A holiday romance, p.20
A Holiday Romance, page 20
He was making an attempt, but he’d be a big wheel, expected to uphold a certain image. She couldn’t imagine fitting into that world. Jenna Malloy, though, she’d make the perfect executive wife. Polished and confident where Alice was shy and uncertain.
“Don’t you think?” he asked, sounding uncertain himself.
Honestly? I don’t know what to think. Maybe she was being too hard on him. She hadn’t exactly worn her heart on her sleeve, either, after the disaster that had been Stewart.
But she had been ready to move forward. Unlike Kyle.
She tilted her head back, closed her eyes. Still, why not open the door? Talk to him?
She heard him take a breath. “Or if I don’t get the promotion…”
Her eyes flashed open. It’ll be my fault. Or partly mine. I can’t live with that.
The truth hit her hard, even though at the back of her mind she’d known all along. They could talk all night, but he wasn’t going to commit. He was still too careful, too guarded.
This really was goodbye.
Alice dropped her face into her hands, stifling a sob. On the other side of the door, Kyle went on for a while longer, but she’d stopped listening.
He wasn’t going to say what she needed to hear.
KYLE STARED DOWN the boardroom table. Proctor, Garson, Obermeyer and, at the foot, Walmsley. He knew their first names, their middle names, their spouses’ names, their children’s and pets’ names. He knew their hobbies, their sports teams, their political affiliations. Hell, he knew what snacks they wanted stocked in their minibars and what drinks they ordered at the bar. He did not know what color and style of underwear they preferred, but he could have made a good guess.
Did he know Alice as well?
The underwear, yes. He almost smiled. Comfortable cotton, but not old-lady-style. Matching bras. Bikinis in pink and lavender.
But her family? Her mother’s name was Dorothy, but he’d forgotten the names of the brother and the niece and nephews. She had a cat, he recalled, a cat that used to be her mother’s.
He squinted. He did know her. The details were coming back to him.
She’d have a glass of wine or champagne now and then, but two made her tipsy. The night he met her, she’d ordered prickly-pear rum punch at the bar. She liked healthy snacks such as granola bars and trail mix, but she ordered a fancy dessert every time she ate out. Her favorite movie was something with Johnny Depp. But what was the title again?
Benny and Joon, that was it.
The cat was called Snowball.
Her middle name was Georgina, after a great-grandfather who’d died in a war.
She was a Scrabble and Parcheesi whiz and she’d once run a 5K marathon for charity to prove to her students she could do it. She’d been voted Teacher of the Year the year before she had to quit. Her oldest friend had married a marine and moved to a military base overseas. Alice regretted that they’d lost touch. Her best friend ran a bakery on Osprey Island called Suzy Q’s.
Each detail Kyle remembered came with a growing sense of awareness. By the time he’d finished, he was a goner. He started to rise, realized where he was, and sat down. But he had to do something.
Iris Proctor cleared her throat. The silence after his opening speech had grown too long.
Walmsley was giving Kyle the stink eye. He wished he could give it back, the way he’d stood up for his family as a schoolboy, before he’d become so law-abiding.
Instead, he nodded at Gavin. “Gavin Brill, my assistant manager, will present the first report.”
There was a smattering of applause as Gavin rose from the executive staff lined up on the opposite side of the table. He shot a look at Kyle before turning to the flat-screen monitor where their charts and graphs would appear. “If you’ll turn to page seven in your report…”
Kyle didn’t open his booklet. He knew it by heart.
His gut gave a kick. Did he know Alice by heart?
He put his hands on the table, then folded them near his chin so the cuff of his shirt would inch away from the face of his watch. Nine-forty-eight. The meeting had started late, what with Walmsley hovering near Lani at the coffeepot.
Nine-forty-nine. Alice had said she was leaving in the morning. For all he knew, she might already be gone.
Nine-fifty. He didn’t know the exact time of her flight, but this meeting would last for hours. Lani had arranged a catered lunch. There was no possibility of making it to the airport in time to see Alice off.
He’d known that. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried to make amends. He’d talked until his throat was raw, standing outside her door like a dog begging for a bone.
What more did she want from him?
Gavin droned on. “On page twelve, you’ll see the overview of amenity expenditures…”
Walmsley looked bored. His gaze drifted toward Kyle, who hurriedly flipped open the report to make himself seem invested in the proceedings. The first page was heavy with a paper-clipped photograph and a Post-it from Lani.
