Page 21 of Daddy's Game

I hadn’t had my fill of Brock yet. With all of the shopping and turmoil surrounding our sudden trip, I hadn’t really had but an hour or so to hang out with him and enjoy his company.

After a while I gave up on counting sheep and sighed, throwing the blankets off of myself. The climate control was set to a decidedly low setting, so I wrapped a sheet around myself and ventured back out into the main cabin.

As soon as the door opened, I could hear Brock typing furiously on a laptop. He sat in the middle of a spread of devices, ranging from a cell phone, a tablet, a blackberry, and a satellite phone, which he spoke on via a headset.

“...just make sure you take care of it in the next hour,” Brock said firmly. “The Singapore market will close soon after, and if we miss this chance it could cost millions of dollars.”

His gaze snapped up to me, and then his brows climbed toward his hairline.

“So we’re clear. Something just came up. Goodbye.”

He turned off the phone and took the earpiece out.

“Am I interrupting you?” I asked, sheepish at having intruded on his private domain.

“Not at all. I was just finishing up.”

I didn’t know if I believed that. It looked to me like he still had plenty of work to do on the other devices he owned. But he turned them off one by one and pointedly made room for me.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He asked as I settled into the seat opposite his own. It felt more like an upscale lounge than the interior of an airplane. As I settled into the comfortable leather, I formulated a response.

“No.” I shook my head. “I guess my mind is just too busy, too active.”

A sparkle formed in his eyes.

“Well, if that’s the case, then I have just the thing to keep you occupied.”

I swallowed, hard. Did Brock mean what I thought he meant?

8

BROCK

The look of utter confusion on Grace’s face when I took out the heavy wooden chess board was priceless. I then realized she’d thought I meant something else entirely–and she had not raised a protest or retreated back to bed.

I decided I may have missed an opportunity and chalked it up to a learning experience. I already had the chess board out. It was too late to back out now.

I pushed a button on the console and a drawer slid mechanically, silently out. Inside were silver and gold chess pieces, each nestled in a custom fit foam pit. As I dug the pieces out one by one and put them on the board, Grace relaxed and settled back into her seat.

“I’ve never played chess before,” she said.

“Don’t worry, it’s not that hard to learn. It’s not nearly as complex as everyone makes it out to be. I will admit mastery takes a lot of time and effort, but anyone can learn the basics of how to play.”

She picked up one of the golden pawns and turned it over in her hand. Her fingers traced the fine etching in the helmeted soldier’s face.

“These look expensive.”

“Oh, they are,” I said with a chuckle. “If you’re going to buy a chess set, you might as well get one that’s going to last.”

“I can’t fault that logic. Still, that tells me you must like chess an awful lot.”

I grinned as I continued to put the pieces on the board.

“I do, as a matter of fact.”

“Why?”

My brow furrowed with thought, because no one had ever actually asked me that before. It took me a moment to formulate a response, during which I continued to place pieces on the board. The velvet discs adhered to the bottoms of the pieces made it a nearly soundless operation.

---