Chapter 3
“What do you mean they checked out?” Beck stared down the slight man standing before him.
Beck had stared down angry raccoons, raging stallions, and one outraged almost-father-in-law. He’d be damned if he couldn’t stare down a hotel manager.
To his credit, the hotel manager stood his ground, which happened to be in front of the main hotel doors. Despite the heat, he wore a buttoned-up maroon jacket and a bright yellow tie. “The Summers have left for the airport, as have the O’Briens.”
Beck doubted that. The wedding party had over an hour head start on him. It’d be tight to get out of their wedding finery, pack, and check out. Granted, he didn’t see any of the Summers’ rental cars in the nearby valet lot. Although that might have been his father’s rented Camry in the corner.
Beck called his father, hoping to find him sympathetic to the situation or, at the very least, to discover Maggie’s whereabouts.
Kitty must have doubted the manager’s words as well. Her wide skirt brushed the man as she glided past with her grandmother.
“Señorita.” The manager scuttled around to block Kitty’s entrance. He wasn’t much taller than she was, but he outweighed her by at least fifty pounds. “The O’Briens and Summers have all checked out.”
“Not all the Summers.” Kitty lifted her chin in the air. “I haven’t. And neither has my grandmother.”
Beck’s call rolled to voicemail. Apparently, he was person non-grata with both the Summers and the O’Briens. He was used to his parents putting him second. They were a unit unto themselves. Still, disappointment pinched his shoulder blades. Today, of all days, he needed someone to have his back.
In front of Kitty, the hotel manager was standing firm. “The other Summers took everything. Their rooms are being cleaned.”
“Everything? From the room my grandmother and I shared with my sister?” Kitty’s voice dropped to a whisper and her eyes turned as big as a puppy’s. She seemed to retreat inside herself, as if tears might be imminent.
Beck was struck with the urgent need to comfort her.
As was the hotel manager. “I realize this comes as a surprise,” he said, leaning toward Kitty and changing his tone from commanding to conciliatory. “If I can do anything to help…”
Kitty nodded slowly, studying the man the same way she’d studied Beck in the truck on the way over. The same way she’d studied Beck when she’d been sitting on the curb at the church. In fact, it was the same way she’d studied Beck before she’d kissed him.
Thunder grumbled a warning in the distance and the hair on the back of Beck’s neck prickled.
Kitty sniffed and readjusted her grip on her grandmother’s arm, never losing that lost puppy look. “I believe your hotel is liable for our things and fiscally responsible for returning us home safely.”
Beck did a mental head-shake. Kitty hadn’t been building up to a meltdown. She’d been analyzing the situation and thinking about her next move! And all the while, she’d been milking his sympathies.
Sneaky.
Beck had trained horses just like Kitty. Ninety-nine percent of the time they acted tame and did a rider’s bidding. But then with little to no warning, they’d toss their head and take advantage–galloping headlong toward a brick wall in a deadly game of chicken, until their rider bailed and the horse wheeled away.
Some trainers found horses like that a lost cause. Beck considered them a challenge. The trick was to recognize the signs of rebellion and assert control before disaster struck. Not that Beck was going to waste time understanding Kitty. Since Maggie had left the premises, he was done with Kitty. He was going to find Maggie without her.
“We had assumed…” The manager stopped speaking, cleared his throat, and started again. “Since everyone left in a hurry, we…concluded that you were among the departing guests.”
“And where did the departed go?” Kitty blinked, still managing to look in need of care, when most likely she–like Beck–believed the hotel manager had been instructed not to let them in or tell them anything. “Atlanta, Tybee Island, or New York?”
The hotel manager opened and closed his mouth like a fish, a scaly yellow-trimmed fellow trapped between the net of hotel obligations and his misplaced desire to help a woman–a shark!–in need.
“They took my grandmother’s meds.” Kitty stroked Dotty’s short silver hair. “Without them…”
The hotel manager swallowed, but held firm.
As if on cue, Dotty blinked, managing to look more out of touch with reality than usual. “My pills are in the medicine cabinet at home.”
“We can’t fly to New York, Grandma. They took our purses with our credit cards and identification.” Kitty managed to look innocent and sound non-threatening as she delivered the coup de grace. “Which means we have no way of getting home without the hotel providing us with a car and driver.”
If Beck wasn’t on to Kitty’s con, he would’ve been concerned for Dotty. As far as he knew, she took no meds.
The hotel manager wrung his hands. “I believe they said Tybee Island.”
Props to Kitty. She’d gotten what Beck couldn’t.
“Beck.” Kitty turned those big dark brown eyes toward him before he could get away. “You drove down here.”
Immobile, Beck nodded. He knew what was coming and braced himself to refuse. He had to get to the airport. To the plane. To Maggie.
“We need a ride to Atlanta.” Those big brown eyes. Kitty had that woe-is-me act down.
Beck felt a strong tug of compassion. He fought against it the same way he fought against a race horse that wanted to run hell-for-leather out of the starting gate.
“Atlanta.” Kitty added a wan smile to her assault. “That’s where Grandma was scheduled to go next, to visit with her sister. And then I’ll need a ride to Tybee Island.”
Beck’s head was moving from side to side, so it was surprising when he said, “Let’s go. I might be able to catch Maggie at the airport.” He hurried around the truck to the driver’s side. “If so, you can drive my truck back.”
With a soft wrinkle in her brow, Kitty pointed to the hotel lobby. “But your things are inside.”
As, presumably, were his parents. He had no time to waste packing up or checking in with his folks. Beck hurried back around and pressed a business card in the hotel manager’s hand. “Send them to me.”
