Fairytale Come Alive (Ghosts and Reincarnation #4)(35)

“What makes you wonder?” she asked when he didn’t continue.

“This,” he replied nonsensically.

“What?”

“This desperate warning not to pay attention to your best friend. It makes me wonder what secrets you’re keeping.”

“I’m not keeping any secrets,” she replied softly and it wasn’t exactly a lie.

It was just that he lost the privilege to know her secrets twenty years ago when he walked out of Fergus’s living room and didn’t look back.

Prentice went on, “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll pay close attention to everything he says.”

As a matter of fact, she did mind.

Mikey could be considered certifiably insane on entire continents. No one knew what was going to come out of his mouth. That was why he was still single.

Furthermore, why would Prentice care?

“If you’ll open the doors, Isabella, I’d like to serve my guest his drink.”

With nothing else for it, she opened the doors and walked out beside Prentice.

“Thank God! My cocktail,” Mikey exclaimed.

Isabella gave him a look that would turn marble into sand but bounced off Mikey. She smiled weakly at Sally and Jason. She ignored Prentice completely. Then she turned on her spike-heeled pump and used everything she had to force herself to walk calmly down the hall and to the guest suite.

Once there, she dashed around like a crazed demon, yanking off her (very pretty, she thought, still, it was expensive but then practically everything she owned was expensive, she was rich, for God’s sake!) sapphire blue dress. She tugged off her matching sapphire blue suede pumps and pulled on a pair of jeans and a sage green, tunic style sweater. It had a boat neck and bell sleeves and was hand-knit from the finest wool by what could only be considered a craftsman. It was one of a kind and cost a mint.

It would have to do.

She snatched the bobby pins out of the complicated chignon she’d fashioned at her nape (she’d always been good with hair, it was one of her few true talents, even her father begrudgingly admitted that) and shook out her hair. Once she’d done that, she piled it up on her head in a messy knot and fastened it loosely with a ponytail holder.

She allowed herself a split second to look in the mirror to see if she was fit for spending the evening in “a family home in the wilds of Scotland”.

She decided she wasn’t but she took off out the door anyway.

When she hit the kitchen, Sally and Mikey were in it, Jason was seated at the counter and a quick glance showed that Prentice was on the phone in his study.

Maybe her luck had changed.

“We’ve decided to call you Miss Bella!” Sally shrieked from her place on the stool at the counter, tea towels already wrapped around her.

“Have you, now?” Isabella muttered, entering the kitchen to see the groceries unpacked, the peas were at the boil and the water for the noodles was already at a flame on the stove.

At least Mikey had some uses.

“Mister Mikey says I can help,” Sally announced.

Isabella gave her a smile and started to get busy. “That you can, sweetheart. Your choice, you can do the crunchy bit or the smushy bit.”

“Can I do both?” Sally asked.

Isabella set a bowl in front of her, leaned in to kiss the top of her head and murmured there, “Why not?”

Sally threw both her hands up, nearly hitting Isabella in the jaw and shouted, “Hurrah!”

“Mental,” Jason mumbled.

Isabella looked at him and chuckled.

“I wish I found making tuna casserole so exciting,” Mikey remarked, carrying his whisky around the counter to sit beside Jason.

“You’re too cynical,” Isabella told him, opening cans of mushroom soup. “Making tuna casserole is exciting.”

And it was when one was making it for Prentice, his family and one’s best friend.

“She’s mental,” Mikey stage-whispered to Jason and Jason grinned as Prentice joined them from the other room.

Well, that reprieve didn’t last long.

Sally didn’t waste any time getting Prentice up to speed.

“Mister Mikey says we can call Mrs. Evangahlala, Miss Bella and I’m doing the crunchy and smushy bits for dinner.”

“Crunchy and smushy,” Prentice murmured, his eyes warm on his daughter. “Sounds like dinner is going to be interesting.”

“Tuna casserola!” Sally shouted and Prentice looked at Isabella.

Isabella busied herself with draining the tuna.

“Have you had her tuna casserole?” Prentice asked, she looked over her shoulder and saw he was talking to Mikey. The palms of his hands were at the edge of the counter and he pushed up to sit on it.

“I’ve sampled Bella’s entire culinary arsenal,” Mikey replied. “It must be said, the woman can cook.”

“We know. She made us chicken fingers, homemade, the other night. They were brilliant,” Jason put in.

Isabella ducked her head and bit her lip at the compliment while she went to stand behind Sally and set the cans around the bowl.

“All right, honey, we need to dump all this into the bowl and then smush it together. Yes?” she told the girl softly and Sally nodded exuberantly.

She handed Sally a spoon and Sally went straight for the mushroom soup as Isabella, her arms around Sally, her eyes looking over the girl’s shoulder, used a fork to flake out the tuna.