With no choice, she started running again, and got to her gate with a full two minutes to spare. Heaving herself to the counter, she held up a finger to the woman behind it, signaling she couldn’t possibly speak until she caught her breath.
The unsympathetic woman impatiently tapped her pen against the counter.
“I’m here…to check…in.” Natalia added a smile for good measure. A royal smile. A royal don’t-you-dare-turn-me-down smile.
“Ma’am, this flight has been canceled due to weather.”
Soon as she got home, she’d have to have her ears checked. “What?”
“Thunderstorms over New Mexico.”
“But that’s where I need to go.”
“Yes, you and two hundred others.”
Okay time to pull out the cell phone and hit auto-dial for home. Home sounded good. Home sounded great. Her father, her assistants, even Amelia—especially the know-it-all-see-it-all Amelia—would get her out of this mess. Amelia Grundy had been getting her out of messes all her life, and as always, that brought a sense of wonder. It was as if Amelia were a modern-day Mary Poppins the way she always instinctively knew when Natalia needed her. Natalia and her sisters had long ago just accepted strange things could and would happen when Amelia was involved. Magical things. Wondrous things. And, in the case of one sister or another causing mischief, terrible things.
Truth was, Natalia needed Amelia now, and Amelia probably already knew it. Chances were she wouldn’t even get an “I told you so” out of it.
Chances were.
But she would get that knowing tone, the one that would have the I-told-you-so all over it. No one, especially Amelia, who always knew when trouble was coming, had wanted Natalia to come here alone.
But all Natalia’s life she’d been sheltered and over-protected. All her life she’d chafed at the restrictions. Hence, being stranded in Dallas. “So what happens now?”
“Well…” The woman’s fingers flew across the keyboard as she decided Natalia’s fate. She had hair teased up like a Dolly Parton wig, and earrings as big as saucers hanging from her poor lobes. And they thought Natalia dressed strangely. “The next flight out is tomorrow,” she said.
Natalia stopped comparing hairstyles. “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
Natalia resisted the urge to thunk her head on the counter and have a good cry. “What about my luggage?”
“I’m sorry, you’re going to have to meet up with it at your final destination.”
“You’re kidding.”
The woman didn’t crack a smile, not even a sympathetic one.
“You’re not kidding.”
“Ma’am, kidding isn’t in my job description.”
Natalia shook her head. “This isn’t happening.”
“If you’d like, you can check the bus schedule. The shuttle to take you to the depot is outside the terminal.”
“Bus?”
“Bus.”
Bus.
WHICH WAS WHERE Natalia found herself forty-five minutes later. Sitting on a bench outside waiting for the shuttle bus in the soggy, muggy, disgusting heat, with clouds surging overhead, waiting.
For her bus.
There was no lunch service on a bus, she was fairly certain. She removed her leather jacket, setting it on her carry-on at her feet. No pretty but huffy flight attendants. No bags of peanuts.
But there was, she’d been told, a “pot.”
Goodie.
At any rate, it was the lack of food that got to her now.
Given how out of shape she was, she could probably stand to skip a meal or two. Since there was no one around—apparently everyone else had been smart enough to stay inside the airport and wait for a flight—she looked down at herself. Definitely, being on the plump side of average, she could stand to go without lunch.
But being on the plump side of average gave her good breasts, she reminded herself.
Not that breasts mattered when she was as chaperoned as she had been all her life.
You’re not chaperoned now.
At that thought, a good amount of her tension faded away. She even smiled to herself. She was alone, just as she always had wanted to be. And come hell or high water, she was going to make her family proud.
She was well aware of how wonderful her life was. But there was more to life than mugging for the press and charity parties.
And with all her heart, she wanted to experience some of it.
Hard to do with two sisters, bodyguards, an exnanny, an entire country and a protective father hovering over her night and day. But it was past time for her solo flight. An adventure. Okay, so the wedding of one of her mother’s oldest friend’s daughter in Taos, New Mexico, wasn’t exactly an adventure, but it would be a start, even though her older sister would also be attending. But as Andrea—being the oldest—had been asked to be in the wedding and would therefore be quite swamped with wedding stuff, Natalia had demurely suggested she meet her there.
Demurely, ha! She’d leaped at the chance.
Her father had agreed, reluctantly. Be careful he’d told her a million times. Call often.
Natalia had promised, in good humor because it would be worth the entire trip to see her older, tomboy sister in a dress. Just thinking about it now had her letting out a quick, sharp grin that she knew would make Annie pounce on her.
Thunder hit, and Natalia jumped, suddenly wishing Annie was here for a good diversion. Or even Lili—the baby of the family at twenty-three. But Lili was coming straight from another obligation, and was to meet them in Taos.
A breath later came a flash of lightning. Not good. She grabbed her phone, clutched it to her chest and stared up at the sky. It wouldn’t hurt to call home. Just to assure everyone that she was fine, of course, because they worried about her.
Another crack of thunder and lightning, and she dialed, hoping she wouldn’t be electrocuted before she heard a familiar voice.
A strict female voice answered. “Tell me everything, Natalia.”
Not her father, but Amelia, and nearly as good as her father, even if the woman had the strangest and most disconcerting ability to read her mind. “What if there’s nothing to tell?” Natalia asked, keeping a wary eye on the sky.
“Natalia, sweetness, you always have something to tell. Now spill it. You’re okay, of course. I’d know if you weren’t.”
Yes,
