Chapter 16

For once, my timing was perfect.

I walked into the firm after a three-day hitch. We had just flown a client and his wife to New Brunswick, received a call to go pick them up a few hours later, and escort them to Seattle to see their new granddaughter who was at risk of being born prematurely. The client was grateful that we could get them there, to their oldest daughter's side when she went into preterm labor. The duo insisted on putting me up in a hotel suite for a night and offered me the use of a resort they were co-owners of a ski chalet in upstate New York.

It sounded like a luxurious experience, consisting of amenities such as sauna, spa, the whole works. Even though we never really went on vacations together because of leaving the firm without one of the Burns brothers on premises, it might be time to get the hell out of town and take Jasmine with us.

The only problem would be my twin brother. Jake was the most conscientious person not only in our family but possibly on the planet Earth as well. It would take a tranquilizer dart to get him to leave the business if we were all on a trip together. I wasn't about to leave him behind or let him sacrifice a much-needed vacation so he could be there to watch over the firm's daily operations.

Convincing him was going to be difficult the same way that the Iron Man triathlon or boot camp are difficult. I was up to the challenge, but I would have to use every trick in the book to persuade him that he was essential, that we needed him more than the business did. Guilt was the only lever that worked on Jake, and I'd had practice moving him with that lever before. It wasn't pretty but it was effective.

The weekend would be ideal. The only major event we had scheduled was on Saturday, and the two new hires had been trailing Drew and Ty for over a week learning the ins and outs of our procedures in the field. Jasmine had said yesterday that she was scheduling them for the coming week working in pairs with our more seasoned staff to get their feet wet. They were ready to be stationed at events as representatives of the firm.

I hadn't been back that long before I heard Jasmine swear from the outer office. By mutual agreement, we kept our language clean at work to set a professional standard. Hearing her curse and hang up the phone was unusual. Drew and I looked out of his office where we'd been discussing a repeat client who had some special needs.

Jasmine turned to face us, hands on her hips.

"Sorry I dropped the f-bomb, guys. If there's a swear jar, I'll put in five bucks. Here's the deal. The St. Bernadette Hotel is flooded. All the events are cancelled for the next ten days while the plumbing is repaired and the water damage is cleaned up and repairs made. It'll be more like three weeks if you ask me, but for now all that matters is we won't be working security this weekend for a high-profile award ceremony and gala reception because it's been postponed. The program is tailored to that venue only and now we've got a hole in our schedule. Nobody on the waitlist would be able to throw something together on short notice."

"I feel bad for all those people that have to clean up the water damage," I said.

"That's very compassionate of you," Drew said, lifting one eyebrow skeptically. "What are you up to that you're Mr. Empathy all of a sudden?"

"I'll have you know that I'm sensitive as shit," I said wryly.

"Yeah, brainiac, you always struck me as the one that talks about his feelings nonstop," Jasmine said, piling on the joke.

"Actually, I was just thinking, the job I came off where they needed to get to Seattle and didn't want to wait to fly stand by, the client was so grateful I got them there as a priority that he offered me a week at his ski resort. I thought we could make a long weekend of it at least. Now that our major event is canceled for the time being, we can use our existing part-timers plus pull in a couple of Jake's friends who do security gig work if we need fill-ins. This way the new hires can still shadow veteran security personnel and all our bases are covered. I'll juggle the scheduling myself to make time for a little RR."

"I do the scheduling around here," Jasmine said. "Stay in your lane, Maverick."

"Jets don't use lanes."

"Stay in your runway then," she said with an eye roll.

"What do you guys think?" I asked, bracing myself for the blistering resistance I'd be facing from my workaholic brothers.

Ty sidled in from the copy machine with a sheaf of papers, "It's our lucky day. Look what I got—the printer actually worked!" he said triumphantly.

"You're right. Who needs a first-class vacation at a ski resort when you have beginner's luck with the printer," I said sarcastically.

"Scoff if you will, big brother, you're just jealous the printer likes me now. And what do you mean beginner's luck? I have to print stuff all the time," Ty protested.

