Sophie's Encore (35 page)

“
T
o
day
?” I whispered. “At three o’clock?”

Dan nodded.

I cast a look at my oven clock. “In…like…
five
hours?”

Dan nodded again.

I examined the other documents. They were printouts of something called ESTA.

“Electronic System for Travel Authorization,” Dan offered before I could ask a question. “Remember the old green immigration cards you used to have to fill in on flights to the US?”

My turn to nod. It had been a long time since I had traveled to the States.

“Well, they don’t do those anymore. Instead, you have to fill in this stuff online ahead of time, and it’s a case of going through immigration at the other end.”

I perused the documents more closely. “These have our names and birthdates and passport numbers and everything.”

“Sure. It’s got to match, you see. It’s all done and paid for. We can’t do anything more than present you three on the other side.”

“But…” I was stuck on that word again. “But how did you know our passport numbers? How did you even know the kids
had
passports?”

It was, in fact, a small miracle that they did have passports. Steve’s parents had insisted, when Emily was a year old, that I should have passports made out for both kids, because I could never know when the mood to travel might take me. I had laughed at the time, but now I saw the wisdom of their words. Nonetheless, how did Dan know all of that?

“I had help,” he grinned.

Something stirred in my mind. A little thought. A conversation I had had with my Dad not too long ago. Something about banks and life insurance and…

I looked Dan squarely in the eye. His entire face was wreathed in smiles.

“Dad?” I said uncertainly. “Is that why he wanted our passport numbers a few weeks ago?”

Dan nodded, almost gleefully.

“Dad’s
in
on this?” I repeated, just to be clear. “You’ve talked to him about this?” More nods on Dan’s part. “He knows about this plan?”

“Why don’t you just call your parents?” Dan suggested again.

“You know, I just will,” I retorted and went to the lounge to retrieve the phone. Mum picked up on the second ring, almost as if she had been waiting for me to call.

“Sophie love! Is he there yet? I hope you’re not being obstinate and coming up with all sorts of reasons
not
to go?” She launched into the conversation without preamble, without even a hello.

I laughed. “You really do know about this?”

Mum made an ‘uh-huh’ noise of confirmation.

“And you’ve played along with all these plans for the kids and me to come down for Easter because…?”

“Well, it was just perfect, wasn’t it? Aren’t you all packed and ready to go on holiday?”

“We are, but—”

“No ‘but.’ I expected you’ll have to go to the airport quite soon.” Mum was brisk in her dismissal of any of my unspoken concerns. I could hear a riot of laughter in the kitchen, but I couldn’t make out what the source of the hilarity was.

“Mum…do you really think that’s a good idea? Going on tour again? Taking the kids and all?”

There was silence at the other end, and I held my breath.

“Sweetheart,” Mum eventually spoke. “Only you can answer that question. You have to follow your heart. But I don’t see a really good reason
not
to go? I mean, it’s like the holiday of a lifetime, isn’t it? Think of all those beautiful cities you’ll get to see…”

Dan had obviously filled them in with a lot of detail about the tour he wanted the Jones family to join. Mum was going all dreamy and faraway on me.

I tried a different tack.

“Don’t you think it’s terribly irresponsible, taking the kids into that environment?”

Mum chuckled. “I don’t see why. You took them to the New Year’s show and they were fine, weren’t they?”

“I know, but this is different. It’s—”

“Don’t be silly. You don’t think Dan would let you or the kids come to any harm, do you?”

“Err, no, but—”

“Sophie, if you ‘but’ me once again, I’ll personally come down there and shove you on that plane. Just go!”

Whoa! I recoiled from the handset and looked at it in shock. What had just happened? I hadn’t heard my Mum raise her voice to me since I was a teenager. Mum spoke again, more softly.

“Just go. Have fun. Show the kids what sights you can. Make the most of it. You deserve it.”

I swallowed hard. “I love you, Mum.”

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

Another thought occurred to me, although I suppressed the ‘but’ before Mum could blow a gasket. “What about you and Dad? What are you going to do over Easter?”

Mum laughed. “We’ve a list of invitations for Easter parties as long as my arm, and we might just have a few days in London or something.”

“You didn’t plan for us to come at all, did you?”

