to keep them. Speaking of speed. Romeo thinks it’s Nascar out there. Did I mention the honking at the roundabouts? Good gods. It’s worse than New York. Everybody’s honking. You have no idea who’s doing it or who they’re honking at. If you go, they honk. If you don’t go, they honk. Nerve-wracking is the phrase that comes to mind, but it just doesn’t rise to the occasion. Nerve-stripping maybe. Perhaps we passed pristine idyllic countryside with pretty black faced sheep happily grazing their days away like a postcard. I wouldn’t know. You know why? One word. Terrified.”
Lochlan regarded my rant with the sort of noncommitted expression I’d die for. After a brief pause, he said simply, “Who’s Romeo?”
With no small degree of embarrassment, I described when and why I called beautiful car Romeo. When there was no immediate response, I added further the high points of my conversation with the car and how bizarre it was.
Maggie cleared her throat. “I had no idea. You seemed so put together when you arrived.”
I started to argue and then realized she was right. “Well. To be fair. I did stop for the night. I’d slept, had breakfast, and there wasn’t as much traffic on the last leg of the trip.”
“I like your dress,” Lochlan said out of nowhere. “She likes red, Maggie.”
Did I just have a petit mal seizure and miss a block of conversational context?
Maisie poked her head in. “Dinner’s ready.”
“Excellent,” Lochlan said, rising from his chair with the ease of a thirty-year-old.
On the short walk to the dining room, I said, “It would have been fine with me for Ivy to join us.”
“That’s kind of you, but she had some function or other. And she doesn’t eat meat. Just, you know, green things.”
The dining room was rustic and cozy with a small fire burning at one end. The distressed table looked ancient. It would seat eight, but it would be a tight fit. Lochlan sat at the head of the table and gestured for Maggie and me to sit on either side.
The place setting matched the décor. Pewter plates on wood chargers and large red napkins made from thick linen. A low centerpiece adorned the table, a mix of five different kinds of red flowers.
“These are gorgeous,” I said with a wave toward the arrangement. “Did these come from the floral shop on the circle?”
“Yes,” he said. “They can get almost anything if you ask a couple of days ahead.”
Maisie set a large covered roaster on the table, lifted the lid, and held out her hand. Presuming she wanted my plate, I handed it over.
“That smells even better up close,” I said.
“It was chosen with you in mind,” Lochlan said.
“Because you guessed I like pot roast?” I ventured.
“Because I know you like pot roast,” he countered.
“Come on. What kind of service is going to dig that deep? And how would they know?”
“The kind of service that’s thorough. A couple of times a month you dine out at a place called The Mason Jar and you always get the pot roast,” he said.
My lips parted, as much from astonishment as from anticipation. Because I’d never been in the presence of a pot roast that smelled more tempting.
“So you didn’t just, um, look into me. You had me followed.”
He looked dumbfounded. “Well certainly. How else could I be sure what sort of person I was investigating?”
“Well. Since I’ve never ‘investigated’ anybody, I guess I wouldn’t know, would I?” I smiled, tickled that I’d just found an appropriate way to end a statement with a question the way English people do.
Lochlan handed his plate to Maisie. “I suppose I’ve been doing what I do for so long, I’ve forgotten that other people do other things. Sign of getting old I suppose.”
“Since it happens that I’m not a criminal, or a bad parent, I don’t particularly object to being looked into. It’s just unnerving. The idea of somebody knowing how often I eat out, where, and what I usually order.”
“Always order,” he corrected.
“Okay. Always order. The service you use must be really good.” I narrowed my eyes. “And really expensive. Who paid for that?”
“It’s both. Really good and really expensive and a budget for transition was built into the prospective transfer of responsibility. So payment didn’t come out of your estate if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“It did occur to me.”
“I like a woman who knows how to look after her bottom line.”
“Well, that’s nice, Lochlan. If I was such a woman, I wouldn’t be