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“The hell I didn’t.” The air force might have been his life for the past twelve years, but when it came down to the AF and Dad, there had been no real choice.
The fact that it had taken him too long to make the choice? No use revisiting that scenario now. It had been tough to think anything could be strong enough to knock his old man down, but he’d been wrong about that. Should have separated earlier, when he’d first heard of the diagnosis. It seemed to be the first in a long line of mistakes he’d made lately.
Back then, Stone thought he’d have time with Dad. Time to say a long goodbye, fly their Cessnas in tandem a few times and maybe take a couple of fishing trips. But colon cancer had a way of sneaking up on a man. Four months. It was all the time they’d had, and Dad spent most of it telling Stone about his last wishes.
“I know this isn’t what you planned to do with your life. But stay long enough to sell the school so Cassie and Jedd can keep their jobs. Don’t listen to Cassie. She loves the place.”
She could have fooled Stone. “Don’t worry. It’s all taken care of.”
“When I die, Sarah will get my letter and half of everything. Be nice to her. I didn’t want her to know about the cancer. What would be the point? I sure don’t want her to see me like this.”
In the end, it had been a quiet death, not at all like all the other deaths he’d witnessed. There were no screams, no blood and no raging hot anger. No one fought death harder than a young airman. But Dad had been ready. The hospice nurse had nudged Stone out of a light sleep, and he’d been by Dad’s bedside to hear him take his last breath.
A few days later, Sarah had been notified, and the proverbial shit hit the fan.
Both the house and school would be sold and the proceeds split down the middle. He had a buyer lined up for the school, someone who loved planes and planned to keep everything the same. The way it should be. The way Dad wanted it.
Unless Sarah had her way.
He stuck his key in the front door, turned it and slipped inside. He wasn’t fooled by the silence for a second as he slipped into warfare mode. Granted, he hadn’t done any hand-to-hand combat in the air force. A good thing he’d been trained, though.
Stone flipped on the light switch in the family room. Winston, Dad’s ninety-pound golden retriever mix, flew around the corner and jumped on Stone. If licking could kill, he’d be a dead man walking.
Standing on his hind legs the beast nearly reached Stone’s height of six feet. But Stone had a knee, and he put it to good use by nudging Winston’s middle. “Off!”
Winston jumped down, his brown eyes wounded. It would take a lot more than a knee in the chest to hurt the monster, and he wasn’t fooling Stone.
“Don’t give me that look. I swear I’ll find you a new owner if you don’t stop jumping on me. The licking is bad enough. This is not going well.”
Within seconds, Winston had followed Stone into the kitchen, his food bowl in his jowls. Whoever said dogs weren’t smart had never owned a Winston.
“Yeah, yeah.” Stone fed him and watched Winston go to town. “With manners like that, you’ll never get a girl.”
Unfortunately, that made him picture the way Emily had moved in his arms and the curves she had in all the right places. It was possible that if he stepped back into that country music–infested den, he might see her again. Why that mattered he didn’t know, but if he didn’t get his mind off her, he might wind up making another trip to the Silver Whip, or the Silver Saddle, or whatever the hell they called it.
Stone stripped in his bedroom, took a shower, toweled off and didn’t bother with the boxers. Instead, he plopped on the California king, rolled into the covers and let sleep take him away.
* * *
DAMN, THIS GIRL can kiss. Emily straddled him and kissed him long and deep. She moaned, which ripped out a groan from him as his hands lifted the skirt of her dress, searching for heaven and finding nothing but silk. Soft. Smooth. Curves. Skin. Yeah.
Suddenly, she licked his face. This is strange, but if she’s into it, I’ll learn to like it.
The bark was what finally woke him. Winston on his bed. Again. The beast’s paws on Stone’s chest as he lapped at his face.
“Off!” Stone growled and opened one eye against the ray of light breaking through the window blinds. He pushed Winston off, rubbed his aching jaw and glanced at the clock. Crap, eight already. Time to get up.
