“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.

“If you took all your dates out like this, you’d be married by now.” The noise inside the earphones was tinny and full of the sound of wind.

“Getting married requires more than a helicopter ride.”

“Women can be crafty. You should watch out.”

“For other women?”

She nodded and glanced at the city fast approaching.

“I’m on a date with you and you’re talking about other women.”