Male Order Bride (26 page)

Lacey tried to smile, but her heart wasn't in it. He'd
just been gone a week; now here he was leaving town again. "How long
will you be gone this time?"

"A week, maybe two. I'm not sure," he answered.

Lacey bit her tongue to keep from badgering him. He never
told her exactly what he was doing or how long he was going to be. He
was always vague about time.
Get used to it
, she
reminded herself,
and think of the wonderful homecoming you
can give him, time after time after
. … "How many
times after this?"

He shrugged. "You know I have to leave town periodically.
Just the way you do."

"I wouldn't mind it so much if we could time our periodic
trips to coincide with one another."

"We'll try that next time. I'll know sooner what I'm going
to be doing after this trip."

"You're sure about that?" she asked, resigning herself to
the few hours she still had to enjoy with him before he jetted off to
only he knew where. She put her arms around his neck and sidled up to
him.

"Positive."

Lacey barely heard his response as she kissed him. Trust
Rafe. He knew what he was doing, and it always ended up making a lot of
sense.

"Where are you going this time?"

"I'm going to be moving around," he answered, giving her
the same vague answers that were his trademark. "I'll call you. I'll
let you know where I am when I know."

"When you get home this time, how long will you be here
before you leave town without me again?"

"As long as you want me to be," he answered. "As long as
you put up with me."

"Oh," Lacey said, and smiled. "Then I give you my
permission to go anywhere you need to go if that's what's going to
happen when you get back. Of course, you know you don't need my
permission to do anything you want to, Rafe."

"I know," he answered, and hugged her, and Lacey could
tell by the intensity of the hug that her words had awed him.

But now here it was with nearly the entire week past and
he had called her only once to tell her where he was, but he was
checking out of that hotel the next morning. At least he had called. It
showed he had her on his mind a little bit.

A very little bit
, the agitated side
of her answered. He could have sent her a postcard or a letter. She
hadn't gotten one word from him after the initial deluge of letters
he'd written to get her to go out with him the first time. Maybe she
should frame those letters with a brass plaque underneath —
Lifetime
Writings of Rafe Chancellor to Lacey Adams
. He'd started off
so well; where had she gone wrong?

"Lacey." Jane was standing in the doorway of the office,
trying to get her attention. "This just came for you, special delivery."

"What?" Lacey got up and met Jane halfway across the room
to see what the flat package was.

"I signed for it. It looks important."

Lacey took the special-delivery letter from Jane's hands
and turned it over. It was from some hotel in Chicago; wasn't that the
place Rafe had said he was leaving when he had called her the other
night?

She smiled, breaking a nail in the effort to open the flap.

"It's an airline ticket," she said, flipping through the
package. "To Denver." She looked inside the envelope again, and a small
note fell out. Lacey bent to the floor to pick it up.

"What does the note say?" Jane asked, trying to peer over
Lacey's shoulder.

Lacey turned the note right-side-up and read, "I'll meet
you. Love, Rafe."

Lacey couldn't stop grinning as she looked back at the
airline ticket. That was just like Rafe, surprising her with something
through the mail, from the first invitation for a date to the Stetson
hat to this. She flipped open the airline ticket again to read it more
closely.

"The twenty-third. That's tomorrow. Oh, blast," she
moaned, looking at the details of the connecting flights.

"What's the matter?" Jane asked. "You are going, aren't
you? You know we can handle the shop for as long as you need to be with
Mr. Perfect."

"There's no return ticket," Lacey said, checking through
all the documents. "It's just a one-way ticket."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing. I guess. But as usual, he hasn't told me what to
pack or for how long. He has given me nearly twenty-four hours notice
this time. But who cares? I'll be with Rafe tomorrow night."

"Well, I don't see any problem with that," Jane said. "Why
all this moaning and groaning?"

"It's just another one of those early-morning flights,
that's all. You have to get up before the roosters do, and you're dead
tired all day, and—"

"But you'll be with Rafe tomorrow night," Jane reminded
her.

