Not Quite Forever (Not Quite #4)(61)
Author: Catherine Bybee

“Hi, Mai,” Mary said.

Mai looked directly at Dakota. “There’s a suite in back, if you need to rest.” Her eyes drifted to Dakota’s protruding belly.

“Thank you.”

Mai offered her smile again.

“There you are!”

From the cockpit, a familiar voice filled the cabin.

“Glen!”

Walt moved in for a handshake and man-hug. “What are you doing here?”

“Trent said we needed a plane, and my pilots were already scheduled.”

Walt glanced around his friend, looked into the cockpit. “You’re flying this monster?”

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she? A Falcon 900 completely remodeled on the inside to accommodate a family of ten comfortably. I heard the bed in the back is like sleeping on a cloud.”

Dakota moved behind him. “Hi Glen.”

“Hey, Dakota. When Monica said you were expecting, we knew we had to bring a plane with a bedroom.”

“I would have been fine without it.”

Glen shook his head. “That’s how we roll, Dakota.”

Walt started to comment when he noticed Glen’s gaze move beyond Dakota.

Glen stared toward Mary and an awkward moment of silence filled the plane. Walt glanced to Dakota, who was watching the others.

“Hi Mary.”

“Glen.” She paused. “I . . . I wasn’t expecting you.”

Glen’s eyebrows went up with a smile that bordered on cocky. “I’m a pilot.”

“You own the company.”

“I still fly . . . as often as I can.”

The moment of silence from before tripled.

“Mr. Fairchild,” the copilot interrupted.

“Yes, Ian?”

“We’ve been given clearance. Ten minutes.”

Glen clicked out of whatever trance he’d been in and smiled. “Make yourselves comfortable. We’ll be in the air shortly.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

They were less than two hours into the flight, Mai served them drinks, was preparing a meal within the hour, and Dakota and Walt were stretched out on the sofa, and all Mary could think about was the pilot.

What in the world was Glen doing flying this plane?

Dakota shifted on the sofa, looked toward the bedroom. “I feel like a balloon.”

“Flying and pregnancy do that,” Walt said.

She offered Mary a sympathetic look. “Would you mind?”

Mary nodded toward the back of the cabin. “Go on. You know you’re dying to check out the bedroom.” To help her friends move along, she tilted the deluxe seat she was sitting in to a reclining position and closed her eyes.

Walt and Dakota disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door.

The cloudless sky offered a great view of the earth below, but Mary didn’t concentrate on it.

Maybe Glen had a camera on the interior of the plane, or perhaps it was a coincidence that he made his appearance from the cockpit within a minute after Dakota and Walt disappeared. Still, Glen emerged from the small pilot space once she was alone. Even Mai ducked back into her private space.

“Are Walt and Dakota resting?”

She nearly rolled her eyes. “Nice deduction, Watson.”

Glen placed his six foot three frame into the seat across from her and smiled. It was bad enough the man towered over everything on the plane, his white uniform and pilot cap did something to her insides she didn’t want to identify. She didn’t have a uniform fetish. Broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist and tight ass . . . yeah, that could be a fetish worth having.

She forced her gaze outside the plane.

“A bed in a plane is hard to resist.”

Mary wanted to think her friend and her baby daddy were actually sleeping, but who knew? “I’m sure you’d know all about that.”

When she looked, she found a crooked smile on Glen’s clean-shaven jaw. “Jealous, counselor?”

“I most certainly am not!” She managed to push her chin in the air.

Glen laughed. “A therapy couch is more entertaining than a bed on an airplane?”

“I didn’t say that.” Didn’t mean that. Instead of defending her answer, she diverted his attention. “Shouldn’t you be flying the plane?”

“Autopilot . . . copilot.” He glanced out the window. “The weather is perfect.”

“Isn’t that like driving a car with your knee? It works but it isn’t safe?”

He laughed. “Not quite the same.”

She refused to smile.

“I called you.”

He had and damn it, she wished he hadn’t reminded her.

“I appreciate your quick blow off. We do live far away,” Mary said.

His brows drew together, eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe I blew you off.”

That wasn’t how she remembered it. “It’s OK, Glen. I understand.”

The space between his chair and hers was separated by a fixed table, a table he only had to lean over to demonstrate how small it was. “You think too much.”

He was too far into her personal space for comfort. “You don’t know me well enough to know that.”

His breath was minty, like he had some kind of candy in his pocket, or maybe gum . . . Glen moved his gaze from one of her eyes to the other. “I’m going back to fly the plane,” he said. “. . . make sure you arrive in Connecticut in one piece.”

“Way to make your passengers feel safe.”

He looked at her lips, then looked away. “I try.”

The prickles of awareness rolled over her skin for another hundred miles before she shook them off and closed her eyes. Then all she could see was the depths of a certain pilot’s eyes.

Friends like the Fairchilds were better than family. At least Dakota’s and Walt’s.

“I’ve never cooked a turkey in my life,” Dakota said as she and Mary stood in the kitchen early in the morning on Thanksgiving Day.

“Aunt Bea!” Monica said as she pulled a giant turkey from the refrigerator and set it on the granite counter.

Dakota wrapped the apron Monica made for her around her waist. It had a picture of a baby over her belly wearing pilgrim garb. Mary donned a white doily thing that looked like part of a French waitress fantasy for men. Monica, bless her little ol’ heart, wore an apron that stated I’m a nurse not a cook . . . complainers will be shot. There was a picture of a syringe with green liquid inside.

This Thanksgiving would either be epic or a complete failure.