Chapter 10
RACHEL
They were leaving later than they’d originally planned, having to make accommodations for all the schedules involved. By the time everyone made it to the airport, the sun was starting to edge over the Rockies as the Franks loaded up the Puffle Yum corporate jet.
The boys had already boarded with their grandparents, while she did a final mental recheck of their suitcases.
Children’s Tylenol, swimsuits, socks ,antacids, moisturizer…
She continued running through her mental list of items to keep her mind off the fact she was about to board.
Uh-huh, Rachel was getting on a plane. And, she was pretty sure, the only thing that could make this family vacation more intense was adding puppies to said plane.
Actually, they were doing that—the puppies and plane thing—so it was about as intense as it could get.
Rachel’s nerve endings had been mainlining bolts of anxiety straight into her bloodstream in the weeks since she’d agreed to the trip. She’d had to rearrange her summer schedule, and avoid any Frank who didn’t go by the name Gavin—all while wrangling clients, kids, and puppies.
Though she held firm that the puppies followed wherever the boys went. Gavin had learned to deal with it. The boys mentioned a baby gate in Gavin’s kitchen to keep the dogs away from his carpet.
As a bonus of Gavin being around more often for the boys, Evelyn hadn’t brought up anything about Travis’s cocktails.
After Evelyn took off from the park with the lavender cleanser—Rachel hadn’t noticed Evelyn never swapped it back until Evelyn was long gone—she’d been utterly beside herself that Gavin and Rachel were in the same room more and more often.
Even if that “more and more often” was totally platonic, and Dakota had been there, too.
This trip was happening, though, and it included Travis.
Rachel really hoped her ex-mother-in-law wouldn’t get weird about things and start ranting about fraying blankets.
Rachel had a hunch, though, as she walked up to the perfectly innocuous Puffle Yum corporate jet sitting on the tarmac at Centennial Airport, that Evelyn was going to get weird about things.
Travis moved behind her as they approached the steps leading to the aircraft.
He didn’t say anything, but she sensed him walking there. She somehow knew instinctively it wasn’t Dane’s footsteps.
She didn’t need to turn to confirm his identity.
“Kids, dogs, three suitcases, purse, house keys, laptop, charger, cell phone, charger, and sunglasses.” She continued her final inventory of everything under her breath.
“Would you feel better taking the car?” Travis asked, stepping beside her, the little creases between his brows deepening.
“Yes,” Rachel said, quicker than necessary. The answer to that question was simple because, fine, yes, she did not like to fly.
Also, fine, yes, she had a perfectly running Toyota Highlander with an abundance of room for herself and her children and their puppies.
But the drive was a solid seven hours when she factored in multiple bathroom breaks, eating breaks, and one son who had a penchant for tossing up anything he’d eaten if he spent more than three hours in a moving vehicle.
Therefore, the corporate jet option with only forty-five minutes of actual flight time seemed like a natural fit.
Except.
The whole hating to fly thing. She didn’t have a fear of flying, per se. She just happened to hate doing it because it was scary. Call that whatever you’d like.
She took in Travis. He dressed remarkably fancy for the flight. Her mouth went dry.
Had she ever seen him in pressed slacks before? Truly, she couldn’t say she had. And a button-up white shirt? Travis knew how to do buttons. That was good to know.
He looked…okay, well, the first word that came to mind was yummy. But she nixed that thought and went with professional. He looked professional.
“I’m a great pilot.” Travis cracked a smile, the charming one that stretched his lips and showed a pop of teeth and probably got most women in his vicinity to drop to their knees and start unbuckling his pressed slacks for him.
Gah, she was not allowed to think things like that. Bad Rachel.
Also…wait.
“You’re not the pilot,” she declared.
Travis was not a pilot. He didn’t even play one on television, as far as she knew. Unless he had some secret life she didn’t know about.
That was totally possible.
“I am a pilot, and I’m today’s pilot,” he said with the confidence of an actual pilot.
Rachel started to step backward but stopped herself, instead turning toward Travis the pilot. “I didn’t agree to this.”
“Rach, it’s fine. I fly this bird all the time.” He gestured to the aircraft.
Oh, hell no. Not Travis. Anyone but Travis. She preferred her pilots to understand the significance of flight in a metal box.
