of slinky sweaters, long, flowered skirts and a subtle perfume that reminded him of summer nights in Virginia, a long, long time ago.
His stomach growled. His eyelids drooped. They’d all be a lot more comfortable lying down, with Sunny in her carrier between them, but if he woke her now, she’d go all self-conscious again.
Funny woman.
Nothing had changed when Hetty opened her eyes. Every bone and muscle in her body protested, and she blinked several times to clear her vision. The light hadn’t changed. It could be noon or midnight. The crowd, if anything, was thicker, but at least it was quieter now. Exhausted travelers were sleeping wherever they could find a few clear feet of floor. Those who were lucky enough to have snared a seat were snoring, their heads either tipped back at an awkward angle or resting on their chests. One man had draped a newspaper over his face. Hetty stared, fascinated, as it lifted and fell, lifted and fell with each breath.
Only gradually did she become aware that she was lying on the floor on her side, with Jax’s arm around her and Sunny sleeping peacefully in the carrier between him and the wall.
He stirred and mumbled something without waking up. The baby whimpered. Hetty thought, never in a million years would anyone believe this. Meeting a handsome stranger, sleeping with him on the floor of an airport? Surrounded by thousands of people, all going nowhere?
Uh-uh. This was like a play by that Kafka fellow. Surreal. Done in shades of gray, with no discernible plot, or at least, none she could follow.
Her eyes fuzzy with sleep, she tried and failed to focus on her watch. At this rate she was going to be cutting it awfully close. What if she didn’t make it in time? What then?
It never occurred to her to feel sorry for herself. Instead she thought, All that insurance money, wasted. I’m sorry, Gus.
She’d spent most of Gus’s insurance, after his burial expenses, on his mother and daughter. Jeannie had a habit of running up bills that Hetty had paid, rather than see her rebellious stepdaughter get into any more trouble.
Jeannie’s boyfriend, Nicky, had been a dreadful influence all through junior high, but nothing Hetty said had made a difference, and by then Sadie, Gus’s mother, had suffered the first in a series of strokes. She’d been no help at all.
In the end, the young lovers had dropped out of school and run away. Eight months later Jeannie had come home long enough to leave her infant son. That had been five months ago.
“Here, now that I’m gone, you might as well have somebody else to boss around,” she’d said. “Daddy and I were getting along just fine before you tricked him into marrying you.”
Hetty let it pass. That hadn’t been the way it was at all, but by then, she knew better than to argue. People heard what they wanted to hear, believed what they wanted to believe. For the next several months she’d had her hands too full to worry.
Robert had thrived. Sadie hadn’t been able to help, but she’d been a wealth of information. They hadn’t heard from Jeannie except indirectly. Someone had seen them in a bus station in Oklahoma City. Someone else said they were both working at a truck stop grill outside Tulsa.
Then Sadie died in her sleep. An embolism, according to her doctor. She had willed her car, which had sat up on blocks for years, to Hetty. She’d left her house to Jeannie. Hetty had finally located the girl, too late for her grandmother’s funeral, but not too late for Jeannie and Nicky to claim the house, their son, and to inform Hetty that her services were no longer needed.
Which was when she’d impulsively decided to take what was left of the insurance money and blow it all on this trip and a wardrobe suitable for a romantic, once-in-a-lifetime cruise. Foolish?
Try stupid. Try silly, impractical, selfish and all the other things she’d tried so hard all her life not to be, because when he was drinking, which was most of the time, her father used to accuse her of being a dumb, selfish slut just like her mama.
Lying awake, she gradually became aware of her surroundings. Of the mingled smell of popcorn, stale chili, baby powder. The leathery, masculine smell of Jax’s coat.
She tried not to think about all the what-ifs, but it was no good. They crowded in, anyway.
What if she missed the cruise? What if she wound up in Miami with no job, no friends, no place to stay and not enough money to get home again? Wherever home was.
What if Minco, Oklahoma, was only a figment of her imagination? What if the world began and ended right here in this madhouse of an airport?
“What if you just go to the bathroom, splash your face with cold water and stop all this silliness,” she muttered aloud.
Beside her, Jax stirred. He was spooned around her body, his right arm draped over her waist. Her mind might be racing like a hamster on a treadmill, but physically she felt incredibly safe.
Or maybe she didn’t….
Against her back she could feel Jax’s hard body shifting. He flung his free arm over his head. His knuckles struck the wall, and he mumbled a curse word.
Hetty didn’t utter a sound. Did he realize she could feel what was happening to him? Was it…intentional, or was it just that thing that happened to men early in the morning?
Gus had found it embarrassing, but then, Jax was nothing at all like her late husband. She couldn’t imagine Jax ever apologizing for being…well…aroused.
Hetty knew the instant he became aware of the situation, because he began to draw away from her. She wished she could sink through the floor, but as that was hardly likely, she tried to pretend she was just waking up.
Yawning and stretching, she wondered if her eyes were either puffy or shadowed or both. Both, probably. It was the way she reacted to lack of sleep. She’d never particularly worried about her lack of looks, but at this moment she’d have given everything she possessed to be beautiful. To have hair that wasn’t flat on one side from being slept on and fuzzy everywhere else, thanks to some distant ancestor who was obviously related to a sheep.
She probably had finger marks on her cheek, too. Great.
“You awake?” Jax whispered. He’d shifted enough so that his arousal was no longer probing her backside. Either that or one look at her had cooled his early-morning ardor.
“About half-awake.”
“Looks like nothing’s changed.”
“I don’t see people rushing toward our gate. Maybe if we went around to the south side of the terminal, things would be different.”
“This is the south side,” Jax said wryly.
“Oh.”
“You want to take a bathroom break first?”
“If you don’t mind.” She’d give her last five dollars for a toothbrush. Why hadn’t her friendly travel agent warned her about things like this? She’d have stuck one in her purse.
“Toothpaste and shaving soap in my briefcase. You’re welcome to anything you want.”
Hetty sat up, raked her fingers through her hair and said,
