''I Do''...Take Two! by Merline Lovelace

Author:Merline Lovelace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The five of them stayed out on the terrace for another hour. Basking in the attention of the newcomers, Tommy remained on his best behavior. His face lit up, though, when his dad called.

Travis answered the house phone, then passed the instrument to the boy. “Your dad’s on his way back to the hotel. He wants to know if you’d like to go to the hospital with him after dinner to visit Mrs. Wells.”

Abandoning his manners, Tommy snatched the phone. “Does she want me to come? Really? I miss her, too.” His happy glance landed on the geraniums. “I’m gonna pick her some flowers. She likes flowers.” He listened a moment, his lips pooching. “But these are pretty red ones. What? O-kaay. I promise.”

Heaving a much put-upon sigh, he passed the phone back to Travis. “He wants to talk to you.”

Travis took the phone and confirmed that Kate’s friends had arrived and were comfortably settled. “We’re all sitting out on your terrace, having drinks and admiring the view.”

“I owe you for this,” Ellis told him. “But I feel guilty as hell about cutting into your time with Kate. I know you had to hink your flight schedule big-time to get this leave.”

“Don’t worry about it. Kate and I are glad to help.”

“Yeah, well, I may have to hink my schedule, too. I’d planned to stay in Italy through Billy Bob. But with Mrs. Wells out of action, I have to rethink those plans.”

Billy Bob was their private code for the final and most critical flight test for the classified modification Ellis Aeronautical Systems had designed for Combat King II. The outcome could mean millions for EAS, possibly billions—Travis wasn’t privy to the company’s closely held contract negotiations. Not yet, anyway. But he knew EAS’s CEO wouldn’t have carved this big chunk of time out of his schedule if his company didn’t have major bucks riding on the outcome.

“Let’s talk about the schedule when you get back to the hotel,” he suggested.

He’d kept his reply light. Innocuous. Yet as soon as he disconnected, he found himself the object of three pairs of eyes. Kate’s questioning brown, Callie’s deep lavender and Dawn’s sharp, clear green. Even Tommy had picked up on the subtext.

“Are Dad ’n’ me flying home with Mrs. Wells?”

“Maybe.”

Emotions washed across the boy’s expressive face. Relief, guilt, disappointment...all easily interpreted by the four adults.

“You don’t want to go home?” Callie asked.

“Uh-huh, I do. Mostly.”

“But?” she probed gently.

“We were s’posed to go to Rome after Venice. I was gonna have my picture taken with a gladiator at the Coliseum. Maybe get a sword ’n’ everything.”

“Maybe you and your dad should talk about that when you go to see Mrs. Wells after dinner.”

“Speaking of which,” Dawn put in, “what’s the plan? If we’re going to eat out, I need to spiffy up.”

Kate and Callie shared a quick grin. Even unspiffed, Dawn could bring strong men to their knees. At this particular moment her hair spilled over her shoulders in

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