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“Bye, Grace. It was nice to meet you, too.” Rhona gave her a genuine smile. Grace tried to give one back.
And then she looked at Michael. He stared back, his expression revealing nothing.
Walking back to her cousins, she might have added a little swing to her hips. And yeah, she might have hoped that Michael watched her. Because he couldn’t avoid being set up by his mom, but he could look more annoyed at it.
Maybe she should go to New York instead.
No, she knew she wouldn’t. But part of her wished she had the guts to do it.
ChapterSixteen
“Honey,can you take Rhona home for me?” Mia asked Michael, as people started leavingChairs. “Cam was going to do it, but I’m so tired. I’d like to get back home and into bed.”
“I have to leave for Charleston,” Michael reminded her. There was no way he wanted to take Rhona home. Not when Grace was shooting daggers at him every five minutes, even though this wasn’t his fault.
“Oh honey, she only lives ten minutes away. If you’re worried about losing time, you could pick your bag up and take her from ours. It’s on the way to Charleston, after all.”
There was no way around it. Not without starting the kind of fuss that would get attention. And his mom looked so damn happy that he’d been talking to her nurse.
“Okay,” he said curtly. “I’ll take her on my way.”
When he was back from Charleston, he’d have to talk to her about this. It was one thing to be asking him about his love life, another to be interfering with it.
“Rhona, Michael will take you home,” his mom called out to her nurse.
Rhona smiled at him. “Are you sure?” she asked softly.
He nodded. “It’s fine. I’m heading to Charleston, so it’s on my way.”
“You’re going to Charleston tonight?” Rhona looked surprised. “But it’s hours away. You’ll be driving really late.”
“I have meetings tomorrow. It’s either leave late or at a stupid hour in the morning. This way at least I get some sleep.”
Rhona smiled. “I can make you a sandwich for the trip if you’d like.”
And damn if Grace didn’t walk by at the same time with his sister. Sabrina was pulling at Grace’s arm.
“You should take her up on the sandwich,” Grace said, deadpan. “Somebody your age needs regular meals.”
Sabrina started laughing. He cocked a brow at her and she wrinkled her nose.
But Grace just carried on walking. And he couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or amused.
“Come on,” he said to Rhona. “Let’s get going. We’ll swing by and pick up my suitcase on the way.”
“Thank you.” She smiled at him.
It took a while to get to his place, because everybody had left at the same time and he had to wait for a break in the cars to pull out. Still, he got home before his parents did, and before Sabrina and Mason, so he pulled into the drive and glanced over at Rhona.
“You okay staying here?” he asked. “I’m just gonna run in and out again.”
“You already packed?”
“Yep.” That was one good thing he’d done, at least.
“Sure, I’m happy to wait.”
It took him a couple of minutes to get upstairs. He was just about to grab his overnight bag when his phone vibrated.
