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“So, I’d like a change of scenery and want to get out of the house for a while,” Lisa said. “Here’s the deal. You can go to the bull riding on two conditions.” She sat back down.
He met her gaze. This was even worse than second grade at Mountain View Grammar School with Mrs. Moth. He slowly sat down.
“I’m listening,” he said, dreading her conditions already. She held up two fingers, just like Mrs. Moth. “One, I get two flights with you taking care of Rose.”
“Agreed.” That was easy.
“And two, Rose and I go with you to Fort Lauderdale.”
He pointed to his chest. “Didn’t I just rant about how I don’t fly?”
“We’d all go in your motor home. And we’ll make it a week-long trip. It would be the perfect opportunity for all of us to get to know one another—to bond, so to speak.”
He fished for the words, and with his mouth flapping, he probably looked like a freshly caught trout. Rose would love the trip, but he wondered how he and Lisa would get along in such cramped quarters.
“Us? Together for a week in my small motor home? Wouldn’t you and I kill each other?” he asked.
“Perhaps.” Lisa laughed, and he liked when she did that. As far as he was concerned, she didn’t laugh enough, but he wouldn’t count that against her just yet. She’d just lost her sister. Still, on the handful of occasions when they’d met in the past, she seemed to sit in judgment of him—and she appeared to find him lacking.
Granted, most of those occasions were party times—Rick’s bachelor’s party, the Super Bowl, Rick and Carol’s wedding, Rose’s christening—and he loved to party. Still, she didn’t have to seem so prim and proper all the time.
Did she ever have fun?
“Uncle Sully, Aunt Lisa, look at me!” Rose shouted.
They both looked as their niece jumped into the balls for the hundredth time. Lisa clapped and Sully whistled loudly and shrilly as if he were calling a bull for dinner.
“Sully.” Lisa inhaled deeply, and he braced himself for what she was going to say. “I think I’m going to put my name on the list for private charters for now instead of working a regular schedule with Cardinal Global. Private charters are on an as-needed basis, and JFW Aviation flies out of Albany, so that’s convenient to Salmon Falls and totally doable.”
He breathed a little easier. “Sounds like a good idea.”
“That’s what I was thinking. It’ll work out better for Rose.”
“I really appreciate that, Lisa. I do.” It was a totally nice and unexpected concession on her part. He’d do his best to reciprocate.
She nodded. “So, what about my idea of all of us traveling together to Fort Lauderdale?”
He paused, his hands itching for his rope and the cement statue so he could weigh the pros and cons more thoroughly. “Let’s do it,” he blurted.
Lisa held out her hand, and they shook. As his rough and calloused hand closed around hers, he decided that he liked her style. Keep everything businesslike, negotiable, but do the best they could do for Rose.
He looked over yet again at Rose jumping on the balls, her face red with laughter, her hair wet from the exertion. She was having a great time, and maybe for a while, she’d forget that she’d lost her mommy and daddy.
In their place were Aunt Lisa and Uncle Sully—pale substitutes for her parents.
He knew that he and Lisa would do their best to raise Rose. Yes, he made a slight blunder not asking Lisa if he could ride at the Fort Lauderdale event, but for heaven’s sake, he wasn’t a kid having to ask a parent for permission.
Well, okay, okay. Maybe he had to stop thinking of just himself. And, yeah, once in a while he could ask Lisa to go on his walk arounds with Rose. She’d dropped enough hints.
But sometimes he had to get away from her, too. Sometimes she could be just as demanding and rigid as his parents.
Especially when she looked at him with her green eyes flashing disappointment.
He’d never have a nine-to-five job. He’d always be ready for a party or to throw one of his own. He’d make sure that Rose would have a fun, happy life. Lisa could take care of the blah, boring stuff.
Sully knew he’d never measure up to Lisa’s expectations, nor did he want to even try.
