Free Oh Stupid Heart by Liza O'Connor

located both her suitcases.
    Her mouth fell open. “How…?”
    His chest puffed out
as he grinned. “I checked the name tags. Is this all?”
    The moment she
nodded, off he flew, leaving her in his wake. People quickly filled the space
between them and soon she lost sight of her driver.
    She continued in the
direction he’d headed, hoping he would realize he’d abandoned his client before
he actually left the airport. Otherwise, she’d never see her luggage again.
    A happy thought
pushed its way into her surly brain. Thanks to Trent, she had a credit card
with no limit, so she could buy new clothes if necessary.
    He truly was becoming
a wonderful human being, a remarkable feat given his horrible upbringing. Being
raised wealthy ruined a person.
    Suddenly the crowd of
people parted revealing her driver and luggage.
    “I am so sorry.” the
man said. “I didn’t mean to leave you behind.” He settled in beside her, matching
her pace. His pent-up energy radiated off him, like a racehorse stuck with the
job of a seeing-eye dog.
    Carrie intended to
cut her race horse loose. “Hold up.” She was about to tell him to get the limo
and bring it to the curb when some jerk not paying attention to anything under
five-feet-tall plowed into her and slammed her to the less than clean floor.
    “What the hell!” Her
driver snared the man’s arm. “You ran over the lady. Watch where you’re going!
You could have killed her!”
    Carrie didn’t know if
the man felt bad he’d flattened her to the ground or feared the angry giant in
a bad suit would hit him, but never had she seen a man more apologetic in her
life. He even helped her up and dusted her off. She really didn’t appreciate
the latter.
    “I am so sorry, miss.
I didn’t see you. Are you okay?”
    Her rump hurt, but no
way in hell she’d share her pain, or he’d be patting her there, too. “I’m fine.
Please remember, there are people down here at this level, so you should keep
an eye out for us.”
    He chuckled,
evidently thinking she’d made a joke. “Thank you, I will.” He hurried off at
the same frantic pace he’d had before.
    “Okay if I walk in
front of you?” the driver asked.
    She almost pointed
out he’d already tried and failed at normal walking speed, but hell, everyone
deserved a second chance, so she nodded. To her shock, her driver maintained a
reasonable pace the entire way to his limo, and in his wake, she arrived
without being flattened again.
    Once inside the limo,
he apologized yet again. While she couldn’t rally herself to say he’d performed
his job adequately, because he hadn’t, she appreciated his sincere regret for his
mishaps.
    “We all have days we
don’t perform to our best. All we can do is learn from them and move on.
Dwelling in regret is not helpful.”
    The driver smiled at
her. “Are you really an executive? Cause I ain’t never heard one be so
reasonable about mistakes.”
    Good question. Was a change
specialist considered an executive? Even when she was an EA, technically she
might not have been considered such.
    Yet, she did the work
of an executive. More importantly, she had the credit card of an executive.
    She pondered the
matter all the way to her hotel.
    The driver retrieved
her luggage from the trunk and passed it to a bellhop. “You treat this lady
right. She’s an important person.” He crouched down, as one might do when
speaking to a small child and smiled at Carrie. “I hope you have a real nice
time here in San Francisco, Miss Hanson.”
    “Thank you….” she
squinted at his tiny name tag.
    “Clarence.”
    Odd, she could have
sworn the tag said something like Mauritana. Maybe he didn’t want to give his
real name after his less than spectacular performance. If Trent had been with
her, he would have spent the whole ride tracking down the owner of the limo
service and getting the fellow fired.
    She extended her hand
to him and lied. “Nice to meet you, Clarence.”
    Evidently, God