“I don’t know.”
“I’ll send a car. We’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”
“Dutch?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“Thank you.”
By the time the driver showed up at noon the following day, Alegria had changed her mind about going to the airport at least a dozen times. Poor Madeline had listened to her talk herself in and out of it.
“Go,” she said, peering out the window when a car pulled in the driveway.
“I…”
“Just go.” Madeline gave her a nudge toward the door.
“Thank you,” she said, hugging her. “I know I haven’t been the most gracious guest.”
“You know what you are? You’re a treasured friend who is welcome here anytime.”
Alegria thanked her again and opened the door when the driver knocked. Right before she went outside, she turned around and kissed both of Madeline’s cheeks.
“Au revoir, mon amie.”
As indecisive as she’d been before, once Alegria was in the car, alone with the driver, it got much worse.
Had Dutch told Mantis she was meeting them at the airport? If not, what might his reaction be to seeing her there? Would he think she was there solely to see Dutch?
More troubling was why she wanted to see him so badly, and why Dutch had suggested she come.
Chapter 7
Dutch
“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Dutch said to Mantis, and then laughed.
Mantis looked up from the book he was reading on his tablet. “What’s funny?”
“Nothing really. Alegria started a conversation with me a couple of hours ago using those exact words, and I didn’t react very well.”
Mantis looked back down at his book.
“She’s coming to the airport.”
“Okay,” he responded without looking up.
“To see you.”
Sure, it was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, and if his instincts were right, things were going to get a hell of a lot harder for him in the very near future.
In the same way he often knew what Mantis was thinking, he could predict what Alegria was thinking too. When he’d heard the pain in her voice, the indecisiveness, he couldn’t do anything but ask her to come to the airport. If she really wanted to be with him, she wouldn’t have been talking about going “home” to New York. She would’ve assumed, like he had
, that they’d pick up where they’d left off before Christmas, and where he went, she would go too.
He’d gone as far as imagining the drive from Annapolis back to Newport News and where they’d stop along the way. When he realized he’d be back in time for New Year’s Eve, he’d made plans for that too.
Now he had to make different plans. Ones that a single man would make.