So, he was going to hit the trail with his new family, and he’d try to get along with Mrs. Moth … er … Lisa Phillips.
Chapter Three
Three days later, Sully drove his rig back from downtown Salmon Falls. He loved the little town, loved the sidewalks, the flowers, the town square. He loved that there were no chain stores or chain eateries, and how the little shops were just that … little.
He’d just left Marv’s Garage. Marv was the town’s hangout for gearheads, gossip central for men and the home to a bottomless coffeepot.
Though Sully had gone over his motor home from top to bottom, he’d figured that Marv should check it anyway.
Marv had cleared the RV and everything was ready to rock.
When he pulled up in front of the Victorian, Lisa and Rose were ready to pack the RV. Over the next hour they made several trips to the vehicle, carrying loads of clothes, food, toys, shoes and more shoes. Heaven only knew what they’d put in the small bathroom cupboard. And there were plastic containers stacked all over containing bottles and tubes of stuff.
Lisa and Rose had gone shopping, so the closets and cabinets were overflowing with their purchases. That was okay with him. He traveled light. Mostly, whatever he needed—his wrap tape, rosin, bull rope and bell, jeans, shirts, underwear, socks and a couple of riding gloves—was in his gear bag.
Last night, he’d slipped out of his room in the Victorian and sat at the kitchen table with a map of the East Coast. He plotted the route he wanted to take and flagged some campgrounds along the way. Remembering how Rick had told him that Rose loved the water, he flagged the ones with swimming areas for her. He’d programmed them into his GPS.
Lisa and Rose were back with Molly and Snowball and yet more plastic containers. Sully looked on in amazement.
“Hey, we can’t fit the whole house into this motor home, ladies. We’re camping, not moving into a mansion in Beverly Hills.”
Lisa chuckled. “This is the last load—well, except for more food.”
“We bought hot dogs. And stuff for sloppy joe’s,” Rose announced to him. “And beans in a can … for you. Aunt Lisa said that cowboys like beans.”
Sully looked at Lisa. “Beans, huh?” He winked at Rose. “Well, your aunt was right. I do like beans … in a can.”
As a matter of fact, they’d already loaded in a supply of microwaveable foods—beans, hot dogs, chicken and TV dinners.
Since the burned meatloaf incident, Lisa had given the oven in the house a wide berth, like it was a Brahma ready to charge at her, but the microwave was her pet.
He had both in the motor home.
Rose looked up at him with brown eyes, the color of his brother Rick’s. “When are we going to see Mickey Mouse?”
Huh? There wouldn’t be any time for that! He raised an eyebrow at Lisa. “We’ll leave as soon as Aunt Lisa is ready.”
“I just need to lock up the house, and that’s it,” she said. Her face was flushed, maybe from slogging everything, but Sully liked to think that she was excited to go on the trip.
That would be a change for her—being excited about something.
She dropped an armload of groceries on the table. “You could have helped, you know.”
“I was securing everything,” he said. “Can’t have all those plastic boxes flying around.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll do everything.” She rolled her eyes, turned and left the RV.
What was her problem?
He shrugged it off, hoping that everything would go well on this trip. If it did, maybe he could convince her to travel to the next stop on the bull riding circuit.
He’d have to get through this trip to Florida first.
Lisa didn’t seem to be the camping type, although traveling in a motor home was a step up from camping. He thought of camping as backpacking or pitching a tent. A motor home was luxury camping.
But he still wondered how he and Lisa would get along. They were superficially being nice to one another for the sake of Rose, but Sully knew that underneath their façade they were one word away from an argument.
But slowly Lisa was growing on him. He saw how sad she was over losing her sister. She’d sit on the garden bench and stare endlessly at the note from Carol and Rick, still not opening it.
Sometimes, he’d wanted to sit next to her and say a couple of comforting words, but then he decided that his sympathy wouldn’t be welcome. Instead, he’d rope the statue, think and watch her out of the corner of his eye, pretending he didn’t know she was crying.
