Page 28 of Suddenly Single
Jenny batted it away.“That’s okay, I can walk back when it stops raining.I don’t want to interrupt you.”
Edan took her by the elbow again and wheeled her around to face the door. “How is that you keep appearing everywhere that I am?” he muttered.
“It’s not hard—you pretty much exist in a two mile radius, have you noticed?”
“Let’s go,” he said low.
“Wait,” Jenny protested. “You’re not going to just go without saying goodbye, are you?”
“I said my goodbyes.”
“Not to the gentleman, to the girl.She looks really sad, Edan—you should go back and say something to her.It’s none of my business, but maybe ask her for a drink, because she is totally into you. She’s practically drooling—”
“Wheesht,” he muttered.
“Excuse me? That sounded like a sneeze.Is it a word? Never mind. Look at her,” Jenny said, peering over her shoulder as he hustled her toward the entrance. “She looks as forlorn as the last puppy in the litter.At least thank her for taking care of your uncle.”
He pushed the glass door open and said, “He is no’ my uncle.” He dropped his hand from the door, turned about and called across the room to the elderly woman, “Thank you, Mrs. Simmons.I’ll come again next week.”
“We’ll all look forward to it!” Mrs. Simmons said.
Apparently satisfied, Edan tried to move Jenny out the door, then, but she resisted.“Say goodbye to the girl.”
“What is thematterwith you?” he demanded.
“I’ve been that girl.I’m not suggesting you marry her, I’m suggesting you say goodbye.”
She could see Edan gritting his teeth.But he slowly turned and said, “Thank you, Phoebe.”
“Of course!” Phoebe said with a thousand-watt brightness. “If there’s anything I can do for you, anything at all, just call me. You have my number, right?”
“Aye,” he said, and practically pushed Jenny through the glass doors before him.
She scarcely had time to grab her jacket before he was steering her out the door and to his car.
“I’m wet!” she cried when he opened the passenger door.
“Get in, get in,” he said.
She slipped into the passenger seat, and the two dogs instantly surged forward, their feet on the console between the seats, their tongues working in tandem on Jenny’s ear until she pushed them off.They left behind smeared paw prints on the leather.“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she said, and wiped the console with the sleeve of her jacket.
“Never mind it,” Edan said as he started the car.
“Why are you being so weird? Is it Phoebe?”
“No,” he said, and looked the other way.
“Who were you visiting?”
“Mr. Finlay.”
When Edan did not add any helpful details, Jenny said, “Not your uncle.”
“Mr. Finlay was the maintenance man at the inn for many years. He has no one. No family.”
It was awfully kind of Edan to visit him.Jenny knew how people drifted away when someone was ill.Her father had lost all his friends as the junk around him had piled up.
And then, out of nowhere, comes a girlfriend.Jesus.
