Come Fly With Me

by Addison Fox

  If she was honest with herself, she sort of hoped they did.

  And then slightly scary turned into completely diabolical as a deep male voice echoed—hale and hearty—through the hall. “Hello.”

  “Well, speak of the devil.” Mary dropped her mouth into an O of surprise. “Mick is here and he’s brought our supplies.”

  If the thought of a roomful of women staring on as she and Mick danced around each other was daunting, the image of more construction paper had Grier’s stomach bunching up in knots.

  “You mean there’s more?”

  “Why don’t you go relieve the delivery boy?”

  Grier shifted to avoid another one of Sloan’s razor-sharp elbow pokes. “And why don’t you mind your own business before I dig up some lefty scissors to really torture you with.”

  “Oh, come on, it’s sweet. The grandmothers are playing cupid.” Sloan pointed at their overflowing table. “It’s oddly festive.”

  “I hate you.”

  Sloan offered up a mock sigh before reaching for another piece of construction paper. “It’s a thin line between love and hate.”

  “Grier!” Mary waved her over. “You’re on heart duty. Could you give me a hand?”

  “You’re being summoned, Ms. Thompson.”

  “Screw the thin line. I well and truly hate you.” Grier stood to cross the room. The feeling wasn’t unlike being naked as each and every eye in the Montgomery Meeting and Recreation Center focused on her.

  So why was it the only eyes she could concentrate on were the vivid blue pair belonging to Mick O’Shaughnessy?

  Chapter Six

  “And would this be your idea of subtle, Grandma? Or simply crafty and opportunistic?”

  Although his grandmother’s eyes widened in mock innocence as her hands went up into a “who me?” pose, he wasn’t buying the act for one moment.

  Besides, she’d taught him that look when he was four.

  “Never admit guilt, Michael Patrick,” she admonished him as she caught him with his hands full of melted chocolate chips from where he’d swiped a few fresh cookies off her stove. “Make someone prove it.”

  Although his four-year-old’s reasoning skills hadn’t quite grasped the lesson, she’d exhibited the behavior enough times over the years for him to figure it out.

  “Grier, dear. Mick’s brought more supplies.”

  Grier never cracked a smile, but he didn’t miss the lighthearted tone as she sized up the load of supply boxes he carried. “Oh good. Now we can make twenty thousand hearts instead of just ten.”

  “You can never have enough, dear. However”—Mary reached over and patted her arm—“you’ve been toiling away for hours. You must be famished.”

  “I’m positively light-headed.”

  “Mick, get this woman to the diner. She needs sustenance immediately.”

  Whatever joke was afoot was lost on him as he took in Grier’s raised eyebrows, his grandmother’s hopeful expression and the avid gazes of a roomful of women. “Of course. I could use a burger myself. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

  “Perfect. It’s all settled, then.” Mary waved her arms. “Shoo now, before she passes out.”

  Mick’s head was still spinning three minutes later as he ushered a bundled-up Grier out the door of the community center.

  Mary watched the door to the meeting center slam closed with a satisfying thud. Although her money was on Mick, she couldn’t quite shake the empathy that swamped her every time she looked at Jonas Winston’s daughter.

  So much wasted time.

  “Nice job.” Sophie sidled up next to her. “The scissors were a nice touch.”

  “Just a bit of extra incentive to get her running for the door when the opportunity arose to leave.”

  Mary hesitated for the briefest of moments, the indecision as foreign to her as the sudden swath of fear that lit up her spine.

  “Am I doing the right thing?”

  “Of course you are. They’re crazy about each other.”

  “That girl has an awful lot of baggage. The hard kind that doesn’t go away with the flick of a wrist. Am I only adding more?”

  “But they care for each other. They just need to get out of their heads and in each other’s way a bit more.”

  Sophie’s cheery retort did nothing to assuage her concerns. “I know, but is it enough?”

  The cheery smile fell into open-mouthed shock. “You don’t believe that?”

  “I do believe love can be enough, but what if she can’t get past it? Her parents did a number on her and from what I can tell, whoever was in her life before she came here finished off the job. That girl’s nursing a world of hurt.”

  “And the solution is our Mick.”

  Mary wanted to think it was that easy, but decades of living forced her to acknowledge that very few things ever were. And her grandson nursed his heartaches, even if he had somehow figured out a way to control it and keep it hidden over the years.

  What she didn’t know was what Mick would do if he lost everything again.

  “Mind telling me what that was all about?”

  “Lesser of two evils,” Grier whispered as she glanced back over her shoulder at the brightly lit community center.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Your grandmother nearly crippled me tonight. I still can’t feel my right wrist.”

  He reached for her hand automatically, the gesture as natural as breathing. “What happened?”

  Satisfaction bloomed in his chest when her voice hitched, but she quickly righted herself. And left her hand in his. “Elementary school scissors that were issued when Eisenhower was president, for starters.”

  “So I’m less evil than school supplies?”

