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For his part, Andrew has decided to harden his heart against falling in love again but Jill's fresh and frank approach to life threaten to break down the barricades he’s erected around his heart.
Jill can't understand Andrew’s changing moods, and even more, her own confused feelings for 'Mr Bossy', as she has nicknamed him.
As fireworks burst over Edinburgh Castle, Jill and Andrew must decide whether the fireworks sparking between them will lead to love or a parting of the ways.
• • •
‘Is that your car?’ he shouted up at her.
‘Yes,’ she called back.
‘You can’t park there!’ he yelled. ‘That’s my space.’
‘OK, I’m sorry,’ Jill called down to him. ‘I didn’t know. I’m new here.’
‘Aren’t you going to move it then?’ His face glared up at her, and even from two storeys up, she could make out the flash in his dark eyes. His stance reinforced his mood, hands on hips, long legs set apart, gripping the pot-holed tarmac of the parking area with a ferocity she couldn’t miss.
‘I’ve just washed my hair. Can you give me ten minutes while I dry it?’
‘No!’ The bellow reverberated around the buildings. Jill could well imagine numerous faces half hidden behind twitching curtains watching and listening to the contretemps. She sighed, closed the window, and gave her wet hair another rub with the towel, then slipped on a jacket and headed for the door.
*
The natives don’t seem all that friendly, she said to herself, as she flip-flopped her way down two flights of tenement stairs. The stairs wound round and round in an open spiral, and Jill held onto the brass balustrade as she descended. Wrought iron banisters coiled in fanciful flowers below the balustrade. Someone, many years ago, had taken a lot of time and care in fashioning them, she thought.
All the way down she tried to think of smart put-downs for Mr. Bossy outside, but her brain still wasn’t up to speed after her flight. At the landing window, she glimpsed him pacing up and down beside Linda’s car. His Mercedes still had its engine running.
Waster, she thought, more money than sense. Using up his fuel and polluting the atmosphere. No green credentials, him.
When she opened the door into the back court, he turned towards her. She could see how tall he was now; upstairs, the height had foreshortened him.
‘Thank goodness!’ he exclaimed. ‘Now shift your car and let me in.’
‘What’s the magic word?’ It was out before she could think. Jill’s infamous ‘open mouth before engaging brain’ syndrome.
‘Pardon?’
‘No, not that but at least it’s a start.’
He glowered at Jill while she tried to stand as tall and straight and important as her five feet four inches, wet hair, and flip-flops would allow. She met his eye and held his gaze.
‘Don’t be so childish,’ he said, ‘and hurry up and move your car.’
Glaring at him, Jill climbed into the driver’s seat of Linda’s Yaris and attempted to start it.
It coughed and died. She tried again, and the same thing happened. What had Linda said about the car? ‘It was a great bargain, though it is a wee bit tetchy about starting. A touch temperamental, in fact.’ Sounds like Mr. Bossy here, she thought. ‘But just jolly it along a bit and it will get going.’ Well, that was something she wasn’t going to try with Mr. Bossy, though the sooner he got going the better. But she decided to try it on the car.
‘Come on now,’ she said out loud. ‘Try your best. You know you can do it.’ The engine coughed and spluttered. ‘That’s it. That’s the job. Come on, just a bit more.’
The engine caught, and she revved it up to make sure. ‘Wonderful! See, I told you that you could do it.’
She glanced round to see Mr. Bossy staring bemusedly at her. She wound down the window, gave him a wink, and shouted, ‘No worries!’ before reversing out of the space and parking in her designated bay.
She watched as he swung the sleek, black Mercedes into the spot she’d occupied. He jumped out, clicked the lock, and hurried into the entrance of the apartments.
• • •
Ann Burnett was born in Scotland where she now lives but has travelled extensively and lived in Canada and Australia.She has published short stories, articles and children’s stories, as well as writing a novel, Loving Mother, as part of her Masters in Creative Writing. She is an experienced Creative Writing tutor and adjudicator for the Scottish Association of Writers.
Her short stories have been published in New Writing Scotland, Glasgow University Creative Writing anthologies, My Weekly, That’s Life (Australia), Woman's Weekly and the Weekly News. Her collection of short stories, Take a Leaf out of My Book, is available on Amazon.
Her memoir, illustrated with her father's photos, A Scottish Childhood, Growing up a Baby Boomer has just been published.
But perhaps she is best remembered for writing Postman Pat stories for a children's comic every week for five years. A labour of love indeed!
Find Ann Online:
Website - http://www.annburnett.co.uk
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ann.burnett31266
Twitter - https://twitter.com/annburnett3
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ambur66
Tirgearr Publishing - http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Burnett_Ann
