Faking Forever (First Wives #4)(7)

Her married name was scribbled in black ink on a plain white piece of paper. She approached the driver and smiled. “I’m Ms. Wentworth.”

The driver lowered the clipboard that held her name and flipped up the paper. “Welcome to Cancun,” he said, smiling.

“Thank you.” Shannon’s gaze moved to the cloudy sky above.

“You’re going to Tulum, yes?”

Shannon glanced down at his paper. “Yes. Casa Kai.”

“Sí, sí . . . I have it.” He smiled and reached for her bag. “Only you, yes?” His thick accent had her concentrating hard on his words.

“Only me.”

“Good. Come. I park over here.”

She followed him to the SUV and took the back seat he offered while he loaded her bag. She hoisted her camera equipment into the seat next to her and waited for him to close the door.

He slid behind the wheel, turned over the engine, and turned the air on high. “I have Corona or water in the cooler if you like.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded a few times and backed out of the parking space sandwiched between dozens of other drivers, all picking up passengers. Unlike most of the airports Shannon had been to in her life, this one was primarily filled with tourists rushing in and out. Most people traveled in pairs, if not groups of four or more.

“My English is not so good,” he told her.

“Your English is better than my Spanish,” she said with a slight laugh.

He grinned and nodded. Although she wasn’t sure he understood.

Shannon removed her phone from her purse and pulled up the group text she shared with the First Wives. I made it. She added a palm tree emoji and pressed send.

Almost instantly, Trina returned her text and told her to have fun. A few seconds later, Lori’s text told her to take a picture of the potential daddies she came across and share.

Avery’s text came in last. I will see you on Monday. Don’t shack up until I get there.

Shannon giggled. I’ll try my best.

She tossed the phone in her purse and turned her attention out the window. The side of the main highway looked more like a back road outside of Los Angeles. Only this road had men piled in the backs of pickup trucks, drivers of motorcycles that didn’t bother with helmets, and kids sitting in laps in the passing cars. The safety laws of the States had obviously not filtered south. Except for maybe the speed limit, which her driver stayed surprisingly close to. She didn’t question it and watched the landscape as they slipped farther out of the city of Cancun and down the highway to the south.

The first few drops of rain that hit the windshield didn’t surprise her, but the bolt of lightning that came from nowhere did.

She looked out the back window and noticed a large mass of black clouds closing in. “Oh, wow.”

The driver switched on the wipers and slowed down. “Lots of rain this week,” he told her.

“Just here in the city?”

He looked at her briefly through the rearview mirror and smiled. “All over.”

Shannon lost her smile and took a longer look at the country moving by. Deep puddles of standing water were evident everywhere she looked. The jungle, just a few yards from the highway, was dense and as lush as any. Right as the thought that rain forests needed rain entered her mind, the sky opened and the clouds dumped.

Her driver slowed down and hit the flashers on the dash, while others did the same in surrounding cars.

Shannon noticed a band of drenched men huddling under a single tarp in the back of a truck and counted her blessings.

“How long will this last?” she asked.

He shook his head.

Again, she was pretty sure he didn’t understand her question.

Poor Corrie, she thought. No bride wanted the threat of rain on her day.

An hour into the drive it seemed the weather wanted to relax, but once they turned onto the long, narrow road leading to all the boutique hotels that made up the resort location of Tulum, the clouds seemed to pull in tighter and join forces. For what seemed like hours, they dodged past people running out of the rain and skirted around the locals walking calmly along the side of the road.

Once at their destination, the driver jumped out of the car and ran around as an attendant of the hotel moved forward with a massive umbrella. Not that it mattered. Once the door was open and Shannon stepped out, she stood in an inch of water with the rain hitting her sideways.

She tucked her camera equipment close and hurried to the shelter of the registration desk. As she did, an onslaught of water started to cascade down a meandering path to the right of the desk. “This is crazy.”

The woman behind the desk shrugged. “It just started to come down here.”

Shannon jumped as the sound of thunder roared overhead. “How long will it last?”

“Thirty minutes, three hours? Hard to tell. It’s spring. Sometimes the weather is unpredictable. Most of the time the rain comes in at night and is gone by morning. I’m sure you’ll have a beautiful stay.” Lightning cracked above like an exclamation point on the receptionist’s statement.

Thirty minutes later, Shannon had changed out of her wet clothes and was looking over the courtyard of her hotel toward the ocean. Tulum was filled with small hotels, none of which had more than twenty to twenty-five rooms. Her accommodations were next to where Corrie and her bridal party were staying and one over from where the wedding was scheduled to take place.