Season of Gifts (Neighborly Affection #8)

25. Alice

Chapter twenty-five

Alice

T he time zones claimed flying from Boston to Minneapolis gave Alice a free extra hour in the day. Fat lot of good it did her more than a thousand miles from both of her husbands. She’d at least left Jay with a kiss and a freshly revealed calendar card this morning—scavenger hunt, so that would give him a distraction after work. But she’d planned to tell Henry about her trip when he called last night to update them, and he’d never called. Her text this morning— Need to talk to you. Maybe you could ask Jay to come up there?— still sat unanswered.

“So no coffee.” Her boss’s boss unfolded himself from the airport lounge chair and stretched. “You want a water before the next flight? Soft drink?”

“Iced tea would be fantastic, thanks.” As Wade ambled off, she debated the wisdom of calling Henry. The morning had been a whirlwind to get to the airport by eight, poor Jay insisting on her opening the card because today was evens, practically sleepwalking down to the kitchen so he could watch.

She’d texted before boarding. Henry hadn’t given them “safe” times to call, and even if his mom wasn’t likely to flip out about the phone ringing the way her dad did, accidentally waking either of them might rob them of healing sleep. Henry sure hadn’t looked like he’d been getting much decent shuteye. She pressed the phone to her forehead and almost dropped it when the ringing started.

“Henry!”

“Alice?”

“Are you okay?” Audio-only; she couldn’t read his expressions to know, not that she always could anyway. “Is your mom okay? You didn’t call last night.” Fuck, that would sound blaming. She shut her eyes to the airport chaos beyond the glass wall. “I know it’s tough when there’s so much going on.”

“I am embarrassed to admit I dozed off right after Mother did and unfortunately did not awaken until well after midnight.” He sighed with the weight of failure, the way she did when a fifth or sixth or seventh iteration of a project crashed and burned in modeling. “I do apologize for missing our nightly check-in. Are you well? I’ve tried calling three times, and this is the first time your number hasn’t been unavailable. What’s happened to Jay? Did the lunch go poorly?”

“Jay’s fine.” Lead with the good news, that was the rule. Reassurance first, so the old worry could fade before the new one piled on top. “His sister-in-law is still half a bitch, but only half, and his brother is actually stepping up for him, so that was great.” And for an hour, at least, Jay had seemed entirely relaxed and comfortable. Tears stung the back of her eyes. “Playing with the kids was the best medicine for him. He’s so good with them.”

“But you wish to send him up to Mother’s?” Muffled noise came through Henry’s side of the call. “Apologies, a bit of a kerfuffle in the hallway here. I’m waiting for Mother to finish her rehabilitation session today—group therapy of sorts. Medical events can be challenging emotionally.”

She bit her tongue on yeah, I’m aware . “I know you’re doing everything you can to support her through this, and I one hundred percent agree with that decision. I’m just worried that Jay is going to struggle extra hard this week. Being by your side would help him…” What the hell was the therapy phrase Jay kept using? She could show Henry how serious this was if she got the terminology right. “Emotionally regulate.”

“Sweet girl.” His voice turned soft, liquid, and if she could melt through the phone and reform at his side, she’d do it in a heartbeat. “I’m aware that your tangled relationship with self-confidence occasionally has you feeling less capable than you are. But I have complete faith in your ability to comfort and guide Jay if his anxieties overtake him. I would not have—”

“I’m on my way to South Dakota.”

“I’m sorry?”

She cringed from the innocent question, so delicately laced with confusion. Echoes battered her with Dad’s raging What? when she’d confessed to applying to out-of-state schools and presented her parents with the acceptance letter.

“It’s a work trip. I couldn’t bring Jay with me. I’m heading out on a site visit to help with an implementation glitch at a factory. My boss is still out until after the holidays, and his boss is one of the client-side project managers, and—”

“Jay is by himself? During the time of year we specifically discussed would be exceptionally difficult for him after cutting ties with his abusive relatives?”

There was the anger her nervous system had prepped her for. He’d cut her off, but she’d cut him off first, and she’d been babbling, definitely babbling, but she’d just spent hours studying the files on the flight and her head was filled up and spilling over with potential problem areas and system checks. The faster she sorted out the factory’s problem, the sooner she could get home to Jay.

“I didn’t have a choice, Henry.” She forced a smile for Wade, gliding toward her in business casual with a coffee in one hand and a bottled iced tea in the other. Pressing the phone to her chest, she stretched out her other hand. “Thank you. I’ll just be a minute—family thing.”

As she started to stand, he waved her back down and wandered over to the window instead of taking his seat. She jammed the phone to her ear. This wasn’t a talk to have on speaker. “Sorry, I had—” She set the drink on the low table in front of her. “Never mind, doesn’t matter. Are you still there?”

