“What if I hadn’t planned on going anywhere? I would have come home to find I’d been robbed of all my clothes.”
“You would have had your pajamas.”
“What?”
Amelia chuckled.
Sheri sighed. “I figured where you were going, you wouldn’t need them.”
Elizabeth’s mouth fell open, and she let out a laugh. “Sheri!”
Sheri smiled. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” Her smile faded. “It’s okay I’m coming, isn’t it? David is okay with it?”
“He is. As long as Amelia thinks the extra weight on the plane will be okay.”
“Yeah, it will be,” Amelia said, “or I would have told you both to ditch the bags.”
Elizabeth explained the plan. “Amelia and her brother are taking turns flying the plane. You’re just lucky we’re not taking a commercial flight and have to leave you to fly standby.”
Sheri gave a big sigh of relief.
Outside, the lights of the airport came into view. Elizabeth glanced behind them, making sure no one was following. A thought brought her up short. “Did you tell your parents you were leaving with me?” she asked.
“They don’t know anything about this. I figured they might tell Kintail, even if they thought it was for our own good. Still, all in all, they will be happy for me if I’m happy. I can’t believe you planned to leave me behind.”
Elizabeth had felt guilty about that. “Sorry, Sheri.” To Elizabeth’s guarded relief, Amelia parked the car in the rental place, Elizabeth paid for the gas, and then they hurried toward the waiting plane, bags in tow. The sense of unease Elizabeth felt in the car doubled, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end, but when she looked behind her again, there was nothing. After being afraid for so long, it was hard to shake her paranoia.
David’s expression was strained when he first saw her, but then he managed a brilliant and sexy smile. The hug he gave her felt way too brief, and she promised herself a longer one, a much longer one, when they were safely away. He grabbed one of Elizabeth’s bags and one of Sheri’s. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked Sheri.
“Yeah, I’m doing this unless you refuse to take me,” she said.
David glanced at Elizabeth. She let out her breath. “She’s like a sister to me. If it hadn’t been for Sheri’s help, I’m not sure we would have made it. I’m good with it if she really wants to do this.” She stared pointedly at Sheri as she said it, and Sheri gave her a firm nod.
“All right,” David said, “join us for a wild ride out of here.”
Amelia was already warming up the plane. Slade joined her in the cockpit as David, Elizabeth, and Sheri got settled.
“So where are we flying to first?” Sheri asked.
David smiled. “Seattle, where else?”
Chapter 6
It didn’t feel real. The line of her body against his, the joy in his heart, the sense that everything really was going to be okay. He’d been waiting so long, and finally, finally, they were together. Elizabeth pressed into his side, and David was overjoyed to be with her at last, giving her a big warm hug and kissing her as if he had never been separated from her.
Elizabeth smiled, looking as overjoyed as he felt. She snuggled closer and offered up her lips for a kiss.
An offer he couldn’t refuse.
When they finally pulled apart, there was no denying the spark between them hadn’t dissipated with time.
She blushed, belatedly introducing her friend as the plane taxied down the runway. Sheri nodded, then busied herself looking out the window, giving David and Elizabeth as much privacy as she could.
“I can’t believe it.” Elizabeth kept touching him, rubbing his arm, gliding her fingers along his leg, anywhere she could reach, as if afraid the moment the connection broke, he’d disappear. “After all our planning, we did it.” Tears of joy slid down her cheeks, and she kissed him again.
David kissed her right back. “It seems like only yesterday you were in my arms, just like this. I’ve missed this, missed you, so much.”
The nose of the plane lifted, then the tail, and then they were soaring through the cloudy sky on their way home. Elizabeth settled back under his arm, a small, contented sigh escaping her mouth.
David savored the moment, but as he glanced up and caught Sheri giving them a happy smile, his thoughts shifted. Sheri might be a problem. When her pack learned she had escaped with them too… He just hoped Kintail wouldn’t think they forced her to come with them to give them more time to escape.
“So you left your car back at the café?” David asked Sheri.
“Yes. Behind it in the alley. My brother and ex-boyfriend were still in the café when we left. We got into Amelia’s car and took off. If they followed, they never knew where we went. I watched the whole way to the airport to make sure we weren’t being followed. I think Elizabeth did too.” She smiled at Elizabeth, who nodded, her soft hair tickling under his chin. “It will probably take them some time to even figure out my car is back behind the café.”
“That’s good to hear. I doubt they have any power to do anything about this now that we’re in the air.” David tightened his arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders. “You know we only have one unmated wolf in the pack, don’t you, Sheri?” He figured Elizabeth might have told her that all the PIs were already mated.
“I thought all of you were mated,” Sheri said, sounding surprised and interested.
“I’m still available,” Slade said. “What’s your ex-boyfriend going to think of you running off like that?”
“It’s none of his business. I’ve been trying to break up with him for years. He just doesn’t take me seriously. Which was part of the problem with our relationship. We’re done, though, and maybe now he’ll actually get the point.”
Or not. If he was that hardheaded, David thought, he could see him coming after Sheri. A lone wolf would be easy to deal with. Different pack, different dynamics, different rules. As long as they didn’t have the whole Arctic wolf pack from the Northwest Territories coming down to force them to give Sheri up, David was glad to have her stay with them. But he didn’t like the issue of her leaving her family behind and not giving them word beforehand, particularly if she was close to them.
“And your parents? Your brother? Will they come after you?” David asked, needing to know just what kind of a bind they could be in.
“Hans, my brother, does anything Kintail tells him to do. He has no mind of his own. In that regard, he’s just like Bentley. I love my parents, but I needed to spread my wings, and believe me, under Kintail’s rule, no one can do that. When I realized Elizabeth was leaving, I knew I wanted to go with her. I’ve been planning this one way or another probably for as long as she has.”