Not Quite Perfect (Not Quite Series Book 5) (22 page)

So the house went to Jason. The estate sat on over fifty acres. It had its own airstrip and hangar. There were two guesthouses and an equestrian barn with half a dozen horses. A passion of his mother’s that all of them worked to keep alive after her death.

Glen heard Mary blow out a breath as they passed through the gates. “Wow!”

“It’s a lot to take in.”

“You grew up here?”

“Yep.”

He wondered exactly what Mary saw as he drove through the tree-lined drive, past the gates, and onto the property.

“It’s amazing.”

And she hadn’t seen the house yet.

“We’ll have time for the house later,” he said as he detoured toward the hangar.

“I think it would take weeks to see everything.”

“Maybe longer.”

He parked his car outside the hangar. “Ready for an adventure?” he asked.

“I’m finding life with you to be one continuous adventure.”

“Good answer. Leave your purse, you won’t need it.” He grabbed her hand once they left his car and led her onto the airstrip.

Nathan stood outside the Piper, smiled as they approached. Glen shook the man’s hand.

“Nathan, this is Mary.”

“Lovely, lass.” His Scottish brogue always did a number on the ladies.

“Nathan has been here since . . . I don’t know.”

“I think you were in nappies. If that helps at all.”

“I was young.”

“Wet behind the ears, he was.” Nathan had a good thirty pounds of extra around his waist but stood at least six two and had enough muscle under all that extra to back up anyone in need of backing up.

“Best mechanic and pilot I’ve ever met.”

Mary seemed to understand what that meant and smiled. “A pleasure to meet you, Nathan.”

“And such a beautiful voice. Do you sing, lass?”

“Like a duck, I’m afraid.”

Glen walked over to the Piper, patted the wing. “Is she ready?”

Nathan shook his head in offense. “You asked, lad . . . here she is. See for yourself.”

Mary caught on. “We’re going to . . .”

Glen gave the single propeller a good tug. “Yep.”

Mary sucked in an audible breath.

“This is the plane I learned to fly in. She’s the plane we all learned in.”

“You mean Jason and Trent?”

Glen nodded as he walked around the wing. “That’s what I meant. As soon as we were old enough to reach the pedals, our father took us up.”

“It’s that old?”

He laughed. “Airplanes aren’t the same as cars. The maintenance and care are meticulous enough to keep them in the air.”

“It’s small.”

“Is that worry I hear in your voice?”

Mary shook her head. “Just an observation.”

She didn’t lie well.

Then again, a woman who didn’t lie . . . even a little white lie, shouldn’t be that convincing.

“C’mon.”

He showed her where to step before rounding the plane and taking his seat. Inside the cramped cockpit, they brushed shoulders.

“This is crazy.”

“You said you wanted to learn.”

Mary grabbed her head with both hands. “But we’re in . . .
this
.”

Glen looked around. Saw the very basics of controls and navigation. Something to be flown on clear days with little concern for nasty weather, but that could also land safely with a skilled pilot in any condition.

“Where is Miss Adventure?”

“She’s right here . . . just—”

“Good.” He didn’t give her any time for second-guessing. “Put those headphones on and the mouthpiece close to your lips.”

Mary did as she was told and Glen went through the steps of firing up the Piper.

He waved out the window as he put the plane in motion.

The enclosed cockpit was meant for two. There were controls on each side that Mary kept her hands far away from. Unlike any other aircraft she’d been in, even the small space of a helicopter, this felt more intimidating.

“Can you hear me?” Glen’s voice came through the earpiece with a tinny squeal.

“I hear you.”

“It can get loud in here once we get going.”

“One propeller means one engine?” Mary’s question sounded ludicrous, even to her ears.

“I have you, Mary.”

She looked over the wing at the runway as they rolled over it. “Good, cuz I’d like to eventually enjoy my cougar years.”

Glen busted out laughing. “You have time for that.”

He flipped a few switches and the sound in the cockpit increased. The plane followed a white line on the pavement almost as if a massive string were pulling it, increasing in speed as it went.

“See that thing in front of you?”

“The steering wheel?” It wasn’t a wheel, more like a double-handled control for a video game.

“Yeah. Place your hands on it.”

“Okay.”

“Now pull back, slowly.”

She pulled as slow as she could but still moved her hands.

“A little more.”

The plane was speeding down the tarmac now.

“More.”

Mary pulled with a little more effort and the ground beneath them disappeared. She gripped the controls a little tighter. “Oh my God! Did I just do that?”

