The Legacy (Off-Campus Book 5)

Day 1

Tucker started plying me with wine at the airport bar. In the air, he doesn’t let a flight attendant walk by without asking for another glass of champagne to shove in my hand. Not that I’m complaining. I admit leaving Jamie was more difficult than I imagined, but he’s right: she’s in good hands with Gail. And if anything goes wrong, it’s a short flight home. We’ll survive.

“I saw you staring at her shoes, Harold.”

“I swear to God, Marcia, I have never noticed a woman’s shoes.”

“Don’t patronize me. I know what you’re into, you pervert.”

The middle-aged couple in front of us in first class, however, might not last the flight.

“I’m Team Marcia,” Tucker leans in to whisper at my ear. “He’s up to some shady foot stuff.”

“No way. This is her kink, not his. She likes to start public fights with him to keep the spark alive.”

They’ve been at it since they sat down. Arguing about sugar packets and the in-flight entertainment system. Marcia scolding Harold for asking for a gin and tonic. Harold making loud, animated gagging sounds at her overwhelming perfume that he swears she bought just to aggravate his allergies and kill him.

I’m so glad Tuck and I don’t fight like that. Hell, we don’t fight at all, although my friends have differing opinions on that. Carin thinks it’s a good thing, that it means our relationship is a cut above the rest. Hope, meanwhile, insists it’s not normal for couples not to fight. But, really, what can I do about it? Tucker is the most chill man on the planet. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen him lose his temper.

“A big round booty,” Harold says proudly. A flight attendant’s head snaps up from making coffee in the galley to stare at him, alarmed. “That’s what I like and you know it. If I’m looking at another woman, it’s not her shoes, Marcia.”

“Are you saying my butt isn’t big enough for you? Are you calling me skinny?”

“Would you prefer I called you fat?”

She snarls like a feral cat. “You think I’m fat?”

Tuck leans closer again. “Women, amiright?”

I press my face against his shoulder to smother a laugh. I’m not sure I can survive four more hours of the Harold and Marcia show. Might need some more champagne.

As I glance toward the galley, hoping to catch the attendant’s eye, I catch a whiff of smoke. It sneaks up on me in the wake of the man in 3E lumbering down the aisle. I saw him chain-smoking at the curbside check-in when we dropped off our luggage, and either the guy has the runs or he’s sucking on a vape every five minutes in the lavatory.

“If we get turned around because of that guy, I’ll be pissed,” I mutter to Tucker.

“Don’t worry, I think the flight crew is on to him.” He nods toward the two attendants in the galley doorway, who are whispering to each other while pointedly looking at 3E.

When the male attendant notices us watching, he glides over and offers that plastic service-industry smile. “More champagne for the newlyweds?”

“Please,” I say gratefully.

“Coming right up.”

Just as he’s moving away, Harold’s beefy arm thrusts out to stop him. “Another gin and tonic, please.”

“Don’t you dare,” Marcia warns. “Peter and Trixie-Bell are picking us up when we land in St. Maarten.”

“So?”

“So you can’t be drunk the first time you meet our son’s fiancée!”

“She’s a damned stripper, Marcia. Her name is Trixie-Bell! With a hyphen! You think I care about impressing the exotic dancer our stupid idiot boy met two weeks ago at a Caribbean dance club and got it in his fool head to marry?”

It’s Tucker’s turn to bury his face against my shoulder, trembling with silent laughter. The poor flight attendant stands in the aisle like a deer frozen in a hunter’s sights, unsure what to do about the gin and tonic.

“Sir?” he prompts.

“Gin and tonic,” Harold says stubbornly.

Except his impassioned speech about their idiot son must’ve gotten to Marcia, because she raises a hand laden with gold costume jewelry and mutters, “Make that two, please.”

Wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, my husband looks over. “Wanna buddy watch a movie?” He gestures to our respective screens, open to the in-flight menu.

“Sure. Give me a sec, though. Just want to log in to the Wi-Fi and see if your mom messaged.”

I pull my phone out of the purse at my feet and follow the browser connection instructions. Once the Wi-Fi kicks in, my screen fills up with emails.

“Your inbox is blowing up,” Tucker teases.

I scroll through the notifications, but there’s nothing from Gail. “Yeah. HR at Billings, Bower, and Holt keeps sending stuff.” I scroll further. “Ugh. Fischer and Associates emailed too.”

“When do you have to give them an answer?”

“When we get back.”

“Are you leaning more one way or the other?”

“I don’t know,” I sigh.

“Would you stop fiddling with the screen!” Marcia is chastising her husband again.

“But the movie isn’t loading,” grumbles Harold. “I want to watch the Avengers, goddammit.”

“It won’t load if you keep pressing all the buttons!” She huffs. “Look what you’ve done. Now it’s frozen.”

“Why don’t you mind your damned business and focus on your own screen, woman.”

Luckily, our champagne arrives. I take a much-needed sip as I mull over the options for the thousandth time. After graduation, I got a job offer from the number two law firm in Boston. A dream job, as far as a foot in the door goes. It was a no-brainer that I’d take it, until I got a call from a small civil defense firm that now has me considering how my priorities have shifted the last few years.

“What’s the difference, practically speaking?” Tucker asks.

“The big firm is right in my wheelhouse. Criminal defense. Major corporate clients. It’s where the big money is,” I tell him. “The cases I’d be handling would definitely be challenging. Stimulating.”

He nods slowly. “Okay. And Fischer?”

“Primarily civil defense. Not sexy stuff, but it’s an old legacy firm. They’ve been in the city for like a hundred years or something. The pay is competitive, which probably means old-money clients.”

