Page 16 of Never Marry the Best Man (Whatever It Takes #4)
The Daiquiri Driving Range
The Pinky Ring
The Neon Boneyard
Graceland Wedding Chapel
Madame Riskital Palm Reader
Ranney
“Thank you! You have my info on the app; you can request me whenever you’re in town!” Achilles, their Uber driver and new friend, was clearly overjoyed with his good fortune tonight.
If she’d stopped to reflect on it, Ranney would have been pretty amazed at her own good fortune.
Poor Charlie’s painful accident had led to the most fun she’d had in–ever?
Before tonight, if she thought about Las Vegas–and in the wedding industry, you couldn’t totally avoid it–the words that came to mind were: conventions, tacky , and please no .
God, no.
After spending hours touring it with Tom, her impressions ran more along the line of: hilarious, unforgettable, and I would go literally anywhere with this man.
The tourist traps that she would have rolled her eyes at, had she been by herself, were endlessly amusing with Tom beside her.
Instead of a blight upon the desert landscape, he turned it into a spectacular display of American ingenuity, lit up with neon and set to pulsing music.
There was no need to cringe or apologize; in fact, they competed to point out the most outrageous, or spot the (relatively) hidden gem.
Most of them were drive-bys but all were duly photographed.
She laughed until her abs ached.
They had stopped for a quick round of mini-golf; they ordered drive-through cocktails; they kept a running total of Elvis impersonators and no-appointment-necessary wedding chapels.
When they chanced upon the trifecta–a drive-thru chapel where you could be married by Elvis, presumably with cocktails–Tom told Achilles to pull in.
Irrationally, Ranney’s heart leapt.
“Why are we stopping?”
“Are you kidding? I have to get a photo of this!”
“Right, of course.”
“Shall we drive up to the window? Get the full experience?” he teased, his eyes twinkling. Reaching for her hand, he threaded their fingers. “Would you like to marry me?”
Her heart took flight. A proposal. In jest, yes, but what a moment.
“For richer, for poorer?” she bantered lightly, but without meeting his eye. “After all, it’s Vegas.”
“I can’t promise you riches, but you could perhaps have a Saltzman Prize on your mantel.” In the glow from the streetlights, she could see his smile.
“Ah, well, in that case, how could I refuse?” Thankfully, the car came to a stop, he jumped out to get his shot, and the moment passed.
But that fake proposal generated some very real emotions in her.
It was now two o’clock in the morning, and they’d been dropped off where they started out, at the airport, in front of the FBO. The lights were still on and when Tom pulled the door handle, it swung open.
“Nothing ever closes here. Everyone’s probably inside,” he said. “Sleeping on sofas, I’ll bet. I haven’t checked messages in a while, but if there was any news, they’d have texted me.”
The waiting area was deserted.
“Excuse me,” Tom said to the lone attendant behind the desk, “would you happen to know the whereabouts of the Sanderson party? We had a medical emergency on our flight and landed here temporarily? A lot of scruffy looking chaps, probably a bit pissed?”
“Pissed?” The woman looked puzzled. “Did they miss a connection? If there was an emergency, wouldn’t they be concerned instead of annoyed?”
“No, no,” Tom tried to clarify. “I mean, they’re battered. It’s a party and–”
“ Battered? ” Her voice went up a register. “They were battered? What exactly was this ‘medical emergency’? Are you reporting a trafficking situation? Oh my God, I should have looked at them closer!” Her hand reached for the phone.
“Wait!” Ranney stepped in. “My friend here doesn’t speak English well. He’s trying to say they were most likely a little bit drunk.”
“That’s not what he said.” Unconvinced, the woman’s eyes flicked from Ranney to Tom and back.
“It’s just a miscommunication,” Ranney soothed. “Is there another waiting area where they might be? We really need to find them. Sanderson is the name. It’s a Lear jet.”
“Oh, the Lear. They took off maybe two hours ago.”
“They couldn’t have. That’s our party. We’re still here.”
The woman typed something, paused, typed again. “Here it is. They left at 11:15. For Idaho.”
Ranney and Tom looked at each other, nonplussed, then he reached into his pocket for his phone. She didn’t need to watch him click the button repeatedly to know it was dead. And she didn’t even need to try hers, long forgotten at the bottom of her bag. Dead, for sure.
The last time her stomach felt like this, she’d been locked out of the women’s dorm, her freshman year at college. Thirty-four years ago.
When Tom was what? Four? Five?
