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“Isn’t it?” Belle agreed. “I’m sorry for calling you so late, but I was out with a friend until now and wanted to let you know. It’s going to be amazing, it really is.” She exhaled quickly, as though she didn’t want to stop talking. “Thank you for all your support with this. I love you, bro.”
“I love you, too.” His voice was low.
“You’ll be bringing Meghan, right? Carlyn’s asked me to give her a guest list. I can put her on there as your plus one?”
“Yeah, I’ll be bringing Meghan.” The thought warmed him more than it should.
“I’m glad to hear it. Well, good night, bro.”
12
“Dammit.” Meghan gritted her teeth and turned the ignition key again, but all she could hear were some random clicks. A glance at her watch told her it was almost twelve. They were due at her parents’ in an hour. Even if she managed to find the best mechanic in Angel Sands to come out to check the engine, they still wouldn’t make it.
“Mommy? What’s happening?” Isla leaned forward, her hair falling over her face as she craned to look at the dashboard.
“The car isn’t working, honey.” Meghan gave her a quick smile. “I think we’ll have to go see Granny and Gramps another time.”
“But they’re cooking dinner,” Isla said, her brow crinkling into a frown. “Granny said I could help her make some cookies later.”
“We can make some cookies at home.” While we wait for the mechanic. She should have gotten rid of this car years ago, but she didn’t use it that much. The occasional school trip and these drives to see her parents were as much mileage as it got. She had a van for the shop, but Jeannie needed it today to make deliveries. Maybe she could console Isla with a trip to the pool.
They grabbed their jackets and bags and walked back to the apartment building. By the time they got into the elevator, Isla was over her grump and was talking about a cartoon she’d seen that morning. Her voice washed over Meghan as she tried to steel herself to call her dad.
He’d be politely pissed. That was a good expression for it. And she understood. They didn’t get to see Isla much, and they missed her the same way Isla missed them.
When the elevator doors opened on their floor, a loud bang echoed through the hallway. Rich was walking out of his apartment, wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, his phone nestled into his palm.
“Hey.” He gave them a bemused look. “I thought you were heading to White City today.”
“Our car isn’t working,” Isla told him, before Meghan could open her mouth. “Mommy swore.”
His eyes met Meghan’s, and she could see his lips twitch. “I guess Mommy owes money to the swear jar.”
“What’s a swear jar?” Isla asked him.
“It’s a little glass jar that you add a dollar to every time you say a swear word. When it gets full you can give it to charity.” Meghan wrinkled her nose at him, trying to bite down her own smile. “And that would take a long time, because I rarely curse.”
“You swore the other night, too. When you burned your finger on the stove.”
“Thank you for the reminder,” she told Isla. Rich was grinning at her. “I owe the jar two dollars.”
“The charity is going to be very happy.” Rich was deadpan.
“Well we’d better go in. I need to call my parents.” Meghan grabbed her key from her purse. “Let them know we’re not coming.”
“Can’t you call a mechanic? I’d take a look myself but I know nothing about cars.” He looked genuinely upset about that. “If it was a human, great. But engines and I don’t mix.”
“I will. Even if I can find one on a Sunday, we still won’t get there on time. My parents go to church in the early evenings, so we had a four hour window. It’s all good, we can go next time I have a Sunday off.”
“I’ll take you.”
Meghan blinked. “What?”
“I’ll drive you and Isla to White City. I wasn’t planning on doing much today anyway. I was just heading out to the coffee shop because I don’t have any milk in the house.”
Isla’s face lit up.
“We couldn’t ask you to do that. We’d be gone all afternoon. It wouldn’t be worth your time to drop us off and come home again only to turn around to pick us up. I know how precious your days off are. It’s fine, we’ll go another time.”
