There was a pause and a tilt of his head that she’d seen him do before. “I think after this flight, the least you can do is say yes to a date.”
Oh, yeah, he was definitely playing it hard. Not that she thought for a second his anxiety about the flight was a show. White knuckles and wild eyes were a dead giveaway.
“How about dinner at whatever hotel we muster up once we land?”
His thumb stroked her fingers.
On instinct, she pulled away, only to have him hold her tighter. “That was a given. I’m talking about when we get back to Texas. I still need to teach you the two-step.”
The plane rocked back and forth as the runway approached. Wade squeezed her hand a little tighter.
“Who says I don’t already know the two-step?”
“Do you?”
“It’s two steps, how hard can it be?”
The first punch to the tarmac and Wade squeezed her hand hard enough to have her tense. Once the wheels made decent contact and the nose bounced before leveling out, Trina placed her free hand over his fist.
Wade glanced at his hand. “Oh, damn, sorry.” He let her go the second he realized the grip he had.
Trina shook out her hand with a laugh. “I don’t need my hand for the rest of the day anyway.”
Tilting his head back and closing his eyes, Wade let his shoulders fall. “That was not fun.”
“We landed. We’re good.”
“Little lady, I haven’t worked this hard for a date since I was in Miss Kuhnar’s third grade class.”
She laughed. “Third grade? You started early.”
“Patty refused to let me walk her home up until the last week of school.”
Trina had a strong desire to learn more about Patty.
The airplane came to a stop, and Nita stood from her seat as quickly as she could.
“Sincere apologies, Mr. Thomas.”
Relaxed now, Wade flirted with his eyes and put Nita at ease. “I’ll use this in a song,” he told her.
The younger woman seemed to like that idea. “I can’t wait to hear it.”
Wade winked.
“Do you know who Wade Thomas is?” Avery glanced up from her cell phone to find Lori’s and Shannon’s eyes.
“The name sounds familiar,” Lori said.
Avery turned her phone around and showed the others the image on her screen. “He’s a country western singer. A friggin’ musician!”
Lori blinked. “Okay . . .”
“Trina is in a private plane with a cowboy rock star. This isn’t good.” Avery hated to think of her vulnerable friend being taken advantage of by some sweet-talking, yes, ma’am kinda man that had women throwing themselves at him in a different city every night.
Shannon and Lori didn’t share her distress.
“Remember Miguel?”
They all exchanged glances in a memory of the man that had latched on to Trina during their weeklong cruise in the Mediterranean last year. The man had put drugs into Trina’s drink, his intentions never truly revealed, since they had intercepted their friend before anything tragic happened.
“One case of bad judgment isn’t a reason to assume Trina isn’t capable of picking up a decent guy,” Shannon said.
Lori was biting her lip with a frown.
“What?” Avery asked.
“I seem to remember something in Trina’s file saying she had a track record of dating lousy men.” Since Lori was the lawyer who wrote up the prenuptial agreements for all the First Wives, she would know. Alliance, the company that had arranged all of their fake marriages, procured painstaking background checks. Those reports included everything from criminal behavior to previous relationships, bad behavior on and off the record, financial issues good and bad, all the way down to the skeletons in the family closets.
“She’s too trusting.”
“There isn’t a lot we can do about it until she comes home,” Lori told her.
Avery pushed off the couch in the middle of Trina’s Texas ranch estate. A home Trina had inherited from her late mother-in-law, a mansion way too big for a single woman, even if it had a staff of half a dozen people milling about at all times of the day. “Oh, yeah, there is. We can go to her. She isn’t planning on coming home.”
“She wouldn’t ditch us,” Shannon said.
Avery moved around the great room until she found a pen and paper. “That’s exactly what she’s doing. It’s been a year since Fedor offed himself. The only people who know about her other life are here. Everyone out there only knows what she tells them. If you haven’t noticed, Trina hasn’t exactly fostered any new friendships since all this went down. According to Andrea, she has made several excuses about going into the office, except when they have board meetings.” Trina had inherited a third of Everson Oil, including a place on the board. Shortly after coming into her inheritance, she’d embraced the company and her mother-in-law’s sisters, Andrea and Diane. That was up until a month before, when she escaped to Europe. She’d pulled away then, and hadn’t emotionally returned.
“Maybe she needs some time alone,” Shannon said.
“Or she needs her friends to step up and make sure she’s making good decisions. If she isn’t, we’re there to catch her when she’s dealing with the memories of last year.”
Lori glanced at Shannon. “She has a point.”
“Damn right I have a point. If my fake husband had splattered his brains all over the wall in the den, I would have run off to find God in India or some such place.”
Shannon winced. “Thanks for the visual.”
“Sorry, I’m just worried. You guys are the best thing, other than the money, of course, that my marriage to Bernie has given me. I don’t want Trina making a mistake that we can help her avoid. A cowboy singer handing her a bunch of country lines so she can bankroll his next indie project is not gonna happen so long as I have some say in the matter.”
“Maybe this guy and her are completely platonic.” Shannon was forever the optimist in the group.
Avery and Lori exchanged doubtful glances.
Avery turned her phone back onto the image of Wade Thomas. “Look at that ass and tell me you wouldn’t take a handful?”
A slight pull to Shannon’s lips in the form of a smile told Avery what she already knew.
Avery started to dial.
“Who are you calling?” Lori asked.
“Sam. She said if there was ever a need for her jet, to call. I think now is a good time.”
Chapter Six
Umbrellas proved useless when rain splattered horizontally across your body.
Dripping wet and laughing at the plight of it all, Wade opened the door to the hotel lobby and let Trina step in before him. Behind them, their driver dealt with their luggage.
Trina held both hands out in front of her and pulled her wet shirt from her chest. “That is nuts.”
Wade shook his head and rain splattered everywhere.
“Hey!” Trina laughed and stood back.
“What’s the matter . . . ?” He did it again. “Afraid of getting wet?”
Trina stepped close and twisted her ponytail over his frame.
“Oh, it’s on.” He snaked a hand around her waist and shook his head until she squirmed away.
“Uncle!”
When they stopped laughing, half the lobby was staring at them like they were nuts.
Trina tried to keep a straight face. “His fault,” she told anyone who listened.
Wade took the liberty of placing a hand on the small of her back as he pushed her through the lobby. “I’ll get ya for calling me out.”
“It was your fault,” she whispered.
They both stepped to the registration desk at the same time.
“Good afternoon,” the man behind the counter greeted them.
“Hello,” Trina said.
“Hi,” Wade said at the same time.
The clerk looked between the two of them. “We’re here to check in,” Wade told the man.
He turned to the computer. “What is the name on the reservation?”
“Oh, we don’t have a reservation. Our plane had to land here unexpectedly—”
The man stopped typing and the smile on his face fell. “I’m sorry, but we’re completely booked.”
Yeah, Wade had heard that before. “I’m sure you can find something.”
He shook his head. “Many of our guests were forced to stay an extra night because of the storm.”
Trina leaned forward. “What about your penthouse suite, or whatever your top floor has to offer? Money isn’t an issue.”
Trina pulled her wallet out of her purse.
Not to be outdone, Wade removed his wallet. “Exactly.”
The clerk typed on his computer again. “The only thing we have is the presidential suite—”
Wade put his credit card down before Trina could. “We’ll take it.”
Trina nudged his card away. “I’ll pay.”
Shaking his head, Wade picked up her card and pushed his forward. “Not this time, little lady. Use this, please.”
The clerk ping-ponged his gaze between them.
“I’m the reason we’re here. I pay for the room,” Trina insisted, grabbing at her credit card.
Wade held it out of her reach.