After that, the only person who made eye contact with Darcie was a portly porter who approached with a trolley as she waited for her bags at the luggage carousel. It was just her luck that only one of the designer knock-offs showed up. It was the smaller of the two—the bag in which she’d packed her “second-string” outfits, the first string being the new clothes she’d bought especially for the trip. The bag sported wheels and a retractable handle, but the handle was out and dangling uselessly to the side. As for the wheels, one had been sheared off somehow.
The porter pointed to the missing wheel and busted handle, and then pointed to the trolley. Darcie nodded. Even though the bag was only one size up from a carry-on, when she’d hefted it onto the scale at the airport in Buffalo, she’d nearly given herself a hernia. She was more than happy to have someone else do the heavy lifting now.
The porter was old enough to be her father, but nothing about the smile he gave her was paternal. After loading her bag onto a cart, he winked. Then his gaze skimmed down and he said something in Greek that, even though she didn’t know what it meant, had her checking the buttons on her blouse to be sure they were fastened.
“I, um, can take it from here,” Darcie said, handing him a couple euros for a tip and then making a shooing motion with her hands.
Alone again, she heaved a frustrated sigh. So much for the part of her itinerary that read, “You will be met at the airport by a member of our friendly and efficient English-speaking staff and taken directly to one of Athens’s finest hotels.”
But then what her near-miss of a husband considered “sparing no expense” on the trip of a lifetime and how the majority of people would define the concept were two different things entirely. Tad had never earned a penny that he hadn’t pinched mercilessly afterward. Darcie was all for getting a good deal, but more often than not, you got what you paid for. She had a bad feeling this trip was going to be a case in point. The plane ride had been her first clue, wedged as she’d been for the long, transatlantic flight into a coach seat so narrow that even a runway model would have found the dimensions unforgiving.
Darcie wasn’t a runway model, nor would she ever be mistaken for one, even if at five foot eleven she had the height. She also had curves, the kind for which words such as big-boned and, her personal favorite, full-figured had been strung together. She’d long ago reconciled herself to that fact that no amount of dieting was going to result in her being considered dainty. Instead, through hard work and an amount of discipline she hadn’t known she’d possessed, she’d toned her body into its best shape ever for her wedding day. She’d planned to rock the church wearing a fitted white mermaid gown, but she’d never walked down the aisle.
That had been her choice, but still...
She headed for the nearest counter, putting her back into steering the trolley, which, she discovered, had an annoying tendency to veer to the right. All the way there, she prayed that one of the two uniformed men standing behind the counter would speak enough English to understand her.
“Excuse me,” she began, smiling at both. “Yia sas.” That meant “hello” and pretty much measured the extent of her Greek.
Luckily, one of the men replied in English, “Hello. How can I assist you?”
“Someone from my tour was supposed to meet me here and take me to my hotel, but I don’t see anyone. I was hoping you might know where I should wait for them.”
The man nodded. “What is the name of the company?”
“It’s Zeus Tours.” She rifled through her purse and produced a full-color brochure and a printout of her itinerary, which she handed to him.
The mouth under his thick moustache twitched with a smile and he nodded again. “Zeus Tours. Ne.”
“You know of them?”
“Ne,” he said again. It meant “yes,” but his amused expression didn’t leave her feeling relieved. Next to him, the other man had started to chuckle.
Oh, this didn’t bode well, but she forged ahead. “Um, so are they here?” She gestured to the busy terminal at large.
He glanced around. “I do not see Stavros.”
The other man said something in Greek that had them sharing a laugh.
“Stavros.” She repeated on a nod. “Am I supposed to meet this Stavros somewhere other than here?”
“Here. There.” The man shrugged. “I suggest you have a seat and make yourself comfortable.” He handed the papers back to her and pointed to a nearby bank of chairs. “It could be a while.”
“A while?” Her stomach dropped.
“Stavros keeps his own schedule. If he owns a watch, he never consults it.”
At this the man’s coworker hooted with laughter.
Darcie was tired and growing irritable. She wanted a shower, a nap and something to eat, not necessarily in that order. It wouldn’t hurt to throw in a drink somewhere, either. A nice glass of chilled white wine, perhaps. Or a shot of ouzo...straight from the bottle. What she didn’t want to do was spend any more of her first day in Athens in the airport as the punch line for a joke. But she worked up a smile and offered her thanks.
She was attempting to wheel the trolley away when someone tapped her on the shoulder. Darcie turned to find the gorgeous man she’d spied earlier. Her stomach took another dive, but this time for reasons that had nothing to do with disappointment.
Up close, she realized that he was taller than she was. Darcie actually had to look up. Even if she’d been wearing the highest pair of heels she owned, she only would have been on eye level. Six foot three, she figured, and every last inch of him was packaged in firm muscle beneath an untucked white linen shirt and a pair of designer jeans that fit snugly across the thigh.
His skin was tanned, his jaw subtly shadowed. His hair was nearly black and fell across brows of the exact shade. The eyes below those brows were a rich chocolate-brown and smiling even though his mouth held only the faintest curve.
“Hello,” he said.
Her tongue untied long enough for her to manage a basic greeting. “Hi.”
“I could not help but overhear your conversation. Maybe I can be of help,” he said in gorgeously accented English.
“I hope so.” It came out on a sigh and Darcie came to her senses. “What I mean is, my fi— Um, friend booked an all-inclusive vacation package with Zeus Tours. I was promised that someone would meet me at the airport, but...” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug.
“Ah, Zeus Tours.” Like the pair at the counter, the man apparently was acquainted with the company, but he didn’t laugh. Rather, the corners of his mouth turned down in a frown. “May I ask why you decided to book your trip with that particular company?”
“My, um, friend found them on the internet and got a really good deal.”
It sounded like he said, “I am sure she did.” He glanced around then. “And where is your friend?”
Tad was probably with his mother, Darcie mused. It had taken her six years to accept the fact that an engagement ring was no match for the tight knots in Evelyn’s apron strings.
“Couldn’t make it,” she replied, leaving off the telltale pronoun.
A pair of dark brows