  Her light gasp floated from her in a quick puff he could see in the cold air. “I didn’t mean you. I meant it was far preferable to get out of there rather than being stared at by a roomful of people while forced to use small torture devices designed for five-year-old hands.”

  “I see.”

  “But the burgers are inspired.”

  “I know. I’ve seen you eat, remember?”

  Grier giggled at that and he marveled that the woman could be so unprickly about something most women would have hit him for.

  “Speaking of other things I know about you, I heard you spent the afternoon with Tasty doing his accounting.”

  She turned toward him, her tilted face sweetly framed by the ugliest gray beanie cap he’d ever laid eyes on. “And for my troubles, I got my second copy of this gorgeous piece of fashion.”

  “It’s a winner.”

  “It’s hideous.”

  Without thinking to censor himself, he leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. Or what passed for her forehead under the thick wool of the cap. “But you’re not.”

  “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Say sweet things that make you very hard to resist.”

  He squeezed the small hand that still sat firmly in his. “Why are you trying so hard to resist me?”

  “Why are you fighting me so hard on this?”

  “Because I’m interested in you, Grier. And I want to spend time with you and get to know you better.”

  “We passed that step by sleeping with each other.”

  Her answer caught him up short and he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, a few doors down from the diner. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “We crossed the line and made what’s between us more serious. And it can’t be that important.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve lost me.”

  “We jumped too fast. And now we’re trying to make it more than it is. It was a fling, Mick. A fun, incredible, crazy ride. But it can’t be more.”

  Images of that ride seared his memories. “Why can’t it? Sloan and Walker started off hot and heavy, and look at them now.”

  “But I’m not staying here like Sloan is.”

  “Yo
u could.”

  “My life is somewhere else.”

  “A life that, by all accounts, you’re not very interested in any longer.”

  Her eyes narrowed and Mick knew immediately he’d overstepped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You don’t have a job. I’ve figured that much out based on the fact you’ve been here for well over six weeks. No one is allowed that much time away. What happened?”

  “Nothing happened to me. I’m between jobs right now.”

  Mick had his suspicions it was something more but opted to let it go. “Fine. What about your family? You get into a pinch up here and you call a friend. What’s that about?”

  “Sloan’s been my best friend for well over a decade. We’re like family and we help each other out. That’s what friends do.”

  “Which is my point. The very person who might tether you to New York isn’t staying there any longer.”

  “I’m not just uprooting my life because you and I had a good time together.”

  The words had their intended effect as the painful truth of what she was telling him struck him like stinging needles. “I guess I thought we had something more between us. Clearly that was my mistake.”

  “And there we go again.”

  Again was right. Frustration rode Mick like a harsh tailwind, but unlike the laws of aerodynamics, he had no clue about what brewed and bubbled between them.

  The woman was stubborn, a trait he knew he matched in spades.

  But why did they keep coming back to this same impasse?

  “Why don’t I take a rain check on that burger?”

  He swallowed the urge to protest. “I’ll walk you back to the hotel.”

  Grier finished up the e-mail she’d promised Tasty the day before. A quick Internet search had turned up several links that would help him navigate some accounting basics. After one final read-through and an offer to come over and walk him through any questions he might have, she hit Send and sat back in her chair.

  The walls of her hotel room had been closing in all morning and the e-mail to Indigo’s most unique proprietor hadn’t taken nearly as long as she’d have liked.

  Of course, if she were fighting simple boredom, that would be one thing. But guilt layered underneath boredom was a recipe for oppressive thoughts that refused to quiet.

  She’d been unfair to Mick and she owed him an apology.

  The real question, to her mind, was how to make the apology without suggesting she was relenting on her point of view.

  Or better, her conscious taunted, how to get in and get out so he doesn’t have time to change your point of view.

  The man was persuasive when he set his mind to it.

  And no matter how many ways she tried to convince herself they didn’t have a future together, an increasingly large part of her wanted to believe there was a way.

  Mick allowed the heavy beat of Keith Richards’s guitar to wash over him as he tightened up the engine of his DeHavilland. The ritual of getting underneath the hood of his planes dated back to his high school days and nothing had ever worked better for helping him think through a problem and clear his head.

  And it had the added benefit of keeping his equipment in top working order.

  He and Jack had a light day and Jack had opted to take their runs while using it as the perfect opportunity to take Jess into Fairbanks for a day of shopping.

  Which was fine by him.

  Mick reached for one of the wrenches he had stored in his back pocket and began to tighten the bolts he’d loosened earlier, finding satisfying the simple act of fixing what he’d taken apart.

  Unlike the mystery of Grier.

  He knew she was in pain and he wasn’t trying to add to it.

  Despite his continued pushing, if she asked him to walk away, he would. He wasn’t one to stay where he wasn’t wanted and he certainly wouldn’t insist on spending time with a woman who wasn’t interested. But he knew that wasn’t it.

  And no matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t break through whatever it was that held her back.

  “You’re a man of many talents.”

  Mick looked down from the movable staircase he stood on to see the object of his thoughts staring up at him. Long, dark hair framed her delicate features and the bright, vivid gray of her eyes seemed to take up her whole face.

