Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

“I can do ‘princess,’ but maybe our getting married will hurt your career?”

“Temple, please. If my ‘career’ hurts any personal plans, I’m outta there.”

“You’re certainly cucumber-slice cool about your future stardom.”

“Yeah. I don’t need it.”

“Keep up that attitude. It’ll drive the producers crazy to procure you.”

Matt made a face. “Doesn’t this hoopla put you off?”

“I’m a PR person, Matt. Hoopla is my middle name.” Actually, Ursula was. Temple hoped that it wasn’t required for a marriage license, because she simply would have to beg off matrimony. No one could ever know her initials were TUB. What had her mother been thinking?

As the plane’s interior operational whine shifted tones to begin its descent into O’Hare, Temple bent down to make sure the under-seat bag was secure. When she straightened up, Matt was regarding her, his warm brown eyes sharp with sudden insight.

“That’s right,” he said. “I never knew Max Kinsella when he was still performing as the Goliath Hotel’s house magician. You’re used to being linked with a ‘star.’”

“A PR person always makes the client a star. I’m used to being an essential ‘nobody.’ No ego involved, believe me.”

Matt leaned close. “I’d be happy to be an essential nobody with you anytime.” He pulled her close in the privacy of the high leather seat backs and engine drone. “Temple, traveling is brutally impersonal these days, but this trip is vital to me, not just because of the family thing. We need some time alone together. We need to become a team again. I’m afraid our own lives are getting lost in all these people and tangles from our past.”

“Us? You think we’re getting lost? I had to … do what I did—”

He fanned his fingers over her mouth. “ Shhh . No rehashing. I spent too much time waiting and waiting and burning for you. If my ‘career arc’ threatens our relationship, I’ll go back to being a volunteer hotline counselor in two seconds. I don’t need anything but you.”

“Matt, don’t worry.…” His intensity surprised her. Touched her. Excited her. “It’s just you and me against the world, and you are my world.”

The roving cabin attendant paused to check on them. Temple looked up, smiled, and linked arms with Matt until she moved on. “And no stewardess is gonna ogle my guy. This is cozy, but not cozy enough for me right now.” She kissed his neck and whispered, “I’m glad we made this trip together.”

He smiled and relaxed back into his seat. “Meet my crazy family and then tell me you’re glad.”

“Mine’s more competitive and crushing than crazy. It’ll be good to start the ‘meet the parents’ thing in Chicago and work our way north to Minneapolis.”

As a baby bawled relentlessly far back in the plane, a long, low yowl revved up at Temple’s feet. Maybe there was another guy in her life competing for her attention, after all. She leaned forward, whispering vehemently.

“Pipe down. Your acid tones are going to strip the finish off your carrier and my matching leopard-pattern peep-toe pumps. You’re getting total star treatment, including that cushy plush carrier interior. We can breeze out of here as soon as we land and you soon will have this ‘toddling town’ at your feet. The worst is over.”

And indeed, the worst was over for Midnight Louie, if not Temple.

She believed in doing it yourself when it came to responsibilities and proving that a woman—a short, petite woman—could do anything all by herself. She had wrestled a lot of heavy display panels and moved a ton of folding chairs when it came to convention and special event emergencies.

Louie, however, was quite an armful on those long airport treks from terminal to baggage claim. So while she consented to let Matt haul her big bag off the luggage carousel, she was thrilled to look around at the crowd for the deplaning celebrities common to Vegas’s McCarran. Other than them, of course. She spotted a Man in Black from cap to toes holding up a white card reading DEVINE.

“We have a car!” she told Matt. He looked up from attaching the carry-on to their behemoth bag in common and caught the dark-suited man’s scanning glance with one of those raised-finger waiter salutes.

“And you have groupies,” Temple noted, impressed.

Matt’s usual genial expression screwed a couple turns tighter.

A gawking clot of people had spotted the name on the upraised card. They had clustered behind the driver to regard Matt with a blend of grins and raw curiosity.

“Welcome to Chicago,” the driver said, approaching and appropriating the luggage.

“I’ll keep this,” Temple said, turning away as he reached for her shoulder strap.

Matt had kept “his” carry-on bag, which contained mostly what Temple would carry in her tote bag were Louie not hitching a ride on her shoulder.

Louie’s claws were already doing the Swim inside the carrier but she was determined to manage the burden. Besides, she’d used tote bags in her working life before big clunky status purses were cool. Her life and interests were too diverse to be contained in the app-packed shell of a smartphone.

Nothing barred their way. Apparently the fans were content to look and eavesdrop.

Temple’s precarious peep-toe heels sounded as steady as a heartbeat on the stone floor as she and Matt trotted after their urban native guide, nodding cordially but briefly to their staring audience.

“Who’s she?” A young female voice wafted into their wake.

“Personal assistant,” her gal pal stated, disdainful of her uninformed and, in this case, unimaginative companion.

“Personal assistant,” Temple hissed to Matt between clicks of her shoes. “Apparently your fans are too nearsighted to spot my engagement ring. Your engagement ring.” Temple frowned. “What’s the correct expression?”

“Ours,” he said. “It’s not much farther. Just through the doors to the pickup lanes.”

“Great.” Temple tamped down the urge to pant. Louie wasn’t getting any lighter.

Then the weight lifted off her shoulder all at once.

She turned to Matt. “I told you I can handle—”

He’d dropped his carry-on by her feet. “Watch that,” he ordered.

Instead, she watched him race past the now-stalled driver, who looked as confused as she did.

Watch that. No “please”? Already they were acting like an old married couple.…

Oh.

“Watch that!” Temple ordered the driver, scooting after Matt and the disappearing leopard-print carrier.

The carrier strap was now hooked over the shoulder of the person carrying it—the … the … petnapper—dressed all in black, a bulky figure in a trench coat. It was already halfway through one of the automatically opening glass doors.

Just then Matt caught up and grabbed Louie’s carrier strap, slewing the thief around to face into the terminal’s interior. The kidnapper slipped the shoulder strap and bolted for the glass doors again, then onto the sidewalk outside, charging into the flow of travelers, lost behind the confusing reflections of the glass walls.

Exiting passengers dragging bags jostled past Matt, forcing a retreat. He rejoined Temple and the driver, who were guarding the other bags. Fortunately, the one Matt carried still contained Midnight Louie.

A rat-a-tat of running footsteps from an oblique angle showed a woman in uniform bearing down on the one motionless vignette in the swirl of oblivious, expressionless people coming and going. That tableau would be the obediently stopped driver, their luggage, and Matt holding the carrier while Temple crooned at the unseen contents.