The photo had been torn in two pieces and then taped back together. With a jolt he remembered Alice in the restaurant, ripping something in half. He’d been focused on her disappointed face. He hadn’t thought to look at what she’d torn.
Lani had.
Kyle stared at the photo, only vaguely mindful that Iris Proctor, on his immediate right, was doing the same. It was Alice and him, on the bridge. Kissing. Just barely. Their lips had touched, but she hadn’t yet closed her eyes. She was looking up at him with love and longing. The unadulterated hope in her expression stole every molecule of oxygen from his lungs.
The sounds of the boardroom became muffled. He could only hear the thud of his pulse, the ragged noise of his gasp for air, the ping of the flying paper clip as he yanked Lani’s note free.
She’d written: “Alice is on the 10:00 a.m. airport shuttle.”
His watch read nine-fifty-six. Kyle slammed his hands down on the table and thrust up from his chair. He seemed to be speaking into a wind tunnel. “I have to go.”
Walmsley’s head snapped back. His mouth opened and closed, and he said something that Kyle couldn’t hear.
Kyle gestured to Gavin. Air rushed past his ears. Was he speaking?
Gavin grabbed him by the shoulders, following Kyle out the door. “You. Can’t. Go.”
“Take over for me. Say it was an emergency.”
Suddenly Lani was there. “Where are my car keys?” he yelled, before realizing how loud his voice was. He shook his head, ready to apologize, but she was gone.
“Walmsley’s a pit bull.” Gavin’s voice was also raised. “He’ll demand to know—”
“So tell him. I don’t care.”
“Tell him what?”
Lani was back. She tossed him the keys. Kyle raced through the hallway to the emergency stairs, shouting over his shoulder as he ran. “Tell him I’m breaking all the rules. Tell him to take the promotion and shove it. Tell him I’m going after Alice.”
A BAKER’S DOZEN, Alice thought as she looked around the shuttle bus. Twelve senior citizens and me. Isn’t this where I came in?
That wasn’t strictly true. A middle-aged married couple—the Callahans—were also on the bus. She’d met them by the pool. They’d won a seven-day stay at the resort in a sweepstakes contest, then discovered in the fine print that the prize was only good for the off-season. They were still disgruntled but now also sunburned, saying loudly that they couldn’t wait to get back home.
Alice wasn’t leaving in the greatest of moods herself.
Mags, Mary Grace and Harrie were seated nearby, trying to engage her in conversation. They’d insisted on coming along to see her off. Said they enjoyed airport goodbyes, second only to wedding receptions.
She smiled fondly at them.
“Look,” Mags announced, flinging out an arm ringed with bracelets that clacked like castanets. “She smiled!”
“Ah.” Harrie squinted over the top of her sunglasses. “Now I recognize you as our Alice.”
“I’m sorry for being a grump. It’s hard to say goodbye.”
Mary Grace reached a soothing hand across the seat. “Especially when you’re leaving your heart behind.”
Alice blushed. “My heart is right where it belongs. I’ve learned not to give it away that easily.”
And how, she wondered, did that make her any different from Kyle?
Hadn’t she stood on the other side of the door from him, refusing to open it? Wasn’t she just as much a coward, even after all her justifications?
Sure, she was willing. But not willing enough to take the chance of going first.
Because what if she said “I love you,” and he said “Thanks”?
Her eyes stung. They were probably bloodshot. She dug through her carry-on bag for her sunglasses.
“You can be sad if you want,” Mary Grace said.
“Phooey.” Harrie leaned into the aisle. “Lemme tell you, toots, Hank would treat you like a queen. Are you sure you don’t want—”
A honking car interrupted the offer, the noise coming directly from behind the bus. One of the passengers said, “He’s going to run right up our tailpipe.”
“No, he’s passing.”
Heads craned, following the car as it swerved into the adjoining lane, still honking up a frenzy.
Alice glanced out the window from her slumped position. Sleek car, crazy driver.
She bolted upright. Dark blue Caddy, crazy male driver. “Kyle,” she said. “Kyle.”
Harrie climbed over Alice to see. “What the—”
“That’s Kyle Jarreau,” Mags announced. She waved her arms. “Yoo-hoo! Hello-o-o there!”
“Holy cats. He wants us to pull over.” Harrie stood and made her way up the aisle to the driver, grabbing onto seats as she went.
