agreed. “We have the cheese and the sauce, and we are ready to go.”
“Layer cake of eggplant and meat sauce, here we come,” she added.
With that we went to work building the beauty that is a good moussaka—with mashed potatoes and cheese on top of the stacked eggplant and meat, the way my mother had taught me—laughing the entire time and even getting into a bit of a food fight in the middle of it.
This woman is a wonder, I thought, as I wiped mashed potatoes out of my hair and threw them into the sink. For the most part she was sunshine and smiles, but there was a sad side there, too. A side that said that life had been a little bit too rough with her, and that she’d arrived on my island bruised and battered and having run from the real world.
And that, I understood. That whole bruised and battered thing that you tried to cover with rainbows and a glass of good wine. I had that myself. My bruised bits were, I thought, perhaps a bit more bruised than hers, though she seemed to have a balm that tried to heal them. Still, the next time we came face-to-face, all rosy cheeks and dancing eyes after the food fight, I paused, staring at her… and then pulled away again.
Not because I didn’t like her, but because I did. I liked her far too much, in fact. Far more than I was ready for. Because between mashing the potatoes and the food fight and the cleanup afterward, I’d realized something.
The last time I’d liked someone that much—the last time I’d actually given my heart away—it had led, eventually, to the death of my little girl, and the loss of the person who had held my heart in her hands. And I just wasn’t sure I was prepared to risk it all again. I didn’t know if I could love again—or if I’d even want to.
I didn’t know if I could allow myself to be that vulnerable.
Although, watching Trish out of the corner of my eye and admiring the way she had mashed potatoes in her ear and still looked adorable, remembering the way I’d felt when I thought she might leave already… and the relief that had washed over me when she’d said she’d stay…
I started to wonder whether I was going to have any choice in the matter—or if love was going to reach out and grab me by my heartstrings, no matter what my brain told me was smart.
Chapter 11
Trish
After dinner, I told Nikos that I had to take care of some business—namely, finding out how much trouble I was in for having completely wrecked the boat on which I’d arrived—and went into the living room with my phone.
No, I didn’t want to think about having to leave. I also definitely, definitely didn’t want to have to call the boat rental company and answer for what I’d done.
Thankfully, I had an excuse already planned out, and it was a pretty good one, too. I’d been sailing along, minding my own business and enjoying the sunrise, when suddenly I felt faint. I staggered to the left, staggered to the right, hand to my forehead the way all good heroines held their hands when they were in emotional distress. And then, just like that, I’d fainted and fallen right off the boat.
The shipwreck? Oh no, good sir, that wasn’t me at all. I’d been unconscious in the water at the time. If I’d been conscious, I would have been able to steer the boat around that reef.
I absolutely, definitely wouldn’t have had my eyes closed.
And if they wanted to know for sure, they could ask Nikos, who happened to own the island. After all, he’d seen the entire thing. He could vouch for me.
I mean yeah, he’d also seen me sailing along with my eyes closed. But after the last day, I had a feeling that he wouldn’t tell them about that. In fact, if my instincts were right, he’d tell them to take their sweet time about getting another boat out here at all.
I grinned at that, then sank into the enormous couch where I’d first woken up here and started searching for the number of the rental place.
I listened closely to the guy on the other end of the line, sitting farther back in the leather couch in Nikos’ living room and trying not to care about how this guy answered me.
Though I knew for