Best of Bosses 2008(162)
Not surprisingly, when Logan arrived at her house at six-thirty her stomach was a mass of nerves. He’d quickly showered and changed, as she had, and now he was wearing casual beige trousers and a dark shirt beneath a rather sporty lightweight jacket.
His hair was still damp and Sally, in her best little black dress and kitten heels—because there was no point in not looking her best—could smell his aftershave as he opened the car door for her. Once inside the car, she smelled the scent of the white roses, which were glistening on the back seat, and her stomach tightened.
Logan tried to make conversation as he drove to Clifton House, but for once Sally was too tense to respond with anything more than monosyllables. Eventually he gave up and the journey was completed in uncomfortable silence.
They arrived at very large iron gates, which were opened by a man in a little sentry box. The man greeted Logan and actually dipped his cap as the black car purred through the gateway and up a long gravelled drive that wound its way through green parkland.
Sally gasped. ‘Where is this? It looks like the grounds of a mansion.’
‘Clifton House,’ was Logan’s brief and unsatisfactory reply.
They emerged from a grove of trees into a wide courtyard complete with a beautiful fountain. In the rays of the setting sun, two storeys of windows glinted gold. This was a mansion. And Sally was way, way out of her comfort zone.
The name—Clifton House—had been embellished in gold on a black sign. And then, beneath it in smaller print, were the words Nursing Home.
Sally rounded on Logan. ‘I don’t understand.’
As he steered his car into a parking space between graceful sandstone columns, he shot her a sheepish smile. ‘This is where I bring the white roses.’
‘Is—is the woman you love sick? Or does she run this place?’
‘Her health is quite delicate.’
‘What does that mean? Has she been seriously ill? Or through some kind of detox programme?’
‘God forbid.’
Slipping out of his seat, he opened the rear door and retrieved the roses and then he came around to open Sally’s door, but she beat him to it. ‘What’s going on, Logan? This isn’t making sense.’
He grinned. ‘Just be patient and all will be revealed.’
Stamping her foot angrily, Sally fumed. ‘I’m not setting foot inside this place until I know who I’m supposed to be meeting.’ She stamped her foot again. ‘And why she’s in a nursing home. And why you’ve got such a silly grin on your face.’
‘Bravo!’ cried a voice from behind her.
Spinning round, Sally discovered a diminutive old lady in a motorised wheelchair. The woman’s face was a picture of delighted surprise and her lively brown eyes twinkled from beneath a tidy cap of snowy curls.
‘I like to see a young woman with fire,’ she said.
‘Darling,’ Logan intervened, stooping quickly to kiss the old lady’s papery cheek and settling the bouquet of roses gently in her lap, ‘what are you doing outside at this hour?’
‘It’s such a lovely evening, I thought I’d come out to meet you. And I’m very glad I did. Now, introduce me to this interesting young woman.’
There was a flash of emotion in Logan’s eyes that Sally couldn’t quite identify. It was followed by a charming smile of apology. ‘Grandmother, this is Sally Finch.’
Why hadn’t she guessed that the white roses were for someone like a grandmother? Why hadn’t Maeve or Kim guessed? The nerve of Logan to let his staff think they were for his lover!
‘Sally,’ Logan continued, ‘I’d like you to meet my wonderful and formidable grandmother, Hattie Lane.’
Swallowing her outrage, Sally dredged up a smile as she offered her hand to be clasped by thin and wrinkled fingers. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Lane.’
‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Sally, and please call me Hattie.’
‘Now,’ Logan said quickly, ignoring his grandmother’s sharp, birdlike glances of bristling curiosity, ‘let’s get you inside, out of this night air.’
Taking hold of her wheelchair, he propelled it towards the front doorway.
Clifton House was certainly fancier than any nursing home Sally had visited, more like a grand hotel. Logan’s grandmother’s room was on the ground floor. Spacious and airy, it housed a large bed with a beautiful quilted cream bedspread, built-in bookshelves and an en suite bathroom. There was also a small sitting area with armchairs and a coffee table beside tall French windows that opened out to the garden.
‘Take a seat, Sally.’ Hattie Lane, as regal in her wheelchair as on a throne, pointed to an armchair deeply upholstered in pale green velvet. ‘That chair next to the window is very comfortable.’