10. Tessa
Tessa
Glancing up and seeing a far-off sign for a gas station, Greer took it as… Well, he took it as a sign.
Throwing on his indicator, he lifted his foot off the gas and aimed for the exit ramp.
“What are we doing?” Tessa asked, sitting upright as he slowed to turn into the service station.
It was small, for sure, but it looked relatively adequate.
A fully lit-up brick main building, and a smattering of grass around it.
There were several cars there, not to mention a few families wandering in and out, getting gas and loading their cars.
Pleasant, really.
“I’ve gotta run to the little boy’s room. Just going to park down here on the far end of the row,” he said, continuing to decelerate and pull the car into a space away from everyone. “The last thing we need is some idiot dinging the doors to this car. Your dad would never forgive me.”
Tessa snorted, knowing that was hardly true. “Nah, my dad loves you. He’d totally forgive you.”
Shutting off the car, he turned to her. “Are you going to come in with me, or do you want to just wait here?”
“I’ll be fine here,” she said. They hadn’t stopped too long ago, and while nobody really loved public bathrooms, she figured she’d try to hold it for the next hour and use a private ensuite wherever they wound up staying.
“Can I get you anything? I’m sure they’ve probably got everything in there.”
“No, thank you,” she said, politely.
“Are you sure?” he goaded, leaning across the console and positioning himself inches from her. “I can see if they have a raspberry iced tea?”
She paused, feeling her mouth drop open slightly at the idea that he knew her favorite drink. But more, his answering eyebrow cock asked her silently how he couldn’t know this tiny detail. It’s all she drank when they went out.
Aside from her martinis, that is.
“That sounds nice, thank you,” she said genuinely, as he gave her a smile back before kissing her far too quickly and getting out of the car.
“Lock it,” he instructed just before he shut the door, standing at the window and waiting for her to do as she was told.
She cocked her head at him, locking eyes with his as she dramatically pressed the lock button in response. She knew it was important to be careful. Of all the people on earth, she was the one who’d embodied that lesson over the past few months.
Still, when he mouthed, good girl to her, she couldn’t help but feel her heart skip a beat in response.
Watching him cross the parking lot and enter the store, she figured she’d take advantage of the Wi-Fi and find a place for them to stay for the night.
The only hotel in Harbor’s Head was booked solid, which was no real surprise.
When she spent the next few minutes clicking on nearby towns and accommodations listed there, she started to feel panic crawl up her throat as every place came back fully booked.
Finally, she hit upon some luck, finding a small bed and breakfast the next town over, which mercifully had a vacancy. Snapping it up immediately, she groaned out loud when she looked over the description of the room afterward. This was going to make things very cozy for the two of them.
Feeling her stomach rumble, she realized that it was more than time for a snack. Thankfully, she had something for that.
Popping the lock and stepping out of the car, she opened the trunk and was met with a plethora of vacation-Tetris.
Bags and containers had been perfectly wedged and packed, yielding zero movable space to reach in and get what she needed.
She had to admit, Greer did everything the same way he fought.
Competitively. And with excellence.
Grabbing after a few of the front bags, she was able to break them loose and rummage around the tightly packed back end to pull one of the coolers free.
Fortunately, it held what she was looking for. However, she was so focused on her mission that she completely didn’t see the figure sneak up behind her. She yelped when she felt a pair of hands grab her hips and pulled her tight against a very hard body.
“You need to keep a watch out,” Greer growled in her ear. The intoxicating sensation of relief caused her to relax against him when she realized who had grabbed her.
“Greer,” she said, panting and placing her hand over her heart. “You scared me.”
“That was the point, Tess,” he said. “When I saw you standing with the trunk open and your back to everything going on around you, I about lost my mind.”
Tessa turned her head, casting a look over her shoulder. “So you thought the best option was to sneak up behind me?”
“Yes,” he said, pulling her against him once more. “What are you looking for?”
“I thought now would be a good time for something to eat,” she said, pulling the cooler out from underneath all of the bags in the back. Digging in, she held out a wrapped-up sandwich to him.
“What’s that?” he asked, taking the peace offering. He reached down where he’d apparently stored a bottle of water and a raspberry iced tea before he’d scared the living daylights out of her. He passed hers to her before having a seat on the bumper.
