Her Billionaire, Her Wolf(22)

Flair said, “Ok...I need whatever ID you’ve got.”

Sara passed over her driver’s license and a notarized copy of her birth certificate.

The young man sniffed as he glanced down at her license, then handed her back the birth certificate.

“This should take just a minute,” he said, then walked over to one of the cargo vans.

Once there, Sara saw him shake hands with a driver who descended from his seat and together they appeared to confer as Flair passed him her license before having it handed back to him after only a cursory glance.

With a last nod to the van driver, Flair marched back to her and returned her license.

“Well, Miss Renardine, this will be just a little cloak and dagger, but we do what we have to do, don’t we?”

He opened the passenger door once more and motioned for Sara to take her seat.

Flair regained his place behind the sedan’s steering wheel but, to her surprise, did not turn the key in the ignition.

A moment later, the cargo van from earlier started up then eased back across the macadam in reverse until it was just next to the sedan.

Sara saw the sliding side door open, the van’s interior filled with cardboard boxes of all sizes, then Flair cleared his throat.

“My apologies, but I can’t get the door for you this time, Miss Renardine. Our friend here is going to see you the rest of the way to your plane.”

Then he turned his head and with a smile continued, “But don’t worry. You can trust him. He’s one of ours.”

There was something in Flair’s voice, in his tone. The way he had said, he’s one of ours.

Somehow, it felt important to Sara, as if it had more than one meaning. And, in a disconnected fashion, she could not help but think of the argent flash she thought she had seen in his eyes the previous evening.

She opened her door. There was just room enough for her to squeeze by and step outside.

Sara turned back to poke her head inside the sedan and said, “Flair. I just want to say thanks.”

Thank you for not judging me.

The young man winked at her and smiled, then said, “No problem. Now you’ve got a plane to catch, Miss Renardine.”

Sara nodded, then closed the door.

The cargo van’s driver had not descended, so Sara made the obvious choice. She climbed in among the boxes and slid the door shut with a bang.



It felt like forever as the van trundled along, when Sara supposed it had only been ten or fifteen minutes. But, the van finally came to a halt and she heard the driver get out.

There were voices, garbled, low, then laughter.

Silence. Then, with no forewarning, the van’s sliding door swept open and Sara was momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness.

A ball capped silhouette held a finger to his lips, then glanced back over his shoulder.

Sara’s eyes adjusted quickly as the man nodded to her, then motioned for her to step outside.

It looked like they had driven to a parking lot until Sara saw that behind them there was a small plane.

No, not a plane...that’s a jet.

And it was not as small as she had first supposed. There were two engines sitting above the wings and a third up on top, centered on a fin that reminded Sara of a shark.

The man had driven her to a separate runway, apparently destined for smaller, private craft. She looked toward him wondering what to do, but he only shrugged and with a jerk of his chin appeared to motion her toward the jet.

The folding steps for boarding the jet were down and as Sara approached a woman came down the stairs as lightly as if she had done it a hundred times before.

The smile on Sara’s face quickly turned to puzzlement when instead of welcoming Sara aboard, the woman only said, “Quickly now.”

She understood the woman’s intent and wasted no time climbing into the jet.

Sara was alone as she took in an interior every bit as posh as the sedan. Lavish yet sedate, deep, soft leather and burled wood inlays everywhere she looked.

When no one appeared to conduct her to her seat, Sara picked one next to a window, settled into the comfortable leather cushions and calmly waited for what was next.

Except that the man of her dreams never came. There was only the flight attendant she had crossed earlier and the woman remained just as taciturn as before.

No answers to any questions Sara posed her. Nothing about where they were headed, other than a brief reply that the flight would be a long one before telling Sara to buckle her seatbelt.

Sara had tried to introduce herself but the woman had stopped her cold, saying that the plane’s log indicated there were no passengers on board before turning away from her as if she did not, in truth, exist.

Her stomach flip-flopped during the take-off, but once the jet had stopped climbing, Sara was surprised at how smooth the flight was.