Not Quite Perfect (Not Quite Series Book 5)

by Catherine Bybee

  She was sliding her feet into her borrowed strappy Pradas when the doorbell rang.

  One look out the front window showed her a black sedan, the kind that had a hired driver, sat at the curb.

  She unzipped the plastic divider and stepped over the broken out tile.

  There were butterflies in her belly. The giddy girlie kind that were a little out of place considering she’d seen Glen on so many occasions the newness should have worn off.

  She opened the door and sighed. He wore a jacket, minus the tie . . . and dark slacks. Even from where she stood she could smell he’d just taken a shower. And he held flowers in his hand.

  While she was looking at him, his ever-ready cocky smile slowly dropped as his eyes swept over her twice. “I’m sorry, I’m looking for Miss Kildare.” He looked beyond her at the tarp and tapped the concrete floor with the toe of his dress shoe. “I’m not sure I have the right house.”

  “My plumbing problem turned into a nightmare.”

  His gaze returned to hers. “You’re, uhm . . . wow!”

  Glen speechless was a rarity.

  She liked it.

  “Are those for me?”

  He lifted the bouquet. “First date flowers. It’s in the rule book.”

  She took them, smelled one of the half dozen roses in the mix, and smiled. “Not everyone read that book.”

  “Makes those of us who did look even better.”

  She nodded toward the inside. “Let me put these in water and grab my purse.”

  Glen followed her through the tarp and into her kitchen.

  The four-inch heels made it easier for her to reach the shelf where she stored her vase, but as she reached for it, Glen stood beside her and helped.

  God he smelled good.

  “Thanks.”

  He simply hummed as he handed it to her.

  She tried to ignore the heat in his eyes as he stared.

  “I’d say you didn’t have to.”

  “But that wouldn’t be sincere.”

  “You can’t go wrong with flowers. Candy is hit and miss.”

  She removed the wrap and fanned the arrangement in the vase as it filled with water. When she was done she set it in the window and turned to find Glen still staring.

  “Ready?”

  He didn’t move. “Have you ever had dessert before dinner?”

  She shook her head. “Are you trying to tell me we’re having cheesecake for dinner?”

  He smiled, took a step closer. “When we were kids, every once in a while my mom would have some kind of bridge night, or girls’ night . . . I don’t know what it was. But we loved it, Trent, Jason, and I. Our dad always brought out the pie, cake, even ice cream sundaes before we’d have dinner.”

  “Did you finish your dinner?”

  “Not always. But we enjoyed it more because we’d done it backwards.”

  “That’s sweet. If we’re not having cake first . . . then what made you think of that story?”

  Glen took another step closer and reached over to push one of the curls from her shoulder. Heat rose in his eyes, and the response of her body was chemical. “Because of this.”

  His hand slid behind her neck and encouraged her into his arms as he lowered his lips to hers.

  She was stunned. From head to toe her body short-circuited. He was warm and smelled delicious . . . and utterly confident as he pressed her body next to his. The span of his hand wrapped around her waist but didn’t move beyond that spot. She slowly woke up, closed her eyes, and kissed him back. It felt good to be kissed. She barely tasted his tongue before he backed away.

  With her eyes closed she felt his stare.

  “I wanted to do that for a very long time,” he confessed.

  She slowly opened her eyes and kept looking at his chest. “You caught me off guard.”

  He placed his finger under her chin and forced her to look at him. “We’re even then. Now we can have a nice evening without either of us wondering what that was going to taste like.”

  “You had your dessert first.”

  Glen shrugged. “What can I say? I have a sweet tooth.”

  She grabbed her clutch on the counter. “Shall we?”

  He placed his hand on the small of her back and led her outside.

  Glen had been told by one of his very first girlfriends that women obsess over the good night kiss on the first date. Through all the years of dating, all the women he’d played tonsil hockey with while in college, he’d never kissed one when she opened the door.

