The Memory Keeper: A Heartwarming, Feel-Good Romance(3)

“I’ve got it,” Liam told her, but she barely heard him. When she finally responded, he’d walked off, taking a call on his cell phone, and fishing his laptop out of his bag. She turned back toward the escalator full of passengers.

Suddenly time stopped still.

Hannah squinted toward the escalator to make sure her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her. She could clearly see Miles making his way down, but he had his arm around another woman. To Hannah’s horror, he then leaned in and kissed the other woman’s lips, his hand moving up her back and to her neck the way it always had when he’d kissed Hannah. An icy cold shock slithered down her spine, and her throat began closing up with emotion. Hannah stood silently aghast, her heart hammering, as Miles and the woman moved down toward her level.

A shudder ran through Hannah just as Miles noticed her standing there at the bottom. His eyes widened and he jolted to attention before jogging down the last few steps, leaving the woman behind.

“Hi,” he said with shifty movements, guilt written all over his face. “What are you doing here?”

Hannah wanted to scream at him, but her mouth was locked shut, tears spilling from her angry eyes.

“Hannah…” he said in a weak attempt to try to smooth things over, but both of them knew there wasn’t anything he could say to undo what she’d seen. Clearly knowing he was caught, he relented, shame sliding down his face. “I’d been wanting to tell you,” he said. “But I needed to find the right time…” He didn’t even seem upset, just embarrassed.

Hannah looked away, her stare landing by accident on Liam. He was watching the scene curiously and had swayed as if he were going to move toward her to intervene, but perhaps she’d just imagined it because then he broke eye contact, facing the baggage claim turnstile as if to give her privacy, if that were possible. The last thing she needed was Liam jumping into all this anyway. She could handle it.

The striking woman with whom Miles had descended the escalator came swishing over to them in her fashionable heels and long coat. “Hello,” she said with a smile, before her expression dropped to concern at the sight of Hannah’s obvious anguish. “I’m Becky,” she said cautiously. “And you are?”

“Miles’s ex-girlfriend,” Hannah said, her attention sliding over to Miles, piercing his complacent face like razors. Her entire body trembling, she kicked the duffel bag of toiletries she’d packed for him to his feet and pushed forward his suitcase. “These are yours,” she said. “How fitting, they’re already packed. When I get home, the rest of your things had better be gone as well.” She put the other duffel bag’s strap over her shoulder and lifted the handle on her suitcase, steeling herself so as not to break down completely and make a scene.

As she started to walk away, Miles caught her arm. “Hannah, wait,” he said halfheartedly.

“I’m done waiting.” In that moment, she understood the reason she’d worked such long hours was because she needed to keep herself from the realization she’d really been waiting for Miles to come around when he probably never would. She needed more than this, and it was clear that she’d been wasting her time thinking Miles would give it to her.

Hannah walked off at a clip, pulling her suitcase behind her until she rounded the corner, out of his sight. Then she stopped and leaned against the wall to keep her balance, trying to push down the sobs rising in her throat with an avalanche of emotion that felt as if it were crushing her. Her entire future, everything she’d worked for, had been ripped away from her in the span of a single moment. She tore the lily from her hair, tossed it in a nearby trash can, and slid down to the floor. Completely overcome, she hung her head and began to cry.





Two





Hannah knew she had to get herself together enough to stand up and figure out how to change her flight, but she needed another minute, her body feeling as though it were submerged in quicksand. The boarding passes she’d printed and tied with a ribbon, so that she could hand them to Miles to add a special gesture to the surprise, had fallen out of the front pocket of her bag and lay next to her on the floor. She picked them up and slid off the ribbon, peering down at them, all her plans crushed—her entire world changed.

Dropping the papers back onto the floor, she hugged her knees, and hid her face in them to try to get herself together so she could concentrate on the issue at hand: she needed to figure out a way to get to Gran. But how could she be her grandmother’s support in this state? Hannah’s chest ached with a kind of pain she’d never felt before, the realization of what she didn’t have in her life settling in. She was hollow, empty.

“Tough, innit?” a woman said from above her.

Hannah recognized her southern accent right away, and it felt like home. She lifted her head up to find a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties, with a giant smile and dark eyes staring down at her. She was naturally beautiful without even trying, her wavy amber-colored hair twisted into a messy bun, and it didn’t look like she had a stitch of makeup on.

She held a carrier with something whining inside it, a portfolio of some sort was jammed under her arm, and a camera bag dangled from her neck in front of her, as she stood next to a suitcase that was larger than she was. The woman smiled down at Hannah, revealing the wad of chewing gum between her back teeth. Despite her smile, however, there was an undeniable sadness etched deeply behind her eyes that even her beauty couldn’t mask.