Flight Risk (Antiques in Flight) (2 page)

Callie looked at her own bottle. She’d never understood Trevor’s need to always be moving, doing, getting out. In Callie’s world, nothing was better than Pilot’s Point. It was comfort, it was memory, it was
home
.

“Change,” Trevor muttered, looking down at the bottle in his hands. He took another swig. “I’m supposed to be good at it.” He shook his head, looking so beat down she wanted to soothe him. Unfortunately, Callie had never learned how to soothe away someone’s hurt. She’d been too busy indulging in her own. She could offer a bottle of booze or a joke, but true comfort? Not Calloway Baker.

“It’s not fair,” he said, his voice scratchy and uneven. “She’s eighteen. Two months away from graduating. Mom should be here. Hell, Dad should be here. It isn’t right and it isn’t fair and…” He shook his head again as he trailed off.

The words hurt because she remembered what it was like. Walking down that aisle wearing the cap and gown and knowing the people who were supposed to be there weren’t. To have someone tell you those people were there in spirit or watching from heaven or whatever other bullshit excuses people used to try and help or soothe.

It wasn’t true. Her parents hadn’t been there in spirit, her grandma didn’t have some special lens from heaven. They had been dead. Buried. Gone. At graduation the only people watching her flip that tassel with any vested interest were Gramps and Em. Now she only had Em left.

For the first time in her life, Callie felt a little empathy for Shelby Steele.

“I’m sorry, Cal,” Trevor muttered, and his hand rested on her knee. “This must hit a little close to home.”

Callie shrugged. “Been a long time.” The memories would fade; some of the pain would too. Alcohol would help hurry the process along.

“It’s not about me today. It’s about Shelby. And you.” She covered his hand with hers, and then carefully removed it from her knee. She took another sip, a little longer this time.

“I don’t want to think about me,” he muttered, leaning into the back of the couch. “Tell me about AIF.”

From one depressing subject to another. Callie thought of the fly-in, the annual gathering of members of Antiques in Flight, where AIF made the majority of its money for the year. Antique enthusiasts flew or drove out to the airport and spent five days camping, eating, enjoying each other’s planes, checking out the museum and library.

Last year, most people had attended to memorialize Gramps, but after so many problems, the donations had dropped significantly.

Callie opened her mouth to deflect the topic, but the truth tumbled out. “Em and I are holding on by a thread. If we don’t recover from last year’s disaster of a fly-in, we’ll lose it all.” She hadn’t meant to be bleak about it, but in her head the fly-in in six months would either make or break Antiques in Flight.

If Callie lost AIF along with everything else, she didn’t think she’d make it.

Callie took another deep drink, willing the liquor to kick in. “Let’s talk about something really stupid,” she suggested before Trevor started to try and comfort her. He was the kind of guy who would offer comfort to someone else after his own mother’s funeral. She was the type of woman who brought booze and bad news.

“I think the Cubs have a chance to go all the way this year.”

“Yeah, right. This is really going to be their year.” It was good to laugh. It had been a while since she’d had someone to laugh with. All she and Em ever talked about were bills, business and “what are we going to do”? There certainly wasn’t much laughter when you faced losing your family’s one and only legacy.

Trevor’s smile faded quickly. “What would I do without you?”

Callie tried to keep the smile, keep some of the laughter, but it was slipping away again. “You do without me on a pretty regular basis.”

“Not for the important stuff. You’ve always been there.”

Callie sighed. She couldn’t expect Trevor to focus on the happy. She knew how it felt to lose both your parents in such a short time. Of course, she’d been considerably younger. Still, it was important for Trevor to know he had people he could count on. That’s what her grandparents had given her, until they’d passed away too. “You’ve always been there for me, Trev. This is payback.” She’d buried her grief in the wrong guy, in alcohol, in bad behavior, and any time she’d needed to be bailed out, he’d been there.

