“Then it sounds like you’re on the right track. Did you burn bridges? Could you go back if the new pond isn’t any better?”
“I don’t want to go back. Not now, maybe not ever. I need a fresh challenge.” She sounded definite about that.
“Well, then,” he said, “sounds like you made the right choice.”
“Have you ever done anything like that? Just change course completely?”
“I’ve had my course changed for me. Circumstances beyond my control. Like you, it’s been scary, sad, exhilarating, terrifying, satisfying. And that’s any given week,” he added dryly.
She smiled and relaxed a little. “I guess it’s normal then. In a very abnormal way.”
“Guess so.” They were less than fifteen minutes from town. And he realized he didn’t want their time to be over quite yet. “You have plans?”
“For my future, you mean?”
He glanced at her. “Why don’t we start with this weekend.”
“Oh,” she said, and blushed just a little. “I’m—I have to see my mother. At some point.”
“I take it you’re not staying with them?”
She shook her head. “Things are a bit…strained. I thought it would be best if I had my own place to retreat to until the battle lines were more clearly defined.”
“Charlene seemed pretty happy that you were coming.”
Now the guarded look came back and Jake cursed inwardly that he’d gone and done the one thing he’d sworn not to. Get involved. “Never mind, none of my business. Where can I drop you?”
“Greater Pine Lodge. I made reservations.”
“You chose well. Mabry Johnson runs the place, along with her sister and daughter-in-law. She’s a character, but one of the best people you’ll meet.”
Lauren smiled again and relaxed a little. “Good. Thank you. And thank you again for—”
“If you’re not doing anything Sunday, why don’t you let me show you the area.”
She looked surprised by the offer.
That made two of them. Mostly because he meant it. In fact, he hadn’t thought about his favor to his sister in the last hour or so.
“It’ll give you a chance to see how spectacular the view really is.”
“Is there really that much to see?” She lifted a hand. “There I go again. What I meant was, I understood the town to be quite small.”
“I was thinking of giving you a different view.” He slowed as they bottomed out from the last descent. Cedar Springs laid sprawled just below them. McKenna Flight School topped the mesa just beyond the opposite end of town. He liked coming into town from this direction, ascending down from Cooper Pass, with Wisternan, the main resort peak, towering over the town nestled at its base, directly to the north, the winding Panlo River, bordering Cedar Springs to the south…and McKenna Flight School in the distant west. It made him feel a part of something bigger than himself, but a part nonetheless. A permanent part.
He looked over to see her giving him a speculative look. “Just exactly what view did you have in mind?”
His lips quirked. He liked that she was direct and didn’t duck a subject. He was pretty sure when Lauren Matthews wanted to know something, she came out and asked. “I was thinking the view from about twelve thousand feet might be interesting.”
She looked both relieved and a little embarrassed, making him wonder exactly what view she’d thought he’d been offering.
“I should be sufficiently recovered from my last plane ride by then,” she said. “And I’d actually really like that. But—I need to see what’s going on first. I’m not sure—”
“No worries. I don’t teach classes on Sunday. I’ll just be working on the Mustang.” He made it sound like it was nothing, when he was pretty much going to be umbilically attached to the damn thing until the race. Still…a few hours spent not tinkering on Betty Sue or operating the school wouldn’t kill him. “Early afternoon is good, but I’m flexible.”
“I might be thankful to be up in the air and out of reach by then.”
“It’s none of my business, but maybe it won’t be that bad. Like I said, it seemed to me your mother was happy you were coming.”
“I think we’d both be happy to get past this.”
“Well, then…?”
She sighed. “You’ve lived here your whole life, right?”
“Yep.”
“Then I’ll just say that it’s not my mom I’m really having a problem with. But I don’t know a lot about the situation, which is why I’m here.”
Jake had promised Ruby Jean not to slam Arlen. Sounded like Lauren was already well on her way to forming her opinion of the man without his help. So all he said, was, “Well then, you’ll get to know for yourself, and you can figure it out from there.”
She sighed. “I certainly hope so.”
She didn’t sound all that hopeful, though. Which made Jake wonder exactly what her goal was while she was here. Not your business, buddy. Not your concern.
But when he dropped her off at the registration office at the rustic little motel just inside the town limits, it didn’t keep him from wondering exactly what she was getting herself into.
Chapter 4
“Okay. Sitting in your room is no longer an option.” Lauren fiddled with her cell phone but didn’t press the CALL button. The button that would dial her mother’s number. She’d been in Cedar Springs for exactly one hour. She was unpacked, showered, and changed, makeup and hair mercifully repaired. All she had to do now was make the call.
Her mother knew she was here. At least, Lauren had to suspect she knew. She hadn’t thought to ask her friendly neighborhood pilot if he’d planned on letting her mother know he’d gotten her safely to town. But then, she hadn’t thought to ask the man his name, either. Who did that? Who drove with a complete stranger for more than two hours, chatted with him—agreed to see him again—and even went so far as to share her deep, dark, job-quitting secret…and didn’t get his name?
She couldn’t even blame the rocky commuter flight and subsequent storm for scattering her brain. Not really. She might blame Hunky Local Pilot for discombobulating her a little. Okay, a lot. He’d been all rugged good looks and enigmatic personality back in the airport hangar. But once they’d started talking, she’d been surprised at how laid back and easy-going he was. He’d made her forget she looked like airport roadkill, and even took her mind off her immediate future for an hour or two.
Well, she knew Hunky Pilot Guy’s name now. There had been a copy of the local phone book in the nightstand drawer by her bed. She’d simply looked up flight schools in the slim Yellow Pages section. There had only been one listed. McKenna’s Flight School. Owned and operated by Jake McKenna, or so the modest ad proclaimed.
Jake. It suited him. He might not have been a traditional western cowboy, with boots and spurs and tobacco in his back pocket, but he definitely filled the bill for mountain man outdoorsy type. He fit here, among the soaring peaks and beautiful high meadows. And he raced airplanes. How sexy was that?
“Too damn sexy,” she muttered. And she had no real business getting involved with him, in any way. Not that being asked out on a short plane ride around the area was getting overly involved, but it was prolonging their acquaintance. She wasn’t sure what, if anything, he had in mind. She assumed, given her bedraggled appearance, and the fact that