Illegally Wedded
Page 24
“A flight?” Libby asked. “You’re not taking Teacup on a plane, are you?” She looked genuinely pained.
Piper petted Teacup’s head one more time. “Would you be willing to watch her for a few days?”
Libby lit up like a Christmas tree. “Would I!” She took Teacup and danced in a circle. “We’re going to go for walks, short ones, and do tricks, and I’ll tell you stories…”
“You have to leave already?” Mom asked. “I feel like we were just getting to know Piper, here. She’s lovely.”
“Come on, your parents deserve to know. Your sister too.”
“Fine.” Zach ripped off the band-aid, rapid fire explanation style. “Mom, Dad. This is Piper Travis, my wife. We eloped on Monday, and we’re honeymooning in the Caribbean—in seventeen minutes.”
“Zach!” Mom’s mouth dropped wide enough to fit a Texas Ruby Red grapefruit inside. “You’re married?”
“Yep. Isn’t it great?”
“Yes, well. I mean…” Mom was spluttering, but Zach didn’t have time to give more explanations, not now, when the jet was waiting. He tugged Piper toward the truck. “We’re thrilled. And shocked, and—”
“Wish I had time to tell you all about it, Mom and Dad. Later, okay?” Zach put Piper inside, and in no time had peeled out of the driveway, some gravel possibly spitting up from his truck’s rear tires. “We’re seventeen minutes from the airstrip.”
“It’s a corporate jet. There are no other passengers. It can wait.”
What she said made sense, much as he hated to admit it. “What do you want me to do?” But even as he asked it, he knew the answer. He turned the truck around and went back. His parents were still on the poor excuse for a porch. “Hey, Piper let me know I left too soon. You deserve more of an explanation than that.”
“We eloped,” she said. “It was my fault. I wanted a fast marriage.”
Why was she taking the rap for it? Zach eyed her, filled with wonder at her selflessness, but he couldn’t leave it all on her.
“We both did. We met and it just seemed right, Mom. I know I should have invited you.”
“Well, where did you get married? And when?”
He filled her in on the details, and as he did, her face softened. “I—well, that’s wonderful, son. We’re really happy for you. For you both.”
He realized that his decision not to include them might have been a little selfish. But at the same time, he hadn’t known whether the marriage would last, and he hadn’t wanted to drag them into it emotionally. Little had he known the impact their choice would begin to have on not just them, but on himself.
“Thank you,” Piper said, accepting a hug from Zach’s mom. “I know—we should have led with it when we came. I don’t know why we were scared.”
“You never have to be scared to tell us anything, sweetheart.” Mom gave Piper another hug, and over Piper’s shoulder, she sent a tear-glinting look at Zach. “And I’m obviously going to want to know all about you and meet your parents and things, but it seems you have places to go.”
“It’s…” Piper blushed beautiful. “Our honeymoon.”
Dad cleared his throat and piped up for the first time. “Then by all means, get going.” He wore a dazed smile, the first one Zach had seen in a really long time that hadn’t been prompted by food.
They got back into the truck. The clock on Zach’s phone let him know that the jet’s liftoff should be happening any second, but Piper had been right. Going back was more important, and the plane would wait.
They pulled onto the highway.
“I haven’t packed,” she said. “I don’t have anything at all with me, not even my passport. And no swimsuit if we’re going to be in the ocean.”
“You won’t need a passport since it’s a U.S. territory. And, they have swimsuits in Puerto Rico. Probably at the hotel gift shop.”
“Not one that will fit, though, Zach.” She shouldn’t fuel his hopes like that. He looked over at her.
He’d better get this trip right.
∞∞∞
“Puerto Rico, Dave.” Zach confirmed flight plans with the waiting pilot as they met up at CBH’s rental space in the hangar. “Sorry about the delay.”
“Traffic?” Dave asked, scribbling on a contract that Zach then signed.
“Something like that.”
