His Plain-Jane Cinderella

by Jennie Adams

  He’d rescued her when Gemma and Andrew had visited, and Stacie had thought she was just grateful for Troy’s input, even somewhat embarrassed that he’d worked out the situation. But he’d stepped into that situation determined to help her.

  And she had loved him for it. Loved him for reluctantly making friends with a little stray dog, too, and for helping a girl fix a roof in the middle of the night when he didn’t have to do that.

  For limping into her life and being frustrated that his life wasn’t perfect, that he’d suffered losses too, but determined to make a go of it anyway. He’d done that, even when he’d lost his army roots and all that it must have meant to him. He’d lost a fiancée into that bargain. Stacie had admired him and somehow, without realising it, she’d found strength within herself by knowing him.

  The strength to fall for him.

  ‘Stacie. Are you all right?’ His deep words held concern, care for her, and willingness to blame himself swiftly and fully if she was hurting.

  When he went on, his words only confirmed that fact. ‘If I’ve made you uncomfortable…’

  ‘I am, but not that way.’ How could she regret what they’d shared? She searched his face, realised how dear it had become to her, each feature. She had held him, stroked her fingers over his cheeks, nose, mouth and forehead.

  He’d done the same and in his touch there had been tenderness, giving, and in what they had shared an emotional connection that defied either of their understanding.

  Don’t imagine he felt that way, just because you did.

  But you are in love with him, Stacie. Deeply, utterly, all the way in love with him, and there’s no going back from that.

  She felt elated, shocked, amazed. Stunned. And terrified. Oh, so scared. That she would love Troy, love him with all her heart, with such depth of herself that she looked at him and she had to fight and hope that her feelings weren’t visible on her face.

  She’d done something that she’d promised herself she would never, ever do again and had invested her heart and emotions in a man.

  Yet it was so different from how she’d felt about Andrew. That now felt like some weak, shadowy impression of love. These feelings for Troy filled her. How could she have missed this onslaught, allowed it to fully form within her before she stopped it?

  How could she stop it now? Yet she had to. She couldn’t risk this. Troy himself had said he didn’t want that kind of involvement.

  ‘I’m all right, Troy.’ The words were husky and nowhere near convincing enough. She cleared her throat, tried to pull herself together, to come up with words to convince him.

  Of what? That their love-making hadn’t changed her life? Because in the end it had. They’d made love, and Stacie had slipped so gently over the line all the way into love with him that she hadn’t realised it had happened.

  How could she trust any man to commit to loving her, and not be swayed or distracted when someone prettier, smarter or more appealing came along? Or when he decided he didn’t want to be in love after all?

  Troy had already made that decision.

  ‘It’s all right, Troy. Truly.’ She drew a breath, forced words to form and emerge in a coherent way, in a way that just had to convince him. ‘We shared a special night together. You don’t have to apologise for that happening. I’d be sorry if you did because I valued it. What we shared…’

  ‘Was special.’ He seemed to search for words, to feel as out of his depth as she did.

  But not for the same reasons.

  Troy drew a breath. They weren’t touching. They stood in her kitchen, drinks poured, the ritual dispensed with, but neither of them cared about it. His gaze flickered over her face, caressed as though it were a touch, before he seemed to pull himself up, seemed shocked perhaps by his own reaction. ‘I’m not a man made for a girl like you, Stacie. I had my one chance at that, and when I became injured—’

  ‘Was she very beautiful, Troy?’ Was that why Troy couldn’t settle for someone so obviously outshone by her sister, by both her sisters? Though Troy had not yet met Angie.

  ‘Linda? I suppose so.’ He seemed to brush the question off as though it were irrelevant. ‘She didn’t want a highly emotional relationship, and that was why we suited, until the changes in my career-path ended that.’

  Stacie tried to listen, tried to hear with her mind, not her heart—because it was full of love for him and already hurting, because it was so clear this couldn’t work, that she was on her own in those feelings. He didn’t share them. He didn’t want to and, even if she had tried to fight them off, they’d caught her without her permission.

  Troy would have been caught, too, if love was meant to be between them. Stacie wouldn’t call herself a romantic. She’d been against the idea of ever committing to a man again! But she believed that much.

  ‘It’s not about Linda, Stacie.’ Troy led the way to the kitchen table, cleared another chair and waited for her to sit on it before he sat at the end of the table, facing her.

  Their knees could bump; that was the ridiculous thought that went through Stacie’s mind as she sat. She could bump knees with him.

  She craved his touch. Even now, as she fought herself, she craved the chance to step into his hold again, to express all that was inside her for him. ‘I know it’s not about Linda. It’s about a night we shared that mustn’t be repeated.’

  Because, if it was, Stacie would only fall even more deeply in love with him and then it would be harder still to go forward. ‘We don’t suit, you and I. We make good neighbours, and you’re a good boss, but you have your limits as a man and I have mine.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  He agreed so quickly, with such conviction, that it was difficult not to feel humiliation.

  And yet in the back of his eyes there was something she couldn’t define that made her pause—that looked as far from a rejection of her as it could be. That looked…hurt? But his words…

  She was clutching at straws, hoping he would care for her in a way that he didn’t.