"Uh, you mean you ask Jasmine to do it," I countered. "Jaaaas, I just sent you an email, will you print the attachment for me? You know the printer hates me…" I gave it my best wheedling Ty impression.

"I do not whine," he said, clearing his throat and making his voice deeper.

"I say this with great affection, Ty, but you kind of do," Jasmine said with a giggle.

"I thought y'all promised you'd gang up on somebody else this week," he said.

"See? Total whine," I said with triumph.

"Whatever, I got the printer to work," he returned.

"Good, now you're the office machine whisperer. You're in charge of printing everything from now on," Jasmine teased.

"Oh shit. I didn't think this through," he said, aghast.

"Calm down, bro," Drew said. "Before you came in here like the conquering hero with what I'm guessing is a hard copy of a takeout menu, we were kicking around the idea of a long weekend in upstate New York. Eli's client offered him a cabin at a resort there, all expenses paid."

"Are you seriously considering it?" I said in awe.

"It's a nice opportunity to get the hell out of Dodge for a few days. If we're lucky this dipshit from Alabama does something stupid and attracts the attention of local law enforcement. If not, at least we got to ski and sit in a hot tub with a cold beer and mountain silence," Drew said.

"I've never been skiing," Jasmine said tentatively, a smile tugging at her lips at the very idea of the getaway. There was a little sparkle in her eye, a sign of excitement, of looking forward to something after days of watching her look frantic or despondent. Her reaction alone was worth the trip.

I grinned at her. As soon as I cut my eyes to Jake, I knew that he was thinking the exact same thing that I was thinking. Namely, how much fun it would be to spoil her and really go all out on this trip. She'd fled Alabama with little more than the clothes on her back. She'd built a new life from scratch in Virginia. There was no way she had much in the way of winter clothes or sporting equipment. That meant we got the fun of treating her to new things and introducing her to snow skiing and snowboarding.

The looks we exchanged, my brothers and I, assured me that we were all on the same page. We were taking Jasmine on a long weekend ski vacation. And we would be damned if it wasn't the time of her life. I was already imagining curling up in front of a roaring fire with her, drinking hot buttered rum or whatever the hell people drink in movies where they get snowed in.

"We've all been skiing before. And I think I speak for us all when I say we'd be happy to show you the ropes," Jake offered.

"Am I hallucinating or did my twin brother actually agree to take a break and go skiing?" I marveled.

"Keep talking, smartass," he said, "and we'll vote to leave you here to hold down the fort."

"Great idea, maybe you can fly the plane," I said.

"I could," Ty offered. "I got my pilot's license three years ago, remember?"

"Shit, I forgot about that. Ugh. That's what I get for trying to share my love of flying with my little brother. You're going to All-About-Eve me and fly off on my vacation without me," I said wryly. "Except I'm the one with privileges at the private aviation company that will get me a steep discount on the rental, plus I'm the one with the free vacation. Come to think of it—baby brothers that try to steal people's thunder sometimes don't get invited to go on the trip," I quipped.

"And sometimes keeping both twins around feels unnecessary when one is enough," Ty shot back.

"Fair enough," I said.

I looked up the ski chalet on my phone and showed them where we were going. They huddled around the screen and oohed and aahed over the photo carousel.

"This place is incredible. It looks almost just like a place I saw in Switzerland," Ty said.

"These mountains are much closer than the Alps," I said. "I can have us on the ground at the airfield near the resort in under ninety minutes."

"It sounds perfect," Jasmine said. "A long weekend with all of you in a cozy cabin in the mountains? Sounds like a dream come true."

"We'll make sure it is," I said, my voice dropping a little. Jasmine met my eyes and stepped into my arms.

"Thank you. I've never had a vacation before, like this. Once when our pipes burst when I was a kid my mom and sister and I stayed two nights at the Super 8, but that's probably the closest I've come," she said.

She was smiling when she said that, like it was a lovely childhood memory. Like the story wasn't sad at all. And maybe compared to the rest of her memories it wasn't that bad, relatively speaking.

We could do better for her, I resolved. This could be the first of a lot of vacations together, and we could make it memorable, a wonderful trip for her. Somehow, I felt even more protective of her now than I had already.