“Come pick up URLs?”
“Aye.” Duff gave him directions. “Oh. And bring a pizza.”
“A pizza?” Innes sounded like he wasn’t sure what it was.
“Aye. I like the round sort of pepper sausage thin’s. Whatever you want will be fine.”
“All right, Duff.” Innes bore the indulgent tone of a man set on a visit with a friend committed to an institution.
Duff closed the phone. He’d been staring at the monitor with the Tecnam P2006T specs on it while he was talking to Innes. Once he knew where he and Song were going, it hadn’t taken long to reason out that their best chance was to be gone before anyone knew it. With a face as readily recognizable as his, that made leaving the country a problem by air, sea, or rail. Unless he could get away by private plane.
If he showed up at a large airport terminal, paparazzi would be everywhere. If he chartered a private jet, it would hit the entertainment news and speculation about use of the phrase “playboy” was bound to arise and draw attention. However, if he showed up at a small hangar to try out the new twin engine plane of a friend, he could drive right onto the tarmac and might even sneak into the cockpit without being noticed.
Duff had gotten his pilot’s license when he was fourteen. He loved flying and, in another life, might have found a way to make a living at doing that instead of being a professional manikin, available for photo shoots with sports teams, or the token royal entertaining officials at lunches.
The plane he was staring at was perfect in every way. It was a gorgeous twin engine, high wing, retractable gear beauty with Garmin glass instrumentation. Stable. Responsive. Sleek. Lightweight. Fast. It only needed a thousand feet of runway or, in a pinch, a stretch of smooth fairway.
The view of the interior with its modern molding and classic instruments was romantic. He could so easily picture eloping in that plane. He envisioned the beautiful elf with the bright blue eyes and the luscious smile sitting just inches away, looking breathless about an unknown future, but so happy that they were facing it together just inches apart.
He pulled his attention back to the task at hand. When lovers are fleeing, they need an exact destination. Canada is far too general. Second, they need a flight plan. He decided to work on finding a place to live first.
It took longer than he thought - all night, in fact, but when it was done, he had something to give Peyton. Three choices, but the second and third were far below number one. He had his heart set on the first and hoped it didn’t turn out to be an old, cached, expired listing. With luck it would turn out to be already vacated or arrangements could be made to prepare for new owners immediately.
He’d started out looking just on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, but some urge kept driving him further west until he’d gone almost to the other side of the world. That’s when he found it, the very thing that made his heart sing. There was a picture of the Canadian Rockies and the river that meandered in front of what he hoped would be his future home.
A hundred and seventy-four acres of timberland on the Fraser River near McBride, BC, bordering on park land, about one hundred fifty miles from Prince George to the west and one hundred fifty miles from Jasper to the east. One thing was for sure. No one would be doing a casual drive by to say hello.
The description said the year round off-grid home was solar/wind powered with a diesel generator as backup. The main wood stove was located downstairs, with the kitchen cook stove upstairs, which also heated water, so there would be a continuous supply of hot and cold running water.
It also went into great detail about the attached greenhouse that allowed early gardening. “Eat salads before the snow is off the ground,” it said. As for outdoor gardening, it described separate gardens of established strawberries, asparagus, and assorted other berries as well as an herb garden, large vegetable garden complete with removable hoop houses for earlier planting, and an apple orchard.
Among the wildlife mentioned were moose, elk, deer, bear, wolves, coyotes, and migratory birds.
He hadn’t known it was possible to want something so badly it made your teeth hurt. Other than Song, of course. He’d never had a chance to ask how she might feel about any of it, but he knew how she felt about living apart. He wondered what she would think about growing strawberries. He wondered if she even liked strawberries. He looked at his watch. It was the wee hours. He wished he could just pick up the phone, call and ask if she liked strawberries. As for himself, he liked them fine, but wasn’t sure if they grew on a tree or bush or vine.
He got a few hours’ sleep, and woke just in time to go greet Innes. He didn’t have time to shave and knew he looked unkempt. He hadn’t had proper dinner, hadn’t had any breakfast, but he felt great.
He pulled up his hoodie, ran down the two flights of back stairs and burst in on the tour guides right at noon. They stopped eating, stopped talking, rose from their seats quickly and stared, but didn’t look nearly as surprised as they had the day before.
He could see that they were waiting for some bit of courteous pleasantry. He mulled over what that might be and, at length, settled on, “Good afternoon.”
Collectively they nodded and murmured, “Good afternoon,” like an en masse responsive reading.
“Please do no’ let me interrupt again. I’m just meetin’ a friend.” He smiled. “For a pizza.” He shrugged. “But no worries. I brought money.” He waved some bills.
They neither moved nor said anything in return, but did look at each other. Again, there was a knock on the door as if on cue. The same young elf rose to open it. It was raining even harder than the day before.
Innes was standing there in an elegant black waxed coat with water pouring off him as the shallow portico couldn’t protect him from windblown rain. He was holding a cardboard pizza box with a bit of plastic over it as haphazard protection and looked as pitiful as a stray dog.
“Come in, man,” Duff said as he motioned him forward. Innes stepped inside and nodded to the little assembly. “These are some of our finest tour guides. ‘Tis little doubt that each of them knows infinitely more about my family tree than do I. I’m afraid I’ve interrupted their noon meal two days in a row now.”
They all rushed to say, “No. No’ at all, your Highness. ‘Twas a pleasure.”
“This is my friend and solicitor, Mr. Innes. If you’ll excuse us, we’ll just…” Looking at Innes, Duff stopped. “Perhaps you’d like to leave your wrapper here? The gang will look after it for ye.”
He looked up at the guides for confirmation. They all rushed to assure Mr. Innes that his coat would be safe with them. So Duff took the pizza and ran off leaving his solicitor to struggle out of his coat and give chase like they were boys.
By the time they reached Duff’s suites, Innes was so red faced and heaving Duff was concerned he may have done the man injury.