Carolyn joined us for dinner Sunday, and though I desperately wanted her to stay, I didn’t ask her. I wasn’t ready to bring a woman into the house and have to answer those questions from Bailey. I had to be content with the kiss we shared at her car, but Jesus, what a kiss. The warmth of her body against mine and the way our tongues danced left me engulfed with desire. Making love to her Saturday hadn’t satiated my desire for her, it had enhanced it.

She was amazing. She was undeniably sexy, but there was something else, an occasional shyness in her manners that I found incredibly appealing. I simply couldn’t get enough of her, and that was a new experience for me. Before my life had been Bailey and work, with everything else a distant third, but that was changing. Now it was Bailey, work, Carolyn, and everything else a distant fourth. After the past weekend, she was fast closing in on work. I smiled as I picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hey!” she said.

“Hey!” I answered. It was becoming our standard greeting. “I know it’s short notice, but how’d you like an all-expense paid trip to San Diego?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. I have to go to San Diego on business and I wondered if you wanted to tag along.”

“When?”

“I leave Wednesday and will be back on Friday.”

“Oh.” I could hear the disappointment in her voice. “No, I guess not. Besides, that’s kind of expensive, isn’t it?”

“No. We’d be flying on my jet, so it won’t cost any more for two than one. Same with the hotel room.”

“You own a jet?”

I grinned at the amazement her voice. “Yes. No. Well, sort of. Me and a bunch of other guys own shares in a jet, which allows me to use it for free.” I didn’t bother with getting into the details of having to pay for fuel and hours.

There was a long pause. “I’d like to, but I have to work.”

It was the answer I was expecting but I was still a little disappointed. “Okay. I thought I ask. We’ll get together when I get back?”

“Count on it.”

“Good.”

We chatted a bit and then I hung up. It wasn’t fair that I’d only given her two days’ notice, but it hadn’t occurred to me until today to ask her. I’d never asked a lover to go on a business trip with me until now.

I spent the next several hours digging through the websites I used to find investment opportunities. Flying out to speak with the people was the fun part of my job. What wasn’t fun was sifting through the endless piles of rubble looking for the diamonds, along with the difficulty of recognizing the diamonds in the first place.

I lumped proposals into four broad categories. The largest category was where the ideas struck me as the late-night huckster type, things like brooms with a built-in dust pan or hats with a drink dispenser to keep your hands free. Those I simply ignored. I wasn’t interested in water hoses that would roll up flat to save space or some new type of oven designed to perfectly cook vegetables.

The second category consisted of ideas that clearly would require billions to develop, things like self-driving cars, integrated technologies using smart phones, and the like. I couldn’t play in that arena, so I skipped over these proposals without a second look as well.

The third category was interesting and where the ideas sounded good in the beginning, but with a little research, I’d often realize there was no hope of pulling it off. Even if they could, it’d never make money in my lifetime. These were the pie in the sky dreamers that wanted to develop humanoid robots, build moon bases, and other far out technologies. Sometimes, however, I’d find a nugget buried in this category. The company in Dallas working on the machine learning was one of these.

The last category was where I found ideas that sounded ridiculous, only for me to later realize were brilliant. The Harbour idea was like that. I’d first dismissed what they were proposing as unneeded, but I was so intrigued by their artwork, I’d dug a little deeper and realized they were onto something. I often wondered how many good ideas I’d looked over or dismissed that would make someone else rich.

Digging through all the things I wasn’t interested in or couldn’t afford in the first two categories was tedious and time consuming, but I had to do it to uncover the gems hidden in the third and fourth categories.

My latest interest, one of those seemingly pie in the sky ideas, was by a company in San Diego called Inkless. Inkless was started by a couple of chemical engineers and a mechanical engineer who were working on a printing system that printed without the use of ink or toner. They’d been granted a patent on using lasers to activate pigments embedded in the paper to produce an image, and their video demonstration had been impressive. I’d spoken to them a couple of times on the phone, and I’d decided it was time to fly out and see the product for myself. If it was everything they claimed, I had a feeling this could be the next big thing. The scary part was the amount of money they needed to go beyond the prototype stage. If I decided to invest it would be, by far, my largest commitment to date.

