“Don’t worry. Your aunt will be safe,” Whit offers. “She will have been evacuated.”
“Yep.” The policeman stands. “The houses are all empty. Reverse at the corner when you can,” he directs Whit as he turns.
“Don’t worry,” Whit says, taking my hand. “They do this all the time.”
“They do?”
“Well, relatively speaking,” he amends. Pressing his arm across the back of my seat, he twists his head over his shoulder as he begins to reverse.
“The camera.” I point at the image that flashes up on the dash. “Wouldn’t that be easier?”
“It would also be cheating,” he says with a small grin.
Maybe there’s a class they teach somewhere. Driving: How to Make it Look Hot. It shouldn’t be sexy watching him reverse. “No one finds it sexy when I do it!”
“Finds what sexy?”
Damn. “Nothing,” I mutter, glancing out of the side window.
“You think it’s sexy when I reverse?” he asks, driving back the way we came.
“Shut up,” I plead.
“Sure you don’t want to give this a drive?”
I expect to find innuendo painted across his face when I look. But no. “No thanks.”
“The offer stands. And you can back yourself up on me any day of the week.”
“Funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.” When I don’t answer, he adds, “So where to now?”
“Oh, pull over! There’s my aunt.” Doreen is holding court, sitting on a low garden wall. She has a teacup in her hand and a bag and cat carrier by her feet. “Oh, good. She has moggy.”
“Her cat is called cat?”
“No, he’s called Moggy.”
“Moggy means cat. Like mutt means dog.”
“Oh. Then I guess Aunt Doreen is unimaginative.” Which can’t be the case at all.
“There she is!” Doreen announces as we make our way toward her. “I was just talking about you.”
“I hope it was all good.”
“What a thing to say,” she scoffs. “You’re an angel. Didn’t I say she was an angel?” she says, turning to the woman on her left. “This is Sadie. She lives here.” She gestures to the house behind her. “She was kind enough to put the kettle on while we wait.”
A chorus of “lovely cuppa, this is,” starts up from the china cup holding brigade of elderly women.
“How long before you get to go back?” As Doreen’s eyes widen, then flick slowly up then down, I realize how rude I’m being. “Oh, sorry. Where are my manners? This is Whit, Aunt Doreen. You remember I told you about Connor’s friend?”
“I remember you mentioning him, dear,” she says, suddenly patting the back of her hair. “And now the picture is becoming very clear. He’s herboss,” she announces, all wide-eyed and nodding head.
“Oh!” clucks the chorus.
Well, I don’t quite know what that means, but anyway, “Whit, this is Aunt Doreen.”