“Yes you did, Counselor. Now let me have the controls for a minute.”

Glen was smiling from ear to ear. He banked the plane to the left as it ascended into the blue sky.

Mary looked at the ground below as it slowly pulled away. “Feels like a slow-moving car.”

“I remember thinking the same thing the first time I came up.”

“So different from when you’re in the passenger cabin of a jet.”

Glen adjusted a few controls and leveled the plane out. “You ready for your first lesson?”

Mary grinned like a silly schoolgirl. “Seriously?”

“It won’t really count toward a pilot license, but you will see if it’s something you might want to explore.”

“Kinda like driving a car before you get your permit.”

“Exactly. Only up here, it’s hard to get pulled over.”

Mary placed both hands on the steering wheel, joystick . . . whatever the thing was called, and said, “I’m ready.”

Glen let go of his side and Mary took control. The plane dipped and she pulled back on the wheel. “This is crazy. I don’t know if I should keep my eyes on the sky or a dial.”

“Both.” Glen pointed at a dial. “This one tells you if you’re ascending or descending. Try and keep it steady for now.”

Mary found herself watching the dial like a speedometer on a car. She overcorrected the controls a couple of times before forcing her shoulders to relax.

Surprisingly, she wasn’t nervous.

Glen sat beside her explaining more of the controls in simple terms. She knew there was more to flying, really flying the plane, than what she was doing, but this felt easy.

For the next hour Mary soaked in Glen’s world and fell in love with his passion.

Glen landed the plane in Boston for an early dinner, which blew Mary’s mind. Who flies to Boston for dinner, gets in a private plane, and flies back? Once again, Glen let her pull them off the ground, but she was in no way going to try landing.

They headed down the coast in constant conversation. Every once in a while Glen would interrupt her to talk to some radio control tower as they flew through the airspace of an airport. Even though there wasn’t a highway in the sky, they still had to pay attention to other aircraft up there. Out over the ocean Glen programmed their course and engaged the autopilot function.

“Like cruise control on a car,” she said.

“Only this aircraft steers.”

“I can see why you like it. It’s peaceful up here.”

“And private.”

“What stops people from engaging autopilot and falling asleep?”

Glen leaned back. “I’m sure it’s happened. More likely autopilot is used for a couple to join the mile high club.”

Mary glanced around the small space. “In this?”

“It’s possible. Not comfortable, but it’s been done.”

She pointed a finger at him. “You?”

He shook his head. “Not in this plane. The four seater has more room.”

“You’re serious.”

“I had a friend who offered a service in college. He put a curtain up between the cockpit and the back, made sure the seats reclined back. People paid good money to join the club.”

Mary shook her head. “What people will do for sex.”

“The beds are always used on our private charters.”

“I feel like I’m constantly flying these days and I haven’t used the bed.”

Glen regarded her with a tilt of his head. “We need to change that.”

His look alone had her pushing her knees together. “I think we do.”

He leaned over, tilted her mic away from her lips, and kissed her.

Oh, yeah . . . they definitely needed to change that.

Just not in a plane with less space than a smart car.

Chapter Twenty-Three

It felt like she was always saying good-bye. This time was made worse because Glen needed to go to London on business and wouldn’t be back until after the following weekend.

Before she left his home, she moved some of his clothing around while he was in the shower and placed one pair of panties and a bra in a lone drawer.

It was meant as a joke, but during her flight home Glen had sent her a text after discovering it, telling her she could have all the space she wanted.

It was dark when she stepped off the private jet at the now familiar airport and walked over to the waiting car that would take her home.

“Hello, Miss Kildare. I hope you had a pleasant trip.”

“I did, thank you.” She turned to wave at the pilots before climbing into the back of the sedan.

Mary kept thinking over her weekend. How crazy her life had become, and not all of it in a bad way. Even the recent break-in and plumbing troubles couldn’t darken the energy she found to face every day. When she looked back on the weekend, all that had transpired, and tried to point to what she enjoyed most, she thought about the silly underwear she left at Glen’s house. The feeling of belonging in his life, his world. She was almost afraid to say it, even to herself . . . but their relationship was going really well. She enjoyed teasing him about his lack of ever having a girlfriend but didn’t turn that lens back on herself. A few men had floated in and out of her life, but none drawer-worthy. None she would have trusted to take her up in a single-engine airplane with no escape hatch. None who whispered her name when they made love to her. None she missed the second she stepped onto the tarmac to fly home.

