Hello there to the new reviewers! Thank you so much for your generous comments. I don't know what to say but wow, and I don't have much time for more than wow because it's Father's Day over here and as I have a dad, a stepdad, a dad in law and a dad to my children then I am very busy today. Shout out to dear Yodachick for the 'race that knows Joseph' line. You darling kindred spirit, you! I was dancing around the kitchen when I read that this morning. Love, k.

57

The exhibition was a great success, the concert was a triumph, and the painting was met with mixed reviews. The rider didn't look like Walter at all, but it was a splendid portrait of the horse.

Una had the school's upright piano positioned on the stage at such an angle that no one could identify her. Teddy put up with it for the first half of the performance, and then right at the beginning of the second part, he pushed the piano by himself into a spot where everyone could see her. If that didn't bring the house down, then their rendition of Silvery Moon surely did. Una Meredith, yes the Minister's little wallflower daughter was singing -SINGING- about spooning and honeymoons with handsome Jack-the-lad, Teddy Willoughby!

After all the applause, the government sorts got onto the stage to deliver their speeches on bright futures and good ol' Island spirit. Jack, Jem and Jerry had other ideas, however. They started moving all the hall seats while people were still sitting on them, and soon everybody got the picture. The Howard girls finally got their chance and took turns playing ragtime tunes, and before you knew it the entire audience got to their feet. Everybody wanted to dance with Teddy, but he only had eyes for one girl. Where was she? If anyone deserved to have speeches made in their honour, surely it was Rilla.

Teddy left the acclaim and the backslapping and fought his way through the crowds. Past the boys sipping whiskey in the coat room, the men having quiet cigarettes by the hall door, the women lining up in front of the school's one outhouse, and the girls checking their reflections in darkened windows.

He started walking down the sloping road then broke into a run. He was missing Ken, he really missed the man and wished with all his heart he waas still here. Anytime Teddy wanted to give up, he only had to look to his Captain to point him in the right direction. It was alright on the stage, and it was for a good cause and all, but the spotlight was glaring. He was longing for shelter and a place to catch his breath.

He stopped by the covered bridge and peered through the gap where he had once sat with Rilla, and saw two white boots crossed at the ankle, dangling from the roof. He was up there a moment later. Some of the latticework came loose as he climbed, but he managed the ascent easily enough.

"Hello, honey," he said as he found a decent place to sit that wasn't covered in dead leaves and bird droppings. "Did you know I'd come by?"

Rilla turned her face to Teddy, her eyes dark under the brim of her new felt hat.

"I didn't even know that I would come here. Until I did," she said.

He waited for her to say more because she appeared to be in a prickly mood, like one of those rambling old fashioned roses that grew around the Ingleside veranda. Lovely to look at, gorgeous to smell, but try and pick one and watch the whole thing fall apart.

"You seem unhappy."

"Wouldn't you be?" she said. "The whole enterprise was supposed to be a proper tribute for our valiant soldiers - and it turned into an orgy."

"An orgy - you're a funny one."

"A moment ago you said I was sad."

"It's not like we were brought up to be soldiers, Rilla. We were bakers, gardeners, teachers, bank clerks, and we weren't all valiant, I can tell you. We like to dance and have a good time and forget for a while -"

"I don't want to forget - I wanted this day to mean something. I wanted that painting to mean something."

Teddy shrugged. "I thought it was good."

"Because no one could tell it was you on that horse. But it didn't look like Walter either." She sighed. "It might be any man at all."

"And now anyone who visits Walter's portrait can see their own boy in the frame. That's why I like it, and I reckon your brother would have liked it too. He'd be proud of you, Rilla. You don't know how many people you helped tonight, bringing us all together like that -"

"Yes but…" Her bottom lip wobbled. "Not everyone came."

Who was Rilla expecting - not Ken? It struck Teddy, and not in a pleasant way, that the fond feeling he had for the fellow only minutes before had been subsumed by a stronger instinct: that if Ken was here Rilla would forget all about her best boy friend. Teddy was a distraction, a sideshow. And now the show was over. He could almost hear his Captain's voice: Nice manoeuvre, Willoughby. Now grab your pack, get to your feet and move!

