She tried to control herself, but the tears started anyway. Nicholas was truly and completely gone from her. Never again would she see him, hear him, or touch him.
Tears were blinding her so much that as she boarded, she walked into the man in front of her and her tote bag slid off her shoulder onto the lap of a first-class passenger.
“I’m so sorry,” she said; then she looked into the blue eyes of a very handsome man. For a moment her heart pounded, but she made herself turn away. He wasn’t Nicholas; his eyes weren’t Nicholas’s eyes.
She took her tote bag from the man while he stared up at her with interest. But Dougless wasn’t interested. The only man who interested her was sealed inside a marble tomb.
She made her way back to her seat, shoved her tote bag under the seat in front of her, then looked out the window. As the plane began to taxi down the runway and she realized that she was leaving England, she began to cry in earnest. The man in the aisle seat beside her, an Englishman, buried his face deeper into his newspaper.
Dougless tried to make her tears stop. She gave herself little pep talks about how much she’d been able to accomplish, and reminded herself that losing Nicholas was a small price to pay for all the good she’d done. But each thought made her cry harder.
By the time the plane was aloft and the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign was off, she was crying so hard that she didn’t see what happened next to her. The man from first class, a champagne bottle and two glasses in his hand, asked the man next to Dougless to exchange seats.
“Here,” he said.
She could see through her tears a tall glass of champagne being held out to her.
“Go on, take it. It’ll do you good.”
“You’re an A-American,” she said through tears.
“Yes. I’m from Colorado. And you?”
“M-Maine.” She took the champagne, drank too fast, and choked. “I-I have cousins in Colorado.”
“Oh? Where?”
“Chandler.” Her tears weren’t flowing as fast.
“Not the Taggerts?”
She looked up at him. Black hair and blue eyes. Just like Nicholas. The tears sped up again. She nodded.
“I used to go to Chandler with my father sometimes, and I met some of the Taggerts. I’m Reed Stanford, by the way.” He held out his hand to shake hers, but when she didn’t move, he picked up her hand off her lap and clasped it in his. “Nice to meet you.” He didn’t release her hand, but looked at it, saying nothing, until Dougless snatched her hand away.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Mr. . . . ?”
“Stanford.”
“Mr. Stanford,” she said, sniffing, “I don’t know what I did to give you the impression that I’m an easy pickup, but I can assure you that I’m not. I think you’d better take your champagne and return to your own seat.” She was trying to be regal, but her effort lost something, since her nose was red, her eyes swollen, and tears were running down her cheeks.
He didn’t take the glass and he didn’t leave.
He was beginning to make Dougless angry. Was he some pervert who liked crying fe
males? What in the world had happened in his childhood to cause him to be turned on by tears? “If you don’t leave, I’ll have to call the attendant.”
He turned to look at her. “Please don’t,” he said, and there was something in his eyes that made Dougless halt as she reached for the call button. “You must believe me; I’ve never done anything like this in my life. I mean, I’ve never accosted a woman on a plane before. Or even in a bar, for that matter. It’s just that you remind me of someone.”
Dougless wasn’t crying any longer because there was something eerily familiar in the way he moved his head. “Who?” she asked.
He gave a little grin, and Dougless’s heart skipped a beat. Nicholas sometimes grinned like that. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. It’s too far-fetched.”
“Try me. I have a lot of imagination.”
“All right,” he said. “You remind me of a lady in a portrait.”