The jet loomed large. Zach had only been on it four or five times in the past, but he knew the system. Sure, they usually required a whole process of scheduling, but this was an emergency, he told himself. A legal emergency.
“Yes, sir.” Dave gave him a tight nod. “Puerto Rico. Flight time, roughly four hours.”
Mentally, Zach took a knee in the end zone. Puerto Rico meant beaches and swim suits and tropical drinks in warm breezes with Piper. Emphasis on swim suits. If this restaurant chef thing didn’t work out, Piper honestly could be a swimsuit model, he was convinced. The curves…
Not that he’d want her to. Having her face and body on a billboard on I-10 was bad enough. Other men shouldn’t be looking at Piper like that.
Now, Piper stood gripping hands together for dear life, looking stricken.
“You okay?” Zach reached for her.
“So…overnight. Together. Several days. In a hotel. Just the two of us. With warm ocean waves.”
“That’s kind of the idea of the honeymoon.”
She gulped visibly. He had to do something to keep her freak-out at bay.
“Look, I know on the surface this seems pretty sketchy—heading to an island with a guy you met last week—but even if we’re going to be there, just the two of us and the warm waves, I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to. I remember our original agreement, and my intention to honor that hasn’t changed.”
Not that Zach would mind if the anything you don’t want me to goalposts moved a few hundred yards, but he wouldn’t go shoving them downfield himself. Honestly, he wanted Piper to still respect him on the flight home—and herself, too. Much as he morphed into a sizzling mass of synapses whenever she brushed her long hair back over her shoulder, he wouldn’t have her looking at him with hurt in her eyes. Even if it was killing him.
Chapter Fifteen
Riding along toward the airstrip, Piper had intended to stay irritated with Zach for his insensitive way of telling his mom and dad and sister about their wedding. She kept her arms crossed over her chest the whole ten-minute drive to the airstrip. How could he do that to them? What if he’d been the parent—did he ever do a role reversal?
Of course, he’d been kind enough to let her parents in on the celebration before their wedding, so she couldn’t be too critical all around, but she definitely couldn’t stand by and let him hurt them like that, not when they’d already been hurt so much already.
And he’d only been cruel to them in order to be kind in the long run, when he shoved her out of his life again.
Business arrangement. That’s what this was.
Then, Piper saw the jet, its wing lights glowing a steady butter yellow, stretching like a bird’s in flight, though it sat in the dark of the airstrip awaiting their boarding. Even in the midnight glow of the airport floodlights, it shone.
All thoughts of the Double Bar T Ranch fled from her mind.
“This is your firm’s corporate jet?” All her years growing up in places like The Emerald City or those fifth-floor walk-ups as a nomad, she never would have dreamed of nomad-ing anywhere on a private jet. Especially not one like this.
As her eyes took in the jet, her stomach did a loop-de-loop like she’d seen the trick planes in the sky do. Piper loved jets. She’d been named for an aircraft company. In all her years, she’d only ever flown a couple of times, short hops to Oklahoma City and one longer flight to Chicago, but packed into a commercial flight like the sardine cliché, only tighter, but just as fishy-smelling. Zach led her up the rolling stairs, and she ducked to get inside. Its luxury and scents of leather and fuel, the smells of money, took her aback.
She marveled, running a hand across the sueded leather seat backs. Where were the other passengers? Oh, wait. That was what a private jet was for.
“How does Crockett, Bowie, and Houston have this?” Piper tried not to let her jaw hang slack, but it was no use. She shivered as she entered the cooled cabin after the mugginess of the San Antonio night.
“Crockett, Bowie, and Houston do very well for themselves.”
“I’ll say they must.” She followed.
Zach sat on a bench seat toward the front of the cabin, rather than choosing a captain’s chair, and Piper sat beside him. There was just enough room for the two of them. Silently, a hostess appeared and brought them each a tall, sweating glass of ice water. Hers had dozens of floating mint leaves and lemon slices.
“How did they know I like mint and lemon?”
The plane started to rumble.
