Highways and Heartbeats (It Happened Up North #3)

Chapter One

Pulling my penguin sleep mask off and tugging my ear buds out, I stretched hard and blinked harder. Deep inside my pocket, my phone buzzed and my pulse picked up.

A text from my son. Home safe. Leftover pizza for lunch. Don’t tell Ally but I’m eating the last of the brownies.

I smiled with relief and thumbed a reply. Eat them all. She’ll survive. Or make more.

No doubt my daughter, an avid baker and in the top of her culinary arts program, would make another batch. She loved changing up some part of it to give it her personality of the day; whether that was more sweetness or a hint of spice.

My kids were awesome, and I was grateful they got along so well and managed to help me out from time to time.

Like today when my twenty-three-year-old son drove me two hours to the Edmonton airport.

Since he was my ride, he needed to drop me off early so he’d be home in time for work, or at least that’s what he claimed.

I was going to be gone for a few days after all.

Although he had a good head on his shoulders, inside his soul beat the rhythm of a kid dying to eat all the junk food, refuse to face adulthood, and be an irresponsible slob without mom reminding him of his chores.

Deep down, I hoped he enjoyed the break. We all needed that from time to time.

When I was his age, I certainly didn’t have that.

Responsibilities were overwhelmingly handed out to me when I was younger than him, and I discovered I was pregnant a few weeks after dating a guy I thought was my forever.

Turned out, he was my only-until-the-second-was-born type, and parenthood became too much for him to handle.

So I did it alone, for a few years.

Until I met Tina at a school fundraiser, and we hit it off.

She became such a huge part of my life after that evening.

The kids affectionately call her Auntie Tina.

When she got married a few years back, my daughter was a junior bridesmaid, and I was the maid of honour, and we saw each other weekly, if not daily.

Then her husband got a job offer he couldn’t refuse and shuffled them to Vancouver Island.

So here I was at the airport, jumping out of a quick slumber, ready to surprise her and fly to her side as he’d dumped her—on their vacation, no less—and she needed me. Needed my shoulder to cry on.

Rising, I walked to the middle of the busy concourse where announcements barely interrupted the flow of movement.

I laughed at all the seriousness, knowing in a few hours I’d be day drunk with Tina while watching chick flicks and dreaming of either sweet revenge or a dreamy happy ever after. Probably the first one.

Looking left and right, I couldn’t remember which gate I was boarding at. Gate 56 or Gate 58?

As people scurried by, phones in hand with indecipherable conversations, I spotted the departures board and beelined in that direction. I scanned the board for my direct flight—and stopped cold.

Next to my flight number: CANCELLED. Not delayed. Not boarding soon. Absolutely dead in the water cancelled.

Shouldn’t I have received some sort of notification for that? Nothing was mentioned when I scanned my boarding pass at security a couple of hours ago, and there were no alerts sent to my phone. I quickly thumbed through emails, scouring for any hint that I was a sitting duck.

Nothing.

Now what?

Time passed in slow motion as I stood there, recalculating like I was triaging in the ER. Prioritizing what needed to be handled first, and that was to find out if there was a reason for the cancellation and if they had a back up plan in place, like another flight they were transferring people to.

There was no need to alert Josh just yet, nor Ally, not that she could drive and pick me up if that were the case. She had zero desire to obtain a driver’s license. And Tina? Well, that was the best kept surprise I’d ever made and I wasn’t ready to admit that my plans were all for naught.

She needed the Breakup Survival Kit currently in my tote bag: pajamas, high-end chocolate truffles, a face mask, a petty His Loss t-shirt I’d found on marketplace, and—okay—maybe two bottles of wine.

I walked up to a suspiciously empty gate and eyed around for an airline employee. Anyone in uniform.

A Canadian soldier, a member of the Canadian Armed Forces in desert fatigues, strode past.

I glanced to the heavens and chuckled as that wasn’t quite what I had in mind.

Finally, I spotted a woman in a navy blazer and name badge standing near a counter. A gate agent. “Excuse me. My flight’s been cancelled. How do I get a new seat on the next flight?”

She looked at me like I’d asked for a ride to the moon. “Our crews walked off thirty minutes ago. Flights are suspended across the board. We’re not able to rebook at the gates during the strike. You’ll need to head back to the main terminal—ticketing can help you there.”

“The main terminal? You mean on the other side of security?”

“Precisely. Your airline can help you there.”

My gaze fell to her name tag blazoned with her airline’s name. “But you work for them.”

“I don’t have the ability to rebook from here with the strike affecting flights. You’ll need to rebook at the main terminal.”

No I’m sorry. No nothing.

As I stood there, frozen like a deer in headlights, a distant memory of reading about a possible strike drifted through my brain.

I hadn’t realized it was today, or that no one would’ve mentioned it.

Honestly, I really needed to keep up with current events, even if it was constantly filled with doom and gloom.

Dragging my bag toward the exit, I sighed and made my way down the escalator to the arrivals level, knowing full well there was no one waiting for me on the other side of the doors. Shoulders rolled inward, I took the escalator to the departure zone of the airport.

The rising volume of noise should’ve been my first clue that the departure level wasn’t a happy place.

Naturally, people with much more travel smarts than me had already formed a long line at the airline check-in counters, snaking through the concourse and blocking any view of the ticketing agents.

The displeased expressions and angry tapping of feet were a strong indicator that things weren’t going to go well.

