TheBillionairesPilot by Suzanne Graham Page A

stuttered at the sight of
her aunt’s phone number. Cassie only spoke to her a few times a year for
holidays and birthdays. Her aunt would never call unless something had happened
to Cassie’s dad.
    Pushing back her chair, she excused
herself. “I’m sorry. I need to take this.” She walked to the edge of the patio,
overlooking the sandy beach. The waves rolling in mimicked the waves of panic
in her chest as she fumbled to swipe her finger across the screen.
    “Hello?”
    “Hi, Cassie. It’s Aunt Marge.” Forty-plus
years of smoking gave her voice a permanent hoarseness. “I’m at Bay Area with
your dad.”
    Cassie’s palms started sweating at the
mention of the heart hospital, and she nearly lost her grip on the phone. “Is
he okay?”
    “Yes, the doctor says he’ll be fine. He
came into the emergency room because he had some heart palpitations.” Aunt
Marge’s tone sounded reassuring, but the words gave Cassie chills. She couldn’t
stand the thought of her father’s health failing.
    “Oh, God, no.” She did some figuring of
flight times in her head. “I can get there by tonight.”
    “No, honey. He just needs to get some rest
and take a new medication,” Aunt Marge insisted. “Really, the doctor said he’d
be fine. They’re sending him home this afternoon.”
    Cassie heard her father’s deep voice
grumbling in the background.
    “Because I knew you wouldn’t call her,
Joe,” Aunt Marge addressed Cassie’s father. Then she spoke in the phone again.
“I just called you to update you on his situation. You really don’t need to
come to Texas.”
    The threat of losing her father swamped
Cassie with a longing to see him, to wrap her arms around him and hold on
tight. It was stronger than any rational thoughts or her aunt’s reassuring
words.
    “Please, tell him I’m coming.”
    * * * *
    From his seat at the breakfast table,
Evan kept an eye on Cassie while keeping an ear open as Xavier talked about the
highlights of his sailing yacht.
    Evan could only see Cassie’s profile, but
it was enough for him to tell her face had grown alarmingly pale as her eyes
widened. Then she turned her back completely to the breakfast table and tried
to covertly wipe a tear from her cheek.
    His chair screeched along the stone patio
as he stood. “Excuse me for a moment. I think my fiancée may be getting some
distressing news.”
    Xavier and his wife’s sympathetic noises
followed Evan as he tried not to rush too fast to Cassie’s side. He struggled
between wanting to give her privacy and his need to hold her, to ease her hurt.
    By the time he reached her side, she’d
disconnected the call, but she kept her back to the table and their hosts.
    “Cassie?” he asked softly, putting a hand
on her shoulder.
    She wiped another tear from her cheek,
and the last of his lingering anger from the previous night’s debacle dissolved
at the sight of her pain.
    He squeezed her shoulder gently. “What’s
wrong?”
    She sniffed quietly, and he gave her the
handkerchief from his pants pocket. She stared at it strangely for a moment
before wiping her nose. “Thanks.”
    “Who was on the phone?” He decided on the
direct route.
    She turned her blue eyes up to him. “My
aunt. My dad’s in the hospital.”
    “Is he okay?” He thought about how close
she said she’d been to her dad. Hearing he was in the hospital had to be rough
for her.
    She nodded. “Aunt Marge said he would be,
but I’d like to see for myself.”
    “No problem. We’ll stop on our way back
to New York.” He reached into his pocket for his cell phone to give the
airplane pilot directions to file a new flight plan.
    “We’ll stop in Texas?” Shaking her head,
she placed her hand over his phone. “No, that’s more than a little out of the
way. I’ll just take a commercial flight, and you can go directly to New York. I
promise I’ll be back to work by Tues—”
    “No,” he cut her off, and she flinched,
making his gut twist. He hadn’t