Page 92 of Philly
“A stubborn woman who loves you.”
He drew to an abrupt stop, and she bumped into his back, sending a lance of pain down her arm. She winced but quickly forgot it when his lips crashed down on hers. In those few stolen seconds, love, certainty, respect, desire, and an almost unreal feeling of being both grounded and soaring filled every cell of her body.
When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against hers. She untangled their fingers and lifted her hand, brushing it against his lips. “Let’s wrap everything up and plan that honeymoon,” she said, wanting nothing more than to have time with Gabriel. Quiet time. Time to strengthen the connection they’d always had and build a new one—to each other, but also to themselves. They’d both changed in the past few weeks. She’d found parts of herself she liked and parts she didn’t. Liza and Gabriel had given her the push to be—or become—the person she’d always longed to be. She wasn’t there yet, but she’d get there.
Gabriel smiled, then, taking her hand again, they started back down the trail. “We have a friend who has a private island in the Caribbean. I’m thinking you, me, and no clothes for a few weeks.”
She laughed. “Really?”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “Two weeks. No clothes,” he repeated.
“On a tropical island.”
He nodded. “You have a problem with that?”
She chuckled again. “I don’t. But if you have a problem with dust showing up in places it shouldn’t belong, you should be aware of this little thing called sand.”
48
“Now this is something I never would have experienced with the FBI,” Callie said as she buckled herself back into the luxurious leather seats of one of the HICC jets. “Back-of-the-cattle-car coach class all the way. And never any of that.” She nodded to the refrigerator filled with everything from fresh fruit to salmon pâté and the now-empty table on the other side of the Gulfstream.
The plane dipped again as they made their final approach. Philly leaned over and kissed her. “You’re not really talking about the food and the transport. Although that’s not bad either.”
She smiled back at him. “You’re right. I’m not.”
They looked at the seat diagonally across the aisle. Laura Nolan sat with twenty-two-month-old Emma Nolan on her lap, entertaining her daughter with a game of patty-cake. The little girl was the spitting image of her mother—a mop of dark wavy hair, delicate features, and bowed lips. But she had her father’s blue eyes. The father she was about to meet for the first time.
“She seems so calm,” Callie said, referring to Laura.
“If it were me, I’d be bouncing around the plane.”
“Like Tigger,” Callie agreed. He bumped her shoulder. Her good one. The knife wound Aiden inflicted hadn’t been long, but it had been deep. The doctors had dosed her with antibiotics, then sent her home with a prescription and four stitches.
“I’m glad the prosecutors aren’t relying on Laura’s testimony,” Callie added.
Between the evidence the HICC team provided to the government and Aiden’s own confession, Laura’s testimony wasn’t pivotal to their case. If it had been, they would have kept her tucked away in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she’d been in hiding the past few years. Not on a plane back to the US to reunite with her husband.
“I agree,” Philly said. “Although, I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you, of course.” She flashed him a smile, and his stomach did the little swoop it did every time he saw it.
The wheels touched down on the tarmac, and Laura’s head jerked up. Her shoulders tensed and her arms tightened around her daughter in the first show of nerves since they’d boarded the pair onto the plane four hours ago. Then she glanced over her shoulder at them.
“I can’t believe this is finally happening,” she said, a tentative smile on her lips. Minutes after Aiden’s arrest, Philly had sent Rian Laura’s contact number. They’d likely spent hours on the phone in the past few days, but seeing each other for the first time? Well, he didn’t blame her for being nervous. They’d have adjustments to make—she’d been a single mom for nearly two years, and he’d missed out on so much. Those realities wouldn’t disappear overnight, but the couple would work through it.
“Do you want us to take Emma when we get off the plane?” Callie offered.
Laura glanced at her daughter, now playing with a cloth book. Her arms once again tightened as the plane turned towardthe private hangar HICC had arranged. “No, thank you,” she said. “I need us to be together.”
Callie nodded, then took his hand as the plane slowed, then inched into the hangar, away from prying eyes. The arrest and charging of Aiden Nolan had been big news. He doubted many people in Vegas cared, but it was better to keep the family secluded. The last thing they needed was to end up on the cover of a tabloid or website.
Philly smiled as the engines switched off. Aiden Nolan was taking an entirely different kind of flight. Given the number of federal crimes he’d committed, the Feds had taken him into custody the night before. He’d still be charged with the assault and attempted murder of Callie in California as well as the state crimes in Utah, but the federal charges trumped the state ones. Regardless, it would be a cold day in hell before Aiden Nolan walked anywhere other than a prison yard.
The pilot came out of the cockpit, a woman about his age whom he’d swear he’d once seen on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. She smiled at Laura. “Ready?”
Laura gave a shaky nod. “Ready,” she said, unbuckling her belt.
The copilot exited the cockpit as he and Callie stood. Despite believing the danger to Laura was over, they weren’t taking any chances, and he and Callie planned to exit first.
The pilots opened the door, easing the ladder down with a familiarity he recognized—they’d done this a time or two hundred. After stepping back, they nodded to him and Callie, and Callie took the lead.
