Maybe.
She had to face facts here. She knew her own nature and was inclined to try to find a little romance in almost anything that happened. When she saw a film or a TV show and there was no love interest, her attention would wander. She wasn’t a deep thinker. Speculative theories could hold her interest for just so long and no longer. What she wanted to see and to think about was people loving each other.
Maybe it was because she’d never had a real romance of her own. She kept hoping, but no one really wonderful had ever come her way.
Until David, a little voice inside was saying.
Well, she couldn’t deny he was pretty darn good. Still, he could never be for her and she knew it. Right now they were thrown together. They were hiding. They were running from someone. They were both taking care of a baby. There wasn’t much romantic in all that, but it did keep them involved. She was just going to have to learn to keep his theory in mind at all times.
No matter what happened, it didn’t mean a thing.
And then, gritting her teeth, she made her way down the hall and found that the bathroom wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d expected. In fact, it was rather cozy, with newer decorations and more accessories than the hotel room itself.
The worst thing was the huge mirror set over a vanity area with a chair and small table. There she was in living color, looking even more horrible and haggard than she’d thought. She was a mess. Her hair resembled a bird’s nest. Her eyes were tired and the dark circles beneath them were epic. She groaned and immediately went to work, splashing water on her face and pinching her cheeks to get some color in them. As she tried to comb her hair into a more pleasing tangle, she realized what she was doing and why she was working so frantically to make herself look a bit better. She cared what David thought of her.
“Doggone-it,” she whispered, staring into her own eyes in the mirror. There was no hope. He’d already seen the worst of her.
She made her way to the corner market and found a brand of formula that looked like it would do. She was standing in line at the cashier when it occurred to her that she didn’t have the right money.
“Uh-oh.” She made a pathetic face to the bored-looking young woman behind the counter. “All I have are American dollars. I don’t suppose…”
The cashier shook her head, making all her many piercings jangle at the same time. “Nah. We’ve had some bad experiences. We don’t accept American money after six.”
Ayme stared at her wondering what difference the time made. “Uh…what if I…?”
“Sorry,” the girl said dismissively, pursing her brightly painted lips and looking toward the customer behind her.
Ayme sighed, starting to turn away. She might as well go back, climb the two flights of stairs, get some proper money from David, and do this all over again. But before she could vacate the premises, someone else had intervened, stepping forward to stop the clerk from going on to the next customer.
“Allow me, madam,” he said with a gracious nod of his head. In his hand was exact change. He gave it to the clerk with a flourish.
Ayme gasped.
“Oh. Oh, thank you so much.” She smiled at him, thoroughly relieved. What a nice man. He looked like her idea of what a composer or conductor should look like—eyes brightly seeing something over the horizon, white hair flying about his head, seeming to explode out from under a smallish felt hat, a supernatural smile as though he could hear music from the heavens. All in all, she thought he looked delightful, and she was so grateful she was bubbling with it.
“You are so kind. This is incredible. I wouldn’t accept it but I’m just so tired tonight and the baby is out. But I do have the money. If you’d like to come with me to the hotel room where we’re staying…”
Even as she said the words she realized this wasn’t a good idea. They were supposed to be in hiding, not inviting in strangers. She made a quick amendment to her suggestion.
“Please, give me your name and address so I can make sure you get repaid.”
He waved all her protestations away. “Don’t think twice about it, my dear. It’s not a problem.” He tipped his hat to her and turned to go. “I hope you have a safe journey to the continent.”
“Thank you so much.”
She smiled, but as he disappeared into the crowd on the street, her smile faded. How did he know she was on her way to the continent? She barely knew that herself. But this seaside town was a bit of a launching location for trips across the channel. So maybe she was taking his words too seriously.
Still, it did give her pause.
“I assume we’re going to the continent?” she said as she returned to the room and began to unpack the little bottles of formula. David already had Cici sound asleep in her new car seat, tilted back and rigged as a bed. “Is that our next move?”
“Yes. Tomorrow we’ll be crossing the channel,” he told her. He gave her a quick glance to make sure she was suffering no lasting damage from the earlier trip into a public facility, and the fact that she looked calm and pleasant seemed to confirm that all was okay.
“Heading for France?” she asked hopefully.
France! Paris! She would love to see it all.
But he gave her an enigmatic smile and avoided the issue.
“Possibly,” he said.
“Or possibly not,” she said mockingly, making a face.
He grinned.
“I almost didn’t get the formula,” she told him as she began to set up a feeding for Cici. She explained about the cashier and the white-haired man.
“It was so nice of him,” she said.
Alarms went off in David’s head but he quickly calmed himself. After all, she was a very attractive woman. Any man worth his salt would have stepped forward to help her in a moment of need. He would have done it himself. Hopefully that was all there was to it.
Still, he was wary.
“What did he say?” he quizzed her. “Tell me every detail.”
“Oh, he was just a nice old man,” she insisted, but she told him everything she could remember, and he couldn’t really find anything extraordinary in it.
“Let me know if you see him again,” he told her. He briefly considered changing hotels, but then he decided he was being a bit paranoid. There was really no reason to suspect the man of anything at all. “Right now I want you to lie down on that bed.”
“What?” she said, startled.
His mouth twisted. She was so predictable on certain subjects.
“I want you to get some sleep. I’m going out for a while, but when I get back, I’ll take care of Cici should she waken. We may have to take off at an odd hour. I want you to take this chance to get the rest you need.”
She turned to look at him. He was handsome as ever, but his eyes did look tired.
“But what about you? You’re the one who’s been driving and you need some sleep yourself.”
He gave her his long, slow smile that he only handed out on special occasions. “I never sleep.”
She laughed, charmed by that roguish smile. “Oh, please. What are you, a Superhero?”
“Not quite. But close.”
It occurred to her that she knew precisely what he was—wary and mistrustful