In fact, Isabella spent way too much time thinking how much she wanted to run her fingers through it.
Nevertheless, although Prentice had been polite and even grateful for her help, he was just that. Nothing more. His politeness and gratitude were of the distant variety, and not, Isabella guessed, just because he had a lot weighing on his mind.
Which meant it was time for her to go.
At least, she thought (with not a small amount of sadness), this time it wouldn’t be ugly.
Things were settled between her and Prentice, in a way. It was over. They were acquaintances, ex-lovers of both varieties. There was so much water under the bridge, it was a wonder the bridge wasn’t flooded.
Even in the short expanse of time after the drama of their mini-reunion, they’d moved on.
Or, at least, it was clear Prentice had.
Isabella was just pretending. Then again, she was good at it as she should be, she’d had enough practice.
But the good thing was that meant that this time she could stay in touch with the kids from afar and not worry that Prentice was going to blow his stack.
Prentice rolled to a stop in the drive of his house and Isabella watched him as he looked around at the cars parked everywhere.
She bit her lip.
She probably should have told him about the party.
It wasn’t her idea. It was Annie and Debs’s idea.
She’d just cleaned the house and baked the chocolate cake and, maybe, bought all the decorations, blew up the balloons and hid them in her rooms.
He turned in his seat and locked eyes on Isabella, who was sitting behind Jason.
Isabella sucked in breath.
When she returned a week ago, he seemed somewhat angry and definitely impatient. This had gone away.
She could easily read annoyance and impatience in his eyes now.
Annie and Debs had talked Isabella into the party, insisting it was a fabulous idea the latter who, during their planning session the day before, had shown absolutely no ill-will to Isabella and was again treating her like the sister she always wanted but never had, a change in attitude that Isabella was also too exhausted to process.
Looking at Prentice, Isabella felt maybe they were wrong.
“Um…” she started hesitantly and he shook his head.
Then he turned away and got out of the SUV.
Isabella scrambled out and saw that Jason was looking around, eyeing the cars, a smirk on his mouth. Prentice unbuckled Sally and carried her in his arms as Jason hurried forward to open the door. Isabella, ever the coward, trailed behind.
So far behind, she heard the congregation inside shouting, “Surprise!” but she didn’t see it. It took her a couple of seconds before she entered behind Prentice and his family.
In the great room were Annie and Dougal, Fergus, Dougal’s parents, Prentice’s parents, Fiona’s parents, Debs, her husband and two kids, Morag, her husband and two kids and Mrs. Kilbride. The great room was festooned with pink and white streamers, bunches of pink and white balloons were fastened here and there and there was a big banner hanging on the stairs that read, “Welcome home Sally!”
There were trays groaning with food all over the bar-slash-counter that delineated the kitchen from the great room. The pièce-de-résistance, Isabella’s chocolate cake on a high cake stand Isabella had unearthed, the chocolate frosting decorated with swirls of pink and white icing, sat right smack in the middle of the culinary extravaganza.
But it was worse.
Annie was holding a little, adorable, squirming black kitty with a pink and white bow around its neck.
Isabella stopped next to Prentice, spied the cat and mumbled, “Oh dear.”
Sally’s eyes honed right in on the feline.