Free First Class Rescue (First Class Novels) by AJ Harmon

Beth’s hand
with her wet nose until Beth scratched her.
    “You like him, don’t you?” she asked Cleo. “Mmmm. Me too.”
She checked the clock. He’d be there any minute and as if on cue, there was a
knock on the door.
    Tim took her to a Thai restaurant all of his brothers had
raved about and they each placed their order.
    “How was your day?” she asked as she sipped from her water
glass.
    “Good,” he smiled. “I have four days off so today I went
over to my parents and hauled the boxes of Christmas decorations down from the
attic.”
    “Christmas?” she choked. “It’s only just November!”
    Tim grinned. “It takes my mom almost a month to decorate.
She has boxes and boxes of stuff.”
    “Wow. I can’t imagine my mother ever doing that.”
    “Didn’t you decorate?”
    “Oh yes! We had two trees; one in the parlor that was
magnificent that we were under no circumstances allowed to touch, and then the
one in the back of the house that nobody but the family ever saw, that had the
presents under it. That’s the one that we could put our handmade ornaments on
and our poorly wrapped gifts.”
    “Poorly wrapped?”
    “I liked to wrap my own gifts but my mother always had the
shop wrap hers so they looked professional.”
    “Your mom sounds…well…never mind.” Tim frowned as he stopped
his train of thought.
    “The thing is,” Beth began, “I always knew that she loved me
and Rupert and Emma. It’s just that she lets her idea of her place in society
dictate her actions and demeanor with others, but also with her children. Once
when I was a teenager, I walked in on them while my dad was kissing her and she
jumped so high and then apologized for days afterward about her behavior.
They’re married for heaven’s sake! You know, that’s the only time I ever remember
them showing any physical affection to each other. On the rare occasions I went
to friends’ houses for a sleep over or a birthday party or something, I would
see their parents kissing and hugging and it all seemed so normal. As you
Americans would say, she just needs to chill out .”
    Tim chuckled. “Well you might not want to come to my
parents’ house then.”
    “Why?”
    “Well my parents are always touching. Whether it’s holding
hands or hugging, or my dad with his arm around my mom. Always. ”
    “That sounds nice,” she smiled.
    “And then throw in my brothers and their spouses,” Tim added.
“Matt can’t keep his hands off Janie. Same with Mark and Katy. And all the
others. They’re all whipped,” he grinned. “Sorry. That was crude.”
    Beth smiled. “I think it’s kind of nice. I think it would be
sweet to have a man that loved me so much he doted on me.”
    Tim smiled and watched her cheeks color a light shade of red
as she spoke. “I don’t think you’ll have any problem finding a man like that.”
    The waitress arrived with their lettuce wraps and they both
dug in and cleaned the plate quickly.
    “This is delicious,” she grinned as she wiped her mouth on
her napkin. “I love to find places like this.”
    “My brother Mark and his wife Katy discovered it a few
months ago and I’ve heard about it regularly ever since so I figured this was a
good night to try it out.”
    Once again, Beth thought of Edward and how he would’ve
balked at the idea of eating Thai food. He was missing out but Beth wasn’t
missing him…not one bit.
    They ordered dessert to share – sticky rice with fresh mango
slices and as they scraped the plate clean, the waitress arrived with the
check. Tim was eager to get back to her place.
    *****
    Walking out into the chill of the November air, Tim stepped
to the edge of the sidewalk to flag down a cab and Beth cinched her belt on her
coat a little tighter as she waited under the awning out of the rain that was
just beginning to fall. As she took a step toward him a woman rushed to Tim and
threw her arms around his neck.
    “Tim! How wonderful to see you.” She obviously knew