A Kiss Is Just a Kiss

by Melinda Curtis

  She pressed her lips together and nodded, not trying to hide her disapproval. After all, she’d managed to get three small children to the airport on time, presumably alone. He couldn’t imagine Maggie accomplishing such a feat. On their last date, she’d taken so long to get dressed they’d missed the beginning of the movie they wanted to see and ended up watching a slasher flick, which turned Beck’s stomach, but which Maggie seemed to enjoy.

  Now, Kitty…Kitty was rumored to be an on-time machine. Not surprising for a woman as driven as she was to succeed.

  Why was he thinking about Kitty?

  Leaving a wet trail in his wake, Beck groveled his way to the security screener with eight minutes until take-off. Twenty feet away, people moved about freely.

  The uniformed woman before him had frizzy gray hair, the dark brown alligator skin of the overly tanned, and bright blue eyeshadow. She scanned his ticket on his phone using a small black reader. The machine beeped, but it didn’t beep happily. It bonked.

  Beck’s damp, clammy skin pebbled as hope abandoned him.

  “You’ve been flagged for additional screening.” The guardian of the X-ray machine waved to another security guard behind her.

  Beck put together a smile the way a soldier loaded his gun when he heard the enemy charging–with grim determination. “I’d like a raincheck. You see, my fiancée is–”

  “This will only take a few minutes, sir.” She sat up straighter on the stool, the blue eyeshadow nearly disappearing behind her wide, watchful eyes.

  He refused to give up. “But my plane is about to leave with my fiancée.” And without him.

  “Step to the right, sir.” The command in the security guard’s tone was unmistakable.

  “Excuse me.” Beck’s lips stuck on his dry teeth. He began to move toward the X-ray archway. “I only have a few minutes.”

  “Stop right there.” The woman flung out her arm to block him. “Reginald!” She said, “Reginald” the way Steve McGarrett said, “Book ‘em, Dano.” Like Beck’s fate was a done deal.

  “Come with me, sir.”

  Beck glanced up.

  Beck was tall. Reginald was taller. And about double Beck in girth. Reginald looked like he’d been cut from the Miami Dolphin’s offensive line for being overweight.

  Beck cast one more glance at the crowd walking freely on the other side of security before Reginald led him away.

  *

  “Pull into the gas station before you kill someone.” Kitty employed the authoritative tone she used with her patients when she needed them to push one more time.

  It worked. Grandma yanked the wheel, missing part of the driveway. They bumped over the curb and lurched to a stop in two empty spaces in front of the convenience store.

  “Easy peasy.” Dotty put the truck in park.

  Kitty snatched the key fob from the ignition with trembling fingers and freed herself from the safety belt. “No more driving for you.”

  “Why not?” Grandma’s cheeks were flushed with life and her words flushed with indignation. “I’ve driven a pace car at Daytona. I’m a good driver.”

  “Were. You were a good driver.”

  “Don’t treat me like I’m old and useless.” Dotty slapped her palm over the steering wheel as if giving it a spanking. “I just proved how well I can drive.”

  “You proved something, all right.” Kitty leaned over and hugged her fiercely, incredibly relieved they were safe. “This truck is too big for you.”

  When she pulled back, her grandmother’s stare had that distant, cloudy look once more. “Where did your prom date go?”

  Kitty sighed, missing her grandmother’s clear-headedness. She took Beck’s credit card. “I’m going to get you a bottle of water.” Hydration sometimes helped keep clear Dotty’s head.

  “And then we’ll pick up your date?”

  “Yes.” Because she held out hope that Beck hadn’t made that flight. “And then we’ll get you to Atlanta.” By the time they reached Tybee Island, Kitty would’ve decided if Beck truly loved Maggie. Hopefully Maggie would’ve decided if she truly loved Beck. Either way, Kitty hoped Maggie could find it in her heart to forgive her.

  It took Kitty all of three minutes to leap out of the truck, run into the store, buy a bottle of water and return. She grimaced at the damaged front grill, which seemed to grimace back, and opened the driver’s side door. “Grandma?”

  The rain soaked her. The truck was empty.

