Megan had never found her place in high school. Part of the problem was her mom’s unrelenting quest to make her into some kind of mini-me. Her mother never seemed to tire of coercing her to go on day-long shopping trips. When Megan reached high school, she finally announced that enough was enough. She would rather stand naked in history class reciting the United States Constitution than go on another torture session with her mother. Her mother had done exactly what she’d always done in response to Megan’s protests: she ignored them. But one Saturday morning, mother and daughter were locked in a standoff over Nicole’s meticulously planned day at the Country Club Plaza when Megan’s father exercised one of his rare interventions. He told her mother that she’d had fourteen years to try to sway Megan to the dark side and failed. Then he advised Megan she had five minutes to get everything she needed for an overnight camping trip with him and her brother Kevin.
Camping hadn’t figured into her plans for the weekend. What she really wanted was to go spend the afternoon with Libby. But an inmate on death row didn’t protest when his reprieve meant moving to maximum security instead of freedom, so Megan had done as he’d suggested.
And to her surprise, she loved it.
She wasn’t sure why. She’d never considered herself an outdoorsy person, but she began to cherish her monthly camping trips with her dad and brother.
This had irritated her mother to no end, and in fact, it drove an even deeper wedge between the two. And that wedge became a gulf when Megan graduated from Missouri University and flew off to Seattle to work for a nonprofit that worked to prevent over-deforestation. At the time, her well-planned escape had been an act of rebellion. While she loved her job and had quickly moved up the hierarchy to the position of grant coordinator and fundraiser, she now realized the move had cost her something precious—her close relationship with her father and brother.
But here she was, hip-deep in self-analysis again, when she still had no answer to the pressing issue of how she’d gotten from the plane into her old room.
It all came rushing back to her. Boarding the plane. Drinking two mimosas. Stealing Mr. McMillan’s drink. Blabbering to him about the flight attendant and her defunct fiancé.
She squeezed her eyes shut in horror. She’d made an utter fool of herself.
She sat up and swiped at her wet cheek, realizing the wet sensation was the result of all the drool on her pillow. Great. As if she needed to feel any worse. At least she could take comfort in the fact that she’d never see the man again. What did it matter if he thought she was crazy? Besides, there were bigger things to worry about.
She shook her head, trying to clear it, but spiking a fresh round of pain instead. She needed to focus so she could figure out how she’d ended up on her bed. The last thing she remembered was snuggling under the blanket in her seat on the plane. But if she was in her room, her mother must have found her somehow.
Her mother was going to kill her. It was a wonder she hadn’t taken advantage of Megan’s supine state to do so already.
Megan glanced around the room and found her old digital alarm clock on the worn white nightstand. 6:12. The sun was streaming through the blinds, but it was summer so that didn’t necessarily give her a clue as to whether it was six a.m. or six p.m. She supposed it didn’t matter. One way or another, there would be hell to pay.
Sliding off the bed, Megan moved to her door and cautiously cracked it open. Voices floated up from downstairs, one of them clearly her mother’s. Since her mother never got up before seven thirty if she could help it, it had to be evening.
She made her way down the stairs with an anxious ball in the pit of her stomach. She was going to have some explaining to do, though she had no idea how much, because in her drugged state she could have said anything to her mother between meeting her in the airport and falling onto her bed. But the sound of other voices in the kitchen gave her a small measure of reassurance. Her mother’s voice was light and airy—her company voice. This was good news for Megan. No matter how upset she was, Nicole Vandemeer would never under any circumstances murder someone in front of guests. No matter how justified.
“. . . Megan hardly told us anything,” her mother was saying as Megan approached the kitchen.
“I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details,” a man’s voice said. Why did he sound familiar?
“There she is!” Nicole Vandemeer exclaimed, clasping her hands together in glee. She was in full-on hostess mode, but she seemed even more enthusiastic than was warranted by a mere guest. “Megan! We were just talking about you!”
Had the Dramamine transported her to some sort of bizarre world?
Three people sat at the kitchen island, their backs to her, while her mother stood in front of the commercial gas cooktop, a martini glass in her hand. In tandem, the people on the barstools turned to face her. Her grandmother gave her a big smile and her father nodded, a twinkle in his eye. But it was the third person that made the floor turn to molasses.
Mr. McMillan, the man who had sat next to her on the airplane, was sitting at her parents’ kitchen counter.
Of course it couldn’t be true.
She squinted her eyes tight, trying to reboot her brain, but when she opened them, he was still there, giving her a hesitant smile. Which left only one solution.
She turned around and headed back to her room without another word. Maybe if she went back to bed, she could lie down and hit the restart button, waking up in reality.
“Megan!” her mother shouted after her. “Where are you going? Come officially introduce us to your fiancé!”
Oh, God. She really was hallucinating. Maybe this was some kind of psychotic break induced by extreme stress and pharmaceuticals.
“Megan, come back right now!” Her mother’s tone bordered on slipping out of character. If Megan pushed her over the edge, the consequences would be worse than she felt capable of handling at the moment. “You’re being incredibly rude. Is that how they do things in the Pacific West?”
Megan cringed. Nope. This was real. Her mother was the only person on earth who dropped the North from Pacific Northwest.
Megan turned around and walked back into the kitchen, stopping in the doorway. Mr. McMillan studied her with an expressionless face. What in the hell was he doing here? What had he told them?
As if reading her mind—or perhaps her face—he jumped out of his seat and walked over to her. “Hey, honey. How are you feeling?”
She looked up at him, dumbfounded. Why was he smiling at her like that? Scratch that, why was he calling her honey? “What the . . . How did you get here?”
“We picked him up from the airport, of course. Josh told us what happened,” her mother said, her voice light and breezy again. “He told us that you got airsick when you flew to Phoenix last year, so you took Dramamine on this trip as a preventive measure. You should have seen the way Josh took care of you when you got off the plane.” She gave Josh a look of approval.
Leave it to her mother to wait to give her elusive stamp of approval to a fake boyfriend.
“Wait. Josh . . . ?”
Mr. McMillan put an arm around Megan’s back, his hand resting on her hip, warm and surprisingly comforting. “I told your parents how you insist on calling me Jay even though my name is Josh.”