I was still digging through proposals when my phone buzzed. I glanced at the screen and smiled.

“Hey!”

“Hey!” Carolyn replied. “Is it too late to take you up on your offer?”

My smile spread. “Never.”

“Great! I’ve never been west of the Mississippi and I’ve decided to see if I can take a few days off. I’ll ask my manager, and if it’s okay, I’d love to go.”

“Tell him you have anal myopia and there’s a cure for it in California.”

“Anal myopia?” Her confusion was clear.

“Yeah. You can’t see your ass at work.”

She snickered. “That’s what I’ve got for sure. Okay, I’ll ask him as soon as I hang up and let you know.”

“Bye.” I said.

She snickered again. “Bye. Call you back in a few minutes.”

We walked across the apron to the waiting Hondajet, my bag and Carolyn’s in hand. I’d picked her up this morning, and I’d drop her off Friday when we returned home. The VLJ—Very Light Jet—didn’t have the legs to make it all the way to San Diego so we were going to have to stop for fuel in Amarillo, Texas, where we’d have lunch, and arrive in San Diego just in time for dinner.

“It’s so small!” she murmured as we approached.

I heaved a huge sigh. “I’ve been hearing that from women all my life,” I muttered in dejection.

She giggled and slapped me playfully on the shoulder. “I know that’s not true.”

“Rick,” I said, greeting the pilot as I handed him our bags so he could secure them.

“Mr. Gregg. Good to see you again.” He paused and looked at Carolyn, waiting to be introduced.

“Rick Schorr, Carolyn McDowell. Rick is our pilot.”

Rick sat Carolyn’s bag down and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Ms. McDowell. Except for some thunderstorms around Arkansas, the weather is good all the way to San Diego, so it should be a smooth flight.”

“I hope so. This is my first time flying.”

“Ever?” I asked.

“Ever.”

“Right,” Rick said briskly. “No barrel rolls or loop-the-loops then.”

“Oh, God! I hope not!”

“Rick is ex-Air Force,” I teased. “He sometimes has flashbacks to his time flying in Desert Storm.” She held my gaze a moment and I couldn’t keep a straight face. “He is ex-Air Force, but don’t worry, he has his PTSD under control. You’re in very capable hands.”

“Why does this trip suddenly not seem like a good idea anymore?”

Rick and I both chuckled as I put my hand in her back to start her up the steps into the plane. I glanced at Rick as he bit the knuckle of his right pointer finger, crouching slightly and turning away, his face twisted in comically profound lust. It was the same reaction I had to Carolyn every time I saw her. My smile grew. I know, I mouthed.

We settled into the rich leather seats, and a few minutes later, Rick stepped into the plane and latched the door before disappearing into the cockpit. Carolyn was glancing around, her eyes wide.

“What?” I asked.

“I’m just flabbergasted. I didn’t know they made jets this small. What does something like this cost?” She looked down, clearly embarrassed. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I don’t mind, and I don’t know. I’m part of a syndicate that owns two jets. This is the smaller and cheaper of the two. For use of this jet, I paid two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars, plus I pay for the fuel, Rick’s salary for the flight time, along with his expenses while out of town, and a fixed amount per flight hour for maintenance and upkeep. For that I can use the plane for up to 1,000 flight hours. If I go over, I have to pay a penalty.” Her eyes were big as she stared at me. “In a nut shell, if I take out the upfront money to use the jet, it costs about 2.5 times a first-class ticket to anywhere I want to go, but it’s worth every dime because of the convenience. So, you’re flying for free, because having you aboard adds nothing to the cost.”

She took my hand and leaned over for a kiss. It wasn’t far in the small plane. “Thank you for asking me.”

I kissed her just as the plane began to rouse itself with quiet whirs, thumps, and bangs. Ten minutes later we were settling into the cruise.

I jerked a thumb at the back of the plane. “There’s a bathroom back there. It’s tiny but useable.”