"I love it! I love him! What should I take?"

"I don't imagine the man would mind too much if you just
showed up with nothing but your ticket," Jane said, grinning. "I think
it's just the most romantic thing I've ever heard of."

Lacey hugged the ticket to her chest. "It is. I've never
had someone just send me an airline ticket in the mail before with
orders to 'meet me.' And he's even paying for the ticket!"

"Did you expect anything less from a man like Rafe?"

Lacey shook her head. "But you know some of the duds I've
been out with. They've expected me to buy their rounds of beer."

"Don't forget that guy who expected you to get him an
entire wardrobe cheap, because you design clothes."

"I forgot about him," Lacey said. "All he needed was a Hong
Kong tailor, not a girlfriend."

"But he needed the tailor to get the girlfriend. Remember
how poorly he dressed?"

Lacey was laughing now, planning the packing of her
suitcases in her mind, with or without Rafe's suggestions. She'd better
arrive prepared for anything where Rafe was concerned. She had at least
learned that lesson.

The flight touched down in Denver twenty minutes early.
Lacey tried to calm her nerves at the excitement of seeing Rafe again
in just a few minutes, and let the more eager passengers get off the
plane ahead of her. But when she couldn't stand the suspense any longer
and there was a slight break in the line jamming the aisles for the
exit door, she stood up with her carry-on bag and joined the line
filing into the airport.

Ever since she had gotten the airline ticket yesterday,
she had been picturing this meeting with Rafe. She assumed he would be
waiting for her on the concourse. A man like Rafe would know how to get
past all the red tape with or without a ticket, and he would be as
eager to see her as she was to see him. He was probably getting worried
right this moment because all those people had gotten off the plane
ahead of her. He might be wondering and worrying right this minute if
she had gotten the ticket, or if she had missed one of her connections,
or if she was coming at all. She hurried through the tunnel of
passageways to reassure him that all he had to do was call or write or
send airline tickets and she'd turn up at his side, no questions asked,
in any climate, at any time of the year.

She was smiling already, anticipating the delight on his
face at seeing her again. He would probably be first in line, where
he'd be able to help her right away with her luggage, the same way he
had done on the flight from Atlanta. She shifted her bag on her
shoulder and hoped her makeup looked acceptable.

Ten minutes later she was still hoping, but not about her
appearance. She was hoping that Rafe would show up at all. Where was he?

Maybe she wasn't supposed to meet Rafe, but someone else,
the same way he had sent the car for her on their first date. Or maybe
someone was playing a practical joke on her—an expensive one.
Very funny, leaving her stranded in another state. Damn, in a whole
other part of the country. She wasn't even sure she could put her
finger on where Colorado was on the map.

She glanced at the airport clocks again and reminded
herself her flight had been early. He could have gotten tied up in
traffic. He could have had an accident racing to see her. He could have
forgotten he had even sent her the note and was right now on his way to
Bangkok, for all she knew. Just wait until she never saw him again!

At this rate she might have no choice in never speaking to
him again, she might never have the chance.

Lacey looked around at all the people hurrying to meet
flights, check luggage, greet friends. Everyone had a purpose, everyone
had someone or someplace to be. She didn't even have a Plan B. All she
had was a canceled airline ticket and a note that had
read—could she have misinterpreted it?—
I'll
meet you
.

Sure.

Lacey sat down and wondered whom she could call. Rafe
worked out of his home, so there was no office she could call to check
on his whereabouts. He never informed his housekeeper where he was
going to be, and only rarely indicated when he was coming back. Damn
the man for being so mysterious!

She could call her office, just in case he had left a
message for her there. But everyone would be gone by now, even with the
time difference. Lacey searched in her purse for coins to make a
longdistance call and spent fifteen minutes trying to find a shop where
she could buy a magazine so that she could get some change for the
phone.
Damn credit cards
, she thought.
They
don't fit into pay phones. Someone needs to invent a Redi-Dime for
phone emergencies
. All this time she had spent looking for
change, Rafe could have been looking for her, she thought, hurrying
back to the phones near the arrival area of her flight.