Mary Grace slipped into the seat beside Alice. “Oh, Alice. It’s so romantic. He’s come for you.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off Kyle’s car, which had pulled even with the front of the bus. She could see him motioning for the driver to pull over. “It’s probably…probably just a…”
But she couldn’t think of a single reason, other than her, that Kyle might have to stop the bus. No, her heart must be galloping faster than her thoughts, she told herself. There had to be some other explanation. He was supposed to be in a meeting.
The driver had slowed the bus and was pulling over to the side of the road. Harrie hung over the safety rail by the door. “He’s coming!” she shouted to the back of the bus.
The passengers stirred, catching the air of excitement. Mags and Mary Grace sat forward, watching expectantly.
Alice didn’t. Her eyes were closed. Her fingers, tucked into her armpits, crossed. She’d never wanted anything more than for Kyle to say, in front of the entire bus and the rest of the world, too, that he wanted her, needed her, couldn’t be happy without her. That she wasn’t just a holiday romance.
She heard the whoosh of the door opening. The sound of footsteps. The murmur of the passengers.
And then Kyle’s voice. “Alice Potter.”
A man at the back of the bus grumbled about the delay and was quickly hushed. Mary Grace burbled with excitement, nudging Alice’s side.
Alice removed her sunglasses but was too wobbly in the knees to stand. Kyle was waiting in the aisle, so tall his head seemed to touch the ceiling.
Her throat seemed to be lined with sandpaper. “Kyle, what are you doing here? What about your meeting?”
“The meeting’s not as important as I thought it was.”
“Your promotion.”
“I’ve done enough. Either I get it or I don’t.”
“But coming here? They’ll find out about you and me, and how will you ever explain that away?”
“I don’t want to explain it away.” Kyle reached past Mary Grace. He took Alice’s hand and she felt herself rising, almost floating, pulled toward him like a balloon on a string. “But I will explain it.”
Mags clapped her hands. “Oh, do!”
Explain it to me, Alice said silently.
“I’ll tell them I broke company policy,” Kyle began. “I’ll tell them the story of how one evening, I walked into the lobby and saw a woman who looked lost. But when I met her, I learned that she knew exactly where she was going and that, surprisingly enough, it was a journey I wanted to take right alongside her.”
One of Kyle’s hands was on her waist. She leaned into it. She gripped his arm. She needed him to hold on to. She always would.
“I will tell them that this woman made me see how stuffy I’d been. That displaying emotion wouldn’t weaken me. She showed me how much more meaning my life would have with her in it. And I’ll explain that I would rather risk losing my job than losing her, because no matter how fast it’s happened or how crazy it seems—”
“I love you,” Alice said. She just couldn’t contain it any longer.
A chorus of sighs rose from the passengers.
“I’m sorry I didn’t open the door,” she went on. “That was dumb. I was afraid if I let you in I’d cave the way I used to do with Stewart when he’d make up his excuses for letting me down.”
Kyle cringed. “I won’t ever let you down again.”
“It’s not you.” She couldn’t quite catch her breath. “I never said—it was too humiliating—but Stewart, he left me in a very public way. Announcing his new engagement before he’d even told me. Until lately, I never really admitted to myself how much that affected the choices I’d made ever since. How safe I’ve played it.”
“If I ever meet him, I’ll pound him into the ground.”
She laughed weakly. “No, no more fights. He’s not important to me now.”
“Good, because I’m going to make you forget he ever existed.”
“How will you do that?”
“By telling you every day how much I love you.” Kyle kissed her once, lightly on the lips. The emotion in his dark eyes said how much more he wanted, when they no longer had an audience. “And that I’m never letting you drive out of my life again.”
Alice was finally able to breathe. “You’re taking quite a gamble, making that promise. We’ve only known each other two weeks.”
“Didn’t you hear?” He led her by the hand to the front of the bus, toward the steps. “I’m the son of a gambling man. I recognize a jackpot when I win one.”
He stepped down. She followed, swooping toward him with her hands on his shoulders, launching herself into the unknown even though she had no idea where she was going or what she’d do when she got there. But she did know how long the trip would be.
Forever.
Kyle lifted her up in his arms, carrying her off the bus with a flourish. The passengers applauded and cheered, led by Harrie and Mags and Mary Grace, who’d crowded into the doorway and were waving gaily as Kyle carried Alice away.
She was overwhelmed, her mind spinning at the thought of all that he’d put on the line just for her. She put her mouth near his ear and said the one simple word that was far more eloquent than she’d known.
“Thanks.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3485-1
A HOLIDAY ROMANCE
Copyright © 2009 by Carrie Antilla.
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Carrie Alexander, A Holiday Romance
