A Tale of two Holly’s

Jake had moved on from being the town's mechanic. He married the sheriff's daughter and had become a deputy shortly after. The money wasn't as good but he enjoyed the work and could finally get those oil stains out of his hands. Jake watched over Holly like a brother. Like most of the men in town he was sweet on her. There was a queue of men that would have liked to marry her. But there had only been two men in Holly's life and without being rude she made it clear there was no room for any more.

Holly had great nature and everyone liked her as she would always help anyone in need. The fact that she did make known that there was no room for any new men in her life meant that none of the women in town thought her to be the threat to their marriages that a pretty young widow could have been. On the contrary most of the women in town would go to her for advice with their problems. So she became a much loved member of the community. The only cloud for a while was young Tony, as he began to grow; his looks and blond hair made it obvious to everyone that her husband hadn't been his father. Jake was the only one in town who knew about Tony's visit.

After a few years Jake had persuaded Holly to let the story of Tony's visit out., stopping the tongues wagging and taking the pressure off every blond guy that lived within a fifty mile radius. So Tony's visit had grown into a town legend and rumours of his pending return would circulate frequently. These were not vindictive rumours but more like the wishful thinking of the people who had grown to love Holly but knew she wasn't happy. They thought she deserved a break in life.

Jake had been cruising in his patrol cruiser when one of the locals flagged him down. The man told Jake about seeing a Winnebago pulling out from Holly's old farm. Jake said It was probably someone looking for somewhere to park for the night. The man agreed but said the odd thing was he could have sworn that Holly's boy was in the Winnibago. But it couldn't have been him because the man had seen young Tony in town as he left. Jake asked which way the Winnebago had gone? The man said towards the lake. Jake thanked him and carried on with his patrol, then a thought crossed his mind.

He had already been up to the camp ground once that day. But if his hunch paid off, it would be well worth his effort. As he drove into the grounds he spotted the new arrival. But he drove over to the playground first. When he got out of his cruiser he couldn't believe his eyes. It was as if Holly's boy Tony was playing on the swing, God they could have been twins. He called the kids over and gave his little lecture about not going into the woods alone because it was so easy to get lost. But all the time he was thinking about Holly.

He managed to extract from Tony Jr. that their mother had recently past away. Jake thought to himself that it wasn't right that he should feel pleased to hear that these children had lost their mother. But in his heart he was so pleased for Holly. He was sure that in the Winnebago he was going to find Tony. He also knew that Tony, even if he didn't know it, was here looking for Holly.

As Jake drove over to the Winnebago he could see Tony lighting up the Bar-B-Q. When Jake stopped, Tony came over and they started talking. Jake couldn't remember what they talked about. He did think it a little humorous that Tony had failed to recognise him. But then why should he? Ten years ago, Tony had met a greasy mechanic for maybe fifteen minutes and with Holly around who would be looking at a mechanic. Come to that Jake couldn't recognise Tony at first. When Tony had offered him a coffee, he sat and talked to Tony for over an hour, during which time he knew he had his man. But how to bring Tony and Holly together. With the town's church picnic tomorrow, if he could get Tony to go they would surely bump into one another. So Jake invited Tony to the picnic. With a little persuasion from the children, Tony agreed to come.

Feeling pleased with himself Jake went home to tell his wife how clever he had been to find Tony and get him to come to the picnic, where with any luck, Holly and he would meet up. Jake's wife said there was not going to be any luck involved and picked up the phone. She choreographed half the towns folk to make their meeting memorable.

As you have already read, her plan was a success and less then two weeks later the whole town turned out for the biggest wedding Huntly had ever seen. The delay was due to the fact they had to await the arrival of Tony's family from England and his in-laws from Florida, who were pleased to give their blessing to the union. They did not even bat an eye that there were now two Tony Junior's that could have easily been taken for twins!

The end