He liked how she read books to Rose. She pointed to the pictures, asking her questions, and got her to make up her own stories.
He liked how she tried to cook, too. He saw the recipes she’d printed out from the Young Cooks website. Basic stuff. He supposed he ought to roll up his sleeves and do some cooking—he didn’t mind at all—but he didn’t want to seem like a know-it-all. She was doing fine.
Lisa climbed up the steps of the RV. “I think we’re ready to go now. Oh-nine-thirty hours. Just as scheduled.”
He didn’t remember insisting on a time or a schedule.
“Then let’s roll! Everyone buckle up.” He pointed to the table with bench seats. “You can sit there, or someone can sit in the copilot’s seat.”
Lisa slid into the bench seat and Rose slid in opposite her. They both clicked on their seat belts.
He guessed that he’d be traveling without a copilot.
Nice and quiet. That was the way he liked it. Right?
This isn’t a bad way to travel, Lisa thought as she tucked Rose into bed. She liked how the sides of the bed/kitchen table formed a barrier and secured Rose from rolling off. Traveling with a bathroom was another good perk.
But it still didn’t beat flying.
Her cell phone rang, and she looked at the caller. It was her friend Luann at JFW Aviation. She was in charge of booking charters.
Her heart began to race and the blood started zinging through her veins at the thought of flying again. It had been too long.
“Hi, Luann! Got something for me?”
“Yeah, I do. I have a charter of high rollers going from Albany to Vegas. This would be perfect for you since you’re somewhat near Albany already. It’s just a quickie. You’ll be back in three days.”
“You want me to stay in Vegas?”
“Sure. It doesn’t make sense for me to fly you back commercial and then send you back again the next day just so you can fly the charter back.”
But she’d be gone for three days.
“When?” Lisa asked, pulling her appointment book and a pen from her purse. No electronics for her when it came to her appointments.
“Okay, got it.” Lisa wrote down the information and blocked out the dates. “Should be no problem, but I’ll let you know for sure. Thanks, Luann.”
She was going to fly again! As she hurried toward the front of the RV to tell Sully, she felt like she was walking on sunshine.
Wait! A cloud blocked her sun when she remembered that the dates for the charter fell on a weekend. She’d told Sully that she’d fly during the week so he could ride on weekends. Now what? She didn’t want to turn down her first charter, and it’d be round trip from Albany. Just what she’d wanted.
She had to discuss it with Sully.
Taking the passenger’s seat, she turned toward him. “Where are we?”
“Pennsylvania. We’re not as far as I thought. I forgot that Molly had to be walked, and I didn’t know that Snowball would be barfing up hairballs.”
“I’m the one cleaning up cat barf,” she said. “Not you.”
“And I’m the one walking around with plastic bags picking up dog poop.”
Lisa chuckled. “I never thought I’d ever be doing this.”
“Me, either.” He picked up a bottle of water and took a big draw.
“Thank goodness we don’t have to follow Rose around with a plastic bag,” Lisa said.
Sully spewed his water all over the windshield and the front of his light blue shirt. His laughter bounced around the motor home. Lisa joined in.
When they both sobered up, they fell silent. Lisa watched the lines on the road flash by, and she was beginning to drift off to sleep. She yawned, then pinched her top lip to wake herself up.
“How about if I relieve you for a while?” she asked.
“You’re too tired to drive.”
“I guess I am. When can we quit?”
Sully pointed to the sign on the left that said “Sleepy Bear Campgrounds and RV Park.”
“We can quit just as soon as I get a site and hook up the RV.”
She yawned again. “Good.”
He pulled the rig in front of the office, put the RV in Park and hurried down the steps behind Lisa’s seat. “I’ll be right back.”
Lisa closed her tired eyes, thinking that she’d talk to Sully in the morning about the charter flight.
She must have dozed off because the next thing she heard was Sully talking on his cell.
