Trish a crash course in how to drive a quad bike.
“You control the gas with your hands…” she said, staring down at the handlebars with a crease between her brows. Then she looked up, frowning even harder. “And the brakes, too?”
I nodded. “Exactly. I had these modified to get rid of the gears, so they’re simpler. Twist for gas, use that lever for brakes. Kind of like a bike.”
At that, she gave me a very dry, very jaded look. “Except that a bike doesn’t have an actual engine attached to it. And the last time I checked, I wasn’t volunteering to ride a bike along the cliffs bordering an ocean.”
I returned the look, one eyebrow raised in challenge. “Are you scared or something?”
I was rewarded with a narrowing of the eyes, followed by her reaching down to turn her quad on.
Then, much to my surprise, she actually managed to rev the engine—a tricky move since it meant engaging the clutch, which I hadn’t even gotten to telling her about.
She gave me a wild, untamed grin, and laughed. “I come from Texas, Nikos. Do you actually think I’ve never ridden one of these things? Let’s go.”
She took off up the beach before I could think of any answer to that, and I revved my own engine and sped after her, trying to figure out how I was going to catch up.
She slowed, of course, when she realized that she didn’t actually know where we were going, and before long I was riding along next to her, barely leaving enough space between us for safety. Trish was laughing, I could see that much, and though she had sunglasses pulled down over her eyes—to protect them from the sand—I could imagine those eyes flashing the way they did whenever she was excited.
I could imagine her dimples coming out in full force.
And holy Hera did I need to get a hold of myself. Because I’d known this woman less than a week and I was already able to picture her entire face without even looking at her.
More than that. I was able to remember how her laugh sounded. Remember how it felt like it got right into my blood and made it sing.
Then, thank God, I saw the path we needed, and that gave me something else to think about. I motioned that we were going that way and turned, counting on her to follow—and knowing that she’d be able to handle the path we were going to be riding, even though it was the most difficult path on the entire island.
The journey to the ruins was just as breathtaking—and difficult—as I remembered.
Once we turned off the beach, it was a steep climb back up the cliffs, and though it was short, there were plenty of rocks and gullies on the path up. The ocean stretched out to our right, the cliffs steep and rocky here so that we were looking almost straight down to the water.
It was beautiful and wild and gave you the best views Greece had to offer, in my opinion. But it was also incredibly dangerous, if you didn’t know what you were doing.
“You doing okay?” I shouted back over my shoulder, wondering if Trish would even be able to hear me.
“I’d be better if we were going faster, slowpoke!” she shouted back.
The woman was a freaking wonder.
I hit the gas and increased my speed, grinning as I went. We wouldn’t be able to get away with this sort of speed once we hit the top of the cliffs, but for right now, it worked.
Once we reached the top, I slowed down to a crawl and let her catch up to me. Once she’d pulled even, I pointed straight forward.
“That’s our path,” I said quickly. “Along the edge of the cliffs to the other end of the island. We’ll have to go slower. It’s too rocky and dangerous up here to speed. But I promise it’ll be worth it in the end.”
She stared into the distance for a moment, as if she was taking the measure of the path we were about to travel and deciding whether it was up to her expectations, and then she cast me a quick grin.
“Lead on, then, captain.”
“Wow,” Trish breathed, staring down the hill at the ruins that sat below us.
We were on the other side of the island, now, after an hour of bumping over rough terrain on the quads. Ahead of us, the ocean stretched out, the valley below us leading right