Righting a Wrong (A Ripple Effect Romance Novella) (17 page)

“Thank you,” she said and took her sandwich before dropping into the closest chair. Forget looking out the window. It wasn’t worth the effort. Lydia blew the hair out of her eyes and dragged her bag closer to her feet.

“You doing okay?” the Ryan Gosling lookalike asked from across the aisle. Laughter was barely contained behind his very nice smile. Lydia sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

“I am now.”

The man turned his attention back to his laptop, but his smile lasted several more seconds. Lydia pulled her turkey on wheat sandwich from the crumpled bag. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast and that had been a sad little spread. Earlier in the week, Lydia had packed up Cambri’s few remaining belongings and shipped them to Colorado. Yesterday, she had completely cleaned out the apartment, including the few condiments that were left in the refrigerator. She didn’t want to lose her deposit because of a half bottle of ketchup and an expired jar of relish. This morning, the only thing left to eat had been a browning banana and the last few swallows of milk.

When Lydia took the second bite of her sandwich, a tablespoon-sized glob of mayonnaise oozed out the bottom and into her hand. She fumbled one-handed through the bag in search of a napkin. Was this a joke? The only thing left in the bag was a mayonnaise packet. Didn’t need that. “I can watch your bag while you go wash up.” It was the handsome man, and his mirth had reached beyond his fantastic smile (he had a perfect dimple that appeared by the right corner of his mouth) and up to his twinkling blue eyes. Lydia looked from the man to her fistful of mayonnaise. A robotic female voice in Lydia’s mind recited lines about leaving bags unattended and not accepting packages from strangers. “I promise I won’t take it and make a run for it,” he said.

“You’d be terribly disappointed if you did,” Lydia said, making up her mind. She returned the rest of her sandwich to the paper bag, pulled her purse onto her shoulder with her condimentless hand, and headed for the restroom, holding her mayonnaise like a gift in front of her. “I’ll hurry.”

When Lydia approached her seat a few minutes later, an airport security officer with a shiny face and a little paunch was standing in the aisle by her suitcase.

“Is this your bag?” he asked.

“Yes. Is everything okay?” Why hadn’t she paid attention to the voice in her head?

“It appeared to be left unattended. In the future, I’d advise you to either take your bag with you or move it closer to your boyfriend when you leave.”

Lydia shot a surprised glance at the movie star, and he shrugged. “Sorry, babe. I told him you’d be right back, and I offered to move your bag over by me, but he wanted me to wait for you to come back.”

Lydia almost choked. She knew he was just rescuing her from the security guard, but no one had ever, ever called Lydia “babe” before and certainly no one as handsome as Ryan Gosling. It had a wonderful ring to it. Was her racing heart because of being questioned by an officer of the law or because this man had just called her “babe?”

Lydia dragged her distracted gaze back to the much less interesting man standing by her bag. “I’m so sorry. I just had to make a little run to the ladies’ room. It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t. Airport security is no laughing matter.” Was she laughing? “Have a nice flight.”

Lydia sat down by her bag. “You should probably move over here by me since you’re my girlfriend. We don’t want to make him suspicious.”

“Oh. Of course. I should have thought of that.” Did the movie star want Lydia to sit by him? Lydia rolled her eyes at her silliness. He was just trying to keep from being hassled any further. He went back to working on his laptop as she moved her things across the aisle. “Sorry about that,” Lydia whispered.

“No problem.” He looked up from his computer and smiled. Oh. My. Wow! Up close his dimple was even cuter. The bigger the smile, the deeper the dimple. “Are you taking a trip to Denver?” he asked.

“What?” She dragged her eyes away from his mouth. “Oh. I’m headed home.”

“You’re from Denver?”

“Just north. I live in Bridger.”

“I live in downtown Denver,” he said. “I’m Blake, by the way.”

“I’m Lydia.”

“What brought you to North Carolina?”

Lydia shook her head and sighed. Telling the truth about her summer in Charlotte was humiliating and disappointing. Of course, she could make something up, but that was the cowardly thing to do and this summer was supposed to have been about being brave and adventurous.

“You can’t say?” he asked when she didn’t answer. “Was it some top secret mission you can’t talk about?” He sat up a little straighter and closed his laptop.

