After the scene at the garage, the week seemed to fly by. Ranger and I spent every second together. Well, not every second, but a whole lot of time. I saw Abby when she dropped off goodies in the morning, and she was pretty much glowing. Apparently, Sean had changed his hours at the garage so he got off half an hour after Abby closed down the bakery. What they did with all that time, I'm not sure I wanted to know. I already knew what I was getting up to in my free time this week. I'm pretty sure that with the power of our twin glows, Abby and I could light up Trenton.
The only interruption of the smooth plow of the week came on Wednesday morning. After dropping off the usual goody basket, Abby pulled me aside.
"Are we still on for Saturday?" She asked
I had completely forgotten about that. "Yeah, I guess."
"Great. I had Sean's mom set up an appointment for us."
"An appointment? Are you freaking nuts?!" I was trying hard not to draw the guys' attention to us by refraining from screaming.
"Well, it's not an appointment per se, she just found out when Mr. O'Shaughnessy would be home."
"Oh, well, I guess that's marginally less suicidal then."
"Shut up. Anywho, just tell Ranger you're having a girl's day with me."
"Fine." I huffed, already thinking of how to convince Ranger not to hunt me down and kill me for what I was planning. And then trying not to drool when I thought about the form that that convincing could take.
"Cool." Abby grinned. "See ya tomorrow!"
And after a few text messages determining the final details, we were ready for another meeting with a mob boss.
I picked up Abby at 7am. We would get to the head honcho's house at about 10:30am. I was wearing a pair of dressy jeans and a cute blouse. When Abby disentangled herself from Sean (who seemed determined to keep her by his side through sheer force of lip lock) I noticed she was wearing an adorable blue sundress and white kitten heel sandals, carrying a basket and basically looking like a good little burg girl on her way to a picnic.
The ride down was uneventful, with us blasting tunes, singing at the top of our lungs, and when that got dull, talking. We were both pretty pleased with how far along we had gotten in our genius plans to get our men, although Abby was rather upset that hers was leaving in just under two weeks. She told me that she was planning on expanding the Bakery to take on more cake decorating jobs while Sean was gone. She thought it would be a good distraction, and great for her business., I couldn't disagree with her on either point, and we discussed her expansion plan until suddenly a large gate loomed before us. We were there.
The gate had a box where you could either punch in the access code, or the intercom. Abby, having taken over my usual role of slightly-suicidal-and-overly-curious, leaned over to push the intercom button.
"Hi, my name is Abby Foster, and I'm here to see Mr. O'Shaughnessy."
The box crackled as if contemplating for a moment, then spoke. Well, someone answered our request in a rather heavy Boston accent. "Mr. O'Shaughnessy isn't seeing visitors at the moment."
Abby giggled and winked at me, then pressed the button again. "I'm a friend of Mrs. Margaret Hennessey and I just wanted to give Mr. O her regards."
The box crackled again and then the gate swung open. "Follow the drive to the main house." The voice told us.
Abby leaned back in her seat, humming 'We're off to see the Wizard.' As we pulled up the drive to the house, I almost passed out. The place was an enormous Tudor, complete with stone façade and turret, as well as ivy.
Abby sighed. "I want a house like that, with jasmine growing up the front so that my home always smells beautiful."
I smiled "If your bakery keeps turning and burning the way it has been, the dream will be a reality in no time flat."
Abby nodded absently and then climbed out of the truck and walked towards the two guards who had come out to meet us. I followed suit, watching the men's' reaction to Abby. Sweet as she looked in that little dress, with her basket, her face was still an interesting assortment of colors, and she was still in a rather harsh looking brace that stretched from mid thigh to mid calf. She looked like a victim, and the men were sizing her up. But then she smiled at the biggest and (in my opinion) scariest guard and held out her basket. "Cookie?" She asked.