“I have shifts at the kitchen.”
“I’ll send someone to cover it.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Someone. Anyone. Just look me in the eyes right now and tell me you don’t want this chance. Tell me the truth, Kayla. Do you want to get away from it all? Do you want to see if this is real?”
I pulled over outside her apartment building. Kayla looked from me to the apartment, and back to me, and for a moment, I thought she might say no.
But she didn’t.
“How much time do I have?” she asked.
“I’ll send a car for you in an hour.”
Chapter 28
Kayla
This might be a mistake. No, not “might.” This is probably a huge, horrible, bumbling mistake.
My mind raced a mile a minute as I crammed clothes into a duffel bag. I had no idea where Lukas planned on taking me for this whirlwind weekend getaway, so I had no idea what I was supposed to pack. Did I bring a bathing suit? Sweat pants? A nice pair of jeans? A winter jacket? Boots? Sneakers? How many pairs of socks did I need? Should I bother packing makeup and jewelry? Did I need hair tools?
With so little time at my disposal to properly prepare, I settled for comfortable items. I changed into a pair of leggings and boots with warm lining. I opted for a sweater with a hood and threw my denim jacket over it. By the time I’d managed to haul my bag to my front door, my phone chimed.
The driver had arrived.
I was not an impulsive person. I was the girl who meticulously planned every event, occasion, outing, date, meetup—everything. I needed to know how a thing was going to go in order to be comfortable doing said thing. I needed consistency and I hated the unknown.
This weekend held a lot of unknowns and all I’d had to prepare for it was an hour.
It simply wasn’t enough.
But I was going for it anyway.
I turned off the lights, locked up behind me, and made my way out of the apartment building to the SUV parked at the curb. The driver was a familiar-looking man and I realized it was the same gentleman who’d dropped Lukas off at the orchard. He met me with a smile and a handshake and put my bag in the backseat before inviting me to sit up front with him. He said his name was Art as we drove away, and when I asked him where we were going, he just looked over at me and smiled.
“To the airport, of course,” he said.
“The airport? Where on earth does Lukas plan on taking me?”
“It’s a surprise, miss. He insisted I not let the cat out of the bag. Don’t worry. It’s not a long flight.”
“Canada?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
I pursed my lips and settled back against the seat. Art told me all about his time working for Lukas and how much he enjoyed being his driver. I wondered if he was lying because I knew Lukas’ mood swings better than most. There was no way Art hadn’t been privy to at least a dozen, seeing as how he’d been working as Lukas’ driver for nearly four years.
We arrived at the airport and drove straight out onto one of the tarmacs, where in the dead of night I spotted Lukas standing in front of a small passenger plane. He was illuminated from the light inside the plane spilling down the stairs onto the tarmac. He smiled when I got out of the car and met me with a kiss while Art retrieved my bags from the back seat.
“Where are you taking me, Lukas Holt?” I asked as I gazed up into his face.
He wore a smug smile. “Not far. Just someplace where nobody will recognize us.”
“Are you taking me out of the country? Out of the state?”
“No.” He chuckled. “I couldn’t swing that exciting of a trip in one hour’s notice. But I could swing this. Just trust me, okay?”
I crammed my hands in my pockets as a strong wind picked up. “Okay.”
Lukas tilted his head toward the plane. “Let’s get you out of the cold.”
The flight was a smooth one despite the wind, and it was short. Quite short. Only about forty-five minutes or so. I appreciated that Lukas hadn’t taken me too far away from home just in case something came up with work. I didn’t want to bail on him but Good Fellow’s had to come first. There were people who needed me, and Lukas would be just fine if I had to leave. He had his own private plane, after all.
But when we arrived at our real destination, every part of me hoped and prayed I wouldn’t get called back to the city for work.
The plane landed on a small tarmac and another car took us from the small excuse of an airport to a resort on the island built right on a bluff overlooking the dark and magnificent ocean. Lukas claimed it was a rustic retreat of some kind but the cabins hardly looked rustic to me.
Clearly, he saw them through rich-people lenses. I saw them for what they were, glorious homes built amongst nature with simple creature comforts.
We checked in at the lodge underneath a massive chandelier made of deer antlers. There were twenty-five hotel rooms in the lodge and thirty cabins on the sprawling property. Our cabin was within walking distance, but due to the late hour and the chill in the air, the attendant in the lobby offered to shuttle us there in an enclosed golf cart.
Lukas and I gratefully accepted the offer.
A short while later, we were let into our more-than-just-a-cabin cabin. The attendant, a skinny wisp of a young man with reddish hair and cheeks that wouldn’t likely see any beard growth for years to come, paced to the fireplace and offered to get it burning for us. Again, we agreed, and while he worked on the fire, Lukas and I explored
