Chapter Fourteen

~ Beck ~

I swallowed tightly as I watched the jet airplane taxi into the executive hanger at the airport. If anyone had told me a week ago that I'd be waiting to meet a millionaire, I would have laughed myself silly.

And yet, here I was.

When the jet finally stopped, the door opened and a small set of stairs came down. A dark haired man with brown eyes came down the steps, followed by several others.

There was a huge smile on his face as he walked toward us. "Scotty, man, it's good to see you."

My jaw dropped when he hugged Scotty instead of shaking his head.

"It's good to see you, too, Jake. Thanks for coming."

"Let's not make it ten years again, okay?"

"Well." Scotty scratched at the hairs on his chin. "Considering I'm moving to New York City, I think it's fair to say you'll be seeing a whole lot more of me."

"Good." Jake slapped Scotty on the back, the smile never falling from his lips as he turned to the strawberry blond at his side. "This is my husband Jai."

Scotty's smile was just as big as he wrapped his arm around my waist. "This is my husband, Beck." He gestured to the woman next to me. "And this is our mutual girlfriend, Chelsea."

My breath caught in my throat as I gazed up at him. This was the first time I'd ever heard Scotty call me his husband in public.

It felt nice.

I reached out and shook the hand Jake held out to me. "It's nice to me meet you, Jake." I switched hand to the man beside him. "Jai."

Jake pointed over his shoulder to a few other people, introducing them one by one. Scotty seemed to know them all, giving some of them a hug. Others got a hardy handshake.

I lost count of the names after the fifth person.

"The rest of these guys are here to pack your shit and get it back to New York," Jake explained.

"So, what's the plan here, Jake?" Scotty asked.

"You said you're supposed to be having dinner with your fiancée tomorrow night, right?" Jake asked.

I almost growled at the word fiancée. She wasn't his fiancée.

"I'm supposed to be having dinner with Cynthia, Julia, and Beck's father at the Beckerman place tomorrow evening at seven. We were going to have dinner at the house, but Cynthia left a message on my phone, telling me to show up at the Beckerman place. I'm not sure why the venue changed, but I suspect she's trying to prove a point to me."

"What point?" Jake asked.

"If we're not at the house, I can't see my father. She's trying to show me that she's the one in charge since I took Friday off from work and went to that bank. She's already going to have questions for me about that."

Jake's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

Scotty explained about Cynthia following us to the bank and our plan to mislead her with the fake ring Chelsea had picked out at the second hand store. I had to admit, if I didn't know it wasn't real, I would have been wowed by it. The damn thing sparkled.

Apparently, you could do a lot with jewelry cleaner.

"Okay," Jake started, "well, while you are at dinner, my guys are going to go to your apartments and grab your stuff. The rest of us are going after your father. I need at least three hours. Is that possible?"

"I suppose I could stretch it out," Scotty said. "It won't be easy. Cynthia may be a bitch, but she's not stupid."

"You could start by showing up fashionably late," Jai suggested, shrugging. "Maybe you got a flat tire or something."

I snickered. "You should get a flat tire, call a tow truck, and then take a taxi. You know she'll check. It's not like you're taking your car with you anyway."

None of us were.

"Beck, I need you to go with me," Jake explained. "If the cops get called for any reason, you being legally married to Scotty can keep us all from getting arrested."

I knew I paled because my face went cold. "Is that a possibility?"

"It's always a possibility," Jake explained. "I have some friends back in New York City that will make sure nothing sticks if it does, but you might spend the night in jail if we do get arrested. Can you handle that?"

I gulped and then nodded slowly. A trip behind bars did not sound like a fun time, but the possibility of getting away from Cynthia and out of this town sounded better.

I'd chance it.

"What do you want me to do?" Chelsea asked.

"I need you to stay here with Jai and wait for us, and you need to stay on your toes. We'll probably be coming in hot. As soon as we're all here, we need to be in the air. I want to be headed back to New York before anyone realizes we're gone."

"None of this is going to come back on you, is it?" Scotty asked.

Jake grinned and pointed to one of the men he had introduced before. I couldn't remember his name.

"Miles has all those papers you faxed to him yesterday," Jake explained. "That power-of-attorney your father signed gives you the right to move your father is you so desire."

"I do need you to sign this," Miles said as he took a piece of paper out of his suit pocket. "It gives Jake your permission to enter the estate, which rightfully belongs to you and your father, and move your father."

Scotty read it over and then signed it and handed it back. "Anything else?"

"You remember Patrick Scotton?" Jake asked.

"Vaguely." Scotty squinted. "He was a medical student, wasn't he?"

"He was." Jake grinned. "And that's going to help us. He's the hospital administrator at Good Samaritan Hospital. He's agreed to help us."

"How?" Scotty asked.

"He's loaning us an ambulance and a couple of paramedic uniforms."

I wasn't making the connection. "Say what?"

