Selene found her manners, “This is my boyfriend, Craig, who is dying to see me sunburned.” She nearly choked on the bitter laugh that erupted from her mouth.
“Any man that wants to steal you away to a beach somewhere, is a keeper, darling. You go off and enjoy yourself. A full eight days – don’t return a moment sooner.” Cherise sounded genuine, and Selene tried to be generous in her understanding of the business rejection.
“We’ll try to keep the ship running without you,” Steven said, his voice not sounding the least bit sympathetic to her loss tonight.
Selene could not wait to get out of there. The party had soured and all she wanted was to cry in Craig’s arms. “Then, I shall be off. Need to start packing for my mystery vacation.”
Chapter 2
Jolene Sumpter arrived at her comfy apartment after eight straight days of traveling the globe. As a flight attendant, she’d seen sunrises and sunsets, mountaintops, blue skies and turbulent grey ones – all from the inside cabin of a commercial jet plane. She’d also rushed through many foreign airports, hopping from plane to plane, or tucked in tiny cubicles to sleep the few hours of free time away. Yet, in all the time spent in the exotic countries that she’d landed in on this round of trips, she’d only managed one occasion to grab some personal time, and took a cab to explore Spain’s famous marketplace.
After two years of experiencing, what she’d expected to be the fulfillment of her life’s passion, she sensed dissatisfaction with her career choice, and had become physically drained as a result of its topsy-turvy timetable. It felt as if her existence hung from fragile threads, swinging in motion, while waiting to disconnect and send her floundering into unknown depths.
Her heart wasn’t doing much better. She’d dumped the best man she’d ever known – her reasoning quite selfless and noble, but, nonetheless, hammered with emotional potholes. It wasn’t fair to expect a man’s dating life to coincide with her short times at Sebring’s home base. Now, her future loomed like an empty, solitary shell, and she secretly longed for the days of running barefoot on the beach with the man who haunted her dreams, day and night.
And to beat it all, her father had gone to the justice of the peace and tied the knot with a woman only ten years older than she. All in her absence. Jolene was his only daughter and he had stayed single the entire time she grew up – daddy and his little girl were inseparable. Until he hit some sort of identity crisis at age forty and started dating young women. He did not bring any home or arrange special family dinners to include them in their circle of two. He’d claimed that dating was all fun and games – nothing to concern herself about. He’d declared that Jolene was irreplaceable, the only girl in the world who truly mattered to him. What daughter didn’t want to hear that – even a single, grown-up girl?
So, it went without saying, that when she received the face-time call while in London, England a few days ago, Jolene had been blown away. The bride was a postcard beauty, but better than that, she had principles, and had convinced her father of his need for God. He’d ran to the altar, and Jolene’s heart burst with gratitude that the Word seeds she’d planted and watered in his soul over the years had finally paid off. New love had brought in the harvest of Jolene’s labor and although she was ecstatic, a tiny twinge of jealousy crept in to taint the victory.
That’s why the announcement of their marriage had floored her – two milestone events in her father’s life had occurred, and he’d done them both without her. The happy couple had recited their vows, at a chapel in Las Vegas, and were now racing off to some honeymoon paradise.
After never knowing a mother figure in her twenty-three years, Jolene now had a stepmother, barely ten years her senior. She was at a loss as to how to take the surprising news while at work thousands of miles away in the United Kingdom; let alone shoulder the disappointment of being excluded from their special day. Jolene had not met the lady, the one who now shared her last name.
Father casually arranged a time next month for them all to dine at the Rib House, his favorite spot to eat on his sporadic visits back to their small town of Sebring. A grin covered her face as she unlocked the door and stepped inside her apartment. His new wife did not appear the type to relish chewing on juicy baby ribs, dripping barbeque sauce all over that snow-white complexion. She could not imagine the Barbie-doll sucking the red syrup off the tips of those long slender fingers, with fears of damaging the perfectly manicured multi-colored painted nails. The ironic thing was her father’s wife’s name was Barbie. How would she ever keep a straight face long enough to address her as such? Maybe she’d expect the respectable, stepmother title – but that certainly wasn’t happening on her shift.
Jolene wheeled her suitcase into the bedroom and plunked on the easy chair close to her window. Gazing out the window, she yawned. It was an uphill battle to catch up on her much-needed sleep. Time scheduled haphazardly over day and night shifts collapsed into a twenty-four-hour period with no set perimeters. Her body had trouble readjusting, adding to the confusion of why she did this for a living.
When Jolene found herself dozing, she bounced to her feet. She would not waste any of the precious holiday she’d booked. Although sleeping for an entire week suited her frame of mind at the moment.
In the kitchen, she thawed a couple pieces of
