Page 55 of The Best Thing He Never Wanted

“I’m looking at a map.”

“You’re not looking at a map like a normal person. You’re calculating escape routes and probably wondering where the nearest hospital is.”

“Nearest hospital would be useful to know.”

She gave him a look.

“And police.”

“Blane.”

“Fire department.”

“Blane.”

He looked back down at the map. “What?”

“We’re going to my house, not planning a military operation.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Never said we were.”

“Your face did. And you’re apparently planning for every natural disaster and criminal emergency that might befall me before lunchtime.”

“Seems smart.”

She shook her head, but she was smiling when she turned the map back toward herself.

He let her talk him through it after that. She pointed to the town where she expected to do most of her shopping, and the road down to the coast. Then traced her finger down to a beach she’d found online that she wanted to see. She forgot the map while she told him about the village itself, and the little square, and a bakery in the next village that she’d already looked up online.

“You researched the bakery?”

“Of course I researched the bakery.”

“But not the hospital.”

“I have priorities.”

He laughed.

She pointed to another spot. “And the house is somewhere around here. I know exactly where, obviously, but it’s not marked on this.”

“Is it an old place?”

“Very. You know the kind—with stone walls, and shutters, and a courtyard. It needs work.”

“How much work?”

She gave him a suspicious look.

He held up a hand. “Extra set of hands. Remember?”

That made her smile. “I remember.”

Something about the way she said it made his attention snag for a second. He looked back at the map. “And the garden?”

“Oh, Blane.”

He turned to her.