Chapter Seven
It was late by the time Blane got back to the hotel.
He paid the driver and stood for a moment, staring up at the building.
The team had been glad to see him, and he’d been able to iron out a couple of wrinkles for them before they left for Hamburg in the morning.
They’d told him he should go with them, and he still could, he supposed, especially since Cash had texted to say the jet wouldn’t be available for him tomorrow.
But he figured he’d spend the day hanging around here. A rueful smile tugged at his mouth. Maybe he’d go back and see the mummies at the museum.
He walked toward the corner, not ready to go up to his room and sleep yet. He’d forced himself not to think about Bea since he’d stood there and watched her ride away in the cab. If he went up to his room now, he’d no doubt lose that battle in the quiet.
He looked up, surprised to see that the lights were still on in the hotel bar. It had a separate entrance onto the street around the corner, and he headed toward it. He’d earned himself a whiskey before bed. He glanced through the window as he passed and stopped dead.
Bea. She was sitting at the bar, a glass of wine in front of her.
Damn it. He needed to think about this. His body did not get to win this argument without consulting his brain. If it did, he’d already be inside, pulling up the stool beside her.
Instead, he stood rooted to the sidewalk.
They’d already said goodbye. They were done.
He had no right to go in there and open the whole thing back up again.
She was on her way to a new life. Soon she’d be in Crete, and he’d be nothing more than someone she’d met during the strange little space between what she was leaving and whatever came next.
It’d probably be better if he walked on by, took the elevator up to his room, and let her become the memory they’d both apparently agreed she was going to be.
But the pull was too strong. What harm could one more drink do?
She’d still be leaving. He’d still be figuring out how the hell not to think about her.
She was sitting at the far end of the bar, a glass of wine in front of her, still in the clothes she’d worn to the concert.
She hadn’t gone up either. Something in his chest lifted—and then dropped straight through the floor.
Because she wasn’t alone. A man had planted himself on the stool beside her.
He was younger, late thirties, maybe. He was leaning in too close, one arm draped along the back of her seat, talking with the easy confidence of a man who liked his odds.
Blane stopped dead in the doorway.
The heat that rolled through him had no business being there.
He had no claim on her. None. He’d said his goodbye an hour ago and meant it, and whatever this was—this red, ugly thing climbing up the back of his neck—he had no right to feel it.
He knew it, but knowing didn’t make a damn bit of difference.
He watched her lean back, putting an inch of space between herself and the man, watched her give a small, polite smile—the same one she’d given the two girls at the concert, the one that closed a door gently.
She wasn’t enjoying this, but she wasn’t in any trouble, either.
She could handle one overconfident man in a hotel bar without him charging to the rescue.
He should go up to his room. He knew that. But he couldn’t. Instead, he went inside, telling himself he could stay out of sight for a minute. If Bea was handling it, he’d leave. He folded his arms across his chest and watched.
Bea was attempting to dispatch the guy with a politeness so cold it should have frostbitten him, but he wasn’t reading it. Men like that never did.
Blane started toward them. The bartender spotted him first, but Blane gestured for him to wait. As he approached, the guy was saying, “I’m just saying, a woman like you, drinking alone? That’s practically a crime. I mean—”
“It’s a pleasure,” Bea told her wine. “There’s a difference, though I don’t expect you to—”
The guy leaned toward her, but Blane beat him to it. He was standing at Bea’s shoulder before anyone had cleared him to be there.
“There a problem?” He said it to the guy, his voice flat. The tone that ended conversations.
The man took him in—the size, the stillness, the unmistakable fact that Blane wasn’t going to repeat the question—and stepped back. He muttered something under his breath and walked away.
It was easy—far too easy. Blane’s blood was still up, with nowhere to go, and then, half a second behind the adrenaline, the thought arrived that turned him cold from the inside.
She didn’t ask you to.
Shit. He’d just done it. Walked over and handled the thing she’d been handling.
Planted himself in front of a grown woman who’d been dismissing suitors since before that guy was potty-trained.
And she’d told him. Maybe not in so many words—but she’d made it clear, in everything she hadn’t said, that she was finally claiming her life as her own.
That no one got to make her decisions for her anymore.
And he’d just planted himself between her and a problem as though it were his to solve. Slowly, he turned toward her.
