“I believe you, sweeting,” he said gently.
“Though, feel free to continue spoiling me,” I teased,hoping it didn’t sound forced.
“So you admit it.”
I shrugged.
And there came that rich, attractive, chuckle before he didwhat he was quickly becoming expert in doing: angled his head to avoid myenormous hat so he could touch his lips to mine.
When he lifted away, he didn’t go far.
So I went for it.“And if you ever want to talk about them…”
I let that hang.
I found it concerning he only nodded before he straightenedcompletely from me.
But I let it go.
Because I was going to need him to let things go, a lot ofthem, practically every real thing about me.
The least I could do was return the favor on occasion.
“Does this mean you’re going to give up on forcing me toteach you how to drive yourself around?”he asked, and I was getting to knowhim, so I was more than sensing he wasn’t entirely joking.
“It isn’t that hard,” I returned.
“You’re rubbish at it,” he stated bluntly.
I was not wrong.He hadn’t been joking.
And he was not wrong.
Who knew it was harder than heck driving a carriage throughbusy streets filled with other carriages, carts, horses, and people crossing(the concept of jaywalking clearly had not been introduced in this world, andalthough, on the busier streets, there were constables directing crossways,there was nary a stop sign to be found), but also errant dogs, cats andsometimes pigs and chickens?
Horses turned left and right and went faster and slower,depending on what you told them to do.And they weren’t real big on runninginto anything, so they took their own evasive maneuvers.
But a lot of the time, it got hairy.
“I’ll get the hang of it.”
“Perhaps, if you stop gazing around like you’re touringinstead of paying attention to where you’re going,” he suggested.
He was not wrong about that either.
“There are a number of distractions,” I pointed out.
“Indeed.This is why women don’t drive.Too easilydistracted.They see a hat they like in a window, they’d drive into the windownext to it because they can’t stop looking at it.And then they’d argue it’sthe hat’s fault.”
“Oh.My.Gods,” I whispered irately.“Did you justsay that?”
He smiled down at me, hugely, his warm brown eyes dancing,and his arm still around me tightened as his head dipped.
“You are very easy to tease, mySatrine,”he whispered.
“You are very lucky you’re so gorgeous, my Loren,” Iretorted.
And there came an even bigger smile.
