“Oh, nothing yet. I’m working on what would be appropriate. I’m not sure I’ll have any say in it, actually.”
“In what?”
He only smiled.
“Cryptic.”
“So it is, and here comes your mother.” He looked at her quickly. “Don’t you dare cave, Samantha.”
She blinked. “Cave?”
He reached out and covered her hand with his. “I’m sorry I didn’t help you out of the nest sooner. Consider this penance—ah, Louise, here you are.”
“And here you are,” Louise said, sounding extremely put out. “Really, Samantha, trying to find you this week has been a study in frustration. I have things for you to catalogue for me before I send them off back to the States.”
Samantha had a look from her father that she had no trouble interpreting. If the time was ever to be, it had to be then. She stood up, took her mother’s hands, then kissed her on both cheeks. Her mother recoiled as if she’d been bitten.
“What are you doing?”
Samantha only smiled, then leaned over to kiss her father’s cheek. He smiled up at her.
“Have a lovely drive, Sam.”
“I think I will.”
“Well, you’ve certainly had enough practice over the years, haven’t you?”
She smiled. “I’ll call you when I decide what I’m doing.”
“What?” her mother screeched. “What are you talking about, you silly child?”
Samantha turned away, then stopped. She turned back to her mother. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “You’ve given me a love for old things. I think that will serve me well in the future.”
Her mother started babbling. Samantha shot her father a meaningful look, then walked away before Vesuvius erupted.
She went back inside her room, grabbed her suitcase, her bag, and Derrick’s envelope, then hurried to the front desk. She was somehow unsurprised to find she’d already been checked out and her car was just out the back doors, ready for a hasty getaway. She nodded over it all, then froze and looked at the manager.
“My car?” she echoed.
The manager took her suitcase for her and ushered her out the door. And there, underneath the portico was a 1967 MG, mint condition, wire wheels, and painted a lovely British racing green.
She caught her breath. Then she looked around quickly.
Those Cameron Antiquities, Ltd., lads could be, as Oliver would freely admit, ghosts when the situation warranted.
She looked at the manager. “Who brought this?”
“I don’t have any idea,” he said, looking faintly unsettled. “It was just here, your room was paid for, and the charge returned to your card.” He shrugged. “I don’t remember doing any of it.” He looked at her. “Do you have any idea?”
“I do,” she said with a smile.
He waited, but she didn’t think it was prudent to enlighten him. So she plunked her suitcase in the trunk that indeed opened with one of the keys on her ring, then got in under the wheel and simply took a deep breath. The top was down, the day was glorious, and she would have wept if she hadn’t been so tempted to laugh.
So she laughed instead.
There was a Garmin taped to a ruin-resistant part of the dash with a note telling her to turn it on. She did and the navigation system began.
Very high-tech, but she supposed she shouldn’t have expected anything else.
She pulled away from the hotel, almost convinced she could hear her mother still shrieking. But she wasn’t going to stick around and find out for sure.
• • •
Three days later, she drove through the village near Derrick’s seaside house, then turned along the road she knew led out to the sea. She’d turned off the navigation program an hour ago, because to her surprise, she knew the way.
She pulled up next to a well-used Range Rover, turned the car off, then leaned her head back against the seat and enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine for a moment or two.
She supposed she could have hurried on her way north, but she’d decided not to. She had sketched, entertained deep thoughts, and relished every moment of knowing there was a man in the world who thought enough about her to give her that sort of journey.
She got out of the car, tossed the keys on the driver’s seat, then walked around Derrick’s lesser beast to see what she might find.
Derrick was sitting on one of their rocks, staring out over the sea. He didn’t move, which she had expected. If he hadn’t had a bug in her car tracking her every step of the way, she would have been surprised. Because, after all, there had been several things