An Unexpected Surprise

When Emily went to open her front door that morning as she was heading out to walk the dog, she was surprised to find a meticulously wrapped brown paper parcel on her doorstep, next to the boot scraper and flagstone steps of her period home. It had no stamps but was tied with bright white string with a vintage paper tag attached. There was no name on it.

Jasper, her Jack Russell, approached the parcel and gave it a cursory sniff but nothing more. Not a food parcel then, Emily surmised from her dog’s less than enthusiastic reaction. She looked up and down the street to see if there were any passers-by whom she could quiz about the package’s origins but there was no-one. She gave it a light kick with her toe to test its weight, reluctant to touch it with her hands until she was more certain that she wanted to claim ownership of it. It moved ever so slightly. What could it be?

Jasper was straining on his leash having spotted Oscar, a fellow Jack Russell belonging to Mrs. Price, and was suffering acute dog envy as Oscar was currently running in the open green space opposite Emily’s house. Jasper, too, was keen to indulge in some mad chasing around the oak tree or snarly wrestling with his dog buddy and couldn’t understand why he was having to wait. He was starting to pant and whimper in his eagerness to get over the road.

“Okay, Jasper. Okay. Steady, boy. We’re going now. We’re going!” Emily reassured the little dog and decided that the parcel would just have to wait. Off they headed to the iron gate that opened onto the park.

The man in the car parked outside Mr. Banbury’s house two doors down followed Emily and Jasper with his eyes. Once they were out of view, he opened his car door and stepped out, lightly closing it before walking casually towards Emily’s house.

As he reached Emily’s front door, Danny Jones, the good-looking bachelor from No.29 came down his steps to go to his car, cigarette loosely hanging from his lower lip. When he saw the man outside Emily’s house, he was surprised as he thought that she was single or if not, she certainly didn’t seem to be the sort of girl who would have a casual encounter. In fact, quite the reverse. If anything, she was a bit uptight. Which was a shame as he rather fancied her, if he was honest. Although he didn’t rate his chances after that one drunken night in the pub when he had told her he liked big bottomed girls, placed his hand on her backside and winked suggestively. He cringed as he remembered her reaction although at the time, he had thought that her expression of disgust was hilarious. Bloody whisky chasers! And the irony was, of course, that her bottom wasn’t actually big at all. He sighed wistfully at his stupidity and largesse.

Well, what she did was none of his concern. He was just about to press the button on his key fob when he saw that the bloke wasn’t trying the doorbell. He was crouched down on the front step and looking at something. While he was watching, he could hear small dogs yapping excitedly and looking in their direction for a moment, saw two Jack Russells rolling around in the grass. That was Jasper, Danny thought and where Jasper was, Emily was bound to be. Yep, there she was, standing with lovely Mrs Price.

Danny wasn’t sure what to do but one thing he was sure of was that he didn’t like the way that a stranger was snooping around a single woman’s house and whilst he was not the chivalrous sort, he was a great believer in trusting your gut if something didn’t feel right and this didn’t feel right.

“Alright, mate?” He called out to the man. Nothing too confrontational. Danny wanted to see how he would react.

His instincts were proved right as the man, who had been crouching, got to his feet. Picking up the parcel by its string with his right index finger and without uttering a word or looking towards Danny, he started to leave Emily’s front garden.

“Excuse me! That parcel isn’t yours, mate!” Danny called but the man kept walking, brisk but not panicked. Not an overly brave sort but fuelled by the rightness of it, Danny decided that it was time to take action. He threw his cigarette to the floor and ran full pelt at the man shouting, “Oy! You! Stop right there!”

But Danny knew he had a chase on his hands. Immediately, the stranger picked up his pace and he was quick, Danny could see that and would never have caught him in a million years if a small white and brown dog hadn’t intervened by running at a hare’s pace under the fence of the park, across the road and into the path of the man’s feet with a red-faced and angry Emily shouting shortly afterwards.

The stranger lost his balance and fell to the floor, losing his hold on the parcel as he broke his fall. He scrambled to his feet and reached for the parcel but Danny was almost on him and though he tried to grab the string, he fumbled. Cursing under his breath, he ran to his car, jumped in and drove off with squealing wheels.

Emily was still in pursuit of Jasper and had just managed to grab his collar when she heard the squeal of tyres and turned to see that louse, Danny, looking decidedly dishevelled and holding a parcel and shaking his fist at a quickly departing car. Wait a minute! That was her parcel. This really was the worst! First the bum touching incident and now this! Was there no end to his audacity? And with a determination born of the indignant, Emily strode over to him.

