Chapter 2
TWO
Cora was trying to surreptitiously lean over and give her armpit a sniff. Sure, she didn't really do any heavy lifting on the job but she probably could use another application of her deodorant.
Ha! Like this guy would really be interested in her like that. He was probably just quiet because he was exhausted and frustrated. She certainly wouldn't blame him if he was. Goodness knows it could be hell stuck in an airport. She'd seen people melt down over less. So, what she was going to try and do was find him a way home.
Smiling to herself, she waggled her fingers to limber them up.
Then she looked up at him and grinned. "Weird?"
He shook his head. "We all have our strange habits and superstitions. Or in your case, finger limbering exercises, don't stop on my account. Besides, it looks cute."
"Ohhh." The noise came from one of the women on the other side of the counter. "Cute and nice. Can we keep him."
Cora barely resisted the urge to turn around and bare her teeth at the other women and hiss, 'Mine.'
She shook herself at the thought. She wasn't that person.
No matter how handsome he was.
Okay, okay. She had to put her mind back onto the matter at hand.
"Where are you headed?"
He leaned in on the counter. "Portland."
"Portland? Oregon?"
He winced a little at her confusion. "Maine."
Cora nodded. "I've never been to Maine. Is it as beautiful as people say?"
"More."
She saw him smiling out of the corner of her eye.
"Well, when everything is completely covered in snow."
She liked the light tone of humor in his voice. Having a good sense of humor was a huge plus. Lord knows her brother was short on laughter... all of the time.
"Hmm..." She looked at the notes on outgoing flights headed EAST from Chicago. "This is going to be tough."
Leaning to the side, she looked at Margo behind the counter. "Are you trying to route him around to the south and up the East Coast?"
Margo nodded. "I'm trying but with the weather delays on the earlier flights, I couldn't find any chain of flights that had a hope of connecting through to Bangor and the weather projection..."
Cora blew out a breath. "Well, here's hoping my mojo is still on the clock. Let's try to get you home for the holidays, okay?"
He smiled. "That sounds great."
She heard the enthusiasm in his voice and she liked it. She might not get to spend more than a few minutes with the handsome man, but she was going to make the most of it.
"Alright. Let's see what magic we can make happen."
"Thanks." She heard the earnest tone in his voice and found her cheeks heating at the thought of making him happy.
She wanted to shake her head at herself. Simple pleasures, right?
She really was a simple girl at heart. And this man?
She snuck a glance at him as she signed into the system. Goodness, he was hot in a scruffy kind of way.
Not that she liked scruffy.
Okay... so she liked scruffy.
Not that she'd admit it.
"Hmm... this might take awhile." She licked at her suddenly dry lips. "You're welcome to have a seat."
She looked over her shoulder at the bench by the glass wall.
"The bench is pretty comfortable. It's the one thing that they spent good money on in this area."
Cora looked back at the screen and started to type.
A few moments later, she lifted her gaze to see that he was still standing beside her.
She didn't know why but she started to smile. "Afraid I'm not going to fix this?"
"No," he shook his head, "I just want to stand here."
Her heart skipped a beat in her chest. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." He nodded and shrugged. "I don't mind standing here. Seeing that you're doing me a favor."
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling like a nutter.
"And since I'll probably never see you again in my life, you're gorgeous. I don't want to waste my chance to get to know you."
"Ohhh... did you hear that?"
Widening her eyes, Cora looked over at her former -friends. "Will you guys stop?"
Margo stared back at her with wide-eyed shock in her eyes but Janey looked like the cat that ate the flippin' canary.
"Why would we stop? This is the most entertainment we've had in this office in weeks."
Cora remembered the incident that Janey was talking about and softly groaned. "Don't remind me."
"Something bad happened?"
She heard the concern in his voice and it felt good.
Cora continued to search around the snow storm, looking for a way around the storm.
"Cora?"
His voice was softer, concerned.
