Chapter Twenty-Three #2
His arms came around her again, and when she buried her face against his chest, he rested his chin on top of her head.
“You’re not making a scene, Bea. I’ll do my best to get back here. Probably won’t be till winter, but I’m gonna try.”
Her arms tightened around him.
“I can’t promise anything.”
“I understand.” She held him tighter. “And you be careful, please. I know you’re good at security but make sure you keep yourself safe as well as everyone else.” She tipped her head back and looked up at him. “For me.”
“Yeah.” He held her gaze. “And you do the same. Look both ways before you step into the damn road and be careful driving that new little car of yours.”
“I will. I think I’ve got the hang of being on the right side now.”
“Yeah, you’re doing great.” He gave her a wry smile. “And keep an eye on that fucking goat. Don’t want him causing havoc the second I’m…”
He stopped. Gone. The word hung between them anyway, flat and final without anything attached to it.
No until. No when I come back. Just gone.
He could have added something. He could have promised he’d come back or asked her if there was some way to make this work.
For one crazy second, he could even imagine telling Bear to leave without him and climbing straight back into the Vitara with her.
But every possibility ran into the same thing.
She’d built this life for herself because she was finally free to do that, and anything he asked of her now had the potential to turn his wants into another set of expectations she had to arrange herself around. He wouldn’t do that.
There was nothing he could offer her right here, right now, that didn’t risk taking something away from her, so he let every one of those thoughts die there in the drop-off lane, even while he couldn’t bring himself to let go of her.
In the end, she did it for him.
“Go on, darling.” Her voice cracked, but she gave him a watery smile.
“You don’t want to keep Bear waiting. We said we weren’t going to make this into a thing—I’m no good at things.
And neither are you. Oh, and here.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a paper bag of her own.
“Just a little something sweet for the journey.”
His throat closed when he recognized the bakery bag.
Baklava. He loved the stuff, but the something sweet he loved and wished he could take with him was standing right in front of him.
He looked at her for a long moment and had the strange sense that she was doing exactly what he was—running through all the impossible possibilities and reaching the same conclusion every time.
There was only one thing left to say, and neither of them wanted to say it.
So he leaned down, and she rose onto her toes to meet him.
He didn’t kiss her like a man who knew he was coming back.
He kissed her like a man who desperately wanted to believe he would.
One hand came up to cup the side of her face, holding her carefully while he tried to put into the kiss everything he couldn’t make himself say.
And that kiss lasted a little too long and nowhere near long enough.
Finally, he pulled away. He took his hat from the top of his duffel and put it on, then slung the bag over his shoulder.
“I’m gonna miss you, Bea.” His voice caught. “You’re the best thing…” He stopped. How the hell could he finish that sentence and then walk away from her?
Tears ran freely down her face as her hand came up to his cheek. She nodded, and his heart felt as though it cracked clean in two when she finished it for him.
“The best thing you never wanted. I know.”
He held her gaze for one last moment, and said, “See ya later.” Because goodbye wasn’t a word he ever wanted to say to this woman. Then he turned and walked through the sliding doors.
He was good at walking away. He’d been doing it all his life, usually because leaving was part of the job, because distance kept somebody safer, because standing guard had always meant knowing when to move on. But this? Nothing had ever cost him as much as walking away from Bea.
He didn’t look back. Not even once, because he didn’t know if he could look back and still keep walking.
And the thing was, neither of them had asked him to stay.
But everything in him was screaming at him to turn around anyway.
Then, a few seconds after he entered the terminal, he spotted the mirrored panels running along one wall.
Of course he did. He noticed reflections the way he noticed exits, the position of a security camera, or the guy three tables away who kept looking toward the doors.
Forty years of training and habit didn’t switch off because he’d fallen in love.
If anything, it was worse now. Because now there was someone worth watching.
So, he kept walking through the terminal like a man who didn’t look back, while in the mirrored panels he watched Bea the whole way.
She still stood in the drop-off lane, one hand raised to shade her eyes as she peered through the tinted doors even though there was no way she could see him.
He watched her stay there way longer than made any sense, and then he watched her finally turn away and climb into the dusty, dented white tin can on wheels that had for a short time become their car.
She sat there for a moment before starting the engine.
If he’d turned around, she would have seen him do it.
And turning around would have told her something that he couldn’t.
He couldn’t ask her to wait for him. She’d spent too much of her life arranging herself around a man already, and he’d sooner cut off his own hand than ask her to put her new life on hold for him.
But damn him, he watched her every step of the way in the reflection, right up until the mirrored panels ran out.
Then he turned the corner, and she was gone.
The FBO was a short walk from the main terminal, and Bear was there waiting for him, the way Bear always was.
There was a question in his eyes, but Blane only grunted, and the two of them headed toward the jet.
Blane climbed the steps and took the seat he always took, the one facing the way they’d come.
When they lifted off, he looked out the window at the blue sea and the dusty island below. Bear must have known somehow—instead of turning immediately northwest, he banked into a wide, easy loop over the island. As the jet climbed, Blane looked toward the cockpit but didn’t say anything.
A minute later, familiar shapes resolved below him.
He saw the mountains, the olive-covered slopes, the folds of the land he’d spent the last few weeks learning almost without realizing it.
Then he found the valley—her valley. He kept his eyes on it for as long as he could, until a bank of cloud moved between them and took it away.
He pulled out his phone and stared at the screen.
There were a hundred things he could send her.
Miss you already. This was a mistake. When can I— His thumb hovered over the screen, but he put the phone away without writing any of them.
Every one of those messages felt like a hook, something that might ask her to hold still for him while he figured out what the hell he was doing.
And if the last three weeks had taught him anything, it was that loving Bea meant never once asking her to make herself smaller so there’d be room for him.
He’d watched her in the mirrors until he couldn’t see anymore. He’d held her valley in his sight until the cloud took it. But he wouldn’t hold on to her by asking her to wait; he wouldn’t do that to her.
~ ~ ~
Bea stood there like a fool watching the doors he’d gone through.
She’d deliberately promised herself that she wouldn’t stand like a fool watching the doors, and yet here she was.
Those doors had swallowed him the way automatic doors swallow everyone.
They did it quietly, with nothing dramatic enough to match what it felt like, just a quiet swoosh of rubber seals, and then all that was left was her reflection in the tinted glass and the ordinary bustle of a small airport carrying on around her.
Standing so still while everyone else flowed past somehow made her feel closer to him again. As though, if she didn’t move, perhaps she hadn’t quite reached the part where he was really gone.
She brought a hand up to shade her eyes from the sun.
The same sun that had been half her reason for choosing Crete today beat down harshly, almost unforgivingly.
She could still picture the shape of him disappearing into the terminal, striding away toward wherever the private planes left from. And he hadn’t looked back.
She’d watched for it, even while she hated herself a little for watching for it, but he’d walked those few steps between her and the terminal with his usual unhurried, unbothered stride, and not once had he turned his head.