by Addison Fox
Sloan’s gasp only made the high five Grier shared with her doorman, Bart, that much sweeter as he followed them both out onto the sidewalk.
Bart helped Walker deal with the luggage and within moments they were headed for the airport.
“Your mom didn’t come down. Is everything all right?”
The complete absence of any attempt to couch her question in a casual offering was appreciated and Grier led with a small sigh. “We said our good-byes this morning. She’s been seeing someone and he invited her up to Vermont for a few days of skiing.”
“How charming.”
“Sloan.” Walker nudged her knee.
“Don’t worry about it, Walker.” Grier waved a hand. “Sloan’s tone always smacks of judgment and derision when she talks about my mother. And since she’s the only person I know who will actually be honest about it, I can’t quite fault her for it.”
“It’s not judgment and derision,” Sloan said, jumping in. “It’s just annoyed puzzlement. And it’s not like my mother’s a giant picnic, either. I just think Patty-cakes could be a wee bit more sympathetic to your plight at the moment.”
Grier didn’t miss Walker’s narrowed eyes, but he kept his mouth firmly shut. “But if she were sympathetic, it would mean acknowledging she had sex with an Alaskan pipeline worker and I was the result.”
“Has she even talked about it?”
“Nope.” Grier played with the small fringe on the border of her sweater. “You’d think I was immaculately conceived.”
“So for the last eight days you’ve gotten nothing out of her?”
“She’s locked up tighter than a drum and that’s after several sessions of beating around the bush and two very pointed requests for information.”
Since she’d been tired of talking about her mother for the majority of her adult life, Grier leaped on the topic that would most assuredly switch the tone of the conversation.
“Did you set the date?”
Sloan’s adoring glance toward Walker gave away the answer before either of them spoke. “We ultimately settled on two dates. There’s no way half of Scarsdale’s headed to Alaska for a wedding. Besides, I like the residents of Indigo far too much to ask them to house the equivalent of rich aliens for a week. So we’re doing it here. Labor Day weekend.”
“What no one here knows, however”—Walker leaned forward on a conspiratorial whisper—“is that the real ceremony will take place in Indigo over the Fourth of July.”
“Your mother knows this?”
“Hell no.” Sloan flopped back against the seat in mock horror. “She thinks she and my father are coming up for Walker’s annual family reunion.”
“I like it. Sneaky yet full of sweet and romantic overtones.”
“Walker and I get the wedding we want and my mother gets the wedding she wants.”
“It’s terrifyingly brilliant.” Grier smiled as Walker wrapped his arm around her friend and pressed a light kiss to her temple.
The confines of the car suddenly felt a bit too small and Grier found herself staring out the window as the driver took them across the bridge toward Queens. Her mind drifted to Mick—a situation that happened all too often—and she wondered what it would be like to see him again.
They’d barely spoken since early December, both keeping their distance since the night he caught her outside her father’s house, attempting to break in.
Unbidden, her thoughts filled with the powerful sensations she had felt that night. The feel of his large body boxing her in against the door and the understanding embedded deep in those clear blue eyes of his.
Her father’s house was off-limits to both her and her half sister, Kate, until their joined inheritance was sorted out, but she’d thought to sneak in a private moment and look around. Even without her saying anything, Mick had understood.
He’d also stopped her from actually breaking and entering, but he hadn’t been able to stop the frustrated tears that had her running from her father’s house.
And from Mick.
In the ensuing weeks, they’d seen each other at a town hall meeting as well as at Walker’s grandmother’s holiday tree trimming, and Grier had thought maybe they could put what had happened behind them and move on. Just because they’d seen each other naked one night didn’t mean they couldn’t be cordial and pleasant to each other.
And then he’d gone and sent that text on New Year’s Eve and all her plans for easygoing and casual flew out the window.
Because no matter what she said and no matter how hard she tried to tell herself a relationship with Mick O’Shaughnessy was a bad idea, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from rereading that text message several times a day.
And she also hadn’t been quite able to dismiss the thought that a relationship with Mick O’Shaughnessy was a very, very good idea.
Mick walked through his preflight routine, checking things off on his clipboard and making notes. He saw the slightest beginnings of wear on a few parts and wanted to get them ordered and installed before slight wear became a big problem in the middle of winter. And he also scratched a reminder to put the fuel order in since Jack never managed to remember that one.
As if he’d conjured him up, Jack’s large frame came into view as he rounded the side of the plane. “You put the fuel order in?” Mick asked.
A few shades of pink crept through Jack’s five o’clock shadow. “No.”
Mick waved his clipboard. “That’s why I just made a note of it. I swear, you have our taxes in a fucking month early, but you can’t remember that we actually need fuel to fly the planes.”
“Yeah, well, Uncle Sam won’t take too kindly to our ferrying passengers if we don’t pay our taxes, so I suppose that makes us even.”
Mick couldn’t hold back the good-natured smile. “So long as you remember there’s nothing to tax if we can’t get the plane off the ground.”
“I suppose that’s why we’re a good team.”