An image of a little British boy in short overalls made her heart sink.
Focus up , she told herself. The fun’s over.
“Let’s go find a charging station,” she said. “I’m sure they didn’t leave without trying to reach us.”
“My bag is on the plane. No charger.”
“I have mine. You can use it first.”
And sure enough, when the white Apple logo appeared on his screen, the message bells began chiming. Twelve of them, to be exact. He counted, then started reading from the top.
“So, from Jack: They arrived at the hospital, then they were waiting, then they took x-rays… broken wrist, bad break… needs a pin… Ani’s flying in.”
They must have been trying to reach me, Ranney thought frantically.
I should have been at the ER, not joyriding around with an usher!
And they still don’t know where I am. I am MIA on an assignment!
She wished fervently for this to be one of those panicky nightmares, the ones where your alarm doesn’t go off and you miss your flight or your final exam.
The kind where you wake up and realize it was just a bad dream.
“Then Ani: She can’t get a flight till morning. Then Jack again, he says ‘Chunk wants us to go on to Freestone, not sit around here.’” Looking up, Tom said, “There are more texts, all asking where we are. I guess that explains the departure.”
“The jet,” she added faintly. “They couldn’t just keep it waiting here. I should have known.”
For the first time, Tom seemed to notice her distress. “Look, it’s not that bad. We’ll go over to the hospital; you can check in with Chunk. Then we’ll go to a hotel–God knows there are plenty of them around here–and when Ani arrives, we’ll go on to Idaho. No problem.”
That he could describe any aspect of this situation as ‘no problem’ was incomprehensible to her. She gaped.
“May I use my charger now?”
“Absolutely, of course.” Handing it over, he said, “I think I have enough power to call an Uber–maybe I can get Achilles back. What hospital did they say they were going to?”
Hot, stinging tears of frustration and exhaustion started in the back of her eyes. Nobody had said what hospital they were going to. Of course not. That would make it too easy.
Nor had she thought to ask.
Sitting down, she extracted her laptop and its charger from her tote and plugged it in.
There was no way to speed this up. Jack was the only person who knew where Charlie was, and Jack was on a plane somewhere over northern Nevada.
Ani probably had the name of the hospital, too, but she was most likely asleep right now, and Ranney was extremely reluctant to wake her up in order to point out that the team she had hired to protect her wedding had lost track of the groom.
That call would be her last resort.
Besides, she didn’t even want to think about looking at her messages. By now, she imagined, Claire was asking which sort of bathing suit to bring to attract a royal, Nilly was ready to send a search party, and Nessa was probably asking where Ranney’s will was located.
She’d let so many people down.
All because she was having fun with Tom.
But enough of that. No wallowing in self-pity. Time to get this all righted.
First, she was going to try the old-fashioned method: looking up all the hospitals in the region and calling them, one by one. It sounded both daunting and random, but it occurred to her that those words described much of her job. She punched in the first number.
“Charles Sanderson? No, sorry, no one by that name.”
In the end, it only took five calls.
“Yes, he’s here. He’s been admitted, room 436, but visiting hours are over.”
“I’m with a member of his family. We’re very concerned.”
“ Extremely concerned,” Tom said loudly, leaning close to her phone.
“He’s scheduled for surgery in the morning, and it’s the middle of the night.”
“It’s a very close family,” Ranney said. “We’ll be right over.” She ended the call.
"Achilles is on the way,” Tom informed her. “Very supportive guy.”
“You hired him for most of his shift and I saw what you tipped him. Pretty sure you’re the one supporting him. And his family.”
“Oh, well, worth every penny.” He looked mildly embarrassed. “Shall we?”
When they got to the hospital and found his room, the lights were off and Charlie was, in fact, asleep. It was a serious setting and he looked very solitary. Against her will, Ranney’s maternal instincts were triggered.
“We should stay here,” she whispered to Tom. “He’s all alone, at least till his fiancée arrives.”
“He’s asleep, and he’s getting good professional care,” he whispered back. “I’m more concerned about you.”
“Me? I’m fine.”
“You need some sleep yourself. You’re exhausted, I can see it in your eyes. Let’s get out of here. We’ll leave him a note so he’ll know we were here, and then we’ll go find a hotel. We’re in the Land of Hotels.”
“I don’t know, I…”
“You must have a pen and paper in that bag. Come on, dig them out. We’ll figure the rest out tomorrow.”
Too tired to argue, she did as told, because of course, she did have a pen and paper in her bag.