He frowned at the thought. He liked her innocence. It was part of what made Sara, Sara.

“So can I borrow your car?” she asked.

“You don’t have a car?” Come to think of it, he’d never seen her drive. He’d seen her ride off on a battered bicycle, but he hadn’t imagined that was her only transportation.

“Mine broke down when I was driving back from Santa Fe, and I couldn’t afford the repair bill, so I sold it and rode the bus the rest of the way home.”

“How do you survive without one?”

“Port Clara’s not that big. I walk or ride my bike, and now that the streetcar is running again, I ride that. But the hospital is all the way in Corpus Christi. So can I borrow your car?”

The thought pained him. He’d just bought that car-a cream puff of a Mercedes, barely used. He’d been thinking about buying a car anyway, and he’d intended to purchase something conservative and practical. But the little blue Mercedes had caught his eye.

He seldom succumbed to impulse purchases, and the car was unlike anything he’d ever owned, but he hadn’t been able to walk away from it.

He hadn’t even let his cousin Max drive it.

“All right, I’ll go to the hospital with you,” he said to Sara. Miss Greer would probably appreciate someone there to handle the paperwork, he reasoned.

When they were settled into the Mercedes’s leather bucket seats, Reece entered their destination in his satellite navigation system and they were off. The GPS routed them over the causeway that linked their little barrier island with the mainland, which was a relief. He always felt nauseous on the ferry, which was the other way off the island.

“I’ve been dying to ride in this car,” Sara confessed. “Do you like it?”

“So far.” It was the most sinfully decadent car he’d ever bought.

“Why didn’t you hire someone to drive your car down from New York, like Cooper did?”