Authors: Micqui Miller
Sweet Caroline
Sweet Caroline
by Micqui Miller
Hard Shell Word Factory
Copyright ©2004 Micqui Miller
December 2004 Hard Shell Word Factory
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Sweet Caroline
by Micqui Miller
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Sweet Caroline
by Micqui Miller
MAYBE IT WAS the annoying pressure on Mick's shoulder or the low, seductive voice that belied its grating message,
"Excuse me, but this is
my
seat..." Or the hum of the plane's engine revving up for take-off, the press of bodies, and the stale air. Maybe it was all of them, but Mick wasn't waking up pretty. He'd just drifted off after thirty-six walking-zombie hours, twenty-two of them spent exactly like this—on an airplane.
"Go 'way," he grumbled.
The voice persisted. "Excuse me, sir, you are sitting in my seat. See, here's my boarding pass."
He forced open one eyelid, expecting to see the world as red and bloodshot as his eyes. Instead he found himself eyeball to thigh with one of the longest pair of legs—
gorgeous, shapely legs—dropping down from under one of the shortest skirts, worn by one of the tallest women he'd ever seen.
Suddenly very much awake, he managed to untangle himself enough from his tray table and laptop to see if Ms. Long Legs was real or a hallucination of sleep deprivation.
"S'cuse me?"
"For the ninetieth time," she said, bending low to thrust her boarding pass in his face. "You are sitting in
my
seat." Just a shade under six-foot-six himself, Mick knew too well the discomfort of flying the friendly skies. This was the first time he'd seen a woman outside of the WNBA equally 4
Sweet Caroline
by Micqui Miller
challenged height-wise. His gaze dropped to her slender ankles then to her shoes.
Yowzah!
She wore white-strapped sandals with at least four-inch heels. Now he knew he was dreaming—or he'd died and gone to heaven.
Except this dream girl was pointing to her boarding pass again, and the annoyed look on her face was anything but dreamy. "See, 14B."
Mick tried out his most charming smile. "There's an empty seat over there." He pointed to 12D. "Right on the aisle." And right next to a woman holding a fussing baby and a whiny two-year-old.
"I don't want to sit in 12D." This time she leaned so close, he caught a hint of her perfume, a summer scent of blossoms and promises. Did he dare look beyond the first button that had come undone on her white silk blouse? Hell, it was a dream. Why not?
"Don't you dare look down my shirt," she said. Too late. He'd already caught a glimpse of white lace, tanned skin, and possibilities.
"Get up—NOW!"
Mick had no intention of moving. He'd already given up his seat in first class to an elderly man making his last trip home. He wasn't moving again. "Sorry."
"Sorry?" She drew back, giving him a clear view of fiery red hair, all curls and tendrils surrounding an expressive face dotted with freckles, a delicate little nose that turned up a bit at the end, and lips that shined with orange gloss. She had the most enchanting Texas drawl he'd ever heard. But her eyes captured his full attention.
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Sweet Caroline
by Micqui Miller
As far back as he could remember, strangers commented on the color of his, not quite blue, not quite brown, but a rich violet, a trait his entire family shared. Amazing. The color of this stunning woman's eyes matched his.
A flight attendant stopped behind the redhead. "You'll have to take your seat now, Miss."
"How can I?" she sputtered. "He's sitting in it." Happily, Mick noted her ring finger was bare.
"The captain is ready for take-off. Please sit right there." The attendant pointed to 12D, where mother and children waited. "We'll straighten this out once we're at our cruising altitude." The attendant turned a radiant smile on Mick and shot a glance at the vacant seat beside him. The one filled to overflowing with tablets and file folders. "Sorry, Mick. You'll have to put those under the seat again."
"And close my tray table and bring my seatback to its full upright position."
She laughed. "Guess you've memorized the drill by now." He pressed his lips together to keep from smiling—not at the lovely attendant who'd already made it clear she'd be more than willing to ease his fatigue, but at this gorgeous woman who, if they'd been characters in a cartoon, would be drawn with smoke shooting out of her ears and a volcano erupting from the top of her head.
* * * *
"I DON'T NEED THIS," Caroline Spring grumbled while she yanked on her seatbelt. Barefoot, she stood five-ten. Harnessed on a plane, she felt like those seventy inches were 6
Sweet Caroline
by Micqui Miller
all from her waist down. The two runny-nosed little ones squirming in the seat beside her guaranteed a
perfect
flight. Unfortunately, Caroline had never overcome her irrational fear of flying or the accompanying airsickness. Not good for someone who spent way too many hours flying from assignment to assignment.