He’d have to cut his workout short this morning. Usually he ran five miles before work and hit the punching bag in the garage for an hour. Couldn’t afford to get too soft. He might be out of the air force, but the air force would never be out of him.
Last night he’d dreamed of the girl who made him forget he was a short-timer in this town. No need to start rescuing people. Served him right, even though it had been a cheap shot. His own fault for paying too much attention to the girl and not enough to the other man’s fists. All right. Get over it, Chump.
Winston stayed next to the bed and stared at Stone, panting, brown eyes questioning. He cocked his head and barked.
“I told you, this is my bed and over there is yours.” Stone pointed to the cushion that sat in the corner of the bedroom.
Winston barked again. Stone loved dogs as much as the next person, but Winston was less of a dog than an inconsiderate roommate. A hairy one who demanded his meals on time and whose only contribution to household chores was creating more of them. Another treasure he’d inherited from Dad. Everything he’d handed down seemed to come with complications. And commitments.
Dad had loved this dog and swore it could read his thoughts. Right now, Stone wondered if Winston could read his, too, because they were less than charitable.
“You interrupted a great dream, monster.” The first decent dream in months.
Stone pulled on a pair of jeans and headed to the kitchen, Winston following close behind. True to form, he performed his shameless circling dance as Stone scooped out the dry dog food and placed it in his bowl.
“Wish I could be that happy to have breakfast,” Stone mumbled, placing the bowl on the cold terracotta kitchen floor. “Do you realize all you do is eat and sleep?”
He’d not only inherited Winston, the flight school and his father’s ramshackle ranch house, but pretty much James Mcallister’s life. And if he often felt like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room, it was probably because too many people, dogs and inanimate objects depended on him.
He’d arrived in town with one large duffel bag and everything he owned in it. He was always ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
The doorbell rang, and Winston ran out of the room like a scared schoolgirl. Doorbells. Winston was afraid of them. Then again, Dad’s doorbell played a haunting rendition of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” Stone kept meaning to disconnect the thing.
Stone peered through the peephole. Staff Sergeant Matt Conner, wearing his civilian clothes, held a couple of cups. “Let me in, asshole. These are hot. Coffee.”
Stone swung open the door and accepted a cup from The Drip (Rise and Shine and Have a Drip, the annoying cup said) as Matt walked inside.
“Is he—?” Matt asked, eyebrows raised.
Stone nodded. “Put the cup down now if you know what’s good for you.”
Matt set the cup on the short key table by the door and squatted like a wrestler. Yeah, he knew the drill. Like he’d heard his name called, Winston flew around the corner and tackled Matt.
Fortunately, Matt was a dog person, not to mention the size of a linebacker. “Hey, I love you, too, you big lug.”
“Don’t encourage him.” Stone walked into the kitchen, taking a gulp of the coffee he had become addicted to. He’d never been there himself, but coffee from The Drip was first-rate; although, he’d never get used to saying that name. “Want something to eat?”
“You have food?” Matt followed.
Stone didn’t answer. All right, so he was stalling.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Let’s get to it. Where do we begin?” Matt threw him a look.
“Yeah.” Stone knew that look. It was a get your shit together, airman look. If he’d given it once, he’d given it a hundred times to the newbs. And it had been more than a few years since he’d been on this side of it. It didn’t sit well with him.
Sure, he’d helped pack up the barracks bags of airmen who were never going home again, but this was different.
My father’s house. Where to begin? No matter how he sliced it, it didn’t feel right to get rid of Dad’s things. Like maybe he’d be back later, pissed Stone couldn’t see the sense in hanging on to ten old fishing rods. Crazy.
“Yeah’s not an answer, dude.” Matt threw him a pity look, the kind bestowed upon the widows and orphans of the men who weren’t coming back.
“Where do you suggest, moron?”
“The clothes.” Matt met Stone’s gaze.