“Nope,” Mum confirmed dryly. “We knew you’d be otherwise engaged.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t hold the joy in anymore. At the end of the day, this was a dream come true—again. Dan had obviously moved heaven and earth for us to join the band in the States. The tickets were there, the visas were there, the suitcases were packed. All that remained was to retrieve our passports and we could go.

“Mum?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“I gotta go.”

Chapter Fifty-Two

“And did you pack these bags yourself?” The officious check-in agent cast her eyes over our luggage. Mine, and the kids, that was. Dan didn’t have any, although that wasn’t obvious in the humdrum collection of suitcases and bags.

“I certainly have,” I piped up. Josh and Emily stood silently beside me, overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of the airport and the vastness of the terminal building. Their eyes, however, gleamed with excitement.

“Excuse me, sir, madam?” Another airline official approached us from behind the counter. She spoke very quietly and blushed slightly.

“Are you…aren’t you Dan Hunter?”

Dan smiled at her graciously. “I am,” he whispered back, mimicking her secretive voice. “It’s very nice to meet you, Lilly.” He used her name as though he hadn’t just read it off her name tag. What a smooth operator. Lilly thought so, too. She nearly giggled and touched her hand self-consciously to her hair.

“Would it be incredibly rude if I asked you for an autograph?”

Behind-the-counter lady shot Lilly an aggrieved look, but according to her name tag, Lilly was the senior check-in manager and evidently outranked the other agent.

“Not at all,” Dan obliged. “Have you…?” He motioned for a pen and a piece of paper and wrote Lilly a little message. Lilly blushed and smiled.

“Um…are you all traveling together?” she asked.

“Sure,” Dan explained. “This is my friend, Sophie, and these are my godchildren, Emily and Josh.”

Lilly’s eyes widened. “Godchildren. Wow. I had no idea.” Dan smiled, and we all stood there awkwardly for a moment. Then Lilly spoke again.

“If…um, without meaning to be…intrusive or anything, but…um, how come you’re traveling economy with us today?”

Dan gave a belly laugh. “Not intrusive at all. I don’t often travel economy, do I?”

Lilly had meanwhile gone back behind the desk and was tapping away at the computer terminal. “No, I can see that,” she agreed. “You’ve been doing rather a lot of flying with us these past few weeks. So how come…?”

Dan shrugged. “This was a last minute booking and, well…” He shrugged. “Budgets,” he mumbled under his breath, but we all heard him anyway. I felt a little uncomfortable. I hadn’t even considered the cost of it all. I shifted from foot to foot and tried to look inconspicuous. Dan picked up on my emotion.

“Ah, there you have it. I knew you’d be embarrassed when you’d think about the tickets,” he mumbled. “It’s okay, really. I want the kids and you to come, and don’t you start talking about paying me back.”

Lilly listened to his little speech attentively. I said nothing but simply pulled my shoulders up to my ears in a ‘well, I’m here and I’m cool with it’ kind of gesture.

“Hrr-humm,” Lilly cleared her throat from the other side of the counter. “As it happens, I’d like to offer you all an upgrade anyway,” she announced calmly. “You’re a valued customer, Mr. Hunter, as well a frequent flyer, and so would you like four seats in First?”

Our first check-in agent looked somewhat scandalized, and I couldn’t say I blamed her, but Dan took it in his stride. His voice was honey-sweet, yet sincere, and carried that mesmerizing Dan Hunter timbre. “We would love to accept an upgrade, of course, but I wouldn’t like you to think…”

Lilly looked from him to me and the kids and back again. She smiled. I was really getting to love her smile.

“I think I see what’s happened here,” she said simply. “Let’s get that upgrade sorted.”

Three hours later, I was blessing Lilly from the bottom of my heart and resolved to send her some kind of thank you token when we got back. The journey was proving long and exhausting with another seven hours to go, but at least we had the comfort of space.

We had stocked up on magazines, sticker books, and travel games before boarding and were working our way steadily through them. Dan sat with Josh and I with Emily, although we had swapped around twice already. The kids were delighted at the cute seats and the in-flight entertainment system, but I was holding off on letting them loose on the video games and television until a little later. The children’s whoops of joy at the first snacks had raised a couple of bemused eyebrows from the other first class travelers, but they relaxed slightly when I quieted the kids down immediately.