Thank God for Dramamine. She'd taken a generous dose while waiting for Travis to show up this morning. Her brother had been late as usual, traffic in Dallas its normal awful, and now
this
. It was almost enough to take her mind off her destination and what she hoped would end the journey to find her true identity, something she'd speculated about most of her life and now faced with certainty.
"I hope my kids aren't bothering you," said the woman sitting at the window. To Caroline, she looked exhausted and helpless, as if she were being held hostage by the wriggling pair. "Franklin and Miranda. They'll fall asleep as soon as we take off."
Caroline glanced down at the kids. A thin thread of saliva dangled from Miranda's chin and Franklin mined for gold in his left nostril. "They're fine." She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the seat. Nothing would be "fine" until her feet were on solid ground again.
"It's not really his fault, you know." Grudgingly, Caroline opened one eye. "What?"
"Mick. It's not his fault."
"Mick?"
"The man you were talking to." She giggled like a teenager. "The hunk in 14B."
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Sweet Caroline
by Micqui Miller
Caroline narrowed her gaze. "What about him?"
"He's been on planes for almost twenty-four hours. Flying back from Saudi Arabia or one of those other oil-producing countries."
"Bully for him." No wonder he looked so scruffy. She'd noticed that he hadn't shaved in a while, and she wouldn't want to be downwind if he raised an arm. Daring a glance backward, she quickly looked away. He'd been watching her, staring straight at her, and for the briefest moment, they made eye contact.
Eye contact! She did a double take.
The color of his eyes.
They were the same as hers. In an instant, memories of Caroline's grammar school days rushed back. She'd been teased by her classmates for her "orange hair and purple eyes" and taunted with "Pumpkin Head." No one in her family had the same coloring, not her mom, dad, or even her little brother. They all looked alike—short, squat, brown hair and eyes. She towered over them, the ol'
Pumpkin Head, and now she'd found someone else with those same eyes and that same orange hair.
"By the way, I'm Virginia."
Caroline looked at the woman beside her and forced a smile.
"Did you see the elderly couple in first class? They were in the second row on the left as you came in. The poor man was probably snuggled under a blanket."
"I didn't notice."
"Well, he—Mr. Siriani—was supposed to sit where you're sitting now, and his wife on the other side of Mick." 8
Sweet Caroline
by Micqui Miller
If there was a point to this story, Caroline wished Virginia would make it.
"Without being asked, Mick gave up his seat in first class to the man and paid the upgrade so his wife could sit beside him. The poor old dear has just spent the last two weeks at Sloan-Kettering. He's going home to die." The breath whooshed out of Caroline like she'd been slammed in the back with a two-by-four. Only six weeks ago, her mother had lost her battle against "the Big C," as Adina Spring chose to call it. Colon cancer. She suffered a slow agonizing death, which she had accepted like she accepted all things in life. "It's God's will, Caroline," she'd often told her angry daughter, who'd railed against the medical establishment, science, and any other group or person who stumbled into her path.
Que sera, sera
—whatever will be, will be—did not work for Caroline Spring. And not anyone—not her mother's attending physician, her brother, the hospice team, not even Luke Enright, the man Caroline had known and loved since her first day at grad school at Texas A & M, could assuage her pain and fury. Now, she'd lost them all, except for Travis. Two weeks ago, she and her brother sat cross-legged on their mom's bedroom floor, sorting through drawers full of costume jewelry, tossing out papers, saving photographs. Travis yanked on a drawer that had been stuck for months. It flew across the room, narrowly missing Caroline. Her entire life had tumbled out of that drawer taking with it her identity and what trust she had left in anyone.
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Sweet Caroline
by Micqui Miller
"Mick's very tall, you know," Virginia said, obviously not noticing that Caroline had stopped listening. "But then so are you. Anyway, he was sort of galloping along, two briefcases and a couple of laptops trailing behind him. You couldn't miss him."
What was she blathering about now? Caroline heard only half of what her seatmate said. Why weren't they taking off?
The flight attendant had been in such an all-fired hurry to make her take her seat. She could only hope this wasn't an omen of what the next eight weeks held in store for her.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we've closed the doors," crackled a female voice on the intercom. "We'll be just a few minutes longer."
"I need to get some rest," she said to Virginia before the woman could launch into another inane story. Caroline shifted in her seat, faced the aisle, closed her eyes, and prayed the Dramamine would kick in—soon.
* * * *
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, the captain has turned on the seat belt sign in preparation for our descent into San Francisco..."
Caroline shot up straight in her seat. Descent? How?
They'd taken off only a few minutes ago. She looked at her watch, 1:05 p.m., or a little after Noon Pacific Coast time. The Dramamine had done more than its job. She'd slept like the dead the entire trip, and now her rump was numbed hard as granite. Next to her, she saw Virginia dozing over a magazine, neither child in sight.