Page 73 of The Merger
“Seems you’re prepared for everything. When did you find the time to do all of this?”
She winked at me. “You were sleeping really soundly this morning.”
Flashbacks from this morning flooded my mind. Knowing how much she could take gave me ideas for the future. One thing was clear, she was a lot tougher than I’d given her credit for.
Despite the early hour, there was still enough traffic on the interstate that the trip took over forty minutes. We had plenty of time to talk, but neither of us said much. The airstrip was outside of town headed toward Olympia and mostly catered to politicians needing to travel around the state. I pulled up to the small office building and handed the keys to Sabrina.
She stepped out of the car with me and followed me to the trunk where I grabbed my bag. I pulled her to me and kissed her deep and hard. I had to force myself to step back from her or I was going to be taking this flight with a hard on. I already hated flying, I didn’t want to do it sexually frustrated too.
“I’m going to miss you,” I said, and pressed a final kiss to her forehead.
Sabrina winced and stepped back from me. “About that.” She reached for my bag and unzipped it.
Inside were a few changes of clothes—for both of us. “I’m coming with you.”
I sighed. “We talked about this. You need to be at the office.”
Her head was shaking before I’d even finished talking. “Except, I don’t. I talked to Colt. He agreed that our number one priority is finding out what might be in Malcolm’s records. You need my help.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up her hand stopping me. “I know you’re capable, but we don’t know how much he has there and the two of us can get through it faster. Not to mention Aaron and I have spent the last few weeks going through all the records for Easton Corp. I might be able to recognize a transaction I didn’t think was important before. Colt’s going to go into the office with Jana in our place and finish meeting with the employees. They are onboarding them to Anderson East, so it only makes sense that one of the heads of corporate finalizes that step.”
Everything she said made sense, but there was an alarm going off in my head telling me not to let her get on this flight with me. Only, I couldn’t argue with her logic. There was also the fact I didn’t want to be away from her.
I shoved the apprehension deep down. “I’m just not a great flyer, but you’re right, it would be better if you were there with me. Except, what are we doing with the car?”
A security agent came out to meet us, stopping Sabrina from answering my question.
“I need to see your identifications to verify against the manifest. Then the crew will be out to collect your luggage and the pilot will be ready to head out.”
We both handed over our IDs, and I realized Sabrina had set this up before coming here when I saw her name already listed on the manifest. Once she was done with her verification, Sabrina handed her the keys. Then she looked at me and raised her eyebrow. “Colt and Jana are going to be by later to get the car.”
I grabbed our bag with one hand, and her hand with the other. “Let’s get this over with then.”
“You really hate flying,” she said. Her eyes were wide as if that was just sinking in.
“Loathe it,” I admitted. “I’ve flown before because it’s a necessary evil if you work all over the country, but I only do it when necessary.”
On the tarmac sat a tiny twin engine plane. I’d only ever flown commercial, and only ever on large jets. They seemed so solid. I didn’t think about the fact they were going up in the air. I pretended it was the same as taking a bus, or a train. It would be hard to pretend when I could see out of all the windows and if I stretched out my arms I could touch both sides of the plane.
Sabrina tugged at my hand. “C’mon, let’s get on with it.”
The ground crew went over the plane, which made me feel a little better about climbing inside of a tin box with wings. A man exited the building and headed our way. One of the ground crew joined him and reached for my bag. I passed it off and shook the captain’s hand when he extended it. “I’m Captain McHenry. I’ll be your pilot to Denver. We will be stopping for fuel in Hailey, Idaho on our way to Denver. I filed the flight plan yesterday, and we’ve gotten clearance to land at the private airstrip at Denver International Airport.”
The crewman put our bag in the back of the plane and removed the blocks from the wheels. The captain directed us to the door. “Our total flight time will be a little under four hours. Let’s get settled inside and we’ll be on our way.”
Sabrina and I took two seats in the middle of the plane. I insisted we sit over the wing because I’d heard once that was the safest place to sit. As if that would be enough to save us if the plane went down.
She put her hands on my face and forced me to look at her. “You need to breathe. Try closing your eyes for a while. It’s really early, and I know you’re tired. Just, sleep for a while, and before you know it we’ll be landing.”
I took a slow deep breath in through my nose. My hands gripped the armrests while we taxied down the runway. I clenched my eyes closed tight as the plane took off. Once it leveled out I was able to drift off.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Sabrina
Stryker fell asleep a lot faster than I expected. Of course, he expended a lot of energy last night, or he would never have been able to relax. Once we hit cruising altitude I found myself getting drowsy, and let myself doze off as well.
About an hour into the flight the air got choppy, and I startled awake. Stryker jolted next to me. “What’s going on?”