Kitty loaded her grandmother and the unlucky margarita bridesmaid dress back in the truck.
“They’d try to fly the same airline they flew in on, wouldn’t they?” Beck tugged his phone out of his pocket and tossed it onto Kitty’s big margarita-colored skirt. “Use my phone and see when the next flight out is.”
“You’re not going to make it,” Kitty said a short time later. “It leaves in thirty minutes. They’ll be through security by now.”
Fat raindrops hit the windshield.
Beck gunned it onto the highway and tugged his wallet from his back pocket. “Buy me a ticket.”
*
They arrived at the airport in the midst of a downpour with ten minutes to spare.
Kitty had been hoping they’d miss the flight completely. Even though she’d stopped the wedding, even though Beck would never make the plane, Kitty’s chest felt as hollow as it had the day she’d been unable to save a newborn. There were too many unanswered questions.
Beck parked at the departure curb. He grabbed his phone and leapt out, leaving his jacket over the headrest and his keys in the ignition. He was drenched before he reached the curb, yet he pressed on–his white shirt plastered to his muscled torso, his dark hair to his head.
The emptiness in Kitty’s chest expanded, filling her ears until it dulled the sound of the summer storm. That heart-sparking kiss. Maggie’s wail at the head of the aisle. Maggie’s refusal to talk to Kitty. The stupid horse named Mags. And Beck…She wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d left them at the church. Or at the hotel.
“That boy has gumption.” Grandma raised her voice to be heard over the relentless rain.
Beck disappeared into the terminal, determined to reach Maggie before she took off.
Thunder rolled. Rain came down so hard it bounced a good foot back into the air after hitting the ground.
No planes would take off in this weather. Maggie’s flight would be delayed. Beck’s chances of getting on board increased.
Kitty stared at Beck’s credit card in the ash tray, the one he’d left so she and Grandma could get home. He was a gentleman, but…She couldn’t have made a mistake.
And yet, the chest-hollowing, ear-clogging doubt persisted, more because of Beck than Maggie.
Was it the filly Beck wanted? Or her sister?
Kitty was 90% certain it was the filly.
“I said…” Dotty turned her face to Kitty’s and shouted, “He’s not right for Maggie.”
Kitty checked her grandmother’s face for signs that she needed medical treatment–dilated eyes, slack jaw, flushed face. Nothing about Dotty’s beloved features signaled she’d gone over the deep end for medical reasons. Still, “The family shouldn’t have left you behind.”
“Kathryn Jo Summer.” Grandma’s eyes narrowed and she rapped Kitty’s hand. “No one left me behind. You think I can’t see?” She shook as if her feathers had been ruffled. “Beck O’Brien is no underwear model Maggie chose as a summer fling. This will take time to re-weave the bonds of sisterly love.”
Kitty fell back against the door and took in her grandmother more completely. There was a spark of intelligence in her eyes and a determined set to her delicate chin. She looked sharper than she had in months.
Dotty crossed her skinny arms over her skinny chest. “I know I get lost in the past sometimes, but I try very hard to protect you girls. I always have, in my own way.” Her chin came up. “And today, someone needed to stand beside you, even if I had to hide in the ladies room to do it.”
“How sweet.” The hollowness in Kitty filled, at least partially.
“He’s not right for Maggie.” Dotty gave her a sideways glance, white eyebrows arched. “I tried to tell her…I think.” She covered her mouth with her fingertips, gaze growing distant. And then she waved her hand, waving her self-doubts aside. “Anyway, I don’t like the way your prom date looks at you.”
“Beck is harmless.” Those dark glares held no threat of violence. “But he is guilty of using Maggie for his pound of horseflesh.” Just don’t ask me to prove it.
“He stares at you like Ronald used to stare at me,” Dotty went on as if Kitty hadn’t spoken, a wistful note in her voice. “Before we were married.”
Kitty’s breath caught, just for a moment, and her heart wondered. But it was only one fleeting, selfish moment, before her loyalties returned. Grandma couldn’t be right about the type of glances Beck was throwing her way. That was anger, not passion. Regardless, “He says he loves Maggie.”
“Men intellectualize everything. Most don’t know squat about love.” Grandma pointed to a poncho-wearing traffic cop heading their way and blowing a whistle. “We’ve got to move.” Before Kitty could protest, her grandmother had unbuckled her seat belt and slid behind the wheel. She stretched her short leg toward the pedals.
“No.” Kitty tried to free herself, but the taffeta was bunched at her hips, burying the buckle.
Grandma put the truck in gear and stretched her foot toward the accelerator, punching it. They fishtailed.
“Stop. Slow down. Pull over.” That’s what Kitty should have said. Instead, she screamed.
The downpour became a typhoon. Kitty couldn’t see out the windshield.
“Quiet down,” Grandma continued driving blindly, trying to keep her eyes above the steering wheel and her foot on the gas, and not doing a good job of either. “Obviously, you don’t remember riding with your grandfather. I was always the better driver.”
They bumped into something, not hard enough to set off the airbags, but hard enough to stop the truck and make the engine hiccup.
“Did you hear that?” Kitty asked. But who could be certain of anything over the incessant rain?
“Dang fool.” Grandma put the truck in reverse, backed up, and then shot forward again, surging around the obstacle in their path–a hotel shuttle bus. “The cops said move it!” she shouted as she drove past.
Had Kitty thought Grandma was clear headed? Not a chance. “Pull over.”
“And risk getting arrested? No way.” Dotty merged into traffic with the same competitiveness Beck had shown. “I watch TV. I know what happens to ladies in the slammer.”