To be truthful, Trask wasn’t completely sorry he’d gone all caveman on Jett. The only part he really regretted was chickening out in the end and not continuing what they’d started together, because it had been fucking amazing.
But that was then, and this was now.
Had anything really changed since he’d done all his soul-searching and received the verbal drubbing from his brothers?
Yes. Trask was finally able to admitwhyhe’d been a dick.
It was Jett. Despite all her vagaries—of which there was a long list—she not only turned him on, she fascinated him as well.
Did he have tolikethat fucked up reality?
No.
Did he need to confront Jett as well as his own inner conflicts to see if he could either work her out of his system, or determine if there was anything substantial there with which to maintain their attraction?
Uh, huh.
And that’s why he was on the road, driving south, going his customary four miles-per-hour over the speed limit, all while berating himself up and down.
Jett taxiedher plane to the same spot where she’d tied down just a few days earlier. It seemed like so much had happened since then, it was hard to believe it hadn’t been weeks.
In a very short time, she’d managed to sell a bunch of her father’s machinery with his blessings, and in her tornado-of-a-mood, she’d boxed up over half the house for storage or moving.
Then she’d yelled at herself to grow the hell up, snagged the keys to her Cessna, and stormed out the door with a quick goodbye to her father, which he’d enjoyed, immensely.
This time she’d left the dogs at home, much to their displeasure. But if this visit ended up being a quick turn-around, they didn’t need all those hours in the air. And if it ended up being a longer stay, it was a lot to ask of the elder Sothards to putup with her two, four-footed hellions until she found an actual place to live.
Jett cut her engine, and unbuckled from her seat.
She’d already arranged for an Uber to pick her up and bring her to Hampden, so she kept an eye out for her ride as she got out, chocked her wheels, and tied down using extra lines. The weather service had predicted a huge snowstorm for later that night; a blizzard, actually. And if by some bizarre happenstance Jett ended up staying, she wanted her Cessna secured.
If, on the other hand, Trask gave her shit and seriously didn’t want her to be here, she’d be gone before the flakes began to fly.
Seeing her ride pull up, Jett grabbed her bag, which was bigger this time because…ahh, hell, she was an optimist, and made her way toward the car.
“Big storm coming,” the elder gentleman told her with a thick, Downeast accent as he got out and very sweetly held the door open for her.
His words had sounded like, “Big stohm comin’.”
And he wasn’t finished as Jett tuned her ear in to decipher his continuing, thick Maine Yankee-isms.
“I he-ah we-ah in faw ah a couple-a feet. You shoo-ah yaw plane’s gonna be awright?”
Jett smiled as she slid in and sat down.
“Yup. I’ve made her as secure as possible,” she told the driver with a grin as he took his place up front. “But depending on how things work out, I may be leaving before the snow hits, anyway.”
“Ay-uh,” he nodded agreeably as he got them underway.
He then proceeded to tell her how the forecasters had already pushed the snowfall totals up, and that things were now set to move in before nightfall. He further regaled her with several harrowing tales of several storms he’d lived through in his younger years, and Jett didn’t have the heart to tell him that shewas a New Hampshire girl, born and bred, and not some Snow-bird who was clueless as to what was coming.
What his monologue did have her reminding herself? Decisions today would have to be made rapidly.
Her own father had warned her of the upcoming weather, and she’d assured him that if she didn’t have a clear answer and at least a two-hour window after her discussion with Trask, she’d find a place to hunker down locally, regardless of whether the eldest Sothard brother welcomed her back or not.
Her Pops had simply smirked at that, and told her he’d see her when she eventually came back to pack up all her stuff and pick up her dogs.
Cheeky man.
