Covet (Sinful Secrets 3)

Something presses at my ankles, and I realize with relief that it’s Baby.

“Hi there…” I sit up and rub her head and check her lappy—all well—and one of the plane’s employees appears.

She has long, brown hair and looks perhaps ten years my senior. “Hey there, Finley. How are you feeling?”

I yawn. Still quite tired, although I say, “

Quite well.” I look around the luxuriously appointed space, but I don’t see an uncovered window. “May I ask…where are we?”

“We’re approaching Cape Town.”

I laugh in disbelief. “Are we?”

She nods, smiling. “You slept through most of the flight. Completely understandable, by the way. Would you like some dinner? We’ve got everything from all-American cheeseburgers to Wagyu ribeye.”

When I frown, her eyes widen solicitously. “I can do an all-green smoothie…every kind of sandwich.” She reaches behind her, turning to me with a booklet. “Here you are. This is our menu.”

In the end, I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, one small orange, and water that’s been flavored slightly minty, and watch out a window as the glittering carpet of South Africa begins to creep across the dark landscape below us. The lights are so numerous, I can’t begin to count them. I believe I’m seeing lanes between them—large, dark veins of no light. Some of them look red and white. Perhaps from hundreds or even thousands of automobiles?

I ask Mr. Carnegie—Charles, he reminds me—and he confirms it. Those lights are from automobiles.

Unbelievable.

He sits by me as the plane descends, explaining what to do to fix my ears, and telling me about the sounds the plane is making so I won’t be frightened.

I sweat a bit as the plane’s wheels come down, making a grinding sound, and we bump onto the airstrip, but then I feel a rush because we made it. We step off the plane, and I smell…something odd. I catch Charles looking at me. He smiles as I meet his eye.

“What does it smell like to you?”

“Automobile exhaust…bread…” I sniff again, laughing myself now. “Dirt, I do believe. It’s…an absence of water.”

From then on, I can feel Charles watching me for my reactions, though I don’t have time for many as two large men and one of the women shuttle us into a sort of wall-less car—a golf cart, Charles offers—and we’re ridden across a smooth, paved road to a new plane. This one is bigger.

I forego the bed and sit in a seat by a window. Baby frolics all about as I watch all the people. Through the window, I see people servicing the other planes, and some at our plane. I’ve been counting since we exited the Albatross; I’ve counted no fewer than twenty-nine people—all here moving about the airplanes! Oh, and that doesn’t count our crew.

Before we take off, the men—Steven and Hans—introduce themselves as bodyguards.

Like that movie, I wonder, but I don’t ask.

“We’re just here to help get you and Charlie make it to Seattle without any trouble.”

I chew my lip. “There could be trouble?”

They laugh, but it’s not unkind. “Some people use a bodyguard to clear the way for them when they go somewhere. Sometimes we’ll drive for Charlie or get him breakfast. Not because there’s trouble.”

“We’re just gophers, basically,” says the one called Hans.

I smile, though I’m a bit puzzled. “That sounds lovely then.”

Charles appears, raising his brows. It tugs at my heart, for he looks so much like Declan. “What are you two saying about me?”

“Just explaining what we do, boss man.”

Soon we’re all in seats and buckled. Baby’s in my lap again, and I’m experiencing my first coherent liftoff. It’s…quite frightening. But then it’s better as we stabilize. I realize after we’re in the sky that I never called Anna, but Charles says he spoke with Mayor Acton and he’d promised to update the entire island. My eyes tear a bit at that, and Charles passes me a tissue.

When it’s seatbelts-off time and our wee crew has dispersed about the cabin, Charles invites me over to a table, and the woman with the brown hair serves us eggs, bacon, and toast.

“It’s ten-thirty your time,” he says. “Maybe after this, you’ll want to sleep.”