by Susannah Nix
Annoyingly, he even had a cute snore. It wasn’t a loud, ugly, snorting snore. His was a soft, gentle snore. More like a long, deep breath. It was sort of relaxing to listen to. Which was fortunate, because he was doing it right next to her ear.
At least now she had the peace and quiet she’d been hoping for.
Olivia settled in to study the operating manual while Adam dozed beside her. When the flight attendant came down the aisle offering pretzels, she helped herself to Adam’s as well as her own. She also availed herself of his complimentary beverage, ordering him a diet Coke which she drank for herself.
By then, his head had drifted its way down onto her shoulder. If he was going to use her as a pillow, she felt entitled to his beverage.
She probably ought to move him off her or nudge him awake, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. For once today, he wasn’t bothering her. If she woke him up, he’d almost definitely start to annoy her again.
Also, he smelled fantastic. His hair smelled much better than the air in the plane, and every breath she inhaled through her nose was like a little hit of pleasure.
So she let him continue to nap on her shoulder, with his hair nestled against her neck and his breath warming her arm.
It was really quite pleasant.
Until the plane tried to fall out of the sky.
Chapter Six
At first it was just a bit of shaking. Nothing too bad, but enough to rouse Adam from his snooze.
His head popped up, and he stared around in sleepy confusion. Olivia was about to tease him about his catnap when the plane took a sudden, terrifying dive.
They leveled off again quickly—thank all the gods and Beyoncé—but not before Olivia’s stomach tried to leap into her throat. The airplane continued to shudder and pitch, sending cups and pretzels and other assorted items sliding off tray tables.
Okay, so they’d hit some turbulence. It was buffeting them around pretty good, but they’d be fine. Turbulence was normal.
That was what Olivia tried to tell herself as they lurched through the air thirty thousand feet above the ground. The fasten seat belt light dinged on belatedly, and the flight attendant who’d been moving through the cabin collecting trash scurried back up the aisle.
A moment later, the pilot came on the intercom. “As you can probably tell, folks, we’ve hit a spot of turbulence. Looks like there’s some bad weather outside Houston, so we’re gonna try to go around that and get you to your destination as smoothly as possible. In the meantime, I’ve turned on the fasten seat belt sign, and I ask that you remain in your seats for your own safety.”
Olivia tried to find his words reassuring, but his soothing pilot’s drawl had sounded a bit harried. It didn’t help that almost immediately after the announcement, the plane did another one of those frightening drops.
This one lasted even longer than the last. It felt like it lasted ten years, although logically Olivia knew it was probably only a second or two.
Adam’s hand clamped onto hers, and she wanted to tell him that she didn’t need comforting, that she was fine, but she couldn’t actually say the words on account of her stomach being lodged in her throat again. And okay, maybe she curled her fingers around his and squeezed, and maybe she felt slightly better when he squeezed back so hard it was almost painful.
She had a moment to wonder if she was going to die holding Adam’s hand—followed by the surprising thought that it wouldn’t be the worst way to go if her number was up. Then the plane leveled off again, and it didn’t feel quite so much like they were plummeting to their imminent, fiery deaths.
But Adam continued to hold her hand, and she continued to let him.
She felt the plane tilt, not like it was out of control, but like it was changing course. They’d turned away from the bad weather. There was still quite a bit of turbulence, but it felt like maybe it was easing up. After another minute or so passed without any more awful dives, Olivia relaxed enough to think about the fact that Adam’s hand was on her thigh.
That was where her hand had been when he’d reached for it. So not only were they holding hands, but they were doing it in her lap. The moment she became conscious of that fact, she felt a surge of warmth between her legs.
She chose to blame the adrenaline rush. Didn’t they say near-death experiences made people horny? Something about reaffirming life in the face of death?
Fortunately, she doubted there was any blood left in her face to cause a visible blush, so at least she was spared that humiliation for once in her life.
Good thing too, because now Adam wasn’t just holding on to her hand—in her lap—he was also moving his thumb over her knuckles. It felt like—yep, he was definitely stroking. His thumb wasn’t simply shifting position benignly. That was a deliberate back-and-forth caress, and it sent another surge of warmth shuddering through her.
It was probably just self-comforting behavior on his part. He probably didn’t even realize he was doing it. He’d been nervous during takeoff, so he must be pretty freaked out right now.
She risked a glance at him for the first time since the turbulence had started. His eyes were wide and nearly black, and his Latino complexion had lost most of its color, leaving his face a sallow taupe.
But his expression softened as his gaze met hers, and his fingers tightened ever-so-slightly around her hand. “You okay?”
She swallowed and nodded. “Yeah. You?”
He attempted a smile that only managed to curve one side of his mouth. “I did not find that enjoyable.”
“No, me neither.”
The turbulence was almost completely gone now, except for an occasional mild shudder, but his thumb was still stroking over her knuckles. She should probably pull her hand away from his, but she couldn’t seem to do it. She liked it too much.
“Hopefully we’re through the worst of it,” he said.
