‘I might be nuts, but yes, I’ll help. What’s another impossible task in the scheme of things?’

They began to turn back towards the hotel. It looked disappointed and shabby, made more so by the blue tarp Rob had hauled over the gaping roof. Maybe it wouldn’t stay disappointed for long, if only Elle could bring her plan to fruition.

As they walked, she began outlining that plan to Penny, her hands moving in great arcs and then drawing in for finer, more precise movements. Her sister nodded and smiled, occasionally interjecting with thoughts of her own.

By the time they reached the hotel, Penny too was in agreement that this was the last chance they had of saving the hotel, and knew they had to put all they had into it.

It was make or break time.

And her little sister was right about something too, Elle realised. If her plan didn’t work and the hotel was fated to certain doom, at least they would have done something positive in hunting down Ned’s old collection. If she and Penny couldn’t save their mother’s legacy, then they owed it to their dad to take a decent shot at restoring his.

Chapter 25

‘So how will we recognise this guy?’ Elle asked the following Saturday as she and Penny emerged onto Eyre Square.

She had driven the rental car to Galway that morning, leaving Ned in the hotel with only Rob on the roof for company, as Colin had checked out and returned to England the day before.

Penny wondered if he’d been serious about coming back and writing a novel about all that was happening. Or if he was serious about coming back at all. She’d bid him a polite goodbye yesterday, afraid to say too much for fear he would see something more on her face.

She’d done it again of course; fallen head over heels with someone who surely saw her as little more than a brief distraction, someone to pass the time with while in town. Same old story.

And while he was still insistent she should tell Ned, and let her dad participate in the quest, Penny didn’t want to get Ned’s hopes up about this, not until she was further down the line. Ideally she wanted to one day just walk up to her father and present him with the entire collection, but as Elle pointed out, this could realistically take years.

In any case, first things first, and she and Elle were here to meet the prospect from the Done Deal site. She just hoped the journey this far north was worth the effort.