“Well,” she said.
He made himself meet her gaze and braced for whatever she was about to throw at him. She had every right.
She was watching him over the rim of her glass, with an expression he couldn’t read. That frightened him more than a clear read would have. Amused, maybe? Deciding?
“That was very high-handed,” she said at last.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I had him. He was leaving.”
“He wasn’t leaving.”
“He was building up to leaving. I have a system.” She set down her glass. “You interrupted a system forty years in the practice, and you did it with your …” She gestured economically at the whole of him. “… chest. And I’ll have you know I’ve never once in my life needed a man to loom on my behalf.”
“No, ma’am.” He had nowhere to look, no excuse to offer. “Won’t happen again.”
Silence stretched between them, and his heart sat heavy in his chest while he waited for her to shut the door on him.
“I didn’t say that.”
He looked up. She was smiling now. Not one of the surprised laughs he’d gotten out of her a few times. This was something slower, something she’d chosen to let him see.
“I said I’ve never needed it. I didn’t say I minded.”
She nudged the stool beside her out half an inch with her foot. “You may sit as a reward for your restraint.”
He cocked an eyebrow.
“You didn’t hit him,” she explained. “And you didn’t call him ma’am—which, from where I’m sitting, he’d probably have been grateful for, if he knew the effect it has.”
He sat. “Apologize,” he said. “Won’t call you that again. Didn’t know it was an issue.”
“I didn’t say it was an issue. Just not a preference.” She considered him. “And thank you.”
And he could tell that underneath the teasing, it was real.
“It’s been a long time since anyone stood up for me. I’d forgotten that I liked it.” She shot him a quick smile. “Don’t let it go to your head. It’s already a very large head.”
“Bea.”
“Hmm?”
“I didn’t mean to take over.”
“I know. You just couldn’t help yourself.” Her expression softened. “And, as I said, I quite liked it. But let’s leave that there, shall we?” She nodded toward the bottles behind the bar. “What would you like to drink?”
~ ~ ~
“I can get it. You want another glass of your wine?”
Bea leaned back in her seat. She really didn’t need another drink. But Blane was here again, and the need to celebrate that fact registered as far more important than worrying about how her head might feel in the morning.
So she nodded. “Please. But you should be warned; I’m told I become alarmingly honest after a glass too many.”
“Noted.”
While the bartender fixed their drinks, she allowed herself a peek at Blane and reveled in the fact that he was here. Seeing him sitting ramrod straight beside her, she took pity on him.
“Seriously, Blane, you can relax. I’m not cross with you.” She waved a hand in the direction of his chest again. “If you must know, you loom better than anyone I’ve ever known.”
He smiled through pursed lips. “What do you want me to say?”
“Not a thing. I think you already said it all with your looming.” She pressed her lips together. Perhaps that was too much. But when those gray eyes met hers, it didn’t feel that way.
Once they had their drinks, she lifted her glass toward him. He tapped his against it, his eyebrows rising as if to ask what they were drinking to this time.
“Here’s to not making a goodbye stick.”
“Yeah.” His mouth twitched. “I can drink to that.” He rested one elbow on the bar and turned toward her. “Have to tell you, that goodbye didn’t sit too well with me.”
Bea looked around the bar. There were still a few people scattered around despite the late hour. When she turned back to him, she gave him the truth. “I didn’t like it at all.”
The way he smiled made her glad she’d been honest. But as she sipped her wine and the silence between them lengthened, it dawned on her that all they’d really gained was a little reprieve.
“So, Crete,” he said eventually. “What’s the deal with that? You said it’s a big deal, right?”
She took another sip before answering. “It is. Enormous. I’m leaving my whole life here behind to start a new one.” She laughed softly. “I bought a house in a village where I don’t even speak the language.”
His eyebrows shot up.
She shrugged. “I’ll learn. I know they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but …” There was no point being coy. No reason to hide her age. “I might be fifty-eight years old, but I have every faith in myself.”
That bubbly feeling fizzed in her chest again when he nodded.
“I have faith in you too.” His eyebrows came together. “You’re starting a whole new life. What about the one you’re leaving behind?”
She set her glass down. “I’m not really leaving it behind. It’s already … finished.” That sounded evasive, even to her.