Chapter 4

How awkward is it to spend the rest of a two-hour flight sandwiched between a disapproving older woman with surprisingly fine taste in gin and a very attractive stranger who just kissed you like you were a winning lottery ticket?

I'm about to find out.

When Mrs. Rosings clapped her hand in front of us like we were a couple of dogs going at it through a chain-link fence, Declan jolted away from me as if he'd been informed that I was the source of Jennifer's herpes.

I look up, dazed, and am surprised to see we haven't died—or if we did, hell truly is other people. Because everyone within a five-seat radius is staring at us, and one woman is covering her son's eyes, as if he hasn't seen worse in G-rated movies.

"Uh, sorry," I say, because it seems like something needs to be said. But it doesn't take long for the other passengers to lose interest in us and return to doing whatever it is they were doing before it started to seem like we were all going down.

There's a crackle of static, and then the pilot comes over the loudspeaker again. "Well, folks, that was a doozy!" He laughs, joined by no one. "But we've circled around the weather system, and the rest of our trip should only have a few little bumps. We've added an hour to our flight time."

Which means I'm going to miss my connecting flight to Asheville, probably, but I can barely register that right now.

I glance at Declan—at that big, strong man who is clearly terrified of flying, and remember what his racing heart felt like beneath my hand, his lips pressed to mine, consuming me. Is he as affected by what happened as I am? Because one touch was enough to make me want many, many more—unlike Doug of the unsatisfying supply cabinet gropings. But when I look at him, he has the in-flight magazine spread open across his lap—the in-flight magazine! It looks like it has some sticky red substance on it from a child's lollipop, but apparently even that is preferable to looking at me.

Holy Jekyll and Hyde!

The change is enough to give a girl whiplash, never mind the turbulence, and I can't help but feel disappointed. Like I'm an in-flight convenience that has been used and discarded.

To be fair, he'd clearly wanted nothing to do with me or Mrs. Rosings until it seemed like we'd be spending our last minutes on earth together. Now that he's been granted a reprieve, he probably figures he'd rather be done with us.

Or maybe he has a girlfriend, a voice whispers in my head.

Shit, does he have a girlfriend?

I wouldn't be surprised if he did—hell, he probably has five of them. He's got this tall, muscular, brooding thing going on, with black hair that's the perfect length for a woman to wrap her hands in, and a short, trimmed beard that's so completely perfect it probably makes pubescent boys jealous. And don't even get me started on his eyes—a deep, warm brown fringed with lashes that would make a baby deer jealous. He's in work pants and a white T-shirt that hugs his muscular arms and shows an outline of a black tattoo on his chest. The second I saw him, I checked my ticket number, because when I fly, I'm usually seated next to people who smell like cheese or small children who pepper me with questions and kick my feet. But, no, some greater power sat me next to this fine specimen. It no longer seems like such a gift, though.

Crap. What if he has a girlfriend waiting to pick him up at Charlotte, and she takes one look at him and knows his tongue was in my mouth?

Icould be the Richard Ricci in this scenario, a thought that is frankly unbearable.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" I hiss at him.

His eyebrows wing up, and he nearly fumbles the in-flight magazine onto the floor. It's open to a spread about socks. I can hear Mrs. Rosings laughing softly to herself beside me.

"I'm not really looking for a relationship," Declan says after an uncomfortable moment. "I'm sorry for…" He gestures toward my mouth, and I feel an unfair tingle in my lips. "But…yeah, I figured we were done for, and it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Excuse you," I say, feeling the sting of his words. "What makes you think I'm interested in you?"

He glances from me to Mrs. Rosings next me, as if I've asked a trick question and she's his help hotline. "You just asked if I have a girlfriend."

"Because she wants to know how much of a scoundrel you are, boy," Mrs. Rosings says helpfully. "Not every woman who gives out cups of sugar wants to bake cookies."

I've never heard that one before, but it sounds accurate enough, so I nod. "What she said."

He rubs the back of his neck, wincing as the plane gives a little bump, this one as gentle as a baby's burp compared to earlier. "No, no girlfriend." His brow furrows, and he tilts his head slightly, studying me with a bottomless gaze. A woman could get lost in it if she weren't careful. Since it's starting to look like I'm going to survive this trip, I think it's time for me to start being careful.

"What about you?" he asks. "Is some guy in a suit going to track me down?"

I snort. "Why do you assume he'd been in a suit?"

"Wouldn't he?"

I suppose he's right. Most of my exes have been guys in suits, but that's purely situational. I worked in a high rise office building, around the clock, so guys in suits or khakis and button-up shirts were the people I met.

