Chapter 24
Isla
“Why is that light on?” Alistair nodded to the flashing warning light on Daisy’s instrument panel as we passed over a noisy cattle grate.
“Not sure.” I pulled into a passing place, idling while a stream of traffic, stuck behind a camper van, passed by.
It was Saturday afternoon, the day of the Macabe family lunch.
I was fidgety, tapping my fingers off the wheel, stealing glances at Teddy playing with her iPad in the back, while Alistair grumbled from the passenger seat, clutching the blueberry pie I’d hastily baked that morning.
He’d wanted to drive us, yet I’d been adamant I’d drive Daisy whether he was taking his Land Rover or not.
“I wouldn’t worry though, it’s been on for years. What?”
He blinked at me, knees folded awkwardly against the dashboard. “I’m calculating the odds of my impending death.” The day had turned humid and that curl he seemed determined to keep slicked back was starting to fall across his forehead.
“You’re fine.” I patted the furry steering wheel cover. “Daisy’s a sturdy old girl. A little temperamental maybe.”
He didn’t laugh. “The way you live your life is terrifying to me – it’s a wonder you’re still alive.”
“My gran used to say I was touched by angels; there must be something in it.”
I kept my eyes on the road, but I could have sworn his gaze trailed over my face. My hair. My hands. I clenched the wheel tighter.
Nothing has changed, I reminded myself.
I guess I’d failed at that promise, because a single moment of madness had opened the gates, and all the sexual tension that had been steadily bubbling beneath the surface was now running loose.
A plague on all our houses.
For the past week, my brain kept skipping back to those minutes on the sofa. Not just the pleasure of it – though that had been mind-blowing – but the tiny details too. His eyes, like twin blue flames that didn’t stray from me for a single second.
His groan as I came.
You like it rougher.
I’d used the Rosebud three times this week. I’d made myself come. Every. Single. Time. Face buried in my pillow, those words ringing in my ears.
“Is that where you got Daisy?”
“What?” I startled, mouth dry.
“Daisy. Was she your gran’s?”
“Why do you think that?”
“No one would keep this hunk of junk unless it was a family heirloom.”
“Hey!” I gasped, stroking a hand over the dashboard. “Enough of the junk.”
That crooked smile appeared, the one my heart was still getting used to. “Can she hear us?”
“I like to think so. I know it’s stupid, but this car has carried me through every stage of my life.
She feels like the only true family I have some days, other than Teddy.
” Bloody hell, that was sad. “I had to beg Mum not to sell her after Granny Pat died, but Mum couldn’t drive, so she sat with a dead battery on our driveway until I was old enough to get a part-time job and begin driving lessons. ”
I grinned, thinking of Granny Pat. Her purple rinse and fondness for leopard print. “She was a real hippie. Introduced me to all the classics: Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young.”
“I get it now.”
“What?” A quick glance, enough to see he had his doctor face on, like I’d just been diagnosed and there might be hope for me yet.
“You. This has been a very illuminating car ride.”
“You think you have me all figured out?”
“Almost.”
I hit the accelerator a bit too hard. “Feel like sharing?”
Out the corner of my eye, I watched him grab the oh shit handle over the passenger window. “Not yet.”
He may have been the one literally holding on, but I was the one squirming the rest of the way to his mum’s house.