Page 81 of Endurance

A knot formed in my throat, so big I could barely breathe around it. She was really going to leave. She was giving up on me—onus. I couldn’t let that happen. Pulling the phone away from my ear, I looked at the time. It was going on three-thirty. The chances of me getting to her before the plane took off were slim to none, but I had to try.

“Thank you, Mr. Quinn. That’s all I needed to know. And sir?”

“Yes?”

“I just wanted to say that you have one spectacular daughter.”

Without another word, I ended the call, threw the car in reverse, and backed out of the driveway.

I raced through the streets to the nearest on-ramp for the I-405, then headed south toward the Los Angeles International Airport. Traffic wasn’t too terribly bad for once. The fifteen-minute drive only ended up being thirty-five minutes. It could have been much worse, but I was still running out of time. I glanced at the clock on the dash as I pulled into a parking space in the short-term parking lot at the airport. It was after four. Most likely, Kallie’s plane would begin boarding within the next thirty minutes.

Hurrying out of the car, I hit the button on the key fob to lock the doors. As I ran across the lot toward the airport entrance, I realized I’d forgotten to grab the flowers I had purchased for Kallie but didn’t want to waste time going back for them. Getting to her was more important right now.

I couldn’t get past security without a plane ticket, so once inside, I went straight to the ticket counter. The line was four people deep, leaving me no choice but to wait. The seconds and minutes ticked by painfully slowly as I stared at the clock on the wall behind the counter. It reminded me of the old saying about a watched pot that would never boil. I shoved an impatient hand through my hair, wishing the line would move faster.

“Can I help you, sir?” said the attendant behind the counter when it was finally my turn. I glanced at her red and blue name tag with the heart logo. Her name was Judy, and she’d been with the airline company for sixteen years.

“Hello, Judy. I need to get on the next flight to Washington D.C.”

“You don’t have a ticket?”

“No.”

“Let me see what we have available,” she said and began typing on her keyboard. “It looks like there are still a few seats available on the five o’clock flight to Reagan National Airport, but I’m not sure if you’ll make it to the gate in time. I can get you on the seven-ten flight tomorrow morn—”

“I’ll take today’s five o’clock flight. I’ll run to the gate if I have to.”

“Um, okay. Well, I’ll need to see some identification,” she eventually said. She eyed me strangely, almost as if she were sizing me up, while I pulled my license from my wallet. She took it from me, scrutinizing it carefully. I tapped an impatient foot, wanting to scream that I wasn’t on the terrorist watch list. I was simply a man who needed to get to his girl.

“Oh my gosh! You’re Sloan Atwood—as intheSloan Atwood!” Judy said.

Dammit! I don’t have time for this.

“That’s me,” I responded with a shrug, hoping the people standing nearby hadn’t heard her.

“My husband is a huge fan of yours—well, he was. What happened to you was terrible,” she prattled on. “We were all praying for you after your accident. I’m glad to see you looking so well.”

“I appreciate that,” I replied, desperately trying to keep the impatience out of my voice. “Look, I know I seem like I’m in a hurry—I am. You see, the woman who I’m supposed to spend my life with is getting on that plane. I need to get to her.”

Her head snapped back, and her eyes were alight with excitement.

“Oh! You said you’re supposed to spend your life with her—are you proposing to her here at the airport?” she asked, seeming giddy at the prospect. At this point, I would tell her anything she wanted to hear if it meant she would move faster.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s the plan.”

“Well, then we’ll just have to make sure you make it to the gate in time.” Without another word, Judy moved at lightning speed. In a matter of minutes, she began printing my boarding passes. As we waited for my required documents and receipt to spit out from the archaic dot matrix printing machine, she smiled and said, “I’ll call the gate to let them know you’re coming and ask them to give you a few extra minutes.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I told her, but she waved me off and picked up the phone next to the computer. A few seconds later, she spoke into the receiver.

“Hi, Celia. This is Judy from ticketing. I just wanted to let you know that you’ll have a passenger arriving a few minutes late to the gate. It’s Sloan Atwood. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He’s the race car driver who had that awful accident last year.” She paused, nodding her head rapidly, while the person on the other end of the line spoke. “Oh, perfect! That works out then, doesn’t it? He’ll be there shortly. Oh, and I should tell you, he’s going to propose to someone when he gets there! Can you believe it?”

She was practically squealing like a schoolgirl.

Shit.

The tickets finished printing, and she handed them over to me.

“Thank you,” I said, eager to get away from the woman who had nothing but hearts in her eyes.

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