“I got it!”
She sighed and put on her dress. The high heels had no place on her feet with the sleet covering the ground outside, but boots didn’t work with the outfit.
The purse she chose held her ID, a cell phone, and a tampon, not that she needed one today . . . thank God.
Nerves shook her before she opened the door of her bedroom and walked downstairs.
Jason’s, Nathan’s, and Owen’s voices met her before she saw them.
Jason stopped talking first.
Owen turned.
“Don’t I wish I were twenty years younger,” Nathan said.
She knew she didn’t look half bad, but the expression on his face was one for the movies.
Owen broke the spell. “You clean up pretty good.”
Rachel rolled her eyes as she met the bottom step.
Jason had yet to speak.
Owen handed her a coat she had by the front door.
“You two kids make good choices.”
Jason shoved Owen’s shoulder.
“You’re pushing your luck, lad.”
“Wow,” Jason finally said.
Rachel’s belly filled with heat. He dominated the room simply standing in it. Under his long, wool coat he wore a tux. Bow tie, vest . . . the whole nine yards.
She brushed invisible lint from his jacket. “You don’t look half bad yourself.”
He took her hand, kissed the backs of her fingers.
“Okay, I’m out.” Owen tossed his hands in the air and turned around.
Nathan laughed. “I hope you like pizza, lad. I’m not a cook.”
“Neither am I.”
Jason helped her with her coat and led her out the door while Nathan and Owen settled in for the night.
He drove the Audi.
“Should I be worried I’m in heels?” she asked.
“It’s not snowing.”
“I’ll remember that.”
To her surprise, they headed toward his house, the opposite direction of the highway. He followed his expansive fence line around the property and opened a wooden gate that hid everything beyond it.
A patch of trees opened to a clearing. “This must be the airstrip Owen talked about.”
Security lights went on automatically as he approached.
The lights fell on a helicopter.
She panicked. “Are you . . . are we . . .”
Jason cut the engine of the Audi and twisted in his seat. “Do you trust me?”
Rachel pointed out the window. “That’s a helicopter.”
“It is.”
“Oh, boy.” She turned to look at him.
“C’mon. I’m going to have fun buckling you in.”
With shaky legs, she held on to Jason’s arm to keep from falling. He opened the door and took the liberty of hoisting her into her seat. She numbly sat back while he fiddled with her belt and ran his hands over her stomach and chest as if he needed to smooth out the surface.
“Was it good for you?” Rachel asked when he completed the job.
“Safety is important,” he teased. He handed her a headset. “This might mess up your hair a little. You can fix it when we get there.”
She shivered.
He closed her door and moved around the chopper, checking things as he went.
“I’m in a helicopter,” she whispered to herself.
Jason swung into his seat, winked, and appeared to do another systems check by switching a few levers and buttons. “Ready?” he asked.
She shook her head no, much to his amusement, and followed his lead when he put on his headset.
Then he turned the helicopter on.
He leaned over and lowered a microphone, and the sound of his voice was directly in her ear. “Just breathe.”
“This isn’t . . . this is crazy, Jason.”
“Not quite crazy. Not for me, anyway.”
The inside of the chopper warmed up slowly. And within a few short minutes, Jason said, “Here we go.”
Rachel held the edge of the door and clutched her seat belt when they lifted into the air.
Like a deer in the headlights, Rachel stared at the ground as it pushed away.
“Take a look.” Jason pointed toward the house. The Christmas lights were still up, the yard around the home illuminated everywhere.
“Whoa.” It was pretty spectacular in the dark; she could only imagine what it would look like in the day.
“Do your neighbors complain about the noise?”
“Look around. We don’t have close neighbors.”
From the ground, it was hard to see the property lines. She did see two homes close by. “What about them?”
Jason pointed to the largest one. “That’s the guesthouse Nathan occupies, and the other is for my housekeeper.”
“Oh.”
“They don’t complain.”
“I would think not.”
He lifted the chopper higher and headed north. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I’m okay, just don’t let it get too warm in here.”
“No real risk in that. It’s a short flight.” He pointed down. “It’s hard to see, but your house is below us.”
“It is?” She looked out the window, couldn’t make out the details of the street. “There is no way I’m keeping Owen out of this thing now.”
Jason laughed.
Within minutes the lights of Manhattan spread out everywhere.
“Wow.”
“It’s a beautiful city.”
“From up here especially,” she said.
They made a big circle and followed the Hudson until Jason turned toward their building.
She shouldn’t have been surprised, but still was when he landed the thing on the giant X at their work.
“This is quite the parking spot you have here, Mr. Fairchild.”
He turned everything off, and the propeller slowly came to a stop. When he took off his headset, so did she.
“Now you see how I get here when the weather is awful.”
“I’m surprised you ever drive in.”
“There are other businesses in the building that use the landing pad, although Fairchild Charters owns the lease on it.”
“I would think you’d need to own the building to have that,” Rachel said.
“Fifty-one percent. We own sixty.”
She had no idea. “But you only occupy one floor.”
“And we rent out the rest. But that is a conversation for another day. No more business tonight.”
He jumped down from the chopper, ran around, and helped her out. The winds at the top of the skyscraper cut right through her coat and messed with her hair. Jason hustled her out of the cold and into the building.
He took the elevator to their floor, and the two of them walked through the abandoned space and to the office across the hall from his. “Mary and Monica equipped Glen’s bathroom with everything a woman needs to fix the mess we make by flying you in,” Jason told her.
Glen’s office was a mirror of Jason’s, only a tad bit smaller. As he said, she found everything she could need to force her hair into submission. When she emerged, Jason was leaning on Glen’s desk, waiting.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“We just flew into Manhattan and landed on the roof. That isn’t a normal way to start a first date.”
“We can fly back and I can drive you in, if that will make you feel better.”
She walked up and straightened out his tie. “That would be silly. Not to mention a waste of fuel. Which I’m guessing isn’t cheap.”