Chapter Twenty-Two
By Thursday morning, the skies had cleared.
They’d woken early and planned to get out for their walk, but Bea’s sister had called again, and when Blane saw how torn she looked, he suggested she should take the call while he made coffee.
She was still talking when he set her mug in front of her and gestured that he’d head upstairs.
She motioned that he could stay, but it was easy to tell she was tense, even though she sounded happy enough to talk to Rosalind and was saying all the right things.
When he headed for the door to leave her to it, she nodded rather than protesting.
Upstairs, he opened the French doors and stepped onto the balcony before going back for the cushions for the stone bench.
Once he was settled with his coffee and phone, he stared out at the morning.
He’d always liked the day after rain. Everything smelled fresh again, and the few white clouds scudding across the blue sky made the whole valley look sharper.
He found himself wondering what Bea would want to do with the day.
He checked his emails. He’d been keeping in touch with his teams, checking in often enough that nobody could accuse him of disappearing completely, and he’d sent Brooke a bunch of pictures over the last few days.
He was looking forward to hearing what she had to say about them.
He knew she’d fall in love with the place.
When he noticed a message notification from Cash, his stomach tightened before he’d even opened it. He hadn’t heard from him in a couple of days, and he’d been dreading the next time he did.
Cash: Finally figured the logistics out. Jet’s coming back stateside tomorrow. Gonna need you on it. Give me a call.
Blane gripped the phone tighter and closed his eyes. Tomorrow? Shit. Cash was a day behind him. Did that mean today? He’d known this was coming. He’d known all along that it was coming but he’d tried to ignore it. He didn’t want to face what it meant—that his time with Bea was about to end.
He rested his elbows on his knees and let his hands hang between them as he stared out across the olive groves toward the mountains.
Damn, he didn’t want to leave this place.
He drew in a breath. It wasn’t the place—it was the woman.
But what the hell else was he supposed to do?
Following Bea to the airport and coming out here with her had been out of character for him, to say the least. Now his real life was calling him back. But… today?
He hit the call button, and Cash answered on the second ring.
“Sorry, bud. Wanted to give you more notice.”
“What time?”
“Should be around midday. Bear’ll shoot you a text once he files the flight plan.”
“Jesus, Cash, I’ll be cutting it close to get to the airport by midday.”
“Not today.” Cash let out a short laugh. “Would’ve been if everyone else got their way, but I bought you one more day. I told you—tomorrow.”
Blane closed his eyes as relief washed through him so hard it almost made him dizzy. “Yeah, you did. Sorry, bud. I thought you meant your tomorrow.”
“No. I meant your tomorrow.” Cash was quiet for a beat. “I take it that reaction means you’re not desperate to come home.”
Blane turned and looked through the French doors toward the bed he and Bea had shared these last few weeks. Just because it was true, he didn’t need to tell Cash that he’d come to feel more at home here with her than he ever had anywhere else.
“Can’t you bring her with you?”
He huffed out a breath. “I’d love to, but she’s building a life for herself here, Cash.
She spent most of hers married to a man who let her disappear inside his life.
Now she gets one of her own. I’m not gonna be the one who takes that away from her.
” He stared out at the olive groves again.
“I can’t even ask her if she’d want to.”
“Shit. Sorry, bud. I was kinda hoping we’d all be welcoming her here soon.” Cash paused. “But if you’re gonna keep your word to Brookie and take her over there sometime, you can go back and visit, right?”
“Yeah.” It was true, but it didn’t feel like much consolation. His gaze drifted toward the mountains, and another thought struck him. “Terrain’s pretty dry and scrubby here.”
Cash was quiet for a moment. “Let’s talk about that when you get back, huh?”
“Yeah.”
They could talk, and maybe he could bring the teams out here in the winter and get some more time with Bea that way. But the leaden feeling in his stomach confirmed what he already knew but didn’t want to face—he wanted more than just visits with her.
“Anyway, it’s late there, I’ll let you go. See you when I get back.”
“Yeah. Go make the most of the time you’ve got left. Like I said, I’m guessing you’ll need to be at the airport around noon tomorrow, but Bear’ll shoot you the details after he files the flight plan.”
