Free Holiday Affair by Lisa Plumley Page A

long, Reid knew, she’d probably start napping.
    Although Alexis was the one with a real knack for sleeping under the most inhospitable circumstances. She’d once napped her way through an arduous Jeep ride across the plains of Siberia. Their driver, Sergei, had joked that Alexis had the constitution of a Kamchatka brown bear—wanting “only to hibernate, eat, and hibernate some more!” If it hadn’t been for—
    Abruptly yanked from his reminiscences, Reid realized why things didn’t seem quite right. Alexis was nowhere in sight.
     
    With the dull hum of the airplane’s engine filling her ears, Karina squinted at the laptop she’d propped on her tray table. It was pretty easy to read the screen, even with the glare from the window hitting it. That was because the passenger directly in front of her had reclined his seat at the first opportunity, putting Karina’s tray table about a quarter inch from her lap. At this point, that thin plastic wedge was performing triple duty as a laptop holder, beverage tray, and inadvertent Pilates-style isometric exercise device.
    She’d considered asking the man to put his seat upright again. But then the snoring had kicked in, and Karina had decided it wouldn’t hurt her to tone her abs a little. Doing just that, she held her breath and sucked in her belly, the better to operate the laptop’s minuscule touch pad. That was better. She could feel herself getting a six-pack already!
    Besides, the man in front of her must be exhausted, she told herself. She should let him sleep. That’s what she would have wanted her fellow passengers to do for her, if she’d been able to snooze during the cross-country flight.
    As it was, Karina had divided her time between all three of her children, making sure they each had pillows, snacks, entertainment, and as few squabbles as possible. Even with all that effort, she could still feel the flight attendant’s censorious gaze sneaking in her direction, as if it were only a matter of time before the Problem Children in Row Seventeen started raising a ruckus.
    That was a look Karina was all too familiar with: wary, hypercritical, and (potentially) beleaguered—as though she were somehow being unreasonable by traveling with people who couldn’t vote or pay taxes…or order eight-dollar mini-bottles of merlot (gratuity not included). She felt the effects of that look strongly, especially now that she was solely responsible for Olivia’s, Michael’s, and Josh’s behavior most of the time.
    She’d done a good job handling things, though. At least she thought she had. Mostly. Hoping to confirm that fact, Karina glanced up from Stephanie’s official, top-secret Edgware checklists on her laptop, examining her children instead.
    Michael slumped beside her in the window seat, his stubby legs barely bent at the knee in his adult-size seat. Just as he’d done during the first two hours of their flight, he stared at the clouds with rapt attention, captivated by that bird’s-eye view of the world. From the moment they’d boarded, Michael had peppered her with questions. How did the plane stay up in the air? Why couldn’t he play with his Game Boy? How far was it to Michigan? How could it be two different times in two different places when they were the same people going from here to there?
    Karina had to admit, he’d almost stumped her with that last question. It was a mind bender. But that was typical of her youngest son. Michael had always been intensely curious. Except about her and Eric’s divorce, it occurred to Karina. He’d asked her only one question about that: Is Daddy coming back home?
    No, she’d been forced to answer. Daddy’s going to live at his condo now. But you’ll see him all the time! He loves you lots!
    Michael’s solemn-eyed acceptance of her answer still haunted Karina sometimes. Especially late at night, when she couldn’t sleep. Which was much of the time, actually.
    She hoped she’d handled things correctly with