Flight Risk (Antiques in Flight) (13 page)

It wasn’t wrong of her to want that, to try and make sure that happened, no matter what anyone said or thought.

They climbed back into her car and Shelby gingerly drove down the curving gravel toward the “big house”, cringing at each dinging sound on her precious car. She had never been past the main buildings of AIF, so she had no idea what was hidden beyond the random clutches of trees. Finally, at the last turn around a pond lined with big cottonwood trees, the big house came into view.

Shelby leaned forward to get a better look, intrigued by the unique building before her. It was big. Not huge or anything, but bigger than her home. It had a weird, slanted, A-frame structure, and the wood of the outside looked at home with the trees that surrounded it on three sides.

The house was seemingly held up at the sides by two sloping wooden porches. The expansive lawn around the house was cut, but everything looked a little dilapidated, a little sad. Even the blooming fruit trees couldn’t cheer up the lonely, bleak exterior.

Trevor, Callie and Em stood outside the house talking about something, that is until they heard her car on the gravel and all turned with mixed looks of confusion on their faces.

Again, Shelby squared her shoulders. The plan had been to get Callie alone, avoid Trevor. Maybe it was better that they were together. Em was kind of an outlier, but it wasn’t anything Shelby couldn’t handle.

“You sure about this?”

Shelby flashed a bright smile at Dan. “What’s not to be sure about?”

He shrugged and then stepped out of the car with her. Before Shelby could open her mouth in greeting, Trevor was crossing to them with that
oh I’m so smart and intuitive
FBI agent look, but Shelby was determined not to crack.

“What are you doing here?” His tone was casual, but he studied them each carefully even if his smile remained one of concern.

From her peripheral vision Shelby could tell Dan was squirming and she had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. When it came to Trevor, Dan was such a wimp.

“We wanted to talk to Callie and Em. Just for a sec.”

Em and Callie crossed over, Em looking all bright and cheerful and Callie looking a little different. She was dressed in black and jeans and everything, but she was smiling. It wasn’t that nasty smile before she said something rude either.

It was like a real, happy smile. That put Shelby off her stride for a minute.

“What’s up?”

Shelby surveyed the group in front of her, determined Em would be the least likely to see right through her, so she focused in on Em’s blue eyes. “Dan and I had a little idea we were hoping we could run by you.”

Shelby concentrated, blocking Callie and Trevor’s skeptical looks completely out of her line of vision. “Dan and I have been talking about having a joint graduation party. His mom can’t really help out and I, well…” She slid a look at Trevor and saw exactly what she wanted to see. Guilt.

Maybe that was wrong of her. So be it.

“We thought maybe we could have our party out at the airport. You’ve got the Canteen and big open space. It’d be great for a big barbecue. We’d do all the work. We’d want to kind of rent the space.”

“You want to rent out AIF for a party?” Em cocked her head, mulling over the surprising suggestion.

Shelby nodded.

“We can pay you,” Dan offered into the silence. “I mean, not a lot. There aren’t a lot of places to have parties around here and I’ve got kind of a big family coming into town. Plus, if it’s okay, there might be a couple other kids who would want to have their parties with us.”

Shelby couldn’t read any of their faces, but eventually Callie stepped forward.

“You don’t have to pay us.”

Shelby watched as Em’s mouth dropped open a little. “They don’t?”

“We’ll do set-up and clean-up too,” Callie added.

“We will?” was Em’s shocked response.

“In return,” Callie continued, ignoring her sister’s incredulous looks, “you and Dan volunteer at AIF all summer. Say, ten hours a week.”

Shelby didn’t have time for it to sink in before she was already trying to argue. “But—”

“You’ll have to be in charge of your own food stuff, but I bet Trevor being the great brother he is would help you out with that.”

“You… We…” Shelby was too blown away to formulate a response. She looked helplessly at Dan.

“That sounds really cool, Ms. Baker,” Dan said eagerly. “You sure?”

Shelby gaped at him. Was he high? This was
not
the plan.

“We need you guys’ help more than we need your money. One night for a couple slaves all summer is more than worth it.”

Shelby looked at Callie, who was grinning. Somehow Callie had thwarted her plan without knowing it.

“Well, I’ll take you guys up to Mary and we’ll figure out the best day for all of us,” Em said, still looking a little shell-shocked.

Shelby finally found her voice. “Okay.”

“I think I would have rather had their money,” Em muttered to Callie, but Shelby caught it and watched Callie double over with laughter.

“Cracks me up when she gets all penny pinching,” Callie said to Trevor, and Shelby watched a moment pass between them. Shelby couldn’t pinpoint what the moment or look was about, but Shelby liked to think it might be a precursor to what she was trying to accomplish.

With the right kind of push, she’d make sure those two fell head over heels and Trevor wouldn’t think about leaving Pilot’s Point ever again. Maybe Callie’s plan actually helped her do that better. If she spent ten hours at AIF a week, there’d be all kinds of opportunities to push Callie and Trevor together.

Shelby scurried after Em, smiling from ear to ear.

“That was weird.”

Callie looked to where Shelby’s car had disappeared in a cloud of dust. “She’s got another scheme up her sleeve.”

“Yeah, but I never figured out the first one. Which is pathetic. I must be losing my touch.”

“Time to get you back to Seattle and hot shot FBI agenthood.” She hoped it sounded more joking than it felt. And really hoped it took his mind off that first scheme, so she didn’t feel compelled to explain it.

Trevor turned to take in the house. “You want to wait for Em?”

Callie didn’t turn. Needed to get her bearings first. “No, let’s go ahead and start. Putting it off won’t help anything.”

