Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Guessed I didn’t look as calm as I had been trying to appear. “It’s just takeoff,” I told him.
“It’s fairly safe, little doll,” he drawled.
My head snapped up, and I stared at him. He’d called me little doll. He remembered me. My heart was beating fast for reasons that had nothing to do with the takeoff or this plane.
The corner of his lips quirked. “That worked.”
I blinked, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that he did remember me. Was he the one who had brought the cookies? Had he done it all those years ago?
“What?” I asked, not sure what he meant by that comment.
“You’re not thinking about takeoff anymore,” he replied, then glanced toward the window. “And we are almost ready to level out.”
He was right, but that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. I had questions, but I didn’t know if I could ask them. His mood changed too quickly. Being alone with him in this cabin for the duration of our flight kept me from blurting out the things I wanted to know.
Had he known who I was when they hired me?
“I, uh, I didn’t think you remembered me. It’s been seven years … or something like that,” I said, watching him closely. I didn’t want him to know I knew exactly how long it had been.
He looked amused. “I have an excellent memory.”
“You haven’t mentioned it before,” I pointed out.
I watched as he leaned forward and picked up an empty glass in front of him.
“What would you have had me say?”
I didn’t know. Nice to see you again. How has life been? No, none of that sounded like something Thatcher would say. In fact, his not bringing it up sounded exactly like how he would have responded.
I shrugged.
The flight attendant arrived, carrying a tray, and set it down on the table between us, then placed two small plates beside it. “Can I get you anything else to drink?” she asked me.
“More water,” I replied, then turned my attention to the tray of food.
The sight of lemon crinkle cookies caused me to let out a small gasp at the significance of them. Did this mean all those cookie deliveries had been him? It was still hard to believe Thatcher would do that. Considering what I had come to know of him, that didn’t fit. He wasn’t kind or thoughtful, yet there were my favorite cookies, surrounded by fresh berries and fancy cheeses.
“Another Bloody Mary?” I heard the lady ask.
“Just a water for me too,” Thatcher replied.
I waited until she walked away before lifting my eyes to look at him.
He was typing something on his phone, looking as relaxed as he had been before. As if my favorite cookies weren’t on the tray in front of us.
Did I ask, point it out, thank him?
He looked up from his phone to me, then at the tray. “What? Those aren’t your favorite anymore?” he asked.
I swallowed hard, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Then, get some before I do,” he replied before dropping his eyes back to his phone and continuing to type.
I was his jockey. Perhaps he’d had the cookies ordered for me because they wanted to treat me. This did not mean he had been delivering them to my front porch at night. That wasn’t typical Thatcher behavior. But then neither was this.
Picking up a plate, I placed two cookies on it, then took three strawberries and a few blackberries before sitting back in my seat.
Thatcher muttered a curse as he stared down at his phone, then stood up and walked toward a door in the back while placing the phone to his ear.
“Then, fucking fix it,” I heard him bark into the phone before disappearing into another room.
I let out a sigh and stared down at the plate in my lap. Reading too much into some cookies was silly. He didn’t know much about me, but this one thing. One evening on a park bench, he’d found out they were my favorite. Perhaps he was supposed to ask me what I’d like for the food on the flight, and he hadn’t wanted to take the time and just gone with the cookies. The one thing he did know.
That had to be it.
• Thirteen •
She made me care about shit that I’d never cared about before.
Thatcher
Having her room canceled at the hotel had been a necessity. I couldn’t watch her in a hotel room. The idea of not being able to check on her when needed didn’t sit well with me. I couldn’t be sure how I’d respond to that situation. The suite I’d booked when I informed my father I’d be going on this trip took up the entire top floor. It was large enough that she’d feel as if she had privacy.
She hadn’t said any more about the cookies on the flight, but it had been hard not to fucking grin at how transparent she was. She wanted to ask. Little doll was curious as fuck.