  ‘There’ll be awkwardness, Stacie, but I want us to overcome it.’

  He went on, forcing past the feeling that she was rejecting him for the same reason Linda had ended it. ‘I don’t understand why I allowed such a loss of self-control, but you can rest assured it won’t happen again. We can go on as before knowing that I don’t have any desire…’

  You do. You do still desire me.

  She wanted to say it and make him agree to it, wanted to force him to admit what she was certain she’d seen in his eyes. There was at least some attraction to her still within him.

  Well, apparently, if there was he wanted to crush it as quickly as he could! Humiliation tried to cut through her where it had sliced its way in the past. This time she had to be stronger. She had to.

  Stacie tipped up her chin and forced her gaze to return to beautiful pieces of padded cloth and trims, buckles, straps and bindings. ‘I appreciate you coming over to speak to me about this, Troy. I’d have come to see you if you hadn’t done that.’

  She didn’t know if she would have or not, but it was best to say it. Even if the words hurt, Stacie would finish all of them. ‘I want to value you as a friend.’

  ‘I’ll still help you with any DIY projects you have, if you want me to.’ His lips twisted in an almost bitter line. ‘Anything I’m capable of.’

  She didn’t understand why he’d even passed that negative comment! He was certainly capable of everything any other person could achieve, even if it was through sheer bloody-mindedness and taxing on his physical abilities. That determination was one of the things she loved about him. ‘I need some time, Troy, to come to terms.’ With how she felt about him, and how she was supposed to manage those feelings when she didn’t know how to end them or even try to get th
em under better control.

  Irony rose in her thoughts and she spoke before she could censor them. ‘I need to see my sister, go home and visit while she and Andrew are there. I’m going to be an aunt. I’d like to sew for the baby, be comfortable around Gemma again.’

  Troy frowned. ‘If that’s what you need, but he hurt you.’

  And now Troy had hurt her a great deal more, but he hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t done anything that Stacie hadn’t fully wanted and embraced. It was just that their love-making had released the love inside her for him and he couldn’t and didn’t return that. ‘Maybe Andrew just trained me to be stronger, and to recognise when I’m better off by myself.’

  ‘I understand, Stacie. It’s what I thought, too.’ Though Troy had come here to say exactly these things to Stacie, he had to work to force the words out as he agreed with her. It was just that Stacie had had her say too, and she’d let him know that she wasn’t prepared to stretch to try to be with someone who had his limitations physically. He’d told her he couldn’t give to her emotionally. Maybe he’d misunderstood the rest.

  What does it matter, Rushton? The end result is the same. You know you’re no good for her. That’s how it is. The words had to be said. She agreed with them. It’s easiest for both of you now because you’ve agreed on your terms.

  That should fix everything.

  So why did Troy feel as though the bottom had just fallen out of his world when, aside from being his neighbour and someone who worked at the plant he owned, Stacie had no other impact on his world?

  No? Then why did he think of her all the time? Why had holding her in his arms and receiving the gift of intimacy from her felt so special, so amazing? Why had it opened a yawning place inside his chest that seemed hungry to be filled and yet which Troy had no idea how to fill?

  Troy didn’t have the answers. All he knew what to do was give her the emotional space she’d asked for. He ought to know how to give that. After all, it was what was lacking in him that meant he could never be all that she needed!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘THE situation is out of hand.’

  ‘I can assure you, as Mayor of Tarrula—’

  ‘Take a look around you, Mayor. It doesn’t matter what you have to say, or even whether you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and lend a personal hand. If we don’t get this levee bank in place a lot faster than is happening, the whole town will be under water before nightfall!’

  It was Friday morning of the following week. Steady rain through the week had pushed the river to the brink of its banks. Now, massive rains overnight that had managed to escape the predictions of the weather bureau had forced the water over the top.

  The floods weren’t critical.

  Yet.

  But there was a lot more water coming.

  Troy’s gaze narrowed as he examined the area. Stacie stood at his side. That was a whole other state of emergency that Troy needed to deal with because walking away from her, ruling a line under what they’d shared and saying it mustn’t happen again, wasn’t working for him.

  He missed her. Though he saw her across the way each day—had been in to the plant on several occasions and spoken to her there, had visited with Houdini as he and Stacie pretended all was well, helped her shift trestle tables around in her back room to create more space for her Bow-wow-tique work—all was not well.

  They were going through motions of normalcy and neighbourliness that weren’t there, trying to create them to cover their true feelings.

  Somewhere deep inside, Troy felt as though it had come alive after lying unacknowledged and ignored for much of his life. He needed to think about that, to try to understand what those feelings meant.

  ‘This is terrible, Troy,’ Stacie whispered beside him. ‘If they can’t get a levee bank to hold the river back, the plant will go under. You could lose everything.’

  ‘You’re right. I can’t be polite about this any longer.’ He raised his voice. ‘Every business in the town with manual labourers and hardy men stops work now.’ Troy spoke the words with a calm authority that came straight out of his army training. He limped to the mayor’s side. They’d spoken earlier in the week; the mayor had been disinclined to heed Troy’s warnings or listen to his suggestions then. He’d felt things wouldn’t reach critical point. The town hadn’t suffered this kind of flood in almost a hundred years, after all.