  Damn, he was happy he’d done it with Mary. She tasted like cinnamon, which was probably gum, or maybe toothpaste, but she smelled like an ocean breeze. He glanced over at her, sitting in the seat beside him in the back of the Lincoln Town Car. She had long legs and wore sexy heels that should be impossible to walk in. Damn, the dress. He envied the fabric that hugged her skin. Mary was a beautiful woman, a fact he’d known since they met . . . but tonight she was sexy. Something in the way she smiled . . . or maybe it was the lack of challenging him with every word? He didn’t want to question it.

  “So where are you taking me?”

  This was where Glen had all his cards. “Have you ever had a progressive dinner?”

  “Like hopping from one place to another?”

  “Yeah, I have a great place for drinks before dinner. The view is spectacular. A short ride from there we have dinner reservations.”

  He liked when she smiled at him. “And dessert?”

  “You want more dessert?” he asked.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “You mean something with sugar?”

  She lost her frown and giggled.

  “You need to do that more,” he said.

  “Do what?”

  “Laugh.”

  “I laugh all the time.”

  “Not around me.”

  She sighed. “When you’re not infuriating me, you’re quite witty.”

  “I’m witty when I’m infuriating you.”

  She giggled again.

  The driver pulled through the gates and onto the tarmac.

  “I should have guessed,” she said under her breath.

  “Yes, you should have.”

  A Hawker 800 stood ready. Mary presented her ID to airport security as a precaution, and he helped her up the small staircase and into the plane. It wasn’t a huge aircraft, but it wasn’t without its bragging points either. “Sit wherever you like,” Glen encouraged her as he took the three-step detour to the cockpit. “Ready when you are, gentlemen.”

  The copilot followed him back and secured the door. “If there is anything you need, Mr. Fairchild, let us know.”

  “We will.”

  The plane started moving nearly as quickly as the copilot closed the cockpit door.

  “I thought you’d be the one flying.”

  He took the seat across from her and fastened his belt. “I like being in control, but I don’t always have to be the pilot. Besides, I’d need a bigger plane for there to be enough room for you to join me up there.”

  She smiled again.

  He was on a roll.

  “Do you take all your first dates on planes?”

  “You might assume that, but no. Never.”

  “Really? Why?”

  So many reasons, he thought but didn’t say. “I guess it comes down to expectations.”

  “Expectation of taking a private flight for a date every time?”

  “There is that.”

  “There is more you’re not saying.”

  Glen took in her expression. She had this shine behind her eyes when she was reading you. Something that made you hope the closet you wanted closed was firmly shut because if it wasn’t, she was going to bust that shit open and find all the laundry you shoved in the corner. He wasn’t ready to reveal all his reasons, but he had a few he could disclose. “I’m a pilot, and one of three brothers who own and operate one of the largest personal jet charter companies out there. I know my mode of trans
portation is set aside for a very few of us in the world. I’m also aware that plenty of people would use any one of us to tap into that ride. When you take that away from the start when you’re dating, it lets you know if you’re being used.”

  Mary started to chew on that.

  “No one likes being used.”

  The pilot took that moment to call into the cabin, “We’re next for takeoff, Mr. Fairchild.”

  Glen reached over and pressed an intercom button to reach the pilot. “We’re ready.”

  Even though he trusted the pilots, Glen still felt a tiny bit of tension in his spine until they leveled off in the air.

  “So why did you break your rules with me?” Mary asked.

  He unbuckled his seat belt and tapped her knee before he stood. “Because you’re not a user. Now, what can I get you to drink?”

  “I could be a user.”

  Glen did a little eye roll. “No, you can’t. It’s not in your DNA.” He opened the compact icebox that held all the liquor and removed what he’d seen Mary drink in the past. “Red or white?”

  “White. How can you be so certain about my character when we’ve only seen each other, what . . . half a dozen times?”

