Treasured by Thursday

Hunter flexed his fingers and motioned toward the host bar. “How about a drink?”

“I’m so embarrassed.”

“It’s perfectly normal.”

Gabi Masini glanced at her British friend, then to the smashed-up back end of her Lexus. She swore the person backing out of the other parking space signaled for her to go.

When the man in the other car smacked into her—or maybe she backed into him—they both emerged from their cars. Only the fifty-something I’ve eaten too many doughnuts man was waving his fist and screaming at her in a language she didn’t recognize. Considering Gabi was fluent in three and working her way through a fourth, she still didn’t comprehend the man. Anger, however, didn’t require a language to understand.

It didn’t take long for the private sensors on the car to notify the security team. That team happened to be close by, and Gabi’s shame was witnessed by Gwen and her husband, Neil.

Neil walked past the cars, shoved himself between the irate driver and Gabi, and spoke in a low tone.

“Accidents happen,” Gwen said while placing an arm around her.

“This is the second one in a month.”

Gabi didn’t want to consider the two that elevated her car insurance shortly after she’d relocated to Southern California.

“You lived on an island that only provided golf carts for years.”

“I’ve been in California for eighteen months.”

Gwen sucked in a breath and didn’t comment.

“I’m the worst driver ever.”

“Don’t be absurd. There has to be others worse than you.”

Where are they?

Neil walked toward them, his face as stern as the tight grip of control he always wore. He reached out a hand, palm up.

Gabi knew, instinctively, what he wanted. The keys dangling in her fingers rattled as she handed them over.

“I’m sorry.”

Neil lifted one eyebrow before turning his gaze to his wife. “Drive her home. I’ll be there shortly.”

Gwen turned on her perfectly polished pedicure and started walking away.

Gabi had no choice but to follow. “Wait.” She moved back to the car and pulled twice on the back door before the metal relented and let her in. She removed the mail and a handful of groceries she’d been in the shopping center acquiring and hauled them to Gwen’s waiting car.

For several miles, Gabi pleaded her case, to which Gwen listened but didn’t comment.

“I’m an awful driver,” Gabi finally relented.

Gwen cautiously maneuvered onto an off-ramp and headed down the familiar Tarzana street where Gabi lived. “I’m going to have to agree with you. Four accidents in less than two years is above average.”

“Maybe I should move back to New York. No one owns a car in New York.”

“And when was the last time you lived in that city?” Gwen asked.

“I was a teenager. I barely graduated before Val was pulling my mother and me out of the city and onto the island.” Her brother, Valentino Masini, owned and operated a resort on a private island in the Keys where golf carts shuttled guests. Gabi had lived on the island, sheltered, taken care of, up until eighteen months before her fourth car accident. With Val moving on with his life, a wife and an island to keep his attention, Gabi took control of hers and moved to the other side of the country, where not driving a real car wasn’t an option. Public transportation in Southern California was difficult at best, unworkable at all other times. Nerves got the best of Gabi her first few months in the state. Then she seemed to do better. Only the last month she had a hard time keeping from playing bumper cars with others on the road . . . or in parking lots.

“Chances are you’d simply replace one worry with another if you moved back to New York.”

Yeah . . . Gwen was right. Not to mention California was where her job was . . . where she’d found her backbone again. She couldn’t abandon the state because she failed to stay within the lines of her side of the road. “Maybe I should take lessons?”

Gwen pulled into the driveway. “Or maybe we should hire you a driver.”

“Oh, that’s silly.”

Gwen twisted the key and cut the engine before glancing over her shoulder.

Gabi squirmed in the passenger seat. “Every sixteen-year-old acne-faced kid learns how to drive. I think I have more on them.”

Gwen, channeling her husband, who often said so much by not saying anything at all, silently pushed out of the car and walked up the short path to the front door.

A series of numbers on a keypad let her in. From there she moved to another monitor system that alerted the team that the resident of the house had breached the walls. Gabi set her bags on the kitchen counter, dropped the mail onto the table.

She moved about the room, depositing groceries where they belonged. “Was it hard for you to adjust to driving on the right side of the road when you moved here?”

Gwen told her about her adjustments to driving in the States, which apparently weren’t nearly as difficult as Gabi’s.

By the time Neil arrived, Gabi had exhausted her excuses for being a poor driver and conceded that something had to change before someone got hurt.

Then Neil delivered a series of facts that took some of her control away . . . at least temporarily.

“Your car is in for repairs, your insurance company has suspended your ability to hold them accountable until an investigation has taken place.”

“Can they do that?” Gabi asked.

“They can and have. Renting a car without insurance isn’t possible.”