Chapter 10 #2
“I’m making pot roast. You come on over here and get yourself some food.”
The last thing he wanted was to eat or to talk. Casey hadn’t been gone four hours and already there was a hole inside of him that food couldn’t fill.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll just stick around here for the evening.”
“If you change your mind, you know how to get here.”
“Yes, ma’am, I do.”
He hung up and then headed for the shower. After he cleaned up, maybe he’d watch a little TV, have an early night. After all, he had the whole place to himself. And it was the loneliest feeling he could ever remember.
* * *
By morning, it had started to rain. By the next day, and then the next, it alternated between gray skies and drizzle, with a downpour now and then in between.
And as if the rain wasn’t bad enough, a line of heavy thunderstorms was pushing its way into the state and today was the day that Casey was due to come home.
He sat at the window looking out at the rain, ignoring the fact that today he’d already angered Erica and caused Eudora to have to change her plans.
He didn’t give a damn that Erica had a lunch date with a banker to discuss buying a business. He couldn’t have cared less whether or not Dora was going to miss her bridge luncheon. Erica knew how to drive and Dora could take a cab.
Erica argued, then whined, then begged. When she realized that nothing was working, she started in with what she considered simple reasoning. If she drove herself, then there was no way she could keep from having to walk in the rain. At this point, Ryder had heard enough.
“Where are you meeting the banker for lunch?” he asked.
She sniffed. “The Tea Room.”
“Take an umbrella, and use their valet parking.”
Erica knew when she’d been had. She rolled her eyes and flounced out of the library, muttering beneath her breath about hardheaded men who did not know their place.
Eudora patted her hair and straightened her belt. She was certain that the rapport she’d developed with this man would bring him around.
“Ryder, dear, it’s Evadine Nelson’s turn to play hostess for the bridge club. She lives right at the edge of town, remember? Hers is that big white house with the portico that I so admire.”
“Yes, ma’am, I remember the house,” Ryder said.
Eudora beamed. “Then you won’t mind just dropping me off. It won’t take more than half an hour either way. If Delaney hadn’t insisted on building this place out in the middle of nowhere, we wouldn’t be so isolated.”
Ryder shook his head. “Dora, you weren’t listening to me.
I’m not budging until Casey calls. Dammit, look outside.
There’s a storm due in within hours. Chances are, her plane will be delayed, or the pilot will wind up trying to outrun it.
Either way, I want to know what the hell is going on.
I’ll call a cab for you, but I’m not playing chauffeur today and that’s that. ”
She rolled her eyes. “You know, things have been upside down ever since-Casey brought you into this family. You’re supposed to be the chauffeur. Chauffeurs are supposed to do as they’re told.” She tried to glare.
“So fire me,” he said, and kissed her cheek, which brought a smile to her eyes that she just couldn’t hide.
“Go on with you then,” she spluttered. “Go sit and wait for that phone call.” She walked away, mumbling beneath her breath.
“Land sakes, what will Evadine say? Me coming to her door in a cab, like some commoner.”
Ryder followed her out the door. “Dora, you are a fine lady, but you are not the Queen Mother. Taking a cab now and then is good for the soul.”
Eudora pivoted, giving him a cool, pointed stare. “I declare,” she said, about to give him a piece of her mind, but Ryder didn’t wait around to listen.
He ran from the main house all the way across the courtyard, then up the stairs just ahead of a cool gust of wind. Pausing at the landing, he looked up at the sky, judging the dark, angry swirl of clouds overhead. Today was not a good day to fly.
As soon as he entered the apartment, he turned on the television and flipped to a local station he knew would be broadcasting weather bulletins all day. With the phone at his side, he sat down to wait for her call.
A half hour went by. By this time he was pacing the floor. She’d promised to call before she left. She wasn’t the kind of person who’d break a promise.
“A line of severe thunderstorms is blanketing the state,” the TV announcer stated.
He turned toward the television, picked up the remote and upped the volume.
“Wind velocities have been measured at fifty to sixty miles per hour with gusts up to seventy and eighty. Authorities advise staying off of the roads and avoiding low-lying areas that are prone to flooding.”
He glanced toward his bedroom. A sheet of rain splattered itself against the sliding glass doors that led onto the deck. His belly tied itself in a knot and he frowned, trying once again to focus on the weather man’s report.