“That we are. The best.” Mick crossed the hangar toward a desk he kept in the corner and bent down toward the small fridge next to it. “You want anything?”
“Coke.”
Mick grabbed two and crossed toward an old sofa that had seen about twenty Alaska winters and dropped down on a worn cushion. “I’ve got about a half hour until I need to leave, and you look like you’ve got something on your mind.”
Mick had known the man for a long time. Jack had about eight years on him, but from the first summer Mick had worked for him in high school, they’d been like brothers. He’d seen Jack through his marriage to Molly, standing up for him in the ceremony. They’d built a business together, and Mick had been there when Jack’s world came crumbling down with Molly’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent losing battle with the disease.
And now he had had the great good fortune of seeing his friend smile again since he started officially seeing Jessica McFarland.
“You’re a crafty bastard, O’Shaughnessy. You don’t miss a thing.”
Mick took a long drag on his Coke. “So, what’s up?”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I’ve talked to Jess about it a bit.”
Mick simply waited and took another sip.
“And I’d like to spend more time with her. I was so busy building the business when Molly and I were first starting out that I missed out on a lot. And I don’t want that to happen again, you know?”
Mick did know. He also knew that Jack had tirelessly taken on a substantial workload to expand their clientele, followed by an even more grueling one to buffer the loneliness after his wife died.
The man deserved a break. And it was time to start thinking about ways to expand their business that didn’t take the two of them killing themselves.
“Funny you should mention it since I’ve been thinking similar things.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Are you telling me you’re never getting into a plane again?”
“Hell no.” Mick almost
laughed at the affronted look on his friend’s face, but he also knew that shadow of horror in Jack’s clenched jaw was the proof he needed that all would be well.
Once a pilot, always a pilot.
The love of flying got to a man—it gripped the gut like a living thing and refused to let go. He’d had it his whole life, so he knew the symptoms.
“All I’m saying is I’d like to slow down a bit. Maybe bring in another pilot or two. Or one pilot and someone to handle the books.”
“Seriously, lover boy, you’re preaching to the choir. I’m sick of being the one ordering fuel.” Mick pointed to the clipboard he’d laid on the counter when he’d gotten the Cokes earlier. “And I’d love nothing more than to make a list of what I need and have an office manager who ordered them instead of making the calls myself.”
Jack took the ribbing in stride. “I’m not the only one around here who’s got a woman on the brain. It’s not a very large secret that you’re leaving in a few minutes to pick up Grier.”
Mick shrugged. Although he knew as well as the next person small towns thrived on gossip, the endless chatter had grown abrasive over the holidays. “Walker and Sloan are on the plane, too.”
“A minor detail no one’s interested in.”
“Funny how quickly the town’s favorite son is old news.”
Jack stood and pulled out a large pair of heavy work gloves. “You’re a favorite son, too, Mick. It’s amazing how often you choose to ignore that fact.”
Mick didn’t move until he heard the hangar door slam shut on a gust of wind. Only then did he stand and cross to the recycle bin and drop his empty can.
Getting all riled up about the fuel that kept Indigo running through the winter—and spring, summer and fall, for that matter—was useless. If his neighbors wanted to gossip about his interest in Grier, he couldn’t stop them. Besides, he had far bigger things on his mind.
Like the woman who waited for him at the end of his next flight.
Grier stared out her window at the bright lights of Anchorage as the plane did a hard bank to the right. After miles of darkness, the lights were a welcoming beacon.
She was home.
Or at least what passed for home for another month. Six weeks, tops.
That had been Walker’s latest estimate of how much longer it would take to clear up Jonas Winston’s last will and testament.
Walker had been kind enough to give her an out the week before, suggesting she could stay in New York and allow him to handle the majority of the proceedings, with her presence necessary only once everything was finalized, but she had refused.
It was bad enough her half sister, Kate, had been the recipient of their father’s love and affection for the first twenty-six years of her life. She’d be damned if she’d let the woman have easy access to Jonas’s things while Grier sat four thousand miles away waiting for news.
The funny thing was, she acknowledged to herself as she reached beneath her seat for her tote, it wasn’t even Jonas’s possessions she really cared about. She had a home; she certainly didn’t need his.
What she did need were answers.
And some small piece of him she could keep.
Sloan smiled a groggy half grin from across the aisle. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Walker helped her collect her suitcase from the overhead and, as if time were on fast-forward, before she could blink she was filing out of the plane’s side door.
The jet bridge was a short walk, but her gaze caught on one of the many tourism posters framed along the corrugated walls: INDIGO TRAVEL AND TRANSPORT.
Mick’s company.
As if to simply reinforce the connection, the photo showed Mick and his partner, Jack, bookending the front propeller of one of their planes, broad smiles on their faces. Each sported shoulders like a football player, but where Jack had the heavier build of a grizzly bear, Mick was lean and rangy.
Not for the first time, Grier tried to grasp exactly what it was that made the men up here quite so appealing. It had struck her from the first moments she entered the small town of Indigo, Alaska. She’d assumed the men of Alaska would be hale and hearty. She hadn’t counted on their being quite so lovable.
