“Tell me about yourself, and what made you leave the Marines?” she questioned, sitting back against the leather upholstery. Because of course he’d have leather seats in his brand-new truck. Had he washed the thing just before he’d arrived at the airport? The chassis was amazingly shiny.
Huh.Maybe he hadn’t hit the carwash at all. Jett suppressed a snicker. Perhaps Trask was so commanding, he’d scared the road into not spewing salt onto his precious baby.
The farm vehicles at her Dad’s home, in contrast, were always mud-caked, and held together by spit and bailing wire. She was going to have to do something about that equipment, sooner, rather than later, in order to sell them. It was just another bullshit thing on her list.
Jett turned her attention to Trask, and admired his strong hands on the wheel as he maneuvered them onto the main road outside the airport and answered her query.
“Nothing momentous,” he told her, but…
Not true, she immediately ascertained. He looked pained
“I’d been in for nearly thirty years, my brothers were opening their dive venture, and I needed a change.” He shrugged. “So here I am, running logistics and errands for Diver Downeast until we get up to speed and my daily routine is more defined.”
There was something he wasn’t telling her, but she’d get to the bottom of it if she could.
“I feel that,” Jett responded agreeably. “I already told you I had twenty years in. I was stationed at MacDill in Florida for a lot of it, then got sent…elsewhere for various missions. About three months ago I decided I’d had enough. I felt it was time to go home. My dad’s not getting any younger, and I wanted to reconnect with him, then determine where I’d fit in with him and the outside world before I was too old to enjoy civilian life.”
Trask scoffed. “Because you’re ancient,” he teased. “I have ten years on you,” he offered up.
She’d done the math when he said he’d been in for thirty years, but it was nice to know he wasn’t too uptight to admit their age difference considering they’d already had some physical knowledge of each other.
“Ten years looks good on you,” she complimented. Hell, the man was in such awesome shape, nobody would take him for being in his late forties.
He chose to ignore the kudos. “So, have you? Settled in at home and found your niche?”
Jett laughed wryly. She’d gotten one surprise after another in the six weeks since she’d been back.
“Actually, I found that my ‘old’ dad had some shockers up his sleeve. Not only had he found himself a live-in girlfriend named Bunny, but the two of them have discovered a mutual penchant for travel. They’ve apparently taken up cruising, and have decided to make it a habitual thing; booking passage on big-ass ships where they can gorge themselves on buffet food and faux-Vegas shows several times a year.”
Trask chuckled, and Jett loved it.
She could see him starting to relax, which is just what she’d wanted; easing him off his guard before she began letting her rapscallion mouth take over again.
He cleared his throat. “Good for your dad. But he’s got a girlfriend? I, uh, might have heard from my brother that your father has an…onion problem.”
Jett laughed delightedly. Everyone who ran into Randal DeLuca knew that he practically bathed in the things.
“Hedid,” she emphasized. “But Bunny let him know pretty early on that it was either the allium or her. Smart woman. He chose her, and the rest is history.”
“Except that you’re now a third wheel at the family homestead.”
“Not for long.”
Jett’s mood changed from playful to troubled as she explained.
“Dad decided a few months ago—without telling me, because I hadn’t informed him I was coming home—to sell the house,the barn, and the ten acres where I grew up. He felt bad, once I told him I was separating from the Air Force, but he said that unless I wanted the place, he was ditching it. He had no need for such a big spread, because he and Bunny would be traveling a lot.” Jett recalled trying to stay upbeat for that game-changer of a conversation. “I agreed that it was way too much property even formein my single state, so the house is currently on the market.”
“Hence, the clean-out, and the offering up of his diving equipment to us,” Trask finished up for her.
“Exactly,” she answered with a sigh. “With my help, he’s jettisoning everything that I don’t want, but that’s difficult, as well. Since I haven’t found a place to live yet, I have no idea what I’ll want to keep.”
He looked at her, slightly puzzled. “You’ve had… how many weeks to establish a new situation for yourself? Six did you say?”
Jett pursed her lips. There was that get-‘er-done, no nonsense, always have a plan thing coming from him again. The man must have been a Boy Scout before he went into the service.
Still, he had a point. Jetthadbeen putting things off, much to her detriment.
“I know. I know,” she finally answered, gruffly. “But I’m picky. Alright?”