After the call ended, Blane pushed to his feet.
For a moment, he considered not telling Bea until tonight.
They could enjoy the day that way, stay inside the bubble for a little while longer.
But no. He headed downstairs. He didn’t want to face it, and she probably wouldn’t either, but it wasn’t his decision to make alone.
He wasn’t one to hide from the truth, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start hiding it from Bea.
She was still at the kitchen table when he came in, but she was finished with her call.
Her coffee sat untouched in front of her, and she was staring down at her phone with an expression that told him Rosalind hadn’t made the morning any easier.
She looked up when he came in and something in his face must have given him away, because her expression changed immediately.
“What is it?”
He pulled out the chair beside her and sat down. “Cash called.”
She went still.
He reached for her hand. “I have to leave tomorrow.”
For a second she didn’t say anything. Her fingers tightened around his, and he watched her swallow before she managed a nod.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“What time?”
“Probably need to be at the airport around noon.”
She looked down at their joined hands. “All right.”
He hated how small the words sounded. “Bea.”
“I know.” She looked back up at him, and there was already that determined brightness in her eyes that he knew meant she was trying not to let the sadness take over. “We knew it was coming.”
“Doesn’t make it suck any less.”
A shaky little laugh escaped her. “No. It really doesn’t.”
He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “We’ve got today.”
“Yes.” She took a breath and straightened a little. “We do.”
He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “You still need to sort out a car.”
“I know.”
“You want to do that today?”
She looked toward the window. “I don’t know.”
“We don’t have to.”
“No, I think…” She let out a breath. “I think perhaps we should. If I leave it until after you’ve gone, I’ll…” She gripped his hand tightly. “Let’s go and at least look for one.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“And if we’re going to spend our last day doing something practical, we might as well try to have some fun with it.”
“Car shopping can be fun.”
She gave him a skeptical look.
“Sometimes.”
That made her smile. “All right then. Let’s go and find me a car.”
He leaned across the space between them, and her hand came up to his cheek as he kissed her softly. If loving her meant helping her get ready for the life she was going to keep living after he was gone, then that was what he’d do—and he’d make damn sure they had some fun doing it.
~ ~ ~
When they arrived at the Suzuki dealership in Chania, Blane let go of Bea’s hand so he could park, and she realized for the first time that he’d been holding it for almost the entire drive.
He looked across at her. “You okay?”
She really wasn’t, but there didn’t seem much point in saying so. “I am.” She patted the dashboard. “And I think this little thing has made one decision very easy for me.”
“What’s that?”
“I want an automatic. Like this one.”
His eyebrows came together. “That was something you needed to decide?”
She let out a short laugh. “Oh, I forgot. You Americans only drive automatics, don’t you?
To be fair, I think that’s becoming much more common in the UK now too, but when I learned to drive, a manual gearbox was the only way to do it.
So yes, as you people would say, I am perfectly capable of driving a stick shift. ”
He laughed. “Okay. I apologize. Should’ve known better.”
She reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. “There’s no reason you should have known, though, is there?”
He held her gaze for a long moment but didn’t answer, and the sadness that passed between them was enough that she wished she hadn’t said it.
He reached for the door handle. “Come on.”
She’d expected them to go straight inside and find someone to talk to, but instead he caught hold of her hand again and led her toward the rows of cars outside.
“I know we talked about it, but you sure you don’t want one like ours?”
She looked back at the dusty, dented white Vitara that had somehow become, just as he’d said, our car, and something caught painfully in her chest. “I don’t think so.
It’s lovely, but…” She met his gaze briefly before looking away.
“When I’m by myself, I think I’ll be more confident in something smaller. ”
His arm came around her shoulders, and she didn’t mind in the least that he held her against his side a little too tightly. She curled her arm around his waist.
“My goodness, Blane. I don’t think I’ll survive this if every little thing we talk about brings us back to the fact that you’re leaving tomorrow.”
He looked down at her, and his eyes seemed a darker gray than she’d ever seen them. “I know what you mean, darlin’. Right now, I want to pick you up, bundle you back into our car, drive away and just keep going.”