A Silken Thread - Brenda Jackson [30]
She lowered her head and took another sip of her coffee as if reliving those times.
“Do you date now?”
She lifted her gaze, tilted her head and studied him for a second. “Why do you want to know that?”
That was a good question. Why did he want to know the answer to that? “Curious.”
He waited a heartbeat for her to ask why. Instead she said, “I go out on occasion with friends—both males and females—but that’s all I want right now. Friendship. Less cluttered and complicated that way.”
He was saved from having to say anything when a voice came over the speaker system. “Attention, passengers. We regret to inform everyone that all flights have been cancelled for the next twenty-four hours. Please go to your respective airline’s customer service counter for further details regarding obtaining a hotel voucher. We repeat, all flights…”
He watched as Rita stood. “I guess that means I need to go back upstairs. It was good seeing you and I hope that—”
“The announcer said we’re stuck here for twenty-four hours. Would you like to join me for dinner somewhere?” he asked as he stood.
She began shaking her head even before he could get all the words out of his mouth. “Thanks, but no. I’m just going to stay in my room and relax. It was good seeing you again, and I hope you have a safe trip back home.”
“You, too.”
He watched her hurry across the floor toward the escalator as if fire was nipping at her heels. Evidently his line of questions had made her uncomfortable. Understandably so. He’d really had no right asking them. But it was something he wanted to know. Something he needed to know.
He walked to get information from his own airline, in the opposite direction from where she had gone. At least they had offered them a hotel room. He wished he could say he intended to relax, as Rita had indicated she was going to do, but he couldn’t. After checking in to the hotel he planned on going out and finding the nearest bar to wash away these emotions, which he shouldn’t be having in the first place.
As he stepped onto the escalator that would carry him down to his gate, he thought that a glass of scotch later sounded pretty damn nice.
Rita glanced around her hotel room a moment before tilting her head back, closing her eyes and drawing in a deep breath. She inhaled the scent of cinnamon and all but licked her lips at the thought of all the goodies in the bakery across the street. An image of her enjoying any sort of pastry with a cup of coffee made a silly grin form on her face. She immediately opened her eyes when images of something else flashed across her brain…or should she say someone else.
Wilson Sanders.
She could admit in private that she liked him a little too much. She had begun feeling things she should not be feeling. The man was married, for heaven’s sake, and he was her son’s future father-in-law. Then why did she—a woman known to be more interested in the positioning of yucca plants than men—find herself so attracted to him?
When he smiled, funny feelings would erupt in her midsection. Even when he did something as simple as shrug his massive shoulders, she was consumed by emotions she hadn’t felt in a long time. And that in itself wasn’t good. She felt completely out of her element around him, while at the same time she felt like a real woman for the first time in years. A woman with primitive urges and true yearnings. That would be all well and good if the object of her attention wasn’t who he was.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back again, wishing the features of another man would pop into her head. She’d met several on her Sweden trip. No such luck.
She opened her eyes, deciding she had done the right thing in turning down Wilson’s invitation to dinner. She’d never respected women who were involved with married men. Marriage vows were sacred and were meant to be forever. For the time being, until she could sort out in her mind why she was being pulled in a direction she would rather not go, she would keep a safe and comfortable distance from Wilson.
Her stomach