Chapter Ten
Bea watched the hotel disappear through the rear window until there was nothing left to see.
Then she turned around and settled into the seat, and one fat tear escaped from beneath her lashes before she could do anything about it.
Her hand came up to cover her mouth. She wasn’t even going to tell herself off for being ridiculous.
She might only have known Blane for a handful of hours scattered across a few days, but that man had touched her heart, even if she still couldn’t have said exactly what it was about him.
She dabbed at the tears that followed the first and thought about the list she’d given Meg.
American. Enormous. Security. Grumpy. Former Navy SEAL.
She could see now why the list had intrigued her friend so much. But not one of those words came anywhere close to doing justice to the wonderful, kind, if decidedly dour man she’d said goodbye to last night.
Her darling. She closed her eyes; he wasn’t hers. But for a few precious hours, she’d been allowed to call him that.
By the time the car reached Heathrow, she had herself mostly under control again.
She was tired, her eyes probably looked dreadful, and her heart still hurt, but none of that changed what she was doing.
Crete was right. That was what mattered.
She could miss Blane and still know that.
She could wish things had been different and still get on the plane.
The life waiting for her was the one she’d chosen, and she wasn’t going to let sadness make her doubt it now.
By the time she joined the bag-drop queue, she’d settled back into the practicalities.
She had her passport, boarding pass, and luggage.
All she still needed to do was drop her bag, head through security, then get a coffee, preferably an enormous one.
Then she’d be on the flight, and on the other end of it was her new house, her new garden—her new life.
She was three from the front when she heard him.
Just one word, low behind her in the queue of strangers, in a voice she’d spent the night trying not to hear in her head.
“Darlin’.”
She closed her eyes as the word went straight down her spine. His voice. That ridiculous missing g. The low, rough way he had of saying the word as though it belonged somewhere deep inside him before he let it out.
Her knees actually weakened. The sensation carried right through her, all the way to the soles of her feet, and for one absurd second, she was grateful she had hold of the handle of her suitcase.
She didn’t turn around. Not yet. Because the voice was one thing. Turning around would make the rest of it real. It would mean he’d come. It would mean the thing they’d sensibly ended only hours ago was refusing to stay ended.
“That’s not fair either,” she said to the departures board. “You said we were saying goodbye.”
“Changed my mind.” A pause. “Turns out I’m no good at it—the goodbye part. And besides, I wasn’t ready to lose the only person who says the whole word.”
She turned around, and there he was, big and grim and looking like a man who hadn’t slept, even though he was clean-shaven and dressed for the day.
His hands were in his pockets, his hat was pulled low, and his expression was as unreadable as ever.
Except she could read him now, at least a little.
Her heart did something so undignified she was grateful it couldn’t be seen.
“You—” She stopped and tried again. “What are you doing here? I’m about to check in. I’m three from the front.”
“Yeah. Saw that.”
“What if I’d already gone through security?”
“Then I’d have come after you.”
She blinked. “They wouldn’t have let you through. Not without a ticket.”
“Would’ve bought one.”
Something turned over in her chest. “You’d have bought a ticket? You’d have got on the plane? Come with me?”
“Nope.”
The answer came so easily that she stared at him.
“Don’t fly commercial.”
“Then why would you buy a ticket?”
“To get through security.”
“And then?”
“Find you. Tell you what I came to tell you. If you still wanted to get on your flight, I’d let you get on it.”
Her breath caught.
He lifted one shoulder. “Just didn’t want you gone before I said it.”
Someone behind them cleared their throat. Bea looked around and realized the queue had moved while she hadn’t. She was holding everyone up.
“Oh! I’m sorry. I need to just—” She half-turned toward the desk.
“Nah.” Blane lifted a hand and waved the couple behind her forward. “Go on ahead, folks. She’s not checking in.”
The couple went around her.
Bea stared at him. “I am checking in.”
His mouth twitched.
“I have a flight, Blane. I’m going to Crete. That’s the plan. I am going to Crete.”
“I know.” He looked dangerously close to smiling now. “Figured I’d come see the place.”
“You—” She stared at him. “See the—Blane, it’s Crete. You can’t just come and see the place.”
“Why not?”
“Because you live in Montana, for one thing.”
“Not doing anything there for a few weeks.”
“That does not explain why you would come to Crete.”
