Page 12 of The Best Thing He Never Wanted

“Didn’t mean to startle you. But I figured we’re both going back to the same place.” He shot a glance at the coat on Meg’s chair beside her. “Didn’t ask, but I figured you’re here alone.”

She smiled at that. “I am.”

“Then if you like, I can hang around back here till you’re ready to go. Not a problem if you don’t want.”

His eyebrows were knitted together, the muscle in his jaw working. For a moment she took it for irritation—that he felt obliged to see to her safety, as though the pull toward duty were overriding his own instinct to stay the hell away from her.

But then it landed. He wasn’t angry. He was uncomfortable.

She couldn’t help it. She rested her hand on his arm again. “I’d like that. I’d like that very much. Thank you.”

He nodded curtly and straightened. “Be right here whenever you’re ready.”

And with that he stepped back into the shadows—lurking, now, somewhere near her little bar.

~ ~ ~

The walk back to the tube was, in many respects, much like the night before. The crowd moved like a tide, and she was carried along in it. But this time Blane moved at her side, and her earlier assessment of him held: he was his own planet. No one jostled them. People moved around them. The crowd parted, somehow, wherever he went.

Last night she’d stood on the platform at North Greenwich and let three trains leave, having decided it was easier to hang back than fight her way on. Tonight, she stepped onto the very first train inside the little pocket of space Blane somehow created around himself.

She grabbed a pole, and in the crush found herself wedged between it and Blane’s very large, very solid chest. She tipped her head back to look up at him—but he was scanning the packed carriage, a faint scowl on his face.

She couldn’t help it. It made her laugh.

He looked down at her. “Did I miss something?”

“Oh, I doubt it. I doubt you’ve ever missed a thing.” The words came before she could stop them. “Surveillance and disapproval. Is that your specialty?” The instant they were out, she held her breath. Why on earth had she said that?

Then he let out a short laugh, and just before the train pulled away, he reached past her and wrapped one big hand around the pole beside hers. The carriage lurched. Bea clung on tightly but still managed to stumble into him, and his other arm came around her, catching her and holding her firmly against his side.

Oh my goodness!

Her whole body seemed to freeze for a heartbeat, taking a rapid inventory. Large man. Solid chest. Warm arm. The feeling of safety. The feeling of being—she swallowed—protected.

And it seemed that every cell in her body reached the same conclusion at exactly the same moment. The appropriate reaction was not fear, or embarrassment, or even gratitude.

Oh no. Every cell in her body settled, unanimously, on celebration.

She felt like a bottle of champagne uncorked after fifty-eight years—all the fizz and sparkle and bubbles wanting to overflow at once.

She took a deep breath and almost had herself pulled back together. Almost. Then his deep, gravelly voice undid her again.

“You okay?”

She had to force herself to look up into those gray eyes. No force at all was needed for the smile.

“Wonderful,” she told him honestly. “How about you?”

~ ~ ~

“Wonderful.”

The word took him by surprise as he heard it come out. He wasn’t sure he’d ever even used it before, but he couldn’t deny that it was true in this moment. He was doing his best to ignore the awareness of her warm, soft body pressed against him, and how good she felt there.

He’d tried to talk himself out of this. When she’d told him earlier that she’d better let him get back to work, he’d felt dismissed. She’d put her hand on his arm, and all he’d been able to do was stare down at her fingers resting there while he tried to process the effect they had on him. But then she’d pulled back, effectively told him to go back to work, and returned to her seat. He figured he’d probably read the whole thing wrong, so he’d gone. Not even back to the spot he’d occupied earlier. He’d moved up a tier and over, into a place where she wouldn’t see him, the theory being that he wouldn’t keep looking for her from up there. He’d break the habit, and that’d be it.

It hadn’t worked. He’d found himself spending more time watching Bea than either the acts onstage or the crowd. And watching her had confirmed something for him. He wasn’t just curious. Sure, that was how it had started, but it was more than that now. He’d described the pull he felt toward her as being like a magnet before. Now he knew what it was. It was attraction. And the clincher had been seeing the way she kept looking for him too. Yeah, she was caught up in the music most of the time, still doing her little dance in her seat and exchanging smiles with her neighbors. But she kept checking the spot where he’d been. More than that, he’d caught the disappointment on her face when she didn’t find him there.