Glen was turning into the real deal, and Mary wasn’t sure if she should just abandon herself to the feeling of belonging to someone, even as a girlfriend, or keep the walls she’d constructed years ago up to save her the heartache if it didn’t work out. Her two minds were fighting on which path to take, and her heart stood in the middle of the tug-of-war.

The driver pulled up to her condo and let her out.

She expected him to pull her luggage from the back and hand it to her, but instead he encouraged her to let him walk her in. “I was told you had a bit of trouble a while back. Mr. Fairchild asked that I see you were safely inside before I leave.”

She smiled. Even without Glen there, he was trying to take care of her.

Mary turned the key in her door and let the driver walk in first.

Inside the alarm let out a steady buzz, waiting for her to disarm it.

She punched in a series of numbers and stood back.

The living room was the same. The new floors had gone in but the replacement furniture had yet to be purchased. Indeed, her lone lamp stood on a cardboard box and the fresh coat of paint made the place smell and look like she’d just moved in.

“Looks like you’re okay.”

Mary thanked the man and locked the door after he left.

She reset the alarm, telling it she would be walking around but to blast her ears off if someone opened a window or an external door.

Mary fell into bed thirty minutes later after a brief text from Glen.

I miss you already.

Jacob Golf called to schedule an appointment, one without his wife, the day Mary picked up her car from the body shop.

Mary’s first thought was to tell him she couldn’t see him. Call it a conflict of interest or some such thing. Then she wondered what the chances of him scheduling an appointment were if he’d actually been the one in her home messing it up. His appointments almost always took place after five to accommodate his work in the past. It wasn’t a surprise that he asked to see her after six. They negotiated a five thirty time slot the following evening.

She considered telling Glen but then realized he’d just worry, probably do something stupid like fly out just to sit outside the door waiting to pounce on the guy.

The decision to treat Jacob as any of her other clients was made. That still didn’t stop her from pacing the small office up until the minute he knocked on her door.

Her hands actually shook when she opened it and greeted him with a smile. “Good to see you, Jacob.” The lie wasn’t easy but needed to be said.

“Thanks for working me into your schedule.”

“No problem. Have a seat.”

Her office had a small love seat and two side chairs for her clients and the chair she sat in during the sessions. On one side of the room sat a desk that she used on occasion, but most of her work went home with her.

She sat across from him, placed her notepad in her lap, and waited.

He held a water bottle and continually twisted the cap.

“Nina’s leaving me. Left me.”

Mary acknowledged him with a soft smile.

“I guess you already knew that.”

“I still see Nina every week.”

“Yeah, she told me that. I’m guessing you know more about how she’s feeling than I do right now.”

“You know I can’t talk to you about what we discuss.”

Jacob twisted the cap off, took a drink. “You probably know what she’s been up to, why she’s so distant.”

It was time to divert his attention to his own feelings and break away from Nina’s. “How are you feeling about the split?”

“Like shit. It isn’t what I want. I was here, wasn’t I? Working on shit . . . all the shit we’ve swept under the carpet for years. We’d come here, dig it all up, fight about it for a week, and then come back for more.”

Mary couldn’t deny that had been their routine. Unfortunately all her advice in the world about her clients working on one thing at a time was seldom practiced outside of her office.

“It did feel as if you both had a lot of
shit
under that carpet to work through.” She used his words.

His nervous hands kept twisting the bottle. He drank the water almost as an afterthought. “Didn’t matter. You know what I think?”

“No.”

“I think this was a distraction. This whole counseling crap was her way of showing me she wanted to stay in our marriage when she really didn’t. She’s having an affair, isn’t she?”

Keeping her face neutral was a task worthy of an Oscar. “What makes you believe she’s unfaithful?”

“You didn’t answer my question.” This was the part of Jacob that always made Mary uneasy. He didn’t get what he wanted out of the question and his eyes pinned her down as if she would break and spill every detail she had.

“Even if I knew about an affair from either one of you, you know I can’t discuss it.”

“The bitch . . . I knew she’d been fucked by someone else.”

Hearing the word she’d seen written on her mirror renewed the tremble in her hands.

“That is not what I said, Jacob.”

“You didn’t
not
say it either.” He stood with such force the couch hit the back of the wall.

Mary dropped her pen.

He pointed the water bottle in her direction. “I told her we needed a male counselor if this was going to work. No, she picked you. Someone she could have agree with her.”

