Buffy was wandering aimlessly through the house, just checking things out. She could tell the rooms that had never been used or even looked at since sheets covered the furniture inside. It was a shame that there was so much house and not all of it was being used. It seemed like such a waste. If she did decide not to stay, she thought perhaps it’d be lucrative of her to open the place as a Bed & Breakfast.
Opening the doors to the ballroom, Buffy was stopped in her tracks.
“Holy shit,” she muttered.
“Ah, miss, I see you’ve found the flowers,” Edina said, coming up behind her.
“There’s a greenery in the ballroom! Where did all these come from?” Buffy questioned, bewildered as she took in the ballroom packed full of bouquet after bouquet.
“Your sister was loved. All these flowers are from the people and the families she helped.”
“Oh my God,” Buffy murmured. There had to be at least a hundred bouquets scattered about the room.
“We ran out of room in the house to keep them and it seemed such a shame to throw them out,” Edina explained.
Buffy nodded mutely and walked away from Edina and the room, feeling numb.
Buffy felt relief in getting out of the house and into town. Being out and about, she didn’t feel surrounded by so much death. The whole house was Dru, not hers, and everything there was another reminder that her sister was gone. And feeling sets of eyes on her constantly made her feel on edge.
Finally, she’d given up and asked if she could be taken into town. She’d utilize the service until she knew the lay of the land at least.
Settling on what appeared to be a small shopping area, Buffy strolled through the streets, going in this store and that, taking her time and acclimating herself to the environment that surrounded her. The town was nice; homey. All of it felt so surreal, as if she was in another time – and she was definitely in another place. She stopped inside a little market and was selecting fruits and vegetables to take back when she heard William’s deep voice in her ear.
“Spending some time out away from the house?”
She turned to find him with a bag full of tomatoes and a bag full of peppers. She smiled. “I am.”
“Now that’s nice,” William said, smiling.
“What is?”
“That smile. I think that’s the first smile I’ve seen on you.”
She grinned now. “Don’t tell anyone. Wouldn’t want that secret getting out.”
He put his hand over his heart. “I swear to not tell a soul.”
She snorted, “That includes the dead as well.”
He chuckled, “Done.”
She turned as if to walk away and then stopped, and turned back to him. “I saw the ballroom. The flowers that were sent to her. . . It was amazing.”
He nodded slowly. “She was well loved in this town.”
“Did you?”
“Pardon?” he said, his brow furrowing in confusion.
“Did you love her?”
“Didn’t you already ask me this question?”
“No. I asked you if you were involved. That’s different than asking if you were you in love with her. You can not be involved with someone and yet love them.”
He shook his head, “No,” he replied softly, “I was not in love with Dru. I loved her as a friend, nothing more.” He regarded her thoughtfully. “Would it bother if I had been in love with her?”
Yes, she thought, but I don’t know why. Instead of voicing that, she smiled, “This is an odd conversation to be having inside a market, isn’t it?”
He sidled up closer to her, a saucy grin on his handsome face. “You didn’t answer the question. Would it bother you if I said I had been in love with your sister?”
Buffy took a full step back, “No, not at all. I was just curious, that’s all. I guess I still subscribe to the notion that men and women can’t be friends.”
William chuckled, “Well then, I guess I can prove you wrong on that. We can be friends, can’t we Buffy?”
“You’re a lawyer,” she blurted out.
He let out a full laugh, “Oh don’t say it with such contempt. Surely there is something redeemable about me?”
She smiled warily, looking down. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I just meant that in a sense you work for me . . . in a roundabout way.”
“I knew what you meant. It’s all right. I was teasing you.”
“A-and yeah, we can be, you know, friends.”
“You really don’t have very many do you?”
Buffy shook her head, “Nope. I keep to myself.”
“You don’t get lonely?”
“Back to this again?”
He sighed, “Sorry, can’t help it. I’ve just heard a lot about you –“
“Then surely you know I’m not the pampered princess you accused me of being.”
He smiled sheepishly, “I apologize for that. I know you’re not. You have the air of a pampered princess, but I do know you have worked hard, still work hard. Anyway, I’ve heard a lot about you and I know this is going to sound strange, but I kind of feel as though Dru’s worries about you became mine.”
