by Abby Gaines
“When Sadie told me yesterday that you’d disappeared, I phoned Astrid—” he’d met her colleague at a party they’d attended, Meg recalled “—and told her I needed to see you. She arranged a pass for me, through a friend in security. Good thing she’s a romantic,” he added.
“A very good thing,” Meg agreed. Astrid could have been fired.
“We found out you were working this flight, but Astrid’s friend was working yesterday, not today. So I had to come in last night.”
“I guess that makes sense,” she said. “In a totally crazy way.”
His face crumpled. “Meg, you disappeared.” His voice cracked; his lack of self-possession shocked her.
“I didn’t disappear,” she said unconvincingly. “I’m staying at a friend’s place.”
He exhaled sharply through his nose. “You’ve been visiting my mother.”
She caught her breath. “You know?”
He took her hands in his. “Okay, I didn’t tell you the full story… It makes me look pathetic.”
“This I’d like to hear,” she said.
He grinned that lopsided grin she’d fallen in love with, but this time it had a sheepish tinge. “When Sadie said you’d gone, I went crazy. I called the police, but they wouldn’t investigate because I made the mistake of telling them I was your ex-fiancé. And since you’d been turning up to work, they said they wouldn’t investigate even if I was your actual fiancé—a status I’m keen to restore, by the way,” he added casually.
A swarm of celebrating butterflies danced in her stomach. Don’t get your hopes up. “Hmm,” she said, aiming for enigmatic.
He laughed and dropped a kiss on her mouth, suggesting she hadn’t nailed enigmatic.
“I raced out to the airport to find you and, uh, ended up being forcibly removed by security.”
“Daniel!” she said, delighted.
“Then it occurred to me to ask my mother.”
“You guessed I would visit her?”
“Hardly. I thought as a psychologist she might have some insight that would tell me where you’d gone. I wasn’t going to let her rest until she’d given me every possible idea.”
“The poor woman was in ICU,” she said.
“I was dying.” His ferocity silenced them both.
Daniel swallowed, then continued more quietly. “I told her I love you, that I’d made a big mistake letting you go, and that if I could convince you to give me another chance I was going to have to have a different attitude. One my parents undoubtedly wouldn’t like, but they’d have to get used to it.”
She gaped. “What did Angela say?”
“She gave me a lecture about nosocomephobia—Trey had already mentioned it, but the word went right out of my head. Mom told me what you’d done, going to the phobia center, then turning up at the hospital every day.” He lifted her hand to his mouth, kissed her knuckles. “It’s the bravest thing I ever heard.”
She laughed shakily. “Daniel, there are cops pulling people from burning cars and soldiers defusing bombs every day.”
“You have courage,” he insisted. “My mom agrees—not that I asked her opinion. She’s on her way to becoming a fan of yours.”
“On her way?” Meg said, indignant.
“She’s slow to change, but she’ll get there.” He pulled her into his arms. “Meg, I came after you because I love you. I was an insensitive jerk.” He gazed into her eyes.
“Keep going,” she encouraged him.
Daniel swatted her backside, drawing the attention of a couple of passengers. “I’m sorry. If I promise to do better, will you come back to me?”
She tilted her head to one side. “Kiss me.”
His mouth came down on hers before she’d finished talking. And all the anticipation that should have shown up earlier about her flight was right here, right now. Where it would always be. With Daniel.
After a very satisfying minute or two, he lifted his mouth from hers…to the applause of a planeload of passengers to Denver. Meg waved to the crowd.
“Stay with me,” he said.
“I’m working.” The thought of spending so much as a night without him made her want to weep. Which she could see didn’t bode well for her continued flying.
“You’re too sick to work.” He opened his medical bag and pulled out a stethoscope. “Now, Miss Kincaid, if you could just breathe normally for me…” Pushing her jacket aside, he slipped the stethoscope between the two middle buttons of her blouse, making sure to cop a feel on the way through.
