Page 40 of Return to Me Always

"What about Tyler?" I asked, not even trying to be subtle with my nosiness.

"He helps out on occasion. But he decided to go back to uni in London."

My jaw fell open. "Excuse me? Tyler's in college?"

"You didn't know that?" Ben looked at me sideways.

"No. I didn't know that."

"Did you two not talk at all the whole way to Fort William?"

"Um, not all that much," I admitted with a half-shrug.

Ben's easy laugh met my ears. "Well, Tyler's not exactly a big talker, is he?"

"You can say that again."

A fair distance ahead, Tyler stopped and waited for us to catch up to him. "If you two are done blethering about me," he said, "we could break for a snack."

Oh, crap. How much had he heard? I thought we were far enough behind him that he couldn't hear us.

Ben looked at me. "The wind's coming up behind us, probably carrying our conversation."

Ugh, how embarrassing. I really didn'twant Tyler to know how curious I was about him, and now, here was proof. I was sure my cheeks were flaming red. "Yeah. Sure," I mumbled. "Snack sounds good."

While we stood and ate, I just felt so dumb for allowing this boy to affect me. Why was I letting him get under my skin so much?

Maybe it was because—I don't know—he'd been starring in my dreams forever. It was kind of hard to forget that. Or maybe it was because the kiss we shared had been earth-shattering. At least for me.

In high school, I had kissed a handful of boys. I'd even had a boyfriend my entire senior year that I had actually slept with. Many times! But there was something about Tyler's kiss...

"Hey, Kat?" Ben said. "You want any more to eat?"

"Nah, I'm good. Still pretty full from your awesome meal." Thank God for Ben. I was kind of wishing he'd stay with us for the whole rest of the trip. To wherever the hell we were going.

When we were back on the trail, I was determined tonottalk about Mr. Outdoorsy Warrior Man and focus on other things. And Ben too seemed to feel the same way as he started immediately asking about me.

"So how did you end up in the UK anyway?" he said.

While we made our way through a grove of trees, I told him the story of how my mom had encouraged me to take a gap year and travel.

"Is the UK your first leg?" he asked. "Didn't you get a late start?"

How impressive that Ben even noticed this unlike someone else. Ahem. "Yes, actually. I did start later than I wanted to. My mom needed shoulder surgery, and I had to stick around for a while."

"She's okay now, though?"

The note of concern in his voice touched me. "Yeah. Thanks for asking."

With a nod and a smile, Ben held a tree branch aside for me. "Where else are you going to go, you know, after this all gets sorted?"

"Well, I was hoping to go to Scotland actually. So that's the silver lining to this insane cloud."

Ben chuckled. "That's one way to look at it."

"Exactly," I agreed. "I'll definitely be able to cross Scotland off the list. And I was hoping to visit France and Italy as well, then go on to Eastern Europe. I just have to make it to Prague by the end of July to fly home."

"I think we can make that happen."

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