  He considered pointing out that on three of those occasions Mary went out of her way to attempt to pay her share. If she was shot down, she made sure to send a thoughtful gift pack, or wine basket . . . or some such thing to let her host know she appreciated the invitation. “Give me one example of when you used someone for something.”

  She opened her mouth, closed it, then looked at her shoes. “Does borrowing shoes count?”

  That brought his eye to the sexy shoes on those sexy legs. “If you broke them and didn’t replace them, then yes.”

  “That would be rude.”

  He made quick use of the wine opener and poured them both a glass. “A user wouldn’t care about appearing rude.”

  “I suppose.” She took the glass with a thank-you and leaned back in the plush leather seat. “I’m not going to pretend that sitting in a private jet isn’t amazing.”

  He glanced around the cabin and wondered how she saw it.

  “It’s a luxury that’s easy to get used to.”

  “That’s the truth. When Dakota and I traveled to her conferences before her books hit, we always flew coach.” She cringed. “The first time Dakota sat in first class we argued for a week about me letting her help with my ticket so we could fly together.”

  “See, not a user.”

  Mary sipped her wine and continued, “On the way home she used her miles and upgraded me. Now I save a little bit every month to sit in the front. It’s worth it.”

  “I’ve never flown coach,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Really?”

  “Never. I learned to fly before I could drive a car. We all did. Our father was adamant about it. Some people switch drivers while on their family vacations, we switched pilots.” He remembered the first time he’d joined his father in the cockpit with his entire family in the back. You have their lives in your hands, Glen. Always fly like your family is riding with you.

  “You miss him.” Mary was doing that staring thing again.

  “I do. Both of them.” Glen knew Mary had been told he’d lost his parents in a plane crash years ago. Just as he’d been told that Mary grew up without parents. “Did you ever know yours?”

  She shook her head. “I was left at a church when I was close to a year old. No note . . . no witnesses to see who left me there. Sister Mary Frances found me. I don’t know if my parents were kids or unable to take care of me, or maybe they’re dead and Grandma didn’t wanna do it all again. I try not to think about it.”

  “A lot of people would take a beginning like that and never turn it around.” Glen couldn’t picture anyone giving away a child.

  “I was a troublemaker as a kid.”

  That was news. “Really? What kind of trouble?”

  She took another sip of her wine; the glow on her cheeks became more evident. “Most of my formative years were spent in and out of a school for children . . . which was a fancy way of saying orphanage that Mary Frances volunteered for. Since Sister Mary Frances was the one who ultimately named me, she was the one who did a lot of my molding. She’s very pragmatic. Calls people on their bull straight up. And she was a nun . . . who argues with a nun?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No one! I followed her lead. If I saw a disservice or an inaccuracy, I called it out. Didn’t matter if I was in the middle of my math class or church. Mary Frances and I have had a lot of conversations about faith. She also encouraged me to keep thinking and never take words at face value.”

  “And that landed you in trouble?”

  “Yeah . . . I didn’t last with a foster family for long, and a lot of the reason why was my mouth. I would question everything to the point of driving my foster parents crazy.”

  “All kids ask why the sky is blue.” He could understand it being annoying, but not to the point of walking away.

  “No, I would ask why Mr. Van Goosen was watching naked people exercising on his computer.”

  Glen felt laughter deep in the pit of his stomach. “Oops.”

  “Yeah, and when Mrs. Van Goosen delivered a because he likes it answer, I went to school and asked all of my classmates if their fathers watched naked people lying on top each other. And when their answers didn’t work for me, I’d ask my teacher . . . who knew the Van Goosens because Mr. Van Goosen was a deacon in the church.”

  Glen had to stop drinking his wine or risk spitting it out. “Whoa!”

  “The scandal rippled and I was back with Sister Mary. I bounced two more times. When I was a senior in high school I filed the necessary paperwork for emancipation, which the state was eager to approve when they saw I held a job, was finishing school with already a full year of college under my belt and a five-year plan.”

  “Who did you stay with?”

  “Sister Mary.”

  “With the nuns?”

