Come Fly With Me (27 page)

“What is it?”

She handed Julia the brochure before she could chicken out.

The older woman looked at it before glancing back up. “Exchange program?”

“A nationally accredited exchange program. The hospitality industry is one hundred percent behind it and all the candidates are fully vetted so that you don’t get a serial killer in your hotel.”

“Honey.” Julia reached out and grabbed one of her hands. Avery looked down to realize she’d been flinging it wildly as she talked.

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

So Avery filled her in on her research into the hotel exchange program and the woman named Lena who’d called her the other day and introduced herself and asked if she wanted to change places for three months.

“So it’s in County Clare. In a town called Ennis. That’s where Lena’s from and her family owns a B and B there.”

Julia nodded and it was impossible to miss the snap of interest that lit up her dark brown eyes.

“And I need your help in convincing Susan that I should go do this and she should accept a stranger from Ireland to work in her hotel for three months.”

“Is that all?”

A heavy breath escaped her throat, one Avery hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. “All? Well, yeah.”

Julia leaned forward and Avery felt the warm press of her thin hand against her cheek. “Yes, dear, is that all? Because I suggest we finish these sinful coffees and march straight over to the hotel. You and I need to make plans.”

“Plans for what?”

“We’re headed to Anchorage. You’ve got a trip to plan for and I absolutely will not let you get on a plane without brand-new luggage.”

It was long minutes later—long after Julia had pulled her in for a tight hug and long after Avery had
brushed away the silly tears she hadn’t been able to hold back—that she finally relaxed enough to smile.

And once she started, she couldn’t stop.

Grier flipped through the photo album once more, her gaze drawn yet again to the picture of the happy, smiling couples on the first page.

Was that really her mother?

Once it had been pointed out to her, it was evident that it was Patrice Thompson, but she struggled with reconciling the laughing, carefree woman in the photo with the reserved person who’d raised her.

Brett laid a tray on the table, laden with cups of tomato soup and a stack of grilled cheese sandwiches.

“Oh, you didn’t need to go to all this trouble.”

“It’s not trouble. And I’m glad you’re here. You’ve given me a reason to go through those old photos and I’ve enjoyed the reminiscing.”

Mick laid a stack of photos next to the album and reached for his coffee mug to get it out of the way. “Did you and Jonas keep in touch?”

“We lost touch after he moved to Indigo. My Wendy and I got married and traveled a lot.” Brett patted one of the afghans that lay under his elbow and Grier didn’t miss the wistful expression that flitted across his face before he continued. “The pipeline was hard work, but it was good work. Good-paying work. We never had kids, so we traveled and enjoyed ourselves.”

“When did Wendy pass away?”

“A few years back. She wanted me to move
away from here, but it’s my home. And it was our home. And hell, I make a mean casserole. As long as a man can cook himself a casserole, he can eat, you know?”

Grier laughed and found herself once again enamored of the hearty spirit of the Alaskan locals. They grieved and missed their loved ones, but they had a pragmatism about life that was refreshing and engaging.

“So anyway. You didn’t come here to get my recipe for tuna casserole. Jonas and I lost track of each other and then I got on Facebook a few years back.”

“An endless resource for friendships, old relationships and friendly stalking,” Mick said with a broad smile.

Brett slapped his knee. “You’re right about that. I found Jonas and shortly thereafter hooked up with Maeve.”

“Are you, um”—Grier reached for a square of grilled cheese and deliberately kept her tone casual—“with my aunt?”

“We’re special friends.”

Her gaze collided with Mick as the words “special friends” lit the air above both their heads, but they both kept their thoughts to themselves.

“I’d like more, but she’s been resistant. If you could put in a good word for me, though, I’d sure appreciate it.”

Grier looked into Brett’s hopeful face and couldn’t resist leaning over and planting a quick kiss on his cheek. “I’d be happy to.”

“So. Let’s get back to your mom and dad. Your mother was up here making a documentary.”