“Well, from what I remember, it’s a low-carb, high-protein wrap with chicken and chickpeas. It’s also nutrient-dense with a variety of green… something or other.”
Greer snorted at her description, just before diving into the wrap without any sort of hesitation. Moaning, he nodded his head in approval. “It’s fantastic.”
“They are pretty tasty,” she said, taking a bite of her own. “I’m not much of a cook, and am happy to turn it over to the professionals when necessary. And with your special diet, I didn’t want to mess that up.”
“Now you’re the sweet one,” he said, leaning forward to drop a quick kiss on her lips. She wanted to protest, liking it more when he lingered, but she knew they had other priorities right now. Travel. Food.
Everything else would come in time.
“So, I managed to find us a place to stay in the next town over from Harbor’s Head. I think I was lucky to find it at all. Everything else was booked solid.”
“This Fourth of July weekend must be huge here,” he said, chewing and swallowing. “Where are we staying?” he asked, crinkling the wrapping paper that the sandwich was in, and looking for a place to toss it out. How had he eaten that so quickly?
“It’s a little bed and breakfast,” she said. “It’s right on the main road overlooking the water. It’s going to be small for us, though.”
“Small?” Greer asked, cracking open his bottle of water, his throat working hard at the gulps he took. “How small?”
“There’s a queen-sized bed.” Greer was a big guy, and she wasn’t sure he’d be able to enjoy something that size if he was in bed alone, not to mention with an extra person in it.
“Oh, I see,” he said, sliding even closer to her and putting his arm around her. “So, we’re sharing a small bed tonight?”
She could feel herself blush instantly. “Only if you’re okay with it. If not, I’m sure?—”
Lightning fast, Greer closed the space between them, kissing the words right off her lips. Pulling back, he said, “I can’t wait.”
She couldn’t help it; his words made her smile. Everything about Greer made her smile.
“You ready for the last leg of the journey?” he asked, putting the bottle to his lips and finishing off the last of his water.
“I think so.” She held up what remained of her sandwich to him, and his eyebrows bounced in delight as he broke into a smile.
She had barely gotten through her first half, and her stomach was already feeling terribly full.
She knew she wasn’t going to be able to finish the rest. “I’m just wondering…
Do you think we’re really going to be able to find the necklace? ”
“Do you think we won’t?” he asked, taking it from her and taking a massive bite.
“I don’t know.” She let out a deep sigh.
“When we started this trip, I thought for sure we’d get it.
But everything changed so quickly, and this feels almost like a wild goose chase we’re on,” she said, looking around.
“I mean, even if we do find her, there’s no saying she’ll sell it, and even if she does agree, how are we going to get it?
It could be another wild goose chase we’re walking into. ”
“True,” he agreed, popping the last of the sandwich into his mouth. “There’s always that chance.”
“It just feels… tiring,” she said, having a look in his direction. “All my life, I’ve trained myself to accept nothing less than success. But I’m getting to the point where I realize that’s not always the case. Failure is a part of life as much as anything.”
“Failure can be a valuable tool,” he said, turning to drop the bottle in the same spot as his paper wrappings. “But you can’t look at this trip as a failure, even if we don’t get the necklace. We got to see a whole lot of new places. Meet new people.”
“Get pulled over by the police. Get trapped in a storage area.”
“All true,” he said, breaking into a dazzling smile. He pulled her snug to him once more in a side-sitting hug. “And I think we had some amazing things happen to us, too.”
Now that she couldn’t deny. “We did.”
He didn’t disappoint, cupping her cheek and kissing her again. She was quickly finding that right here in his arms, connecting with his lips, was one of her favorite places to be.
However, time was of the essence.
“Are you ready to go find this woman?”
She sighed. “If I say no, does that mean we can go home?”
“It most certainly does,” he assured her, touching his forehead to hers. “Whatever you want to do, Tess, I’m here for you.”
Knowing that she wasn’t doing this alone gave her all the resolve she needed.
“Let’s go to Harbor’s Head.”
It felt like Tessa and Greer had been stuck in traffic for an eternity.
“You know, it is pretty here,” Greer began, sitting still on this massive bridge that afforded them the loveliest view of the boats on the water. “But I’d like it even more if we were moving.”
They’d been sitting in traffic for easily half an hour now, moving at five miles per hour at best and then stopping repeatedly.