FOLLOW YOUR HEART

Chapter 19 - A Warm Autumnal Glow

VISIT #5 - OCTOBER

Camila couldn't believe the tour was almost over. The beginning of October had started with the Asian dates, and then she had gone home to visit her family, where she'd come down with a bad case of tonsillitis. She had been planning to spend the time until they went to London with Shawn, but as it was, she was lucky she was finally well enough in time to fly to the UK for their visit. Shawn had been there two days, so their dates would have to be pushed forward, and now she would be flying out from London straight to Santiago de Chile landing two days before her first show, but they were combining both the October and November visits and had been intending on staying for twelve days, now it would be reduced to ten, still a nice long visit. The flight out of Miami had been delayed due to mechanical issues with the aircraft, so instead of arriving mid afternoon, she now arrived in the middle of the night. The limo couldn't get to her until five am, so she had almost three hours to wait in the VIP lounge, but because it was that time of night, half the facilities were closed. She fell asleep in the chair in the lounge and when she awoke it was six am. She had missed her pick-up. The limo had waited twenty minutes and tried to call her a number of times, but the sound was off on her phone and she didn't hear it, nor the calls from Shawn. She called the limo company back on the number from her missed call and managed to book another car to pick her up at seven. Shawn wasn't answering his phone but she left a message. So by the time she pulled into the drive at Unger Hall it was almost midday. She was absolutely shattered and staggered out of the car.

Tally was waiting.

"Where's Shawn?" she asked, yawning. Tally looked a little embarrassed.

"I'm so sorry Miss Camila, but Pam's car broke down and I was in the middle of making lunch so Master Shawn went to save the day, and it appears that she needs a whole new tyre, it had a spike right through it, and so he had to walk into the village to the tyre place to get them to come out and do it because it's a dead spot along that road, mobile phones don't work..."

"It's OK Tally. I'm going to go up and shower and go to bed, I'm just exhausted."

"Oh, I've made pumpkin and sweet potato soup and some bread, are you sure you don't want any?"

He sounded so disappointed she couldn't refuse him. "Hey, why don't you bring me up a tray in about half an hour or so? I'll have it then, before I sleep."

He looked pleased and nodded and then carried her bags and they both took the elevator because she was too tired to climb the stairs. In the bedroom, Tally had made the bed and Shawn's presence was evident, which was a nice feeling. She missed him terribly, it had felt like a long time since she had seen him, held him, kissed him. He hadn't wanted to draw the spotlight from her tour, so he hadn't visited her on any of her dates, he was too well known and easily identified in that part of the world. And he needed to be working anyway.

She had just braided her damp hair when Tally knocked on the door and she opened it to find he held a tray of soup, warm bread with farm fresh butter, and a nice cup of tea. It was the perfect Fall meal, or autumn as it was called in the UK. Her stomach rumbled and she smiled. Maybe she should eat before she slept. She thanked him and sat in bed, eating the soup and mopping it up with the bread. She put the tray on the desk and could barely keep her eyes open as she slid under the blankets. As she began to fall asleep she thought about Shawn and how much she loved him. They spoke or messaged or FaceTimed – usually all three – every day unless it couldn't be helped. Things were good between them, but life was just really busy. She had this last leg of the tour and then they had some performances to do at various holiday celebrations, and Christmas with their families and finally January, when they had the whole month together here at Unger Hall, with one more quick visit between now and then.