Hale's Point by Patricia Ryan Read Free Book Online

fancy,
wanting-to-be-fulfilled kind. It was more your garden-variety,
struggling-to-survive kind.” She bowed her head, indicating she was done.
    “That’s it? That’s not a very vivid description.”
    “How about this—unrelenting squalor. Is that vivid enough?”
    “Come on—I’m serious.”
    “Unfortunately, so am I.” That was as much as she would tell
him. The rest was none of his business. Or was she just ashamed? It didn’t
matter, since she had no desire to relive it just to satisfy his curiosity. He
walked over to the bed and looked down at her, his expression thoughtful. “Come
down to the kitchen and have a Coke with me.”
    “Can’t. I’ve got to get ready for my afternoon run. Besides,
we don’t have any sodas. Just juices and mineral water.”
    He grunted and sat on the bed near her feet, bedsprings
squealing. She tried to curl her legs up to make room for him, but he rested a
strong hand on one of her calves to still her. “That’s all right, I’ve got
room.” The hand traced a warm path down to her ankle and then wrapped around
first one small foot and then the other. “Your feet are cold. They shouldn’t be
cold on such a hot day.”
    The warmth from his hand felt wonderful. Nevertheless, she
sat up, and he took the hint, removing the hand. She said, “You know, I can’t
help but wonder…. It strikes me that the real world must have come as something
of a shock to a poor little rich boy from Hale’s Point.”
    He grinned. “Rebel without a charge card. Once I realized
there wouldn’t be any big music career, and moved to Miami, I decided to start
saving up for an airplane so I could go into the air cargo business. Took a few
years to get the bread together. I drove a forklift, pumped gas, patched roofs,
cut sugarcane. I caught fish, I cleaned fish, I canned fish—I still can’t stand
the sight of it.”
    “What did you do in your spare time?”
    “I worked some more. Usually I was holding down two full-time
jobs, sometimes one full-time and two part-time. Till I’d gotten together four
thousand dollars for a used Piper Comanche. Man, I was proud of that plane.”
    “And now you’ve got your own aviation business in Alaska,”
she said.
    “I’m really just a bush pilot. Only now I’ve got a bunch of
other pilots working for me, ‘cause there got to be too much business to handle
alone.”
    “I’m afraid I’m a little fuzzy on the definition of ‘bush pilot.’
Do you fly people or cargo?”
    “Both. Mostly cargo. Alaska’s full of remote, inaccessible
areas, and they rely on us to fly in all their food, medical supplies, lumber,
everything. And then we handle all kinds of passengers—surveyors, explorers,
guys who want to parachute onto the North Pole in their skis… all kinds.”
    “Do you like it?”
    He squinted into the sunlight from the window, his eyes
igniting from within. “No. Not anymore. I mean, I like that it’s my own
business, and it’s a simple one. Doesn’t take some great high master of
business administration to figure out how to make money from it. No offense.”
    “None taken.”
    “Everyone tells me I should be reveling in my success, but I
don’t know—it’s worn thin on me. It’s taken the pleasure out of flying, for one
thing. I used to think it’d be great, being able to fly for a living. Buying
that first beat-up old plane was the biggest rush in the world. Now I buy a new
one just about every year and don’t think twice about it. I’ve got six of them.
Seven, including my Cessna Skywagon .” He grinned self-consciously,
as if he’d forgotten something. “Scratch the Skywagon .
It’s just six.”
    “What happened to the Skywagon ?”
    He reached over her for the guitar, took it and his cane, and
started toward the door. “Some of it’s in my leg.”
    Harley stared openly, first at his leg, and then, to see if
he might be kidding, at his face. She could tell he wasn’t kidding.
    “There might be some left in my