“I had Cora give them the menu.” He sipped his cup and then set it down and put an arm around Piper’s shoulder, pulling her closer to him. “I organized quite a few things. You do like pedicures.”
Of course she did. Who didn’t?
“If you want one on the flight, it’s available.”
The plane began taxiing, and in the fastest takeoff Piper had ever experienced (although her experience was slim), whoosh, her stomach was filling with the giddy rush of G-forces—combined with the tingles of how near Zach had pulled her against his firm, muscular side.
“Don’t we need seat belts?”
“It will be fine.”
Piper sank against the back of the seat, her vertebrae letting worries out one by one. This had been such an insane week—a week that had felt like a year, every day eternal, so much emotion packed into every minute. From single to married, from living next to Birdie to sleeping in the room next to Zach Travis, from a Quinn to a Travis, from legal to illegal, from upstanding citizen to felon, a hundred things she’d thought she’d known about herself had flipped inside out.
It could take a toll on a girl’s psyche.
So now, to just sit in the strong arms of a man who thought of her comfort, who cared about his family, who was ambitious but kind, who listened to the fact she liked mint leaves and lemon in her ice water—all the week’s tension gushed out of her.
“Zach. You are…” She didn’t know which adjective to fill in that blank with.
“The handsomest man you’ve ever flown on a private jet with?”
“Well, that too, but—”
“The best kisser you’ve kissed in the last week?”
“By far, but—”
“But you’d better test it again just to make sure? Don’t worry. I’ll keep to the five minute rule.” He took her glass and set it on the table. With a curved forefinger, he touched her chin and lifted it. His mouth caressed her lips, and she let her eyelids drop. Before she could protest, he was teaching her a thing or two about the methods of in-flight affection.
With no timer or alarm set, it was possible a lot more than five minutes passed while Piper let Zach teach her how the kiss worked during normal flight, how it changed when turbulence hit, and how it could taper off into a sweet, satisfied sleep on his shoulder until the wheels touched down in the bright morning light of Puerto Rico.
Piper shot upward. She’d slept with him! Well, beside him. It hadn’t been on purpose. She’d planned on moving to one of those single chairs, telling herself she’d give him just one more little kiss, just one more and then she’d go over there, recline the seat and close her eyes alone.
But her eyes had already been closed so gently, and his kisses had occasionally fallen upon her eyelids, resealing them, anytime she let herself consider waking from the pretty Zach-kiss dream he was taking her on for five minutes, and then just five more, and then…
And then—whoosh. The jet had touched down, and her hair was a mess and her shirt was crooked, and Zach’s necktie was off and lying across the table where their pretty mint and lemon drinks had been just a few hours ago.
Should have been five minutes.
Oh, this was a terrible, terrible idea. How had she let herself get talked into a private trip with just the two of them on a jet to a romantic island?
And…wait. She didn’t have anything with her. Not a change of clothes, not a toothbrush, and worst, not her passport.
“Zach,” she whispered, panic rising. “Zach?”
He woke up, scrubbing the back of his neck. “Oh, hello, gorgeous. You, my pretty, are very, very good at what you do.” He blinked a few times, and the way he smiled made her heart skip a couple of times. He was the expert, not her. He’d even shown her—
“No, no. I mean, listen. I don’t have my passport. And aren’t I, like, I don’t know—wanted?”
“Believe me, if you were wanted before, you’re desired now. I’m telling you, Piper, this trip could— Oh, sorry.” It was like he remembered himself. “I get ya. Fine. But this is Puerto Rico, not a foreign country. It’s an American territory. No passport required.”
Piper exhaled and ran a hand through her hair. “Oh, thank goodness. I was bracing myself to be hauled off in handcuffs at customs. Hey, and I see that gleam. No handcuff jokes. It’s not even funny.”
“I wasn’t going to laugh. You’re the one with the mind in the gutter.”
“If I am, you put it there.” Since when did Piper do banter like this? What confident woman had replaced the real Piper? The one who believed him when he used the word desired to describe her? “So, do you have something scheduled?”
