Reece decided not to worry. Surely she wouldn’t let a few wrinkles in his clothes bother her. “Let’s just go straight to the Sunsetter.”
“You want to call and warn her you’re on your way?” Max asked as they headed for his ’Vette, parked illegally at the curb.
“I’ve been trying to call her. She doesn’t answer.” Which made him even more nervous. Was she screening her calls and refusing to answer his? She often forgot to charge her phone, so he tried not to let it bother him.
“Have you even talked to her since you left?”
“No. I wanted to burn all my bridges before I talked to her.”
“So if she dumps you, you won’t be tempted to go back to your old job?”
“Something like that.” Although it was more a case of wanting to present his resignation and relocation as a done deal. How could she refuse a man who had changed his whole life, turned down a vice presidency, all for her?
He still worried she would do just that. He hadn’t felt good about their last meeting. The closer he got to his destination, the more apprehensive he felt, though he didn’t notice any chest pains or shortness of breath.
When Max pulled his car up to the curb in front of the B and B, Reece had his first concrete sign that something was very wrong. A For Sale sign had been stuck in the front yard.
Max turned off the engine. “Wonder what that’s about?”
Reece was damn well going to find out. He jumped out of the low-slung car and jogged to the porch and up the steps. He nearly broke his finger ringing the doorbell.
Valerie answered, but she didn’t look pleased to see him there. In fact she looked almost…horrified.
“Reece! Oh, dear…”
“What? Did something happen? Did someone die?”
“Uh, no, nothing like that. Come in, please. Hi, Max.”
“Where’s Sara?” Reece demanded none too politely. But he was not in a polite mood.
“Maybe you better talk to my grandmother. Sara’s fine, don’t look so stricken. But she’s not here.”
Miss Greer was already making her way out, limping laboriously with the aid of a walker. She, too, appeared distraught at seeing him. “Oh, Reece. I knew Sara had gotten everything wrong.”
“Where is she?”
Miss Greer all but wrung her hands. “She’s gone. She took a job working in the kitchen on a cruise ship.”
“Where? What cruise ship?”
Miss Greer paused, thinking, then shook her head. “I can’t remember. Valerie?”
“It was the Princess line,” Valerie supplied. “Out of Los Angeles. She said she would be working the Baja cruise. But I can’t remember the name of the ship.”
“I’ll find it.”
“You’re going after her?” Max asked.
“Of course I’m going after her!”
“Whoa.”
“You’d better hurry,” Valerie said. “The ship leaves tomorrow afternoon.”
Reece turned to Max. “Take me back to the airport.”
Max groaned. “Can’t you just call her? Doesn’t she have a cell phone?”
“She never turns the damn thing on.” He would keep trying to reach her. But meanwhile, he would get to where she was as fast as humanly possible. He headed for the door.
“Reece.” It was Miss Greer.
“Yes?”
“She thought you didn’t return her feelings. If you don’t…if you aren’t serious, please don’t chase after her. You’ll only cause her more pain.”
“I’m as serious as…” He’d started to say
Miss Greer smiled. “You’ll make a wonderful husband.”
THE CORPUS CHRISTI AIRPORT was starting to feel like home to Reece, he’d spent so much time there lately. He managed to get the last seat on the last flight for L.A. that night, and he would have to change planes in El Paso. But with any luck he would make it to the cruise ship in time.
Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on his side. His flight was delayed due to weather-again!-and by the time he arrived in El Paso he’d missed the connection. The next plane for L.A. wouldn’t leave until morning and, though technically he would still make it in time, he didn’t want to trust his fate to weather and the whims of airline schedules.
He would rent a car, that was it. But the first rental car place he tried was out of cars.
“How can you be out of cars?”
The uncaring woman behind the counter shrugged. “It happens. Big convention of manufactured housing salesmen cleaned us out. I doubt you’ll find a rental car anywhere at the airport.”
“Where ya headin’?” asked a scruffy-looking man who’d been eavesdropping.
“L.A.”
“I’m goin’ that direction. I’ll take you with me if you’ll buy the gas.”
“Deal.”
Reece’s new best friend was named Red, and Red’s car looked like it was held together with rubber bands and duct tape. Red wasn’t exactly a scintillating conversationalist, and his taste in music-some kind of heavy metal- threatened to give Reece a migraine. But Red drove fast, and that was all that mattered.
Halfway across the desert, he pulled off the highway onto a side road.
Reece roused himself from a half-sleep. “Why are we stopping?”
“This is as far as I’m going.”
“What?”
“I’m sure you can get a ride from here.”
Oh, God. He’d never hitchhiked in his life. He looked at his watch. “Is there an airport near here?”
“If there was, I’d have flown instead of driving.”
Fine. He’d hitchhike. “Thanks for getting me this far,” he said grudgingly as he got out.
Hitchhiking wasn’t as easy as it looked. For one thing, at four in the morning the traffic on this road wasn’t exactly brisk. When cars did come along, they sped past without sparing him a glance, and could he blame them? He would never pick up a hitchhiker.
At dawn the growl of half-a-dozen motorcycle engines approached from behind, and Reece didn’t bother sticking his thumb out. But one of the bikers pulled up beside him anyway.
“Need a ride, stranger?”
The biker was a woman. A big woman. A couple of her friends had stopped, too.
“Um…” He looked at his watch. Hell, why not? “Sure. Thanks.”
The woman gave him her extra helmet. “Lucky you don’t have luggage.”
“Yes, I…” Oh, hell. He’d left his small duffel in the scruffy man’s trunk. He’d been so focused on being stranded he’d forgotten all about the bag.
At least he still had his wallet. He climbed on behind the woman, wondering if he’d lost his mind as well as his heart.
“Hold on tight, handsome.” And off they went. Reece grabbed on to the woman’s thick middle at the last moment. The only saving grace was, with the loud engines and the wind, conversation was impossible.
Biker woman and her friends took him all the way to Los Angeles, but not before riding through a rainstorm that soaked Reece through the skin, turning the road grime sticking to him into mud. The sun was high in the sky by the time he reached Long Beach and the L.A. Harbor, looking and feeling like a degenerate.
Twenty minutes of searching and asking, and he finally found the
“But I’ll be getting right back off again. I just need to find someone.”
“Yeah, right,” said the unsmiling ticket-taker, who could have played a bouncer in a rough bar.
“Then where can I buy a ticket?”
The bouncer looked Reece up and down, obviously doubting he belonged on a luxury cruise ship. “Easiest way
