The Throwbacks, Book 1 of The Scotland Yard Exchange Program Series

The Throwbacks, Excerpt #7

Dear readers, thank you very much for your continued support! Grace is struggling, but hopeful here as she goes on her first date with David to find there's another woman waiting...

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“You actually work for Scotland Yard?”  Grace asked him as they got out of the taxi in front of the O’Keefe’s house in Charlestown. 

“Technically, yes.  I’m with the Boston Police Department as the Director of their Exchange Program with the Met--Scotland Yard.”  He knocked on the door of the clapboard house. It wasn’t far from his Beacon Hill town house, but it was a far different kind of neighborhood within sight and sound of the harbor and Old Ironsides. 

“Technically speaking, what’s your official Scotland Yard title?” she asked with wide eyes.

“I was  Detective Chief Superintendent of the Flying Squad--before my... transfer,” he said, but he thought exile.

He’d called ahead and talked to Esther.  She said some day she would appreciate this as a funny episode and re-tell the story with hysterical laughter.  Tonight she was annoyed – concerned for her friend mostly.  But Esther was a good egg and she would try to help David finesse the fine line.  He had to promise he’d ask her friend out on a date – alone.  And he’d had to swear that he was not dating Grace.  Then he threw in the promise that he would never date any other Grace-like women in the future either.  He was no longer sure exactly what that meant, but he’d promised just the same, knowing deep down that it was all for his own good.

            He had to get serious about life again. Or was it that he had to get real? Now he was sounding like Grace.

            “Chief of the Scotland Yard Flying Squad!  That’s as good as Batman for me.” 

            “Pardon?”  Could he possibly have heard her correctly?  He turned to her to check and the look on her face took his breath away.

            “No, you’re much better because you’re real,” she said, a little breathlessly. She stared at him with her signature look of intense adoration.  He stared back and wondered how he was going to manage to give this up – to give her up.

            They were standing in front of the door that way, staring and leaning close, their eyes shuttering to that special hazy state and he was about to kiss her, yet again, when the door flung open.

            “Welcome, David.  It’s about time….”  Esther stopped abruptly and he turned to face her, clearing his throat. 

He put an arm protectively around Grace, without thinking why, just knowing he should.  “Good evening, Esther.  This is Grace Rogers, my decorator,” he said and smiled, regaining his poise in a hurry.

            ‘Yes. Well….hello.  You two….”  Esther, at a loss for words, gestured for them to come in. 

Luckily David knew his way.  He ushered the two ladies, both sleep walking through their haze of confusion for two very different reasons.

            Everyone else was there in the living room.  It was the perfect tableau.  He felt like he stepped into the denouement of a Miss Marples novel.  Dan struck a Dick Tracy pose by the fireplace sipping his martini.  A demure understated woman dressed in navy blue sat with her ankles crossed on a small chair and held an untouched glass of white wine.  A silver tray of crackers topped with various food items and skewered by tooth picks sat on a glass table.  The Chief’s teenaged son, Jason, had been sitting on the sofa and he popped up with that energy and awkwardness peculiar to his age group, and came forward, zeroing in on him to shake his hand.  No doubt the poor boy thought he’d brought Grace along to be his date to round out the coupling of the soiree.