Page 4 of Christmas at the Ranch
“Please, Samantha, I know you can do this and you might be surprised. Who wouldn’t want to spend Christmas week in one of the most sought-after holiday destinations in America?” He paused. “And you don’t really have a choice. I already told Arthur you were coming.”
The pit in Samantha’s stomach threatened to become a full-sized crater, but she was stuck. She needed to remain on Arthur’s good side. And she couldn’t disappoint Charlie. “All right, I’ll go.”
“Excellent! I packed you an extra suitcase with après-ski boots and warm sweaters and a down parka. The parka and sweaters are Emily’s, she was happy to lend them to you. And I expensed the après-ski boots, they’re top of the line. You’re all set to go elk watching in Grand Teton National Park.”
“I’m not going to trudge through the snow looking for elk,” Samantha said, shivering. “I’m going to sit in front of the fire with a book and pretend I’m in my living room.”
Samantha hung up and the driver took her bags out of the trunk. He checked them in and she entered the terminal.
There was a giant Christmas tree and flight attendants walked by, dressed in festive red-and-green uniforms. Samantha took a deep breath and made a beeline for the United Club. If she was going to survive this week, she was going to take her mother and Charlie’s advice and start with a very stiff drink.
Chapter Two
Samantha fastened her seat belt and imagined she was Sloane Parker sitting in the first-class section of an Emirates flight from Frankfurt to Dubai. Sloane is trying to decide which fellow passenger is a Russian spy. At first, she is positive it’s the priest in seat 3A. There’s a telltale circle around his ring finger where a wedding ring used to be. Then a stunning blonde sits next to him and he drapes his hand over her thigh. Sloane decides he must not be a priest and guesses he’s a businessman sneaking away for a hot weekend affair. Especially when he reaches up to the overhead bin and the priest’s collar is actually a neck brace from some kind of injury.
Next, she’s convinced it’s the little old lady in seat 5B. The woman is wearing a sweater and boots, she obviously isn’t dressed for Dubai’s 104-degree temperatures. When she pulls out her laptop to FaceTime, Sloane is confident some Russian oligarch’s face will appear on the screen. Instead the most adorable eighteen-month-old toddler comes into focus, waving furiously and saying, “Present, Grammy?” into the camera.
Sloane picks up the wineglass the flight attendant left on her tray table and sighs dejectedly. That’s when it comes to her. Emiratesboasted that their flight attendants trained as wine sommeliers at the finest sommelier school in Provence. Sloane had asked for a New Zealand wine with an oaky aroma but this wine doesn’t smell oaky. A true Emirates flight attendant would never get it wrong; it could cost her her job.
The flight attendant is the Russian spy! Why hadn’t Sloane realized right away? It’s the perfect cover. Sloane closes her eyes and allows herself to get some sleep. After all, they’re trapped on the same flight for the next seven hours. She’ll call her boss, Phineas, at British Intelligence when they start their descent into Dubai.
Samantha zoned back in. “Excuse me,” she said to the flight attendant. “I don’t really feel like wine. Could I get a Diet Coke instead?”
The flight attendant approached Samantha’s seat. She took Samantha’s plastic cup and gave her a puzzled expression.
“This is Diet Coke; we don’t serve alcohol on domestic flights.”
Samantha smiled sheepishly and wished she could disappear into the seat cushion. Instead, she busied herself arranging her books on the seat beside her. She had to stop writing the current book she was working on in her head when she couldn’t sit down at the computer. But the last hour of boarding the plane had been so stressful, she had to do something to shut it out.
First, there was the moment she arrived at the gate and saw the plane. It wasn’t the big, solid plane Charlie had promised—the kind that flew from New York to London and was so large, you hardly noticed you were in the air. This plane seemed the same size as the planes her brother, Jake, built from Lego kits when they were children. Samantha asked the gate attendant if she was actually at the right gate; she assumed the plane would be bigger. Thewoman pointed meaningfully at the flight board and asked if Samantha had been to Jackson Hole. The airport was tiny, you could barely squeeze a commercial jet into the arrival gate.
Then there was boarding the plane itself. Samantha’s seat was 12A and she expected to be near the front. But the plane was so small, it was in the last row, next to the bathroom and the flight staff’s coffee maker. Samantha told the flight attendant she couldn’t possibly sit in the back. Everyone knew if there was a crash, it was the first section to go up in flames. The flight attendant graciously moved Samantha to the second row and even gave her a spare seat. Samantha thanked her, but she guessed from her expression she only did it so Samantha didn’t frighten the other passengers.
“Excuse me,” a male voice said, interrupting her thoughts. He pointed to the books scattered on the seat. “That’s my seat.”
“I don’t think so,” Samantha replied, without looking up. “The flight attendant promised it to me.”
“Here’s my boarding pass.” He waved it in front of her. “It’s my fault. My connecting flight from Chiang Mai was late and I almost missed this flight. I hate to mess up your library, but there aren’t any other seats.”
Samantha blushed furiously. She had brought a lot of books. But she didn’t trust using a Kindle. If it died midflight, she’d have nothing to read. Then she’d have to look out the window and see how high up they were. Or worse, if it was already dark, she’d be stuck staring straight ahead, counting how many times the plane hit turbulence, like a woman in labor timing her contractions.
“I’m sorry,” she said, stuffing them into her carry-on.
The man sat down. He was very tall; his knees touched the tray table.
“That’s quite a pile of books,” he remarked. “You do realize it’s only a four-hour flight?”
Samantha wasn’t going to explain to a complete stranger.
“I’m a big reader. Not enough people read these days,” she defended herself. “They flip through social media and listen to podcasts. Podcasts are fine; I learned how to sauté lamb from Thomas Keller’s podcast, and now it’s Socks’s favorite food. I only give it to him on his birthday, of course. It’s very expensive. But it’s really good, I tried it myself.”
“Your boyfriend is named Socks?” the man asked, puzzled.
“Socks is my dog. Thomas Keller has a dog and he only feeds him lamb and veal. That’s doable if you own some of the priciest restaurants in America, but not practical if you live in a one-bedroom in Brooklyn and most of your income goes to paying rent.”
“I lived in New York a few years ago,” the stranger reflected. “From what I’ve heard, now you could buy the whole village where I’ve been living for the price of a rented garage in Carroll Gardens.”
Samantha remembered him saying his connecting flight was from Chiang Mai. She was intrigued despite her anxiety. The mention of foreign, exotic locations always interested her. She never knew where the next story idea would come from. She’d found the inspiration for her book about Sloane uncovering a tequila-smuggling ring in Mexico after watchingThe Love Boat Reunionwith her mother.