"No, no guy, in a suit or not. But I don't like being put in boxes."

"Feels like we're all in one now," Declan says with a sigh. "I shouldn't have kissed you, though. Whether there's a suited guy or not. I'm sorry."

I'm not. Maybe I should be, but getting kissed by a hot stranger has been the highlight of my shitty week. I don't like what this says about me, but it might have been the highlight of my year.

"Thanks, I guess," I say, trying not to sound sullen.

He gives me a small nod, then reaches into the backpack under the seat in front of him and pulls out a pair of earbuds and puts them in. Duly noted, conversation over. He doesn't even pull out a device to play music on, so presumably he's just using them for sound cancelling.

As messages go, this one is loud and clear.

I lean back and look away from him.

But I only get about halfway through a good and pouty sigh before Mrs. Rosings touches my arm. "He's embarrassed," she says conspiratorially. "My son is the same way. Doesn't like anyone to know he's afraid of anything. But we saw past the veil, didn't we? He's having a hard time forgetting that."

It's an interesting perspective, and I turn to get a better look at her. She's wearing one of those kaftans rich people favor—the kind that look like they cost maybe twenty bucks from Walmart but were probably handwoven from silkworm threads. Agnes has a hundred of them. "I guess we did."

She smiles at Declan's figure to my left, and I can feel him. His skin was hot and hard beneath his shirt, nothing like Doug from PR, who took off his shirt with great fanfare, only to reveal a pasty chest that hadn't seen the light of day since the last fiscal crisis and had as much definition as a popover that had failed to rise. That quick touch was enough to give a woman an imagination.

"Who are you, Mrs. Rosings?" I ask, because I don't want to think about Declan.

"Are you inviting yourself to my Christian name?" Mrs. Rosings asks as if she hadn't just pulled out a bracelet flask she'd snuck past security.

"No, I want to know who you are. I'm asking…you know…what your deal is."

"You're drunk," she says flatly.

I almost say I wish but settle for, "Only mildly tipsy. It'll pass soon."

Her lips twitch, fighting a smile, and she says, "I was a Mary Kay saleswoman for thirty years. Now is that the truth or a lie?"

I study her face, taking in the slight twitch of her nose as she watches me and the fine wrinkles around her shrewd blue eyes.

"Lie."

She nods as if we've settled something and says, "Well, at least you have more sense than I thought you did when you sat down stinking of a bar."

"We're back to this, are we?" I ask. "I thought we'd trauma-bonded."

She makes an aggrieved sound, then settles back in her seat and picks up the in-flight magazine. Is that thing made of crack? Are there golden tickets in it that will take me somewhere better than here?

The last thing she says to me before settling in for what's bound to be a perfectly boring read is, "That wasn't trauma, girl. It's like you said—just a couple of bumps in the road."

When the divertedplane finally lands, I shoot up out of my seat the instant the captain cleared us to take off our seatbelts. My enthusiasm earns a comment from Mrs. Rosings, who tells me I didn't have any God-given sense if I don't realize we aren't getting off the plane for at least another five minutes, and there's no cause for me to loom over her like a bird of prey…

Then the line moves along and she walks off without a backward glance at Declan and me, which makes me feel a twinge of regret even though she made it clear she doesn't consider us friends.

Lainey says I want everyone to like me, and that's my fatal flaw.

She says her fatal flaw is to make hasty judgments and then cling to them until their final, dying breath—like how she decided Todd was going to be her endgame even though she kept finding out distressing new things about him. Like the fact that he'd had a secret text chain going with his childhood girlfriend for four months, and had been secretly meeting up with her for the last two.

I reach for my bag in the overhead compartment, but Declan gets to it first, pulling it down as easily if it were full of feathers. He pauses, then his lips quirk into a small smile, and he nods at me and says, "Thanks for the sugar, Claire. I won't forget you."

Then he turns and leaves, and even though I'm eager as hell to get off the plane, it takes me a solid ten seconds—full of plenty of grumbling from the people behind me, to follow him. By the time I get off, he's gone, nothing but a whisper against my skin, where his short beard had rubbed against it.

Ten minutes later I'm standing in front of the help desk at the airport, where I've been informed that my connected flight is already halfway to Asheville, and the next five flights from this airport to that one have been cancelled. I won't be able fly to Asheville until tomorrow afternoon, earliest.

"But we're only, like, two or so hours from Marshall, right?" I ask the woman behind the counter, who has frizzy hair and a nametag so bedazzled with gem stickers I can't tell what her actual name is. "Two hours driving?"

