convinced himself that the hours with his mystery woman had never happened.
Why the hell would she leave without a word?
Anna, a middle-aged mother of four, worked for Jackson at the King family airfield. She kept ahead of the paperwork and made sure Jackson and the pilots who worked for him were always on top of their schedules. If the military had any sense at all, Jackson had often thought, they’d have hired mothers to be generals. Anna kept his work life running like a fine-tuned engine.
Too bad she couldn’t do the same for his personal life.
He thought of something, snapped his fingers and said, “Wait. She said her full name was Cassiopeia. That should help you find her.”
Anna glanced at him from the cabinet where she was deftly filing last month’s flight plans, gas usage records and pilot hours. She paused in her work, turned amused brown eyes on him and said, “As much as it pleases me to know you think I’m a miracle worker, I’ll need more than her first name and the color of her eyes to find her.”
“Right.”
“Besides,” she said thoughtfully, “don’t you have enough women in your life already?”
He chose to misunderstand her meaning and flashed her a smile. “You’re right, Anna my love. You’re more than enough woman for me.”
She laughed, as he’d known she would. “Oh, you’re smooth, Jackson. I give you that.”
Smooth enough to have managed to change the subject before Anna could start reminding him of things he’d rather not think about at the moment.
Jackson left Anna to her work and walked into his private office. Here on the airstrip, there was a tower, of course, and a main building with a room for their wealthy passengers to wait for their planes in comfort. The boarding room was lavishly appointed with overstuffed sofas and chairs, reading material, plasma TV, plus a fully staffed bar and snack area. Above that main room, were the offices. One for Jackson, one for Anna and one room that was mainly storage.
Jackson’s office, like Anna’s, overlooked the airfield. The walls were a tinted glass that let in light but kept the glare down to a minimum. Also, Jackson had never liked being cooped up, and having walls of glass made him feel less like he was spending time in a box when he absolutely had to be in the office.
Normally, he preferred spending his time on the luxury jet fleet he owned and operated. Sure, he had a staff of pilots working for him, but he enjoyed the footloose lifestyle that running his own business provided. And the chance to fly superseded everything else in his mind. Practically took an act of Congress to get him to do paperwork, but he could fly rings around most other pilots and was happiest in the air.
Today though, he walked to his desk, sat down and deliberately ignored the view. “Casey. Casey what? And why the hell didn’t you get her last name?”
Disgusted, he sat back in his leather desk chair and stared at the phone. This shouldn’t be bothering him. Not like he wasn’t used to one-night stands. But damn it, in the usual scheme of things he was the one who did the slipping away. He wasn’t used to having a woman slink off in the middle of the night. He wasn’t used to being the one left wondering what the hell had happened.
He had to say, he didn’t care for it.
When the phone rang, he grabbed it, more to silence the damn noise than because he was in the mood for talking. “What is it?”
“You’re damn cheerful this morning.”
Jackson frowned at his brother’s voice. “Travis. What’s going on?”
“Just checking to make sure we’re still on for dinner this weekend. Julie’s got her mom lined up as a babysitter.”
Despite his foul mood, Jackson smiled. In the last couple of years, he’d become an uncle. Twice over. First his oldest brother Adam and his wife Gina had become the parents of Emma, now a nearly unstoppable force of nature at a year and a half old. Then it was Travis and his wife Julie’s turn. Their daughter Katie was just a few months old and already had taken over their household.
And though Jackson loved his nieces, after a visit with either of his brothers, he walked into his own quiet, peaceful house with a renewed sense of gratitude. Nothing like being around proud parents and babies to make a man appreciate being single.
“Yeah,” he said, sitting up to lean one arm on his desktop. What with his mystery woman, an upcoming flight to Maine and a plane in for a refit, Jackson had almost forgotten about his dinner date with the family. “We’re still on. We’ve got reservations at Serenity. Eight o’clock. Figured we could meet in the bar for drinks around seven. That work for you?”
“It’s fine. Will Marian be joining us?”
Jackson frowned. “Don’t see why she should. She’s not part of the family.”
“She will be.”
“I haven’t proposed to her yet, Travis.”
“But you’re still going to.”
“Yeah.” He’d made the decision more than a month ago. Marian Cornice, only daughter of Victor Cornice, a man who owned many of the country’s largest private airfields.
Joining their families was a business decision, pure and simple. Once he was married to Marian, King Jets would grow even larger. With unlimited access to so many new airports, he’d be able to expand faster than his original business plan had allowed. The Cornice family was wealthy, but compared to the King family fortune, they were upstarts. In the marriage, Marian got the King name and fortune, plus she pleased her father, who admittedly was the spearhead of this match, and Jackson got the airfields. A win-win situation for everyone. Besides, both of his brothers had entered into marriages of convenience and they’d made them work. Why should he be any different?
If an image of his mystery woman floated into his mind, Jackson told himself it was fine because he wasn’t officially engaged yet. Wasn’t as if he were cheating on Marian.
“If you’re seriously going to do this, marry her I mean, it would be a chance for Marian to get used to the family,” Travis pointed out. “But if you’d rather not, fine. I’ll tell Adam about dinner. I’m driving Julie to the ranch so she and Gina and the kids can spend the day together.”
“Man.” Jackson shook his head and laughed a little. “Did you ever picture yourself a father, Travis? Because I’ve got to say, it’s weird for me to think of you and Adam as being dads.”
“It’s weird to be one too,” Travis admitted, but Jackson could hear the smile in his voice, even over the phone. “A good kind of weird, though. You should try it.”
He snorted. “Never gonna happen, big brother.”
“Marian might change your mind.”
“Not likely.” Jackson leaned back into his chair again. “She’s not exactly the maternal type. Fine by me anyway. I can be the world’s greatest uncle, spoil your kids rotten, then send them home.”
“Mistakes happen,” Travis said. “Everybody gets surprised once in awhile.”
Okay,
