Finn paced his office, unable to settle back down to the plans that were sprawled across his wide desk. Plans that were going to go to hell in a handbasket if he couldn’t buy the easement necessary to gain access to the tract of land he wanted to use for this special project. He shoved a hand through his short hair, mussing it even more than usual.
The chirp of his phone was a happy distraction.
“Gallagher.”
“Finn, is there a problem?”
“Lorenzo, I’m glad you called.” Finn settled in his chair and swiveled it around to face the window, allowing the vista spread before him to fill his mind and relax his thoughts into a semblance of order. Thoughts that had been distracted all too thoroughly by his earlier visitor.
“What is it, my boy?”
Despite Lorenzo’s years in Australia, followed by the past couple of decades in New Zealand, his voice still held the lilt of his native Italian tongue.
“First, how is Ellen?”
The older man sighed. “Not good, she is having a bad day today.”
After Ellen began to show signs of kidney and liver failure, she and Lorenzo had relocated to Wellington, where she could receive the specialized care her advancing dementia required.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
He could almost hear Lorenzo shrug in acceptance. “It is what it is. I have asked Alexis to make plans to return from Italy.”
“Ellen’s that bad?”
Alexis was Lorenzo and Ellen’s only child and had been working overseas for the past year. Currently, she was visiting with Lorenzo’s family still living in Tuscany.
“Si, she has no fight left in her anymore. If she recognizes me at all it is a good day, but they are few.”
Finn could hear the pain echoing in the older man’s voice before Lorenzo took another deep breath and continued.
“Now, what did you call me for?”
Choosing blunt statement over trying to find an easy way to say what he had to, Finn said, “Tamsyn Masters showed up here today wanting to see Ellen.”
“So, it has finally happened.”
“I told her Ellen Masters doesn’t live here and sent her on her way.”
Lorenzo gave a short laugh, the sound crackling like autumn leaves. “But you didn’t tell her that Ellen Fabrini does, I assume?”
“No,” Finn admitted. He hadn’t told an outright lie when he’d spoken to Tamsyn. Though Lorenzo and Ellen had never formalized their union , she’d always been known as his wife and had gone by his last name the whole time they’d lived in New Zealand.
“You say she left again?”
“Yes, hopefully to return to Australia.”
“Hmm, but what if she doesn’t leave?”
Finn’s lips firmed in a line as he considered Lorenzo’s statement. “What are you thinking?”