Callie rested her hand on top of his. “It’s hard, and with Shelby it’s even harder. I know you both pretty well, and you’re the strongest, most together people I know. It’s a lot to deal with, but you’ll both deal. Eventually things get to a point where they’re bearable. Besides, once Shelby’s away at college she’s won’t expect you to hang around Pilot’s Point waiting for her to come home on break. She’ll understand you have to go back to your life in Seattle.”

Trevor seemed to consider this as he stared at her hand on top of his. He turned his so that they now touched palm to palm. There was a spark, some low humming sizzle of something. Just like when she’d kissed him two years ago. Had that spark always been there and she’d been so busy trying to drown out all her feelings she’d never noticed, or was it something newer, something born out of adulthood, of the people they’d become?

Frustrated, Callie broke the physical contact. Maybe old Callie would have been bold and foolish enough to try and find out, but this was the new Callie. Responsible, sensible, mature. Now was not the time to be thinking about attraction and sparks. If there were ever a time to do something that stupid. New Callie knew there were too many risks and too much outside stuff going on right now to worry about something so trivial.

Sometimes she really missed old Callie.

Trevor shifted so their knees brushed, and Callie looked up. He was staring at her, studying her face with a focused intensity that never failed to make her squirm. When his gaze dropped to her lips, his body moved slightly toward hers, even as her heartbeat increased, Callie knew she had to end the moment before it started. Too tired and scared to tiptoe around the subject, she went for straightforward.

“Don’t even think about it,” she muttered, staring down at the bottle. She was still embarrassed she’d thrown herself at him two years ago. Embarrassed at how easily Trevor had pushed her away and rationally explained she was acting out of grief.

No shit.

“Oh, I think about it,” he returned, though his words were slightly slurred. He gestured his bottle toward her. “You don’t kiss a guy like that and expect him to forget.”

“It was a mistake.” Maybe over the course of the past two years she’d found herself wondering if it had
just
been drunken grief, but she’d cleaned up her life enough to know exploring a romantic thing with Trevor would be the biggest mistake she could make. He was her oldest friend, her biggest champion. Mixing that up would mean potentially losing him.

“I know it was.”

She refused to analyze why his agreement irritated her. “So let’s not repeat it.” It was best to forget she’d ever blurred the lines. Best to keep pretending that stupid kiss had been nothing, a little fluke of a mistake due to heartache and alcohol.

“You’re right.”

Time to change the subject, and create a little distance. Go back to the main reason for her coming by. Comfort. Help. “We need something to eat with all this liquor. I’ll go rummage around for a snack. You see if you can find something to watch on TV.”

At Trevor’s terrible attempt to hide a wince, Callie stood. “I can make a sandwich or open a bag of chips.”

“Are you sure about that? I’ve heard kitchens are known to spontaneously combust when you walk into them.”

Just like that they were back on even ground. Exactly where they should be.

Chapter Two

Callie drove away from the Steele house, away from the epicenter of Pilot’s Point, out into farmland and curving two-lane highway. The world around was greening up as April meandered its way toward warmer temperatures.

On another day, she might have enjoyed the beautiful morning scene. She might have rolled down the windows of her ancient Ford Taurus and smiled. This morning, a headache pounded behind her eyes and the contents of her stomach sloshed uneasily back and forth.

Monday morning with a hangover was no way to start the week. Monday morning waking up with Trevor’s head cradled in her lap
and
a hangover was the worst way to start the week. She felt fuzzy, sick and confused.

She pulled into the gate of AIF and onto the gravel drive that led to the cluster of buildings. Gravel popped under her tires as she came to a slow stop. Instead of heading down past the office buildings, hangars and grass runway to the cabin she and Em shared, Callie parked in front of the library and stepped out.

She was already ten minutes late for Em’s weekly Monday morning pep talk so there was no time for a shower and hangover breakfast. Instead of heading inside though, Callie stood for a moment. There was a cool breeze blowing in from the west with the faintest hint of spring’s earthy scent. Dew sparkled on the grass around the buildings. Mowing would need to start soon. More work and they were already running themselves ragged. At this rate, she’d be mowing by moonlight most weeks.

