Saved By The Greek Doctor (Greek Gods #3) - Holly Rayner Page 0,28

right through me—and showed everything she was thinking. The fact that she never tried to hide any of her ideas. It was the heart she wore on her sleeve.

The heart she was so willing to share with me.

And with that in mind, I decided to put her out of her misery. She was pulling me up out of mine; the least I could do was tell her exactly why I was asking that question. So I leaned toward her and dropped my voice.

“Honestly, I don’t want to go to the mainland, either. And I don’t particularly want to take you there, though I would if you asked me to, of course. I was asking only because there are actually ruins on this very island,” I told her quietly. “We wouldn’t even have to go to the mainland. I mean, if you wanted to see them.”

She jumped and clasped her hands under her chin like someone out of a fairy tale. “Ruins, here? Then yes, yes, yes.”

And that was all the answer I needed—not only to the question of whether she wanted to see the ruins, but also whether she was staying because she felt sorry for me… or because she truly didn’t want to leave.

We took the quad bikes this time, though it meant walking down the endless stairs again, as I’d spent yesterday afternoon returning them to their usual resting spot in the boathouse next to the reef.

“And why aren’t we taking your luxurious, over-the-top golf cart?” Trish asked halfway down, one of her hands resting on the rail next to her. “Obviously it goes quickly enough to get us to wherever we need to go.”

I took a moment to allow myself to appreciate her other hand, which was resting very naturally between my shoulder blades—though whether that was for balance or comfort, I wasn’t sure.

Honestly, I didn’t think it mattered. All that mattered was that her hand was on me, her touch relaxing the tension that had dwelt in my muscles for years… while bringing a gentle tingling that I still hadn’t identified.

I fought the guilt that came with that thought. Fought the guilt that came with feeling good for the first time since Lia died. And I reminded myself once more that I was allowed to move forward with my life. I could find life and happiness once again, and find my way into a life where I didn’t think about my daughter and my ex-wife constantly.

I could become human again. I was allowed. It was even expected.

But thinking that with my rational mind and actually feeling it with my heart… those were two very different things.

Still, I flexed my shoulders a bit, reveling in the feel of her fingertips on my body, and cast a grin back over my shoulder, trying to remember what she’d asked. Ah, the golf cart, and why we were taking the quads instead.

“The ruins are in a fairly remote part of the island, and as much as I love the golf cart, it’s just not built for off-roading,” I admitted. “It does a whole lot better with the pathways of the vineyard and the grove. It can even manage the dirt roads there. But where we’re going, there are no roads.”

She groaned at this particular movie reference, and I laughed, feeling lighter and lighter with every step we took.

And that feeling, I didn’t fold up or put away. I was going to let myself feel it for just a little bit longer. Just until Trish left, I told myself. As long as she was here making me feel like I could actually float away on little, puffy clouds, I was going to let myself feel that I just might do it.

There would be plenty of time to go back to the storm clouds and rain once she left. For now, I wanted the white, puffy ones. Preferably ones that were shaped like fantastical beings.

Unicorn clouds. Dragons. Griffins, even. They were Greek, right?

Then, to my surprise, Trish’s other hand came down on my back as well. She squeezed gently… and then started pressing me forward.

“Well, then, let’s go,” she murmured in my ear. “I want to see some ruins. The sooner we get to the bottom of those stairs, the quicker that’ll happen.”

And with that, we were walking faster, scampering down the stairs as quickly as possible to get to the boathouse—and the quads that hadn’t been taken out in years.

Sort of like my heart.

Before we got started, of course, I gave