Raquel sat bolt upright. "The flight!"
Duncan held a hand out to silence her. "Yeah, we sorta celebrated a bit last night, so we're dragging ass. Sorry, Uncle B. Yeah, we can be there. All right, see you then. Bye."
"We tied a bit of one on last night," Hamish said. "I've no been that pissed in an age. Jaysus, I'm hungover."
“Is your uncle mad?" Raquel asked, sounding worried. "I feel bad. He's doing us a favor, and we don't show up."
Duncan shoved the phone in his back pocket, shaking his head gingerly. "Nah, he's cool. He figured it was something like that. He's running a couple errands instead, so we have a couple hours to get our shit together and meet him at his dock."
"I need some greasy-ass food pronto," Raquel said. "So we need to drag our hungover asses to breakfast."
"Word," I said, levering myself out my chair. "And in my case, I need to retrieve my luggage from my room."
Ninety minutes later, we'd eaten said greasy-ass food and drank several buckets of coffee, retrieved my luggage, and were buckled into Duncan's uncle's seaplane as he piloted it away from Ketchikan.
Brock Badd was a silver fox. I'm not into old dudes, but this old dude was handsome as hell. Brown hair shot through with silver cut in a neat, classic, Old Hollywood side part, wearing mirrored aviators, he had chiseled, angular features, day-old stubble shadowing his rugged jaw, and a physique a man twenty years his junior would be jealous of.
I see now why Duncan claimed his physique was largely the result of unfair genetics—I saw the resemblance, as well. Duncan definitely favored Brock, especially in the jawline and the lean, hard build.
Brock greeted Raquel and Hamish with gentle handshakes and congratulations, waving off Raquel’s profuse apologies for oversleeping our original departure time.
When he greeted his nephew, he did so loudly, effusively, with a lot of rough, unnecessary back slapping—giving him shit for being hungover, in a teasing way.
Me, he greeted with a speculative look, a gentle hug, and a knowing grin. What he thinks he knows, I couldn't have said, but he obviously thinks he knows something about me, or about me and Duncan. I smiled back as if I was clueless and took my seat on the seaplane.
You couldn't really hear anything over the drone of the propellers, so all four of us opted to close our eyes and try to rest on the flight.
I jolted awake with a mortifyingly porcine snort as the seaplane touched down. "Wha—?"
Duncan's shoulder was a firm, warm support under my left ear. He patted my thigh. "We just landed in Anchorage."
"Oh. I fell asleep, huh?" I said, sitting upright.
Duncan chuckled. "Yeah, you were out for the count." He grinned at me. "You, uh, have some…" his thumb slid over the corner of my lip.
I groaned, even more embarrassed. "I was drooling? Someone shoot me."
He just laughed again. "Hey, drool happens. Don’t worry about it."
I rolled my eyes. "I fell asleep on you, drooled on you, and snorted like Babe the pig when I woke up. I think that's plenty of grounds to be embarrassed."
His deep brown eyes danced with humor, and he pinched my chin. "You're adorable, Rune. Drooling and snorting and all."
"Adorable," I muttered. "Lovely. Every girl longs to be adorable because she drools and snorts in her sleep." The noise of the engines, however, meant Duncan didn't hear this part.
Brock taxied us to a dock, where a dockworker moored us to a pylon. After thanking Brock, Raquel and Hamish went in search of a taxi to the hotel while Duncan and I hung back to talk to Brock.
"My friend with the jet has confirmations from everyone," he said. "So that's all set. Duncan, when you two are ready to come back to Ketchikan, just let me know and I’ll come pick you guys up."
“It'll just be Duncan, actually," I said. "My flight back to LA is out of Anchorage, now. I switched it around the other day."
Brock frowned. “Oh, really? I was under the impression that you two were an item."
Duncan coughed in surprise, glancing at me with a shrug. "I have no idea where you'd have gotten that impression, Uncle B. We're just friends."
Brock smirked—and again, I saw where Duncan got his propensity for devilish smirks; Brock's was every bit as debonair, mischievous, and tempting as Duncan's. In an old guy to whom I'm not attracted sort of way, I mean.
Geez, get a grip, Rune.