“Can you explain to me why you have my parcel?” she snapped at Danny, who turned to face Emily with a puzzled look on his face.

Seeing the look of rage on Emily’s face, Danny immediately bridled as he realised that she thought he had taken it. Well, that’s just charming, he thought and without a word, he thrust the parcel into Emily’s arms and went towards his car, taking a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lighting it.

Emily was a little confused by his reaction. She didn’t feel that she had overreacted even if her impression of him had been tainted already. In her eyes, from what she had seen of him, he had no redeeming features although he was very good-looking but boy, did he know it. However, she was not used to being ignored and he really did know how to overstep the mark and so she shouted after him, “Well? Aren’t you going to answer my question?”

A puff of smoke hovered above Danny’s head as he stopped at her words. He paused. He thought and then turned.

“I had your parcel because I saved it for you from that bloke who I had assumed was also yours until I realised that he was hanging around your doorstep suspiciously and ran when I called out to him. He was running with your parcel. I decided to stop him to help you out but now I bloody well wish I hadn’t bothered! Enough of an answer for you?”

Danny hadn’t been particularly angry but his explanation did have a biting sarcasm to it, which Emily did feel a little wounded by. But there was something about his manner which made her take in the truth of his words and she realised she was in the wrong. In a magnanimous gesture, which would change their relationship forever, she took a deep breath and said,

“Oh. Well. Thank you.” Pause. “I didn’t realise.” Pause and then, “I’m sorry.”

Danny’s face registered shock as he had not expected that at all, and he responded by smiling the most brilliant smile. Emily felt a little weak for some reason. Must have been all of that running after Jasper. She really should work on that fitness.

“So, what’s in it then?” Danny asked.

“What?” Emily said, a little flustered.

“The parcel? What’s in it?” Danny nodded towards the brown paper box, which was looking less meticulously wrapped after its short kidnapping.

“Oh, this? I have no clue,” and then in a departure for her at being so forward, “Would you like to come in and open it with me? I found it on the doorstep this morning and I have no idea who it’s from or where it came from. I think I’d quite like it if someone was with me when I opened it.”

What on Earth was the matter with her? Inviting him in?

Danny looked at his watch and knew that he would be late for work but what the hell? It looked like the Ice Age could be over and that was something not to be missed.

“Yeah, why not?”

Emily led the way to her front door and felt a frisson of something verging on excitement. It had to be the parcel although she had a good idea that it wasn’t but wasn’t quite ready to admit that just yet.

She tried to put the key in the door as Danny petted Jasper at her feet. Jasper seemed to like him which was a rather good sign, she thought. Stop! She internally chided herself. She was being ridiculous and should put a stop to this right now! She looked down at Danny as Jasper licked his hand and Danny smiled that really lovely smile again. She returned it and again, felt a certain electric pulse.

“Could you hold this?” she said and she passed the parcel to Danny while she renegotiated the key in the lock. She stepped into her house and stood by the door to allow Danny to enter. Jasper, however, had other ideas and keen to keep the attention on him leapt up against Danny’s legs, which surprised him. Danny caught his toe on the threshold of the door which in turn caused him to fall forwards and unable to stop himself, he fell onto the parcel. There was a noise of something breaking and Danny had really wished that it had been one of his limbs rather than what was in the parcel. But that was not to be.

“Oh no!” he said, looking up at Emily who was standing looking down at him, her hands either side of her face with a look of wide-mouthed shock. Having Danny now at his level, Jasper decided that it was time to give this new person a really good licking all over his face and maybe a light doggy nibble of his ears too if he’d let him.

“Get off me, you daft dog!” Danny laughed despite himself, trying not to as he realised that it really was quite inappropriate considering he’d just crushed Emily’s parcel. He tried to look up at Emily to gauge her reaction, which was very tricky with a small playful furball in the way. Was she shaking? She had her face in her hands. Was she crying?

And just when he thought all was lost, Emily opened her hands to reveal a face filled with tears, bright red and emotional. But not of loss or anger. Quite the contrary. She couldn’t remember laughing quite so much in her life.

She may have lost the contents of a parcel that day but Emily gained quite a lot more in Danny Jones.

Old Mr. Banbury, however, was always rather sad that the gift of his vintage carriage clock to the nice girl a couple of doors down that he’d carefully delivered that morning had been destroyed by that oafish moron, Danny Jones. And after he’d gone to all that trouble with the wrapping too.