“Hopefully.”
He looked down at their clasped hands and another asymmetrical smile curved his mouth. “I can probably let go of you now.”
“Okay.”
He loosened his fingers and shifted his hand into his own lap. The spot on her thigh where his hand had been resting felt warmer than the rest of her leg. Her fingers felt warm too, and they were tingling where they had touched his. A phantom sensation of pressure lingered. If she closed her eyes, it would almost feel like he was still holding her hand.
There was a crackle of static as the pilot came back on the intercom. “Hey, folks. You’ve probably noticed we’ve moved out of the turbulence. That’s because we’re no longer headed toward Houston Bush Intercontinental, which has been put on a ground stop due to bad weather. We’ve been directed to land at DFW instead. We should have you on the ground in Dallas in about forty minutes, and once you’re there, the gate agents will help you make arrangements to complete the rest of your journey. We apologize for the inconvenience, but sometimes Mother Nature has her own ideas.”
There were a few groans and grumbles around the cabin, but most people were too grateful to have made it out of the turbulence alive to complain too much.
“Dallas,” Adam said hollowly. “We’re going to Dallas.”
That was two hundred miles north of where they needed to be, which meant two extra hours of driving they couldn’t afford.
There were no cars available for rent. Their rental car reservation was for Houston, and all the cars at the Dallas airport were either rented out already or reserved.
“Are you kidding me?” Adam said to the rental car agent. “What are we supposed to do? Just live here?”
The agent’s smile turned hard and glassy. “You could try one of the other rental car desks, sir, but I can promise you they don’t have any cars available either.”
Olivia put her hand on Adam’s arm and pushed him aside. “I’m sorry,” she said to the agent in her sweetest voice, letting her Texas accent out again. “You’ll have to forgive us. We just got off the scariest flight of our lives, and we’r
e both a little shaken up still.”
The agent’s expression softened. “Weather’s pretty bad down south, I heard.”
Olivia nodded, squinting to read the agent’s name off his tag. “I swear, Glen, for a minute I thought we were all about to meet our maker. But we made it.” She offered him a watery smile. “Now we just have to get ourselves to Fayette County. It’s about seventy miles outside Austin? I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do? We’re desperate.”
“I wish I could, but there’s hundreds of people stranded here in pretty much the same boat. We rented out our last car three hours ago.” He sounded genuinely sorry.
“You’ve got other locations around the city though, right? Is there any chance one of them has a car available?”
“Possibly.” He gave her a smile and a nod. “Let me see what I can do.”
“Thank you so much!” When Olivia turned back to Adam, he was watching her with an odd look on his face. “What?”
“You’re good at that.”
“What?”
“Getting people to like you.”
“It’s called being nice. You should try it sometime.”
He shook his head slightly. “I’m not as good at it as you are.”
“You just need practice, that’s all. It’s not like it’s an innate talent.”
“Maybe for some people. Others seem able to do it unconsciously, like they rolled a natural twenty for their charisma score.”
She blinked at him. “Did you just say ‘natural twenty’?”
“It’s a D&D term.”
“I know what it is. Do you play D&D?”
“I used to.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you?”
“I also used to play.” Mostly in college. She hadn’t been part of an active group in years. “And for the record, I wasn’t blessed with a high charisma score. I actually have to work at it, which is what most people do.”
He shrugged. “I guess I prefer to stick to things I’m good at.”
“So you’re afraid of failure. Or is it hard work?”
She could tell she’d scored a point from the way he bristled. “Neither.”
“But you never try to learn new skills because you won’t be good at them at first?”
“I’ve found you a car!” the agent announced as Adam opened his mouth to reply.
Olivia pasted on her brightest smile before turning back to the counter. “That’s amazing! Thank you so much!”
“The closest one I could find is up at our Farmers Branch location, about twenty minutes away.”
“That’s okay,” Olivia told him. “We can get a cab or something.”
“I switched your original reservation over, so they’re holding a car in your name.”
“Thank you so much! You’re a real lifesaver!” She threw a pointed glare at Adam.
“Yes, thank you,” he said to Glen, dredging up a smile. “We really appreciate it.”
“Have a good day!” Olivia chirped and offered Glen a wave goodbye. “See?” she told Adam as they walked toward the taxi line. “You are capable of being friendly.”
Between the wait in the airport taxi line and rush hour traffic, it took them more like forty-five minutes to get to the Farmers Branch rental car office. But they made it, and there was in fact a car waiting for them, just like Glen had promised.
“It’s not much of a car, is it?” Adam observed as he opened the hatchback trunk of the Honda Fit they’d been assigned.
It was pretty small, Olivia agreed. And it looked like it had seen better days. But it was theirs, at least.
“It’s a car,” she said as she hefted her suitcase into the back. “It’ll do the job.”
“Will it? I’m afraid the hamsters will crap out on the open highway.”
Olivia stared at him with an expression of shock. “Oh my god. Did you just make a joke?”
“I do actually have a sense of humor,” he said as he slammed the hatch closed.
