“Well, of course I do but… Did he actually say he was coming here?”
“Not exactly. He just said he might be in town and that if he had any free time, he’d give us a call to see if we were available. Sounded like a very loose arrangement really. It’s not as though he expects us to get the welcome wagons out or anything. Why so touchy?”
“I’m not touchy,” Gary grunted, sounding decidedly so. “Just…surprised, that’s all.”
“Like I said, we might see him, we might not. But either way, it would be good for you to give him a call. It’s been me he’s been getting ever since, and I hate having to keep making excuses.”
“Okay, okay. Stop nagging me, Rachel.”
Terri harrumphed.Nagginghim? The cheek of it!
But Rachel didn’t seem the slightest bit perturbed. “So tell us, what brings you all the way over here? Missing me already?” she teased.
“Yeah. I was going to ask if you wanted to grab a bite? I haven’t had lunch yet so…”
“Sounds lovely. Where would you like to go?”
“Oh. Well, I thought we could just stay here,” he added lamely, and again, Terri felt like throttling him. Of course, yet another freebie.
“Makes sense,” Rachel agreed, turning to Terri. “Okay if I take off now?”
“No problem,” she replied through gritted teeth. “Justin’s in at two, so I’ll take lunch myself then.”
“Great. Let me just wash my hands, and I’ll be right with you,” Rachel told Gary.
“Hey, where’s the rock?” he asked, frowning at her hand.
“Oh, I have to take it off when I’m working usually,” she explained, sounding a little guilty. “It’s so big, it tends to get caught up in everything, and I wouldn’t want to damage it, you know?”
The two went through to the dining area, and Terri watched them go, wondering yet again why her friend stood for Gary’s nonsense. And the way he was going on about the ring—like some kind of overprotective dad or something. Granted he’d spent a fortune on it, so perhaps he was entitled to wonder, but at the end of the day, it was Rachel’s now, wasn’t it?
Something was tugging at the back of Terri’s brain, pulling at the edges, and telling her to pay attention to some important detail, but she just couldn’t put her finger on it.
Moving the tray of vegetables aside, she set about making puff pastry and thought a little more about Gary’s reaction to the mention of Ethan Greene. He seemed thrown by his upcoming visit to Dublin, that was for sure, but seemed happier when Rachel admitted that a meeting wasn’t set in stone.
For her part, she was certainly interested in finding out if this so-called hero would be putting in an appearance over the weekend, because from where she was standing, all this couldn’t merely be about simple consideration for Gary’s well-being.
There was indeed more to this than met the eye, and Terri sorely hoped it didn’t mean trouble for Rachel.
Chapter 25
“So exactly how long are you going to be in Dublin?” Vanessa asked Ethan from where she sat on the bed, watching him pack.
He smiled easily at her. “Just over the weekend.”
It was early Saturday morning, and she had not let up on the questioning ever since he’d mentioned his travel plans earlier in the week, asking if she would mind looking after Daisy while he did so.
Following their conversation about moving in together, Vanessa seemed much happier and had since stayed over a couple of nights at the town house, but it would take some arranging before she packed up her own flat and came to live with him and Daisy permanently.
“Remind me again why you’re going? All this seems to have just come out of the blue.”
“Well, not particularly,” he replied, trying to sound casual. “You know how excited I was to meet that agent in New York. Well, I’ve simply decided that I’m going to get cracking on this book once and for all.”
“I see.” Her eyes widened slightly, as if the opposite were the case and she didn’t see at all. “And going to Ireland will help…how exactly?”
Good grief, she was persistent. “Well, for research of course.”
“Oh, so there’s an Irish aspect to the novel now?”