“Those options don’t suck.”

“If I take the first one, we’re talking eighty hours a week. Minimum. On call day and night. Fighting for a rung on the ladder with a hundred other junior associates.”

“Yeah, but you like throwing elbows,” Tucker reminds me with a crooked grin.

“If I took the second, I could be home more with you and Jamie.”

Throughout law school, I was convinced I wouldn’t be fulfilled unless I landed my dream gig. Fighting tough cases tooth and nail, battling in the trenches. Since graduation, though, being home all day with Jamie has changed my attitude. It’s got me worrying about the sustainability of balancing work and family long-term.

Tucker, as usual, offers himself up as my rock. My one-man support system. “Don’t worry about us,” he tells me, his voice roughening. “You’ve worked your whole life to get to this moment, darlin’. Don’t give up on your dream.”

I study his expression. “Are you sure you’d be okay if I took the job with more hours? Be honest.”

“I’m good no matter what you decide.”

I see nothing but sincerity on his face, but one can never truly know with Tucker. He’s not great at telling me when something’s bothering him, on the rare occasions he gets bothered.

He reaches for my hand, his callused fingertips sweeping over my knuckles. “I can pitch in and do more around the house. Jamie will be fine. Whatever you decide, we’ll make it work.”

Coming from a broken home in Southie and getting knocked up in college, I could have done a lot worse than to end up with Tucker. At even half capacity, he’d be a great guy, but this big, beautiful man goes and decides to be exceptional anyway.

I can’t wait to spend ten days on an island with him all to myself. Sometimes I really miss the early days of our relationship. Before our little monster arrived, and I spent every waking second either in class or bent over a textbook. When we used to have sex in his truck, or when he’d come over after I got off work, push me up against the wall and hike up my skirt. Those moments where nothing else mattered except the overwhelming need to touch each other. It’s still there, that need. Other stuff just gets in the way. Part of me isn’t sure I even remember how to be spontaneous.

Then Tucker drapes his hand over my knee, dragging his fingers back and forth, and I start eyeing that lighted restroom sign.

I must doze off at some point, because about halfway through the flight I’m jolted awake by some brief turbulence and the raised voices of Marcia and Harold.

“She’s knocked up, mark my words.”

“Harold! Peter said she wasn’t.”

“That boy is a pathological liar, Marcia.”

“Our son wouldn’t lie about this.”

“All right then, let’s bet on it. If Trixie-Bell doesn’t have a bun in the oven, I won’t touch a drop of alcohol at this farce of a wedding.”

“Ha! As if!”

“But if she is preggo…” He thinks it over. “I get to dump that entire vial of your god-awful perfume in the ocean.”

“But it cost three hundred dollars!”

I’m loving this wager. My mind is already trying to figure out how we could learn the outcome. Is there some registry of weddings in St. Maarten? Maybe we can take a private boat over from St. Barth’s and crash Peter and Trixie-Bell’s ceremony.

I glance over at Tucker to ask if he has any ideas, but he’s busy looking around, scanning the aircraft.

“Everything okay?” I ask uneasily.

“You smell that?”

“Oh. Yeah. It’s the chain-smoker in 3E.”

“I don’t think that’s cigarette smoke,” he says in a hushed voice, peering out the window.

A frown creases his brow. He’s sporting that look he used to get after five straight hours of watching aviation disaster documentaries on TV at four in the morning between Jamie’s feedings.

The same two flight attendants casually float up and down the aisle with their professional smiles, but now there’s a deliberateness to their movements that becomes disconcerting as I watch them. Almost imperceptibly, the plane begins a gradual descent.

“Are we descending?” I hiss at him.

“I think so.”

And the odor of smoke is worsening. I swear there’s a slight haze to the air, and I’m not the only one to notice. A murmur ripples through the first-class cabin.

“Harold, honey, do you smell that?” I hear a panicky Marcia blurt out.

“Yeah, sweetheart. I do.”

Oh no. If the smoke is bad enough to bring terms of endearment out of those two, then things are grim.

My stomach twists as the plane continues to shed its altitude. “Tuck,” I fret.

He plasters his face to the window again, then reaches for my hand. “I see runway lights,” he says as reassurance that we aren’t about to crash in the middle of field or something.

“Folks, this is your captain speaking,” a monotone voice says over the intercom. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, we are indeed descending. Air traffic control has given us clearance to land at Jacksonville International Airport. We’ve rerouted and will be making an emergency landing shortly due to a mechanical malfunction. Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts. Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin for landing.”

The PA switches off.

I grip Tucker’s hand and try to tamp down my rising panic. “This is really happening.”

“We’re fine. No big deal. Pilots make emergency landings all the time.” I’m not sure if Tucker says that for my benefit or his.

The crew carry on about their business with the same artificial smiles, politely gathering up trash and shooing stragglers to put up their tray tables. These sociopaths are determined to keep up the charade even if we splatter into flames and twisted metal.

In front of us, Marcia and Harold embrace each other, their prior ails forgotten as they profess their love.

“I love you, Harold. I’m sorry I called you a pervert.”

“Oh, sweetheart, never apologize to me ever again about anything.”

“Is it too late to change the beneficiary of our will? What if we wrote something down on this napkin? I don’t want that Trixie-Bell inheriting our vacation condo in Galveston!”

I turn to Tuck in horror. “Oh my God. We don’t have a will.”

Our pilot’s voice crackles on the intercom again. “Passengers and crew, please get in brace position.”

Tucker puts his hand over mine as we both grip our armrests and brace for impact.