The Sleepy Moon Inn by the end of the week.” He held out his hand. “So, can we shake on a deal, and tomorrow we’ll finalize our terms?”
Running late or not, Dawn stifled a strong urge to dance a jig right there on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. Instead, she took his outstretched hand. It was reassuring and he held it firmly for just the right amount of time. She was thrilled to have a new project. No, not any project, this one. With him. Her conference fee and the hefty hotel bill had paid off. But it wasn’t only about the money. Jerrod himself had an intriguing air about him. Not the warm-and-fuzzy type, maybe, but worldly and serious.
When a taxi pulled up, the doorman opened the back seat door for her while Jerrod rolled her suitcase to the car so the driver could put it in the trunk. When he reappeared, he put his hand to his ear as if holding a phone and again said, “I’ll call you.” He backed away and waved.
As the cab pulled away from the curb, she checked the dashboard clock. Only twenty minutes until her train pulled out of Union Station. Why hadn’t she paid attention? Because she’d been stimulated and focused, her brain occupied with ticking off ideas. The ability to block out distractions was one of her strengths. It served her well, except when it backfired. Like now.
Why was the cab creeping along, coming to a full stop, then swerving out from behind one bus and then another? It was Sunday, after all, not rush hour on a Monday morning. Suddenly anxious, she repeated familiar clichés in her mind about worrying being useless, a waste of time. But her self-talk was a bigger waste of time. She went right back to willing the cab to speed up. The driver threaded through streets at normal speed when possible, but slammed on the brakes when he couldn’t run a yellow light or was forced to a sudden stop because a pair of red rear lights appeared perilously close.
It wasn’t the driver’s or Jerrod’s fault. It was hers alone. When the cab pulled up to the curb in front of Union Station, she reached into her pocket and brought out cash, but the driver waved his index finger back and forth. “No, no, no.” In his lilting accent, he told her the gentleman at the hotel had paid the fare.
When had he done that? Must have been when he rolled her suitcase to the trunk. With theatrical flourish, the driver lifted her suitcase from the trunk like it was a bag of feathers and wheeled it to the revolving door. He touched his fingertips to his cap and hurried back to his cab before she could tip him. Jerrod must have taken care of that, too.
She rushed into the station and onto the escalator. On the lower level, she checked for the track number on the departure board and broke into a jog. She picked up even more speed as she passed the deserted glassed-off waiting area. When she got to a set of double doors, she saw the track, as empty as the waiting room. And what could she expect? She was nearly ten minutes late. Stopping in place, she let out a loud sigh.
“Was that your train?” a man in an Amtrak uniform called out from a few tracks away.
“It sure was. I just missed it.”
He walked toward her, his expression sympathetic. “The next one leaves in two hours.”
Offering a weak smile in return, she muttered, “Thanks. I’ll be sure to be on it.”
She dreaded having to call her ex-husband, but she had no choice. He and his wife, Carla, were expecting her, but she’d be delayed now. Gordon, at thirteen, wouldn’t care. He was happy enough with spending time with Dad. Bill wouldn’t mind, either. But Carla? That could be another story.
It took only a minute to get Bill on the phone to deliver the bad news. “Long story short, I missed my train. Traffic downtown was heavier than usual. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be a couple of hours late picking up Gordon.”
“Okay, no problem,” Bill said, his voice friendly as usual. “We’ll see you when you get here.”
Easy enough. She exhaled and the anxiety dissipated in an instant. She nearly laughed out loud. “Thanks. I really am sorry.”
“Oh, wait...hang on a minute,” he said.
She heard two voices, but Bill was obviously trying to muffle the sound, so she couldn’t understand what was being said.
“Uh, Carla wanted me to ask if you’re certain you’ll get here tonight,” Bill said when he came back on the line.
She wouldn’t let her irritation bleed through. “I’ll be there, Bill. I had planned everything pretty much down to the minute. But the plan went awry. I can explain when I get there.”
“It’s just that Zinnie has been fussy the last few days. Carla thinks she’s teething. Gordon’s spent most of his time making faces to try to distract her.”
“Sounds nice, Bill,” she whispered. Unwittingly, he’d painted a simple picture of what was going on in his house, and she envied it all out of proportion. “Like I said, I’m sorry.”
Why was she eating humble pie? Their arrangements almost always revolved around Carla, especially with the new baby. Not so new. She was already ten months old. And probably crawling into everything, Dawn thought, trying to be fair. But when it came to Bill and Carla, nothing seemed fair.
When she ended the call, Dawn walked to the waiting room and tried to recapture the excitement of the conference, especially winning an award. It was the first time she’d been recognized for work by her colleagues in the public relations industry. To top it off, she’d landed a new client, who also happened to be an interesting, attractive man. Well, more than that. Bringing his face to mind, movie star handsome seemed to fit. She gave her head a little chastising shake. Stop, stop it right now.
She opened her tablet and began transferring her handwritten notes and sprinkling in the new ideas springing into her head. She started a separate file for her estimates of Jerrod’s initial expenses, mainly the cost of the ads and his brochures. She sent an email to Ian Shepherd, the photographer she’d used for her fitness center client. She was crossing her fingers that he had some free hours in his schedule. He had a great eye for design and he’d done brochures for sleek sailboats, too.
The email to Ian sent, Dawn indulged in a grumpy sigh. She’d been “on” all weekend, but she’d run out of steam. Missing the train and the obligatory apology to Bill left her deflated. But then her thoughts flipped back to her meeting with Jerrod in the hotel lobby. He had such serious gray eyes, but they occasionally surprised her with flashes of warmth. Sure, he’d been all business in demeanor, but she’d enjoyed the easy way he answered her questions. And he’d showed hints of passion about his life on the water. Like it was a calling, not only a business. But what had happened to his wife, she wondered, and would he tell her?
When her thoughts circled back to the present, the letdown returned, particularly when it came to Bill and his cozy new life. He’d left her four years ago, announcing it one cold January night after what Dawn had naively believed were their best holidays ever, starting with the huge Thanksgiving open house for a few dozen family and friends and ending with a quiet New Year’s Eve spent with their next-door neighbors and their three kids.
No wonder she was surprised that night when Bill said he needed to talk. She’d only been mildly concerned when they sat down together at the kitchen table, because she’d assumed his mood had something to do with office politics. But, not wasting a second, Bill opened their conversation by saying, “I want a divorce.”
She froze in place, stunned and silent. When she at last found her voice the first words she uttered were, “But we’ve been talking about having a baby. A couple of weeks ago. In
