Jennifer Greene: Can’t Say No

Bree gnawed at her lip, thinking of Gram, until a thin film of tears filled her eyes. She blinked back the tears, and when her vision cleared she found herself staring at the half-open door of her closet. The edge of one suitcase peeked out at her, and she had a sudden, very inviting image of herself unpacking that suitcase in the South Carolina woods, in the loft of an extremely rustic log cabin, with Gram’s things around her and no telephone and absolutely nothing intruding on her peace…

“Bree, I simply can’t let you do this, darling.” Addie Penoyer trailed her daughter through the airport lobby, dodging suitcases and squalling children and yawning businessmen. “It just isn’t like you to behave so impetuously. Honey, you can’t possibly cope with a trip like this. Look how difficult it was for you to even buy the ticket.”

Someone in the bustling crowd jostled Addie; Bree protectively grabbed her mother’s arm with a frown and glanced up frantically as the loudspeaker announced her flight.

“I wish you would listen to me,” Addie wailed. “Richard called us last night, after he saw you. Bree, you can’t be serious about breaking off the engagement. And Marie-honey, she just can’t believe you’d leave her in the lurch like this. She said she’d just taken on two new clients that only you could handle. You know how much she thinks of you, darling. All of us understand that you’re not yourself right now, but…”

Bree had intended to navigate the airport alone, but that had turned into one of those best-laid plans of mice and men. Her mother had been convinced that Bree couldn’t handle the tickets and luggage and car rental arrangements on her own. Unfortunately, Addie had been proved right, and Bree was already frazzled. She had learned, to her sorrow, how ineffectively scratch paper and pen communicated in a world of talkers. And her mother’s continuous barrage of reproachful pressure wasn’t helping an already thundering headache.

With an arm around Addie’s shoulder, Bree determinedly steered her toward the terminal entrance. “This just isn’t right,” Addie continued distractedly. “All alone in that cabin…I’m going to talk to your father again, that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Mom, I’ll be fine,” Bree mouthed firmly. “Please don’t worry.”

“Pardon?”

Bree sighed. Her lips formed “I love you, Mom,” and then tightened anxiously as she heard her flight called a second time.

“Well, at least promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”

Bree nodded vigorously four times and offered yet another warm, reassuring hug. Mothers. A moment later, Addie was safely out the door, and Bree dodged a pair of howling twins in a frantic dash for her plane. By the time she reached her flight’s waiting room, her heart was tripping in double time and her nerves felt like tumbling Tinkertoys. “You’re the last one,” the blonde stewardess told her cheerfully. “Have a good flight, now.”

Bree nodded, answering her with an automatic half smile. Inside the plane, another stewardess wanted to see Bree’s ticket, and as she groped in her shoulder bag for it she caught her reflection in the small rectangular mirror on the opposite wall. At least the woman staring back at her didn’t look like a wild lady with a screw loose.

Shoulder-length auburn hair, glossy and thick, framed small, delicate features. The chin was a little stubborn, but the green eyes were huge and downright beautiful…and makeup had done wonders for the circles beneath them. Maybe her skin looked a little oddly pale, but the cream silk blouse and tan linen skirt presented a crisply attractive image. She had the most beautiful smile this side of the moon, her father always told her. That was nice. At the moment, her legs felt as strong as tapioca and her stomach was growling with nerves, but at least those kinds of things didn’t show.

“Down four rows, Ms. Penoyer…” The stewardess directed her with a smile, handing back her ticket.

Gratefully, Bree stepped forward. All she wanted was her assigned seat, a pillow and silence. Obviously, freedom was getting to her, she thought wryly. She was now without a fiancé, without a job-heck, without a future. It had proved a little tiring to tear up her entire life in a matter of days. Actually, it was going to take every last bit of energy she could dredge up to get to Gram’s cabin, but that goal beckoned like sunlight after days of rain, if she could only be done with this night flight and just be there…

She paused in the aisle next to her assigned window seat. To get to it, she was going to have to maneuver herself past an incredibly long pair of stretched-out legs. The man was dead-to-the-world asleep, precisely the activity Bree had in mind for herself, but in the meantime he was one more roadblock in an incredibly long week of them.

She bent over him and tried to whisper, “Excuse me.” Unfortunately, no sound escaped her lips. When was she going to get used to that? Exasperated with herself, she sighed, and pitched her shoulder bag over the man to her seat. He didn’t budge.

She wasn’t surprised. One glance told her she wasn’t going to like him. Normally, she took her time about judging people, but this man was such an easy read. He was all the things that got a woman in trouble. His thick sweep of sun-bleached hair was disheveled, Robert Redford style. He had classic, good-looking features and barely a character line, though he must have been more than thirty. His skin was suntanned, out of season. The body was long; the shoulders would have made a linebacker jealous; and Bree had always had a low tolerance for Adonises. In the meantime, his macho Italian tailoring was still blocking her path.

She touched his shoulder, which accomplished nothing. An explosion clearly wouldn’t wake him. Frustrated, she tried to climb over him modestly, but her straight linen skirt would only spread so far. Muttering under her breath, she hiked up her skirt and lifted her leg to take the classic Mother-May-I giant step.

The passenger in front chose that instant to propel his seat back. Bree jolted forward, grappling for balance, and instantly felt two hands reach out to assist her, one curling intimately around her hip and the other splaying on her ribs. The contact couldn’t have lasted ten seconds, ten seconds in which her shocked eyes locked with a pair of dark, dark blue ones. His weren’t looking at her face but at the open throat of her silk blouse. It wasn’t his fault that her breasts were all but mashed in his face, but no one, Bree thought irritably, had the right to wake up that fast.

“You’re all right?”

Awkwardly, she tumbled the rest of the way into her seat, and then patiently stared at the big brown hand that seemed to have parked itself on her thigh. The hand lifted. Slowly. Nodding distantly in answer to the man’s question, she bent her head to strap herself in. She had to rumble with the seat belt, of course. Talk about a sea of troubles. And the moment she was settled, a frigid draft wafted down from the little air vent above her head. She reached up to adjust the vent, but had obviously just penned herself in.

With an amused smile, her seatmate reached up and moved the air vent for her. “Better?” he asked.

She nodded again. Seconds later, the plane’s engines vibrated into motion. Bree stared out the window at the dark night with its peppering of airport lights, but was well aware the passenger next to her was blatantly checking out the territory. Her breasts were receiving a second approving inspection, she was delighted to know. When he reached down for a magazine, he also gave her legs a four-star rating, and he forgot the magazine on the way back up. When those navy eyes of his concentrated even longer on her face, she could feel a ridiculous heat climbing up her cheeks.