Lydia tried not to stare at his mischievous eyes as she thought about how to answer. A little piece of bravery with this stranger wouldn’t salvage her failed summer, but at least she could finish with a tiny victory. She took a deep breath. “I was supposed to have a summer full of adventure and new experiences, but unfortunately, I learned I’m not very adventurous.” Blake looked confused, so Lydia explained. “My friend loaned me her condo for the summer. Her instructions were to ‘go somewhere new every day. Meet new people. Do adventurous things.’ I’m afraid I failed.”

“Come on, I’m sure you did something adventurous,” Blake said.

Lydia shook her head. “Nothing.” She reached down and unzipped the pocket of her suitcase. “Unless you call sitting on a lounge chair on the roof of the condo with a book an adventure.” She pulled out three books and held them up one at a time. “Look at these. Quest for Parts Unknown is about this guy searching for the remains of an expedition to the North Pole forty years ago. They never returned, so he was trying to discover what happened to them. He got caught in a terrible storm and barely made it back alive. From Sea to Shining Sea. This woman lost her job and broke up with her boyfriend, so she decided since she had nothing tying her down, she’d walk from the tip of Florida to the top corner of Washington, relying only on the kindness of strangers. It took her almost five months, but she did it.”

Lydia started to hold up up the third book then blushed. “I read about other people’s adventures,” she said as she moved to tuck the books back into her bag, “but I didn’t have any of my own.”

“Come on. I don’t get to see that last book?” Blake asked.

Lydia was caught. Without looking at him, she handed Blake the book. The cover was embarrassing. A male model with perfectly floppy hair had his hands over the eyes of a female model in a “Guess who?” kind of pose. It was brightly backlit and the title was written in a romantic, flowing script. The woman at the bookstore had gushed about it and Lydia hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings, so ten minutes and $12 later, it left the store in Lydia’s bag. “Love at Tenth Sight? What’s this one about?” Blake didn’t even try to stifle his laugh, and Lydia’s blush deepened.

“It’s about a woman who’s given up on love because she’s had her heart broken so many times and, finally, she meets her soul mate.”

“Had she actually had her heart broken nine times?”

Lydia wished she’d left that book in her bag.“Well, I haven’t finished it, but yeah, I guess so.”

“You spent your summer reading these?”

“These and about a dozen others,” Lydia admitted.

Blake whistled. “Sounds relaxing, but you’re right. Not very adventurous.”

Lydia shoved the books in her bag. “I wasted an entire summer, and now I get to go back and report that I’m dull and unadventurous.”

“You have to give a report?”

“That was the deal. Free condo in exchange for a full report of my summer exploits.”

Lydia wanted to kick herself. This had been a once in a lifetime chance to do whatever she wanted. School was out, so she’d had no students to look after and no principal to report to. With Jace and Cambri checking in on Grandpa, nothing had stood between Lydia and three months of excitement.

On her first day in town, she’d stopped at a trendy hotel and picked up brochures about kite-surfing and a bike tour through civil war battlegrounds. She’d thought about backpacking into Great Smoky Mountains National Park and camping overnight by herself. That would have been adventurous and even a little rebellious because she knew her mother would totally disapprove. Lydia had even scouted out a singles mix-and-mingle at a local bookstore and speed dating at a nice restaurant not far from the condo.

But Lydia hadn’t done any of it.

“I did try Indian food,” she said, shaking her head. “I wanted to have something exciting to tell my students when we did the ‘what did you do this summer’ assignment so they’d think I was a cool teacher. Somehow, I don’t think they’ll be impressed that I ate curry.”

“You teach school?”

“I teach fifth grade at Juniper Heights Elementary. It’s in Fort Collins.” Blake’s face looked sympathetic, and Lydia hated how pitiful she sounded.

“Don’t feel too bad,” Blake said. “I’m headed home as a failure, too.” Lydia lifted an eyebrow. “I just wasted three days I couldn’t afford to lose on a wild goose chase. Now I’m headed home with nothing to show for it.”

“What kind of goose chase?” Lydia asked. “Unless you can’t tell me because it’s classified.”

Blake showed his dimple. “My grandfather made me promise I’d go find a woman named Gladys. She’s had a box of his things for more than fifty years, and I was supposed to get it.”