He lifted one shoulder. “You bought an old house in a country where you don’t know many people, don’t speak the language yet, don’t have a car, and apparently have no clue who has keys to the place.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’ve been keeping a list.”
“Hard not to.”
“Blane.”
“Figured an extra set of hands might come in useful while you get settled.”
Her heart squeezed. “I don’t need an extra pair of hands.”
“Didn’t say you did. Said they might come in useful.”
And damn him, there was a difference. “Even if I did decide your hands might be useful, I’m on a flight in less than three hours.”
“Got a plane.”
She stopped. “What?”
“Got a plane.”
“You have a plane?”
“Cash does.”
“Of course Cash does.” She rubbed at her forehead. “Where is this plane?”
“Farnborough. Ready to go.”
“You cannot just turn up at Heathrow and announce that you have a plane waiting somewhere else.”
“Just did.”
“Blane.”
“Bea.”
There it was. One word, somehow managing to carry an entire argument. She refused to be derailed by it.
“I’m expected in Crete this afternoon. There’s a woman meeting me with the keys to the house. I have a transfer booked from the airport. It’s all arranged.”
“So we keep it arranged.”
“How?”
“Cancel your flight. Cancel the transfer.”
“But that would … unarrange it all. And I can’t just cancel the transfer. The man’s expecting me.”
“You can cancel a taxi.”
“I know I can cancel a taxi.”
His eyebrows went up.
She chose not to acknowledge the point. “And then what? We arrive at the airport with no car, in a country where I don’t drive yet.
The whole point of the transfer was to get me to the house, then I was going to sort out a car later once I’d settled in—once I’m confident enough to drive on the wrong side of the road. ”
“Right side.”
She stopped. “I beg your pardon?”
“Right side of the road. Not the left.”
“It is quite literally the wrong side from where I come from.”
“Still the right side.”
“Blane.”
His mouth twitched. “Anyway, I have a car.”
She stared at him. “You do not have a car in Crete. You’ve been in London.”
“Called ahead.”
“You called ahead?”
“Cash sorted it.”
That should have reassured her. For some reason, it didn’t. “What kind of car?”
“Asked for something small. Nothing flashy.” He paused, and something almost like grievance crossed his face. “Told him the opposite of whatever he’d choose for himself. God knows what’ll be waiting.”
Despite herself, she almost laughed. “You have a plane and a car?”
“Yeah.”
“In Crete.”
“Car’s in Crete. Plane’s here—at Farnborough.”
“Thank you for clarifying.”
“Welcome.”
She stared at him, trying to gather the scattered pieces of her morning back into some kind of order.
He watched her quietly. “You’re going to Crete either way, darlin’.”
Her breath caught again.
He went on before she could respond. “I’m not asking you to change that. I’m telling you there’s a stupid amount of legroom involved if you want it. Food, wine, whatever you want. You don’t have to sit in a middle seat next to some stranger for four hours.”
“Is the stranger the problem, or the middle seat?”
“Either. Both.” His mouth twitched. “I’d be the guy you’re stuck next to instead. But I’ll sit wherever you tell me.”
She looked away because there was altogether too much inside that sentence.
“Blane, you can’t simply keep fixing every problem I give you.”
“Not fixing your problems.”
“You have produced an aeroplane and a car.”
“That’s logistics.”
She looked back at him. He was serious. Of course he was.
“You keep telling me the plan,” he said. “You go to Crete. You get to the house. You don’t drive until you’re ready. You settle in and figure out the rest.” He lifted one shoulder. “I’m only saying the same thing. Same plan, just better logistics.”
She stood in the bag-drop queue, now considerably farther from the front because Blane had taken it upon himself to redistribute the passengers behind her, and tried to find the hole in his argument.
But there wasn’t one; that was the maddening thing.
He’d stepped over every practical obstacle she’d thrown at him as though each one had been put there solely for him to step over.
Flight. Transfer. Car. Arrival. All of it.
And now there was nothing left between her and Crete except the enormous unspoken thing she’d been throwing taxis and keys and middle seats at to avoid.
“You’ve thought of everything.” It came out almost accusing.
“Nope.” He met her gaze. “I thought of one thing; getting you there. The rest of it’s just…” He made a small gesture that apparently encompassed the plane, the car, and this entire improbable morning. “Logistics. I’m good at logistics.”
She knew that. What she didn’t know was what to do with the fact that he had apparently spent the night applying that particular skill to her.