Chapter Eight

On top of him, Izzy’s body tightened like a cat ready to pounce. He released her mouth but clamped an arm around her waist to keep her still. If she jumped off him now, old Jorg would get an eyeful of him lying there in the snow with his dick doing its best to drill its way out of his jeans. He didn’t want to imagine the conversation that would inspire tonight at the Goose.

“Hey, Jorg. Uh.” He licked his lips and tasted whatever Izzy had used on hers. Something sweet. “What are you doing here?”

“Ah, well, I see a person coming down the hill, very fast, and then I realize it is one person carrying another person. And then…boom.” The white-haired Viking pantomimed someone falling. “And I think to myself, Jorg, someone could be hurt. So, I come quickly.” He smiled. “And now I see nobody is hurt and all is well.”

Izzy cleared her throat and pushed herself into a sitting position—which forced him to pray he wouldn’t have the kind of accident he hadn’t had since he and Jan Coutts had fooled around in the back seat of his car when they were sixteen. “Trace was just going to”—she paused, slipped her sunglasses on, and ran her gloved hand over her visibly pink forehead—“give me a tour of his business.”

“Yah.” Jorg nodded and winked at Trace. “He has very decent business, I am sure.”

Okay, enough innuendos from Grandpa Buzzkill. Trace levered himself into a sitting position, wrapped his arm around Izzy, got up, and placed her on her feet. “We should probably get on with it,” he suggested, and pointed to the snow-covered path to the airfield. “Plan B or plan C?”

She pressed the softest lips he’d ever had the pleasure of kissing together into a line, considered the distance, and finally let out a resigned breath. “Plan B.”

Despite his crippling case of blue balls, he felt his lips lift. “I thought you might say that. See ya, Jorg.” He turned to kneel and let Izzy climb on his back, but Jorg stopped him.

“Ah, Trace. A moment of your time, yah?”

He looked at the old man. “Sure. You want to charter a flight?”

“Not today, no.” Jorg offered Izzy a timeworn smile. “Apologies, pretty lady.” He stepped away and gestured for Trace to follow. “A word in private, please?”

He glanced at Izzy. “You okay for a sec?”

She’d unzipped her parka and began shaking snow off it. “Of course.”

“Okay. Be right back.” Moving to where Jorg stood, a few feet away, he turned to the man. Had Jorg somehow gotten wind of the sale? “What’s up?”

Jorg turned them both until their backs were to Izzy—a wasted effort since she was staring in the other direction, at the airfield, or the harbor, or the water—and pulled his fist from his parka pocket. “I have something for you. Quickly.”

Relieved that this didn’t seem to have anything to do with the airfield, he held out his hand. Jorg dropped a pill bottle into his open palm. “Something to help you make a very good impression on your young lady.” So saying, Jorg turned and tromped up the hill, toward town.

Trace looked down at the bottle in his hand and scanned the label. Viagra.

Jesus. He pinched the space between his eyes. What had his life come to when people thought he needed ED drugs from a seventy-year-old pusher? It was past time to assert some boundaries. He considered catching up to the old man and telling him thanks, no thanks, but that would lead to a protracted discussion of a nature he preferred not to have with Jorg. Ever. Instead, he stuffed the pill bottle into the pocket of his parka and shoved the matter of the town’s concern over his sexual capabilities firmly from his mind.

He tromped back to Izzy in time to watch her smooth pink ChapStick on her lips. Cotton candy. He scraped his teeth over his lower lip. Yeah. Cotton candy. How long before he got another taste? She capped the lip balm, turned to him, and raised an eyebrow.

Hopefully not much longer.

“Ready?” she asked.

Oh, Izzy, you have no idea. “Yep.” He adjusted her messenger bag until it hung around his front, and then turned, scrunched down, and looked at her over his shoulder. “Hop on.”

She slid her arms over his shoulders and wrapped them loosely around his neck. He straightened, caught one leg in the loop of his arm, then the other, and then he hefted her higher. The arms around his neck tightened. Her voice flowed over his shoulder and into his ear. “Is this okay?”

“Okay” was not the word. Her scent swirled around him. He could feel the soft weight of her cashmere covered breasts against his back and the lean muscles of her thighs flexing around his hips. He had to clear his throat before answering. “It’s fine.”

He took a step, then another.

“I’m not too heavy?”

That made him laugh out loud. “I think I can manage.”

“Are you sure?”

It was possible he was getting a little touchy about people doubting his vigor, or maybe he felt like showing off, but whatever the reason, he pretended to drop her.

“Holy crap!” Her arms and legs squeezed tight, but when he arrested her fall, she laughed. Then she smacked his shoulder. “You’re not funny.”

He picked up the pace. “Uh-oh. I hope I can handle all this extra weight.”

“Whoa. Wait… Trace. Whoaaaa.”