“My data doesn’t support that thesis.”
“Seriously though, what if Barbie decides she wants her car back?” he deadpanned, and Olivia’s stomach did a giddy flip-flop. He was even hotter when he was being funny, which was really unfair.
She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the Texas summer sun, but really it was to shield them from Adam’s face. “Barbie drives a Corvette. She wouldn’t be caught dead in this.”
“Smart woman.”
“Want me to drive?”
His hands clenched around the keys like she might try to take them from him. “I can do it.”
“It’s my home state, you know. I’m used to the highways here.” It wasn’t that she wanted to drive—she didn’t, actually—it was the fact that he didn’t want to let her that rankled.
“Highways are highways.”
“Who’s the control freak now?” she muttered under her breath.
“What?” Adam asked, shooting her a narrow glance.
She gave him her fakest of fake smiles. “Nothing.”
They got in the car, and he plugged the address of their hotel into his phone’s GPS and let it direct them out of town. Unfortunately, the rental car place was on the north side of the city and they needed to go south, which meant driving through the most congested part of Dallas smack in the middle of rush hour.
The summer sun burned hot and low in the west, casting a blinding glare off every windshield and bit of chrome on the sea of cars around them. To the south, where they would eventually be headed once they got past the mass of humanity fleeing the city center, a shelf of gray clouds hovered in the sky. It looked like there might be rain in their future.
At least Adam was a good driver. He didn’t tailgate or change lanes erratically, and he paid attention to the other cars, anticipating their moves and adjusting accordingly.
If only this traffic would ease up a little. Olivia had expected a logjam heading out of town, but the current standstill seemed extreme even for rush hour.
“There must be an accident or something ahead,” Olivia said.
Adam’s thumb tapped impatiently on the steering wheel as they crept forward a few feet, only to come to another halt. “The GPS would tell me if there was. This is probably just normal rush hour traffic.”
“Sometimes the GPS lags. I think we should get onto Loop 12 instead.”
He scowled as a car forced its way in front of them. “This is the most direct route.”
“Unless there’s an accident or blocked lanes from construction or something. I’ve been to Dallas a few times before. I can direct you around this mess.”
“So can the GPS, which it would do if it was necessary.” His lips pursed stubbornly, and she tried not to think about how sexy they looked.
“Accident two miles ahead,” the robot voice piped up cheerfully. “Rerouting.”
Olivia snickered as the GPS directed them to take the fork for Loop 12, just like she’d suggested.
Adam threw her an exasperated look. “Laugh it up, Woerner.”
“I told you we should go around.”
“Yes, and I told you the GPS would let me know if it was the best route. Which it did. So we were both right.”
As she took out her knitting, Olivia wondered if it was going to be like this all week, and what that would mean for the work they had to do together. Was he going to fight her on every little thing? Was she going to fight him back?
They’d never butted heads like this when they’d crossed paths before. Not that they’d collaborated all that much or had much reason to come into conflict. But on the occasions when they’d interacted in the past, things had always gone much more smoothly.
Probably because Olivia had never pressed her opinions before. She’d always just gone along with whatever he’d suggested. It was easier that way. He was Adam the rock star, so she’d told herself he knew best, even when she had her own ideas. She had let him take the lead and agreed to all his suggestions so he’d like her.
W
hich was exactly what he’d accused her of doing.
Well, no more. She hoped he was ready to reap what he’d sowed, because she was done rolling over for him.
The traffic was still pretty backed up on Loop 12, but at least it was moving at a steady ten-mile-an-hour clip, which was a distinct improvement. Olivia watched the minutes tick by with a growing sense of fatalism. Their original flight would have landed them in Austin at three, with only a one-hour drive to the plant, allowing them to start work around four or five. But now, thanks to their various calamities, it was coming up on seven, and they still had three hours of driving ahead of them.
“Should we stop for dinner somewhere?” she suggested once they’d cleared the Dallas city limits. “I’m hungry.”
“I don’t think we can spare the time for a sit-down meal,” Adam said.
She set her knitting down to massage her hands, which had started to ache. “Agreed, but I’m going to need a pit stop and some food unless you want me to turn into Hungry Hulk.”
“Fine.” He put his signal on to take the next exit off the highway.
“Not here,” Olivia said. “Keep going.”
“There’s a truck stop just ahead.”
“Yes, but there’s someplace way better two miles up.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I saw a billboard for it.” More like five billboards on their way out of the city, but she wouldn’t expect him to appreciate what the giant yellow signs with the beaver cartoon meant. “Just trust me.”
Chapter Seven
“Did you bring me to a mall?” Adam asked as they cruised through the sprawling parking lot.
“Nope,” Olivia said. “Just a roadside convenience store.” More like the best roadside convenience store in the world, but she’d let Adam figure that out on his own once he was inside.
He parked the car a couple rows away from the side entrance at one end of the long building, and Olivia led him inside. As soon as they stepped through the automatic glass doors, his feet stuttered to a stop as he gaped at the massive store around them. “What is this place?”