He, Spence, and Buck were currently working on Julian, almost non-stop, trying to get the guy to separate from the Air Force and join them.
So far, Jules was making lame excuses, but Trask had no doubt that they’d wear their brother down sooner, rather than later.
As to other logistics, Jett’s plane remained hangered on the Sothard property. Since there was no place closer for her to put it, the arrangement made perfect sense, and that’s where Trask and Jett were headed now; in Trask’s truck, with both dogs in the back seat.
Jett crossed her arms under her ample breasts and heaved a sigh, complaining yet again. “I don’t know why we have to clean out my plane. I know where everything is,” she whined.
“Because,” Trask told her patiently for the dozenth time, “we have a perfectly good garage at our house now, with plenty of room to store things we don’t regularly need.”
“Like what?” she asked belligerently.
“Like the MRE’s whose expiration date was last year.”
And who the hell liked to eat those, anyway, even if they weren’toutdated?
“Fine. What else?” she snipped.
“Umm, is there a reason you carrythreetents?” he asked. “And enough camping gear to outfit half a dozen people?”
She huffed, but clearly couldn’t come up with a response.
“Then there’s that huge pile of outdated aeronautical charts,” he continued. “I believe a few of them date back to the 1970’s.”
Jett sniffed, and Trask took that as encouragement to keep going.
“That’s only scratching the surface. I haven’t dug deep enough to see what other vintage treasures I might find,” he chuckled.
“Fine. I get it,” Jett huffed. “I’m a bit of a hoarder. But that’s served us well, hasn’t it? Wasn’t it good I had all those blankets and the foldable stretcher for Richard?”
“Of course.” Trask had to admit that it had.
“And speaking of Richard,” he added. “Sheila heard from Eloise this morning. Richard has, as you know, recovered completely from his triple bypass operation, but now she wantsto thank us all by inviting us to a barbeque at their house once the weather gets a little warmer.”
It was still only May, so they had a few more weeks before anything warmer than sixty-degrees settled in.
“That sounds nice. But stop trying to distract me,” Jett sassed. “We were talking about my personal belongings. How about this? I’ll take care of clearing out my plane, if you…get lost.”
“Hah. Not happening,” Trask told her. “If I leave you to your own devices, things will simply get shuffled around, and nothing will get tossed.”
Her brows arched as she turned to face him. “What? Nobody said anything about getting rid of any of my stuff.” Jett’s voice rose. “You said ‘relocate’, not ‘trash’.”
The dogs, sensing agitation, danced around in the back seat, yipping.
“Sit,” Trask commanded as he held up a conciliatory hand toward Jett.
The dogs obeyed, but Jett still looked…militant.
“Alright. Alright. Calm down,” Trask placated. “It was a poor choice of words. You’re right. Unless you want to get rid of something, we’ll take good care of your possessions. We’ll pack up everything we deem superfluous to the business, and we’ll move it home.”
Trask loved the way that last word rolled off his tongue.
Home.
He never thought he’d have one. Or enjoy sharing it with an organizationally-challenged Jett. Trask wouldn’t lie. It was often an uphill battle, but he couldn’t picture his life any other way.
She kept him on his toes, that was for sure, and he wanted that, permanently.
He pulled up to the outbuilding that had become the Cessna’s permanent hanger, and they both got out.
