Honeymoon for One (4 page)

“I can’t get over it. You look fabulous!” Angie, Michelle’s neighbor, helped carry the luggage upstairs to her room.

“I gotta admit,” Corrie chimed in, “you really do look hot in that outfit.”

“Mm.” Michelle had barely had enough time to retrieve her old luggage and check in for her flight, never mind change into her old clothes. It nearly killed her to pay the extra per suitcase charge on the cruise clothes she would probably never wear again in her life. But she wasn’t leaving them behind, either. Maybe she could donate them to a woman’s shelter or something.

Right. Like women’s shelters really need cruise clothes. She could probably store the clothes-filled suitcases in the attic. Maybe someday she’d take another trip. Maybe even with Kirk. Right. She didn’t know a dang thing about him other than his first name, and that he had a cute little heart-shaped birthmark on his left butt cheek. Like she could put that into a search engine to find him. She had no idea where he lived or what he did for a living. All she’d learned was Kirk did consulting. Whatever that meant. For all she knew, he could be a Mafia hit man.

She glanced around the room and noted, for the first time, all the shades of beige. Not a single bright color to liven things up. This was her reality. The trip was over.
The thrill of living
and
free as a bird
were history. Home less than two hours and already she wondered if any of it had been real. Her left hand closed over the dangling charm on her right wrist.
Definitely real
.

Corrie plopped onto her sister’s bed. “Steven has called every day since their return from Vegas. I saved all the messages.”

Angie pressed her lips together and glared at the kid. Pam rolled her eyes and gently brushed Michelle’s arm. “We weren’t going to mention
him
yet. Give you some time to settle in first.

“It’s not like she can avoid them forever,” Corrie continued. “I mean, Beth’s her best friend.”

“Was,” Pam snapped.

“Is, was, whatever.” Corrie waved a dismissive gesture. “Do you know they’ve been home almost a week, and Beth’s hardly left the house. I heard she took a leave of absence from work.”

“How could your sister know? She’s been gone having a great time without the Rat Bastard. Haven’t ya, hon?”

“Pam, please.”

“Oh, for land sakes. Corrie’s not a baby.”

“’Bout time someone noticed.” Corrie folded her arms across her chest.

Pam shot the teenager a don’t-push-your-luck glare before turning back to Michelle. “Tell us about the trip. I’m guessing from the tan you didn’t spend the whole time locked up in your cabin.”

Not the whole time
. Michelle bit back the smile that threatened to overtake her face, slid the now empty suitcase under her bed, then opened the bag with all the gifts she’d bought. On top was the pink-and-white Prada knockoff purse she’d nabbed in Nassau for only ten dollars.

Corrie leaped from her corner of the bed to snatch it up. “Sweet.”

"Good, because it's for you." At the time Michelle had debated between the small pink or the larger brown. Until now she hadn’t been sure she’d made the right choice. “I, uh, gather Beth moved into Steven’s house?”

“So we
are
gonna talk about this?” Pam asked.

“No.” Michelle kicked off the stiletto heels she’d grown accustomed to walking in and slipped on her Bugs Bunny slippers. For at least a little while longer she was going to wallow in the wake of the best ten days of her life. She handed Pam a set of brightly painted wooden fish. “Here.”

Pam scooped up the multisized fishes. “I love them!”

“The moment I saw them, I knew they were meant for you.” Michelle turned to Angie and handed her a heavy bundle of towels.

“What’s this?”

“I didn’t want it to break.”

Balancing the bundle on her lap, Angie slowly removed the layers of beach towels. “Oh, my!”

“To add to your collection.” Michelle wasn’t sure if the Caribbean theme might be too over-the-top for Angie’s more traditional teapot collection. If she’d been shopping for Beth, Michelle wouldn't have had any trouble picking the perfect gift. She knew Beth Norton better than she knew herself. Or so she'd thought.

“It’s lovely.” Angie held up the small teapot. Designed to look like an island cottage, the lid doubled as the tan thatched roof, the square base consisted of a sky-blue house with pink windows, and splashes of yellow, purple, and red flowers. Trunks of palm trees on either side formed the spout and handle. Her smile beamed. “Wow. This is beautiful. So different from anything else I have. Thank you.”

“No, thank you for convincing me to go and for staying with my sister.”

She’d bought some more stuff for her sister, a T-shirt that changed colors in the sun, flip-flops covered in tiny seashells, and a myriad of other gewgaws she couldn’t resist splurging on.

“What’s this?” Corrie placed the straw hat on her head, laughing. “Like you’ll have anywhere in Bluffview you could wear this.”

“That’s enough, young lady.” Michelle reached out to retrieve her hat when Pam’s fingers wrapped around her wrist.

“
What
is
this
?”