  Grandma Dotty was nowhere in sight.

  *

  Add strip-search to the list of experiences Beck never wanted to relive.

  It was a short list, and included a prostate exam and having his wedding sabotaged at the altar.

  On some level, he understood why he’d been treated like a terrorist. He’d been uncooperative and belligerent. But he’d been so close to reaching Maggie. To saving his marriage. To keeping the filly.

  Mental head thunk.

  It wasn’t about the filly. Or at least, it shouldn’t have been. It was hard to stay dedicated to reclaiming his bride when faced with obstacle after demoralizing obstacle.

  He stepped over a puddle-swamped crack in the sidewalk.

  So perhaps he’d earned a frisking, a strip-search, and an interrogation. But couldn’t they have told the ground crew to hold his plane? When they finally let him out, Maggie’s flight was gone.

  As was his ride.

  Beck stood at the curb of Departures and stared through the curtain of rain toward the sparse traffic coming into the terminal, his truck nowhere to be seen.

  Now what?

  Beck wasn’t used to failure. He’d been running the horse farm since his grandfather died when he was fifteen. He’d taken risks with breeding practices because his parents had no interest in bloodlines and genetic traits. He’d followed his intuition and it’d never led him astray.

  Was this punishment for wanting the filly? Karma attempting to reset the universe? Or just a streak of bad luck?

  “Arrivals and pick-ups are downstairs, sir.” Another security guard approached, ready to enforce another rule on this dreariest of days. “You should go downstairs.”

  Beck turned from the road and held up his hands, trying to look as cooperative as any drenched traveler who’d missed his flight. “My ride is minutes away.”

  With his luck? Not a chance. Kitty was probably already miles down Highway 95.

  A vehicle pulled up to the curb, drenching his backside with water. Beck cringed and turned.

  It was his truck.

  Dotty pushed the passenger door open. She looked as if she’d been dunked in a pool, which was fitting since Beck felt as if hope had been flooded out of him. Despite that, he was cheered to see them.

  Cheered to see my truck in one piece, he silently amended.

  Beck climbed in next to Dotty and closed the door. He slumped in his seat and didn’t say anything for a few minutes. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Potty break,” Kitty said tightly.

  “I got locked in the ladies.” Dotty shivered, sounding dejected.

  “It could happen to anyone,” Kitty said with what seemed to be forced cheer. She headed toward the highway. “Did you see Maggie?”

  “I was stopped.” Understatement of the day. He’d been stopped all right. First by a bridesmaid, then by a hotel manager, and finally by security. “Apparently, purchasing a ticket last minute and showing up without checking luggage marks you as a flight risk.” Beck stared out the window. “I was detained and searched.”

  Dotty trembled beside him. Her short white hair was slicked to her head. “Did they find anything suspicious?”

  Beck slanted the old lady an incredulous look. “No.”

  “Grandma, drink your water.” Kitty leaned forward to catch Beck’s eye. “She needs dry clothes.”

  She wasn’t the only one. Kitty was soaked. Her once voluminous skirt draped around her legs like a thick wet sleeping bag. Her make-up had been washed away, robbing her of th
at sophisticated war-paint New York women wore. Only the sable braids coiled around her head had been tight enough to withstand Mother Nature.

  “They have a gift shop at the hotel. You can get dry clothes there.” Hopefully, the model of efficiency hotel manager hadn’t packed Beck’s clothes yet.

  Dotty shivered again.

  Kitty must have felt it, too, because she repeated, “She needs dry clothes. Now.”

  “Okay, but this is the last stop before Tybee Island.” Which was a hard day’s drive from South Florida. Still, Kitty could drop her grandmother off in Atlanta after he made up with his bride. “There’s a souvenir shop ahead. Pull in.”

  Kitty turned into the lot and parked facing the street.

  “Why don’t you park closer?” They’d have a better chance of staying dry. “There’s a spot by the door.”

  “Oh?” Kitty glanced over her shoulder with those too-big, too-innocent brown eyes. “Someone just took it.”

  “No one likes to see the front of their car anyway,” Dotty said in that dotty way of hers. “Bugs. Road kill. D–” She flinched and gulped back whatever she’d be about to say.

