Chapter 1 : Part 4

Still Mr. & Mrs.
by Mary McBride

(Page 4 of 4)

In the past few months, Angela's little fairy-tale fling had somehow turned into the real thing. The prince was more than charming. The glass slipper was a pretty good fit. Shit.

"May I get you something to drink?" The flight attendant sounded ungodly cheerful for half past one in the morning.

"Coffee, please. Black." It would keep her awake, Angela thought, as well as obliterate the lingering taste of Rod's champagne and cheroot kisses.

A moment later the flight attendant was back. "Here you go, Ms. Holland. Coffee. Black. Careful, it's hot." She perched on the armrest of the seat across the aisle. "The manifest says you're a federal agent, flying armed."

"That's right." Angela blew on the steaming coffee. "Is there a problem?" Please let there be a problem so I don't have to sit here and think anymore. Well, not a problem with the plane. Not that kind of problem. She didn't mean that. Jeez. She needed to be a lot more careful what she wished for.

"Not yet. We have a passenger in back who was pretty tanked when he boarded. You may have seen him at the gate."

Angela shook her head. She'd been the last one to board, thanks to Rod and his unwillingness to let her go. She'd actually had to jerk her hands out of his and dodge his amorous lips one last time.

"Well, anyway," the woman said, "we're about to close the bar on this guy in back, and he looks like the type who could get fairly unruly. I hope not, but I thought I'd better touch base with you, just in case."

"I'm glad you did." She tried not to sound too eager or too relieved that a crash wasn't imminent. "Let me know if you need my help."

"Thanks."

The flight attendant rose, squared her shoulders, and headed toward the rear section of the plane. Sipping her coffee, Angela listened for raised voices, almost wishing for a little ruckus to take her mind off Rod. And Bobby. Always Bobby.

The two men in her life couldn't have been more different. Dark night and bright day. Closed and open. Dry and wet.

In the theater this evening, when the violins came up and his character breathed his final, heroic breath onscreen, Rod had surreptitiously offered Angela his handkerchief, but then she'd had to give it back when Rod's wet sniffling threatened to surpass her own. Tears and testosterone. What a guy. What a deadly combination, at least in Angela's book.

She hadn't always felt that way. In fact, she'd grown up feeling quite the opposite, thanks to her big, melodramatic, hand-wringing, breast-beating family. The men, her father and four brothers, cried at the drop of a hankie, just like her mother and four sisters. There was a time when Angela swore she wasn't even a Callifano. She was the only blond in the bunch, after all, but her mother always said that was from the Milanese Fragossis on her father's side of the family. "Blonds, all of them," her mother had said, "and fussbudgets, too, just like you, Miss Prim."

She wasn't. She was simply organized, more restrained, more self-contained. She wept right along with the rest of them, but quietly, without the histrionics and the wet boo-hooing that used to humiliate her in public. That was probably the reason she'd fallen so hard for Bobby. She had taken his emotional reticence for strength. His silences signified the depth of still waters. A single twitch of a smile from Bobby Holland had meant more than all the melodramatics in the world.

But the trait that attracted her in the beginning had repelled her in the end. That emotional reticence of Bobby's was the reason she had walked out on him. And it was also the reason, once she returned to California from Hassock, Illinois, she was going to divorce him and the six-foot-high brick wall he'd built between them.

"Ms. Holland?" The flight attendant was back, looking distinctly harried. "I wonder if you'd come back and give us a hand with this clown?"

Angela gulped the last of her coffee, unbuckled her seat belt, and stood. Good. Hallelujah. She wouldn't have to think anymore about anyone or anything. Not Rod or Bobby or even Crazy Daisy Riordan. Out of habit, she touched the small of her back, but she was still wearing her black jersey dress, so of course her handcuffs weren't there. She picked up her handbag with her weapon and cuffs tucked inside. Maybe she wasn't so good at marriage, but she was damned good at her job.

"I'll follow you," she said.

Copyright © 2002 by Mary Myers

About the Author

Mary Myers, also known as Mary McBride, is a native of St. Louis, MO, where she lives with her marathon-running husband. A full-time writer, Mary has written 14 books for Harlequin and Silhouette. Still Mr. and Mrs. will be her first mainstream title.