They were still in the closet. Pretty pathetic. Clothes were always the first thing to go. It wasn’t like he was going to suddenly start wearing plaid shirts and polyester pants.
“Right this way.”
Winston followed them in the bedroom and lay like a rug near Dad’s bed. Stone made himself shove shirts and pants, even an old suit he’d never seen before, into a plastic garbage bag.
Matt worked faster, bagging up two to every one of Stone’s. “I’ll take all these to Goodwill Industries.”
“Sure.” Stone didn’t look at Matt. They were just clothes. It shouldn’t make any damn difference. He didn’t understand why his chest felt tight.
“By the way, she came by to see me again yesterday.” Matt said it like it was nothing, like he might as well be talking about the weather.
“Why?” Stone didn’t even have to ask who “she” was. She’d somehow decided Matt was her new best friend.
“You know why. She wants to talk to you.”
“I have nothing to say to her.”
“She’s your sister,” Matt said with an emphasis on the word sister, as if it was supposed to mean something to Stone. It didn’t.
Not his fault. His parents had made that decision, and he’d had no say in the matter. Only now, he was left to pick up the pieces. All in the past, and best left there. He wasn’t going to start singing “Kumbaya” this late in the game. “Here’s the thing. I don’t know her anymore.”
“You could get to know her. Again.” Matt threw another bag in the pile.
But it had been Sarah’s choice to stop visiting summers after that last one when she’d been thirteen. He’d been fifteen at the time, and sue him if he’d been a little busy. Their parents had each agreed that by fourteen each kid could decide where they wanted to spend their summer. That summer Stone chose to stay in California where he had a job and a learner’s permit. It meant that he’d spent the summer with his sister for the first time since the divorce. Looking back, he probably hadn’t paid her enough attention but what he’d remembered of that summer was a teenage girl with attitude. Not much different from now.
Dad didn’t know what the hell to do with her, either, when she didn’t want to fish or camp anymore. Every morning she’d glare daggers at the both of them as if they were doing something to offend her by simply breathing. Then she’d gone in the bathroom for three hours where she did something to her hair.
It was about all he remembered of that last summer from hell.
The next summer Sarah chose not to visit again, nor any summer after that. There had been cards over the holidays and a few strained phone calls. Stone had unfortunately had a front-row seat to his father’s confusion and pain at feeling shut out of his daughter’s life. It had served to remind Stone to call his mother and not just wait for her calls to him. He might not have thought he needed her much as a stupid teenager, but he’d always loved his mother. Which was why he couldn’t quite understand Sarah’s anger now. She’d made the choice. If their father hadn’t begged, it was because the Mcallister men didn’t beg.
Stone surveyed the closet. They’d made a dent in it, but not much more. He’d leave the boxes on the shelves for another time. Had his father thrown anything away? Ever?
Stone reached for a tie that looked straight out of the seventies. Probably not. “Maybe we should have a family reunion. Picnic, maybe?”
“Don’t be a smartass.”
“She wants to sell to a developer. There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You could talk and explain this is what your Dad wanted.”
“She knows that. All she wants is more money. She doesn’t care that people are about to lose their livelihoods.” It wasn’t just Cassie and Jedd. The airport had a small air museum, the only one of its kind for miles. There was also the Shortstop Snack Shack, owned and operated by a retired firefighter. Dad had owned the hangar building and leased the space to everyone else. The aviation school was the anchor, and if it was sold to a developer all the other businesses would go, too.
“I get the feeling your sister might be reasonable. Why not meet with her?”
“I did.” All she’d wanted to do was hurl insults and accusations at their late father. He carried enough guilt about those last months without Sarah adding to it.
“Again, I mean.” Matt slid him a look. “One meeting that didn’t go well isn’t enough. It’s worth a try.”
