SEALed With a Kiss: Even a Hero Needs Help Sometimes... by Mary Margret Daughtridge Read Free Book Online Page B

"You need to keep that kid out from under foot!" he snapped, red-faced, straightening his shirt.
    Jax dropped the duffle and suitcase and picked up Tyler and his lumpy sack, which the kid had held onto throughout the altercation. "You okay, buddy?"
    Tyler was white around his lips but with a little shuddering breath, he nodded. "Why do we have to spend the night here?" He wiggled and pushed at Jax's shoulders.
    "Be still, Tyler." They had finally reached the front of the line. Jax shifted Tyler onto his hip to extract his wallet from his back pocket. To the desk clerk he said, "Reservation for Lt. Jackson Graham."
    The clerk regarded him with the stony face of a woman who has already dealt with too many irate people to care about one more. "We stopped honoring reservations an hour ago."
    "I made the reservation less than an hour ago."
    The clerk rolled her eyes. "Whatever. It's first come, first served now," she said, "and you're too late. We're full."
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FIVE

     
    Jax re-settled the squirming Tyler, and gave the clerk his most steely-eyed glare. "You mean you gave my reservation away? I drove past other hotels to get here."
    "That's right ..." the woman looked into his face and added, "sir."
    "What's right?"
    "You could have stopped somewhere else. It happens all the time. In the meantime I would have turned people away."
    "So instead, you let me drive all the way over here, missing out on other rooms I could have had." Jax reined in his ire. "I don't care, for myself, but I have a child with me."
    The clerk's brown face softened with contrition. "Really, sir, I am sorry. The high-rise hotels, the big chains, will be filling up, but the smaller, independent motels might still have rooms. We're full mainly because of hurricane parties."
    She had to be kidding. "Hurricane parties?"
    "Hurr'cane?" Tyler stiffened, suddenly paying attention to the exchange.
    "Yeah, it's not supposed to get too bad. A lot of people are treating it like New Year's Eve. They come here so they can party and then sleep through it." Raucous laughter from the lounge area adjacent to the lobby lent credence to her explanation. The party apparently was already in full swing. "The smaller places don't have bars, room service and stuff."
    They also didn't have interior corridors, game rooms, and continental breakfast. At a small motel, once the storm hit, he and Tyler would be trapped in one very small room until it blew itself out. He had some milk and cheese in the cooler, but he hadn't brought things like cereal, thinking he'd return to the cottage in a day or two.
    "Here's to Elvira," a voice shouted from the lounge.
    "Yeah, bring that hurricane on."
    Tyler's head jerked. "The hurr'cane's coming here?"
    "If I was you," the desk clerk added, "I'd head inland. Two hours in any direction will get you all the rooms you want."
    Tyler wiggled and patted his father's shoulder for attention. "The hurr'cane's coming here?"
    "Hush, Tyler. If I want to stay in Wilmington, what would you recommend?"
    "The Bide-A-Wee on Independence Boulevard. The rooms are clean, no hookers, and there won't be drug deals going down in the parking lot—the way I guarantee there are in the hotels over on the interstate. Hang on. I'll call them and see if they have anything."
    Tyler bounced on Jax's hip. "I don't wanna stay here," Tyler whined.
    "You get your wish, Tyler. We're not staying."
    Tyler bounced again. "Gan-gan said we gotta leave."
    "Yes, sir." The clerk hung up the phone. "They have a room and they will save it for you. But I suggest you don't lose any time getting there." She pointed to Tyler. "Does he have to go to the bathroom?"
    "Tyler, do you have to go to the bathroom?"
    "No! I want to leave."
    Jax shouldered the luggage. "Okay, we're going."

    The Bide-A-Wee was as promised. The long, low cinderblock motel leftover from the fifties had recently been painted glistening white, the room doors dark green. Gay planters were spaced along the covered walkway that was