Page 7 of The Dangers of Daydreaming (Love Connections #2)

Potatoes and Plans

Lucy

The cloudless, sapphire sky could have entranced my gaze, or the long grass waving in the breeze, or the glittering ocean water… but I was too mad.

I tried again to, unsuccessfully, catch Finn’s eye. He was straight up ignoring me. And by the smirk playing across his lips, he was enjoying it.

I crossed my arms against the chill in the breeze—it was the least of my problems. The biggest one at the moment was that I had just spent the last hour and a half traveling to this location and another touring the West Point Lighthouse.

Which was beautiful and stately and had some fascinating history to it but had NOTHING to do with Anne of Green Gables.

Dang it, Finn. I should have expected a trick like this: offering to take me on tours, but conveniently not mentioning that the first tour would be of zero help to me.

At my breaking point, I stalked toward Finn, ready to interrupt his conversation with Mrs. Hastings, the cute little (emphasis on little) old matriarch of the Hastings reunion, when my phone started ringing.

I pulled it out and looked at the screen in relief. Finally. Turning, I found a bench and sat, answering the call.

“Ellie.” I felt like a mom trying to keep the reprimand out of my tone, but still having plenty of disappointment bleed in.

A h arried voice came through the phone.

“Ms. Sinclair, I just got your messages! I was out all weekend, and I don’t know what happened.

I swear I made the phone calls—I have the bank transactions to show that your car and hotel went through, but no matter what I search in my email, I can’t find the confirmations anywhere! ”

The poor girl sounded close to tears, and the frustration bled out of me.

“Ellie, it’s okay, mistakes happen. Why don’t you send me over what you have, and I’ll look into it?

Maybe it was a scam site—those are becoming more and more common.

” And were something that I should have warned her about.

Management material at its finest. “Don’t worry about me, I was able to get a place to stay. ”

“And the rental car?”

I opened my mouth. Sure, I had Finn offering to chauffeur me around, but after this little prank of his, I wasn’t putting all my eggs in his basket.

“I do still need one of those. Try to find a place between the Seaside Barn and Breakfast and the West Point Lighthouse; I’ll pick it up on my way back from this tour I’m on. ”

There was some shuffling on Ellie’s end, then tapping on keys as she presumably started pulling up car rental locations.

“And, Ellie?”

“Yes?” Background noise on her end halted as she gave me her full attention.

“I’m going to teach you how to fill out a reimbursement form. I need to be reimbursed for the charge of this bed-and-breakfast I’m staying at.”

“Yes, okay, I can do that. Just tell me what to do.”

I explained the basics, including a file in the company database listing everything for reference. I could mentally see her nodding along, her brunette ponytail bobbing.

“Also,” I added as we were about to hang up, unable to help myself, “double check for confirmation on the rental car booking.”

I h oped that was a hint of amusement, not more crying when she responded in the affirmative.

I shook my head as I hung up, the subconscious load of that credit card charge for the B she was the responsible one to a fault.

Honestly, she had helped raise me almost as much as my mother post-divorce, despite only being six years older than me.

Six years older meant she was just old enough to be helpful and responsible and young enough to be around, unlike Mom, who’d had to get a job when Dad left.

Lucy: Sorry, sorry! I am in fact alive, and guess where I am! A lighthouse… with absolutely no significance to Anne of Green Gables . I can just taste the promotion now.

Did I tell them that Finn had saved me? I had wanted to give myself some time to figure out what this older version of Finn was like. But it would seem he was a copy of his junior high self, so right now I needed to vent, and who better to complain to than my five best friends?

Lucy: And I’ll give you three guesses on who saved me ??

“Talking about me?”

I jumped in my seat, spinning to where Finn was standing beside my bench—positioned so he could not see my phone screen.

“Still into eavesdropping, are you?” I asked as I tucked the phone into my back pocket.

“I don’t know what you’re alluding to.” He lowered himself onto the bench a foot away from me.

“Maybe that time you heard me planning a birthday party at the skating rink, and happened to show up?”

“If you’d just invited me, I wouldn’t have needed to sneak in,” he said with a shrug.

“It was girls only.”

“All your friends loved me. They were happy to have me along.”

Pushing aside the little trip down memory lane, I said, “Speaking of tagging along places… why am I here?”

His eyes grew innocently wide. I wasn’t falling for it.

“Because you wanted to join our tour group.”

