The Daughter Dilemma

“She’ll get over it. The young suffer a great deal, but their anger dies quickly.”

“Addy thinks I’m too hard on her.”

It was time, Sam decided, to say a few things that had been on his mind lately. “Sometimes you are. I think you need someone to make what you say to her more pal—” He stopped, trying to envision the right word in his mind. In spite of all the progress he’d made, sometimes the consequences of the stroke still plagued his speech, but Nick knew better than to help him.

The word wouldn’t come. After a frustrated moment he said, “To make what you say not such a bitter pill to swallow.”

“There are plenty of people around here sugarcoating every word I say to her.”

“You need more than that. You need a real mother for the girl. And a wife for yourself, Nick. A helpmate.”

There was a swift change in Nick’s expression. He stopped tightening the laces on his second boot and looked at his father as though he had suffered another stroke. “A wife! That’s the last thing I need.”

“Why? Look at your mother and me. So many happy years. Marriages are made in heaven.”

“So are thunder and lightning,” Nick said with a bark of laughter. He turned back to his boots, a touch of impatience in the set of his mouth. “I don’t think we need to have this discussion. Let’s go see if we can talk Mom out of some lasagna.”

Sam moved his wheelchair closer. “Don’t brush me aside. I’m serious. You think one bad marriage and it’s over? Just because you burn your mouth once does not mean you have to blow on your soup forever.”

Nick rose, raking a hand through his hair. “I don’t know where this is coming from,” he muttered. “I haven’t been this uncomfortable since our birds and the bees talk.”

“Your mother and I—we see you. You take on too much. You share nothing. Not even your thoughts anymore. This mountain is becoming your fortress. I know this is because of me.” Sam’s right arm was his strongest, and he let his fingers brush against the side of the wheelchair. “Because of this. You think we can’t manage without you.”

The discussion was sapping his energy. Sam could feel his head drooping a little. In a softer tone he said, “Well, perhaps you are right. Perhaps we can’t.”

Nick came to the chair and knelt in front of his father. He took his hand in his, massaging the long, bony fingers lightly. “I see improvement in you every day, Pop,” he said in a gentle voice. “You keep going, and I’ll be out of a job in no time. In the meantime, I enjoy looking after everyone here. I’d be bored without all this insanity.”

Sam looked his son in the eyes. “You are a healthy young man. Good Italian stock. You should date.”

Nick grinned. “I do. Didn’t I take Helen Grabowksi to Broken Yoke’s Fourth of July celebration?”

“Bah!” Sam said with a grimace. “That woman, she is…she has…” Again he struggled to find the word. When it failed to materialize, he settled on something easier. “Your grandfather would have said she has la malocchio!”

Nick’s Italian was pretty good, but he’d seldom heard that word. He straightened and placed his hands on his hips. “I don’t see how a woman who works at Becky’s House of Hair can have the evil eye.”

“She giggled all through the national anthem.” Sam didn’t bother to hide the acid in his tone.

“God help her if it had been the Italian national anthem. You’d have had her run out of town on a rail.”

“That woman is not your type.”

“Type!” Nick exclaimed with more laughter. “I was looking for fun and a little companionship. Not a blood transfusion.”

“Nicholas—”

“We can talk about my love life later. Much, much later. I have to get back to the hangar. I’m surprised Addy hasn’t called screaming bloody murder because I’ve been gone so long.”

He moved around to the back of Sam’s wheelchair, bending forward as he pushed his father out into the hallway. “If you and Mom want to work on finding someone a mate, start with Addy. Get her interested in a man and maybe she’ll stop bugging me about more flight time.”

ALL THE WAY DOWN the mountain in his Jeep, Nick couldn’t stop smiling.

Imagine his father and mother worried about his love life! What was that all about? Maybe he hadn’t been in the best of moods lately, but how did they figure getting involved with a woman was the answer? If anything, it would just make everything more…complicated.

He should have told his father not to bother. He was no damned good at the husband/wife game. Ask Denise, his ex. She’d have given Pop an earful, although Nick wasn’t sure she’d be completely impartial about where the blame lay. Some of the reasons their marriage had failed had been his fault. Okay, a lot of them. It probably didn’t matter now which ones. It was enough to say that their quarreling had corroded and eventually killed what they’d once had together.

A new relationship? These days he couldn’t find much reason to try. He was too tired. Too set in his ways. Too busy to blow the dust off the old male/female dance steps and find someone new to whirl out onto the floor.

Besides, who in these parts could even inspire him to try?

Pop was right about Helen Grabowski. Way too giddy. Ellie Hancock, the owner of Ellie’s Book Nook? Too timid. You had to work hard to get a single word out of her. Paulette Manzoni, the pretty ski instructor he’d met in Vail the last time he was there, had been a possibility. She had a great appreciation for the bed and was Italian, to boot, which would certainly please his parents. Only thing, she collected teddy bears, which was a nice little hobby—until Nick had discovered they took up every square inch of her house.

No. Definitely not.

Broken Yoke, the nearest town, didn’t offer much hope. The woman who’d shown up at Angel Air’s office today had been right. If something didn’t happen soon, the only inhabitants there would be ghosts.

Kari Churchill. Pretty name. Pretty lady, too, although she had one heck of a nerve expecting them to drop everything to fly her out to Elk Creek Canyon. He didn’t care for egotists who had so little respect for other people’s time. She’d put his back up right from the start with that attitude of hers, and Nick suspected the feeling was mutual.

Too bad, because they could have used the money. But if he was going to be tied up at the lodge, he hadn’t wanted Addy taking up that flight. Not in the last hour of good daylight. Not when his sister still didn’t know his birds like the back of her hand.

But he couldn’t say that in front of her. So he’d probably lost that booking and made an enemy of the Churchill woman for life. Sorry, Pop. Scratch that name off your list of potential mates.

Rain splattered the windshield of the Jeep. In the distance he heard the rumble of thunder. Those clouds he’d seen earlier hadn’t lied. He was getting pretty good at predicting storms. Soon he’d be like Great-Uncle Giovanni, forecasting weather with his big toes.

Addy was going to be furious. It took both of them to get the birds into the hangar, him pushing from the tail while she maneuvered the skid dolly. Now they might have to manage it in pouring rain.

He frowned as he pulled into the parking lot. The outside floodlights weren’t on and Kari Churchill’s vehicle was still sitting there. The lights in the office weren’t on, either, but what made Nick’s stomach drop right down to his toes was the chopper pad.

Raven One was gone.

Ramming the key into the office lock, he flipped on the lights and strode back to the hangar in less than a dozen steps. It was dark, too. No copter. Nobody in sight.

He ran back into the office. Not possible. Addy wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have taken the copter up with a storm coming in. She knew better.

Didn’t she?

His mind stretched back, trying to recall if she’d been standing there when he and Dwayne Patterson had shared that awkward conversation about the weather.

We’ll get a thunderstorm later.

You really think so?

Where had Addy been? On the pad, right? On the pad right beside him. No. Not there. Checking on that little witch Hannah Patterson.

If she hadn’t known about the coming storm, then she might have gone up. When he’d pulled out of the parking lot, had there been anything but pretty blue sky overhead? He couldn’t remember. Would she really have let the Churchill woman talk her into something? No! She’d check the weather service. She knows the drill. She knows it…

His legs felt as though they were filled with water as he dropped behind his desk, knocked everything aside and pulled the base radio to his chest. He had to swallow hard.

Focus. Don’t lose control.