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One
Isabella Grace watched a fat snowflake fall into the rapidly growing mass at the corner of the massive window. The murmur of passengers and distant cry of a child fuzzed at the edges of her brain.
She longed for the padded silence that the oncoming storm promised, but there was nothing silent at the airport. Not the busy tractors and snowplows outside, nor the booming speakers with directions to ticket counters to re-book flights, and most especially not the overtired children and adults.
If she’d been home she would have watched through the skinny windows and let the blanket of silence ease her. But that was just a wish. Home was filled with just as much noise. Strained small talk and sympathetic stares were even louder there.
So she’d escaped into work. Her once endless list of requests was dwindling with every trip. In fact she’d added personal delivery to the rarer finds on request. Between the Lines was expanding again, and far ahead of her own accelerated schedule. She glanced down at the steel reinforced leather briefcase between her feet.
She was traveling to Seattle with a first edition “Little Prince” then moving on to Vancouver. One of her favorite researchers wanted to sell off some of his books to make a garden oasis for himself.
For the last six months she’d amassed a hefty bank account, so it was time to spend it on some new acquisitions. If her personal life was going to shit then it was nice to know that her business could benefit. Their reputation was growing and the word of mouth from their high end clients made for a rather nice nest egg.
The way they were going, Nic and Adam would have their dream house way ahead of schedule. And for now Bella was happy to build her bank account and keep busy.
Five months of the road had given her the time to get her head on straight about the summer. People no longer recognized her from the newspapers and Logan had been keeping a relatively low profile. It was a relief not to see his face every time she walked through an airport.
For the first month after the festival he’d been on the cover of every celebrity magazine and music journal. Their photo was too unimportant to make the national magazines. She was a nobody in the land of music and fame, but Aimee? Oh yes, Aimee Collen was mentioned often. And Lindsey York. And any other woman that breathed in Logan’s vicinity.
And she’d felt like an idiot. Still did.
Months later, she could feel him in the darkest parts of the night. The way he touched her hair, the nape of her neck, the calloused tips of his fingers tracing over her skin…all of it was as clear as if he was lying beside her.
It didn’t seem fair that a week could do that much damage to her. That his touch had become a phantom tattoo with all the permanence that entailed. Hell, she’d even tried a random hook-up the month before.
Disaster of the ages.
The minute she’d let him touch her in the elevator she’d known. All she could do was compare his touch to Logan’s. And the stranger had been lacking in every way. Fumbling and nervous where Logan had been sure and gentle, then alternately rough and determined. Logan had taken cues like a longtime lover and held her like he couldn’t bear to let her go.
The stranger was nice enough, but he wasn’t going to be the one to erase Logan’s touch. It would have had the opposite effect. So she’d extracted herself with as little drama as possible. The guy had been affable enough to know it wasn’t happening. She’d gone back to her room and got drunk on the offerings in her mini bar.
An expensive lesson, but it had reinforced her need to put the business first. Airports and auction houses were her home right now. Estate sales were her trip manifest and exhaustion was the only thing getting her through the night.
Standing there at the window where the filmy snow clung to the glass in fatter pieces left her weary. Too much time to think and she was so flipping tired of thinking. She lifted her briefcase and carry-on and escaped to the newsstand.
She avoided the racks of magazines and went right for the spicy Chex Mix and Diet Coke. Dinner of champions. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a woman w
earing a white dress blouse with a familiar windbreaker.
Familiar because she’d noticed the woman before. The jacket seemed far too thin to wear in Chicago. She knew the Windy City habitants were a hearty people, but parkas were the clothing of choice in January. Even more disturbing, she’d seen that windbreaker in San Francisco last week. Remarkable in its truly terrible fashion sense, especially when paired with a Michael Kors blouse.
She turned and the flash of midnight blue over white disappeared.
One too many flights this week?
Or was she on the same schedule as another poor traveling idiot?
Bella was getting to know the stewardesses on the flights, why wouldn’t she see familiar faces in the airports? She shook her head and pulled out her wallet to stand in line with the rest of the bored passengers.
She went back to her gate and settled into a corner chair, tucking the briefcase between her booted feet and fished out her e-reader. According to the booming voice that owned her evening she wasn’t going anywhere for the next six hours.
The dark, erotic thriller she’d been pining for had finally been released. The books were her new addiction. They transported her out of the noisy airports and into a world where someone else’s problems made hers feel insignificant. Where passion and choice wasn’t always easy to navigate. She could empathize and find answers within the pages, and she could follow a red herring in the mystery and allow the characters to sweep her into their fucked-up world.
Hers could remain simple, the way she liked it.
By the time she came up for air—or more like her bladder made itself known after a twenty-ounce soda—she’d lost two hours and finished sixty percent of the book. She quickly took care of business and checked the arrival and departure boards on her way back to her corner of Gate C2.
Her flight had been bumped back another two hours, leaving her yet another six to get through. Part of her wanted to dive back into the book, but she didn’t want to finish it quite yet. She’d save it for the last two hours.
Bella wandered down to the shopping area. She bought Nic a ridiculous penguin wearing a life jacket and Adam an ugly hat. Lime green herringbone seemed about as perfect as could be for him.
Windbreaker girl came out of an aisle and stopped, dark eyes locked with hers. Bella tipped her head. The woman may have been trying to downplay her innate sense of style, but some things just couldn’t be hidden.
“Excuse me?”
The woman bolted down the aisle and over three. Bella shot forward. All right, what the hell? She caught sight of her in the beer aisle, then a moment later the woman disappeared completely.
“Bella, you are reading one too many spy thrillers.” She turned down the beginning of the wine aisles. The windbreaker she’d seen a moment ago hung on the shoulders of a woman wearing a simple oxford shirt.
The woman looked up at her with a friendly smile. “Shiraz or Riesling?”
Bella blew out a breath and her bangs ruffled against her forehead. “What?”
The stranger held up two bottles.