“Daniel!” She jolted as the cold metal landed on the upper slope of her left breast.
“Hmm,” he said, distracted, doctorly. Then copped another feel on his way out. Meg started to giggle.
Next he whipped a thermometer out of his bag, which he waved in the general direction of her ear.
“Oh, dear,” he said.
“What?” Meg asked suspiciously. She was pretty sure that thermometer hadn’t even beeped.
“Elevated temperature.” He stowed the thermometer back in its case. “What’s the threshold where they won’t let you fly?”
“A hundred and two.”
“Yours is 102.2.”
She started to laugh. “I can’t skip work!”
“I’ll issue a medical note,” he said. “But maybe, if you’re due to fly tomorrow, you could take a couple of days’ vacation.” His voice sank. “It’s only fair to warn you, you may not be allowed out of bed in the morning.”
Meg was in serious danger of melting right there in the terminal. She kissed Daniel long enough to seriously cloud his judgment. Then she said, “I have a better idea.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
A RED MUSTANG pulled up in front of the Kincaids’ house at noon on Sunday.
“It’s Lexie,” Sadie said, looking out the living-room window.
“Not that Lexie who was so awful to you when you were younger?” Mary-Beth bustled over to look. “I never liked that girl, so full of herself and—”
“Actually, Mom, she’s not that bad,” Sadie said. “She’s nice, in fact. Slutty,” she added, thinking about that “one-off” Lexie and Trey had shared a few years back, “but nice.”
Her brother Kyle, here for his weekly golf game with Dad, came to the window, drawn by the “slutty.”
“She might need help with that suitcase,” he said, and disappeared out the door at the speed of light.
“Suitcase?” Sadie echoed. Indeed, Lexie was pulling a case from the trunk. The moment she saw Kyle, she stepped back and waited for assistance. On the sidewalk she dithered outside the two houses. Then headed for Sadie’s.
Sadie felt absurdly touched. Although there was every chance Lexie had picked her so she could flirt with Kyle. But if Sadie had had the choice between Kyle and Trey she’d definitely have gone for Trey. Even if Kyle wasn’t her brother. Okay, this was getting weird.
She went out on the porch to greet Lexie.
“I have news,” Lexie announced portentously.
Ten minutes later they were all sitting around Nancy’s kitchen table, including Kyle, who until now had expressed zero interest in Meg’s whereabouts. Sadie had ended up opposite Trey.
They hadn’t said a lot to each other since he’d admitted doing the dirty with Lexie and she’d admitted not doing it with Daniel. Trey was obviously unaffected by her news. Sadie hated that she even cared he’d been intimate with Lexie. She willed herself not to watch the two of them obsessively for signs of lingering lust.
But she felt Trey’s eyes on her. Knowing him, he was enjoying that she was jealous. Yes, she might as well admit it. She wasn’t sophisticated enough to kiss a guy the way she’d kissed Trey, then not care who he slept with.
“I left a message a couple of days ago with Carrie, a flight attendant who works with Meg,” Lexie said. “Turns out she was in Japan and her cell phone doesn’t work there. She arrived in early this morning, got my message and called me.” She paused dramatically.
Sa
die slapped her wrist. “Tell!”
Trey’s foot touched hers under the table; she moved away.
“Ouch.” Lexie rubbed her wrist, feigning hurt. “Carrie said she and Meg were going to meet in Vegas this weekend, but Meg left a message to say she couldn’t make it, she was going on vacation.”
“Where to?” Trey asked.
Lexie widened her baby-blue eyes. “I don’t know everything, Trey.”
“That’s next to useless,” he said, disgusted.
“If she’s on vacation,” Sadie said, “maybe we should respect that. I really think she’s fine.”
“No!” Nancy said. “It’s out of character for her to go off like this. I’m worried.”
“So, vacation places she might go when she’s upset,” Trey said.
“Reelfoot Lake,” Nancy said. “We rented that cottage the summer after Brian and Logan died. If she wanted to remember…”
“Or Hot Springs,” Trey suggested.