  Beck wasn’t sure, but Kitty might have elbowed her.

  “Fine,” he grumbled. “Let’s be quick about it. I have a marriage to save.”

  By the time they got inside, Dotty’s teeth were clacking together like fast-trotting horse hooves on pavement. Kitty grabbed a couple of beach towels and Beck enlisted the help of a store clerk to get them a changing room. Their rooms had half-doors, so everyone could see their calves and the tops of their heads. Only the Summer women were so short Beck couldn’t see their heads at all.

  While Kitty helped Dotty remove her wet clothes, Beck slipped the store clerk a fifty and asked her to find Kitty the tackiest clothes in the store. If he was paying, he was choosing what Kitty would wear.

  Yeah, he was a little vindictive.

  Two wet women’s dresses landed in a heap on the dressing room floor.

  The clerk handed items to Kitty over the half-door of the changing room, and then bent to drag their wet clothes away. “Do you want to keep these?”

  “No!” came the chorused response.

  The clerk staggered under the weight of wet wedding finery and left them in a carpeted corner. Meanwhile, Beck picked out a pair of navy board shorts and a green polo shirt, and found an empty changing room. In no time, he was done.

  “Miss?” Kitty’s voice snapped with annoyance. “I’d like something else to wear.”

  Of course, she would.

  “That’s all they had in your size.” Beck dumped what was left of his ruined tuxedo on top of their dresses.

  “Now I know you’re kidding.” Kitty’s vocal snap evolved into a catty growl. “You’re telling me they only had a thong bikini in my size.”

  “We only carry beachwear, not underthings.” The clerk was nothing if not loyal to the man who’d bribed her. She gave Beck a thumbs up.

  “I’ll take that thong,” Dotty said, with her usual cheer. “I’ve always wanted to try one. You can have my one-piece.”

  “No. Dad would kill me.” Kitty sighed. “If I walk out of here wearing this thing and see something else in my size, there will be blood.”

  “Do your worst.” Beck smiled for the first time since she’d kissed him. “Be glad that I’m offering to pay for a bathing suit and board shorts.”

  A diminutive Asian woman near the front of the store opened an umbrella, flapping the metal tines in and out, which scraped like claws against the window.

  Beck looked away. It was bad luck to open an umbrella inside. He needed some positive signs. A horseshoe facing the right way. A penny facing up. His bride returning to him with a forgiving smile.

  Kitty stepped out of the dressing room and glared at him. She wore white board shorts with pink flamingos. Her T-shirt was white, and read, “I got Flamingoed in Florida.” The pink flamingo on her shirt raised a green margarita glass as if in toast.

  “You.” Kitty marched toward Beck, pink plastic flip-flops snapping.

  Dotty stood in the changing room doorway and struck a pose. “We match. Tres chic.”

  Kitty stopped in front of Beck. Her sisters had gotten all the height in the family, but none of them could match Kitty for chutzpah. “This is payback for Maggie.”

  She stood as close as she had been before she’d kissed him. He should have pushed her away and moved to the register. But there was something about Kitty that stopped him. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something that unsettled him and calmed him and called to him, all at the same time.

  Beck licked his dry lips and tried to sneer. “News flash, Kathryn. We will never be even.”

  “Are we playing a game?” Dotty joined them. Her white hair was a short frizzy cloud. “I prefer Bridge.”

  Kitty plucked a rhinestone-studded pink baseball cap off a rack and fitted it gently on her grandmother’s head. “To keep you dry. Beck is buying us sunglasses, too.”

  “How sweet of him.” Dotty flashed Beck that absurdly endearing smile, the one that said she’d have a soft spot in her heart for him no matter what he did.

  Beck beamed at the sales clerk. “We’ll take two of those pink heart-shaped sunglasses. The cheap ones.”

  There was no mistaking it. Kitty growled at him.

  Chapter 5

  “You’re smokin’ hot.”

  Kitty stifled a groan. For the past hour, the conversation had been carried by her grandmother. She’d never heard Dotty talk so much. Which would’ve been fine except Dotty switched sanity tracks quicker than a man switched TV channels with his remote. It wore on Kitty’s already frazzled nerves. And now, Grandma was flirting with Beck.

