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“You go upstairs and pack.” Travis paused. “And leave dealing with the general to me. Okay?”
They’d reached the door. Alessandra turned towards her brother, rose on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
“I’m proud to be a Wilde,” she said softly.
Travis felt a burn in his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly, as he embraced Alessandra. “And we’re proud you are.” He stood back. “Now, go on. Dump whatever you’ll need in a suitcase. With any luck at all, I’ll have you at the airport well before dawn.”
* * *
He was right.
Things moved fast when you were a Wilde.
Travis gathered the brothers together in one of the guest wing suites. Told them what had happened. There was a lot of ugly language, a lot of one brother holding the other brother back, and then they all calmed down and got to work.
Travis phoned Chay.
It took a while to track him down, but once he did, Chay gave him the information he needed. Travis had gone home. He told him the name of the town in the Dakotas where he and Tanner had grown up and the name of the ranch Tanner’s old man had owned.
“I don’t know if you’ll be able to reach him,” Chay had added. “I’ve tried calling a couple of times, but he’s not answering.”
The brothers checked with their pilots.
Luca’s pilot and plane were the closest. They were, in fact, at the Dallas airport, ready to go because he and his wife, Cheyenne, had intended to fly out in the morning.
“You’re flying out tonight instead,” Luca told the pilot. “With my sister on board. You’re taking her to the airport at Sioux Falls, South Dakota.”
Matteo arranged for a rental car for Alessandra, but only after what initially looked like an endless battle over her insistence on making the trip alone and his insistence that he would not permit it.
The word permit proved to be a mistake.
Angry words. Angry looks. Until Jacob stepped between brother and sister and said, albeit reluctantly, that it was Alessandra’s choice to go alone and they would all have to honor it.
Hugs. Kisses. Tears. And promises she would phone and keep them posted throughout her journey.
Caleb programmed the route she’d drive after landing in Sioux Falls into his iPhone.
She promised she’d be fine. And, yes, she’d keep in touch once the plane touched down.
And she told them she loved them all.
The Wilde sisters got wind of Something Happening and crowded into the suite just as things were all coming together.
Travis promised to tell them the entire story. Right then, there was only time to say it involved the lieutenant who’d rescued Alessandra.
Throughout it all, nobody told the general anything.
They didn’t have to. He was too busy playing the genial host to have noticed his children were among the missing.
Finally, Travis drove Alessandra to the airport.
In fact, they all did.
Brothers. Sisters. It was a multivehicle procession. And they all waited on the tarmac until Luca’s plane was a pinpoint of light against the black Texas sky.
Then, they turned to each other.