  Troy went on. ‘We work non-stop bagging. Levee bank first, then businesses. What’s the time frame to evacuate homes?’

  The mayor frowned and blustered. ‘Well, I—’

  ‘There’s no time for this, Mayor. You want this situation under control. I have the training to make that happen.’ Troy rapped the words out. The crowd had fallen silent. At least they were listening. ‘Time frame?’

  ‘One p.m. today.’ The older man seemed to deflate.

  ‘Then let’s get moving.’ Troy rapped out his orders.

  The men were already there and hit the ground running.

  ‘What can I do, Troy?’ Stacie had made her way to his side. Now she touched his arm briefly.

  Troy felt that one touch as though he soaked it in through the pores of his skin, a drink of life to a dry well inside him. ‘Stacie…’

  She waited, her expression showing her confidence that he would know how to direct her. They had a crisis on their hands. Anything else would have to wait. ‘Go to the plant. Get Gary to shut the work down. Don’t worry about what product gets left mid-process. Just get all the men over here.’

  Stacie rushed to do Troy’s bidding. He’d held back at first from taking control of the situation with the sandbagging. But there was so much flooding going on across four states of the country that the SES and the armed forces were stretched beyond their limits trying to cope with it.

  Tarrula was small. The workers were needed to levee the larger town upstream of them. The people of Tarrula had been told to get out; the SES and local police would be supervising that evacuation. But that was only if it had to happen. If the town could get enough levee bank built in time, then at least some of the homes wouldn’t have to evacuate, some of the businesses would not get flooded, and overall the flooding would be a great deal less. They had to try!

  Across the next three hours, Stacie watched as Troy marshalled troops and got things moving. He was on his feet, moving about, speaking to various people and getting the sandbagging efforts streamlined. When there was no more organising to do, Troy rolled up his sleeves. He was a strong man, slowed by the awkwardness of his damaged knee but certainly not stopped by it.

  Stacie pitched in too, and at the end of three hours, with everyone working together, they’d got their levee bank very close to finished.

  ‘It’s going to work out, Troy. By minutes, but it will work.’

  ‘Yes.’ The one word emerged, and Troy turned to glance at her. Maybe he twisted his bad knee or it failed. He stumbled down from where he’d been working atop a final pile of sandbags, tossing them closer so men could pick them up and place them on the levee.

  ‘Troy!’ Stacie jolted forward, but another man had already grabbed Troy’s arm and steadied him.

  ‘Let me finish it, boss.’ A moment later that man had replaced Troy on the pile of bags.

  The mayor hurried to Troy’s side. ‘We’ve made it. Couldn’t have done it without you, Rushton.’ He pumped Troy’s hand.

  The tension on Troy’s face was not all about the impending flood crisis. He’d hated that near fall, and being assisted when it had happened. Stacie knew it, and she wished she could comfort him.

  ‘We’ll go back to the plant now, make sure it’s secured before the river peaks.’ He said the words emotionlessly to Stacie and then said his goodbyes to the mayor before starting for his car.

  Sta
cie nodded and followed him, and tried not to think too much about the myriad emotions crowding through her right now, but they came anyway.

  Pride in Troy’s achievement, gratitude that the town would escape being flooded thanks to the efforts that Troy had coordinated when the mayor hadn’t had the kind of strong presence needed to get people working in a coherent whole.

  ‘You did a great job out there.’ Stacie spoke as they stepped into the factory. Other workers were close behind them, all streaming in to do Troy’s bidding now that the sandbagging of the levee bank was taken care of.

  Troy turned and looked at her. His eyes were stony. ‘I got things organised because the mayor wasn’t going to get that done. Anyone not prone to panic could have done what I did, and a lot more physical labour to go with it!’

  His tone warned her not to say more, warned of the bitterness at his physical limitations that went a lot deeper than she had realised.

  Oh, Troy. Don’t you know how special you are? How little that physical restriction matters to me? Only because it hurts you.

  She could have felt brushed off by that stony look, even hurt by it. Beyond the stoniness lay anger at his injury, and yet he did so much and did it well and she wished he could see that.

  ‘Let’s get this plant locked down in case the worst happens.’ Most of that work was already done. Troy supervised the rest, and before Stacie knew it she was back in his truck for them to make their way out to their homes.

  ‘The creek’s risen a bit more again.’ Stacie made the observation as Troy drove his truck through it. ‘It’s hard to believe it’s only two in the afternoon. I feel exhausted already. Thanks for getting me safely home, Troy.’

  They’d stocked up at the grocery store before they had left town. Stacie glanced behind her. ‘I think we’re ready for a month-long siege with that lot.’

  ‘We probably won’t need it, and will hopefully be cleared to get the plant back up and running by the end of the week.’ Troy finally met her gaze, and his softened as it took in her windblown hair, the muddy patches on her clothes and her general state of disarray. ‘You’re a trooper, Stacie. You might be small, but—’