“I believe it’s called a charm bracelet.”

Pam studied the piece more carefully, stealing a glance in Michelle’s direction before looking back again. “This, my friend, is not the sort of thing a woman usually buys for herself. Spill.”

“There’s nothing to
spill
. I don’t usually take vacations or go parasailing, but I did. I saw this in the store window and fell in love with it. That’s all.”

Corrie sprang to her knees, her eyes round as the moon. “You went parasailing?”

“I did.” She hadn’t meant to let that slip, but at least Pam was off the scent of the bracelet.

“Really?” Angie asked.

“Really.” Michelle closed the suitcase, brushed her hands together and looked to her friends and sister, a waiting audience expecting more information. Too bad she wasn’t planning on sharing anything else. Adventurous Micki was gone. Steadfast Michelle was back. “So, what’s for dinner?”

***

“Hey, man.” Kirk followed his friend Dave over to the baggage claim. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Deb and I agreed picking you up at the airport and feeding you dinner was the least we could do after I crapped out on you at the last minute.”

Kirk lifted a lazy shoulder. “It all worked out.”

“How’d things go with the brunette? She was a brunette?”

“Yeah. And okay.” He didn’t know why, but he didn’t feel like talking about Micki.

“That bad?”

Kirk spotted his bag and pulled it off the carousel. “It was fine. You know how cruises are. They’re pretty much all the same. Seen one island, you’ve seen them all.”

“Right. How was Martinique?”

“Wet. It’s a rain forest.”

“Next trip is where? Montserrat, right?”

“Unless I land the Cairo contract. If that comes through, Montserrat will have to wait.”

“You think you have a chance at it?” Dave led the way to the parking lot.

“Not really, but it would be one hell of a break. Global reputation, playing with the big boys.”

“And in the meantime?”

“I've got a small sweeper contract for the communications group I did the radio station job for a couple of years ago. Now they're into buying and dismantling newspapers. Project starts Monday.”

“That soon. How long you figure it’ll take?”

“Short and sweet. Preliminary info seems pretty cut and dry. Small-town operation, excess spending, overstaffed, stuck on doing things the way they’ve always been done. I should be in and out in less than six weeks. Eight tops. If Cairo calls, I'll be ready to rock and roll.”

Dave clicked the key fob unlocking his car doors from several car lengths away. “Don’t you ever get tired of playing Ebenezer Scrooge? Always looking at the bottom line?”

“That’s what I get paid for. You can’t take a company from the red to black if you ignore the bottom line.”

“Right.” Dave popped open the trunk and waited for Kirk to load his suitcase before slamming it shut. “Listen, Deb’s waiting for us at the apartment. You don’t mind if we eat in, do you?”

Kirk slid into the car and buckled his seat belt. “Depends on whether or not she’s taking another cooking class and plans to use me as a guinea pig.”

“No.” Dave smiled. “Her brief foray into Chinese delicacies was her last. From now on it’s strictly down-home cooking. I’m hoping to prove a terrace is all the outdoor entertaining space we need.”

“Ah, she’s in buy-a-house mode, isn’t she?”

Dave pulled out of the parking lot. “Don’t start on me.”

“I warned you, man. In the beginning they're all sweet and agreeable. Then everything goes to shit in a hand basket. First, it was the dog, now it’s the house. Next it’s the kids, then the bigger house, the college fund, and the club sports team. You’ll be locked in an office sixteen to twenty hours a day, six to seven days a week to pay for all of it. Twenty years down the road, while you’re working your ass off to pay for your family’s lifestyle, that sweet young girl you married runs off with another guy ’cause you don’t have time to have fun like you used to. The American trap. A slow, steady decline.”

Dave shook his head. "Someday, buddy, you’re going to meet a woman who shoots all that cynicism to hell, and I plan on having a front-row seat when she does.”

“Won’t ever happen.” In twelve years, only one woman ever made him rethink his set-in-stone rule of no strings attached. In the end, he’d resisted the temptation. No, he was safe. He doubted he would ever meet another Micki Bradford in his lifetime. “So, what’s for dinner?”

So far, so good. Almost an entire day home in her real world, and she was holding up just fine. Michelle, Angie, and Corrie sat nestled in a back booth at The Pancake House just outside the city limits. Pam offered to break her date with Bernie Crawford to join them, but Michelle insisted it wasn’t necessary.

After ten days of nonstop gourmet meals, even though it was suppertime, all she craved was a tall order of blueberry whole wheat pancakes with low calorie syrup. Besides, she wasn’t ready to face a world with her best friend and fiancé married to each other. Not yet, and anyplace in town she was bound to run into someone who wanted to gab about the newlyweds. Or worse, bump into the newlyweds themselves. The Pancake House was just far enough away to assure her a peaceful dinner in a Steven-and-Beth-free zone.

