“All right,” she said, then hesitated. Maybe she should go upstairs and change...? No. What for? Chase deserved to be driven to the airport by a woman in an Oscar the Grouch sweatshirt.
“Well?” she said impatiently, sweeping her car keys from a hook on the wall. “What are you waiting for, Chase? Let’s go.”
* * *
Annie waited in her car while Chase collected his suitcase from his hotel room.
Offering to drive him to the airport hadn’t been such a great idea.
They hadn’t come up with one single good idea during the time it had taken them to get here. And sitting so close to Chase in the bucket seats of her little Honda made her, well, uncomfortable. He was too big for the car. His thigh was right there, an inch from her own. His shoulder brushed hers, on a tight turn, and his aftershave wafted in the air.
The sooner she got rid of him, the better.
“Okay,” she said, once he was seated beside her again, “what airline?”
“West Coast. Something like that.” He dug into his pocket as she pulled the car into traffic. “Here’s the ticket. West Coast Air, that’s it.”
“How original,” Annie said with a tight smile. “Must be new. What terminal is it at? A or B?”
“What do you mean, A or B?”
“Bradley’s got two terminals,” she said patiently. “One’s A. One’s B. I need to know which we’re going to.”
“We’re not going to Bradley.”
Annie looked at him. “We’re not?”
“I’m flying out of Logan. In Boston. I thought you understood that.”
Boston. A two-hour drive, instead of forty minutes. Annie’s hands felt sweaty on the steering wheel.
“Boston,” she said faintly. “I don’t think...”
“My flight leaves at noon. Will we make it? Maybe I should phone the airline. If there’s another flight in an hour or two, we could stop for a bite to eat first.”
“Don’t be silly.” Annie glanced at the dashboard clock. “I’ll get you there in plenty of time,” she said, and jammed her foot to the floor.
* * *
They got to the airport with twenty minutes to spare.
Annie stopped her car at a stretch of curb marked No Parking. Chase opened his door and got out.
“Well,” he said, “thanks for the lift.”
She nodded. “You’re welcome.”
“Sorry we didn’t come up with a solution.”
“Yes. Me, too.”
“As soon as the kids get home...”
“I’ll call you.”
“We’ll figure out something, by then.”
“Sure.”
“Dawn’s a good kid. She’ll understand, if we decide to make a clean breast of things.”
“Chase. Your plane.”
“Oh. Right. Right.” Chase slammed the car door. “Well...”
“Goodbye,” Annie said. She stepped on the gas and drove off.
A block away, she pulled to the curb. Her heart was racing and her eyes felt grainy.
Why had they quarreled over so many silly things? Why had they sniped at each other?
“Because you’re mismatched,” she whispered, answering her own questions. “You were always mismatched. It’s just the sex that kept you from realizing the truth—”
Annie frowned. What was that, on the floor in front of the passenger seat? She bent down and scooped a long white envelope from the floor.
It was Chase’s airline ticket.
“Damn,” she said, and threw the car into a rubber-burning U-turn.
* * *
He wasn’t in the terminal, or maybe he was. There were people milling around everywhere; how could she be certain?
Annie raced to look at the Departures screen. Where had he said he was going? Seattle, that was it. On West Coast Air. There it was. Gate Six.
She flew through the ticket area, through the lounge, toward the gate. She almost stopped at the security checkpoint when the guard asked to see her ticket, but then she remembered that was the reason she was here, that she had a ticket clutched in her hand, and she waved it at him and hurried through.
Where was Chase?
There! There he was! Her relief at finding him diminished everything else, including how he’d managed to clear security without a ticket.
“Chase,” she yelled, “Chase!”
He turned at the sound of her voice. “Annie?” She saw his face light. “Annie,” he said again, and opened his arms.
She told herself later that she hadn’t meant to run to him, that she’d simply been going too fast to stop. But the next thing Annie knew, she was locked in Chase’s embrace.
“Annie,” he said softly, “baby.”
And then her arms were around his neck and his hands were in her hair and they were kissing.