Donovan’s Angel

Donovan’s Angel

Peggy Webb

The Donovans of the Delta – Book
1

Copyright 2011 Peggy Webb

Cover art design 2011 Kim Van Meter

Publishing History/Bantam Books, Inc.,/Loveswept

Copyright 1986 Peggy Webb

All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition

For the real Baby, who inspired the book.

The crisp, dry leaves rattled like old bones
as Martie swung her rake briskly back and forth. She sang as she
worked, lifting her lusty contralto voice in joyful abandon.
Nearby, a large blue-gray Siamese cat gingerly tested the growing
pile of leaves with a delicate paw.

Plop! A tattered marigold landed at Martie’s
feet. “Why, thank you, Baby.” Dropping the rake, she knelt beside
her gangly-legged golden retriever puppy and playfully scratched
the soft, pale fur under her neck. “Where have you been this
morning?”

Baby’s tail thumped the ground as she bathed
her adored owner’s hand with a wet, pink tongue.

Giving her puppy one last pat, Martie picked
up the drooping yellow flower and stuck it behind her ear. Baby
pranced happily around the yard, stopping long enough to give the
cat a thrill by nipping at his tail, and then she disappeared
through a gap in the tall clapboard fence.

Martie finished raking and sat beside an
unkempt flower bed to attack the weeds that had established
residence there. She reveled in the feel of the black, loamy earth
under her hands. Her patch of earth, she thought. Her house. Her
town. It felt wonderful to belong someplace, and she was glad all
over that she had chosen this little town to settle down in after
all her vagabond years. The minute she’d seen Pontotoc she had
known that this was a good place to hang her hat. There was a
feeling of permanence about it, a solid sense that generations had
sat under its ancient oak trees and that countless others would
come along to enjoy the splendid rapport between civilization and
nature in this sleepy Southern town.

Absorbed in her work and her thoughts, Martie
was completely unaware of the growing pile of marigolds behind her.
Marigolds without leaves, marigolds with roots, marigolds with
tattered heads, homeless marigolds gasping for breath in the jaws
of Baby. As Martie turned to reach for a trowel, she saw the
mountain of wilting flowers and the golden wave of Baby’s tail as
she disappeared through a hole in the fence.

“Good grief! What have you done?” She
clutched a mutilated marigold. “Come back here!” The dog blissfully
ignored the command.

The quickest way to see what her rambunctious
pet was up to was to climb the oak tree, jump down on the other
side of the fence, and follow her. She just hoped an irate gardener
with a gun wasn’t waiting on the other side. Knotting her bright
peasant skirt between her legs, she grabbed a low-hanging branch
and swung up the tree. Quickly she shinned up the trunk, her legs
navigating the limbs with ease. Branches snatched at her topknot of
white-gold hair, pulling random curls down around her neck and
forehead. She straddled a fat limb and inched along until she was
on the other side of the fence. Parting the leaves, she peered down
into total devastation. A once proud flower bed was almost naked,
and her pet was digging with a vengeance, determined to strip the
bed of its few remaining flowers.

“No, Baby,” she called sharply.

Doleful brown eyes lifted up to the sound of
a familiar voice. There was a moment’s pause as clouds of dust
settled to the ground; then, reluctantly, Baby stopped digging and
scampered back through the fence.

Martie judged the distance to the ground. It
was time to face the music. Maybe she would get lucky. Maybe the
owner of this flower bed was allergic to marigolds and had been
planning to have them dug up anyway. She looked at the ground
again. The fence was taller than she had imagined, and the tree
trunk was on the other side. She would have to swing down from the
limb, Tarzan style. Of course she had done more daring things in
her lifetime, but she was partial to her bones. She didn’t relish
the idea of breaking them for the sake of a few flowers.

The bark scraped her knee as she shifted her
legs and dangled from the limb. She lost her precarious grip, and
the upturned earth met her body with a soft
whump
! With
her face in the dirt and her rump saluting the breeze, she wriggled
experimentally. Thank goodness, nothing seemed to be broken.

“Well, hello there.”

The resonant tones of that voice vibrated all
the way down to her toes. She twisted her upended bottom so fast
that she made lightning look slow. Underneath the smudges, her face
was bright pink. “Hi,” she said as she looked up into the face of a
very large man. He had a pair of silver-gray eyes that were
startlingly light in the deep tan of his face, and a lock of black
hair hung down over his forehead as if mussed by the careless hand
of a loving wife. Martie felt a quick flash of irritation at the
loving wife, and the unexpected thought muddled her usually sharp
mind. “I’m planting flowers.” Her hands sifted aimlessly through
the dirt.

“I beg your pardon.” His lips curved upward
into the most remarkable smile she had ever seen. Sunshine and
rainbows and Christmas-morning joy all seemed to be wrapped up in
that smile.

Her violet eyes widened a fraction as she met
that disconcerting smile. Reluctantly she tore her eyes away from
the mobile mouth and focused her attention on his chin. It was
square and steady, with a cleft on its beard-shadowed surface. A
small puff of wind whispered through the leaves of the tree and
playfully lifted the gleaming tendrils of hair off her forehead as
she sat silently, acknowledging the presence of the man standing
above her. Theirs was a meeting as ancient as time, a primitive
recognition of the magic that flows between man and woman.

As the knowledge surged through her, her
confidence returned. “I’m Martie Fleming, your new backyard
neighbor.”

“I’m Paul Donovan.” He couldn’t tear his eyes
away from the Botticelli-angel face. It was the first time in his
thirty-five years that he’d felt tongue tied. There must be
something that he needed to say, but all he could think of was
bending down to wipe the smudge from her suntanned cheek. Instead,
he extended his hand. “Here,” he said. “Let me help you up.” If he
thought it was strange that a woman had fallen from the sky into
his flower bed, he didn’t say so. He was too busy counting his
blessings.