A couple of women behind her giggled and Grier tuned in to their conversation, pulling her attention from the poster as she continued moving down the jet bridge.
“Rachel said the men up here were good-looking.”
“She didn’t say they looked like Greek gods.” Another giggle floated up. “I think we need to kick off our visit by supporting the local economy.”
“Indigo Travel and Transport,” her friend replied, and Grier didn’t miss the light slap of a high five.
Sloan turned from where she walked a few paces ahead and reached for her hand.
“Come on,” she whispered on a tight squeeze. “It’ll be fine.”
Grier took comfort in the support her friend always seemed to share with such simple, effortless ease.
And then the jet bridge ended and Grier suddenly realized she had a far bigger problem than misplaced jealousy over giggling singletons.
Mick O’Shaughnessy was waiting for her.
Mick fought the wave of nerves that dive-bombed his stomach as he waited for Grier to come out of the door to gate seven. He’d played the conversation in his head about fifty different ways since walking into the airport an hour ago and hadn’t settled on anything.
“Hi.” Yeah, a real smooth opener.
“Good to see you.” What was he, a talk show host?
“Happy New Year.” Only if he were Dick Fucking Clark.
And then there were no words, save one, as Grier walked through the door with Sloan and Walker.
Wow.
Mick lifted his hand in a wave to catch her attention and the rest of the airport faded away.
How had this happened?
He loved women. He loved their perspective and the way their take on the world around them was just…different from his. And unlike a lot of men he knew, he loved their company in bed or out.
But Grier Thompson was different.
She was…so much more, somehow. More interesting. More enticing. More compelling than anyone he’d ever met.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” He leaned down before he could stop himself and pressed a quick kiss on her cheek. The light scent of her filled his nose and the nerves flooding his stomach shifted into something a great deal more interesting.
Need. Desire. And hunger.
Walker slapped him on the shoulder and reached for his hand, the moment shattered in the wake of his friend’s exuberance. Mick didn’t miss the frustration that crossed Sloan’s gorgeous cheekbones, and it was that slight acknowledgment that had him smiling and slapping Walker on the back as they embraced.
Damn, but he’d missed his friend—even if he was about as subtle as a freight train.
He reached for Sloan next, not surprised to hear the lightly whispered “sorry” as she hugged him.
“Good flight?”
A round of murmured “yes’s” and they were off.
Mick reached for the handle of Grier’s suitcase and pointed toward the herd of people heading down the corridor. “Baggage claim’s that way.”
“This is all I have.”
Mick glanced down at the small roll-aboard in his grip and the large bag that sat on top of it. “But you were gone more than a week.”
“I packed light.”
“Oh.”
The first smile he’d seen lit up her face. “You were expecting six pieces of matched Louis Vuitton?”
He couldn’t hold back the grin, the last vestiges of nervous energy fading in the bright light of her smile. “Maybe only four.”
Grier’s smile brightened even further as something suspiciously like mischief alighted in the depths of her gray gaze. “Ask Sloan how many bags she brought.”
Mick had spent far too many years with Walker and their other best
friend, Roman, to ask a question so deliberately posed. With a broad smile for Sloan, he pointed in the direction of the claim area.
“I’m sure every piece is full of well-needed items.”
“Ass kisser,” Grier muttered as Sloan gifted him with a broad smile.
“Nope.” Feeling lighter than he had in days, he draped a casual arm around Grier’s shoulders and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I’m just very, very smart.”
Chapter Two
Grier tamped down on the rush of joy that assaulted her in waves from the base of her neck straight down her spine the moment Mick wrapped his arm around her. Although he had dropped his arm when they’d arrived in the baggage area, she could still feel the heavy weight of where his body had rested against hers. She could still smell his delicious scent—a mix of leather and fresh air that had her body reacting in needy hunger.
“That’s quite a welcome,” Sloan whispered as the men moved off to grab her bags. “And I’m suddenly quite pleased I packed half my apartment since it gives us a few extra minutes to talk.”
“Oh please.” Grier waved a hand. “That’s not even half your closet.”
“Shhh—that’s our secret.”
“And now you’re just a liar as I know damn well Walker has actually seen your apartment.”
“The apartment, yes. I won’t let him within ten feet of my closet. And you’re stalling.”
“And you’re making too much of this. Whatever else Mick O’Shaughnessy is to me, he is my friend.”
“That man had his arm wrapped around you in a rather possessive grasp. It was way more than friendly. And those women from the plane who ogled his photo on the jet bridge”—Sloan pointed at them standing at the far side of the claim area—“haven’t stopped giving you the evil eye. Even they can see there’s something between you.”
“He’s a toucher.”
“Not to me.”
“Walker would beat him senseless.”
“Grier, you know what I mean.”
“I’m actually trying to ignore what you mean.”
Sloan moved so Grier was forced to look at her and not the slow-moving baggage belt. “Why are you being so stubborn about this?”