It felt... good to hear that.
"Mmm hmm?"
"What happened a few weeks ago?"
She felt the tension climb up between her shoulders and she tilted her head in one direction and the other to ease the anxious feelings that came back up to the surface.
She didn't want to talk about it, but it seemed rude to just ignore the question.
She heard a door swing closed and turned to look. Margo and Janey had gone into the backroom.
They already knew what had happened, so they had probably gone in the back to avoid hearing it again.
"You... you don't have to tell me. Especially if it's difficult to talk about."
A second passed and he spoke again.
"I don't want to make you uncomfortable."
"It's not all that bad, really." She put a smile on her face and focused on the screen in front of her. "We had a passenger who was denied boarding on his flight and he came back here to get his flight rebooked, but even with us offering him a gallon of coffee to sober him up, he refused to help himself."
She grew quiet and tried another search when she got stuck in Atlanta.
Maybe she could get him on a connector flight with Jet Blue?
She started a new search and as the search engine did its thing, she looked up and found the space beside her empty.
Oh.
Shaking her head at herself she continued looking for flights to get Vince home to Portland, Maine.
She had mentioned him getting a seat on the bench.
Maybe he took her suggestion and just went to get a seat somewhere else.
Cora really didn't blame him for abandoning ship. He'd probably been stressing over his flight home while she'd been in the break room and changing her clothes.
"Hmm..." She bit into her lower lip as she closed the connection to Delta Airlines and opened a window for American Airlines. "Maybe I can route him through Dallas?"
There were a few flights that might work from there.
"He's probably going to have a few stops if this works. It might get really creative."
"I don't mind creative."
She startled at the sound of his voice and leaned away from him, folding her hands over her heart.
"Oh, god. You scared me."
She let out a breath when she saw the two cups in his hands. "What's that?"
He smiled, erasing the concern that had been there a moment earlier. "Sorry for disappearing on you, but I looked across the way and saw that the coffee shop didn't have a line. So I walked over there and asked them for two drinks with some serious levels of caffeine in them."
She laughed softly. "Double fisting it? Kind of reminds me of my brother Cam."
"Is he a caffeine fiend?"
She nodded. "And he taught me to become one, too."
He grinned back at her. "Really, now."
She rolled her eyes. "More of a case of Monkey see, Monkey do. But I blame my caffeine obsession on him. Not that he'll take the blame." She moved her hands back to the keyboard. "He's kind of an overbearing brother."
"Well, I can't blame him for being protective of you. That's what a brother is supposed to do." He held out the two cups. "So? Which one."
"Which..." She frowned at him. "What are you-"
"I got two. Which one do you want? I’ve got the," he looked at the label on the side of the one in his left hand, "Matcha Mochalatta or," he looked at the other one, "Whole-latta Macchiato."
He smiled and looked up to meet her gaze.
"Who named these things?"
She shook her head. "Someone with too much time on their hands or spent a lot of time on those poetry assignments in school."
"Here." He set both of the cups on the counter. "You pick when you want. I just wanted to get you something to say thanks for taking the time."
Her cheeks heated up and she reached over to pick up a cup. She decided to go for the one that was varying shades of brown. She took a sip and gave him a smile. "Sorry. I'm not big on green drinks."
He reached out and took the matcha-whatever it was and took a sip of it. "Better than those green drinks at the grocery store."
Cora nodded. "Those naked drinks. Or whatever they call it."
"Yeah. Naked."
She heard the slight grimace in his voice and felt it down to her bones, too. Why did she say that?
Because she was tired. Off of work.
And standing next to the hottest guy she'd ever seen, trying to send him to the opposite side of the country where she was going.
Can't win for losing, right?
"So you're on vacation, too? Where are you headed?"
Her hands froze for a moment on the keys.
"Too much information?" He cleared his throat almost a whisper of sound. "I'm not trying to pry. Well, I guess I'm just filling the time?" He swallowed another sip of the matcha drink. "Sort of."
