avoiding the subject,” he insisted, forcing calm. “I’m just going to do what I said I’d do and find another housekeeper. Give the kids a hug for me, okay? I’ll call them when I get back tonight.”
He swore he could feel his mother’s displeasure vibrate through the line when she said she’d be glad to give the kids a hug and reluctantly said goodbye. Trying to get Beth Edwards to let go of an idea was like trying to part a rat terrier from a fresh bone. She simply refused to let go. Especially when she thought she knew what was best for those she cared about. His mom had been at him to move back to Seattle since his wife died three years ago. The suggestion that he marry again, however, was one she hadn’t sprung on him before.
The thought of moving his kids from the only home they’d ever known put a knot the size of a fist in his gut. As for finding another wife, the idea was incomprehensible. He couldn’t imagine ever again having what he and Tina had shared.
He dropped the receiver in its cradle. Masking a wealth of frustration, he glanced at the woman studying the huge map of the northwestern U.S. and Canada covering the wall. Her anxious glance focused on the red You Are Here arrow in the middle of Puget Sound.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
T.J. Walker took another cautious glance at the gaping expanses of water between the dots of land on the map and stepped closer to the long counter that bisected the small, utilitarian room. Mail and packages formed small towers inside the open door to the airplane hangar. The scent of industrial-strength coffee mingled with a hint of aviation fuel and the fresh sea air that filtered in from outside.
Her attention narrowed on the man behind the long expanse of gray Formica.
Sam Edwards was tall, remarkably built and undeniably impressive—in a rugged, commanding sort of way. His hair was short and dark, a color the same rich shade as that of the sables that had terrorized her baby deer until she’d trapped and moved them to the other end of the island. But it was the eyes beneath the dark slash of brow that caused her a split second of hesitation. They were a sharp, biting blue, as intense and clear as an Arctic summer sky.
From what she had heard, she was probably the only single female on Harbor Island who hadn’t shown up at his door at one time or another with a casserole and an invitation to call her sometime. Not that she would ever do such a thing. Even if she were in the market for a man—which she definitely was not—she’d been brushed aside too many times in her life to willingly seek rejection.
“I think so,” she finally replied. “Hope so,” she was quick to amend.
“I know you.” Those incredible eyes narrowed on her face. “You’re from around here.”
“From down the road a couple of miles, actually.” Anxious to get to the reason she was there, she offered a quick, easy smile. “I ship my pottery from here, and we’ve seen each other at the preschool. My son is the same age as yours. Andy Walker?” she prompted. “And I work part-time at Bert and Libby Bender’s bookstore.”
Everyone knew the elderly Bert and Libby Bender. Everyone but this guy, it seemed. The nod he gave her was vague, more expected response than actual recognition.
It was apparently her pottery that nudged his memory. “I didn’t recognize you without your packages. So,” he prompted, his smile polite, his manner all business, “what do you need?”
“Flying lessons,” she replied, voicing the idea that had occurred to her less than an hour ago. “Actually, I need to know what you charge for them, first. And how long they take. If I can’t learn in a few weeks, or if they’re too expensive, my idea won’t work.”
The lady had a plan. One that had her looking both uncertain and more than a little animated. Still trying to shift gears between the call from his mom and needing to hurry because he had paying passengers outside, Sam didn’t bother to ask what that plan was. It was none of his business, anyway.
“Sorry,” he murmured, prioritizing. He needed his flight log, flight map and his sunglasses. He figured he should grab the bag of chips off the desk, too. He hadn’t had time for lunch. “We don’t give flying lessons here. To learn to fly you have to take ground school first.”
“Ground school?”
“Classroom instruction,” he clarified, rolling his flight map and stuffing it into a tube. “There isn’t a ground school on Harbor, but you might try the community college in Bellingham. I can look up the number for you, but that’s the best I can do to help.”
The man’s expression was one of total preoccupation. His tone remained polite but utterly final.
Undaunted by the fact that she barely had his attention, T.J. snagged the cap of his tube from the near end of the counter.
“I don’t want to take ground school. Not yet, anyway. All I want is to see if I can get a plane off the ground, fly it around and land it. There’s no sense wasting time taking ground school if I can’t do that, is there?”
Her odd logic had him looking up from his search. Taking advantage of his silence, she held out the cap. “Your sister said you’re a very patient man. That’s what I need. Someone with patience who can help me figure out if what I want is even possible.”
Sam’s forehead lowered, his eyebrows forming a single slash. The mention of his sister immediately canceled his concern about waiting passengers. “You know Lauren?”
“Sure. I run into her at my mom’s shop at least once a week.”
“Your mom’s shop?”
“The Herb Shoppe and Video Store,” she clarified. “My mom is Crystal Walker. She owns it.”
He knew the place. He and his kids were in there at least twice a week. “And she told you I was patient?”
“No. Lauren did.”
“That’s what I meant,” he muttered.
“Aren’t you?”
Patient? he thought. Once, maybe. Anymore, he wasn’t so sure. “What I mean,” he said, forcing the patience he was beginning to doubt, “is why would Lauren tell you something like that?”
“Because I called her as soon as I left Doc Jackson’s office to see if her husband could help me with the flying thing. She said Zach is really strapped for time right now because they’ve started Lamaze classes, but I should talk to you. She thought you’d make a better instructor, anyway, because you’re so…patient.”
Sam purposefully ignored what he considered extraneous information—the woman’s references to Doc Jackson, the local vet, and Zach McKendrick, his business partner and brother-in-law—and focused on the uncomfortable sensation brewing in his gut. For the past year, his little sister had been after him to get involved in something other than his children and his work. With the conversation with his mother still fresh in his mind, he had the sudden and uneasy feeling that his female relatives might have begun a campaign to find him a mate.
The thought had him taking a closer look at the woman he now recalled having seen at the preschool with her small son.
Her long, wildly curling hair was the color of mahogany licked by firelight. Hints of ruby and topaz shimmered in its depths. The green of her eyes was more a smoky moss than emerald. She wore no makeup on her flawless skin, and there was a willowy look about her slenderness that struck him as rather graceful in a coltish sort of way.
Yet there was nothing immediately striking about her—not with her natural and well-scrubbed looks. And definitely not dressed as she was in the loose overalls that hid nearly every potential curve. She downplayed every asset she had. But he didn’t doubt for a moment that any number of men would find her attractive. Beautiful, he supposed, his glance slipping over the ripe curve of her unadorned mouth. She just wasn’t the sort of petite blonde he’d always been attracted to himself. The delicate type his wife had been.
Not that he was looking for a woman, he reminded