"Yes, ma'am, I sure am. Just good old-fashioned fun that doesn't have to lead to a damn thing."
"Do you talk about sexual peaks with all your friends?"
"Now couldn't you just see my old loadmaster pal's face if I did?"
A snort splattered coffee against the topper on her mug. "I'm going to choke to death if you keep this up."
"I don't think so." He adjusted the altimeter setting. "You have the most incredible laugh, almost like a song, but it's a little hoarse, as if you haven't used it enough lately."
His words stole the laugh right out of her. Hadn't she thought the very same thing about her daughter's lack of smiles and laughter just a couple of days ago? Could Kirstie's sad little eyes be as much her mother's fault as her father's? Had she depressed her daughter with her own morose mood?
"Ah, hell, Paige. What'd I do now?"
"Nothing—" she forced a smile "—nothing at all. I'm just not a morning person."
She shrugged and worked on finishing her java as if it were a monumental task requiring all her attention. She needed to recoup after this new insight. Thank God, he got the message and stayed quiet for the whopping three minutes more it took to reach Chuck Anderson's family farm.
What was she thinking by bringing it up, anyway? Flirting was all well and good, but sheesh, she needed to keep herself grounded in reality, not pickup fantasies. She was a single mom in jeans and a T-shirt, her only cologne a hefty slathering of Avon's Skin So Soft to keep the mosquitoes away.
He decreased the throttle and lowered the flaps. The ground grew closer, the sprawling spread enlarging by the second, the landing steps familiar to her after so many flights with Seth. Bo pointed the craft toward the dirt strip runway, notched the flaps down again. Leveling the wings, he flared, raising the nose, all accomplished so smoothly she kept watching him—until she startled in surprise when the gear touched down without so much as a jolt.
His feet tipped the tops of the rudder pedals where the brakes were located, then flexed back down to guide the nose wheel as they taxied to the end of the grass strip. He pulled the throttle all the way out and turned the key. The engine shuddered off.
Bo whistled low through his teeth as he unstrapped. "The guy's got quite a spread here. I wonder how many hands it takes to help run this place? If those rows of bunkhouses are any indication, he's got quite a payroll."
Twisting back for her bag, she glanced over her shoulder. "What makes you think a guy owns it?"
"Get your PC knickers unknotted. You told me the guy's name earlier when we loaded up."
"Oh."
"Prickly Paige is in need of a smile again." He waggled his brows.
"Don't say another word." She held up her hand, totally unable to stop the smile.
He tapped the upward tilt of her lips. "I don't need to now."
The heat of his touch lingered far longer than her smile. Vaulting out of the door to the dusty ground, she clutched her black leather bag and started toward the waiting Suburban. She didn't want to depend on any man for her happiness ever again, even for so much as a few short weeks.
Chuck Anderson waited by the hangar with his idling vehicle—a member of the big blond lug club like her brother and Seth. "Thank heavens you're here. Even my stable head is having trouble keeping old Buck still."
"We'll have him patched up soon," she assured, careful to keep her distance from Chuck.
He'd asked her out last Valentine's Day, even included Kirstie in the invitation to make it seem less threatening, less like a date, even though the spark of interest in his eyes told them both it was. She'd said no, just as she'd done when he'd asked during their college days. She'd chosen Kurt over him because Chuck looked like a player.
What a joke in retrospect.
Objectively speaking, he was an attractive guy. Exactly the sort she should be with, given her love of animals and that Kirstie would have a wholesome environment. There just wasn't a spark.
Much less dry lightning.
Damn it, she'd gone for romance the first time and been so very wrong. She needed to be Practical Paige, even if that meant she was prickly, too.>Bo let his return smile answer. "You chiefs have a helluva way of making that sir sound like a put-down."
"Hey, at least I don't have to worry about you sniffing after my daughter, Nikki."
"Jesus, Tag, I was just helping her out with some advice on university courses."
"Just so it stays that way."