“The line runs from…”
Ryder groaned. On the map, the line of storms was virtually from the top to bottom of the state and moving eastward at a very fast pace.
What was even more disturbing, the front extended across a large portion of the northern states, including Illinois.
Maybe that’s why he hadn’t heard anything.
Maybe her flight had been delayed and she was waiting for new information before she called.
No sooner had he thought it than the phone rang right near his hand. He jumped and then grabbed it before it had time to ring again.”
“Hello?”
“Ryder! It’s me! I’m in a cab on the way to the airport. Traffic is a mess, but I’ll make my flight. I should get into Ruban Crossing around three. Can you pick me up?”
“What’s the weather like up there?”
“Ummm, it’s raining a little, but no big deal.”
No big deal. “It’s raining like crazy here. Why don’t you just take a later flight, or better yet, take the first one out tomorrow?”
She laughed. “Now I know I’ve been gone too long. You are already making excuses as to why I shouldn’t come back.”
He got up and walked to the sliding glass doors and then jumped when a stroke of lightning tore across the sky right above his head.
“Did you hear that?” he asked, as the phone cracked in his ear. “A storm front is moving through. Today is not a good day to fly.”
There was laughter in her voice. “It will be fine. You know they won’t take off if there’s any danger. Besides, the pilots usually just fly above the storms and land behind them.”
He felt sick. Something inside kept telling him this was wrong—so wrong. “Casey, don’t. I know what I’m talking about. Please, for God’s sake, don’t get on that plane.”
The underlying fear in his voice was about to make her nervous. She decided to change the subject. “You didn’t even ask me if the deal went through!”
He sighed and shifted the phone to the other ear. “Okay, I’ll bite. How did the meetings go?”
She hugged herself, resisting the urge to giggle. She was pretty sure that CEOs did not giggle. “We got it!” she crowed.
“It’s a done deal. I swear, Delaney is probably rolling over in his grave as we speak.”
“Don’t be talking about graves.”
She laughed. “Just be at the airport. I can’t wait to get home.”
Their connection began to break up. “Remember,” Casey said. “Flight 209. Three o’clock.”
“Dammit, Casey, I don’t want you to—”
The line was dead. Ryder hung up with a curse and sat back down, staring at the television as if it were the lifeline between himself and sanity.
* * *
Ryder heard someone groan. That’s when he looked up at the airport monitor, watching as the On Time notice of Flight 209 from Chicago was changed to Delayed.
His gut hitched itself into a knot. It figured. While it wasn’t raining at the moment, the sky was black and the intermittent flashes of cloud-to-ground lightning could be seen for miles. It was an all too familiar scene. One right out of his nightmares.
He stood and walked to the observation point overlooking the runway. A couple of planes were waiting to take off, another was off-loading. Except for the weather, nothing seemed out of sync.
I’m just borrowing trouble.
Fifteen minutes passed, and then Flight 209 was a half hour late and before he knew it, an hour overdue. And, the information on the monitor hadn’t changed.
He’d been up and down the terminal a dozen times, walking, trying to pass the time and ease the nervous tension that kept growing within him. Now he was back at the arrival gate, standing at the windows and watching the skies.
Suddenly, the skin crawled on the back of his neck and he turned.
Nearby, a child was crying. A teenager was on a cell phone.
A weary traveler had given in to exhaustion and was sound asleep, his head lolling, his mouth slack as every now and then a slight snore escaped.
The attendant at the check-in desk was on the phone.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to warrant the gut-wrenching instinct he’d had that he was about to be attacked.
He glanced up at the monitor and sighed, then out of curiosity, back at the attendant. But when her expression suddenly froze and he saw her look up in fright, the same sensation came over him again, this time pulling a kink in the knot already present in his belly.
Easy. It doesn’t mean a thing.
Down the broad walkway, a small hom honked three times in succession. “Coming through. Coming through.”
His focus shifted to the electric cart coming down the terminal.
It stopped in front of the attendant’s desk as she ran out from behind the counter.
When she handed the driver a computer printout, the other man grimaced and wiped a hand across his face.
Ryder stared as they scanned the list together.
When the driver lifted his head and began to scan the waiting area, Ryder knew. He didn’t know how, but he knew.