barely knew each other, and he did it like she was a trophy he was showing off.
These good-looking but too trendy men all had woman who hung about behind them. It was as if the women were in some sort of cult that forced them to stand away from the masculine crowd but within earshot should the men ever require anything, like a pint. All of the woman stared at Sibyl with varying expressions ranging from awe to abhorrence. Definitely a close-knit crowd where strangers were not welcome.