"Oh, it's okay." She smiled at him a little. "I don't mind the question. We're passing the time and you," she frowned and opened a new screen on the computer when her search bottomed out, "are going to the complete other side of the country from me. "I'm headed to Hawaii."
"Hawaii? Wow. That is a world away from Maine."
She smiled at the shock she heard in his voice. And bit into her lip when she realized there was also a tone in his voice that sounded like envy. "Well, at least in Maine you can cuddle up in front of a fire and enjoy some hot chocolate."
"I'll trade it for a beer on the beach and sand between my toes."
She tipped her head to the side and grinned. "I guess it's a case of the grass is always greener, right? I miss the White Christmases we used to have growing up. I'm not looking forward to sweating around the Christmas tree."
"Doesn't sound too bad to me." He sighed. "My mom and grandma are waiting to give me the third degree on my life."
"Oh?" She looked at him for a moment. "Are they curious about your promotion opportunities in the military?"
His posture stiffened and he leaned away to look askance at her. "How... How did you know I'm in the Military?"
She felt bad for the creeping curiosity in his voice. "A couple of things. You have a USO tag on your duffel. That says you're at least family, but I'd guess that you're an adult beyond the years of a dependent."
He nodded, his posture relaxing a little. "That's pretty observant."
She shrugged. "Sort of. But you also have that... military air thing about you."
He narrowed his eyes at her, his face halfway between a smile and curious gaze. "An 'air'?"
"It's a look." She pursed her lips together as she hit a wall between flights and started looking through the Southwest flights to get her around the storm. "It's the way you stand. It says you can take care of yourself. You can take care of what the world throws at you."
"You sound like you have a better impression of me than my CO."
She shrugged. "My brother's in the military. Has been for almost a decade. I've seen him and the others in his team. Your energy feels like theirs."
A pop-up on the computer screen dashed her hopes yet again.
Damn it.
Cora was frustrated. She couldn't get the connecting flights she needed to get him to Portland that didn't involve him waiting at the airport for at least a day, if not more.
She felt like she'd failed him.
She looked up at him and saw something different in his gaze.
It looked like... admiration.
"That's... I don't think anyone's talked about me like that before."
He smiled and she almost cringed. She was about to disappoint him in just a few seconds.
"I was afraid that you were going to say that it sounded like some kind of metaphysical mumbo jumbo."
He leaned in closer to her and her eyes widened as she tried to guess what he was going to say.
And completely missed the mark.
"I bet you heard that from your brother."
She nodded. "He's always said that I'm one of those Madame Cleo people because I liked crystals as a kid. And then when I got older in school, I got even more into crystals, but also meditation and stuff like that. Cam said that he was waiting for me to put on a turban and get out a crystal ball to tell fortunes."
Cora felt some of her old frustrations well up again as she said the words, but she forced a smile on her face.
"Sorry. You don't need to hear me gripe about my brother."
"Well," he gestured at the USO tag on his backpack, "I'm kind of a stand in for him. So go ahead and get it out. Maybe it'll be cathartic."
Cora picked up the cup that he'd brought her and wiggled it back and forth. "It's not fair. You brought me something sweet. I don't think I can repay that by grumping at you in place of my brother."
He shrugged. "I'm a willing surrogate if you want to do it."
Her lips pressed tighter together. "That's not the only thing."
Vince looked at her with concern in his gaze and damn it, it made him look even more handsome. "What happened?"
"It's more what didn't happen," she explained and gestured at the computer with her free hand. "I can't get you home around the storm."
Oh, she really hated the look she'd put on his face so she tried to explain it to him.
"With the current cancellations and the delays that the National Weather Service are giving us, there are going to be more grounded flights. I can get you rebooked for tomorrow or the day after if you'd like..."
"But?"