I tilted my head and pursed my lips to the side. “I wanted to join the Anne of Green Gables tour group.”

He watched the ocean, nodding along like he knew exactly what I meant. “Yep, we’ll go to several of those locations too.”

I resisted the urge to punch his arm. “Maybe next time you could tell me beforehand if I’m about to waste my day at a pointless tour stop.”

Finn looked around suddenly, his eyes glancing across the landscape in such a covert way that I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder as well.

He lowered his voice and leaned closer when he spoke.

“Shhh. Don’t use the word pointless around here.

Every place has historical significance.

Every place is beautiful. Every place is worth the visit. ”

Did he take anything seriously?

I started to stand, but he scooted toward me, clasping his hands in front of him and looking up at me with those dark eyes.

“Don’ t go,” he said. And something in his voice actually made me pause. Something with just a hint of that feeling authors described in romance books.

And then he ruined it all by adding, “You’ll miss our tour of the potato museum.”

I threw my hands up. “Finn. I’m here on work—my future with the company depends on this trip going well, and it hasn’t been so far.

I don’t have time to mess around at lighthouses and potato museums, no matter how significant, beautiful, or worthy they may be. I need to be working, not vacationing.”

Finally, that teasing spark left his eyes, and he nodded, brow furrowing in thought.

“I can’t get you home before the museum, but I promise to tell you where the Hastings are going over the next two weeks so you can cross off any you don’t need.

I’ll even be your personal tour guide for any other locations you have to see. ”

Something twisted in the region of my heart when he said that with such sincerity.

Between the anger and the… other stuff… I was feeling, I’d need an antacid if I spent any more time around this guy.

“It’s okay. I’m getting a rental car.” My phone pinged on cue, and I glanced down, then held up the screen. “See? My intern just booked it all.”

“Same intern who booked your hotel and rental before?”

I pursed my lips.

“Maybe I’ll go with you to pick it up just in case.”

“You’ll have to, I need you to drop me off on the way back to the inn.”

He glanced at his watch. “I’ll go inside with you, too.”

I rolled my eyes, but didn’t argue.

He stood.

“In other, more exciting news, it’s time to head to the potato museum.” He held out a hand to me, his smile stretching wide.

“How long do we anticipate being at this riveting museum?” I took his hand, his fingers tightening around mine as he pulled me up effortlessly.

“I have three hours booked for us, but if you need longer, we can make that work.”

“Bummer, I was really hoping for a full day.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, tugging me toward the van, “I’ll bring you back.”

He dropped my hand then, and despite the warmth of the day, it felt cold. I shook it out a bit and stuck it into my shorts’ pocket. “I’ll send you the list of places I need to see.”

“I can just let you know which Anne-related trips we’re going on.”

I nodded. “Okay, go ahead.”

His eyes cut to mine, and he shrugged. “I don’t have them memorized.”

“None of them? Do you not know where you’re going tomorrow?”

“I will by tomorrow.”

“But it’s your job to have the plan.”

“No, it’s travel agencies like yours that have the plan, I just execute.” He waved at a couple in the Hastings’ group, motioning them to the van.

“It would drive me crazy not to know what came next.”

“It would drive me crazy always thinking about tomorrow instead of today. Would take all the fun out of visiting the potatoes today if I was thinking about the turnips of tomorrow.”

“Please tell me there’s not a turnip museum too.”

He lifted his shoulders. “Guess I’ll know when I check tomorrow’s itinerary.”

I shook my head, trying to hold back a smile. With the annoyance slipping away, I couldn’t help but find him a little entertaining. A little. “Well, I need a plan so I can schedule my extra tours around whichever ones you’re going on.”

“I’ll take you on the ones we aren’t already going on.”

This was getting exasperating—we were talking in circles. “One, I’m getting a rental car, and two, you won’t know which tours I need to add on if you don’t tell me which we’re going on.”

We’d reached the van, and he stopped, eyeing me. “I’ll check them tonight. Send me your list… and I’ll send mine.” He opened the passenger door for me, but his face was twisted in disgust as if the idea of a list was truly disdainful.

I smiled up at him, pumping it with sugar. “Thank you,” I sang as I slid in.

And I swear he smiled to himself as he closed the door, patted it, and left to get the rest of the group.

There was one difference between preteen Finn and adult Finn. Somehow, at his current age, he did a really great job of helping me forget that I was annoyed with him.