They were down to two-and-a-half weeks before Lawson and the boys would be showing up ready to make the Baker house home. It was time to suck it up and get to work. Callie and Em would work on sorting things after hours, but first they needed to look and see if any repairs would need to be made, and if Trevor could do any of them.

Today was inspection. Tonight and the coming evenings would be the emotional task of going through everything.

Callie took a deep breath and turned to face her second childhood home. She’d spent the first eight years of her life in the cabin she and Em now shared, but after Dad had died, she’d lived at the big house with Grandma and Gramps.

If she let them, the memories would crowd around until she couldn’t breathe. Instead, she focused on the job at hand. Tonight would be about memories. Chances were she’d end up crying then with Em, so there was no way in hell she was going to cry now. Especially in front of Trevor. Again.

“We’ll start in the basement. Work our way up.”

Maybe her hand shook a little as she pushed the key into the hole and opened the door, but the musty air that greeted her took away any of the remaining trepidation.

This wasn’t right. The building was a house meant to be lived in—not locked up. Lawson and his boys would live in it and love it the way it was meant to be. Grandma would like that. Gramps would too.

With the harsh sun-blocking curtains on every window, the house was dark and eerily quiet. It almost felt haunted, and that had Callie going around to every window and moving the curtains out of the way so that sunlight filtered in.

All the furniture was covered with thick drop cloths, and though Callie itched to throw them off, it would be best if things remained covered until closer to Lawson’s arrival.

“It’s so weird,” Trevor said in a low, reverential tone. “Seeing it like this. I haven’t been here in so long.”

Callie shrugged, hoping to alleviate the heavy feeling on her shoulders. “It’ll be up and running again in no time.”

She moved across faded orange carpet to the big, wooden stairs that led to the basement. They needed to check the heater, make sure there weren’t any leaks or cracks, menial things that would need to be taken care of before people could move in.

That would hopefully keep her mind off the heavy musk of dust and the choking feeling of ghosts.

At the bottom of the stairs, Callie reached up and pulled the string. It had been years since she’d lived here, but she still remembered its exact location. When the single bulb popped on, it revealed more musty, dirty air and a whole hell of a lot of work.

Gramps had been a packrat, and like his office at the airport, the basement was full of stacks of magazines and other airplane paraphernalia. They didn’t have to organize all of it, but if three people’s belongings were going to fit some of it had to be sorted.

The faintest hint of cigar smoke leaked its way through the overwhelming stench of grime and almost had her smiling.

“This is a lot of work, Cal.”

“Yeah.” But it would be healing work. It would hurt like hell, but going through everything, really putting it away instead of ignoring it, that would be a really positive step toward what she was trying to find.

Balance. Hope. A future.

“We won’t get to everything before they get home, but I want them to have at least something of a fresh start. They’ve had a rough few years, too.”

She surveyed the mess and tried to determine a good starting point, what needed to be done and what could be left for Law. She moved into the room that had once been Gramps’s home office, flipped on the light and felt all the strength leak out of her.

Gramps’s leather chair was covered in an inch of dust. On the table next to it were his glasses and a book marked with a bookmark. A bookmark she had made him at school in the fifth grade, with poorly drawn airplanes, laminated by her teacher.

Callie swallowed, tried to refocus. Tried not to think he was gone for the day and would be back.

The familiar feeling of being beat down returned. She’d made it a few days feeling decent about herself, so it made sense this would knock her back some. Healing? Was it even possible?

“What do you think?”

She looked at Trevor, really looked at him. The way his black hair was starting to grow out, enough that if she ran her fingers through it, it wouldn’t feel scratchy. His eyes were focused on the mess of the basement, and they were so blue it didn’t seem natural.

Broad shoulders tapered down, and his white T-shirt clung to his flat stomach, hard muscle under smooth skin. From all the work outside at AIF, his previously fair skin was now tanned.

What was so wrong with wanting him? With, for once, taking what she wanted? New leaf? Fuck it. She wanted something more than this new leaf of feeling sad and doing the right damn thing, she wanted to
feel
something besides all the bad.

Changing? Yes, she was changing. Healing from years of loss and pain and not knowing what to do with it all. Why not do something good, experience something amazing in the midst of all this new, hard stuff?

“I think you should kiss me.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out other than something akin to a squeak. It made her smile because it made her feel powerful. And it made her feel
good
.

She didn’t give him a chance to act or not act beyond that little squeak. She fisted her hands in his shirt and pulled his mouth to hers.

There was nothing tentative in her movement, much like her grief-fueled kiss years ago. But, it was different. She felt different. There was no alcohol prompting her decision, no debilitating sadness weighing down her limbs. This wasn’t desperation. No, this was freedom, and as Trevor’s lips began to move against hers, as his arm banded around her waist, she felt only one thing.

Good.

Callie gripped Trevor’s arms, enjoyed the hard muscle there as his teeth scraped against her bottom lip. Some sound came out of her she wasn’t familiar with, almost akin to a whimper as Trevor pushed her against the cement wall.

His hands roamed down and cupped her ass so that they were pressed hard together, center to center. She could feel his erection, and the thought of having him inside her had that strange noise escaping her throat again.

His tongue tangled with hers and his hands slid back up, over her sides and across her ribcage. She arched toward him, desperate for something, anything more. One hand cupped her breast and explored it until he found the sensitive nipple, while his other hand cupped her neck and pulled her mouth harder to his.

“Callie.” Her name from his lips, said so rough, so desperate, had the heat in her core exploding to something almost unbearable. Then he let his teeth scrape down the side of her neck and she was sure she was going to explode right there.