If you stayed where you were, that's when they got you. And Rilla Blythe didn't want him to stay. Teddy saw all the signs. But he did not see this coming.

"Oh Teddy," Rilla was very close to tears now. "I invited your mother here... and she never turned up."

"Connie?"

Teddy couldn't bear to be so close to Rilla anymore and shifted further up the roof. The cigarettes came out next. He fished one out of his small, tin case and lit up.

"She wrote to my family a while back," Rilla went on, "a short note of thanks. I thought I could bring you two together. And she made me think -"

"Ah, that was your first mistake." The cigarette darted between his teeth as he spoke. "If someone's got to make you think then it's usually a dumb idea."

"Apparently so," Rilla sniffed, "though you might help me see where I've gone wrong because I heard you say not long ago that you thought your life was a no count, stinking, miserable one, so why wouldn't I try and make it better."

Was it a no count, stinking miserable life? Not really - or only when compared to hers. Rilla Blythe had been raised to know who she was. Teddy had no idea. He had been perfectly content before he came here, then he saw what he had missed. Like a man who had been living on stale bread entering the land of milk and honey. None of it seemed meant for him.

"I've had plenty of chances to see my mother," Teddy said. "I don't because I only remind her of something she'd rather forget." He tossed his cigarette into the stream and drew his knees to his chest. "I remind folks of Walter, I remind you of Ken -"

"Teddy, you really don't -"

"Come on now, be straight with me, you thought I would leave you too. But it's alright, Rilla," he said, he might have been talking to himself because he started to nod. "I know very well what you're trying to do."

There was such conviction in his voice that Rilla drew nearer despite her apprehension.

"You're looking for a way to end things," Teddy said, squinting into the setting sun. "And the kindest way you could think of was to make me think it was my idea. Just tell me why you had to bring my mother into it? I could have told you she wouldn't come."

Rilla Blythe was wishing for that bible verse now. Here were consequences, of the very worst kind. But instead of hurting her, as she knew it must, they had backfired on to him. Though she wasn't kind about it, she lashed out the way most people do when they realise what fools they have been.

"You're an idiot, Teddy Willoughby, I don't want to end things. I asked your mother to come here because it seemed like the right thing to do. Family is... well, it's everything to me," she rushed on, "and I wanted you to have that chance to be with your family, just as I wanted it for Jims. I knew in the end, one way or another, you would go back to your home too."

"I think I am an idiot, because I kept hoping we were just beginning."

He couldn't have known what those words meant to Rilla, not so much what he said as the way he said them. So humble and forgiving. He made it so easy for her to come clean.

"Oh Teddy, you're going to laugh when you hear this -"

"You don't know that for sure, you don't know everything about me."

"But that's the thing. On the Island everyone courts for years," said Rilla determined to go on. "Mother and Father, even Jem and the twins, all fell for someone they'd known since childhood. That's just how we are on the Island, it's all I've ever known."

"And I'm not an Islander."

"But do you think you could be, Teddy, can you make a life in the Glen? Would you stay here - for me?"

Teddy turned towards Rilla and saw her knees were tucked up too. She had rested her chin upon them and tilted her face in his direction. Big, gorgeous, yearning eyes, and those soft pink lips that she was tentatively licking. The sky was a violent red, the sun had vanished below the horizon. He was very tempted to forget the whole conversation and kiss her instead.

As he thought those thoughts, Rilla gently touched the scar on his brow. An expert move, he had to give it to her. They should definitely shut up and kiss now. Forget this talk, forget everything that happened. Forget they'd ever met each other. What chance did he have with her really. He didn't fit, he didn't belong. Love em and leave em that's who he was, except he didn't want to leave anymore.

He removed her hand and wove his fingers with her own so tightly that his nails went white, and her fingers went pink. The boy was nervous, but only because it mattered so much.

"Why do you want me to stay, Rilla?"

"Oh Teddy, isn't it obvious?"

So, she wasn't going to say it, but it was perhaps a start. "That's good enough for me, I guess."

Then he finally gave her that kiss.

...

Next chapter to follow...