“That’ll be it,” Sadie said. The Kincaids had vacationed several years running in the Victorian spa town in the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas. “Meg loves Hot Springs.”
“We should go look for her.” Lexie’s suggestion won agreement all around.
“Sadie and I will head to Hot Springs,” Trey said.
“I’ll come with you,” Lexie offered.
They really should accept, Sadie thought, since Lexie had come all this way and had produced the only solidish information they had about Meg’s plans.
“Better if you go to Reelfoot Lake,” Trey said. “Kyle, are you good to go up there?”
“You bet.” Kyle wedged his hands in his pockets, as if to stop himself doing an inadvertent high five.
Mary-Beth Beecham looked dismayed.
Lexie heaved a sigh of resignation. And winked at Sadie.
TREY FLOORED THE GAS and the truck obediently passed a convoy of RVs heading west on I-30. They’d been driving three hours, which meant they’d reach Hot Springs in around thirty minutes. Kyle and Lexie’s drive to Reelfoot Lake was only a hundred miles—they’d called over an hour ago to say they’d arrived and were asking around for Meg.
“Do you really think Meg’s okay?” he asked Sadie. “Or were you just saying that?”
Sadie rolled her eyes. “I’m sure she’s fine. Why don’t you ever believe a word I say?”
“Maybe your motives are so convoluted, I never know what Machiavellian plot you’ll hatch next.”
“I’m unpredictable, like you said.” She grinned. “That’s an attractive quality, don’t you think?”
“Men like uncomplicated women who know how to show them a good time.”
“And I was so trying to impress you,” she said with phony regret.
Having Sadie beside him, all cute and snarky, was a bonus on this wild-goose chase. The news that she wasn’t sleeping with Daniel—and, it seemed, had never slept with Daniel—went beyond bonus and into jackpot.
Now he just had to decide what to do about it.
He wanted to sleep with her, that was a given. More than once, another given.
What did she want?
He was pretty sure she wanted to sleep with him. So far, so good.
Beyond that? She knew he was leaving town soon, so she couldn’t be expecting anything long-term. It wasn’t as if there was any room for misunderstanding.
There was a lot of benefit to spending time with someone before you started dating them, he realized. You got to say what you meant, with none of that second-guessing that happened when you were already involved.
Under his breath he whistled along to the radio. Yep, this was shaping up pretty well.
Just so long as he didn’t think about the elephant in the room.
Because the downside to having all those full and frank discussions before he dated Sadie was that he knew she was in love with Daniel.
At least, she thought she was in love. So far as Trey could see— Forget it. As far as she was concerned, she loved the guy.
Trey had given the issue some consideration. If he wanted a relationship…obviously a guy would be nuts to date a woman who wanted another man. But sleeping with her? That was different. Sadie’s attachment to Daniel meant she wasn’t looking for a relationship with Trey, either. Perfect.
“Thirty miles,” Sadie said, and he realized they’d just passed a sign.
Trey glanced at the dashboard clock. Four o’clock. “How about we spend a couple of hours looking around, then assuming we don’t find Meg, we’ll stop for dinner and figure out what’s next?”
Sadie scrubbed a hand over her face. It made her look about fifteen. “Sounds good.”
Trey parked on Central, the main street in the historic area. “We used to stay at Freeman’s Hotel, about a block from here.”
They checked out bars, restaurants, hotels, and found no sign of his sister. Trey didn’t believe she was here. Which meant they were free to move on to other things.
“Let’s eat,” he said when they reached The Tavern, a restored Victorian hotel and restaurant that claimed a top New York chef as a consultant to the menu.
Since it was Sunday night, most of the visitors had left town. The locals had eaten early—just a couple of tables lingered over dessert.
The menu featured classic, slightly old-fashioned fare. Sadie chose the brie-stuffed chicken breast; Trey opted for a steak with béarnaise sauce. With sides of fries and mac & cheese.
Sadie wrinkled her nose.
