Yeah.That was a good enough excuse.
He relented. “I am, too. I’ve seen more houses than I care to in the past couple months, and nothing has called to me yet.”
Jett could see that. Trask probably had the exact thing he wanted in mind, and wasn’t about to settle. She felt sheepish, but she wasn’t about to reveal that she hadn’tactuallystarted looking yet.
“So where are your father and Bunny going to live?” Trask asked, taking her silence to mean she was having the sameproblem. He pulled into a diner that looked like it had been transported right out of the fifties.
The place immediately lifted her spirits. Chrome, glass, and neon melded together in a way that reminded her of old joys like root beer floats, juicy hamburgers, and much less complicated days.
But there was no going back.
“He’s already put a downpayment on a small condo in an ‘Urban Senior Living Community,” Jett told him using air quotes while trying to keep any trace of bitterness out of her voice.
“I’ll bite. What the hell is that?”
Jett snorted. She’d wondered the same thing when Dad had told her.
“Apparently, it’s an over fifty complex which boasts a ‘resort-like’ lifestyle.” She rolled her eyes, amusement taking over. Jett’s moods never lasted for long. “The things we didn’t learn in the service,” she smirked, but still, she shook her head.
How her father, the pack-rat, could go from spreading out and having all the collections he’d boasted of over the years, to living in a club-med environment, was beyond her comprehension.
And it left her homeless.
Drat.
“So, what were your plans before, and what are they now?” Trask reiterated, as if by prodding her, he could get her to move on making critical decisions.
Jett sighed. Leave it to Mr. Astute to get right to the crux of her problem.
“Well, I thought I had it all planned out. I’d come home, surprise my dad, scope out all the nearby private airstrips, and start a small sky-diving business. Maybe even get a license and dive for lobsters off the coast to sell on the side.
“I congratulated myself that I was being proactive. I already had a deposit on the Cessna, which had just undergone a retrofit with amphibious floats and structural reinforcements. Having a seaplane rating on my pilot’s license, I knew the minute I saw it, it was just what I wanted.” She made a moue with her mouth. “I was within days of picking it up when my father and I finally found time to discuss our future plans, and that’s when he dropped his bomb.
“I bought the plane anyway, because… I guess I needed something that I could call my own. But now, I’m not sure where I’ll end up. I certainly don’t know anybody in the Portsmouth area after all my years of being away.”
Sad but true. She’d had a few childhood friends, but they’d long since moved on to various far-away places in the country.
“Starting from scratch isn’t exactly what I’d imagined,” she revealed.
“You’ll figure it out,” he responded tartly, but she could see on his face—and by the slight shake of his head—that he thought she’d acted rashly; not making sure all her “i’s” were dotted and her “t’s” crossed before she’d jumped ship…or jumped planes, if they were being literal.
Jett didn’t like his censorious attitude at all. It bordered on pompousness.
“Hey. Who are you to judge?” she snapped, pointing at his sour visage. “You saidyourjob hasn’t exactly been defined yet. And you probably had a family homestead to come back to, with people who were supporting your decisions, so you’ve had a soft landing. I’ll bet you never would have left the comfortable arms of the Marines if you hadn’t. And I’ll go even further. I’ll almost guarantee you’ve never just rolled with something spontaneously and taken a calculated risk in your entire life.”
Crap. Big mouth strikes again. And here she’d been meaning to shmooze him. Had she gone too far? She dared a peek.
A winter storm would give off more heat than she was sensing from the man right now.
“You don’t know me,” Trask finally rasped.
“You’re right. I don’t,” she easily agreed on a sigh.
He sent her a scathing look.
Well, crap. Jett had been about to apologize, but his pissy attitude stirred her back up.
She crossed her arms over her chest, determined now to shake the man’s well-ordered self-ideology. “So enlighten me, then. When was the last time you made a move to do anything without drafting a concise plan first?”
