Not Quite Forever (Not Quite series) (25 page)

“Have you talked to him about it?”

“No. I thought maybe if we visited over Christmas I could bring it up then.”

They’d talked about the holidays but hadn’t made any commitments. “Let’s get through Thanksgiving first.” And discuss Christmas and his mother later.

“OK.” He yawned.

“You need to go to bed, Doc.”

“I do.”

“I miss you.”

“Call me crazy, but I like knowing you do. I miss you and little Sebastian.”

Sebastian . . . good Lord, that was not going to happen.
“Beatrice is right here when you get back.”

“Sleep well, Mama.”

“We will, Daddy.”

After hanging up the phone, she placed a hand over her belly. “We’ll find the right name for you, don’t worry.”

She picked up her laptop, placed it back on her legs. That’s when she felt it. A flutter deep inside her womb. She’d heard of butterflies in her stomach, but this was low and deep. “Oh, baby.” Dakota sat up and waited, when it happened again, she knew. Her child, their child, was saying hello for the first time. The desire to pick up the phone and call Walt passed and she grinned. “This is just you and me right now.” And that was perfectly fine. Walt wouldn’t be able to feel anything anyway, even if he were there.

Putting aside her work for the night, Dakota sat in the dark waiting for another flutter, another wave. Even though she was alone, she wasn’t. There was someone an entire country away thinking of her, and one much closer depending on her.

Life wasn’t so bad.

Thanksgiving plans changed the minute Walt realized how awful his mother had been with Dakota while he was in Florida. Neither one of them wanted to endure the drama of family, and luckily, they had friends who embraced them.

Walt helped Dakota and Mary with their luggage for the weeklong stay on the East Coast. Monica and Trent were doing the traditional turkey along with ball games. When they sent a plane to pick them up, Dakota jumped at the idea.

“Besides,” she’d told him after Monica offered, “my publisher scheduled a couple of interviews and New York is only a two-hour drive from Monica’s.”

“And we can go shopping,” Mary chimed in. “I love it when we go to New York without a conference. And then there’s ice skating . . .”

“I think I’ll take a rain check on the ice skating this year,” Dakota said.

The plans were sealed after that. Thanksgiving, New York, and shopping . . . the girls were happy and Walt could spend some of his time working out contract details with the Fairchilds when it came to Borderless Doctors. The job was paperwork heavy, lots of recruiting would happen after the holidays, lots of international travel. The good news was, Dakota was willing to travel with him, before and after the baby was born, so long as his destinations didn’t involve contagious disease outbreaks. As she said, she could write anywhere.

Now they were parked in an auxiliary lot and shuffling luggage from his car.

Like every time Walt had flown with Fairchild Charters, a man stood holding a sign with his name.

Mary giggled like a schoolgirl as they were valeted through security and led straight to the tarmac.

“Are you our pilot?” Dakota asked as they walked through the hoards of holiday travelers.

“I’m the copilot, Miss Laurens. The pilot is still on board.”

Both Walt and Dakota spotted the plane the moment they stepped onto the pavement. The familiar Fairchild name was written over the wing of the airplane, but unlike the others they’d been on, this one was massive. “Holy cow,” Dakota whispered.

“Is that it?” Mary asked, her eyes wide.

“Yes, ma’am,” the copilot offered. “Nothing but the best for the Fairchilds’ personal friends.”

Walt stood back and let the ladies walk up the steps and into the jet. He heard their reaction long before he saw what they gasped at.

Then he saw it.

“Holy shit.”

Dakota turned, her grin tried to fall but failed. “This is too much. We can’t accept this.”

It was beyond too much. Unlike the other charter planes he’d been on, this one had sofas and a huge big screen, a bar, and if he wasn’t mistaken, an entire bedroom suite through a door in the back.

“Trump called and wants his plane back,” Mary mumbled.

Dakota laughed and moved deeper into the luxury jet. “See, this . . . this is why I write. Who knows, maybe someday we can own something like this.”

Walt watched as joy stretched over her face and she sat on the lush leather sofa and placed a hand over their child.

We, she said we.
Those words were fuel to his soul.

“Keep writing, babe. Who knows.”

A woman emerged from the back of the jet. “Welcome aboard,” she said. “I’m Mai and I’ll be taking care of you.” The tiny woman offered a full-toothed smile.

“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.

“You have an Aunt Bea?”

“No. My sister married into Aunt Bea. The woman has serious skills in the kitchen. Most times when she brings me into the kitchen she offers wine and suggests I watch and learn.”

Mary groaned. “We’re screwed.”

“It’s a turkey! And with Aunt Bea’s instructions it can’t go wrong.”

Dakota flat-out laughed. “We’re screwed.”

Monica shook her head. “Have faith, ladies. Mary,” she instructed, “start shredding the bread, Dakota, cook up the sausage, and I’ll get this bird ready.”

While Monica pulled crap from inside the bird, Dakota cooked a good pound of sausage.

“Who is this Aunt Bea and how is she going to help us?”

Monica shoved the turkey under the flow of water in the sink as she explained. “Aunt Bea is Beatrice Morrison, sister of Gaylord Morrison. That would be Jack’s dad . . . Jack is Jessie, my sister’s, husband.”

