Page 117 of The Best Thing He Never Wanted

Upstairs, Bea took the garlic grater from the inside pocket of her suitcase. Of course, she knew exactly where it was; she’d known all along. She’d packed it carefully between two pairs of thick woolly socks she hoped she wouldn’t need until winter but had brought anyway because they were comfortable. She unwrapped the little ceramic dish and looked down at it, feeling faintly ridiculous. She could hardly admit to Blane that she’d never really intended to use it—she was going to get another one for that. Her plan had been to keep this one as a sort of souvenir, something she could put on one of the shelves in the living room where she would see it often. It was sentimental and silly, and she knew that, but Blane had bought it for her.

She closed her hand around it. She’d imagined smiling every time she saw it because it would remind her that he had really been here, that these weeks together had actually happened. She was already afraid that, as time went by, the edges of it might blur and she would start to wonder whether she’d made too much of it all in her head, whether Blane and everything they’d shared here had somehow become more like a lovely dream than something that had really belonged to her life.

The thought made her hurry back downstairs. Every moment she wasn’t with him suddenly felt like one she was wasting because by next week she wouldn’t get the chance. Perhaps she never would again. She stopped in the kitchen doorway when the smell of garlic hit her.

“Blane?”

“Bea?” He was standing at the counter with his back to her and answered without turning around.

“What are you doing?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Getting started on the moussaka.”

She went to him, rested one hand on his shoulder and peered around him. “Blane?” She loved the feel of his laughter under her hand almost as much as she loved the sound of it.

“Yes, Bea?”

“You chopped the bloody garlic with your knife, didn’t you? You big…”

He burst out laughing. “Figured it was the more efficient way of doing it. You were taking forever finding that little thing, and I still don’t see how it’s supposed to work.”

She laughed with him. “You’re a terrible, terrible man.”

He curled an arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, but you seem to like my kind of terrible.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she clung to him for a moment before making herself let go.

“I love it, Blane.”

As soon as the words were out, she dropped her gaze. That was twice now she’d almost said something else, and it was becoming ridiculous. She pointed at the finely chopped garlic on the cutting board in front of him. “I do not love this. I was going to show you how my garlic grater works. You invested good money in it; I’d hate for you to think it was wasted.”

He smiled through pursed lips and handed her a clove. “Go on then. Show me.”

“You peeled it already.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you don’t peel them in English cooking.”

She slapped his arm. “Would you stop with that?”

He laughed. “Yeah, all right. Sorry. Go on. Introduce me to the wonders of a garlic grater.”

Bea set the little dish on the counter, rubbed the clove over the rough center in small circles and watched it turn quickly into a soft paste, the juice and garlic collecting neatly in the shallow well around the edge.

“There.” She looked up at him triumphantly. “See?”

Blane leaned in and inspected it as seriously as if he were evaluating specialist equipment.

“Huh.”

“That’s all I get? Huh?”

He picked up another clove. “Didn’t say it was useless.”

“Oh, high praise indeed.”

He handed it to her. “Do another one.”

She laughed and took it from him. “I knew I’d convert you.”

“Wouldn’t go that far.” But he stayed right there beside her while she grated the next clove.