“My mother?” The sensation she’d walked into a different dimension seized her and the slightly panicky feeling that maybe zombies really did lurk around every corner sent a shiver through her. “My mother was a filmmaker?”

“She wasn’t the director, but she was part of it.” Brett snapped his fingers. “She was the producer.”

“On a documentary?”

“About the pipeline.” Brett nodded as he reached for a sandwich. “She sure was. Your mother was quite the looker and Jonas took a shine to her immediately and she fell just as hard. The film crew was up here for about four months and the two of them were inseparable. When they weren’t working, they were—” Brett broke off, another one of those sweet blushes suffusing his skin.

“Freaking?” Mick added helpfully as he reached for a helping of grilled cheese.

Grier swatted at his knee as Brett gave them a slightly puzzled frown, but he picked up on the subtext quick enough, the frown morphing into a smile. “That’s about right.”

“I’m not asking you to give anything away that makes you uncomfortable, but I just don’t understand how they went from being this happy, lovey-dovey couple to living an entire continent apart. Did something happen?”

Brett reached for a sandwich. His gaze was sharp
with memories and his shoulders tensed in a straight line. She could see he struggled with what to say.

“None of us ever really understood what happened. I don’t say this to speak ill of your mother, Grier, but my Wendy wasn’t all that fond of her. Kept telling me there was something off that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.”

Grier knew that sense. It was the same one she’d lived with her entire life. Her mother had an odd, unsettling way about her that kept people at a distance. Even when you thought she was with you and in the moment, there was a gap.

A chasm that simply couldn’t be crossed.

“It’s all right, Brett. My mother has her eccentricities.”

He nodded, then continued. “Even when things were going perfectly with Jonas and Patty, Wendy kept at me that something wasn’t right. Said every time she tried to pull your mom into conversation, she held back.”

“A person’s entitled to his own thoughts,” Mick said, pushing his point. “Is it possible Grier’s mom is shy? The small-town nosiness isn’t for everyone.”

“That’s more than fair and I said that to Wendy plenty, but she kept at it. And I was a skeptic until the last story she told me. Right before your mom left Alaska.”

“What was it?”

“She and the woman she was making the documentary with invited Wendy to see a preview. She was bored off her ass up here and leaped at the chance to do something while us guys were off on the site.”

Grier didn’t even realize she was holding her
breath until Mick reached for her hand and gave her fingers a tight squeeze.

“Patty was laughing with the film’s director, and they were drinking some champagne they’d managed to dig up on a trip to Fairbanks and that they’d saved for the occasion. The director was pretty far into the bottle when Wendy arrived, and Patty just kept waving this full glass that never went down. Wendy said it was funny at first, their laughing and celebrating that the movie had come out and all.”

Brett stopped and once again, Grier could see how discomfort stamped itself across his kind face. “It really is all right. You can’t hurt my feelings.”

He wiped his brow and nodded. “I never have liked speaking ill of others. Gossip’s an unfair business as it doesn’t give a person a chance to defend himself.”

“I’ll tell you the truth. My mother hasn’t been all that supportive of my trips up here and she hasn’t gone out of her way to help me with learning about my father. Because of that, as far as I’m concerned, she’s abdicated her right to have a say in it.”

“That’s fair.” Brett laid down his sandwich and wiped his hands on a napkin. “So Wendy said she had a few minutes with your mom and before she knew it, Patty was crying. Big huge tears, the sort you get when you can’t even catch your breath. And she tells my Wendy she’s pregnant and that she doesn’t know what to do. That she can’t live up here and what would people think. This was supposed to be a fling—a fun thing after college—and here she was pregnant with a pipeline worker’s baby.”

Even if Brett felt it was gossip, Grier knew otherwise. She’d just learned the truth her mother had refused to share.

Not only had she been unwanted from the first, but Patrice Thompson had thought Jonas Winston beneath her.

M
ick had glanced intermittently at Grier since they’d left Barrow, but the sight never changed. She hadn’t looked away from the window once since they’d taken off.

“We don’t have to stay in Fairbanks tonight. I can pick up our stuff and take you back to Indigo.”