She tried to smile but only managed a grimace. "But there's no guarantee when the storm will ease up. I'm afraid that you're likely to spend a day or two here at the airport." She rushed on to get to what she felt might help the disappointment. "There is a USO in Terminal Two and I can make sure you get over there and situated. You'll have access to all kinds of services there. Food and drinks, they have gaming stuff there..."
She saw him shrug at that.
"Not a fan of video games?"
"I'm more of a board game guy. Or cards."
Cora nodded. "Like my brother, then."
"Is that a good thing?"
She smiled, brightly this time. "That? Yeah. Some of my best memories of Cam are our family game nights."
"Phew, that's one good thing in my favor."
"More than one," she spoke before she thought about it. Cora shifted back to the USO information. "They have places to sleep and places to rest. And Wi-Fi if you need it."
He nodded and she hated to see the slightest crestfallen look on his face. "Well, I should call my mom, but I'm not all that eager to do that."
She flinched at his words. "Is she going to be really upset that you're going to be late going home?"
He looked up at the clock on the wall and then back at her.
Before he could answer, she interjected her own guess.
“Since it’s your mom and your grandmother is involved, too. I’m going to go with the answer Yes. Really upset.”
He shrugged. “They’re looking forward to me going being home for a few days. It’s been a while since I had that.”
Cora felt absolutely crestfallen.
“Let me get you scheduled on a flight tomorrow. Not too early, but mid-day. That’s what the weather service is calling a safe estimate. Then you can at least call your mom and tell her that you’ll be home, just a day late.”
Vince nodded, but she saw worry and hesitation in his expression as well.
She ducked her head down and focused on the keys in front of her, making sure to tag his ticket reservation so that they wouldn’t boot him from the flight if the flight actually happened.
“There.” She sent the reservation to print off a boarding pass for him at the desk and with a smile she moved around to grab it off of the printer. “I’ve got you back on flights to Portland, Maine. You’ll be a little over a day late, but maybe if you sweet-talk your commanding officer, they’ll give you a day or two extra.”
He chuckled softly. “Doubt it, but that’s a nice thought.”
Cora shook her head. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you.”
He shrugged it off. “I think you’ve done plenty for me. Including working after you clocked out.”
She grinned at the warmth of his smile. “I have a vested interest in helping our military flyers, so I’m happy to help.”
“Then,” he hesitated a moment before finishing his thought, “maybe you’ll consider doing me another favor?”
“Sure!” She didn’t have to think about that at all. What could he ask for that she wouldn’t do if she could to help him since he was stuck at the airport for the moment?
"Well, before your flight leaves, do you want to get something to eat?"
"Eat?" She blinked at him, unsure of exactly what he was saying. "With you?"
Vince laughed and shrugged. "My treat. You don't even have to sit with me if you'd rather not."
She shook her head, mostly at herself. "No."
"No?"
She groaned at herself. "I mean, no I don't want to sit by myself. Yes, I'd like to get something to eat... With you." She added on to clarify her answer. "But there’s no guarantee that I fixed your ticket problem. So I feel like you’d be thanking me for… nothing."
"You didn't make the weather go nuts. You didn't ground the flights. And really, you did me a favor trying to find a way around the storm so I could get home on time. As it is, you did me a big favor pushing my booking back."
"Oh," she hated that she sounded disappointed, "you don't owe me anything for that. I was happy to try. I know the airline hubs around the country really well. When I joined Alaska Airlines I had a pretty good mental image of the country and the different airlines. It reminded me of a board game that I used to play with my brother, only that game was about trains. But I got really good at seeing the big nationwide ticketing concepts, so that's why the girls thought I could help."
"Well, it doesn't really matter to me that you couldn't find me a way to get home today. I just want to spend some of my waiting time here at the airport with you." Vince looked at her in a way that she'd always wished that guys would look at her and she knew that she was going to do something really stupid.
"That's a good thing." She smiled at him and knowing that her cheeks were probably blushing bright red. "I want to spend some time with you, too."