“My pleasure, Mrs. Willis,” said Jack.
“I’m Lori Shepherd,” I informed him. “I didn’t change my last name when I married Bill, but it hardly matters because everyone calls me Lori. I hope you will, too, Jack.”
“Right you are, Lori,” he said with an amiable nod.
“Sorry about the lousy weather,” I said.
“We have our fair share of rain in Oz,” he said. “It buckets down during the monsoon. Rivers break their banks, flood towns. Rain’s a bloody nuisance in the wet.”
“The wet?” I repeated.
“The monsoon season,” Jack explained. “We call it ‘the wet’ and it is. It’s not so cold, though.” He smiled ruefully. “Wish I’d taken the time to find my socks. My feet are bloody frozen.”
“I prescribe a hot bath and a roaring fire,” I said. “And a nice cup of tea. A cat in your lap would warm you up, too, but I don’t think your uncle owned a cat.”
“No,” said Jack. “Uncle Hector wasn’t one for pets.”
We bumped over the humpbacked bridge and I advised Jack to slow to a crawl. “See the big, shaggy hedgerow?” I said, pointing ahead and to my right. “Ivy Cottage is behind it. The narrow gap is for the front gate and the wider one is for the driveway.”
“Ta,” said Jack.
I gestured to my left. “My father-in-law lives across the lane. He wanted to attend your uncle’s funeral, but he’s recovering from a bad chest cold and we didn’t want him to risk a relapse. To tell you the truth, we had to lock him in his bedroom and hide the key.”
“Really?” said Jack, looking surprised.
“No, not really,” I admitted. “But he does regret missing the funeral. He has strong feelings about participating in communal rituals.”
“Poor old cobber,” said Jack. “Hope he’s fighting fit again soon.”
“Thanks,” I said, smiling at the mental image of my genteel father-in-law brandishing boxing gloves at a brutish opponent. “William’s housekeeper would have been there, too, but she had to stay at home to keep an eye on him.”
“In case he found the key, eh?” said Jack.
“More or less,” I said. “Her name is Deirdre Donovan. If you need anything—a cup of sugar, directions to the gas station—she’ll be happy to help.”
“Helpful sort of place, Finch,” Jack commented.
“We try.” And we try a lot harder for someone with your good looks and sunny disposition, I added silently. Aloud, I said, “Two miles to go to my cottage. Then you can drive straight back to Ivy Cottage and hit the sack.”
“That’s the plan,” he said.
“I hope your uncle didn’t leave too much for you to do,” I said.
“Not too much.” Jack shrugged nonchalantly. “No worries.”
“Excellent,” I said, hiding my disappointment behind another smile. A generalized “not too much” wasn’t the sort of in-depth personal information I’d hoped to glean from Jack during our time together, but I gave it another shot. “Did you know him well?”
“Well enough,” Jack replied.
I began to suspect that Jack was too tired to give my questions the answers they deserved, but before I could try again, he turned the tables on me.
“You’re a Yank, aren’t you?” he asked. “A Pom would’ve said ‘petrol’ station.”
“I am a Yank,” I confirmed. “Bill is, too, but we’ve spent the past ten years in England.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I inherited property here, and since my husband’s clients live in Europe, we decided to make England our home base,” I replied. “But, mainly, we moved here because we fell in love with Finch. It’s a great place to raise a family.”
“I’ll bet it is,” said Jack. “Quiet, safe, lots of room for the kiddies to run about, no yobbos to set them a bad example.”
“No,” I agreed. “No yobbos.”
“Except for me,” said Jack, giving me a sheepish glance. “I’ll have to clean up my act while I’m here. Wouldn’t want the ankle biters picking up my bad habits.”
“Well,” I allowed, “if you could use words like bloody sparingly, or not at all, Bill and I would be grateful. We know our children hear worse language in the school yard, but we do our best to cultivate civility at home.”
“Consider it done,” said Jack.
“No offense,” I added anxiously.
“None taken,” he said. “When in Rome—”
He interrupted himself with a gigantic yawn and I brought the question-and-answer session to a close. There was nothing to be gained from hammering away at a man who was too sleepy to finish his sentences, so I spent the rest of the short trip pointing out notable landmarks. Jack studied Bree’s redbrick house carefully as we passed it, but he barely glanced at Emma’s curving drive, and he seemed unmoved by the lush, green, sheep-dotted pastures that popped into view between the dripping hedgerows.
“I’d rather be counting them than looking at them,” he admitted. “Jet lag’s a bugger.”