“I’m good,” she murmured before she turned back to stare out of the window.

“Want to ride up front?”

“What? No!”

I stood and took her hand, pulling softly. “Come on. Trust me, Rick won’t mind. It’s a hell of a view up there. You shouldn’t miss it.” She stared at me a moment and then got to her feet. I led her the half-dozen steps to the cockpit. “Mind if Carolyn has a seat?” I asked, looking over her shoulder at Rick.

“Not at all. Have a seat, Ms. McDowell,” Rick said, gesturing at the right seat.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” she asked, a noticeable quiver in her voice.

“Perfectly fine.”

She got settled in and I returned to my chair. Rick could thank me later. We hit a little bumpy air, probably the thunderstorms Rick mentioned, but the flight smoothed out again. I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to go rescue Carolyn when I saw her squeeze out of the co-pilot’s chair. She was beaming as she made her way down the aisle.

“That was amazing! Rick let me fly the plane! I’ve got to get me one of these!”

Rick was nothing if not professional, but he was a single, ex-military pilot. He would never put the moves on a client or anyone who was with a client, but I also I knew he got laid nearly every time we pulled an overnighter, so he had a way with the ladies.

We landed in Amarillo and enjoyed a nice lunch while the plane was fueled, then we were in the air again. She was much more relaxed, knowing what to expect, and by the time we landed in San Diego, she was bubbling over with excitement.

My car was waiting, and I loaded our bags into the trunk. We made a quick stop at the hotel to drop the bags, and then we had an early dinner. To us, it felt like it was seven o’clock, but the clocks on the wall said it was four.

“So, what did you think of your first experience flying?” I asked as I watched her over the glass of wine.

I enjoyed introducing her to new experiences, such as wine. I was certainly no authority on wine, and I don’t think I’d know a good one from a bad one, but the waiter had suggested this red to go with our steaks.

“It was fantastic. I assume flying commercial, along with bigger planes, is a lot more of a hassle?”

I snorted. “You have no idea. You get stuck in a seat next to some yo-yo that thinks you’re his best friend and won’t shut up, or the person in front of you leans the seat back, or there are delays, canceled flights, and missed connections. Some of the places I go I can’t even fly into in a commercial jet, and I still end up driving a couple of hours. It’s a mess. If I can drive there in less than six hours, I do. More than six, I take the plane. After my third trip flying coach, I decided I didn’t care what it cost and started flying only first class. That helped a lot, but you’re still the subject to the delays and the airlines’ schedules. I hated feeling rushed to make a flight, or having to spend a night away from Bailey because there was only one flight a day, or whatever. After a year I said, ‘forget this,’ and decided I’d start chartering a plane. Then I found out this is a lot cheaper in the long run.”

“Well, thank you for inviting me.”

“I’m glad you’re along.”

After a wonderful dinner, we walked hand-in-hand through the Gaslamp Quarter, the historic and entertainment district in San Diego. Having her with me was a wonderful distraction. Normally I closed myself up in my hotel and watched television or worked when I wasn’t visiting with potential business partners, but this was so much better.

Being a single father to Bailey, especially when he was smaller, meant I didn’t have a lot of time to date. The money problem was gone now, but old habits die hard. His au pair wasn’t his mother, and it wasn’t fair to shove him off onto her all the time. Now that he was a little older, I was more interested in the company of women, but Carolyn was the first woman I’d felt a connection with.

Every time I was with her, the feeling grew stronger, and now, walking along the sidewalks among the Victorian age buildings, the feelings were especially strong. Not love, but an undeniable attraction that was both physical and emotional. It was a new feeling, and I liked it.

We spent almost two hours strolling, talking about everything and nothing, looking in windows, and enjoying the warm, southern California weather. We made our way back to the car, and then to our hotel room. As the door shut behind us, she turned to face me, a smile on her face that went straight to my manhood.

“You, Mr. Gregg, are so going to get it,” she purred as she stepped close.

I pulled her in and held her. I wasn’t sure what I was going to get, but whatever it was, I was looking forward to it.