This man was going to be such a challenge.
The door opened and a woman who absolutely looked too young to be Trask’s mother took a step out onto the big front porch.
“Well, are you coming in to introduce us, or do I have to pretend I haven’t been looking out the window, wondering who you’ve brought home, Trask?”
Wow.Jett guessed the woman really was his mother. But how was that possible? Her hair was only delicately streakedwith gray, and she looked like she must use the gym on the regular. With Trask’s talk of food and nurturing, Jett had been expecting someone more…squishy.
Trask took Jett’s hand and led her forward.
What the hell?
A spontaneous gesture from Trask? Jett would have bet he’d try to keep his distance in front of his folks, but she’d just been proven wrong.
Here she was thinking she’d keep Trask on his toes with her unpredictability, and duh,hewas leading the charge.
Jett decided she liked it. A lot.
“Mom, this is Jett DeLuca. Jett, my mother, Ellen Sothard.”
“Come in, come in,” the delightfully smiling woman encouraged after taking Jett’s free hand.
The dogs needed no further invitation. They scooted around the group of humans as if they already owned the place.
“Langly! Tinker!” Jett yelped. “Get back here.”
“Oh, they’re fine, dear,” Ellen assured her. “There’s nothing under this roof they can get into that hasn’t already been destroyed many times over by my eight boys.”
“Eight?” Jett felt her eyes go wide. “I knew about maybe four of them. But eight?”
Ellen laughed, clearly staring and taking in Jett’s differently colored eyes, but she didn’t mention them. Points for Ellen.
“It was a full house, for sure. And they were all so unpredictable.” She eyed her son up and down. “Just like now, when one of them, at an advanced age, decides to play…fireman?” she snickered, pointing at his outfit. “I’m guessing there’s a good story behind that.”
“There sure is,” Trask assured her. “And you’ll hear all about it.”
“Over supper,” Ellen decreed. “Which is almost on the table. Beef stew and homemade bread tonight, so we have plenty. You’re staying, correct?” she asked Jett.
“Uh. If you’ll have me. It got too late for me to fly my plane back to Portsmouth, and Trask kind of told me there’d be a bed I could use…” Jett finished a little tentatively.
“Of course. Of course,” Ellen assured her. Tugging her away from Trask she linked arms with Jett and walked them into a warm, inviting kitchen. “You have a plane?”
“Yup. Complete with pontoons,” she stated proudly.
“Well,thattweaks my imagination. I can’t wait to hear what the two of you have been up to, today.”
Jett stifled a snort.
She’d keepsomeof those details to herself.
CHAPTER 12
Jett,along with Ellen Sothard, were enjoying themselves far too much, and if Trask’s father gave him that surreptitious smirk one more time, he was going to—as his grandmother liked to say—have a conniption.
When they’d first all sat down to dinner—after Trask had changed out of his firefighters’ duds—the initial topic of discussion raised had been the day’s happenings. Which was fine. And neutral. Both his parents had shown heartfelt concern when they’d heard about the moose rescue, but had also praised the way the two of them had worked together to elicit a positive outcome.
After that, however, the conversation had devolved. The two women had gleefully begun discussing Trask’s childhood. How that subject had come up, Trask didn’t know, but he suspected it was his manipulative mother’s version of bringing out baby photos, which…
Oh, God.Did he have to worry about that next?