Her laughter trailed behind them as he covered the last hundred yards to the terminal at a run, deliberately bouncing her as he went. Key rounded the side of the building where he’d gone to chase squirrels, or do his business, or seized the opportunity to do both, and barked jubilantly.

At the door to the terminal Trace came to a stop. Key pranced around them, chuffing as if they’d been apart for weeks rather than minutes. Slightly winded, Trace released her legs and eased down so she could get her snowshoes under her. The feel of her body sliding down his back got him half-cocked, so he faced front, shed his gloves, and dug in his pocket for the keys.

“Thanks for the lift.” She said it so casually, while smoothing her hair as if she’d just stepped out of an Uber, it brought a smile to his face.

“Anytime. You can pop the snowshoes off and leave them out here,” he told her, and proceeded to do the same with his. Once they were stacked by the door, he twisted the key in the lock and released it. “Wanna come in and see what you’re working with?”

Her smile matched his. “That’s why I’m here.”

He held the door open for her, but as Key didn’t understand chivalry, he snuck in first and made a beeline to the dog bed he always dragged close to the doors leading to the tarmac. Trace entered last and hit the lights for the main room. As the long, fluorescent bulbs overhead flickered on, one by one, he looked at the place he’d practically grown up in through fresh eyes. Izzy’s eyes.

There wasn’t all that much to see. One set of glass doors bearing the Captivity Air logo welcomed those coming into the terminal through the front entrance. Another set of automatic glass doors served the tarmac access. A rustic wood ticket counter that had been part of the place since his grandfather’s tenure occupied the space to the left of the front entrance, and a gate counter of nearly equal vintage perched by the door to the tarmac.

Glass windows along the front wall gave new arrivals a first look at the town rising up on the hillside. A small bank of chairs sat before similar widows along the back wall and allowed travelers to watch the takeoffs and landings—none of which would happen today until the snow melted or he plowed a runway clear. A charter might opt for a water landing, since the cove hadn’t iced over, but nothing was scheduled. Off-season business consisted mostly of cargo runs and locals, and they tended to work around the weather.

Old black and white photos of Captivity decorated the light blue walls nearest the front entrance. They gave way to progressively newer, more colorful shots of the town, the airfield, the harbor, and the mountain. He watched Izzy work her way along the haphazard gallery, absently taking off her gloves, sunglasses, and ear warmer headband thing as she went. Now that he considered the display, he realized it presented a visual timeline of the evolution of the town, and confirmation that change came slowly and in miniscule increments. The airfield had grown from a single, wood-clad terminal for coordinating water and ice landings, to a single strip of runway with a hangar, to the two-pronged runway, two hangars, and outbuildings to house equipment. Photos of town told their age mostly by the cars and clothing captured by the lens, and color quality. And the mountain? The mountain stood above all else, majestic and unchanging.

“A lot of history here.” Soft brown eyes turned to him. “History of the town, the airfield. You’re about to introduce a drastic change. Have you considered how it affects what pictures will someday go here?” She pointed to blank wall space close to the tarmac doors.

“The future goes there.” One that wouldn’t depend on him once the deal closed.

She nodded solemnly, thoughtfully, as she contemplated the blank wall, and perhaps her role in shaping what came next. After a moment she looked over at him and smiled. “Ready to get started?”

“Yeah.” He was. Absolutely. Relief put that weight in his stomach, along with maybe too much breakfast. “Let’s take this to my office.”

He guided her around the wooden spiral stairway that led to the crow’s nest, and over to the west wall where a small coffee and snack station separated two wide, wood-framed archways. “Restrooms.” He pointed to the archway on the left which was helpfully marked accordingly. Taking the other archway, marked Employees Only, he stopped in front of the first of two doors. “This”—he opened the door and hit the light switch—“is my office. Consider it yours for as long as you need it.”

She wandered in, bright and feminine as a spring rose amongst his big, somewhat cluttered desk, brown leather chair bearing the patina of daily use, and the pair of dark stained wood guest chairs taking up space in front of the desk. Built-in bookcases filled one wall and ancient black file cabinets claimed the other. A large, tinted window behind the desk let in filtered sunlight and a view of the parking lot. A long, wood credenza that matched the desk sat beneath the window and held an old Kenwood L5000 receiver that currently served as a stand for the MacBook, set up for air to ground communications. A couple framed photos of Kat Peak passed for wall decor and a framed photo of his parents sat on a corner of his desk. A little over five years old, they stood together, beaming, in front of the pretty little Cessna 172 Skyhawk they’d bought for their retirement travels.

While completely comfortable and functional by his standards, it suddenly occurred to him that this office might be a steep step down from a senior associate’s office at a large Century City law firm. Especially if Chuck’s corner office was anything to go by.

“This will work. I don’t need a lot of room. Just a place for my laptop and space to spread out a file or two.” Hands clasped together, she looked back at him. “Is this the normal temperature?”