“More than fifty years?” Lydia asked. “She probably doesn’t even have it anymore.”

“That’s what I thought. But Grandpa called her last year, and she still has it. He told her he had a grandson who needed to see what was in the box, and she said to send him to North Carolina for it. Except I can’t find her. She doesn’t live at the address he gave me, and the woman that lives there now has no idea where she is.”

“Why do you need to see it?”

“I don’t know. He said when I saw it, I’d understand.”

“So you’re leaving with nothing?”

“Oh no, I’ve got something. I’ve got $800 in wasted air fare and a stack of paperwork even deeper than when I left.”

“I’m sorry,” Lydia said.

“It wouldn’t be a big deal, but I’m so close to making partner, and I don’t want anyone to think I’ve lost my focus.”

“Partner where?”

“Collins, Strider and Van Wagoner.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine. Just tell them you worked while you were away,” Lydia said, pointing at his laptop.

“And you can tell your friend you ate Indian food.” They laughed.

Blake put his laptop in his briefcase while he spoke. “The worst part is that I was really curious about what Grandpa wanted me to have.”

“Can’t he just tell you what it was?”

Blake shook his head. “He died in April.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, fingers clasped in front of him, and stared absently across the wide concourse.

“I’m sorry.” Instinctively, Lydia put her hand on his arm. Horrified, she snatched it back. What was she doing touching this man? He was a handsome stranger, and she was an unadventurous schoolteacher whose only human interactions over the past three months had been with the clerk at the bookstore and the takeout deliverymen. She had no business touching him.

Blake turned his head toward her and smiled. Lydia felt short of breath and hoped he couldn’t tell that her jackhammer heart was trying to demolish her ribs and escape her chest.

“Thanks, Lydia. I should have come as soon as he told me about it, but things at the office were busy and I didn’t want to look like I was making something more important than the firm. I guess I figured I had time.”

“Will you try to find her another time?”

“I don’t know. I have a letter he wanted me to read after I’d gone through everything in the box. That might tell me something, but it feels wrong to read it without doing what he asked. It’s like I’m cheating him.”

“Attention passengers.”

The voice sounded like Mrs. Jackson, Lydia’s sophomore history teacher. Mrs. Jackson had recited the same test questions for forty years and sounded like a recording that had been slowed down to half speed. “Who was an American mechanical engineer who used scientific management to improve industrial efficiency in the early twentieth century?” By the time she’d read the question, the class was nearly asleep.

“Flight 1758 from Charlotte to Denver has been delayed by thirty minutes. Again, flight one seven five eight from Charlotte to Denver has been delayed by thirty minutes. We apologize for any inconvenience. Please see the counter if you have any questions or if you have connecting flights in Denver. Thank you.”

Blake and Lydia looked at each other and laughed. “Wow. Glad she got that out before the thirty minute delay was over,” Blake said. “I guess I have time to go get myself a sandwich.”

“I’ll watch your bags,” Lydia said with a smile. She was surprised when Blake slid his briefcase and duffle bag a little closer to her feet.

“I should probably tell them to go light on the mayo, right?” he said.

“Good idea. And be sure they give you some napkins.”

Instinctively, Lydia started to pull out her book, but not wanting to be caught reading Love at Tenth Sight when Blake returned, she changed her mind and watched two children playing Uno on the floor.

“I hope you like brownies,” Blake said when he returned ten minutes later.

“I love brownies.”

“Good. I was afraid you might tell me you were allergic to chocolate.”

“Sometimes I wish that were true. Thank you. That was thoughtful of you.”

Blake ate his sandwich, and Lydia took a bite of the brownie. “Mmm. This is good. Would you like some of it?”

“Thanks. I’ve got one for myself in the bag,” he said.

“Attention passengers.” Thankfully it was a new voice, and this one spoke at a normal speed.

“Uh oh,” Blake said.

“Due to mechanical difficulties, flight 1758 from Charlotte to Denver has been cancelled. Please bring your tickets to the counter to reschedule. Again, flight One Seven Five Eight, from Charlotte to Denver, has been cancelled. Please bring your tickets to the counter to reschedule your flight.”

The world came alive around them. Snatches of conversations could be heard as people gathered their belongings.