Jake switched his attention to me and started to explain. "We're going to go in and move Scotty's father out with an ambulance. If anyone questions us, we're under orders to take him to the hospital."

"And you think that will work?" I asked.

"My father has a nurse twenty-four hours a day, a nurse that works for my stepmother. The second you step foot on the property, she'll call Cynthia and the gig will be up."

"Is there any way we can get rid of the nurse?" Jai asked.

"Maybe," Scotty replied. "Cynthia fired most of the staff that was there when I lived at home and replaced them with people who answer only to her. The only one she didn't fire is the cook. Mrs. Agnes has been there since my parents got married. She's a fixture in the place. It would fall apart without her there. She might be willing to help me."

"We need to know before tomorrow night," Jake said. "If she can get rid of the nurse, it'll make this a whole lot easier."

"Mrs. Agnes goes to the farmer's market every Saturday," Scotty said. "I think I can talk to her there without anyone catching me."

"Do that and then call me," Jake directed. "I'm going to meet up with Patrick and go over the plan with him." I nearly took a step back when he glanced at me. "You should go with me. As his husband, you can stand in for Scotty."

I shrugged. "It's not like I can go out in public with Scotty anyway, so I might as well."

I couldn't wait until we got to New York.

"We'll meet up here again tomorrow morning," Jake stated. "I'll need the keys to your apartments at that time, so you might want to pack a bag tonight. You won't be going back."

I grabbed onto Scotty's arm, needing the anchor his presence gave me. This was all suddenly so real. Tomorrow night, we'd be on an airplane heading for New York City, where we could live loud and proud as a gay married couple.

It was as exciting as it was scary.

Scotty turned me in his arms until I was facing him, flush up against his body. His hand cupped the side of my face. "Baby, you know what we need and you know the danger we're in. I trust you to make any decisions that will help us all get out of here."

I swallowed tightly at the faith I could see shining in his grey eyes. No one had ever looked at me like that, not even Chelsea, and she was my best friend.

"You stay safe," I countered. "You also know what we're up against. Don't take any chances."

One corner of Scotty's mouth curved up. "I won't baby. I promise."

"I promise, too." I wasn't sure what exactly I was promising, but there wasn't anything I wouldn't give to Scotty or do for him, so it didn't matter.

Scotty leaned in to kiss me. He kept it brief because of all the people standing around us, but I knew he needed that intimate connection just as much as I did.

Watching him walk away nearly tore my heart out of my chest. I pressed my hands against the base of my throat, swallowing hard.

"He's going to be okay," Chelsea whispered just before her arms wrapped around me. "Scotty's smart and he can think on his feet. Cynthia may think she has the upper hand, but she's fighting a losing battle."

"It's not Cynthia I'm worried about." Not really. "Once Julia finds out we got married, she's going to kill us." Well, she might not kill us, but she sure would make our lives miserable. "For some reason, she has her sights set on marrying Scotty. She's going to be pissed when she can't."

Julia wasn't very nice when she didn't get her way. I had twenty-six years of experiencing her when she was pissed off. I didn't always walk away unscathed.

"Hey." Jake stepped in front of me. "In forty-eight hours, this will all be over and you'll be on a plane headed to New York with Scotty. Think about that, okay?"

I nodded, but I doubted I'd stop worrying.

I drew in a deep breath and then sent Jake a wobbly smile. "So, who is this guy we're supposed to be meeting?"

"His name is Patrick Scotton," Jake replied with a smile. "He's one of our frat brothers. He was in medical school when Scotty was there, but that was ten years ago. Once he became a doctor, he moved up pretty quickly to a hospital administrator."

"And he's going to loan us an ambulance?"

Jake chuckled as if amused by how simple my question was. "There's a little more to it than that."

I raised an eyebrow.

"It would be easy to drive directly to the airport and just get on the plane, but that leaves a trail. We know that Cynthia will find you two eventually. We're trying to give us enough breathing room to get everything sorted out before that happens."

"But I thought we were getting on a plane and flying to New York?" That's what Jake had said.

"Yes, but the plan is to use the ambulance to pick Scotty's father up and take him to the hospital where we will be met by a life-flight helicopter, which will take us to the airport."

Wouldn't it be easier just to drive to the airport?"

Was this plan too complicated?

"Like I said, we're trying to create confusion so we have a bit of breathing room. If we drove directly to the airport, they'd be able to question the ambulance driver. If we go to the hospital and take the elevator up to the helipad, and then take the helicopter to the airport, and if Mr. Prescott's intake paperwork at the hospital gets lost and no one knows where he is, it'll take a little longer for her to find us."

And now it made more sense...sort of.

"And this Patrick guy that you all went to school with is going to help us lose the paperwork?"

Jake wiggled his eyebrows.

I let out a snort. "I should have joined a fraternity."

It certainly seemed to be helping Scotty out.