Touching Down(33)

When I looked back up, I noticed a half circle of people holding signs with names on them. One of them had R. Hale listed on it. I knew there had to have been hundreds of R. Hales in the States and any number of them dashing around one of the biggest airports in the country today, but the man was looking at me with expectation on his face.

“Miss Hale?” he said when I took a couple of steps closer.

I shrugged like I wasn’t sure if that was or wasn’t my name.

“And the other Miss Hale?” The man smiled down at Charlie.

“Actually, it’s Miss Hale—”

I cut Charlie off before she could say anything more. I’d given her both mine and Grant’s last names when she’d been born. To the hospital staff on the other side of the country, the last name Turner didn’t mean a thing, but here in New York, the name Turner could come with a degree of recognition. I guessed this man somehow knew Grant was involved in having us picked up from the airport, so I didn’t exactly want my daughter announcing her last name as Hale-Turner. We didn’t need the media finding out about Grant Turner’s love child.

We had enough to deal with at the present moment.

“Let me get those for you.” The man folded up the sign and tucked it into his pocket before reaching for the suitcases.

“I’m sorry, but who arranged for this?” I asked as politely as I could.

“Mr. Turner did,” he answered as if it should have been obvious. “If you’ll just follow me, we don’t have far to go.”

When he started weaving through the crowd shuffling through the airport, I followed him, holding onto Charlie’s hand as though someone was going to come along any second and try to rip her away.

“Are you a driver?” I asked.

His head shook. “No, I’m the manager at the local Mercedes dealership.”

My forehead creased. I guessed that explained why he had on a Mercedes-Benz polo shirt.

“Can I ask why Gra—”—I caught myself and cleared my throat—“Mr. Turner would have you meet us at the airport?”

When he glanced back at me, it felt like he was trying to gauge if I was messing with him. When he saw I was serious, he pulled something out of his pocket right before he came to a stop outside at a loading area.

“Because Mr. Turner wanted me to drop off your car for you.” He propped the suitcases up before motioning at the glossy white car in front of us.

It was nice. Like, the kind of nice you see speeding down the road and take a second look at, but never the kind of nice you imagine you’ll ever get close to—let alone close enough to drive.

“I don’t understand,” was all I could say as the man held out the keys for me.

When I didn’t move to take them, Charlie sighed and took them instead.

“Mr. Turner purchased this car last night. Everything’s been taken care of. There’s an extra key inside, the owner’s manual, and your title and registration will arrive in a few weeks.”

I shifted, staring at the car with confused eyes. “Grant Turner purchased this?”

The man was trying so hard not to give me a funny look, but I guessed I deserved one. What he was saying was fairly obvious, but I was having a difficult time wrapping my head around it.

Growing up, Grant hadn’t been able to afford a new pair of shoes. And now he was spending god only knew how many thousands of dollars on a Mercedes-Benz?

“That’s correct. Grant Turner purchased this for a Miss Ryan Hale, with instructions to meet you here today to drop it off.”

Another person with the same Mercedes emblem on his polo shirt was sitting in the driver’s seat. Mercedes. I equated that brand with doctors and movie stars, certainly not the Ryan Hales of the world. My current car was twenty years old and had just passed the two-hundred-thousand-mile mark. The seats were fabric and threadbare, more of the paint chipping off than still on.

“He bought this for me?”

Charlie shook her head at my question, but the kind man remained patient. It was just a strange thing to find out someone had bought me a car out of the blue. A nice car.

“He did, and might I add that he made a very fine choice.” The man shouldered up beside me like he was telling me a secret. “An S-series sedan. The nicest vehicle we had on the lot.”

Charlie crept closer to the car, her eyes going big when she saw the backseat. She had enough space back there to do cartwheels.

“Safe too?” I asked, the mom in me surfacing.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find something safer.” The man moved to open the back door. “Mr. Turner wasn’t sure if your daughter would still be in any kind of car or booster seat, so he picked up both just to be safe. They’re in the trunk, but I’m going to go off of my grandparent knowledge and guess she’s a booster?” The man lifted his brow at me, waiting for my confirmation.