definitely was no place for Diego to hide.
Maybe he forgot , Carla thought, watching the handful of other passengers still in the airport. Maybe there was an emergency that he needed to take care of. Maybe he saw me and ran off to cancel the wedding plans .
Carla was tempted to turn right around, climb back onto the plane, and beg them to take her home. She didn’t want to go back to New York, though. She knew that most people dreamed of moving to the big city, but Carla was just the opposite. She’d spent all her life there, and at twenty-nine she was sick of it. She was sick of the noise, the grime, the crowds, the way no one ever had time for a few friendly words, the way everyone was always rushing off to something new.
It was cheesy, but what Carla dreamed about was a house of her own – an actual house, not a one-bedroom apartment – complete with a lawn and a garden and maybe even a white picket fence. Why not, after all? If she was dreaming, she might as well go all out. She’d have enough space to get a dog too, a big dog, like a german shepherd or a golden retriever. There would be peace and quiet, and she’d live in a town like the ones she saw on TV: the kind of place where everyone knew one another, and they smiled and waved as they walked down the street, instead of hiding behind sunglasses or lowered umbrellas.
Maybe places like that didn’t really exist. Or maybe they did, but they weren’t for people like Carla: fat and shy and, it was beginning to seem, incredibly gullible. What had she been thinking, coming all the way to Nevada to marry a man she’d never met? She had been so stupid, to believe in a silly advertisement.
Still, she couldn’t run back home yet. For one thing, she didn’t have a return ticket. No one else was left in the airport and, not knowing what to do, Carla wandered toward the main entrance, which led to the parking lot.
The sunlight was so bright outside that she had to cover her eyes until they’d adjusted. When she lowered her hand, the first thing that struck her was the sky. It looked enormous, which sounded ridiculous; of course the sky was always the same size. But back in New York, tall buildings had usually blocked her view. To see the sky actually stretching from horizon to horizon made her feel like a tiny speck, like she might somehow fly up into that infinite blue.
Carla gazed up at the sky, almost forgetting where she was, until she felt the tingling sensation on the back of her shoulders that meant someone was staring at her. She turned and saw a man standing on the sidewalk, leaning one shoulder against the wall while he watched her. He was tall and muscled, and Carla’s instinctive annoyance at being stared at vanished as she met his eyes. He was looking at her so openly and frankly that she couldn’t help looking back.
And he was worth looking at. He was big, with broad shoulders and thick legs. His hair was jet-black and just a little shaggy, with one lock falling from his forehead into his eyes. His jeans were pale blue, soft and creased from long use, and were molded to every curve of the muscles of his thighs and the trim lines of his hips. He wore a button-down shirt that strained to contain his shoulders; the sleeves were rolled up to reveal the bronze skin of his forearms, dark and thickly muscled from working outdoors.
Every inch of him was like her favorite fantasy of a cowboy: a manly man, strong and handsome and rugged, from his deliciously sharp cheekbones all the way down to his feet, enclosed in a pair of real cowboy boots.
She was so caught up in admiring his body that she hardly noticed anything else. When she finally managed to tear her gaze away from his warm, amber-brown eyes, she realized that he was holding a sheet of white paper with Carla Jenkins printed across it in big block letters. Her eyes skipped back up from her name to the man’s face, unable to believe what she saw. He was looking for her !
Could this be Diego
Maybe he forgot , Carla thought, watching the handful of other passengers still in the airport. Maybe there was an emergency that he needed to take care of. Maybe he saw me and ran off to cancel the wedding plans .
Carla was tempted to turn right around, climb back onto the plane, and beg them to take her home. She didn’t want to go back to New York, though. She knew that most people dreamed of moving to the big city, but Carla was just the opposite. She’d spent all her life there, and at twenty-nine she was sick of it. She was sick of the noise, the grime, the crowds, the way no one ever had time for a few friendly words, the way everyone was always rushing off to something new.
It was cheesy, but what Carla dreamed about was a house of her own – an actual house, not a one-bedroom apartment – complete with a lawn and a garden and maybe even a white picket fence. Why not, after all? If she was dreaming, she might as well go all out. She’d have enough space to get a dog too, a big dog, like a german shepherd or a golden retriever. There would be peace and quiet, and she’d live in a town like the ones she saw on TV: the kind of place where everyone knew one another, and they smiled and waved as they walked down the street, instead of hiding behind sunglasses or lowered umbrellas.
Maybe places like that didn’t really exist. Or maybe they did, but they weren’t for people like Carla: fat and shy and, it was beginning to seem, incredibly gullible. What had she been thinking, coming all the way to Nevada to marry a man she’d never met? She had been so stupid, to believe in a silly advertisement.
Still, she couldn’t run back home yet. For one thing, she didn’t have a return ticket. No one else was left in the airport and, not knowing what to do, Carla wandered toward the main entrance, which led to the parking lot.
The sunlight was so bright outside that she had to cover her eyes until they’d adjusted. When she lowered her hand, the first thing that struck her was the sky. It looked enormous, which sounded ridiculous; of course the sky was always the same size. But back in New York, tall buildings had usually blocked her view. To see the sky actually stretching from horizon to horizon made her feel like a tiny speck, like she might somehow fly up into that infinite blue.
Carla gazed up at the sky, almost forgetting where she was, until she felt the tingling sensation on the back of her shoulders that meant someone was staring at her. She turned and saw a man standing on the sidewalk, leaning one shoulder against the wall while he watched her. He was tall and muscled, and Carla’s instinctive annoyance at being stared at vanished as she met his eyes. He was looking at her so openly and frankly that she couldn’t help looking back.
And he was worth looking at. He was big, with broad shoulders and thick legs. His hair was jet-black and just a little shaggy, with one lock falling from his forehead into his eyes. His jeans were pale blue, soft and creased from long use, and were molded to every curve of the muscles of his thighs and the trim lines of his hips. He wore a button-down shirt that strained to contain his shoulders; the sleeves were rolled up to reveal the bronze skin of his forearms, dark and thickly muscled from working outdoors.
Every inch of him was like her favorite fantasy of a cowboy: a manly man, strong and handsome and rugged, from his deliciously sharp cheekbones all the way down to his feet, enclosed in a pair of real cowboy boots.
She was so caught up in admiring his body that she hardly noticed anything else. When she finally managed to tear her gaze away from his warm, amber-brown eyes, she realized that he was holding a sheet of white paper with Carla Jenkins printed across it in big block letters. Her eyes skipped back up from her name to the man’s face, unable to believe what she saw. He was looking for her !
Could this be Diego
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