Since then, Sophie had been forced to take over his air-charter operation, making almost daily flights between Tahiti and any one of the fourteen inhabited islands nearby. To make ends meet, they’d sold off four of the five planes to pay her father’s debts. With one small plane left and only one pilot-Sophie herself-they made just enough to get by.
Sophie had tried to convince her father to sell the last plane and move back to the States where he could get medical care and she could get a better-paying job, but Jack held out hope that his eyesight would suddenly return and he’d be back in business. “Are we going on a trip?”
“I’m mapping out a flight plan for you for tomorrow,” he murmured.
“I didn’t know I had a charter,” Sophie said, frowning. “Papa, tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Don’t you think we could take the day off, maybe do a little celebrating? The tree is up. I thought I might make a nice dinner and we could open our gifts and maybe even listen to some Christmas music.”
“This guy is willing to pay ten thousand American for three days’ worth of flying. I didn’t think it was a job you’d want to refuse.”
She gasped. “Ten thousand dollars? For three days’ work?”
Jack nodded, then handed her a slip of paper. “His name is Peter Shelton. He’s some bigwig for the Shelton Hotel chain. They’re looking for a new location to build some fancy-schmancy new resort and they want to buy a whole island, make it real exclusive. You need to meet him at eight tomorrow morning at Faaa. At the hangar.”
Sophie stared down at the name and phone number written on the scrap of paper. “Quelle chance,” she murmured. “Peter Shelton. Shelton Hotels.” He sounded like a pretty important guy. Anyone who worked on Christmas Eve and paid more than three thousand dollars a day for a charter had to be important. “Why would he choose us?”
“Probably because no one else would take the job on Christmas Eve,” Jack replied. “Here,” he said, pointing to the map. “Fly him up here to this little atoll. There’s a nice-size island with a decent lagoon.”