Well…I really am sorry you went out of your way. Let me at least pay for your gas.”
His smile quirked again. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Okay, then. If you’re sure. Thank you again for your trouble.” She picked up her bags from the short row of airport chairs he’d dropped them into and slung them again over her arm. He was still standing there, staring. “Did you…need anything else?”
“Well, to be honest, I’d appreciate a ride back to Cedar Springs.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“If you wouldn’t mind. I’ll even drive, if you’d like to get some rest.”
She was confused. “I thought you were supposed to drive me back. Why do you need a lift in my car?”
“I flew.”
“You…” She turned and looked back out through the doors to the small, single runway, then back to him. “You’re a pilot?”
He nodded.
She thought about his quirky smile…and her offer to pay for his gas. Good thing he hadn’t taken her up on that!
“But unless we want to wait out this storm, which isn’t supposed to move out until sometime tomorrow, then the best alternative is to drive.” His eyes danced a little, crinkling the skin at the corners. “I seem to have left my horse at home.” Then he did smile. “He hates to fly.”
She laughed before catching herself. “After today, I have to admit, I’m not much of a fan, either.”
“You don’t like flying?”
“Oh, flying is fine. But being tossed around like your plane is being used as the central piece in a cosmic game of foosball? That I’m not so fond of.”
“Ah.” He shifted his weight and the penetrating stare was back. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but what, exactly, is foosball?”
“You’ve never played—seriously?”
“Seriously.” And he said it so…seriously, it made her laugh again.
“You know, I’m not sure I could explain it. You’ll have to look it up sometime.”
“I’ll do that.”
And she suddenly felt foolish again. “Right. So…which way to the rental counter?”
He nodded his head toward the one and only counter in the small building. “It’s pretty much one-stop shopping here.”
“Right.” Was she ever going to look less than a complete idiot around this man? And now she was stuck with him, in the close confines of a car for at least a couple of hours, maybe longer given the weather. But what could she do? He’d come all this way as a favor, presumably to her mother or the mayor, and had his offer to escort her rejected—despite the fact that he, apparently, couldn’t have escorted her anyway given the raging storm. Still, she could hardly say no to this, too. “How were you planning on getting me to Cedar Springs?”
“My plan was to fly you, but the storm came in faster than predicted. I thought we’d be back before it blew in.”
“So…we were going to wait it out?”
“I thought it best to let you know I was here, then we’d figure it out from there.”
She’d been on the outs with her mother for months now, which was both painful and frustrating as hell, given how close they’d been B.A.—Before Arlen. And if she was being stubborn there, she felt it was well earned. But that was no excuse to take it out on her chauffeur here. He was being a Good Samaritan, doing a favor. Even if, from what she’d determined about their mayor was true, she could have told him he was likely just being used.
“So, we’re renting a car anyway. Why didn’t you just say so?”
“Because we’re not. Wait here,” he said.
“I’m perfectly capable of—”
But he’d already taken off. However, instead of going to the counter, he’d headed toward the doors leading back to the tarmac. “Don’t rent anything,” he called back, then he disappeared through the doors, and though her shortsightedness kept her from seeing clearly, she could make out him ducking down and running over to the big dome-shaped airplane hangar.
She looked at the row of seats and thought about collapsing into one of them—how nice it would be to sit in something that remained steady—but opted for a trip to the bathroom instead. Vanity might not be a driving force in her life, but she was human enough, woman enough, to at least feel the need to assess the severity of the damage and mitigate it as best as possible. After all, it was precisely because she was good at doing exactly those things that she got paid a rather handsome salary. Or had. Surely, if she could avert media probes and spin-doctor live interview slip-ups for her boss, she could do basic repair to her appearance.
One step into the small bathroom and a peek into the mirror after sliding her carefully wiped glasses back on proved that even she might not be up to this particular task. “Wow.” Up until three days ago, she had been slated to appear at a charity fund-raiser in October on Halloween. And to think she’d been worried about what she’d wear as a costume. “Zombie, risen from the dead. And—bonus!—you don’t even need a rental costume.” It was almost a shame she wouldn’t be going now.
She turned on the water out of habit, but really, it would take a team of Georgetown’s finest hairdressers-to-the-Hill to even make a dent in the mess. She ran a paper towel under the stream anyway and did her best to remove the raccoon-eye mascara streaks. There was nothing she could do about the freckle exposure because her foundation was completely gone. She’d been covering them for years. Once she learned that it was hard enough to be taken seriously as a woman, harder still as a very short woman—especially when she was actually built like one—she’d quickly figured out that looking like the “all American girl next door” only further undermined whatever advantages she might have had left. Katie Couric might be able to pull it off, but not so much with Lauren Matthews as it turned out.
Using a comb from her purse, she managed to make her hair go from drowned cat to merely wet and stringy. “Why am I bothering?” After all, given that neither her mother nor her mother’s spouse could be bothered to come to the airport to pick her up, who she was trying to impress, she had no idea.
A vision of the sun-streaked, blue-eyed Marlboro man waiting for her in the airport lobby swam through her mind. Except, he’d already seen her at her Halloween worst, so no point in even going there.
Sighing, she packed up her comb, straightened her damp jacket and slacks as best she could, and marched out of the bathroom, shoulders squared, chin high. Just because she looked like Rocky Mountain roadkill was no reason to act embarrassed.
“Feel better?”
She about half jumped out of her skin as she whirled around to find Rugged Outdoorsman Guy leaning against the wall beside the bathroom door.
She smiled ruefully, and just owned her fate. “As I’m sure you can see, nothing short of a guest appearance on Extreme
