Maybe she’d even do a little hiking herself, she mused, imagining a leisurely amble along a well-marked path with frequent stops to sniff a wildflower or read a park information sign.
She’d lived in Wyoming for a year and hadn’t even seen Yellowstone Park yet. Was that where Scott was taking them? She supposed that wouldn’t be so bad. And most important, perhaps Jeffrey would enjoy it.
She would go through with this, she thought. But only for Jeffrey.
What other reason could there be?
*
“WHO IS THIS GUY we’re going to meet?” Jeffrey asked, not for the first time, as Blair drove toward the airport Friday morning.
“His name—as I’ve told you before—is Scott McKay. He’s a rancher and a businessman. A former resident of Lost Springs.”
“Oh, great,” Jeffrey grumbled. “A geek.”
“He’s not a geek,” Blair corrected. Not even close, she thought with an unwelcome mental image of his strong, bare chest. She ordered herself immediately to stop doing that.
Jeffrey tossed his brown hair out of his face. “So where are we going? Why’d we pack all that stuff?”
“I’m not sure whe
re we’re going, exactly. Scott’s going to surprise us. It should be fun,” she added, trying to convince herself as well as her nephew.
Jeffrey’s grunt was not encouraging. “I guess it beats being in school,” he muttered.
“Just let yourself have a good time, okay, Jeffrey? It’s okay to have fun. And listen to Mr. McKay. There are probably a lot of things you can learn from him.”
Jeffrey rolled his eyes and slumped in his seat, looking as if he were on his way to a root canal. Blair had to try one more time to put him in the proper frame of mind for this experiment. “Come on, Jeffrey. Surely you like being outdoors. Having adventures. Seeing new things.”
“I like having adventures with my dad. Not with strangers.”
The boy’s sullen response made Blair’s heart ache. She was trying so hard to repair the damage her careless, irresponsible brother had caused this child. But she was beginning to believe it was something she couldn’t accomplish alone.
“Just give Scott a chance,” she repeated quietly. “Maybe you’ll like him.”
The boy shrugged. “What does it matter if I like him or not? He won’t be around long. Nobody is.”
“I will be,” Blair told him firmly. “Don’t you doubt that.”
Her nephew merely looked out the window beside him, his expression unreadable, much too contained for his years. Either he didn’t believe her reassurances that she wouldn’t abandon him, as everyone else in his life had, or he was afraid to believe her for fear of being disappointed yet again. But she knew she still had a long way to go before she reached him—if ever.
CHAPTER THREE
SIPPING STRONG airport coffee, Scott lounged in the metal building that comprised the office of the one-strip airport that served the private pilots of the Lightning Creek area. There weren’t many people around this morning—a couple of other pilots preparing for takeoff, a mechanic who’d been hired to work on someone’s two-seater, the airport owner, and his wife, who served as his partner and assistant. Scott enjoyed airports like this one and had visited dozens of them across the country, finding a bond with other flying enthusiasts who owned small aircraft.
He kept his eyes on the gravel road that approached the airport from town, watching for Blair’s car. Surely she would have sent word if she wasn’t going to show. He imagined she was a little annoyed with him for not calling her himself, but he’d been very busy since the auction. He’d had to leave most of the arrangements for this weekend to Carolyn, his invaluable, long-suffering assistant. And besides, he thought sheepishly, he hadn’t wanted to give Blair a chance to refuse. His ego had taken enough shots from her after the auction.
It was going to take an even bigger blow if she stood him up today. Had she decided he wasn’t qualified to talk to her nephew, after all?
But then he spotted a neat little white sedan bumping down the road toward the airport and he relaxed, somehow knowing it was Blair. It looked exactly like the kind of car she would drive, he mused with a smile, thinking of his own customized four-by-four. He glanced toward the green-and-white Cessna 172 waiting by the runway, already prepped for flight. He hoped neither Blair nor her nephew was a nervous flyer. Teenage boys usually liked flying, wouldn’t admit their fears even if they had them.
He was generally comfortable with teenagers—even the surly ones. He made it a point to hire several for afternoon and summer work at the ranch, believing that honest work was a boost to any kid’s self-confidence. He hoped he would get along well with Blair’s nephew, maybe even have a positive influence on the kid. It was too bad that he and Blair had been interrupted before they could talk more about Jeffrey. It would help if he knew more about their circumstances—how Blair had ended up with the kid, why the boy was so angry and rebellious, what she had done so far to get through to him.
He tossed his foam coffee cup in an overflowing trash can and headed outside to greet them as the car turned into the graveled parking lot. Maybe he’d give the boy a flying lesson, he thought, remembering when a kindly old pilot had given him his first lesson. Teenagers usually loved to be behind the wheel of anything that moved.
He stopped in his tracks when Blair and her nephew—her very short nephew—climbed out of the car. Her nephew was most definitely not a teenager, Scott realized immediately. He couldn’t be more than ten years old.
This was the boy Blair wanted to have buckle down and plan the course of his life? The one she worried wasn’t taking his studies and his future seriously enough? The kid didn’t look old enough to spell future, much less to blueprint it!