Free Male Order Bride by Carolyn Thornton Page A

were seated together in 6D and 6E.
    He slipped the saddlebags off his shoulder and stowed them
in the overhead bins to leave more room for his long legs beneath the
seat in front of him as he sidled across 6C and sat down.
    Okay Chancellor
, he told himself.
Now's
your chance. What are you going to say to the woman
?
    He fiddled with the seat belt, adjusting the buckle to fit
his lap. Then he turned to check the nearest emergency exit from his
seat. Then he pulled the in-flight magazine out of the seat pocket in
front of him and noticed he had read the same copy on the trip up. He
put the magazine back and flattened the newspaper on his knees. Taking
a deep breath, he turned to speak to her.
    She was staring out the window at the last-minute baggage
being stowed on board. She must have felt him staring, because she
turned and looked at him and her eyes quickly darted away.
    "You headed all the way to Biloxi/Gulfport?" Rafe asked,
deciding it was now or never to get her attention. Once that initial
contact was made, the rest would be downhill. Except he had picked a
bad opening line.
    "Yes," she answered. "This is a nonstop flight."
    Terrific
, Rafe thought.
Bomb
one for an aviator
. He smiled, hoping that his
"how-silly-of-me" grin would hold her interest long enough for him to
try to speak and say something more intelligent. "I guess what I meant
is, are you from the Coast or from Atlanta?"
    Now, that sounded legitimate enough for one stranger to be
asking another stranger, he decided. Harmless.
    "I live on the Coast," she told him. "How about you?"
    He smiled. Her question had been prompted by politeness
more than genuine interest. Her fingers were playing with the edges of
her magazine, telling him he had done well to get her attention before
the plane left the ground, or she would have been walled off by its
pages.
    "Biloxi's my home."
Fair-enough answer
,
he decided.
Now, don't blow it by asking where she's been
hiding all your life. Don't ask the tacky question: Are you married
?
He already knew the answer, and she would probably appreciate a male
who didn't ask that for a change.
    The flight attendant was walking down the aisle checking
to be sure all carry-on luggage was stowed beneath seats and seat belts
buckled. Rafe turned his attention to the flight attendant and smiled
as she passed. Better not tire out Lacey Adams with too much talk about
nothing before he got a real chance to get into a lot of talk about
something. Let her think that last was just a friendly comment. He'd
made voice contact. He could go from there in a few
minutes—when he had something better to say.
    He turned back to Lacey and smiled his "I'm-harmless"
smile.
    She was staring out the window again.
    Rafe waited until the plane left the terminal and the
flight attendant had finished her speech before he attempted talking to
Lacey again. "Hope the weather is as good in Biloxi as it has been
here," he said, thinking what a mundane subject to start with, not
exactly the kind of thing you could term "memorable".
    "Uhm."
    And not a subject that you could do a lot with, he
decided. "I'm R.C.," he said, holding out his hand.
    She took it and smiled, placing her own hand in his for a
shake. "Lacey."
    "Do you get to Atlanta very often?"
    "Not too often," she answered. "I'm a fashion designer and
I own a boutique. I come here occasionally on buying trips."
    "Really," he said, impressed that he was finally getting
her to open up to him. "I would have thought New York was the place for
that sort of thing."
    "It is. But Atlanta has become one of the most aggressive
cities of the South. Houston is another fashion center. I'm there
frequently also."
    "You must log a lot of air miles," he commented.
    He heard what sounded like a small sigh, but when he
looked at her, she was still smiling. "I do. It gets a bit hectic and
bothersome. But I enjoy it or I wouldn't do it. I have enough people
working with me who would jump at the chance to travel, so I feel