Adrenaline surged through her as she considered it further. Perhaps Emmitt knew exactly who Anna was, where she was, and who—if anyone—she was with. It might take getting closer to Emmitt to get more details, but in just one night, they’d come a very long way. In fact, if she were gaging that pie chart they’d spoken about throughout the night, Sloane might now be able to realistically say she knew about a quarter of that chart. In basic terms, anyway.
And for more reasons than one, Sloane was looking forward to finding out even more.
Chapter 9
Emmitt paced back and forth in his cabin, scratching the back of his head as stress mounded there. At last, he gave into the urge he’d been entertaining since he dropped Sloane off.
The phone gave out one short ring before his sister picked up.
“Emmitt?”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I need to tell you something.”
“Okay,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“Probably nothing. I mean, I’msureit’s nothing, right now anyway. I just…I need to know what we’re saying to new people about Richard and Ava.”
“New people?” she asked, her tone perplexed.
“We talked about telling everyone here at the inn that they extended their honeymoon. What about new people? Do I have an older brother? And if I do, is he married? And does he live here or someplace else?”
“Who’s asking all of these questions, Emmitt?” she asked.
Trenton’s voice sounded in the background.
“Yeah,” Andie whispered. “I’m going to put you on speaker so Trenton can chime in too if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.” Emmitt could use the extra advice. He might have been tempted to go straight to Richard with the question if he wasn’t so sure he’d get lectured by the guy over getting close to someone new.
“What’s up, Emmitt?” came Trenton.
“That woman who’s giving the extra pilot courses,” he said. “I took her to dinner after our flight today, you know, to be nice…”
When neither of them challenged him on that, he added to it.
“On the way back, we were sharing a little about ourselves, family, background, and that type of thing. I kept with the story we had drilled into us in the relocation training, so that part was easy. But when she asked if any of my siblings were married, I sort of panicked. I said you were and that Memphis was planning to propose soon, but I acted like Richard was still a bachelor.”
There was a collective pause before Andie sighed. “Okay, I think that was good. Don’t you, babe?”
“Yeah,” Trenton agreed. “It’s probably best not to mention Ava to outsiders, and it’s not like this lady will be here long. I say just get your training done and try to keep your personal life off the table.”
Emmitt’s shoulders drooped. He didn’t want to keep his personal life off the table. He wanted to know more of Sloane’s pie chart, and he wanted her to know more of his. Which was odd—forhim, anyway.
“Yeah,” he said just the same. “No problem. Okay, I’ll…that’s all I needed.”
“Okay, man, have a good night,” Trenton was saying, but Andie blurted something of her own.
“You’re not interested in her, are you?”
Emmitt felt caught. So much so that his reply got stuck in his throat. “What? No. Not really.”
A loud, rather exhausted sigh poured through the line. “Emmitt, you really need to be careful. We can’t go inviting people into our lives right now.”
The low hum of Trenton’s whispered voice sounded next.
“I know, babe,” Andie said in less of a whisper. “I’m just saying…”
Emmitt’s irritation grew. “You’re saying something I don’t really need to hear, Andie.” He sensed Trenton was on his side, so he used that to his advantage and pushed further. “First of all,youtwo were the ones who wanted me to play along and do the course. That means I’ve got twenty-four hours with this woman.”
