Chapter Ten #3
She slapped his arm. “I didn’t mean like that.” Her smile changed. “I just meant…” She paused. “Although…”
“Bea?”
“Yes, Blane?”
“Don’t think I didn’t want to.”
Her smile disappeared.
“You had an early flight. And I didn’t see how…” He let the words trail off.
“I know.” She smiled again, softer this time. “And you were right.” She patted his arm and went back to buttering her croissant.
He took a drink of coffee, trying to figure out what exactly she meant by that. Maybe she was glad he hadn’t kissed her. Glad they hadn’t gone where last night could have taken them. Was that what she meant? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
After they’d eaten, he cleared the table while Bea dug through her purse and pulled out a folded map of the island.
He stopped when he came back and saw her spreading it out over the table.
“You carry a paper map?”
She looked up at him. “Don’t start.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your eyebrows said it for you.”
He sat down beside her. “Phones have maps now.”
“I am aware of that, thank you. But I like to see where things are in relation to each other. The whole island, not a little square on a screen.”
“Fair enough.”
“And when my phone dies, or I have no signal, or I accidentally do something dreadful to it because I still don’t understand half of what it does, I shall have my map.”
His mouth twitched. “Prepared.”
“Exactly.”
He leaned over it. “Show me where we’re going.”
She found the spot with her finger.
“Here. Well, roughly here. The village is up in the hills, and the house is just outside it.”
He studied the map. “How far from the airport?”
“About an hour and a half, depending on traffic.”
His gaze moved over the roads, tracing the route without thinking about it. Airport. Main road. Smaller road inland. Villages. Mountain roads.
“You’re doing it, aren’t you?”
He looked at her. “Doing what?”
“Assessing.”
“I’m looking at a map.”
“You’re not looking at a map like a normal person. You’re calculating escape routes and probably wondering where the nearest hospital is.”
“Nearest hospital would be useful to know.”
She gave him a look.
“And police.”
“Blane.”
“Fire department.”
“Blane.”
He looked back down at the map. “What?”
“We’re going to my house, not planning a military operation.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Never said we were.”
“Your face did. And you’re apparently planning for every natural disaster and criminal emergency that might befall me before lunchtime.”
“Seems smart.”
She shook her head, but she was smiling when she turned the map back toward herself.
He let her talk him through it after that.
She pointed to the town where she expected to do most of her shopping, and the road down to the coast. Then traced her finger down to a beach she’d found online that she wanted to see.
She forgot the map while she told him about the village itself, and the little square, and a bakery in the next village that she’d already looked up online.
“You researched the bakery?”
“Of course I researched the bakery.”
“But not the hospital.”
“I have priorities.”
He laughed.
She pointed to another spot. “And the house is somewhere around here. I know exactly where, obviously, but it’s not marked on this.”
“Is it an old place?”
“Very. You know the kind—with stone walls, and shutters, and a courtyard. It needs work.”
“How much work?”
She gave him a suspicious look.
He held up a hand. “Extra set of hands. Remember?”
That made her smile. “I remember.”
Something about the way she said it made his attention snag for a second. He looked back at the map. “And the garden?”
“Oh, Blane.”
He turned to her.
Her whole face changed. “The garden.”
She said it like it was the whole damn point. Maybe it was.
“It’s been neglected for years. There are old olive trees, and I think there’s a lemon tree, although I’m not completely sure it’s still alive.
There are terraces down the slope and stone walls everywhere, and most of it’s completely overgrown.
There’s a field behind the house too with an old shepherd’s hut.
It’ll probably take me years before I get to even wondering what to do with that.
I’ll start by the house.” She was talking faster now, her hands moving over the map even though what she was describing wasn’t on it.
“I don’t even know exactly what I’ll do with any of it yet. I want to live with it first. See where the sun falls, what’s already happy there, what wants to grow. It would be dreadful to arrive and start ripping everything out before I know what I have.”
Blane watched her. He’d seen her excited before, at the concert, in the museum, even wandering through Covent Garden. But this was different. “You really love it.”
She stopped. “The garden?”
“Gardening.”
For some reason, the question seemed to catch her off guard. “Yes.” Her smile came more slowly this time. “I do.”
He nodded. That was something to remember.
They stayed at the table for a while longer, Bea telling him things she’d learned about the island and things she still had no idea about. Her Greek, according to her, was currently good enough to say hello, thank you, ask for coffee, and accidentally tell someone she owned a goat.
He suspected there was a story behind that one, but she refused to tell him.
Eventually the early morning and everything that had happened since caught up with her. She tried to hide a yawn behind her hand.
“Go sleep.”
“I’m fine.”
“Bea.”
“There’s that tone again.”
“What tone?”
“The one that suggests you believe saying my name is a complete sentence.”
“Works pretty well.”
She gave him a look, but another yawn ruined it.
“There’s a bedroom in back,” he told her. “Go lie down.”
She glanced toward the rear of the cabin. “What about you?”
“I’m good.”
“You didn’t sleep last night either.”
He hadn’t told her that. Apparently, he didn’t need to. “I’ll sleep later.”
“You know, for someone who’s very keen on other people doing what’s good for them, you’re remarkably bad at it yourself.”
“Been told.”
“By whom?”
“Everybody.”
That made her laugh. She folded the map carefully and pushed it toward him. “Fine. You can study that while I’m gone. Try not to invade any neighboring countries.”
“No promises.”
She stood, then rested her hand briefly on his shoulder.
“I’m glad you came, Blane.”
The words hit harder than they should have. He looked up at her and covered her hand with his own. “Me too.”
She held his gaze for another second before turning and disappearing toward the back of the jet.
Blane sat there for a while after she was gone. Then he picked up the map. He told himself he was only looking at the route. That lasted about thirty seconds.
By the time Bear let him know they’d started their descent, he knew where the nearest hospital was, where the police station was, how far Bea’s village was from the coast, and three different ways to get from the airport to the house.
He folded the map before she came back.
She appeared a few minutes later, her hair slightly rumpled and sleep still softening her face.
“Did I miss anything?”
“Couple countries.”
Her eyes widened.
“Kidding.”
“Blane!”
He smiled and nodded toward the window. “Come here.”
She crossed the cabin and leaned down beside him.
For a moment, all he could see was blue. Then the island came into view beneath them—mountains rising out of the sea, pale roads cutting across the land, towns gathered along the coast.
Bea sucked in a breath. “There it is.”
Blane looked out at Crete. Then he looked at her. She had one hand braced against the window, her whole face lit up as she stared down at the place she’d chosen.
A few days ago, he hadn’t known she existed. Yesterday morning, he hadn’t known he’d be leaving England with her. Now he was about to land on an island he’d never planned to visit and find out what the life Bea had chosen for herself looked like.
He probably should think this was crazy, but he didn’t—not even a little bit.