But Stone wasn’t sure of that anymore. He should talk with Sarah again, to see if he could get her to see reason. Matt seemed to think she was open, but that hadn’t been Stone’s experience. Some people were a lost cause, and he felt fairly certain the sister he didn’t know anymore was one of them.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_23874c35-8b98-573d-a62e-f62b2fc6b8f9)
“WAKE UP, EMILY.”
Emily opened one eye.
Grammy stood over her, dressed in her sparkly blue jeans and leopard-print top. It was one of the most irritating things about her grandmother. She refused to give in to convention and wear tracksuits like all her friends did.
Emily hadn’t even heard her come in. “What good is it to give me the loft for privacy if you keep barging in on me like this? What if I had company?”
“Emily, dear, please. I don’t have time for jokes. We have the Chamber of Commerce party today. I’ll need you to help George. He’s an old man now.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that.”
George Carver had worked for the family for as long as Emily could remember. Old or not, he was still their handyman, their gardener and a long-time family friend.
Emily’s dog, Pookie, a Poodle and Chihuahua mix, peeked out from the under the covers.
“You’re letting Pookie in your bed? What’s wrong with you?”
“She’d old, Grammy, and it was cold out last night. I caught her shivering.” That was Emily’s story and she was sticking to it. Growing up on their pseudo ranch usually meant dogs lived outside, but Emily liked it better this way. If Grammy was going to let Emily have the loft over the garage, then Emily could let Pookie have a spot on her bed at night.
“Girl, your heart is just too big. Pookie has you fooled. She’s fine outside and has a warm dry place in the pen. Cuddles up next to Beast every chance she gets. Anyway, the meat is coming in at noon, and I’ll need you to check it. You know what happened last time.” Grammy started to make the bed with Emily in it.
“Hey. Why don’t you let me get out of bed first? What time is it?” Fighting to push off the last dregs of sleep, Emily pulled the covers up to her nose. She wasn’t sure, but she might have been in the middle of a dream that made her blush, even thinking of it. It might have involved Stone and some of that horizontal dancing.
“It’s time for you to get up. And there’s something I want to show you first.” Grammy walked toward the front door and put her hand on the doorknob.
“What is it?” Emily rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock. Eight thirty. Too bad Grammy didn’t believe in sleeping in even on the weekends, because right now all Emily wanted was another few minutes. And she wasn’t going to get them.
“Wait till you see. I ordered it and it came yesterday. I’ll meet you at the house for breakfast.” Grammy let herself out, but not before picking up Pookie and carrying her out. “Dogs stay outside.”
Emily rustled her feet from under the warm covers and let them touch the cool hardwood. She shrank back and resisted the urge to bury under the blanket and go back to her dreams. Dreams in which she’d gone home with Stone.
Forget about him. I’m not ready for someone like that, and maybe I never will be. No, she was never going to be “that girl.” The girl who didn’t worry about consequences. The one who took a chance. She was too sensible for all that.
Emily showered, tried not to think of Stone, dried off and dressed in the working jeans and Fortune Ranch company shirt she wore while working on the family’s ranch. Not that it was a ranch anymore, unless one counted a petting zoo and three ponies. But Grammy insisted on keeping the name, a testament to the former glory of the Parker family’s four-hundred-acre cattle ranch of days gone by.
After eminent domain and the freeway extension had made its way through, they’d been left with forty acres and the house. Thank God for ever-resourceful Grammy, who claimed she hadn’t lived through the depression for nothing. And even if the family business now came down to outdoor company parties, picnics and high school Sadie Hawkins dances, they still had their home.
Thank heavens for that, because right now Emily needed home. The place where she’d grown up and the last place she’d lived with Mama. She’d been gone seventeen years, but her absence still ached if Emily thought about it too much.
Emily made her way down the creaky steps of her second-story apartment loft above the detached garage and jogged over to the main Victorian house on the hill. She threw open the side door to the kitchen and walked in to the sounds of Molly’s high-pitched voice. “That’s it—you’ve finally taken the last train into Crazy Town, and this time I’m not sure you’ll be back.”
