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“But would she enjoy those miserable, bacon-free extra years?”
“Can you be serious?”
“I am serious. It’s about quality of life, not just quantity. You try and keep every bad thing at bay but doing that also keeps out the good stuff. Maybe she could stay in the house and we could find someone local to look in on her.”
“She’s terrible at taking help from anyone. You know how independent she is.” Liza hit the brakes as the car in front of her stopped, the seat belt locking hard against her body. Her eyes pricked with tiredness and her head pounded. She hadn’t slept well the night before, worrying about Caitlin and her friendship issues. “Do you think I should have locked our bedroom?”
“Why? If someone breaks into our house they’ll simply kick the doors down if they’
re locked. Makes more mess.”
“I wasn’t thinking of burglars. I was thinking about the twins.”
“Why would the twins go into our bedroom? They have perfectly good rooms of their own.”
What did it say about her that she didn’t entirely trust her own children? They’d been suitably horrified when they’d discovered that their elderly grandmother had been assaulted, but had flat-out resisted her attempts to persuade them to come too.
“There’s nothing to do at Granny’s,” Alice had said, exchanging looks with her sister.
“Besides, we have work to do.” Caitlin had gestured to a stack of textbooks. “History exam on Monday. I’ll be studying. Probably won’t even have time to order in pizza.”
It had been a reasonable response. So why did Liza feel nervous?
She’d do a video call later so that she could see what was going on in the background.
The traffic finally cleared, and they headed west to Cornwall.
By the time they turned into the country lane that led to her mother’s house it was late afternoon, and the sun sent a rosy glow over the fields and hedges.
She was allowing herself a rare moment of appreciating the scenery when a bright red sports car sped round the bend, causing her almost to swerve into a ditch.
“For—” She leaned on her horn and caught a brief glimpse of a pair of laughing blue eyes as the car roared past. “Did you see that?”
“Yes. Stunning car. V-8 engine.” Sean turned his head, almost drooling, but the car was long gone.
“He almost killed us!”
“Well, he didn’t. So that’s good.”
“It was that wretched rock star who moved here last year.”
“Ah yes. I read an article in one of the Sunday papers about his six sports cars.”
“I was about to say I don’t understand why one man would need six cars, but if he drives like that then I suppose that’s the explanation right there. He probably gets through one a day.”
Liza turned the wheel and Sean winced as branches scraped the paintwork.
“You’re a bit close on my side, Liza.”
“It was the hedge or a head-on collision.” She was shaken by what had been a close shave, her emotions heightened by her brief glimpse of Finn Cool. “He laughed—did you see that? He actually smiled as he passed us. Would he have been laughing if he’d had to haul my mangled body out of the twisted wreckage of this car?”
“He seemed like a pretty skilled driver.”
“It wasn’t his skill that saved us. It was me driving into the hedge. It isn’t safe to drive like that down these roads.”
Liza breathed out slowly and drove cautiously down the lane, half expecting another irresponsible rock star to come zooming around the corner. She reached her mother’s house without further mishap, her pulse rate slowing as she pulled into the drive.
Aubretia clung to the low wall that bordered the property, and lobelia and geraniums in bright shades of purple and pink tumbled from baskets hung next to the front door. Although her mother neglected the house, she loved the garden and spent hours in the sunshine, tending her plants.