Martie took his hand and sprang lightly to
her feet. “I came to apologize about your flowers. My dog decided
to do some fall gardening. I’m afraid that all your marigolds are
in a dying heap in my backyard.”

He decided that her voice was like music.
Angel music. She could have told him that his blue jeans were on
fire and he wouldn’t have moved a muscle. He was too entranced by
the vision that had dropped into his life. “I was never partial to
marigolds.”

“What a relief. I expected at least twenty
lashes.”

“Apparently so did your dog. Where is
he?”

“He’s a she. A four-month-old golden
retriever
puppy
who has her lovable moments. Today is not
one of them.” She scanned the immaculate yard. “She never hangs
around when she knows justice is at hand.”

Paul’s smile widened. He couldn’t imagine her
meting out justice. She seemed so much more at home with laughter.
Gray eyes met violet, and the Indian summer day took on a golden
hue. Martie forgot about the marigolds, and he forgot that he had
come outside to get his socks off the clothesline.

“I’m glad you did,” he said.

“Did what?”

“Hang around.”

“For my punishment?” She had a generous
smile, a perfect showcase for teeth that were even and as white.
Paul decided that everything about her was perfect. Even the dirt
on her face suited the gamine he saw peering out of her remarkable
eyes. Such eyes! As if God had mixed a bit of sky with dark purple
flowers and thrown in a dash of sunshine for good measure.

“No, for a cup of tea.”

Martie swiped the dirt on her cheek and
smeared it behind her ear. “It’s the best I can do on such short
notice.” The pixie smile flashed again. “And I do adore get
acquainted parties. Do you have lots of sugar? If we’re going to
make this a neighborly tradition—sharing tea—I have to warn you
that I consume more sugar than a honey bear.”

Paul loved the way she talked with her whole
body. Rows of plastic bracelets jangled on her arm, her long dangle
earrings swayed with the motion of her head, and the ruffles on her
off-the-shoulder blouse floated around her, punctuating her
phrases. Somehow it seemed perfectly natural to him that she would
wear such a flamboyant outfit to climb a tree. “I’ll remember
that,” he replied.

The screeching of tires shattered their magic
world, and they focused their attention on the impressively large
woman emerging from an antique baby blue Cadillac. “Yoo-hoo!” she
called. Her voice was only twice as loud as the orange flowers on
her tent dress. The slamming of her car door resounded in the still
October day, and she rolled toward them with the purposefulness of
an army tank. “I have to talk . . .”

She stopped in mid-sentence as she became
aware of the silver-blond haired woman standing in the ruined
flower bed. As her eyes roamed over the dirty face, the flashy
jewelry, and the skirt, brazenly tied between the woman’s bare
legs, Miss Beulah Grady’s nose seemed to rearrange itself on her
face.

“I wasn’t aware that you had company.” Coming
from her pursed lips,
company
sounded like the biggest
scourge since the bubonic plague.

Unaware of the hurricane brewing behind Miss
Beulah’s tight face, Paul made the introductions. “We were just
going inside for a cup of tea, Miss Beulah. Won’t you join us?”

“As a matter of fact, a spot of tea might
help. I didn’t sleep a wink last night for thinking about the
disaster that has struck our little community. It’s a sin and
disgrace. A dis-
grace
.”

She billowed along behind Paul and Martie,
talking every breath. The screen door banged shut behind her as
they entered a high-ceilinged parlor. Miss Beulah Grady settled
into an overstuffed chair with sagging springs and propped her
hands on her fat knees. And continued to talk.

“You two make yourselves at home while I get
the tea.” Paul winked at Martie. He had no qualms whatsoever about
leaving her with Pontotoc’s self-appointed watchdog of morality.
Anybody who could fall out of a tree and handle herself with such
aplomb would be safe with Attila the Hun. He whistled as he worked.
Life was full of wonderful surprises, he reflected. And today’s
surprise had come in a package that fairly took his breath
away.

o0o

Martie only half listened to Miss Beulah’s
chatter as she studied the parlor. Odds and ends of furniture that
looked as if they had recently come from somebody’s attic were
scattered around the large room. A brand new sofa occupied the
center of the room, its unsullied brightness making everything else
seem faded. She smiled. Whatever else his vices were, it couldn’t
be said of Paul Donovan that he craved material possessions. Oh,
she liked the man. She liked him immensely.

Miss Beulah interrupted her thoughts. “What
do you do, Miss Fleming? You never did say.”

“What do I do about what, Miss Grady?” Martie
didn’t know why she said that. On occasion her impish sense of
humor had caused her friends to call her perverse. She leaned back
in her chair and noticed that her skirt was still knotted between
her legs. She might as well leave it, she decided. As a matter of
fact, she kind of liked it that way.

“For a
living
.” Miss Beulah had a
habit of emphasizing words when she was riled. And there was no
doubt about it: the woman sitting in the parlor riled her
considerably.

“I teach.”

“You don’t look like any teacher I ever saw .
. . that funny-colored hair and all. I was telling Essie Mae the
other day. . . Essie Mae, I said, what’s this world coming to when
a woman can go down to the drugstore and buy her hair color in a
bottle?”

“My hair is natural.”

“You sure could have fooled me. And those
clothes
. I never saw any teacher wearing such a getup as
that.”

“I wasn’t teaching today. I was working in my
yard.”

“You do yard work in that . . . that gypsy
skirt?”

“Of course. I’m not bound by convention. I
wear whatever suits my mood.” She glanced up as Paul entered the
room. He had overheard her last remark, and his eyes were crinkled
at the corners and twinkling with mirth. Martie flashed a radiant
smile in his direction and wished she had fallen out of his tree
sooner.