“I am, though not for long. When this session ends, we’ve the pharmacy and the grocery store to visit before dinner, and tomorrow we have the next session and a followup with Mother’s physician.”

Tense, that’s how he sounded. Tight with frustration or worry or both, gruff and at the end of his rope. And she knew fuck-all about how to soothe him from so far away. “I’m sorry things are so rough right now. I didn’t plan this.”

His grunted acknowledgment fell far short of his usual appreciative hum. “I simply don’t have six hours to run home and bring Jay here, Alice.”

Stress made people forget things. Clouded judgment, muddied clear thinking. Struggling to keep her tone even and understanding, she stared at the divot in the carpet beside the table leg. The piece had been in one spot for a long time before it got shoved over an inch, and the imprint hadn’t had time to fill in.

“I’m pretty sure he has the train schedule memorized. If you ask him to come, he won’t be depending on you to figure it out for him or arrange anything. It’ll be…” As she uncurled her left hand from its adrenaline clench, her ring caught the light. “Like the wedding. Just trust him to handle the logistics. What he needs is to be around people who love him.”

“Yes, I thought we both understood—”

Silence ticked on, punctuated by slow breathing in a rhythm she recognized. She joined her lungs to his, a four-count in, an eight-count out. Three breaths.

The PA system announced her gate. Wade shifted his weight at the window, just another seasoned traveler with a gray fade straight out of the corporate headshot playbook.

“I love you, Henry. I’ll have to go soon.”

“Thank you for your patience, Alice. I am…” A soft laugh tickled her ear. “Greatly apologetic that my own emotional regulation is in sore need of recalibrating, deeply aware of how my reactions may be affecting your own emotional state, and profoundly humbled that your personal experience in the area is cushioning my fall. I love you, dearest. I will speak to Jay about options. Safe travels.”

She sent love for him and his mom before the call winked out. Now would not be the right time to collapse into a heap. Odds of a fairy godmother magically righting all the wrongs in her world were slim and nil, and slim hadn’t come to work today.

She collected her things and grabbed her roller bag as Wade rejoined her. “Trouble at home?”

“My mother-in-law is ill, and my husband is the point person for her care.” Holy hell, those words had come sliding out of her mouth clean as a whistle. She’d had a few contacts with Wade in the last three months, but touch-base stuff. Today was the longest she’d ever spent with him. He did way more traveling than the design team. “Just getting an update.”

“Sorry to hear it. I hope she’s on the mend.” Holding the lounge door, he gestured her out first. “We’ve been through that wringer with Dad’s decline, and then Mom went to live with my sister. Vicki—my wife—is starting down that road with her folks, too.”

“Sounds like a lot of competing needs to balance.” If she’d had to bet on how she’d be spending a Monday afternoon, walking through an airport terminal while discussing her marriage would not have ranked among the options.

“Oh, it always is.” A quick glance at the signs above them, and he started them down another offshoot. “They don’t want to give up their home, and we don’t want to move our kids out of their school, so you cobble together home care services. Rideshares once you convince them to turn over their keys.”

She hmm ed agreement. Emma had sent Daniel to bring Henry’s mom for the wedding. Maybe they could hire a regular driver for—okay, yeah, now she was the kind of person who thought hiring private drivers was a normal thing. Sure wasn’t an option Mom and Dad had to get him out of the house on good days.

Wade steered them around a jerk taking a call in the middle of the walkway. “Personal shoppers when the grocery store doesn’t have well-placed benches—the thing’s a massive warehouse, and they don’t figure on shoppers in their eighties wanting to sit and rest awhile. Home delivery’s a godsend.”

“My husband’s been expanding in that area with his messenger service.” And now Henry and Jay were one person, fuck. She’d be tiptoeing that line for as many days as this trip took. “Fewer architectural and legal document drops and more elder care contracts.”

“Ah, so you know what you’re in for. That’s handy.” Wade rolled up to the early boarding lane. “We’ll try to wrap this one up fast so you can get back there. Company wants it done before the holiday break—pain in the keister to carry the project over into the new year—and I can’t say I’m keen to miss the kids’ school concerts. Number one thing about parenting is showing up. With this job, my track record on that is not great.”

She copied his behavior exactly, flashing documents, thanking attendants, hustling down the jetway to the plane. The last time she’d flown had been years ago, for Ollie’s undergrad graduation. That had been economy. Now she had business class upgrades. She stowed the roller handle and hefted the bag.

Wade wasn’t any taller than her, but he added a hand and snugged her carry-on in the bin beside his. “Aisle or window?”

The rows farther back had three seats to a side, but theirs only had two.