While feverishly checking the airline’s website, in hopes of answers and the opportunity to rebook a flight myself, I scanned the boards noting several abrupt cancellations, and—gasp—all from the same airline.

For now.

Would others follow? Clearly, as nice as it was to escape into my Fringe DVD collection, I needed to watch the news more as I should’ve been more in tune with an airline issue than I had been.

When I was finally motioned to the next available—and way beyond frazzled—attendant, I marched over with my shoulders back and my head held high. I set my phone with the boarding pass showing on the counter. “Hey, how’s it going?”

She didn’t answer. Alrighty, killing her with kindness wasn’t going to work like I’d hoped.

“Can I see your I.D.?”

Having had it ready, I set it on the counter.

After a quick glance, she made eye contact with me. “Hello, Anna, how can I help you?”

“I just need to rebook the next available flight to Victoria. Or Vancouver. Or... whatever city’s closest to ‘not here.’ I’ll get the rest of the way myself.”

The agent tapped feverishly on her keyboard. “The earliest we can do is tomorrow morning at 10:17 with a different airline.”

“Tomorrow?” I leaned forward, trying to look at the screen, not that I understood any of what I saw. “My best friend is on the verge of falling apart because her husband left her on their fifth wedding anniversary vacation, and I have the countermeasures. They’re time sensitive.”

She typed again but failed to make eye contact. “Well, in that case.” Her tone was so flat, it could’ve been used as a level. “I can route you through Calgary, then Vancouver, and you’ll land in Victoria tomorrow at 10:47 their time.”

Was she serious? That wasn’t faster. It was thirty minutes later.

“Sheesh, you don’t have anything that connects in Toronto?”

She failed to catch my humour; my eye rolling likely didn’t help.

“You don’t understand. Please. I have a paper bag full of gift-shop impulse buys: maple leaf socks, a tin of ‘emergency’ shortbread cookies, and a plush moose that says, ‘Don’t Moose With Me’ across its belly.”

“Ma’am, as you can see, we are desperately trying to accommodate everyone.

” She turned to the long, unhappy line still branched out in waves behind me.

“The fastest I can get you there is an arrival tomorrow morning. Shall I rebook you into that?” If deadpan were an Olympic sport, she’d medal in gold.

“What am I going to do for a night?” The words came out as a whisper, not meant for any answer. Tucking my chin to my chest, I sighed and nodded, my heart dropping into my stomach. “Sure, book that please.”

With my multi-connection not-so-magical mystery tour booked—assuming another strike or natural disaster didn’t wipe that out too—I wandered over to the Tim Horton’s kiosk. I was desperate for a dark roast and a semi-private corner to panic in.

Did I call Josh to come and get me? Find a hotel? Curl up behind a potted plant and declare medical leave?

Instead, I pulled out my phone and opened the voice memo app. After three back-to-back night shifts and zero brain cells to spare, if I didn’t say things out loud, they ceased to exist.

I hit record.

“Okay,” I muttered, not bothering to lower my voice, “flight to Victoria is cancelled, rerouted for tomorrow morning—which means the surprise rescue mission for Tina is officially derailed. I was supposed to show up this afternoon, bang on her door with pajamas, emotional support carbs, and sarcasm.”

I took a breath and kept going, talking with my hands like I was giving discharge instructions to the universe.

“And the grocery delivery with her favorite foods is still scheduled for five, which I’m going to have to reschedule.

” A world-weary sigh flattened my shoulders.

“Otherwise she’s going to open the door to a form of grief groceries, complete with chocolate mint ice cream and maple cream cookies. There will be no context and no me.”

I dragged a hand over my face and closed my eyes.

“Josh dropped me off, and it’s not fair to derail his plans to turn around and come and get me, only for him to bring me back in the morning.

So where does that leave me? Hotels are going to be booked solid; the terminal looks like a riot with luggage, and I’m currently stranded in Tim Horton’s purgatory talking to my phone like a feral raccoon in scrubs.

” I ended the memo and sighed into my coffee.

“And the universe better be listening, because I’m one Timbit away from losing custody of my sanity. ”

Behind me, someone chuckled.

I froze.

Not because I recognized that husky, throaty sound right away but because something in it nudged a corner of memory I hadn’t opened in years. Warm. Low. Amused in that infuriatingly confident way only one person ever pulled off around me.

But that wasn’t possible.

I was clearly running on a lack of sleep, so there was no need to turn and shoot a disapproving glare. That chuckle had to have been from a stranger who had no issues with eavesdropping.

That voice though, steeped in dreams from a past era, broke through my thoughts, speaking again, closer this time, like the words were a private joke. “Still muttering threats at the universe, Nightlight?”

A nickname that only one person called me.

Hearing it, my heart did something very undignified and the sip of coffee I’d just taken lodged in my throat like a balloon.

Choking it down, I whipped around to see for myself.

Tristan Graham.

Except not the lanky, cocky, sharp-edged version burned into my last memories of him.

No. The man behind me had grown into himself.

Filled out across the shoulders. A voice with gravel now instead of bravado.

And that dark, five o’clock shadow—good grief—rugged but intentional, like he’d stopped being the brother’s best friend and started being... a man.

I almost dropped my coffee.

Because those stormy blue eyes, the same ones that used to narrow when I stole his Triscuits were still intense. And they were definitely looking at me.