“Energy food,” he said.
The waiter arrived at their booth with Trey’s beer and Sadie’s red wine. They clinked glasses.
“To our first date,” Trey said.
Her eyes widened. Then she leaned back against the padded booth seating. “I don’t recall you asking me on a date.”
“And yet here you are.” He grinned. “I’m that good.”
“Amazing,” she said drily.
He reached across the table for her hand. “For a neurotic scientist, you have a way of grabbing a guy’s attention, Sadie.”
She let out a shuddery breath. “You’ve been on my mind, too. Though speaking objectively, calling me a neurotic scientist wasn’t your best move.”
He ran his thumb over her palm, and her fingers curled around it. “What if I tell you neurotic scientists are my weakness?”
“That…helps,” she admitted.
“And if I throw in cute and pretty and funny and determined?” Just thinking about her made him smile.
“You left out know-it-all.”
“Not your best feature…though endearing in its own way,” he added, laughing as she pinched his wrist. “Was there anything nice you wanted to say about me, since we’re building a romantic atmosphere here?”
She untangled their hands to take a sip of wine. “You’re well aware of your good points—” her eyes sparkled as they roamed his face and shoulders “—so I won’t bore you with them. I could cover your bad points, though.”
“I think you already mentioned most of them over the past few weeks, cupcake.”
“There may be more,” she warned.
“Tell me later. Right now we need to stop talking. I’m getting mighty frustrated with the amount of clothes you have on.”
She burst out laughing. “You’re outrageous.”
“It’s not like you haven’t thought about it,” he said. “A simple yes is all I need.”
“Trey…” His name was barely more than a breath. “Do you really want to do this?”
His whole body went on alert. “More than you can imagine,” he said, his voice strained.
She laughed, a husky sound that wound him even tighter. “Me, too,” she said. “So where to from here?”
Excellent question. “We passed a couple of bed-and-breakfasts just off Central,” he said.
She hesitated—the suspense almost killed him—then she nodded.
“I just lost my appetite for food,” he said. “Let’s go. I’ll cancel the food, pay the che
ck, on the way out.”
“Can you imagine,” she said as she gathered up her purse and her sweater, “what our moms will say when they hear about this?”
Trey stopped. Yes, he could imagine, and it was scary. “I wasn’t thinking we’d tell them,” he said carefully. Maybe sharing sordid details was a girl thing. But since her mom and his were best friends, that couldn’t happen this time.
“I think they might notice—” she slipped out of the booth “—when I start flying up to Berkeley for weekends, or if you’re coming back to see me, or whatever. And spending the holidays together will be a dead giveaway.”
Trey felt as if he was caught up in a hurricane. Sadie’s words—Berkeley, weekends, holidays—flew past him, several bumping against him like debris.
What the hell had just happened? He’d asked Sadie to go to bed with him, and she thought they were together? She knew he was leaving!
The bed-and-breakfast she’d agreed to, which a minute ago had been the promise of long-anticipated delight, now loomed like a trap. And he was the stupid dumb animal about to walk into it.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” he said. He needed to figure out where this had gone wrong. And how the hell he was going to reset her expectations. Fast.
“I’ll wait out on the deck,” she suggested. “It’s a gorgeous evening.”
He hadn’t noticed the doors at the back of the restaurant open to the outside, a willow tree beyond the railing. “Great,” he croaked.
He forced himself not to run.
IT WAS BAKING HOT out on the terrace, which probably explained why no one else was out there, but the faint hint of a breeze riffed across Sadie’s senses.
She wandered over to the rail, by the willow tree, and found herself looking down on a narrow, shallow creek. Any smaller and you might call it a drain, but as it was, it had pebbles on the bottom and clear water running over the top and Sadie considered it a creek.
She wanted to take a snapshot of this moment—of the willow, the creek, the railing, Trey, her—and hold it next to her heart. Something had happened tonight, something strange and wonderful and it felt like… It feels like falling in love.