Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I can call Nikos and tell him we can do this another day,” said Blane.
“No, you mustn’t. You’ve already told Cash that this land might be good for your training needs, and I already feel bad enough that I’m keeping you away from work.
What on earth would he think if you told him you hadn’t gone to investigate the land because you had to come with me to see a little dog I’m worried about? ”
Blane frowned. “It’s not an issue. I can go another time.”
She came to him and reached up to press a kiss to his lips. “I know you can, but I don’t want you to. I’m perfectly capable of going to collect Sifis by myself.” She smiled. “And since I’m bringing him home with me, it’s not as though you won’t get to see him, is it?”
He had to smile at that. “Yeah. I won’t deny I’m looking forward to that.”
“All right, then. You be on your way. I’d hate to make you late, and I want to get there and pick Sifis up. I hate the thought of that big dog bullying him.”
Blane pursed his lips—he did too. Sabine had called that morning to ask if Bea would bring Sifis home because there was a new dog at the shelter who’d taken a dislike to him.
Sounded to Blane more like the little guy was being too damn stubborn about standing his ground than being bullied, but either way, he’d be glad when Bea got him out of there.
“All right. I’ll meet you back here later. ”
She kissed him again. “I hope the land turns out to be something you can use, darling. I probably shouldn’t say it, but I’m really hoping it means you’ll be able to make more trips back here.”
He cupped her cheek in his hand. There was a hell of a lot he wanted to say to that, but none of it belonged in the few minutes before they headed off in opposite directions. “I hope so too, darlin’.”
A little while later, he was driving the Vitara higher into the foothills, following the winding lanes toward the place Nikos had told him to meet him. As he drove, Blane tried to talk himself out of hating the man. He still wanted to, but it wasn’t constructive.
Nikos was already there when he arrived, and that annoyed him more than it should have. The man still looked wary of Blane as he greeted him. He pointed to a trail that led away from the road. “I show you.”
They walked in silence at first. Nikos picked exactly the line up the scree that Blane would have picked himself, which earned him a little respect.
He moved over the ground the way some men did.
He didn’t go fast; he read the terrain half a step ahead of his own feet, in a way Blane recognized.
You could only walk like that on ground you’d bled on as a boy.
As they climbed, Nikos began to talk. He pointed out where the rock was loose and where it held, which gullies filled when the rains came and which stayed dry, where a man could stand and see the whole valley without being seen himself.
Blane had to respect the man. He’d trained hundreds of men over the years, and trained them well, but none of them took to terrain quite the same way as the ones who’d learned it young, on their own land, before anyone had thought to call what they were doing a skill.
“Here,” Nikos said.
He wasn’t looking at Blane. He was looking at the ground and pointing with his chin toward a fold in the hillside that Blane had walked straight past.
“You want to teach your men not to be seen. Here they cannot be seen. Not from the road, not from the sea, not from…” He nodded down the valley, and Blane’s jaw tightened when he recognized the little stone house and the shepherd’s hut beyond it.
Nikos kept his gaze lowered, but a look crossed his face that Blane grudgingly recognized because he’d worn it himself. It was shame that had nowhere to go.
“They would not even be seen from her house,” Nikos finished. “I know. I watched it from here when I should not have.”
And there it was. Nikos confessing his shame.
Blane could have said a lot of things. He’d rehearsed a few of them.
Instead, he looked back at the fold in the hill.
It was the right spot. Exactly the right spot.
And it told him that Nikos understood this land in the way Blane needed him to, at least until he learned the place for himself.
He shook his head. He still didn’t excuse what the man had done, but he understood grieving something badly enough to make bad choices over it.
“You watched it because it used to be yours,” he said eventually. “But the house is hers now. And some of the land’s yours again. So, you don’t watch it anymore.”
Nikos looked at him for a long moment.
It struck Blane then that maybe they weren’t as different as he’d wanted them to be.
Nikos had stood out here watching a home he’d lost because he couldn’t let go of what it had meant to him.
Blane knew something about holding on to an old way of living simply because it was the one that had always made sense.
“We square?” he asked.
“We square,” Nikos repeated.
“Good.”
Blane crouched and sighted down the fold, turning his attention back to the work he’d come here to do.
“Show me the rest. All of it. If we do this, I’ll have teams coming in, and I don’t know this ground.