“Did I miss anything important while I was gone?”

Angie developed a sudden interest in the silverware, and Corrie focused much too intently on sipping her soda.

“Okay. What happened?”

Corrie pushed the drink away and leaned back in her seat. “You might as well tell her.”

“No. We agreed.
You
did it.
You
tell her.”

“It’s no big deal really. Just a little party.”

Angie began tapping her forefinger on the table.

“All right. I told Angie I was spending the night at Brittany’s. Brittany told her mom she’d be spending the night at our house.”

Probably the oldest trick in the teenager handbook, but Michelle never thought she would have to worry about her little sister pulling that stunt on her or on the person she’d left in charge for ten days. “Go on.”

Corrie stared into her drink, twirling the straw. “You remember the Sadie’s dance was the Saturday after you left.”

Michelle nodded.

“Billy Webb hosted the after party. An all-night party.”

Michelle never hid her feelings well, and her shock must have showed, because when Corrie looked up from her drink, she rambled on more quickly.

“It’s not like his folks weren’t there or anything. And it was a small party. His mom said he could have twenty people. I knew you wouldn’t let me go, so I didn’t ask. But after you left, we figured out Angie would let me stay at Brittany’s, and if Brittany’s mom thought she was here, well...” Corrie shrugged.

“Just tell me what happened.”

“Angie called Brittany’s house to check on us—”

“Actually, I called to find out what time you wanted me to pick you up,” Angie interrupted.

“I’d told you I didn’t need a ride home.”

“I know, but you didn’t take the car, and I didn’t want Brittany’s mom to think she had to bring you home. Besides, I didn’t know if her family had plans for the next day, and I didn’t want to disrupt them.”

“We’d only been at Billy’s for about an hour before Angie and Brittany’s mom showed up to drag us home. It was
so
embarrassing.”

“She’s been grounded for almost a week.” Angie pushed her plate away. “She’s all yours now.”

Michelle stared at her little sister. What would her mother have done? Said? At least Corrie had the good graces to look repentant, but was that an act? She couldn’t take a chance. Couldn’t risk Corrie making any more mistakes. “And so are the car keys.”

Corrie’s gaze met hers. “The car?”

Michelle nodded, expecting an argument or a tearful plea. Instead, like a set of matching bookends, Corrie and Angie turned stiff as stone. Their faces ashen. And then Michelle knew. She didn’t have to turn around to see, she just knew. “Are they coming this way?”

Angie slid her gaze to Michelle. “I don’t think they see us.”

“No.” Corrie relaxed. “They’ve gone the other way. Around the corner.”

Palms sweating, Michelle rubbed her hands along her jeans. “It’s okay. I’m bound to bump into them sometime.” Of course she would run in to her ex-fiancé and his new bride around town. Bluffview wasn’t a major metropolis. She couldn’t hide forever. Still, she hadn't expected to run into them here. Tonight. Her heart raced at warp speed, and her stomach flipped over, then sank to the floor.
I’m not ready. Not yet. Not now.

“I’ll get the check.” Angie waved at the waitress behind the counter, Michelle nodded.

The next few minutes passed in a silent haze. Whatever Angie and Corrie might have said, Michelle didn’t hear them. All she wanted was to get out of the restaurant unseen. And she wasn’t even going to think about seeing
them
. There wasn’t enough time in the day to prepare herself for a glimpse of the happy newlyweds. Walking closely behind Angie, she kept her eyes on the exit.

Out the door, she took a deep breath and stopped herself from running across the parking lot. Fueled by the urge to flee, she beat Angie and Corrie to the car by several paces. Buckled in the front seat, she told herself not to look.

Fingers curled around the steering wheel, she pulled out of the space and pointed the car toward the exit. Eyes focused on the ground ahead, she would not look. She wouldn’t. But she did.

In the booth by the window she saw them. Holding hands. Michelle’s grip tightened, her knuckles grew white with tension.

Only weeks ago she’d been the one trying to eat with just one hand while Steven held the other, anticipating a happy life, growing old together. She tried to look away. Ignore the hurt.

She wanted to hurry home and hide in the safety of her bedroom, to forget the betrayal. Instead, the car slowed, her gaze locked on Beth. Her best friend since kindergarten straightened her shoulders, pulled her hand back, and turned to look out the window.

“Michelle?”

Despite the concern in her sister’s voice, Michelle couldn’t turn away, couldn’t stop looking, wondering. How? Why? Foot firmly on the brake, her gaze lingered until Beth’s gaze latched onto hers.

“Shouldn’t we be going?” Angie asked, her voice dripping with the same concern as Corrie’s.

