My own words made me grin harder. Gracie. My wife.
The woman patted the seat beside her with a lewd wink. “Come over here, sugar. I’ll share your coffee.”
I was still laughing when Gracie came back. I didn’t share why since she’d probably lead me by the hand and give me to the woman. Instead, I smiled and let her ignore me.
Once finally on the plane, Grace was tense. It was a smaller model, with no first class, and it was full. I could feel her tension mounting, and I slipped my hand under her hair and massaged her neck muscles.
“I’m right here. I won’t let anything happen to you. Hold on to me.”
I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the fact that she was scared enough to bury her face into my chest and let me hold her until after takeoff. I kept stroking her neck until she fell asleep, still exhausted and hungover. I eased up the armrest and wrapped my arm around her. The death grip on my shirt lessened, but she never let go. She slept the entire flight, and I hated waking her. She stumbled through the next airport, letting me guide her on to another short flight. The long hours ahead of us were a lather, rinse, repeat. Delays, engine failures, missed connections—everything that could go wrong did. She looked better as we finally began our descent into Calgary hours later, moving away from me as she woke up.
“One last flight.” I glanced at my watch. “Two-hour layover here, then four hours until we land in Toronto. We’ll be home around three.”
“We’ll be home? You mean I’ll be home. You’ll be at your place.”
I lifted my eyebrows in silent refusal.
“Jaxson.” She leaned close, hissing under her breath. “I don’t know what’s going on, but what happened last night was a mistake. We were drunk.”
“You were drunk. But not drunk enough not to agree to marry me. Not drunk enough not to attack me in the car or have sex as often as we did.”
Her eyes grew wide with shock. “I attacked you?”
“You did. You were quite insistent, darling.” I stroked her cheek. “Very passionate. How could I resist?”
She slapped my hand away. “I hate you.”
“Ah, the fine line between love and hate. Last night, love. Today, hate.” I waggled my eyebrows. “Hate sex is awesome, too.”
She turned away, refusing to look at me. I tried not to laugh.
Neither of us was laughing when we found out the plane to Toronto had been canceled.
“There was a delay, and the plane is stuck in BC,” the desk agent explained. “We can’t fly tonight.”
“What about another flight?”
“Not to Toronto.” She leaned forward, her voice low. “I doubt, given the storm that is bearing down on us from up north, that any airline will fly out of here tomorrow either.”
Gracie stiffened. “What about Thursday?”
The woman shrugged. “If it’s as bad as they say it is going to be, maybe not until Friday. I can book you out on the plane tomorrow, but my advice is to get a hotel room. If you can find one.”
I glanced out the window behind her, noticing the wind was picking up and snow was beginning to fall. I withheld my curse about flying in Canada during the winter.
“Book them,” I requested.
Gracie wandered over to the window, and I met the woman’s eyes.
“Tell me honestly. Not as an employee. As a person. Do we have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting out of here before Friday?”
She pushed the tickets toward me. “Not even that good. This weather system is going to spread. It will hit us then move east. We might be able to fly west, but not the way you want to go, because we won’t be able to land.”
I made sure the airline had my cell number, then I moved away. I checked my weather app, wanting to hit something. If Gracie’s flight hadn’t been canceled last night or I had gotten her on an earlier flight instead of getting her drunk and marrying her, she’d be home now instead of at an airport thousands of miles away with the potential of missing her best friend’s wedding. She had already been upset about having to come on this trip, and now she was going to be even angrier.
I headed her way, reaching her as she hung up the phone. “I told Heather I was delayed. She says this system is going to head east.”
“I know.”
Her lip quivered. “What if I miss the wedding?”
“You won’t, Grace. I’ll figure this out. I am so damn sorry about this.”
She furrowed her brow, surprising me with her retort. “Um, Jaxson, your god complex is showing again. Not even you can think you could control the weather.”
My lips quirked. “No, Grace, I meant that I should have come alone. I would have figured it out.”