"I don't know what Marshall is," she says, patting a bunch of brochures so they'll align more perfectly. It has the added bonus of allowing her to avoid my desperate gaze. I'll bet those brochures have gotten a lot of pats today.

"It's this little town right next to Asheville."

"Asheville is about two hours away by car, yes."

"So I can rent a car?"

"If you don't mind driving in the rain. Follow the signs to the rental counter."

It's not a helpful response, but my dad's always said you get more flies with honey. Admittedly, I have no idea why anyone would want flies, but the precept stands.

"Thank you, ma'am. But what about my luggage?"

"That's not a problem at all," she insists with a knowing nod. "They'll bring it directly to your location."

She has a tone that doesn't brook questions, but I need that bag. "Are you sure? Is there someone I should call?"

"You can call the airline help number," she says unhelpfully, "but they'll tell you just what I did. As long as you put your information on the tag, they'll bring it to you."

She sounds pretty sure of herself, so I don't question her again. I'm about to ask something else, when she shifts her gaze to the next person in line. "Ma'am?"

I turn from the counter, take a couple of steps away to lean against a pillar, and pull out my phone to send an email to the executor woman, telling her she made "a little mistake" with the plane ticket, explaining my current situation, and asking whether I need to book a hotel room. I hope to God she'll say no, or offer to pay for it. It's the only reason I keep the FU so implicit, although Lainey would probably tell me that I'm just rationalizing my inability to be assertive.

Sighing, I tuck away my phone and do my best to follow the signs, although it turns out the ticket attendant had a lot of unwarranted confidence in the airport's signage. It takes me about half an hour to find the car rental counter.

Once there, I'm pleasantly surprised that I only have to wait in line for about five minutes—and unpleasantly surprised when I get to the front of the line, because it turns out they've nearly been cleaned out of vehicles, and the only one-way rental they have left is a single enormous van.

I grew up in New York, so it's only thanks to Lainey's parents' ill-advised Dodge Dart that I know how to drive at all. A van would really be pushing it.

Only…if I don't rent it, I'll be stuck at the airport for twenty-four hours, and I've already established that there's nothing to do other than sit around in a rocking chair and eat a giant pretzel. Don't get me wrong, I'd enjoy the hell out of that for fifteen minutes, but twenty-four hours? Not with the way adrenaline is dumping into me, insisting I do something.

"And you're sure this is the only one available?" I ask the attendant. "No little compact cars hidden behind it?"

He laughs, even though I'm definitely not joking, and picks his nose. "Nope. She's a girthy thing, huh? Even bigger in person than in the pictures. Not used to driving big cars?"

"No," I admit.

"Nothing to worry about," he says, flicking whatever he found in his nose onto the carpeted floor with confidence. "You'll be queen of the road. No one would dare hit you if you're out in one of our Deluxe Plus models."

"It's not myself I'm worried about," I say, checking out the photo of the vehicle, which reminds me of one of those perspective pictures that shows a dinosaur next to a six-foot-tall man. "How busy is the road to Asheville?"

He laughs again. "Starts as a six-lane highway."

I think of the last time I drove Lainey's car, and how it took me seven minutes, sweating, to parallel park in a space so large I should have been able to just pull in. If I take this van, I could accidentally mow people down. I could be the inspiration for one of those Based on a true story Lifetime movies.

A throat is cleared behind me. I glance over my shoulder and shock pulses through me, settling not unpleasantly between my legs, because it's Declan.

I'd figured I'd never see him again. My gaze darts to his mouth, which is more generous than most men's.

He sticks his hands into the pockets of his work pants and rocks on his feet, nodding to me. "I could drive."

"It's a one-way rental to Asheville," I say. "You're going there too?"

His answer is a nod, his gaze on me, and a hot shiver works through me. It hits me that I've only heard him say maybe twenty words. Would it be foolish to get into a van with a stranger?

"You're asking me to put my life in your hands?" I ask.

His lips lift into a reluctant smile. "Or to let me rent the van and go by myself. I need to get home and pick up my dog."

Not exactly the most flattering invitation, but I decide to focus on the positive aspect…

"You have a dog? What kind of dog?"

"A quiet one."

The guy behind the counter grunts. "Do you want the van or not?

Declan raises his eyebrows, leaving the choice to me: stay here and eat delicious pretzels until they stop being delicious, or drive to Asheville with a hot guy who could win a kissing competition.

Turning back to the man behind the counter, I say, "We'll take it."