“Uh…” He winced, remembering her seventy-four-degree hotel room. “Yeah. Pretty much. There’s a single thermostat for the building, so we keep it in the high sixties.”

“Oh.” She released her intertwined fingers and retracted her hands into the sleeves of her coat. “Okay.”

Suck it up, Shanahan. “I could get you a space heater.” And you can turn my office into a sauna.

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“None at all. I’ll pick one up at the general store when I head back to get the truck. In the meantime”—he gestured to a guest chair—“have a seat.”

Once she did, he lifted the messenger bag over his head and handed it to her. Then he shrugged out of his insulated vest and hung it on the rack by the door. He would have offered to take hers, but she huddled in the puffy pink parka as if it was the only thing saving her from hypothermia.

“When does the airfield open?” she asked as he took his seat behind the desk.

“Today? I don’t know that we will. We don’t have any flights scheduled. Bridget might fly back from Anchorage this afternoon, but she’ll call before she comes.”

“Is that typical? A day with no scheduled flights?”

“In the off-season, yes. A few more weeks, when the spring weather really sets in, we’ll be hopping from dawn ’til dusk, and we’ll keep hopping through October. We usually see another little bump around the holidays, but that’s mostly cargo.”

She smiled. “Are you telling me Santa doesn’t deliver all those presents via flying reindeer on Christmas Eve?”

“We give him a little help. Don’t let it get around.”

“So, what I’m hearing is I’m here at an optimal time to do this without garnering a lot of notice or getting much in the way?”

“That was the idea. How do you want to get started?”

“Let’s take a look at the documents they’ve requested.” She took a laptop out of her messenger bag, placed it on the desk, and fired it up. Then she produced a couple folders and handed one across the desk to him. Just as he was about to get his head in the game, she slid a small, red, oblong case from her bag, snapped it open like a clamshell, and took out a pair of glasses. Not just glasses, he realized as she slipped them on. Librarian glasses, with glossy black rectangular frames. So prim. So fastidious. So damn sexy.

“You wear glasses.” Congratulations, Shanahan, you have an excellent grasp of the obvious.

She looked at him. “Just for reading.”

And for sex, his dirty mind added. Please wear them if…correction…when we have sex.

“Stare at documents and a computer screen as much as I do, eye strain is an occupational hazard.”

The more time he spent staring at her in those glasses, the more likely cock strain would become his occupational hazard. Seeking a distraction, he opened the file. The title on the first page read, “Due Diligence Requests,” centered above a tabular listing of documents and other materials printed over paper watermarked “Confidential.” Page one was followed by…fucking A…four more pages.

He scanned the requests. Current business structure, ownership interests, any and all mortgages, liens, notes or warrants. All assets of the business, including real estate, vehicles, equipment, “tangible and intangible intellectual property”—whatever the hell that meant. All accident reports for the last five years. His stomach clenched painfully. He kept his eyes moving. Details regarding all employees and other staff, compensation, benefits. Financials, taxes, etc., etc., etc.

Apparently, his silence spoke volumes because Izzy placed a hand on his forearm. “It’s fairly extensive, but—”

“Extensive?” He blinked up at her. “I think my head’s going to explode.”

She patted his arm. “That’s why I’m here. It’s my job to make sure your head doesn’t explode.”

“Good luck, Izzy. I’m pretty sure my brain’s leaking out my ear as we speak.”

“Hey, it may look like we’re in your office, but we’re in my wheelhouse. I do this kind of thing all the time—for transactions a lot more complicated that what Skyline has proposed. So, here’s the deal. We gather what we can and provide it. We note what doesn’t apply, doesn’t exist, or otherwise can’t be furnished. If you object to something because it’s too burdensome, or you feel it’s irrelevant to the deal, we’ll talk about it and craft a response.”

Okay. All right. That sounded reasonable. His initial, kneejerk moment of panic subsided—until another realization struck. “This is going to take a long time. You’re going to be crawling through files and boxes. What are we going to tell people?”

She eased out of her parka and pushed up the sleeves of her roomy, off-white sweater, then drew a pen from her bag. “Like any good significant other, I volunteered to help you get your files in order.”

“Wow.” He sat back in his chair, ignoring the habitual squeak, and stared at her. “Is that what good significant others do?”

She shrugged and started making notes in the margins of her copy of the list. “Some do. I think. I’ve never really had a good significant other before, so I can’t swear to it, but I can tell you my mom does stuff like that for my dad all the time.”

Oddly enough, it seemed plausible. Nobody around the airfield would accuse him of being particularly well-organized when it came to paperwork. Better than Bridget. Better than…others. But not great. Encouraged, he rested his chin in his hand and aimed an innocent look at her. “Hey, Izzy?”

“Yes?”

He waited until she met his gaze, then blinked and looked at her from beneath his lashes. “What else do good significant others do?”

She laughed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to leave that to you to figure out for yourself when you have one.”