Page 18 of Christmas with Her Millionaire Boss

“You’re frowning,” Noelle said. “Is your head okay?”

“My head’s fine.” A faint headache at the base of his neck was all. The bulk of his dizziness had ebbed, as well. Unless he whipped his head around quickly or hung upside down, he wouldn’t have a problem.

“Guess that means you’ll be able to fly home without a problem.”

“Don’t see why not,” he replied. His original reason still stood. So long as he could control when and where he stayed, he would. “No sense overstaying my welcome, right?”

“Definitely not,” Noelle replied. “Is it a long flight?”

“A few hours. One of the benefits of being the pilot, you save all that time waiting at the airport.”

“No security pat down either. Is that why you fly? So you can avoid lines at the airport?” While she was talking, she slid backward off her perch and into the chair. The move left her sitting sideways with her calves balanced on the arm. “Wow, you really do hate people, don’t you?”

Her smirk told him she was teasing. “Very funny,” James replied. “I fly because it’s more efficient. I don’t like wasting time.”

“Really? Who would have guessed?”

This time he smirked. Her sitting in such a cozy, casual position had made his muscles relax, as well. He was at ease, he realized. An unusual experience outside the cockpit. The sky was the one place he felt truly at home. He would never tell that to anyone though. At thirty-nine-thousand feet, the sound of the engine roaring in your ears drowned out your thoughts. There was nothing to prove, nothing to forget.

“I was studying Belinda’s mantel.” He nodded toward the fireplace, and the collection of photographs and knickknacks that lined the thick pine. Diverting the attention away from himself once more. “Couldn’t help noticing you and she have a lot of the same pictures.”

“No big surprise, considering I married into her family.”

Family was definitely the theme. The largest photograph was a portrait of a man in a military uniform smiling from the passenger seat of a truck. Pushing himself to his feet, James walked over to take a closer look. A copy of the photo was on Noelle’s mantel, as well. “Kevin?” he asked. He already knew the answer. Who else could it be?

“He emailed the photo from Afghanistan a few months before the accident.”

His jeep flipped over. James remembered from researching the sale. He’d been surprised to hear the Fryberg’s heir had been in the military.

“He looks like he enjoyed being in the army.”

“Guard,” she corrected. “Signed up our senior year of high school.” James heard a soft rustling noise, which he realized was Noelle shifting in her chair. A moment later, her heels tapped on the wood floor again. “He was so excited when his unit finally deployed. All he ever talked about was getting overseas. Ned and Belinda were crushed when they learned he’d been killed.”

Was it his imagination or did all her answers go back to Ned and Belinda? “Must have been hard on you too.”

“I was his wife. That goes without saying.”

He supposed it did. It was odd is all, that she focused on her in-laws’ grief instead of her own.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe that was how real families behaved.

The picture on the left of Kevin was from their wedding. The Fryberg quartet formally posed under a floral arbor. It too had a duplicate at Noelle’s house. “How old were you when you got married anyway?” She looked about ten, the voluminous skirt of her wedding dress ready to swallow her.

“Twenty-one. Right after graduation. We were already living together, and since we knew Kevin was scheduled to leave after the first of the year...” She left the sentence hanging with a shrug.

No need to say more. “You didn’t have a lot of time together.”

“Actually, we had almost twelve years. We were middle school sweethearts,” she added, in case that wasn’t obvious. She smiled at the photograph. “I did a lot of growing up in this house.”

“There you two are! Detroit’s almost done letting everyone down.” Belinda came strolling through the living room along with Todd Moreland, Fryberg’s general manager. “I promised Todd here some pie for the road.” When she saw he and Noelle were looking at her son’s photo, she smiled. “I always liked how happy he looked in that photo.”

“He was a real special kid,” Todd added. “The whole company liked him. We always figured we’d be working for him one day. No offense, Mr. Hammond.”

“None taken,” James replied stiffly. “Everyone has their preferences.” And it usually wasn’t him.

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