  “No. Sister Mary had left the church by then. Remember all those scandals with sexual abuse that came out a while back?”

  He nodded.

  “She couldn’t take the hypocrisy. That don’t take orders, make up your own mind she’d instilled in me was deep in her. She’s still a devout Catholic, don’t get me wrong . . . she just doesn’t say she’s married to God anymore.”

  “Where is Sister Mary now?”

  “In Phoenix. The dry heat helps with her arthritis. All those years of prayer, she’d tell me.”

  “How often do you see her?”

  “Not often enough.”

  “What keeps you from visiting?”

  She glanced out the window. “Life. My clients keep me busy. I don’t care for driving through the desert by myself, and hundred-dollar flights to Phoenix never seem to apply when I have the time to go. I get there in spring and again in the winter . . . usually around Christmas.”

  Glen felt the plane starting her descent and heard the chime into the cabin from the captain. He stood and took the nearly empty wineglass from Mary’s hand.

  “We’re here?” she asked, looking out the window.

  “Feels like it.”

  “Where are we, anyway?”

  He winked. “You’ll see.”

  She didn’t quiz him, which caught him by surprise. “That’s it? No questions?” He snapped his seat belt in place, glanced at hers, which she’d never taken off.

  “I actually kinda like surprises. I’m the kid that didn’t have Santa Claus, remember?”

  Her words were said with such casualness it took a moment for them to sucker punch him in the gut.

  His parents had been ripped out of his life long after Santa was dead . . . but to never have had that thrill, that fantasy . . .

  It wasn’t until he felt the earth under the wheels of the plane that he snapped out of his thoughts.

  “Well, Mary Kildare, I’m not Santa, but I do have a few
things in my bag of misfit toys.”

  The plane came to a stop and Glen opened the hatch.

  Chapter Ten

  In Mary’s life, she could count on one hand how many times she’d been truly spoiled. Most of them had been in the past year since she and Dakota had met the Fairchilds. The previous Thanksgiving, she, Dakota, and Walt found themselves on a private plane en route to the East Coast, where they enjoyed a full weekend of food, friends, and then a ride into New York City, via helicopter, to shop. Then there was the unexpected charter when Dakota had gone missing in Denver with her mother-in-law. Mary was told a plane was waiting for her and to get in. She did! Then there was the last book release Dakota had . . . private planes, penthouse suites, even a full day at the spa and five-star meals the entire week. She’d tried to pay for some of it . . . any of it. It would put her behind in her savings plan for the future, but she was willing. The occasion was that important. But no one would take her money. Monica’s connections to The Morrison Hotel chain and the Fairchilds’ unlimited ability to use the air as their private freeway was equivalent to her suggesting she pay for gas when it was under three dollars a gallon . . . No, hon, we’ve got it this time.

  Now . . . here she was moving from a private plane to a waiting town car for a date that was apparently going to take place in San Francisco.

  Who did that? Who took their dates to San Francisco from LA?

  Glen, apparently.

  The town car didn’t take them far. In fact . . . it didn’t take them anywhere at all. She’d no sooner reclined in her seat than the car stopped and someone opened her door.

  “What is this?”

  Glen shrugged. “A helicopter. The drive in would take an hour at this time of day.”

  Mary simply shook her head and popped this into her memory book.

  The helicopter required her to put on a big set of earphones to talk. “I’m officially using you now,” she told him.

  He shook his head with an unconvinced smile. “It’s not using if you’re going along for the unexpected ride.”

  She didn’t agree.

  Flying never bothered her. In fact, the thrill of the takeoff and landing on a normal plane always made her smile. She didn’t worry about crashing. She was pragmatic enough to know that more people died on the freeway en route to the airport each year than those who died in the air. The helicopter was an extension of a roller coaster at a theme park. The vertical, the horizontal, the tiny dip to the side. Her cheeks hurt from smiling so much. She didn’t even care that the silly earphones were probably messing up her hair.