“Why didn’t I know you’re a p-pilot?” she asked… stammered…whatever.
“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” he said, and his words sounded remorseful.
She wasn’t going to evaluate that remorse further than the basic acknowledgment of its existence.
“I have no doubt,” she said. He could be the bestest best pilot in the world, but it didn’t change the way her lungs seemed to fill with fluid at the thought of being in the air with him at the helm.
There was something about knowing the pilot of the plane you were going up in, several tens of thousands of feet in the air, had stopped attending his college classes because he preferred taking body shots off co-eds at the campus pub.
“Hey.” He stepped forward, studying her face.
“If you’d prefer to drive, we can take the boys and the dogs and meet you there. ”
Her boys? On this plane? Without her? Hell. No.
His assurance did nothing to assuage the plummeting feeling in her body about the fact that Travis was piloting this beast of a plane.
“The boys can’t go up without me.” And just like that she got lightheaded again.
“They’ll arrive in one piece,” Travis had the creases between his eyebrows again. This time, though, his gaze was soft. Like a caress. Like he cared.
Ugh. This was Travis. Travis did not get to stroke her with a gaze.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you.” She swallowed. That was mostly the truth. She trusted him to drive her kids to the park or take them to Empower Field at Mile High. “It’s just that I prefer the pilot in command of my children’s futures not be—”
Him.
“Me?” he asked.
She said nothing. Sometimes it was the best choice.
“I decided somethin’,” he said. Well, mostly, he drawled. “What’s that?”
“You’re going to be my copilot.” Travis nudged her arm with his own.
Not freaking likely. That was a no from her.
She stared at the plane—a metal flying box of anxiety made only of sheet metal, bolts, and jet fuel.
Travis stared at it with that caressing gaze, like it was to be cared for and revered. Cherished. Polished.
“No,” she said. “And please tell me you have a copilot with the appropriate credentials.”
He didn’t respond. He just asked, instead, “Can I tell you the best thing about you being my copilot?”
She didn’t really think he was asking, though. More like he was going to do what he wanted.
“We both know you’re going to say it, so you might as well get it over with,” she mumbled. He was like his mother that way.
“If you’re my copilot, then I’ll be your copilot,” he said, turning that gaze back on her, letting it lightly graze over her skin, the fine hairs along her arm seeming to stand right up and take notice. Sheesh, it was like her body thought he’d brought her margaritas again.
Maybe Molly was right. Maybe Rachel needed to get laid. Good God, not by Travis and his caressy-caress looks, because that would apparently rip the seam of the family structure irrevocably, but there had to be a male in the Twin Lakes region of Colorado who might be interested in a booty call.
She’d figure out a strategy if they landed. Once. Once they landed.
Like a good pilot, a one-night stand should be someone you didn’t know outside of the situation.
Although…in rolling that thought around her brain… the last time she’d done that she’d ended up with a set of twins and a man who had a penchant for disappearing from his fatherly duties more often than not.
“Let’s just let the licensed pilot fly the plane.” Forcing her feet one in front of the other, she stepped up the staircase and into the cabin.
Two balls of fur barreled into her.
“Crates,” she said, the word shrill. “They have to stay in their crates on the flight.”
“They don’t like their crates.” Kellan caught Pete around his neck and lifted him against his chest. “Meemaw said it’s fine.”
Rachel chanced a glance at their grandmother. Evelyn raised a thin, penciled eyebrow at her. It didn’t raise very much because of the filler she used in her forehead creases.
Rachel didn’t judge; she had every intention of Botoxing the shit out of her face once her wrinkles got deep enough. Though, Kaiya’s products were helping to delay the process.
“The dogs won’t hurt anything,” Evelyn assured.
Except, they’d probably defecate on the pristine leather chairs, chew the armrests, run into the cockpit and force the plane into an emergency landing. An emergency landing of the hard variety that might even involve flames. Which meant…
“They need to go in their crates, please and thank you.” Rachel leveled Kellan with her don’t-mess-with-me-about-it stare. He took note, working with his brother to get the dogs back in their cages.
Dane secured the cabin as Travis made his way to the cockpit, a small metal clipboard in his hand, aviator sunglasses wrecking his otherwise perfect blond hair. Even though the guy was definitely not a superhero, he had a bit of the Clark Kent vibe right then.