Brody shook his head and chuckled at his brother’s blunt observation. If he only knew the truth….
Nine
“Are we going to a big city?” Sam attempted to uncover their secret destination for the tenth time today by playing twenty questions. The moment she and Brody loaded up in his car, she’d started in on him. So far, she’d eliminated Dallas, Los Angeles, Orlando and New Orleans. He told her it was someplace she could dress warm and bring a swimsuit. They weren’t going to a lake or a river. He hadn’t told her to pack her passport, so that eliminated the Caribbean and Mexico.
“No.” Brody didn’t even look her way when he answered. His eyes were focused on the expressway and the morning traffic.
“Are we going to the beach?”
Brody sighed. “Give it up. I’m not going to tell you.”
“We are going to the beach,” she said. “Otherwise you would’ve said no. Are we going to the Florida Keys?”
He didn’t respond but slowed the car and turned into a private airport outside of the city. They drove past the main terminal to a hangar on the far side of the property. It had a sign on the side that said “Confidential Luxury Private Jets.”
Since Brody told her they were taking a trip, she hadn’t been able to fathom how they were going to get there when he didn’t go out in public. She’d thought perhaps their destination was within driving distance. It never occurred to her that they could take a private jet instead of a regular, commercial airliner. Of course, she couldn’t afford a jet in a million years, so she wouldn’t have even dreamed of it.
Brody paused outside the hangar and honked his horn in two short bursts and one long one. A moment later, the massive door rolled up to reveal a shiny white jet inside. Brody pulled into the hangar and parked his car in the far corner. He killed the engine but left the keys in the ignition. “Come on,” he said with a sly smile. He was enjoying torturing her with this surprise.
They got out of the car and Brody opened the trunk. Instead of pulling out their bags, he took her arm and led her across the empty building to the jet. She expected a place like this to have crew running all over the place. Or at the very least a pilot and someone to direct the plane. “Where are all their employees?” she asked.
“They’re hiding inside until we get on the plane.”
“Why?”
Brody turned to her with an amused expression. “Because I pay them to, of course.”
That made sense. With enough money, Brody could do things however he chose to. It had gotten so easy to look at him and not see the scars any longer. But everyone else still saw them. And Brody was still living a shadow of a life. She started up the stairs of the jet with Brody behind her. The cockpit door to the left was already closed with the pilots inside.
The sign on the building had been right. This was a luxury jet. It didn’t look like any plane she’d ever been inside. It had plush gray carpeting and captain’s chairs that faced each other with polished mahogany tables between them. A large flat screen television was mounted on the far rear wall with a row of seats that turned to face it. There was a minibar, a sofa, a dining room table and what looked like a full-size bed in a room beyond the television. A bucket of ice with a bottle of champagne was waiting on the table beside them as they entered.
“Wow,” was all Sam could say. And to think she thought flying first class was something special.
Brody pulled a thick curtain to separate them from the front of the plane. Sam settled into one of the soft leather seats as the engine of the plane roared to life. Someone she couldn’t see came out of the cockpit to close and secure the door and then disappeared back inside.
She looked out the window to see ten employees appear out of nowhere. Several loaded their bags into the cargo hold. Others were using neon batons to guide the plane out of the hangar and toward the runway.
Brody sat down beside her with a flute of champagne in each hand. “Here you go.”
Sam accepted one and took a sip. The golden bubbles exploded on her tongue with a seductively smooth, dry flavor. It was really nice champagne. Nothing like the sparkling wine she bought at the grocery store on New Year’s Eve.
“Time to buckle up,” Brody said with a smile.
The plane slowly taxied down the winding paths of the small airport. Sam could only watch in amazement.
“Good morning, Mr. Eden,” a man’s voice announced through the overhead speaker. “We’d like to welcome you and Ms. Davis aboard our luxury jet today. I am your Captain, Louis Holmes, and my co-pilot is Rene Lejeune. Please let us know by pressing the call button if there is anything we can do for you. We are currently number two for take-off. Our flight time today will be about four hours, and we have smooth, clear skies ahead of us. As requested, a prepared brunch is waiting for you in the dining area. The seat belt sign will turn off when we’ve reached cruising altitude and it’s safe for you to move about the cabin. Enjoy your flight.”