Flying Read online

  She saw him before he saw her, and was glad of it because it gave her a minute or so to calm herself. This was Matthew, she reminded herself. She already knew him. This was going to be a great visit, she told herself. Stop worrying, Stella.

  He caught sight of her and waved. He pushed through the crowd. And then he was there in front of her.

  He was real.

  They hadn’t talked about how they’d greet each other—who would? But now Stella wished she had asked him if he intended to kiss her. If she should brace herself for a hug, or if they would simply stare at each other with foolish grins painted all over their faces while everyone around them thought they looked like morons.

  Matthew kissed her. A quick peck on the cheek, just at the corner of her mouth. Almost nothing, but then she was in his arms and he was holding her so tight she could barely breathe.

  “Hi,” he said into her ear.

  Stella found her voice. “Hi.”

  They smiled and smiled, and then she pushed up on her tiptoes to angle her mouth across his for a proper kiss. Long, lingering, the quick slip of tongues before she pulled away with flushed cheeks. She hadn’t let go of her carry-on’s handle, and it made standing so close to him a little awkward, but she didn’t want him to let go.

  “Hungry?” Matthew asked.

  “Starving.” Suddenly, she was. She’d woken just before dawn, too anxious to sleep longer than that. Tristan had been at his dad’s already. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, declined food on the plane. Her stomach was in knots, but at the sight of Matthew’s smile, all the tension had begun to drain away.

  He took the handle of her bag from her with one hand, and her hand with his other. Fingers linked, he led her toward the exit. “Breakfast?”

  “I can always eat breakfast,” she told him.

  “I remember.”

  He’d parked in the garage, which was far from empty at this time of morning. Somehow that didn’t matter when he pushed her up against his car and kissed her, hard. Stella’s arms went around his neck, holding him close. The kiss almost bruised her; she didn’t care. They gorged themselves on each other in those few minutes, until her knees got weak and her breath caught so tight in her chest she had to break the kiss or faint.

  Matthew pressed his forehead to hers. “You taste so good. It’s all I’ve been able to think about. Kissing you again.”

  “Wow.” Stella laughed a little self-consciously. “You sure know how to make a girl feel welcome.”

  “Breakfast. I promised you breakfast. I’m a terrible host,” he murmured against her mouth.

  “Kiss me just a little longer,” she told him. “And I’ll forgive you.”

  He did kiss her, and more than that. Matthew slipped a hand between them to press between her legs. Swiftly, only for a few seconds, but the pressure sparked pleasure through her, and she shivered. The staccato blare of a passing car horn pushed them apart. Matthew looked a little guilty, maybe embarrassed, and Stella gave a mental chuckle. She’d done more than make out in a parking garage before...but she didn’t want to think about what she’d done with other men now. Not when she was standing with this one.

  He opened the car door for her, and shut it when she got inside. In the few seconds it took him to round the car and get in the driver’s side, Stella stole a glance in the rearview mirror. Her mouth was wet, lipstick a little smeared, but the weariness that had plagued her expression for the past few weeks had vanished. Bright eyes, pink cheeks. She pushed some stray hair out of her eyes and turned toward him as he got in the car.

  “Let’s go, Jeeves!”

  “Call me Alfred,” Matthew said. “It sounds better.”

  “If you’re Alfred, then that makes me Batman.” Stella made a face. “I don’t want to be Batman.”

  “Who doesn’t want to be Batman?” Matthew asked as he backed out of the parking spot and eased his car into the line of others waiting to get out of the garage.

  He drove a BMW, Stella realized as she looked at the dashboard and the logo on the glovebox. She hadn’t noticed before, so busy with his mouth on hers. It didn’t impress her, exactly. But it did sort of surprise her. “You should be Batman. Not me.”

  “Then does that make you Catwoman?” He shot her a grin.

  Stella lifted an eyebrow. “Meow, Bruce Wayne.”

  Matthew was not a patient driver. She saw that within the first few minutes as he muttered about the other cars in line and even flipped off, albeit discreetly below the level of the dashboard, one car that cut him off. What she hadn’t been expecting was that he drove like a Nascar racer with something to prove. Once he hit the highway, it was pedal to the metal and no brakes.

  Stella tucked her fingers into the door handle, squeezing it. Her other hand gripped the side of her seat. With both feet on the floor, staring straight ahead as Matthew wove in and out of traffic, it took everything she had not to “brake” every time he came up too close behind another car.

  * * *

  There aren’t many cars on the road this time of night, and in this weather, but the red flash of taillights up ahead reminds her of the lights on Brad and Janet’s Christmas tree. So do the traffic lights up ahead, glowing green, glowing yellow. The orangish-white of the streetlamps overhead. Everything is bright, everything glows, and she tips her head back against the seat and laughs and laughs at how good the world feels. From the backseat comes the shuffle and grumble of two little boys up way too late past their bedtime.

  “He’s touching me!”

  “He’s looking at me!”

  “He took my guy! Mama, make Tristan give me back my guy!”

  “Gage,” Stella says, twisting in her seat to shake a finger at him. “Can’t you share?”

  Then there is the squeal of brakes, the crunch of metal and glass and everything is cold.

  Everything is dark.

  * * *

  “Hey. You okay?”

  She’d closed her eyes against the sudden wave of nausea brought on by memory, too much coffee, not enough sleep, not enough food. Stella looked at Matthew, intending to smile and lie, but the ache in her fingers from where she gripped the door handle distracted her. The road ahead of her swarmed with cars and the flash of taillights, but it wasn’t night. The roads weren’t slick with ice.

  Matthew wasn’t going to rear-end a pickup truck and, in turn, be sideswiped by a tractor trailer.

  And there were no children in the backseat.

  He eased to a stop at a red light at the end of an off-ramp and turned in his seat to put a hand on her leg. “Stella?”

  She jumped at the touch, her breathing slowing through force of will, and gave him a weak smile. “You drive really fast.”

  “I do?” The light turned green, and Matthew took his foot off the brake, his attention still on her.

  “Eyes on the road,” Stella snapped. It was too harsh, she heard that at once. It embarrassed her, and she shut her mouth with a painful click of her teeth.

  Matthew had been reaching for her, but now he put both hands on the wheel with a nod, and focused his gaze on the road in front of them. They drove in silence for the next five minutes or so, getting away from the highway and onto local city streets. Each minute that ticked by left her feeling more and more embarrassed about her outburst, until by the time he’d pulled into the parking lot of the diner he’d taken her to last time, Stella was full of anxiety again.

  “I’m sorry—” she said as he turned off the ignition, but his mouth on hers stopped more words from coming out.

  “No. I’m sorry.” Matthew cupped the back of her neck, his fingers beneath her hair. “You told me about the car accident. I should’ve thought about that. My wife tells me all the time I drive like a maniac.”

  Stella didn’t miss the word wife, but she didn’t point it