“Jacob, please sit down. That’s not how it is.” Her voice wavered.

“I’m not a dog. I don’t sit when someone tells me to.”

He took another step toward her and Mary gripped the side of her chair to keep from backing into a corner. “You’re making me uncomfortable, Jacob. I’m going to have to ask you to calm down or leave.”

Jacob took another step toward her and she flinched. “I pay you to listen to me. You’ll listen.” He was yelling now.

“I need you to leave.”

Steam practically radiated off the man’s head. He stared at her for half a second, threw the water bottle he had in his hand at the opposite wall, and stormed out of her office.

Her heart kicked hard in her chest. It took ten minutes for her to stand, and when she did her hands shook to the point that when she reached out to close and lock the door, she couldn’t grip the knob.

“That wasn’t smart, Mary,” she scolded herself.

She waited until she was sure Jacob had time to leave the parking lot.

The water bottle sat empty beside the wall. She reached for it and stopped just short of picking it up.

The man was unstable, upset . . . blaming her, to some extent, for his failed marriage. She found a box of tissues and used one to pick up the bottle without smearing her fingerprints all over it. She set it on her desk and picked up her phone.

Officer Taylor’s phone went to voice mail.

“Hello, Officer Taylor. This is Mary Kildare. I have a name. A client.” This could destroy her career. Or this man could be the one who’d destroyed her home, and it was only a matter of time before he did more than yell at her and throw water bottles. “I also have something that has his fingerprints on it. I’m in need of your advice on how to proceed.” She left the message with her home phone number for the morning.

She hung up and put the officer’s card with her others before tucking it back in her purse.

Kent’s card sat below.

She called his cell number, hoping he was in his office.

A precaution.

Smarter than inviting the only suspect in her head into her office alone.

“Hello?”

“Kent?”

“This is.”

“Kent, it’s Mary.”

“Oh, hey. This is a surprise.”

And she didn’t need him getting the wrong idea. “You said I could call if I needed someone to walk me to my car.”

“Jesus, are you okay? You sound upset.”

“A client left angry. If you’re not in the office, it’s fine—”

“No. I’m here. Give me three minutes.” He hung up.

Mary felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. Even though she expected his knock on her office door, she still jumped.

“Mary? It’s me.”

She flung the door open and the shakes she’d had before became nearly uncontrollable now. Like all the adrenaline in her system dumped out all at the same time.

Kent reached for her shoulders with gentle hands and she slumped. She was safe.

“It’s okay.”

She leaned her forehead on his chest.

“Whoa . . . do we need to call the police?”

“I already did.”

His hands squeezed. “Do you want to sit while we wait for them?”

“No . . . no. They aren’t coming. It’s hard to explain. I just need to get home.”

Kent offered a soft smile. “Do you need me to follow you?”

“No. My friend is across the street. I’ll be fine.” She twisted away from his supportive hands, grabbed her purse, and locked the door behind them.

It was still light outside, but the parking lot was nearly empty.

She felt silly in the broad daylight hiding from shadows.

She unlocked her car door, taking a good look around. “Seems ridiculous now.”

Kent didn’t seem to mind. “What’s this guy look like?”

“Six foot, I guess, thinning hairline, Caucasian.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“No . . . he was angry . . . inappropriately so.” She didn’t want to go into details. “I don’t want to take any chances.”

“You shouldn’t. When are you done tomorrow?”

“Four.”

Kent placed his hands in his pockets. “I’ll meet you in the hall.”

“I can’t ask that—”

“You didn’t.”

She placed a hand on his arm. “Thank you, Kent. You’re a good friend.”

He tilted his head. “Always. Drive safe.”

Mary kept one eye on the rearview mirror, the other on the road. Before she pulled onto her street, she called Dakota and Walt.

Walt answered.

“Hey, Walt . . . I need you to do me a favor.”

He met her in the street, walked her into her silent house, and encouraged her to join them for dinner.

Mary declined, said she had too much work to catch up on.

She had a microwave dinner with a glass of wine and an open laptop.

She’d sent a text to Glen, asking him to call if he was still up. The time change and busy weekend might have resulted in him going to bed early, so she didn’t call.

By nine she thought he’d gone to bed and gave up on waiting for him to respond. She put her phone on the charger and left it on her kitchen counter before turning all the lights off and moving upstairs.

She attempted to read, find a happy place for her brain, and couldn’t concentrate long enough to finish a page.