Sisterchicks Go Brit! Read Online Free PDF Page A

them under my jacket if necessary.
    Kellie was wearing a fleece pullover covered by a knee-length raincoat. The combination seemed to make the chill tolerable for her.
    “Here we are.” Virgil stopped behind a compact red sedan. “Out you come, Boswald. Say hello to the ladies.”
    A wide-eyed, whisker-twitching terrier nosed his way out from under Virgil’s coat. Boswald checked out Kellie and me with a long string of yips, as if we were doggy biscuits in a shop window.
    Virgil opened what he called the “boot” of the car and loaded the luggage. I stepped around to the front passenger’s door and asked Opal, before she slipped into the car, if she was comfortable with the situation.
    “I’m a bit chilled, if that’s what you’re asking.”
    “No, I’m asking if you feel safe riding in the car with this man. Do you trust his driving?”
    “Oh, Virgil is quite capable. He made it to the airport, didn’t he?” Her expression softened. “Rose, I’m sure, would not agree. But she never had a fondness for Virgil.”
    “But you do, don’t you?”
    Opal blinked quickly. Her twinkling eyes looked like two smooth, blue marbles.
    I smiled and helped her into the front seat while Kellie assisted Virgil with the luggage. If Virgil had lost some of his marbles, it seemed pretty evident where two of them ended up, all sparkly and blue.
    Kellie came around the side and raised her eyebrows as if this was part of the code to determine if we were going to proceed. “Everything okay?”
    I nodded, still wearing a snug little smile.
    “Oh-kay.” Kellie scanned my expression.
    “No, really. I think everything is okay.”
    The two of us clambered into the backseat and sat close, with the smaller pieces of luggage under our feet. I leaned over and whispered in Kellie’s ear, “I think we’ve stepped into an unfinished love story.”
    Kellie was a big fan of holding secrets when it came to other people’s romances. All three of her sons had confided in her the plans for the how, when, and where of their proposals to their girlfriends. She had kept all three secret from everyone but me. I knew none of the details, but in the midst of each of their love stories, I could read enough in Kellie’s brown eyes to know what was coming around the corner.
    Virgil started the car engine, and Boswald made himself comfortable on the floor next to Opal’s feet. She didn’t seem to mind the dog being underfoot.
    With my elevated longing for romantic impressions, my first views of England from the car window weren’t what I expected. My fairy-tale mind had conjured up expectations of an immediate view of Stonehenge, the Tower Bridge, or the moors where Heathcliff roamed throughout Emily Brontë’s
Wuthering Heights
.
    Instead, the view was of afternoon traffic in a modern city complete with billboards, asphalt, concrete buildings, and tinges of diesel fumes in the air. Aside from the trucks being narrower and shorter than most trucks in the U.S., I hardly could tell I was in another part of the world.
    Telling my brain that we weren’t actually driving on the wrong side of the road turned into a challenging mental exercise for the first five minutes or so. Virgil kept his full attention on the motorway. Opal watched the road as astutely as a copilot, and Boswald remained curled up at her feet, taking a nice little nap.
    The invitation to join his occupation suddenly felt overwhelming. I closed my eyes for only a moment, and I nodded off. Funny how I had such a hard time trying to sleep on the plane while I was anticipating our arrival in England. Now that we were here, I zoned right out.
    How we reached Olney without incident, or what the countryside along the way looked like, I can’t tell you. I have no idea. When I opened my eyes and squinted at the world around me, Virgil was pulling the car into a narrow gravel driveway that ran alongside a small two-story brick house. The car stopped inches in front of a wooden shed that was