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“Will you tell me where we’re going then?” Natalia propped her hand on her hip.
Sam couldn’t stop smiling. “To my midlife crisis.”
Natalia waited expectantly, unsatisfied with the clue.
“Okay, okay. I guess you’ll find out in a bit, anyway.” She ran her hands through her hair, already damp from sweat after being outside of air conditioner range for a few minutes. “I want to take you out on the boat.”
Natalia pursed her lips. “You could have told me that before I styled my hair,” she complained, but didn’t refuse to go.
Without a word, she turned and started inside. In the foyer, Natalia opened the small drawer in a console table. She tossed an unprepared Sam a key before pulling off her shoes and going upstairs. “Can you drive a stick?”
Sam’s jaw dropped in exaggerated offense. “Can I drive a stick? Have you even met me?”
Natalia didn’t look back at her while she strode upstairs. “Go take it out of the garage.”
As if she was supposed to know where anything was, Sam made her best guess where the garage was in a house the size of an apartment complex. She was starting down a corridor on the far side of the front of the house when something familiar snagged her attention.
On display in Natalia’s vaulted-ceiling great room was a small painting among the likes of Carmen Herrera and Frida Kahlo. A contribution from the UK Sam had selected with great care.
Charged with so much energy she practically bounded down the sun-drenched hall, Sam’s chest stretched to snapping. Promise and possibility were the break-neck rhythm of her pulse as she tried two doors before finding the garage.
“No shit,” Sam muttered to herself with a laugh because she needed somewhere to put all of her excitement before Natalia re-emerged.
The last thing Sam expected to find in Natalia’s garage was a pristine, vintage, white Jeep. All at once, she felt the overwhelming desire to know everything about Natalia. To understand all the parts she kept hidden from the world and guard them jealously.
She neared the unexpected sight, a heavy door slamming shut behind her. Without the top, the two-door Jeep was effortlessly cool. Its upholstered beige interior was in the same perfect shape as everything else. There wasn’t a single blemish on any part of the relic. It was so perfect, Sam wasn’t even sure the thing would run.
She hit the button for the black glass garage door and jumped into the driver’s seat. Running her hands over the supple beige leather on the steering wheel, she was Alicia Silverstone cruising through the Southern California hills.
With the garage rumbling open, Sam stepped on the clutch and turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life, sending a giddy jolt through Sam’s body. She almost regretted her midlife crisis choice and wished instead she’d gotten a Jeep.
It had been a decade since she’d driven a manual car, but the moment she put the Jeep in gear, it rolled forward with only a tiny stutter. She did a few circles around Natalia’s enormous driveway before feeling sure that she wouldn’t embarrass herself by scratching the transmission in Natalia’s presence.
Pulling on her sunglasses, Sam climbed out of the Jeep and starting transferring stuff from the Subaru to the Jeep’s open trunk. She was tossing in the last thing, a tote bag with supplies, when Natalia reappeared.
Dressed in pale blue linen shorts and a white long-sleeved linen shirt, Natalia looked like a movie star behind her dark sunglasses and wide-brimmed hat. In her relaxed state, she was even more stunning than usual.
“I see you managed to get it out of the garage,” Natalia said with something like approval.
“We might even make it to Key Biscayne,” she replied with a wiggle in her brows. It took every ounce of willpower not to scoop Natalia up and kiss her, but she had to play it cool. Her emotions were already slipping from her grasp.
Sam started toward the passenger door to open it for Natalia before she stopped her. Reaching for something in a large purse too nice to subject to sea water, Natalia pulled out a bottle of sunscreen.
“I don’t want to hear you whining like a little baby or looking like a bruised tomato,” she said instead of anything nice.
Sam laughed, her heart soaring to alarming heights. Instead of teasing Natalia about her thoughtfulness, Sam pulled off her tank, remaining in her thin-strapped sports bra. She turned and allowed Natalia to spread the thick, white sunblock that had to be at least SPF 10,000. It took Herculean effort not to turn around and kiss Natalia. To cancel their plans and take her upstairs.
When she’d been coated in the most uncool layer of protectant, Sam held the door open for Natalia. “Sure you don’t want to drive?”
Natalia hesitated before closing the small, windowless door. “If you ever tell anyone this, I’ll never forgive you,” she started with dramatic intensity.
Sam crossed her heart and pretended to zipper her mouth shut.
“I hate driving,” she confessed before reaching for her seatbelt.
Sam laughed, unable to pull back the grin she was sure was too broad. “Well, good thing I love driving. I don’t know why you even bother with the Jag. If I had this thing, I’d never drive anything else.”
“And yet you insist on that thing,” she replied, finger pointing to Sam’s car.
