“But what will you do with it?”

“I don’t know. Send it to Liza. Keep it as a souvenir. We can talk about that later. Ready when you are. Go!”

Since the girl didn’t seem about to take no for an answer, Kathleen dutifully struck her best presenting pose.

“Look beyond the neon signs and restored gas stations, and what you find is history. In the 1920s—” She talked for about three minutes, repeating what she’d read in the guidebook and when she finished Martha gave her a strange look. “What? I had lipstick on my teeth?”

“You were incredible. Such a pro.” Martha pressed something on her phone and held it out to Kathleen. “Watch.”

Kathleen took the phone and removed her sunglasses. Was that really her? And did she really look that old?

But underneath the self-consciousness was a certain pride. She might be slower and have an excess of wrinkles, but she hadn’t lost her abilities.

“You filmed that with your phone?”

“Yes. It was a gift from my grandmother and it has a great camera. I’m going to edit this later and we’ll post it online. It’s too good not to use it. I bet we’ll get a ton of views.” Martha pocketed it. “Better get going. Still have a way to go before we get to tonight’s stop.”

They’d been driving for half an hour when Kathleen noticed Martha’s phone light up. “Someone called Steven is calling you. Would you like me to answer it?”

“No!” Martha grabbed the phone and turned it over. “Leave it.”

Interesting, Kathleen thought, that Steven was the only thing that had tempted Martha to release her grip on the wheel.

The phone stopped ringing and then immediately started again.

“He’s persistent.”

“One of his many annoying traits.” Martha pushed her hair away from her face with a shaky hand. “Sorry.”

“I have no objection to personal calls. If you want to pull over and call him back—”

“I don’t.” But Martha swerved to the side of the road and stopped the car. Breathing deeply, she grabbed her phone and switched it off. “There. No more calls. At least he can’t turn up at the motel where we’re staying so I suppose I should be grateful for small things.”

It had been a long time since Kathleen had witnessed the fallout of a bad romance, but that didn’t mean she’d forgotten how it looked. “Was he a scoundrel?”

“A sc—” Martha gave a choked laugh. “Yes. He was a real scoundrel, Kathleen. A megascoundrel. A superscoundrel.”

“Scoundrel is an adequate descriptor. Hyperbole is unnecessary. I gather he broke your heart.”

“Along with a few other things, including a teapot my grandma gave me which is something I’ll never forgive him for.”

As a tea lover, Kathleen could understand the outrage. “Describe the teapot.”