The flight attendants came and brought them a thank you gift of chocolate and a muffin as they exited the flight into the warm, breezy tropical air. Piper’s skin soaked up the heat of the mid-morning sun. Despite the spotty rest she’d gotten all night, she felt surprisingly refreshed. Maybe it was because Zach had taken possession of her hand and arm and waist, gluing himself to her side.
“Hey, if Agent Valentine sent a spy, we want to look as much like honeymooners as possible.”
“How would Valentine even know?” Piper figured this had to be a way of flirting. Not that she minded. Zach’s closeness after last night felt far more natural than if he’d pulled away now. His touch felt almost like a vital appendage.
Yeah, this might not have been exactly what Chad had had in mind when he extracted her promise to be faithful while he was gone to Costa Rica. Or Caracas. Or wherever. It was so murky. And she would have pondered on that murk longer, except Zach was leading her straight to a swimwear shop and pointing at something skimpy.
“I might be more of a one-piece suit kind of girl.”
“So you’re saying you’ll swim with me?”
Oh, she hadn’t realized it was an option not to. But she liked the ocean, even if she’d only been to see it at Corpus Christie, and only a few times.
“Get green. That one, then.” He pointed at a one-piece, nice concession on his part, emerald green, that had a gold ring and a twist of fabric at the chest. “I’ll grab this.” He pulled a pair of trunks off the rack. It suddenly dawned on her, since he’d be swimming too, she might be getting a glimpse of his upper body, including the musculature she’d been letting her mind graze over ever since the fabric of his shirt had pulled at his bicep that first afternoon in Du Jour. Dreaming of that, boy howdy, the armor of her resolve to keep her distance from Zach took another serious chink in its steel.
“It’s probably the only one-piece in the store.” She didn’t plan on wasting the morning of the first and possibly only Saturday of her life on a tropical island doing something as distressing as trying on swimsuits. She grabbed a green suit in her size and brought it to the cash register.
“Ah, this look muy bonita with your eyes.” The cashier flattered her as Piper tugged out her wallet to pay.
Zach jumped forward and too
k her card and stuck it back in her hand. “I’ve got it.”
The cashier said something to Zach all in Spanish, and he responded. Piper didn’t understand, but she did get that it was a comment about her.
“Gracias,” she said.
Out on the street, Zach took her hand. “Street markets or straight to the water?”
“Ooh, that’s tough. Once I get in the water I might not want to come out, so we’d better do street markets first.”
Zach looked very pleased with that answer. “We’ll find you a dress to go over your swimsuit.”
“I’m not much of a shopper. Except for food. Shopping for food is basically my life.”
“I saw you at the farmers’ market. They loved you there.” Zach led her down a side street that was draped with curtains dividing booth from booth and linens and color-splashed clothing draped on racks as far as Piper could see. A reggae band played at this end of the alley, but it was being echoed in syncopation by a few mariachis at the other end. The energy from the vendors’ shouts and offers bounced off the high pink or whitewashed walls of the buildings on either side of the corridor. Piper’s heart thrummed with it.
“It’s alive.” Her eyes swept the cacophony of colors, and she inhaled the island scents of jibarito sandwiches she’d only heard about in cooking school but never tasted, with the spiced slabs of steak between two thick slabs of plantains instead of bread.
Piper allowed Zach to tug her into the melee filled with tourists of all ages and locals hocking fruits and tortillas. In the bustle and swirl, she felt she might be swept away, but Zach kept a firm hold on her wrist, his thumb caressing the center of her palm, never letting her forget he was there, despite the wildly-colored distractions.
“Here. This one will bring out the color in your eyes.” Zach held a peacock green sarong-looking thing against her collarbone. “Do you like it?”
It was beautiful and soft and delicious. He bought it, and three others in varying shades of blue. She liked blue, and Zach might like it on her, or so it would seem. She made him choose a few things to wear, too, since he’d packed as much has she had: zero.