  “Hey.”

  “You not only fly the planes, but you can fix them, too.”

  “No use flying something if you don’t know how it works.”

  “That makes a surprising amount of sense.” Grier nodded. “I come bearing lunch from the diner. I thought you might be hungry, and I owe you a rain check on those burgers.”

  “You thought right.” Mick reached for the rag he’d thrown over the rim of the staircase and rubbed at the grease that stained his fingers. “How’d you get out here?”

  “Avery let me borrow her car.” She held up a bag and the scent of fresh-cooked burgers and hot fries wafted up toward him. “Where can I put this?”

  He pointed to the kitchenette nestled into the far side of the hangar. “Go ahead and put everything on that small table. There are Cokes in the fridge. I’ll be right down.”

  As she turned to cross the hangar, Mick took a moment to admire the view. Just like the night before, the thick coat did nothing to diminish his interest. And when she stopped behind the table to shrug out of her coat, he couldn’t help but admire the small curvy frame clad in jeans and a pale green cashmere sweater.

  How was it possible he went from competent and efficient to brain-dead just by looking at her? With a shake of his head, he turned back to the plane as he remembered he was mad at her.

  More than that, he was hurt.

  While the sight of her fired his blood, he wanted more than sex. And he thought of her as more than a good time.

  He finished tightening the last bolt so there’d be no mistake of missing it later and then dropped the wrench into the toolbox that had been his grandfather’s. The action was simple—and one he’d done more times in his life than he could count—but it held an odd sense of ceremony.

  Grier waited for him.

  He took the stairs and crossed to the sink to wash up. “So, what did I do to deserve lunch?”

  “You mean aside from the fact that I owe you a giant apology for the way I acted last night?” She eyed him sideways as she opened the bag. The warm smell of grease and potatoes made his stomach growl, reminding him he’d skipped breakfast.

  He reached for one of the Cokes and popped the tab, curious enough to say nothing and let her continue.

  Once lunch was spread out between them, she took her seat and reached for the other Coke. “I realize I’ve been giving you a series of signals at best mixed and at worst terribly misleading.”

  She held his gaze when she spoke and her back was arrow straight. Although he had very little interest—or need—for an apology, he had to give her points for style.

  Grier Thompson didn’t back down from a fight. And she was mature enough to take on the hard stuff with grace and a matter-of-fact approach that was rather charming.

  Curious, Mick took a sip of his soda, enjoying the cool slide of the sweet beverage as he fought the urge to smile. He knew she was being serious—and he knew he should take her comments that way—but damn if she didn’t look about as appetizing as a tray of chocolate chip cookies.

  He was even crazy about the small earnest line of worry that furrowed her brow.

  “You’re smiling.”

  “A little. But please, keep going.”

  “And not only do I owe you an apology, but I think it’s only fair that we lay out a set of ground rules. I’m going to be in Indigo for the next month or so until my father’s estate is wrapped up. Since I’ve come to think of you as a friend, there’s no reason we can’t hang out.”

  “Ground rules are good. And I’m glad to know you think of me as a friend.”

  “You’ve known Avery forever. And Sloan a
nd Walker are here, too. There’s no reason we all can’t hang out together. Do the sort of friend things people our age do.”

  He took another sip of soda. “The things people our age do?”

  “Sure. Dinners on Saturday evening. Nights out at the bar. Friend things.”

  “Hmmm. Those are nice.”

  “Exactly. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to go out and do those things. I don’t exactly want to be a hermit for the time I’m here.” As if satisfied she’d made her point, she reached for a fry.

  “You’re missing something fairly important.”

  “Bowling.” Grier snapped her fingers. “I missed bowling. That’s something else we can do.”

  Mick held back a bark of laughter as he reached for his burger. “That wasn’t exactly what I was thinking of.”

  “You don’t like bowling?”

  “I do like bowling. But I was thinking more along the lines of sex.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I don’t want to have sex with Avery or Sloan.” Mick couldn’t resist poking holes in her friendship theory. “And I sure as hell don’t want to have it with Walker, even if he does have a nice ass.”

  “You’re really not letting this go, are you?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Grier reached for a fry and dipped it in a small pool of ketchup. “What if I told you I wanted you to? Let this go.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I walk away.”

  Her eyes shot up from where she focused on that lone fry. “You will?”

  “Of course. I’d never force myself on a woman.”

  “You’re not forcing yourself.” She took a small bite. “Not in that way.”

  Whatever humor he’d felt faded. “Well, I won’t in any way.”

  “I know that.”

  “So, what do you say? Do I need to walk away? Because”—he leaned over the table—“just between us friends, I really don’t want to.”

  He watched the emotions flit across her face—frustration to desire to sadness—and wasn’t immune to any of it. But how did he break through her resistance and encourage her to explore what was between them?

  Of what could be between them.

  “Can we work on the friendship part and think about the rest? I’m a good friend. And I know how to do that part of my life really, really well. Just ask Sloan and Avery.”