“Yes. Yes, we should.” Michelle dragged her gaze away, stepped on the gas, and turned the car toward the street. Everything was all wrong.

***

Monday couldn’t come fast enough. A house had only so much dust, and two people just didn’t generate that much dirty laundry. If Michelle scrubbed her bathroom one more time, she’d have stripped the glaze clean off and turned the ceramic tile to dust.

At the office, stacks of files teetered precariously on her normally orderly desk. At least now she had something to keep her mind busy, distracted. It would take her weeks to catch up.
Thank God.

Maybe if she buried herself in paperwork, she wouldn’t notice how every person who passed by her desk looked at her as though she’d lost her best friend. Both of them.

“Want to talk?” Pam leaned against the file-laden desk.

“It’s not as bad as it looks. I should be able to find my desktop in a decade or so.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Yeah, she knew, except she’d spent all morning trying to forget that her fiancé and best friend were now husband and wife.

"Okay, I'll play along." Pam dropped a manila file on Michelle’s desk. “We’ve got the final numbers on last quarter.”

Michelle moved the pencil holder Pam had bumped an inch to its proper place, then opened the file and leafed through the pages. “Ooh,” she hissed. “This is worse than I thought.”

Pam nodded. Each page was bleaker than the one before.
Ad revenues were falling like stones off a cliff.

“There’s more.”

Michelle closed the folder, tapped it on her desk and set it squarely on the short stack of files she'd been working with. “Do I really want to know?”

“Depends on how much you like your job.”

“About as much as I like to eat.”

“While you were away, we got the word. Mr. Harrison is gone. They’re sending some new hotshot hatchet man to trim the fat.”

“My God. Ed Harrison has been here since—”

“Forever,” Pam finished for her.

Michelle’s stomach did a nervous flip. “How many jobs will be cut?”

“Sally from personnel didn’t say. Supposedly Mr. Hatchet Man is only coming to
evaluate
, but we all know what that really means.”

“Blast. I’d hoped some of the new sales incentives would help the numbers. When is this new guy expected to arrive?"

“Sometime today.”

Michelle swallowed her surprise, set the pen on her desk and leaned back in her chair. Hopefully she’d struck a casual, laissez-faire pose, but she was pretty sure her body language screamed
jilted bride in denial
. “Do we know anything more about him? Like for starters, his name?”

Pam nodded and crossed her ankles. “Lloyd McEntire.”

“Lloyd? What kind of a name is that? No one names their kid Lloyd anymore. The man must be older than my aunt Millie's heirlooms.”

“All I know is he’s supposed to be some kind of miracle worker. The Lee Iacocca of the new millennium. Sally says he’s the guy responsible for turning around Stereo City.”

“What’s a guy who not only saves a regional retail outlet from bankruptcy but turns it into the number one national electronics store doing tinkering with a newspaper?"

Pam shrugged. “Beats me. But last week, Harmon Brody came down from corporate to make sure we had everything up to speed before Mr. Hatchet Ma...I mean McEntire gets here. You remember Harmon, don’t ya?”

“Wasn’t he the skinny fellow who always wore bow ties?”

“That’s him. He’s done real well for himself at headquarters. We went out for a few drinks. Not till his last day in Bluffview, of course. You know, appearances and all.”

Michelle almost laughed. Since when did the flaming redhead dressed in bright purple care about appearances?

“Anyhow, when I had him good and buttered up”—Pam looked around, and leaned closer—“he told me McEntire’s our last hope. We’ve been bleeding red ink for so long, some of the higher-ups are just itching to board us up and write us off.”

A small hammer started banging between Michelle’s eyes. “This McEntire better be a sanctified miracle worker. I can’t afford to lose this job. I can’t.”

“None of us can, honey. But don’t you worry. I’ve done a little checking around, and this guy is
the
best. Really he is.”

“Excuse me.” A male voice came from behind Michelle. A deep, sexy, and dear-God-it-couldn’t-be familiar voice. “I was told I’d find Mr. Harrison’s assistant here.”

Pam straightened to her full height, puffing her chest out and grinning like a cat about to pounce on her next canary. “I’m Pamela Stuart. How may I help you?”

Michelle held her breath. It couldn’t be him. Kirk most likely lived somewhere in California. Probably scoping out his next Mafia hit at this very moment. Or jumping out of an airplane somewhere.

“I’m Lloyd McEntire. I’ll be replacing Mr. Harrison temporarily.”

She breathed a relieved sigh. But how could two men have that same bone-melting sexy voice? And how the heck was she supposed to work with someone whose every word would remind her of the ten best days of her life? She had no idea, but sitting with her back to her new boss was most definitely not the smartest way to keep her job.

Rolling her chair to the side, she pushed to her feet and turned to meet... “Oh, God.”