Callie shaded her eyes and looked at the office, the Canteen and her shop. The sun’s rays bounced off the gray metal buildings making them sparkle along with the dew. The blue and red trim would need to be repainted before September. More to-dos. They never ended. It could get frustrating or overwhelming at times, but it was better than the alternative. Losing it all. When Callie looked at all the beauty and memories around her, fear of losing it all grew exponentially.

Callie took a deep breath and allowed herself a moment—just a moment—to dwell on what might happen if they lost AIF. Without AIF Callie would have nothing, be nothing. Em would be able to get work in any library, no problem. Mary, AIF’s longtime secretary, could get clerical work anywhere, or just retire. Without AIF, Callie was hopeless. She had no transferable skills and there weren’t exactly a lot of jobs out there for an antique airplane mechanic who hadn’t been able to finish community college.

But it went beyond her ability to earn a living. She could imagine Gramps sitting in his attic office, his dogs lying in varying positions around him, magazines and letters piled up everywhere. When she pictured her grandfather, it was always there. Always here.

Losing AIF meant she would have lost everything that had ever been home, and everything that had ever been family.

She crossed the gravel drive to the library. It was a repurposed house—her aunt and uncle’s old house before they’d moved to Alaska. As kids, Callie, Em and Lawson had camped out in the backyard and snuck into the hangars late at night. The Baker grandkids, the future of AIF.

At the thought of her cousin, Callie’s mood darkened. Lawson should have come home years ago, but his newly ex-wife’s acting career in L.A. had kept him and his two sons far away.

If he would just come home, things would be so much easier. He would take over Gramps’s role like he’d always wanted, and she and Em wouldn’t be stretched so thin. The boys would be able to help out too.

But they wouldn’t come, so it was a waste of time standing on the porch of the library wishing it could be. All Callie could do was control the here and now. Callie stepped into the library. What was once a TV room and bedroom separated by a wall was now a big, open room with shelves of colorful books on aviation lining three of the four walls. Five long tables stood on gleaming wood floors and sunlight streamed in through big picture windows. The wood-paneled walls not hidden by bookshelves were covered in prints of antique planes, watercolors of the airport itself, and other knick-knacks that gave nod to the overreaching purpose of AIF.
Keep the Antiques Flying.

To the left, Em sat at a big, old desk looking over some paperwork. Mary sat stretched out in an armchair. For the past two years, it had been the three of them working their asses off to keep things going. Callie smiled a little. Maybe they hadn’t always succeeded, and maybe they wouldn’t always, but she had to be proud of what they’d accomplished since Gramps died.

“There you are,” Em greeted with her perpetually sunny smile. “How are Trevor and Shelby holding up?”

“About as well as can be expected.”

Mary held out a bagel and a bottle of water. “Lifesaver.” Callie took a long gulping drink of the water. “What did I miss?”

“Well.” Em and Mary exchanged looks Callie couldn’t read, but she didn’t need to know what the look was about to know what it meant. Something she wouldn’t like.

“Well?”

“We were actually talking about…” Mary trailed off and stared down at her aging Metallica T-shirt. Most would look at Mary with her shaggy mop of graying brown hair, clear green eyes, and love of heavy metal and not pin her over sixty. Though Mary kept her exact age a secret, Callie knew she had to be pushing seventy-five.

“Trevor,” Em finished, obviously working hard to keep her smile bright and innocent.

Callie looked from Mary to Em, frowned. “What about Trevor?”

Em stood behind the big desk. With her wavy blonde hair, big blue eyes and long, flowing skirts she looked like some kind of hippie angel. To Callie it was a constant marvel they shared any DNA at all.

“We were just talking about how he’s probably staying in Pilot’s Point for a little bit, right?”