“She went. She did enjoy the gardens. I know she loves being with all of you. It’ll be okay.”
“Hmm.”
“And it’s not my place to say, but I suggest we back off and let her think on things.”
He reached a hand my way, I gave it to him, and he curled his fingers around it and rested it on his thigh.
Nice.
“She’s had three years to think, darling,” he pointed out.
I forced out a breath.
“But no more pushing her,” he conceded. “At least for the weekend.”
“Well, going back on what I just said, I have a wee bit of an idea in the sense that Prue has an appointment with Ravenna next week, she asked me to go with, and I thought, if Prue’s okay with it, we’d ask Chassie to go with us too.”
He gave my hand a squeeze. “Perfect.”
Then he put my hand in my lap, let it go and returned his to the wheel.
Although I loved holding hands with him, I appreciated him letting me go. We were just out of London, it was Friday traffic, but I’d noticed M4 traffic always seemed heavy. I was glad he intended to concentrate and keep both hands on the wheel.
“At the risk of making you dislike Chelsea more…” he began.
Oh boy.
“What?” I snapped. “Has she done something else?”
“No. It’s just that Fitzy and Patsy usually have Fridays and Saturdays off, also Sunday mornings. Emily, Sundays and Mondays. And because Chelsea, Rally and Court showed last weekend, they didn’t get their days off.”
Ugh!
“Did Chelsea know that?” I asked.
“Unlikely. She still wouldn’t care.”
God, that woman.
“So, obviously, Tempie gave them Thursday off to start to make up for it,” he went on. “And they won’t be back to work until Tuesday, in order to fully make up for it.”
“Oh, okay.”
“That means Tempie will probably head into the village to grab us a curry or hit the chippie for tonight, and it’ll be very casual until Tuesday. They’ll have left us some croissants or something for breakfast, but we’ll be eating out or getting takeaways for lunch and dinner.”
I turned to stare at him.
“There are some lovely restaurants around The Downs,” he said. “I thought tomorrow, you and I could go to a pub that has excellent steak dinners.”
“Battle, I can cook.”
“Sorry?”
I was trying hard not to bust out laughing.
“Honey, I know how to cook,” I repeated.
But the instant I called him honey, the atmosphere in the vehicle became, well…honeyed. Thick and oozing sweet.