Dakota was certain something inside her brain short-circuited.

Monica paused and tried again. “My sister’s aunt through marriage.”

Dakota met Mary’s gaze. They nodded. “Aunt Bea is the cook in the family?”

“She’s amazing . . . makes it look easy.” Monica patted down the turkey and started rubbing spices over the outside. “Thanksgiving always meant burnt or undercooked turkey in my childhood home.”

Mary moved from shredding bread to chopping celery. “I had a slew of foster homes growing up. Depending on the ethnicity, Thanksgiving changed every couple of years.”

Monica paused, looked over her shoulder. “Really?”

Dakota had heard parts of Mary’s story over the years and knew what was coming. “Yep. There was the Von Goosens, I don’t remember much of them. Thanksgiving wasn’t a part of their culture, I know that. Then there were the Beckers, they tried the whole turkey thing but spent most of the time drinking and we would end up with grilled cheese.” Mary sighed, moved on to the onions. “The Mendez family, they celebrated with traditional Mexican flair.”

As much as Mary tried to hide her childhood pain, Dakota saw through it.

“Suddenly my mother and all her posse of boyfriends feel much more stable,” Monica said.

Mary shrugged. “Friends are often more important than family. I’m not sure if my real parents were just kids, dead, or not willing to take on another liability.” She looked at the both of them and offered a smile. “Stop looking at me like that. We all have a past.”

Dakota moved the pan of cooking sausage off the flame and hugged her friend. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“We can all ruin Thanksgiving together. Now that’s love.”

They moved through the kitchen at that point, chopping, seasoning . . . and following Aunt Bea’s recipes as if they knew what they were doing.

When everything was cooking, or at least at a standstill, Dakota found her way to the den, where Walt and Trent were watching a football game.

With the silly apron still wrapped around her protruding waist, she sat next to Walt and kicked her feet up on the coffee table.

“It smells good in there.”

“I have no idea if anything will turn out. It’s the blind leading the blind in there.”

Walt pulled her in and kissed her forehead. “I have faith.”

“I’m a writer, not a homemaker.”

A tired writer who wanted a nap and it wasn’t even noon.

Walt ran his hand along her and rested it over her belly. “I’ll take ya anyway.”

She closed her eyes and smiled. “Good thing.”

Sure enough, the butterflies in her belly were becoming more frequent, she felt them now and placed her hand over Walt’s.

“Feel that?” she asked.

He shook his head but kept his palm flat.

The game continued, not that Dakota was paying attention, and then Walt stiffened by her side.

“Oh . . . shit. Did you feel that?”

“What?” Trent asked as he sipped from a beer.

Walt flattened his hand, paused. Their child moved and Walt beamed. “Was that . . . ?”

She nodded. “Looks like Junior is wishing you a happy Thanksgiving.”

Walt sucked in his lower lip, smiled when their baby moved again. “Wow.”

Dakota squeezed his hand. “So here’s the deal, Baby Daddy. I get the first nine months of carrying little Junior, and you get the next. Deal?”

Walt couldn’t look more like a kid with a giant lollypop. “Deal.”

Trent cleared his throat. “Do I need to leave the room?”

Smiling, Walt twisted toward his friend. “I can feel the baby moving.”

Trent’s eyes moved to their joined hands.

Walt waved his friend over. “C’mere.”

Before Dakota knew it, Trent was placing his hand on her stomach and waiting. When he felt it, he jumped. “Holy crap.”

After that Mary and Monica made their way into the den and Dakota’s body was no longer her own.

Somewhere between halftime and turkey time, there was
toss the ball
time. Walt stood in Trent’s front yard with Glen and Jason, Trent’s oldest brother, and the four of them paired off for a friendly game of football. The temperature outside was just above freezing but that didn’t stop them from pretending to be younger than they were.

Walt passed the ball to Trent and watched as the older brother took out the younger. Another pass around and Walt felt the hard edge of the earth meet his shoulder. If the men didn’t push each other to the ground, Trent’s dogs, Ginger and Gilligan, were all too happy to trip and tackle the players.

Jason and Glen were strutting, up by seven points. But when Walt tackled Glen, some of that strut turned into groans. Walt wasn’t sure what hurt more, tackling or being tackled.

“Next point wins,” Trent offered, rubbing his shoulder.

“I can go with that.” Glen ran a hand over his ass.

“There’s a reason alcohol is a favorite food group during the holidays,” Jason said.

Trent and Walt had possession and made a run for the goal.

Trent hit the ground as Jason made an attempt to capture him before the ball went over the invisible line. They came up grinning with two Irish setters licking their faces.

“It’s actually a tie,” Glen said, helping his brother up to his feet.

“Fine, a tie. Call it what you want. One more knock to the ground and I’m going to need Walt’s services.”

They did the
patting on the back
thing followed quickly by the
guzzling the beer
thing.

“So, Walt?” Trent asked. “What are you waiting for?”

Walt swallowed. “What do you mean?”

“With Dakota. Looks like you guys are playing house well together. You’re obviously into her.”

Walt grinned. “You sound like her dad.”

Glen shoved his brother’s shoulder. “Trent wants all his friends to settle now that he’s paired up.”

“Hey, marriage has perks. Something none of you know anything about.”