She didn’t know what he was thinking and couldn’t let her mind go there. She just knew that her life was not filled with lucky happenstance. Where she went, tragedy and despair followed.
And Prentice, Jason and Sally had enough of that.
Too much.
Therefore, she was sticking to her plan regardless that things seemed to change last night and change a great deal.
She was leaving directly after the reception.
She’d even talked Fergus into following her to the estate where they were holding the reception so she could drop her fully packed rental there and make a fast getaway.
In the car on the way back to his house, Fergus had offered, “With Annie gone tonight, if things aren’t working at Prentice’s, you can sleep in her room.”
“Thank you, Fergus, but I need to get going.”
“Your flight doesn’t leave until tomorrow,” he reminded her.
“I know and things are fine at Prentice’s. Really. It’s just too much, for all of us.” She turned from her study of the landscape to look at his handsome profile and asked softly, “You understand, don’t you?”
“Haven’t had any time with you myself, lass.”
Her heart lurched. He was right and she remembered again just how much she liked Fergus.
She did her best to ignore her heart and her best, as ever, wasn’t good enough.
“Come to Chicago next year with Annie and Dougal. I’ll spend loads of time with you there. I’ll even take you to a Cubs game,” she suggested.
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and shook his head.
Then he said, “Never understood American baseball.”
“That’s fine. I’ve never understood English football,” she returned teasingly.
“Football’s football, the world over, except in America, where its soccer. Always have to buck tradition, you Americans.”
She laughed, Fergus chuckled and she relaxed.
For about two seconds.
Then her mind filled with Prentice again and she started fidgeting.
“They’re too pretty to be walked on!” Sally exclaimed, taking Isabella from her thoughts.
“What are, honey?” Isabella murmured distractedly.
“The petals!” Sally cried.
Isabella turned to focus on the girl, kissed the top of her head then put her hands to both sides of her beautiful face.
She examined it at the same time she memorized every feature.
Then she whispered, “It’s tradition. A magical tradition. Every heroine at the end of a fairytale gets to walk to her hero on a bed of rose petals. And you get to create that magic. Don’t you want to do that for Annie?”
Sally’s face had gone from near to pout to spellbound.
“I didn’t know it was magic,” Sally breathed.
Isabella heard Hannah chuckle.