“There’s no need to cut the trip short.”

“Grier—” He broke off, at a loss for words. She’d kept up a bright smile for Brett and a steady stream of questions for the duration of their stay, but he knew better.

She was devastated.

And he had no idea how to help her.

“If you’re sure?”

“I’m sure. It’s been a long day and there’s no reason to head home tonight.”

“Do you want to call Sloan or Avery? I can patch them in from here if you want to talk.”

“No, thanks.”

“Do you want to talk to me?”

That finally got her turning from the window. “What is there to say? I went on a fact-finding mission
and I got the facts. Brett corroborated what was in the letter.”

“He also told you how much your father loved you.”

“They were just words, Mick. Nothing he did in life supported that.”

And that was something he couldn’t argue with, no matter how he looked at her situation. He believed Jonas cared for her, but the man hadn’t backed up those feelings when it counted.

The tower in Fairbanks alerted him he was cleared to land and he began their descent, leaving her once again to her thoughts.

His relationship with his own father wasn’t the model example of a strong family bond, but at least he knew him. He had been given the opportunity to look the man in the eye and know he was his son. It was something he’d taken for granted, but faced with Grier’s circumstances, he saw the basic comfort that knowledge imparted.

To know where you came from and that you mattered
meant
something.

Mick landed and taxied them to the hangar, working his way through the postflight paperwork as quickly as he could.

“You hungry?” Mick signed off on the last of the paperwork and reached for the small flight bag he carried with him. “We can go back to the Rooster.”

“No, not really.”

“Room service?”

“Sure.”

The drive back to the hotel was quick and Mick
settled his hand on her lower back as they walked into the lobby. They were nearly to the elevators when a familiar voice called to him from across the small space.

“Mick!”

He turned to see Petey Stone, the grocer from Talkeetna he’d seen recently. “What are you doing here?”

“My wife wanted to come up and get some shopping done and we also wanted to visit with our daughter who’s at the university.”

Mick made quick introductions and Grier smiled broadly, taking an interest in the man’s daughter. He inwardly shook his head at the transformation as her words from the day before came back to him.

She could
be
with him.

The evidence of that—and the knowledge that she didn’t put on airs or act for him—was strangely heady.

Mick keyed back into Petey’s comments as the man turned his focus on him. “So it’s funny I’m seeing you. I was going to call you after I got home. I meant it last week about that gun for your father. Do you think he’d like it?”

The memories of that conversation hit him square in the chest and whatever joy had filled him at the thought of Grier’s trust of him evaporated under the reminder of his father’s great love and passion.

“I don’t think he’s going to want it.”

“Oh, so you talked to him?”

“Nah, but I know he’s full up right now. I don’t think he needs another rifle.”

Confusion briefly flitted across Petey’s face before
an embarrassed flush crept up his neck. “Sure, sure. Sorry to pester you about it.”

“Nah, not at all, Petey. Look. We’ve had a long day running up to Barrow. We’re going to call it a night.”

“Sure thing. I’ll see you in a few weeks for the February delivery.”

“You bet.”

Mick returned his hand to the small of Grier’s back and continued their walk to the elevators. He didn’t miss the sharp interest that lit up her gaze, but she said nothing until they were in the elevator.

“He seems like a nice guy.”

“Sure is. He’s a client of mine and Jack’s.”

“A good one, from the sounds of it.”

“The best.”

A sense of relief flooded him as they stepped off the elevator and Grier didn’t say anything further. She followed him down the hall to their rooms and waited while he unlocked the door.

He allowed Grier to pass in front of him, watching as she walked and dropped the bag she’d filled with memorabilia from Brett onto the bed.

As the door clicked closed behind him, she turned tired eyes on him. “It seems I’m not the only one keeping my thoughts to myself. You want to tell me what that was all about?”

He saw the confusion stamped across her face, from the questions in her gray gaze to the firm set of her lips. Whatever he thought he’d managed to avoid in the lobby had been all in his head.