“That’s another passenger,” Kate said into the phone. “Lisa, can you hold on one minute?” She covered the phone with her hand. “45 is a left exit.
“You don’t have to be sarcastic,” he grumbled, and began the arduous task of slipping a tiny little car across five lanes of much faster and much thicker traffic. The sign, he noticed, did not say Houston.
“So I’ll be there in plenty of time—” She paused. She bent her head, rubbed her forehead. “Okay, what did he say?” she asked, and listened attentively. After a few moments, she nodded and said, “Okay, listen, Lisa. Listen to me. Getting married is a big deal. He is probably just a little nervous, right? I mean, he wouldn’t have asked you to marry him if he didn’t love you and didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with you.”
“Not necessarily,” Joe said.
Kate gasped and jerked her wide-eyed gaze to him.
He shrugged. “I’m just saying,” he said casually. “Sometimes, women will put unbelievable pressure on a guy to put a ring on it.”
Kate’s brows suddenly dipped. She pressed a finger to her lips, and said, “He’s kidding. And who is he, anyway? But I know Kiefer, and I know he is crazy about you.” She glared at Joe once more. “What?” she suddenly cried. “God, Lisa, can you please not do anything crazy until I get there? Please? You always do this when you get stressed. You freak out about things that aren’t even real and make a mess! I will be there in less than twelve hours!” she said.
Joe looked at her and winced a little. He thought she might be overselling things a little.
But Kate glared again and pointed at him and mouthed the words,
“Okay, thank you,” Kate said into the phone. “Go get a massage or something. Just chill out. Relax. Where is Mom, anyway?”
Kate stayed on the phone another couple of minutes, and finally hung up. When she did, she tossed her phone into her bag, folded her arms, and stared at him.
Joe felt a prickly bit of heat under his collar. “What?”
“You know what.”
“I was just saying—”
“You don’t say that to a bride forty-eight hours before her wedding!” Kate exclaimed, her hands moving wildly. “You don’t know her—she’s nuts. She can make mountains out of tiny little anthills without as much as a match.”
That made absolutely no sense, but Joe wasn’t going to point that out. “So what did the groom say?” he asked.
Kate moaned and sank back in her seat. “That he was feeling antsy,” she said. “Whatever that means.”
Joe knew exactly what it meant. “It means he is feeling antsy. That’s it. I mean, think about it—he has to put on a monkey suit and stand up before a bunch of people and say things he wouldn’t say to his best friend, you know? That would make any guy antsy.” He should know. He once came dangerously close to it himself. Sort of close. He hadn’t actually asked Mona to marry him, but he’d
“That’s ridiculous. If you love someone, you ought to be able to say it. Like a grown-up.”
“I am sure he can
“Ohmi—Forget it. Men are so alike,” she muttered, and looked out her window.
“Oh, and women aren’t?” he asked. “And by the way, while you were convincing your friend with cold feet to go ahead and take the plunge, you were not navigating. The sign we just passed said Tyler. Would you please look and tell me how far to Tyler?”
“Tyler?” she repeated, and dug out the map. She studied it a moment, then glanced at him. “We’re going the wrong way.”
“Wrong way!” he said disbelievingly.
“We should be going south, not east.”
Joe slapped his hand against the wheel. “Holy—”
“You were supposed to get on 45. Why didn’t you get on 45? The sign said Houston; I don’t know how you missed it.”
“I wasn’t the only one who missed it! You said left.”
“Did I?” she said breezily.
Joe sighed and began to look for an exit to turn around.
They found their way onto Interstate 45… along with a million other people who probably had the same idea to catch a flight out of Houston. But at least they were moving. Joe checked the clock. It was almost three. If they could make it by six, they had a decent chance of getting out tonight, before the strike—
“I need a bathroom,” Kate said.
“Oh my god,” Joe muttered. “I thought you went at McDonald’s.”
“I did! I have a small bladder.” She smiled sunnily, as if she were proud of it.
This was going to be the longest drive of his life, Joe thought. No contest. He took the next exit.
Chapter 4
When Kate emerged from the bathroom at the Shell station, she felt sticky. It was overcast, warm, and very humid, which made it difficult to believe that a blizzard was engulfing half the country.
Joe was leaning against the front bumper. He’d removed his tie and stripped down to shirtsleeves, which he’d rolled up. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his biceps, Kate could not help noticing, were bulging against the fabric of his shirt. What did he do, spend every spare minute in a gym?
If a girl was going to be caught up in a catastrophe, it didn’t hurt to be caught up with a guy as handsome as Joe… Somebody. Even if he did exhibit some Typical Male-ish tendencies from time to time.
But he looked good with his dark hair and blue eyes, and Kate, out of habit, smiled at him. Joe seemed surprised by her smile for some reason, and his gaze flicked over her face… lingering a moment too long on her mouth. “All better?” he asked.
“Much. Are you ready?”
“Baby, I was ready an hour ago,” he said casually, and pushed off the bumper of the rental car.
“I’m just going to move my bag first,” Kate said as she walked to the passenger side of the car. “There’s not enough room for me and this.”
She reached down to the floorboard and attempted to lift the bag with two hands, but it was wedged in.
“Here, I’ll get it.”
She hadn’t heard Joe come up behind her and abruptly straightened up and twisted about, knocking into him when she did. Yep. His body was as hard as a turtle shell, just like she’d guessed. She blinked up at him as he reached around her and lifted the bag out. He tossed it onto the floor behind the front passenger seat. “What is in that thing, anyway?” he asked as he walked around the back of the car to the driver’s side.
“Work,” she said, sliding into the passenger seat.
Joe started the car. “What kind of work?”
“I am an editor,” Kate said proudly. “Well, assistant editor,” she amended. “But on track to be a full editor.”
“What, like books?”
No, like nursery rhymes. “Yes. Like books.”
He glanced at her and smiled wryly. “You don’t have to say it like I am one step above a cow on the food chain.”
“I didn’t say it like you were one step above a cow,” she said pertly, although she was aware that she had.