Buffy snorted. “That’s weird.” Off William’s hurt look, she quickly apologized. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that that way either. Things like that tend to wig me out.”
“’Wig’ you out. How?” he asked, cocking his head to the side, an inquisitive expression on his face.
“People worrying about me. I know Dru did, but it was still something I never got used to, and she was my sister. I grew up in an environment where no one cared if I was alive or dead, and without Dru around when I was growing up, I just . . . I inherited the bad traits my mom had.”
“Dru told me a lot about your family. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You weren’t there.”
“Buffy, I’m going to take a shot in the dark here, but will you have dinner with me this evening? I think getting away from the house has done wonders. You’re smiling and joking – I want to see if it’ll last a little longer.”
Buffy smirked, “Great. The house is like Amityville. It makes me depressed and nuts when I’m there. Way to make me want to stay there.”
William laughed, “You have a good point there. You know it’s not the house so much as…”
Buffy nodded, looking down. “I know.”
“So, will you?”
Taking a deep breath, Buffy decided to do the opposite of what she’d usually do for once. Why, she had no clue, but she had a sneaking suspicion it had to do with the reason she was so relieved to hear he hadn’t been in love with her sister. “Sure.”
William felt like a hormonal schoolboy. His palms were slightly sweating, his heart was racing and he kept fidgeting with his tie. He was taking Buffy out on a date.
He was sure she wouldn’t call it a date. No, she’d call it “just dinner”. All business and shut down Buffy would balk at the idea of this being a date. So, he tried to tell himself it wasn’t a date either. It was just a way for him to convince her to stay. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. He wasn’t the type to do something like that. He couldn’t take Buffy out; woo her essentially, to get her to stay. That was a horrible thing to do and though he’d promised Dru he’d do everything he could to get her to stay, he didn’t like the idea of playing upon her weakened state like that. He was sure she would hate to be described as being in a ‘weakened state’ right now. Buffy did not seem the type of woman that took kindly to having any weakness. She felt her gift was a weakness and look how she battled that.
Maybe she was able to deny it better in California, but here, it had to be bloody impossible. There was so much of her sister in the area, so many ghosties that wanted attention from her now that Dru was gone – no wonder she felt nuts. Fighting them off had to be a task and a half. He saw the weariness in her at the market. He also saw though, how much more at ease she seemed away from the house. The intrusions were most likely less in town than they were at the house.
Her smile, the way it lit up her whole face and had reached her eyes and made them sparkle, that had done it for him. He himself felt a stirring of something inside him that he had thought had died and would never return when Winifred had died. Truthfully, she’d stirred something in him before that, but that smile had cemented it. It wasn’t his promise to Dru or his determination to the cause that propelled him to ask her to dinner. It was just that he simply wanted to. She was such an enigma to him, and it wasn’t because she could see and talk with spirits. It was her. She was so wrapped tight in her protective armor, that she became something he wanted to uncover. He wanted to know what made her tick. The woman had a hell of a lot of passion inside her, and he wanted to determine the exact origin of it. He wanted her to unravel in a good way.
He hadn’t lied completely when he told her that Dru’s concerns had become his. After meeting her, they had. He did worry about her in that big house all by herself with nothing but the staff and the thing that go bump in the night to keep her company. She was a haunted woman, no pun intended, and the more he talked with her, the more he felt the need to help her.
“Good evening, Mr. Giles, “Buffy greeted him, coming down her stairs with an easy smile on her face. She wore a simple, spaghetti-strapped black dress that hugged her curves and accentuated her sun-kissed skin. The dress flowed to mid thigh and swished out when she walked. She was holding a black hand bag in her hand.
He gulped. “Good evening, Miss Summers.”
“Do I need a jacket?” she inquired, looking up at him.
“No. Buffy, can I tell you something?”
She shrugged, “Sure.”
“You look beautiful, pet.”
That seemed to disarm her a bit. She took a step back, looking positively alarmed and uncertain. Her eyelashes fluttered and she cleared her throat. “Thanks.”
He grinned, “You’re not used to receiving compliments are you?”
She cleared her throat again. “Uh, are we ready to go?”
Nodding, William opened the door for Buffy and couldn’t resist placing a hand at the small of her back as he led her to his car. Well, that’s something, he thought when she didn’t shrink away.