Beers, Lies and Alibis (Warblers Point Series Book 2) (16 page)

Clearing his throat, Booker said, “Well, I guess this is it. Sorry again about your shirt and my clumsiness.”

She smiled a perfectly straight-toothed smile at him and said, “It’s no problem. Hey, I never caught your name.”

“You’re right, how rude of me. I’m Booker.”

“Booker, it’s nice to meet you.”

They stood there shaking hands when Booker finally said, “Are you going to tell me your name?”
 

She laughed. “Keara.”

Keara, it was such a pretty name…to go with such a pretty…

“Wait, Keara…as in Keara Walsh, the Victoria’s Secret model?”

Avoiding the question, she looked down at her ticket in her hand and then crinkled her brow. “What time is it?”

Booker glanced at his watch, “It’s five past seven.”
 

In that instant, all the color that was in Booker’s body drained completely to the floor.
 

“Oh shit, my flight!”

Without even thinking about the girl in front of him, he turned on his heels and booked it to his gate that was a couple gates down. Blood started to boil in Booker’s head as he thought about the possibility of missing his flight. He could not miss his flight, not when Fiona needed him so much.
 

Fear vanished when he saw people still sitting around his gate as he approached. He couldn’t imagine what he would have done if he missed his ticket out of the godforsaken airport that wasn’t bringing him much luck.
 

He pulled out his ticket and was just about to walk up to the counter when he realized, as he was walking up, his plane was pulling away from the jetway.
 

“No, no, no….call them back,” Booker said, while slamming his ticket down on the counter.
 

“I’m sorry sir, it’s too late.”

Booker was just about to respond when an out-of-breath girl sidled up next to him.
 

“No, please don’t tell me that’s the flight taking off for Warblers Point.”

Booker turned and made eye contact with those piercing blue eyes that were starting to haunt him.
 

Trying to ignore the fact that the blue-eyed beauty was headed to Warblers Point as well, Booker turned his attention to the airline attendant.
 

“Is there any way to call it back?” Booker asked, almost begging.
 

“I’m sorry sir, we don’t do that.”

“Well, how come I wasn’t called, you knew I was checked in. This is crap.” Booker’s voice was starting to rise. He was never the person to make a scene, but good God, he needed to get to Fiona and now that opportunity was slowly slipping away.
 

“Please lower your voice sir.”

Booker was just about to snap back when Keara cut him off. “Ma’am, are there any more flights out to Warblers Point tonight?”

The lady, who Booker now pinned as Roshanda, thanks to her name tag, quirked her eyebrow and then started tapping away on her little computer in front of her with her mouth drawn to the side. Booker would never hit a lady, but he felt the urge to slap that side smirk off Roshanda’s face.
 

She tapped away on her computer for what felt like forever until she looked up and said, “Nope. Sorry.”

Gritting his teeth, Booker said, “Is there anything going out near Warblers Point? Like Burlington or Manchester?”

Roshanda rolled her eyes and started tapping away again, as the back of Booker’s neck started to heat up from a mixture of pure hatred, annoyance, and anxiety. There was no way this was happening to him right now, not when he was so close to being with his girl.
 

“The only outgoing flight I have room on at this time is the nine o’clock flying into Albany, New York.”

Booker quickly pulled out his phone and did a Google search on driving time and saw that it would take him two and a half hours to drive to Warblers Point from Albany, which wasn’t too terrible.
 

“Fine, that works.”

“Would you two like to sit together?” Roshanda asked, while wiggling her eyebrows.
 

Booker blew out an exasperated breath; it was going to be one hell of a night.
 

***

“Here you go, Ma,” Fiona said, as she handed her mom some coffee. “I put some Irish Cream in there for you,” she said with a wink.
 

“That’s me girl. Ya know just how I like it.”

“Thought you might need the extra kick.” Fiona had put some Irish Cream in hers as well. She wasn’t planning on it, but after the phone call she received from Booker about missing his flight, she needed a little kick as well.
 

“What’s got ya brow all cocked out?” Fiona’s mom asked.
 

Fiona knew she was going to have to divulge what was on her mind because her mom wouldn’t stop bothering her until she did, plus it would be nice to have her mom think of something other than their father, who was still lying in bed in front of them with tubes connected to his body, helping him live.
 

“Booker called. He missed his flight.”

“How the Sam hill did he do that?”

“I have no clue,” Fiona replied. It was very unlike Booker to miss a flight, especially with such a long layover. He must have had his attention elsewhere to do such a thing and where that attention was, she had no clue, but it was sure as hell bothering Fiona.
 

“What are ya not tellin’ me?” Mary Margaret asked, while taking a long sip of her coffee, which impressed Fiona, since her own cup was still too hot to touch.
 

“Well, he called and said he was with a travel companion now. They both missed their flight and will now be flying into Albany and driving up to Warblers Point together.”

“What’s wrong with that? If I had to do that, I would want a travel companion as well.”

Always the logical one, Fiona thought.
 

“It’s the travel companion that’s bothering me. It’s a girl.”

Mary Margaret laughed, seriously laughed at Fiona. Her mom hadn’t laughed in a while and the fact that she was laughing at Fiona’s expense confused her. Fiona wanted to be happy that her mom was still able to have some fun, but then again, she wasn’t too happy about the fact that her mom was laughing at her.
 

“Oh me darlin’ girl, do you think Booker would cheat on ya?”