Sure
, she told herself.
He's
so worried he's missed me, he's gotten the airline to make an
announcement about meeting him under the palm tree next to the Coke
machine on Concourse B at 1500 hours
. She'd kept her ears
tuned for such messages and hadn't heard a word. But that did give her
an idea.

She stepped over to the airline counter and asked about
making an announcement and gave the ticket agent the message: "Rafe
Chancellor, will you please meet your party of one at the phones near
Gate Twelve?"

She had always wanted to have herself paged at a hotel,
just so people could turn their heads and say, "Who was that girl?" But
it felt a little intimidating in an airport, where nobody cared,
especially the absent party who was supposed to be meeting her.

Lacey put her coin in the slot of the phone and dialed
Jane's home number. "Hi," she said casually, not ready to let anyone
else know how worried she was getting. If someone said "Poor baby" to
her she'd start crying, airport page or no airport page.

"Lacey, is that you?"

"Uh-huh." She swallowed, trying to keep the tears from
blurring the numbers on the phone. "How did today go?"

"Just fine. I told you we could do without you. That's a joke, of course, but everything was okay. How's
Denver?"

"Oh, just real Coloradoish," Lacey answered. She could be
in Junction City, Kansas, for all she knew what Colorado was like at
this point. It looked like any other airport. "Did I get any phone
calls or any messages?" she asked.

"No more than the usual, and we took care of them."

"How about mail? Anything important?"

"No. I don't think so. We opened everything."

"Oh."

"Why?"

"Just wondered. Okay. Well, have a good weekend."

"You too," Jane said with more enthusiasm than Lacey
thought she would ever feel again. "And we'll see you when we see you."

That might be a lot sooner than you think
,
Lacey thought, hanging up, wondering what her own Plan B was going to
be, since Rafe wasn't here—twenty minutes after the flight
was supposed to have arrived.

She walked back over to the gate area, her eyes scanning
everyone in the concourse, as she asked herself:
What would
I do if I were Lacey Adams and wasn't met at the flight I was supposed
to have been met at
? He had written: "I'll meet you."

She stepped up to the airline counter and asked the agent
when the next flight left that would connect her back to her home on
the Gulf Coast. Tomorrow morning—early. Lacey sighed. She
didn't think she could take two of those sunrise flights in a row. She
also didn't relish the idea of spending the weekend in Denver alone.
But if Rafe didn't turn up tonight, there was nothing she could do but
play darts with the listing of hotels nearest the airport and sleep off
this experience. She asked about directions to the nearest hotel and
kept that information in the back of her mind, just in case. She'd give
him an hour—from the time the flight was supposed to have
landed—and then she'd write him off for the night, for the
weekend, maybe forever, unless he came up with a really inventive
excuse about where he was right now.

Meanwhile, she might as well go through the usual
baggage-claim procedures and get that out of the way. If she was
spending the night, she'd need some of the things in her bag. But the
way her luck was running right now, she wouldn't be surprised if her
bag hadn't arrived with her.

"Where have you been? Are you all right? I was getting
worried!" Rafe said. He was the only person standing in the
baggage-claim area, with her bags beside him, waiting for her to come
along with the claim checks.

"I thought you'd left me," Lacey said, throwing her arms
around him, letting the tears stream down her face, not caring what he
thought, what the baggage handler thought. He was here! He hadn't
forgotten her!

"I recognized your bags," he said, patting her back and
shushing her. "So I knew you'd made the flight. Then I thought maybe
you'd stopped in the ladies' room or gotten lost in the terminal. I was
really getting worried."

Lacey just sobbed against him. It was all her fault for
not trusting him in the first place. Rafe had everything under control;
she should have realized that. It was her own stupid romanticism that
had made her so certain he was going to meet her at the gate instead of
here in the logical place—at the baggage-claim area, where
all other mortals were meeting their arriving passengers.