“Either’s fine.” The window couldn’t show her anything she didn’t already know. When they landed in Sioux Falls, she’d be sixty minutes from home. Which would make her a fairly lousy human being if she didn’t visit. Fuck. She staggered into the window seat and fumbled with the belt. “So you, uh, you travel a lot?”

She sipped her iced tea, clutched her phone against her stomach like a kid with a stuffed toy, and drifted into work talk with Wade, tossing ideas with him for the next hour. Their landing came with no dings from her phone, no message from Henry saying he’d talked to Jay. No thrilled string of emojis from Jay indicating a trip to Maine was in the offing.

The Sioux Falls airport could’ve fit neatly in the hip pocket of the Minneapolis one or the Boston one. As they cruised down the lone concourse and past the baggage carousels, Alice fired off a quick text to her spouses: Landed safe in Sioux Falls. Love you .

At the car rental counter, Wade dug out a company card. “I don’t see our contact, but we’ll give him a few. He insisted on coming out to welcome us—new in the position. It’s fine.”

“What’s he look like?” She scanned the space while he dealt with the paperwork, handing over her ID when needed. People clustered around the baggage belt, and on the far side of the main doors, people lined up to check in for their flights.

“About your age—said you sounded familiar from school.” Jangling the keys, Wade turned away from the counter. “I think that’s him near the door. Navy puffer jacket. You know him?”

Jacket boy lifted his head and waved, a Grand Canyon-size smile hurtling across his face.

Her stomach dropped to her toes. “I think so. It’s been years.”

Seven, to be exact. Seven years since she’d refused Adam’s proposal.

“Wade, hey.” Adam jogged up and extended his hand, pumping enthusiastically when Wade accepted the shake. “Great to meet you in person. And you!” He swung his arms wide, then thrust them forward like he was handing her a cake. “Blast from the past. So great. Gosh, I’d love to hear all about what you’ve been up to. Wade, you don’t mind if I steal Alice for a minute, do you? I know you’ve gotta check out that rental car—what say you bring it around front, and we’ll have the luggage out there for you lickety-split?”

“It’s been a long couple of flights.” Arching his back and rolling his neck, Wade looked completely natural. If she hadn’t seen him do the same thing already the second they hit the gate, she would’ve believed him. “Alice, you want to stretch your legs out to the rental with me or hang here with Adam for a minute?”

Without a doubt, the most Dad kind of looking out she’d ever experienced from a coworker—and ninety-five percent of her coworkers were guys. Despite the day she’d had, hugging Wade was probably not the way to go. If she put off Adam now, he’d be dogging her for however many days they spent here. The middle of the airport was as public a place as she was gonna get for whatever he wanted to say.

“Thanks, Wade. I’ll meet you out front—we’ll be work-work-work once we hit the site, so a minute to catch up first would be nice.” There. That ought to set expectations. Adam could have his minute, and then they could operate like professional folks who barely knew each other. Which they did. Seven years ago, she couldn’t have imagined her life today.

“See you in a jiffy.” Wade left his bag with her, taking only his jacket, and set off at more than walking, less than jogging speed.

Adam bumped her shoulder with his. “You’re welcome.”

Ugh. His sense of boundaries needed tuning. Stepping back, she futzed with the bags and slipped her coat on. “For what?”

“The career boost, obviously.” He kept pace with her toward the door, not offering to roll one of the bags. “They didn’t have to let you take point on this. Better make it count, temp lead.”

If she ground her jaw any harder, she’d crack a tooth. “You asked for me?”

“Recognized your name when ol’ Wade there said you were tem-po-rar-ily—”

The singsong and the smirk were making it awfully hard not to kick him in the nuts.

“—heading up the team that fucked up the design. Your bosses offered to send out a real lead, but I said I was sure you could handle fixing it. So”—he spread his arms and mock bowed—“you’re welcome.”

Once she kicked him in the nuts, she would follow up with a punch to the jaw. She’d get fired, no question. But then she could march right over to the ticket windows and catch the next flight back. A burning acid in her veins urged her to do it. Fuck the consequences.

She dragged the bags over the grippy mats, through the doorway, and into the cold. Automatic doors made exits so unsatisfying. “Not gonna thank you for that, Adam. My husband is dealing with a family emergency. I’d be better off back at home.”

He jerked his neck down and teetered on the curb when she came to a stop. Curling her hand tighter around the roller handle pinched her ring into the soft skin of her palm. She rode the pain, a tiny fraction of the zing Henry had given her with the clamps. Good for focus.

Adam huffed, shook his head, and spat into the gutter. “So you found somebody you’d say yes to, huh?”

Two somebodies blazed like a neon billboard in her head. A dangerous answer with an ex who’d proved himself a petty jackass. “I found the right marriage for me.”

And if either of her spouses would give her an update on their status, she’d be a whole hell of a lot calmer about their odds of keeping it that way.