“Piper.”
“It’s a surprise.”
When we reach the car, he opens the trunk to start loading the bags.
I wait until he’s reaching for the last one, the trunk door half-down, and I say over my shoulder, “It’s lacy.”
His hand stops dead on the trunk. “Fucking hell, Piper.”
I get in, buckle up, and stare out at Mira Cove. I’m grinning so hard my face hurts.
Griffin gets in and starts the engine without looking at me. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
He drives for a couple of minutes before he reaches over and puts his hand on my thigh. He leaves it there without a word, and I don’t move it because I’ve come to love the contact.
I look out the window as the town disappears.
Good trip,I think.Really good trip.
Thirty-Three
Griffin
She falls asleep somewhere around the second hour.
One minute she’s got her feet up on the dash, talking about the watercolor she bought and how she wants to frame it when she gets home, and the next time I glance over, she’s gone.
I turn the music down.
I’ve been thinking about the music shop.
I’ve been thinking about it since it happened. I’d walked past the window and heard the violin before I understood what I was hearing. And when I pushed the door open and saw her?
She didn’t know I was there… Christ.
She was completely lost in it, eyes closed.
I stood there like an idiot in the doorway, holding shopping bags, and I thought:There she is.
I see the turnout about a mile ahead. It’s a wide gravel shoulder where the cliff pushes out into a point.
The car crunches to a stop.
I sit for a second, looking at what’s in front of us. The coast stretches south, headland after headland fading into haze.
It’s a view worth waking someone up for.
I reach over and put my hand on her shoulder. “Pipes.”
She stirs and makes a sound.
“Piper.”
She opens her eyes and blinks away the fog of sleep as she looks at the windshield. “Where are we?”
“Don’t know exactly.” I nod toward the window. “But look.”