“Sorry,” I mouthed to the man across the aisle. “They’ll be fine in a minute or so. We’ll try not to bother you.” The man gave me a half-hearted smile and plugged his headphones in to watch one of the in-flight movies.

At four hours in, Emily curled up on her seat and fell asleep. I had a look at my watch, which I had already put back by eight hours to reflect Seattle time, and worked out that it was nearly seven p.m. in the UK. A little early for Emily’s bedtime, but given the excitement of the day, probably not far off what she would normally do at home. I covered her in a blanket and took a deep breath. One down, one to go.

“Sophie?” Dan’s voice emerged in a whisper from the seat behind me. I twisted around then raised myself onto my knees on the seat so I could look over the back at Dan.

“Right here,” I whispered back and suppressed a giggle. Josh, too, had fallen asleep in his seat, his legs on Dan’s lap and his upper body sprawled against the backrest.

“Aw, bless him. Just lift him across. He won’t wake.” I smiled at Dan. “Actually, maybe I could move Emily next to him and then you and I can…talk.”

Dan grinned. “Good idea but…” He motioned at his lap. I looked a little closer.

“Are you wet?”

My rock star nodded. I looked at Josh and then again at Dan, and clapped my hand on my mouth. “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” I mumbled through my fingers. “He probably forgot himself, what with all the excitement and all the juice.”

I scrabbled to my feet to assist my stricken men. “Here, I brought some pajamas for the kids anyway, let me go and sort Josh out while you…um…sort yourself out.” I fought the urge to giggle at the absurdity of the situation, but Dan did it for me.

“That’s a definite first,” he chortled. “This could be seriously misinterpreted!”

“I’m glad you see the funny side,” I snorted.

Dan shrugged. “What else can I do?”

I lifted a still sleeping Josh and carried him to the bathroom while Dan made his way to the other bathroom, a napkin discreetly placed over the wet patch. Josh barely woke up while I removed his trousers and shirt, washed him down with a soapy washcloth, then changed him into pajamas. I took him back to his seat which a thoughtful flight attendant had meanwhile transformed into a bed. After I snuggled Josh down, she and I had a quick conversation, and she turned the seat next to Josh into a bed, too, while I took a sleeping Emily off to the bathroom to change her into her PJs. By the time I had settled Emily in her bed and returned to my seat, Dan was back—cleaned-up and nearly dry—and dinner was served.

“Welcome to my world, again!” I observed wryly as I sat down next to him. “Thanks for keeping your cool.”

“Welcome to
my
world,” Dan retorted, raising a glass of bubbly. “Thanks for coming.”

I shook my head, still trying to catch up with my reality. “This is…mad.
Good
mad, but mad.”

“Hm.” Dan was thoughtful. “It brings back memories.”

“It certainly does,” I chuckled and clinked my glass to his. “Seventeen years it’s been since we first met. My God, what a lot has happened.”

“It certainly has.” Dan was also in a reflective mood. “Some good stuff, and some not so good stuff.”

I tried to keep the mood light and grabbed at the first thing that came to mind, inspired by my current beverage. “We’ve certainly had some entertaining moments. Do you recall that time when you broke all those champagne glasses?”

“‘I daresay that’s several hundred pounds of damage you’ve just inflicted, young man’,” Dan intoned, mimicking perfectly the voice of a slightly batty old Great Aunt we met at a wedding we both attended a few years previously, before Steve came into my life.

“‘I don’t know, the help sitting down with the guests’,” I continued the joke. “‘What
are
we coming to?”

“I don’t rightly know,” Dan responded, suddenly serious.

I sipped at my champagne nervously. The parallels of days gone by were so clear, so obvious—never mind the children and everything else that had changed us both—that there was a sense of expectation in the air, and I was certain I wasn’t imagining it. Dan took my hands and looked at them thoughtfully. I still wore Steve’s wedding band, although I had moved it to my right hand a short while after his death. I had wanted to keep him with me, always, but I had also needed to remind myself that I was no longer a married woman, as such. It had been a really weird moment, but it had felt right, and I hadn’t given the ring much thought afterwards, until now.

Dan touched it and turned it gently between his thumb and index finger.