  “Smokin’ hot,” Dotty repeated, pointing to the front of Beck’s truck.

  Or not flirting. The rain was letting up. Steam rose from beneath the hood.

  Shoot. Kitty kept looking forward. She’d parked facing away from the souvenir shop so Beck wouldn’t notice his mangled grill. She’d been hoping Grandma’s fender bender hadn’t resulted in any casualties besides the grill. Although…

  Kitty straightened. You could tell a lot about a man by his relationship to his vehicle. Or his cell phone. Or his mother. Kitty angled herself to better read Beck.

  “That’s odd.” Beck peered at the gauges, as calm and courteous as he’d been to Dotty the past hour. “The engine temperature is in the red.”

  “Take the next exit.” Dotty pointed ahead. “There’s a dealership in West Palm Beach that’ll fix anything.”

  Kitty made a more careful study of their whereabouts. They were coming up to what looked like auto row–several car dealerships clustered together. She recognized a familiar blue and white sign. In the chaos of the day, she’d forgotten help was so close.

  Beck moved into the right lane. “How do you know about this place?”

  “My family has owned that chain of dealerships for four generations.” Dotty’s voice rang with pride, which might have been inappropriate considering she was the reason the truck needed repairs.

  “Which one?” Beck came dangerously close to running over a Mini Cooper, braking at the last minute. “Robertson?”

  Grandma did the bobble-head nod.

  “They’re everywhere along the east coast.” Beck signaled to exit. “Why didn’t I know you came from automobile royalty?”

  “I wonder.” Kitty didn’t pull the sarcasm punch.

  “Don’t imply Maggie and I don’t talk about important things.” Beck took the curved exit at freeway speed, making Dotty flop against Kitty’s shoulder. “Let me assure you, we talk about things that are important to us, mostly a shared interest in horses.”

  Grandma Dotty snorted like a winded horse and pushed her pink heart-shaped sunglasses up her nose. “Your so-called romance is in worse shape than I thought.”

  “You’re lucky I have a sense of humor.” Beck’s grin was a lopsided baring of teeth.

 
“Let’s hope someday we can look back on this day and laugh,” Kitty muttered.

  “Here’s hoping that someday is tomorrow.” Beck cornered as if the big truck was a sports car, turned into the dealership with a squeal of tires, and parked beneath the service carport in front of several open and empty service bays. He leapt out as if the truck needed life support and he was a paramedic, running to the front bumper. And then he froze.

  Steam billowed from the hood like hot water from an angry geyser.

  Kitty suspected something else was about to blow. She held onto Dotty’s arm, anchoring her in her center seat.

  Dotty blinked at Kitty primly. “Aren’t we getting out?”

  “Wait.” Kitty wanted Beck to have some alone time with that damaged grill. She wanted to drink in his reaction like a cup of I-told-you-so tea. If he didn’t handle the smashed up front end well, it’d be another strike against him.

  “What the…” Beck shot them with a blue-laser glare. “How did this happen?” He hadn’t shut his door, which was letting in the muggy Florida heat, but wasn’t nearly as hot as Beck appeared to be. He returned to stand inside the door, giving them the evil eye. “Is that what you meant about being locked in the bathroom?”

  “I was locked in the gas station’s ladies’ room,” Grandma said with squared shoulders and socialite aplomb. “It was very disconcerting considering the smell of the commode.”

  “Before the bathroom incident,” Kitty began, trying not to smile. She widened her eyes innocently. “There was this hotel shuttle.”

  “Oh, that.” Dotty scoffed. “He was a horrible driver and–”

  “It was pouring.” Kitty wrested control of the conversation. “And–”

  “Whack!” Dotty slapped her hands together.

  Beck’s jaw ticked sideways and his gaze collided with Kitty’s. “You didn’t see a shuttle bus?”

  “It was pouring,” Kitty repeated, feeling the first stirrings of annoyance. It had been an accident, after all.

  “You didn’t see a shuttle bus?” Beck made a strangled noise. “Or its brake lights?”