“Or should I saymy wife.”
“Please tell me this isn’t your ex.” Delaney hisses from my side.
“It’s not.” I force out a breathless response.
“The brother’s friend?”
I lick my overly dry lips. “Ex-friend.”
“Ohmy,” Delaney mutters beneath her breath. She fans herself with a magazine, sending a welcome burst of cool air my way.
Holy hell.
Gone is the fragile Spencer from the hospital. This version seems to take up the entire front of the plane with his presence. His size is another entity all together. I can feel pairs of eyes peering up the aisle. The whispers of fellow travelers are too loud to remain private.
A muscle jumps in his clenched jaw with the attention. He rocks from one foot to the next, and a lock of dark brown hair falls enticingly over his forehead. Pair all that with a rich, trim beard, and I forget I’m supposed to hate him.
“Sir, you need to find your seat.” The flight attendant interrupts this shocking turn of events.
“You heard her.” I refuse to engage, turning my attention forward and praying he goes away. What Spencer Stone is doing on my flight to the Caribbean is absolutely none of my business. I’m not the only person in Fairview Valley, Minnesota, who needs a vacation.
“I’m trying to. You’re in my seat.”
“That’s impossible.”
“My ticket says 3B.”
That absurd claim has me giving him my full attention. Sure enough, the paper he flashes in my direction has my extra seat stamped on it in crisp black ink.
“How did you get that!?”
His broad, curved shoulder rises in an easy shrug. “I bought it.”
“Oh no.” I straighten in my chair and snap on my seat belt. I flip closed the tray table with an audible snap. “You’re not going on this flight with me. Find your own way to the island.”
I recognize my mistake immediately. With the tray out of the way, Spencer squeezes easily across my knees, settling into the open seat. “I’m not just on this flight with you.”
“Whatever that means.” I cross my arms over my chest and put as much space between us as I can in the limited space.
“It means I’m here as your stand-in husband.”
2
Spencer
I’m acutelyaware of the beads of sweat dotting the back of my neck from my sprint down the jet bridge. Half of it anyway. The scarred part doesn’t work the same as it used to. I’m aware of a lot of things since the accident, and the perspiration leaking from my pores should be the least of my concerns. There’s plenty else for strangers to stare at. A man dripping in sweat is the least interesting thing about me.
I could tell stories for days to entertain their curiosity. How I watched my best friend go up in flames at work one random Thursday. How I nearly lost my life in the same accident. Weeks spent in the hospital recovering, delays due to infections. Multiple surgeries to put my tissues back together, followed by physical therapy.
I slow and catch my breath as the flight attendant smiles and retreats down the aisle.
Yeah. The most interesting thing about me is the thing I wish nobody knew happened at all.
I would have kept it that way too, if my boss didn’t somehow find a way to track down my mom as an emergency contact. I would have recovered in peaceful silence if she hadn’t called my two brothers for an impromptu family reunion in Regions Burn Unit. Word spread, as it always does in a small town. I could have disappeared back to the quiet rural town I escaped to decades ago if it weren’t for Cortney Powell and her sudden reappearance in my life.
I don’t know who was more shocked, me or her, when I woke up to her in my hospital room a couple of months ago. Her checking on me was meant to be cordial.
But things between us could never be cordial. We were never meant to be friends.
