Joyce headed back to her Jeep Cherokee and got in. She hurried down main street 3 blocks to 524 W. Main Street. As she arrived at the 500's block of W. Main Street she slowed down and began to look for a parking spot. Finding one she parked her Jeep head in and got out. In her nervousness to get to the shop she tangled her right arm in the grey seatbelt.
Joyce closed her car door and took a calming breath. As she stood by her car door she chided herself for trying to be extra quiet, as if a door closing on a city street would add too much noise to Sunnydale. Even though she had no intentions of sneaking up on the unsuspecting man she could easily do so. The shop was clearly not open for business. The wide store window was covered from the inside by brown paper. The words D. MacLeod Antiques were gilded in an Antique English script on the flat glass window. The design gave the unopened store front a certain air of elegance and an aged perspective, an almost old world charm. It seemed as if the name needed the words Est. 1687 or even an earlier date.
"Darn", Joyce said aloud. She had been so looking forward to going forth and… well not conquering, just meeting. Inside her there was a little war going on. Even as she began to move forward she was asking herself if she should she go to the window and look in or if she should she just get in her car and drive off and leave the exploring to another day. It didn't take her long to decide—in a quick five seconds she had tossed off all her hesitation and was standing at the heavy mahogany entrance door preparing her hand to knock. Her other hand still held her coffee prop. But the door was open. Without a moment's hesitation Joyce crossed the entry threshold and stepped into the shop.
So she would not be mistaken as an intruder she called out, "Hello?" and again, "Hell-lo?" "Mr. MacLeod?" All the lights were completely off in the room. As a standard precaution against anything that would hide in the dark she lifted her left hand behind her to feel for a light switch. Her hand came across a round knob that she turned to the right and click the lights were on.
Joyce looked around. She was surrounded by large unknown objects jutting outward in every direction. Each was covered with either a white sheet or a painters' style cloth. She thought to herself, "This was definitely a specialty shop." The objects hidden under the cloths did not seem like your standard table and chair combinations. Joyce called out one more time, "Mr. MacLeod?" She suddenly had the feeling that she was definitely invading his shop space but she was reluctant to give up and leave. The main reason was she honestly doubted she would have the guts to return. She looked around a bit more and saw in the rear a dark wooden countertop with and old style cash register. As she paused to callout one final time, "Mr.?" a tall man with a deeply tanned complexion walked from the rear of the store. He had entered the open space of the shop through an almost hidden door between the countertop and a full bookshelf. He was wearing gray and white speckled sweatpants and a hastily thrown on thin shirt of a similar material. The shirt was made thin by age and multiple washings and the neck was missing a collar. The man had a questioning look on his face as well as a thin sheen of sweat. Joyce found that she still had a voice despite his utter masculinity. She honestly hadn't thought "they" still made men like that in this day and age. Instead of a low ponytail, silky brown hair pooled about his muscular shoulders. Unfortunately, while she had a voice- she didn't have a brain. She could only croak out a "uuuh" as greeting.
Duncan had been interrupted from his meditation exercises by a sweet voice calling his name. The voice had called out a few times and he hadn't wanted to answer. Since the death of Tessa he had been avoiding people he had found he could sometimes reach out and almost feel and hear Tessa as he meditated but he had never heard another voice. He heard the voice again but as he was closer to the end of his meditation exercises he was able to recognize that it was not a voice in his head but rather one from inside the shop. He stood up and was walking to the door but his head still felt too fuzzy. If as he expected the voice belonged to a petite perky woman—a member of the local welcome wagon he needed his brain as clear as possible. Duncan knew that a vital part of living in this world was blending with and being accepted by the locals. He couldn't afford to be ostracized from the beginning.
Duncan flipped his body over and did a half head and half handstand. He was trying to get all the blood rushing to his head so he could shake off the last few cobwebs, memories and ghosts of Tessa and his past life.
He stepped from the small training space and into the shop. Facing him was a willowy… was the first world that came into mind but he soon replaced that with tall woman with honey wheat hair, no blonde hair.
Duncan hadn't felt such an instant attraction to anyone in a long time. It was as if his tastes had matured to a woman ripe and not just gorgeous. "Ripe", he thought? No. Mature. He knew he needed to keep any interactions with her as professional as possible.
As approached her he wondered what she had to offer him… as a member of the welcome wagon of course. He noticed that her hands only held a cup of coffee.
