it back in place. “Take a right, go about fifty feet, cross to the other side and you’re there. Reverse the procedure on the way back.”
“Easy for you to say,” Hetty retorted. She retrieved her purse and set out, dismissing the fear that she wouldn’t be able to find her way back through the mob. Or if she did, that the man and his baby would have moved on.
Jax watched her go, weaving gracefully past outstretched limbs and heaps of luggage, stepping over a couple of teenagers sleeping on the floor. She even walked like a model, that subtle sway that hinted at feminine secrets under the loose, formless clothes.
Not that he was any expert on fashion models. For the most part, the women in his life, at least since his days in the marine corps, were either lawyers or businesswomen. Even those who weren’t were no more interested in long-term involvement than he was.
And he definitely wasn’t.
Hetty. He couldn’t quite figure her out. One corner of one of her incisors was chipped. He found the small flaw strangely intriguing. She might act as if all this was new to her, but he could easily picture her with her head in the air, striding down a runway, her long, limp outfit flapping loosely in a way that subtly emphasized the feminine form underneath.
Don’t even think about it, Powers. You’ve got trouble enough without looking for more.
Two
Hetty yawned. She’d fallen asleep, only to wake up with her head on Jax’s shoulder. “I’m really sorry,” she murmured. “Your arm must be aching. You should have wakened me.”
“No problem.”
She smoothed her skirt, pretending a nonchalance she was far from feeling. She’d been married for eleven years, for heaven’s sake. When it came to men, she wasn’t entirely without experience.
Jax went back to the business section of yesterday’s New York Times. Sunny was making sucking noises in her sleep. Hetty, needing to do something to counteract her embarrassment, tucked the blanket around the small, chubby body, her hands lingering on the dimpled knees.
“She’s awfully good-natured.”
“Hmm?”
“Sunny. Her diaper rash is better. As long as her bottom’s dry and her stomach’s full, she seems content just to watch the world go by.”
“Let’s hope things get moving around here before we run out of food and diapers.”
Rather pointedly, he went back to his newspaper, and Hetty frowned at her watch, then squinted at it to be sure the hands were still moving.
They were. Nothing else was, at least not so far as travel was concerned. The same old mob, moving sluggishly now, if at all. Other than a few snores and a minor fracas now and then, they were quieter. Three rows away, an elderly man was demanding to see someone from security. His wife kept shushing him, telling him everything was going to be all right, that she’d checked their horoscope before they’d left home that morning.
Hetty wondered what her own horoscope had said. Had it mentioned anything about meeting a tall, dark and handsome stranger? If it weren’t for Jax she might have been concerned by now, but outright panic was a luxury she’d never been able to afford.
She hadn’t panicked back in those miserable days after her mother had died, when her father’s drinking had gone from bad to worse. Nor a few years later, when she could no longer convince herself that he was still grieving, that he truly loved her and that he regretted the outbursts, which had grown more and more violent.
Instead she had quietly made plans to move to Oklahoma City as soon as she graduated, to find a job and a place to stay.
She certainly hadn’t panicked the day she had stood before the justice of peace and placed her life in the hands of a man more than twice her age, even though he’d been practically a stranger. They’d known each other only in the way most people living in the same small town did. Still, Gus had offered her a safer alternative than running away to the city with no funds, no friends and no job. She would always be grateful to him for that.
She hadn’t panicked eleven years later when Gus had flown his plane into a power line and been killed, nor when her mother-in-law had suffered the first in a series of strokes, nor when Jeannie, Gus’s teenage daughter, had “borrowed” her credit card and run up an enormous debt just before she dropped out of school and disappeared. Not even when the rebellious fifteen-year-old had come home again five months ago—just long enough to leave her newborn infant.
Hetty had coped with it all. She was not an excitable woman.
Or maybe she’d just never had the luxury of giving in to her emotions.
At any rate, Jax had come along before she had any inkling how bad the weather really was. Thank goodness for that. And for his kindness, his decency, his knowledge.
As for that mysterious quality that made her stomach flutter when he happened to touch her or look at her with one eyebrow slightly elevated, one corner of his gorgeous mouth quirked…
Well. The less she thought about that, the better. That sort of fantasy could wait until she embarked on her cruise.
But first she had to get to Miami. So far as she could tell, nothing was moving outside. As Jeannie would say, it was Sleepy Hollowsville. Minco, the town where they lived, had been Deadsville. Jeannie’s school had been Dullsville.
Hetty wondered what her own life had been? Busysville?
Determined to hang on to her optimism, she dug out the dog-eared brochure a friend who had moved to the city and gone to work for a travel agency had mailed her. She gazed at the color photos and reread the copy she’d long since memorized.
“Dining under the stars…dancing on the fantail…nightly shows, live music, the adventure of a lifetime.”
Yes, well…first she had to get there. Once the weather broke, it shouldn’t take long to scrape the runways and deice the planes. She knew about things like that because she’d read practically every adult offering in the library at least once.
As if picking up on her thoughts, Jax laid his paper aside and asked when her cruise was scheduled to leave Miami. He had turned back the sleeves of his gray broadcloth shirt to reveal tanned, muscular forearms with a dusting of crisp, dark hairs. His necktie, thoroughly chewed by his daughter, had been crammed into his briefcase.
“I’m supposed to board at four tomorrow afternoon. Thank goodness I allowed extra time and made a room reservation for tonight near the airport there. My friend at the agency suggested it.” She chewed on her lower lip. “Do you think I ought to call and tell them to hold it in case I’m late?” She answered her own question. “No, there’s no chance of that. Once we’re able to leave, it won’t take long to get there.”
“Have you checked in with your friend to let her know what’s happened?”
“Do I need to?”
“It wouldn’t hurt.”
Jax knew it would mean standing in another line, waiting for a pay phone to be free. He would’ve offered her his cell phone, but reception was lousy. Too much interference.
He