You were born on it.” He straightened. “You’re gonna show me until I know what I’m doing here, and I’m gonna pay you a stupid amount of American money to do it. ”
Something that wasn’t quite a smile touched the corner of Nikos’s mouth.
“And neither of us is gonna tell my wife this was all her idea, because she’ll have way too much fun knowing she was right.”
“She is always right?”
“Every damn time. You’ll learn. Come on.”
As he followed Nikos across the next ridge, Blane couldn’t help wondering why he’d said the words my wife, and why they’d come out of his mouth so naturally.
They spent a good couple of hours up there and were almost back down to the road when Blane’s phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out, expecting Bea, but frowned when he saw Cash’s name on the screen.
Nikos stopped and raised his eyebrows.
“That’s all right. You go on. I need to take this. We’ll talk soon.”
“Talk soon.” Nikos nodded, then took him by surprise by extending his hand.
Blane hesitated only a moment before shaking it firmly. Then he turned away and brought the phone to his ear.
“What’s up, Cash? It must be early for you. Everything all right?”
“Yeah. All good. You know me. Do my best work at stupid o’clock in the morning.”
Blane smiled despite himself.
“And I’m gonna need the jet back.”
Blane stilled. “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
He looked out toward the sea, which was much more than a thin blue line from up here.
“You still there?” Cash asked.
“Yeah. That’s kind of the point.”
Cash laughed. “Had a feeling you might say that. And listen, I said I need the jet back. I didn’t say I need you back. What’s going on with this guy and the land?”
Blane glanced over his shoulder toward the mountain.
“I’ve been up there this morning. I think it’ll work, Cash.”
“Then why don’t you stay a couple weeks and find out?”
Blane loosened his grip on the phone. “Yeah. I think I’ll do that.”
“Thought you might. Everything good?”
Blane looked back up toward the mountain, then down the road that would take him home to Bea. “Everything’s more than good.”
“Glad to hear it. Listen, I gotta run, but we’ll talk soon, yeah?”
“Yeah. See ya later.”
~ ~ ~
Bea looked over at Sifis as she pulled in through the gate when they got home.
The poor little thing was shaking and looked thoroughly miserable.
She couldn’t blame him. It seemed Sabine hadn’t told her the full extent of what had happened on the phone because she hadn’t wanted to worry her—or make her feel guilty enough that she thought she had to bring Sifis home.
But he hadn’t simply been bullied. The new dog had attacked him.
It was nothing too serious, thank goodness, but he had an awful bite on his rear end and the poor little thing was wearing one of those horrible cones.
When Bea arrived at the shelter, he’d looked up at her beseechingly with those big brown eyes of his, and she’d immediately picked him up for a cuddle.
He hadn’t been terribly open to that on her earlier visits, but this time he’d snuggled against her, trembling.
“Never mind, sweetheart. We’re home now.
You’ll be safe here. We’ll take good care of you.
” She cleared her throat. “You’ll get to see Blane, and I’m sure that will make you feel much better for however long he’s here.
But I’ll take good care of you. Even after he has to go home, you’ll be safe with me. ”
The back of her car was piled high with blankets, a bed, food and water bowls, and apparently every other thing Sabine could think of that Sifis might need.
Sabine seemed determined that neither of them should find themselves unprepared.
Bea left it all there for now. The only thing that mattered was getting Sifis inside and letting him begin to understand that this was home.
She was lifting his carrier out of the passenger seat when Blane pulled in through the gate.
That fizzy feeling rippled through her chest again.
He really was here. She still couldn’t quite believe it, and she was mostly doing a good job of steering herself away from the question of how long he would stay.
“It’s okay, Sifis,” she told the little dog, who had retreated into the corner of his carrier and was letting out a low growl. “This isn’t some stranger. This is Blane. I’m sure seeing him will make you feel much better.” She laughed softly. “I think you and I are rather alike in that respect.”
Blane climbed out of the Vitara and came toward them wearing a frown. “Is that a cone on his head?”
“Yes, I’m afraid there was rather more than bullying going on.”
His expression changed immediately. “Aw, little man. Can I take him?”
“Of course.” She set the carrier down and unfastened it, and her hand came up over her heart as she watched Blane lift the little dog out.