The thought of Booker with another woman drove Fiona crazy. She knew the love they shared ran deep, deeper than anything she had ever felt, but the fact that she was a small town bar maid still ran in the back of her head. She wasn’t good enough for the big-time director Booker James and she found that out really fast when she moved out to California to be with him. When they were in Warblers Point, it was different. They were in her element; she felt comfortable in her own skin. But when they were in Los Angeles, she was so far out of her element that she actually felt unworthy of being in the same state as Booker. There were a million other women out there more appropriate for him to date. So, she always wondered if, one day, Booker would actually clue in and see what she saw day in and day out, that he was way too good for her.
 

“Fiona…” Mary Margaret cut off Fiona’s thoughts.
 

Shyly, Fiona responded, “I don’t know…maybe.”

“That’s blarney and ya know it. Booker is a good boy and he would never cheat on ya. He may be all blond hair and richer than we could imagine, but he would never cheat on me girl. He is in love with ya, he would do anything for ya.”

Fiona tried to hold back the chuckle at Mary Margaret mentioning Booker’s blond hair. As an extremely Irish and very Catholic mother, she always saw her children falling for the same breed. Irish Catholic, dark-haired, dark-eyed and fair-skinned was always on Mary Margaret’s radar. So the fact that Booker, first of all was named Booker, secondly had blond hair and blue eyes, and thirdly was tan and magnificent, threw Mary Margaret for a loop. But despite all of Booker’s Irish shortcomings, Mary Margaret still fell in love with him and approved his “courtship” with Fiona.
 

“I know I should trust him, which I do, but I just don’t think I trust other people, you know? Girls are always throwing themselves at him, even when I’m with him, holding his hand. They just don’t care. And you know what the sad part is? Whenever I see the girls who try to get his attention, I always think, wow, they would be much better suited for Booker than me.”

Mary Margaret set her cup of coffee down on one of the night stands and then pulled Fiona’s hands onto her lap.
 

“Now listen to me and listen to me good.” Her mom got serious. “Yer me girl and that means I’m supposed to love ya no matter what, right?” Fiona nodded, not really knowing where her mom was going to go with this. “Well I do love ya, but I don’t have to love the man ya love. I love the man ya love because he is gentle with ya. He takes care of ya and sees ya for who ya’re, not who he wants ya to be. He kisses the ground ya walk on and worships everythin’ about ya. I see the way he looks at ya, as if ya’re the best and brightest thing that has ever happened to him and he’s right, ya’re. That is why I love him, because he sees ya the way I see ya; beautiful, bold, daring, sweet and the sun in our life.”

Tears threatened to cascade down Fiona’s cheeks as she took in the wise words from her mom. She had to have confidence in the relationship she had built with Booker. He loved her for a reason; she needed to remember that. Yes, he could have any girl he wanted, but he chose Fiona; he chose to live in her town when he wasn’t on a job and he chose to spend every waking moment he could with her. Even though she knew she didn’t feel good enough to be with him, she needed to remember she couldn’t make that decision for him. If he wanted to be with her, then she was going to take advantage of his feelings until he finally realized that, in fact, he could be with someone better.
 

“Thanks Ma.”

“Now don’t get all fussy. We have some prayers to say.”
 

Mary Margaret reached down next to her and pulled out a bag that looked actually quite heavy.
 

“Got a stack of Bibles in there?” Fiona asked, while laughing to herself. It would be Mary Margaret’s style to gather every Bible in town to set around her father’s bed.
 

“No, even better.” As she was saying it, Mary Margaret pulled out the biggest damn rosary Fiona had ever seen. The beads were the size of apples and were almost blindingly colorful and...spray-painted. The crucifix was the size of Fiona’s femur and deathly disturbing because it was a baby doll with a crown of thorns attached to its head. At closer inspection, Fiona noticed everything was strung together by rope and the “beads” were pool noodles, chopped up and spray painted neon orange and lime green. The colors were extremely offensive to Fiona’s eyes.
 

“Ma, did you…make this?”

“Well of course,” Mary Margaret said, as she draped the homemade prayer necklace over her sleeping father. “Ya can’t buy arts of work like this in the store. Ya got to scour the store and fix it with ye own hands.”

Arts of work?

“But…why so big…and bright?” Fiona said, while trying not to laugh at the sight of her father draped in what looked like a Sunday school kid’s project gone wrong. Fiona itched to grab her phone and take a picture to show her brothers because there was no way in hell they would believe their mother nailed a baby doll (girl baby doll, nonetheless) to a cardboard cross, placed a crown of thorns on the kid and took a red sharpie marker to its head to mark where the thorns made contact with the plastic flesh of the doll.
 

“Ya think we are the only one’s prayin’ for their loved ones right now? Oh no, we need God to take notice and this gem is goin’ do the trick. He can’t miss it.” Mary Margaret maneuvered the baby Jesus crucifix so it was propped on Carlin’s leg, therefore making sure it was the first thing people saw when they walked in the room. The hospital staff was one lucky crew.
 

“There.” Mary Margaret placed her hands over her mouth and shook her head. “Oh ye father, if only he could see this, he would be so happy to have the world’s brightest and largest rosary draped all over him.”
 

Mary Margaret beamed with pride as she carefully stroked the rosary and took the entire sight in. Fiona couldn’t break her mom’s heart by telling her that her precious art project took a wrong turn when she started spreading the naked baby doll across the cardboard crucifix.
 

Instead, Fiona grabbed her mom’s hand and stood next to the bed as they touched each “bead” and said their prayers with only their beloved O’Leary in the forefront of their minds.
 

***

Finn was tired as hell after talking to the fire inspectors, writing down a list of supplies they needed to rebuild and then shopping all day at the Home Depot that was inconveniently two towns over. They just made it back into town before the snowstorm that they were expecting started sprinkling the town with white snowy flakes.