Island Hearts (Jenny's Turn and Stray Lady) by Vanessa Grant Page A

ignored him, smiling brightly at the guard as she handed him her handbag.
    Jake moved between Jennifer and the security booth. “Now, listen—”
    “Your boarding pass, sir?” The uniformed man stepped between them as Jennifer walked briskly through the X-ray scan.
    “I’m not a passenger. I just want to talk to—”
    “Sorry, sir. You can’t go beyond this point without a boarding pass.”
    And Jennifer was gone, walking around the corner, with only a quick, unrepentant glance back.

    Jake stared at the television set, oblivious to the details of today’s football game, waiting for what he’d come for. The weather. Just how detailed did they get on this channel? He couldn’t remember, hadn’t really cared before.
    “Are we going out?” Monica asked, not for the first time.
    “Yes,” he said absently, wishing he’d never started dating her. “In a few minutes.”
    What a fool he’d made of himself in that flaming airport! Jennifer, turning contrary and elusive, had been like a red flag to a bull. First the embarrassment in the restaurant, then leaving him standing like a fool at the customs counter.
    Damn! No one had made a fool of him since the day he went to art school over the protests of his father’s family. Only Jennifer, damn her! He’d never been able to get anywhere near her. Was that why she’d been so fascinating to him from the beginning?
    When Jennifer first started working for him, he’d been in the middle of a casual affair. He’d ended it immediately, turning his attention to this mysteriously quiet girl with the deep, stubborn eyes.
    She’d said no when he asked her to dinner – but she’d accepted an invitation from the accountant in the office downstairs. When she stopped dating the accountant, Jake had tried again, inviting her to a show he knew she wanted to see.
    She had been silent for a long moment, concentrating on the papers in front of her. Then she had met his eyes directly and said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
    He hadn’t asked again. He hadn’t stopped wanting her, but he thought he’d stopped showing it. After a while, he came to see how valuable an assistant she was, and he told himself he was glad that he hadn’t ruined a good working relationship for a short-lived affair.
    But now she was leaving, walking away and leaving him on the wrong side of an airport security check. He stood staring at the empty hallway, finally becoming aware of the uniformed guard who was smiling, as if he had seen it all before.
    If she thought she could walk away that easily, evade him by walking through a gate and laugh back from the other side…
    “I want a ticket on the flight to Ketchikan!” he demanded of the ticket clerk back at the terminal. “The one that’s boarding at gate twenty-nine now.”
    She touched keys, stared at her computer display. “I have no seats on that flight, sir. If you’d like to go on standby?”
    “Yes, all right. And book me back, too.”
    She paused, her hands poised over the keyboard. “On which flight, sir?”
    “The same plane.”
    “The same? Sir—”
    “It does come back, doesn’t it?”
    “Yes, it comes back – immediately.” She glared at him, evidently trying to decide just how much of a nut case he was. “That flight only stays on the ground at Ketchikan for—”
    “That’s fine. Just do it, would you?” he said abruptly, embarrassed at having to explain his irrational impulse. He pushed a credit card across the counter to her, and that seemed to silence the protests. Apparently it didn’t matter how crazy he was if he was willing to pay.
    Then he waited, prowling the terminal on the wrong side of the security checkpoint, watching the clock. The loudspeaker call, when it came, was difficult to hear, but he caught “…standby passengers Mudge and Austin,” and dashed back to get the boarding pass that would let him through the security checkpoint.
    “No hand luggage?” asked the security guard, hiding