Page 5 of Two Tickets to Paradise

She looked over her shoulder at the bench by the glass wall.

"The bench is pretty comfortable. It's the one thing that they spent good money on in this area."

Cora looked back at the screen and started to type.

A few moments later, she lifted her gaze to see that he was still standing beside her.

She didn't know why but she started to smile. "Afraid I'm not going to fix this?"

"No," he shook his head, "I just want to stand here."

Her heart skipped a beat in her chest. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He nodded and shrugged. "I don't mind standing here. Seeing that you're doing me a favor."

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling like a nutter.

"And since I'll probably never see you again in my life, you're gorgeous. I don't want to waste my chance to get to know you."

"Ohhh... did you hear that?"

Widening her eyes, Cora looked over at herformer-friends. "Will you guys stop?"

Margo stared back at her with wide-eyed shock in her eyes but Janey looked like the cat that ate the flippin' canary.

"Why would we stop? This is the most entertainment we've had in this office in weeks."

Cora remembered the incident that Janey was talking about and softly groaned. "Don't remind me."

"Something bad happened?"

She heard the concern in his voice and it felt good.

Cora continued to search around the snow storm, looking for a way around the storm.

"Cora?"

His voice was softer, concerned.

It felt... good to hear that.

"Mmm hmm?"

"What happened a few weeks ago?"

She felt the tension climb up between her shoulders and she tilted her head in one direction and the other to ease the anxious feelings that came back up to the surface.

She didn't want to talk about it, but it seemed rude to just ignore the question.

She heard a door swing closed and turned to look. Margo and Janey had gone into the backroom.

They already knew what had happened, so they had probably gone in the back to avoid hearing it again.

"You... you don't have to tell me. Especially if it's difficult to talk about."

A second passed and he spoke again.

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

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