that she’d regain either the energy or the stamina to keep up with Tommy.
Dawn, on the other hand, didn’t lack for either. Or smarts, he acknowledged grudgingly. Before agreeing to this crazy scheme, he’d had his people run a background check on the woman. He had to admit her credentials were impressive. A degree in graphic arts from Boston University, with a minor in advertising. A master’s in integrated design media from Georgetown. A hefty starting salary right out of grad school at one of the country’s largest health food and natural products consortiums, where she was reportedly poised to move up the managerial ranks.
The problem wasn’t her professional credentials, however. The problem was her personal life. The background check had been sketchier in that area, but Brian had pried enough details out of Travis to get the picture. Apparently the delectable Ms. McGill collected men with the same eagerness Tommy did plastic dinosaurs. And when she tired of them, which she did with predictable frequency, she put ’em on the shelf to gather dust while she waltzed off in search of a new toy. Brian wasn’t about to let Tommy become attached to someone that mercurial. Any more attached, he amended as his son’s shriek of laughter carried across the piazza.
Tommy and Dawn had turned their backs to the fountain. Together, they shouted a count of one-two-three. Their arms went up. Their coins soared through the afternoon sunlight. Twin splashes spouted in the basin.
“Good throw,” Travis called. “Right on target.”
“Thank God,” Brian muttered. “Maybe, just maybe, we’ll escape Italy with no injuries to innocent bystanders. Speaking of which...”
He shot up the cuff on his suit coat to check the Mickey Mouse watch Tommy had presented him with last Father’s Day. Bought using his very own allowance, the boy had proudly proclaimed. Brian took even more pride in Mickey’s silly grin than he had the Bronze Star he’d earned as a USMC chopper pilot in what now seemed like another lifetime ago.
“We need to head for the airport,” he said, turning to the others. “Sure I can’t talk the rest of you into flying home with Tommy and me? And Dawn,” he added belatedly.
The others had already nixed his offer of a flight back to the States aboard the Ellis Aeronautical Systems corporate jet. Kate and Callie were staying in Rome another night and would fly home using their prepaid, nonrefundable commercial tickets. Travis would head back to the base to wrap up the final details of their project. The prince would rejoin his special ops unit stationed just outside Rome and Joe Russo would move on to his next assignment. Whatever that was. The high-powered, high-dollar security expert was as tight-lipped about his work as he was good at it.
So good, Brian had approached him about doing a top-to-bottom scrub of EAS’s physical, cyber and industrial security. Ignoring the still-angry scar slashing the left side of Joe’s face, Brian held the man’s steady gaze.
“Let me know when you can nail down a start date.”
“Will do,” Joe answered. “In the meantime, have your security people send me their operating procedures and I’ll get my team looking at them.”
“Roger that. Well...”
Brian glanced around the circle, warmed by the close friendship he’d forged with the other three men in such a short time. With Kate and Callie, too.
Then there was Dawn.
She and Tommy approached the small circle, she wearing a smug grin and he skipping in delight. “Didja see us, Dad? Didja? Me ’n Dawn hit the water first try!”
“Dawn and I,” Brian corrected.
Tommy made a face but echoed his dad, “Dawn ’n I hit the water first try. Didja see us?”
“I saw.” Smiling, Brian ruffled his son’s hair. “Good job, buddy. You, too, Dawn. Now we’d better say our goodbyes and head for the airport.”
Tommy shook hands and Dawn gave hugs all around. A flirtatious one for the prince who’d tried his damnedest to get her to jet off to Corsica or Cannes or wherever with him. A friendly one for Joe. And one that came with a warning for Travis.
“You and Kate have spent too much time apart, Westbrook. Get your butt home quick and start working on that baby you guys have decided to produce.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The hugs for her two friends were fiercer and much longer. Brian waited patiently but Tommy’s forehead puckered into a worried frown when all three women teared up.
“I can’t believe our Italian adventure is over,” Callie sniffed. “We’ve dreamed about coming here for so long.”
“Ever since we watched Three Coins in the Fountain all those years ago,” Kate said gruffly.
“But we’ll be back.” Dawn gulped, tears flowing. “Someday.”
As worried now as his son, Brian shot Travis a quick glance. Kate’s husband merely rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry. They do this all the time. They’ll get it together in a moment.”
Sure enough, the tears stopped, the sniffles dried up and the smiles reemerged as Kate began planning an imminent reunion.
“It’s so awesome that Brian and Tommy live in Bethesda. Travis and I will be less than a half hour away. We can get together regularly. And Callie can come stay with us, too, until she lands a new job.”
“I don’t think so,” the brunette said with a flash of unexpected humor. “You two have that baby to work on. I don’t need to listen to the headboard banging—” she gave Tommy a quick glance and finished smoothly “—when you put the crib together.”
* * *
After another round of hugs, Brian finally ushered his two charges to the waiting limo. Moments later they were threading through Rome’s insane traffic on their way to Ciampino, the smaller of the city’s two airports.
The corporate jet was fueled and sitting on the ramp. The Gulfstream G600 with its twin Pratt & Whitney engines and long-range cruise speed of five hundred plus mph had been retrofitted by an avionics package specifically designed by EAS.
The sight of the sleek jet stirred familiar feelings of pride and a secret amazement in Brian. Hard to believe just twelve years ago he’d set up a small avionics engineering firm using his entire savings and a five-thousand dollar loan from his father-in-law. The first years hadn’t been easy. He was fresh out of the Corps with a new bride and more enthusiasm than business smarts.
Thank God for Caroline, he thought with an all-too-familiar ache. She’d provided long-range vision while he supplied the engineering muscle. Together, they’d grown Ellis Aeronautical Systems from the ground up. She hadn’t lived to experience the thrill when EAS hit the Fortune 500 list, though. She’d barely made it to their son’s first birthday.
Smothering the ache with a sheer effort of will, Brian greeted his chief pilot at the jet’s rear steps. “Thanks for the quick turnaround, Ed. Mrs. Wells made the flight back to the States okay?”
“She did,” the pilot confirmed. “So did the Italian medical team you hired to attend to her during the flight. They said to thank you for the extra week in California, by the way. After they got her settled, the first stop on their agenda was Disneyland, followed
