“Let me buy your half, Jackson. I would make it worth your while and give you enough until you found something else.”
He taxied around the runway, slowing the plane down and letting the engines cool. Olivia waited on him to flat-out refuse once again. It seemed to be their song and dance. But she wasn’t giving up . . . then again, neither was he.
“Not everything is a business decision,” he finally stated. “You don’t even bother getting to know someone before you try to turn their life inside out. You know the young boy I used to be. You see me as some sort of replacement for you in regard to your father. If you only knew how he was after you left, you might not be in such a hurry to sell his legacy.”
The unwelcome burning in her throat had Olivia swallowing hard. Those emotions she’d once thought buried kept creeping up at the most inopportune times . . . and even more so since she’d been back. Living in her childhood home, sleeping in her old bedroom, and dealing with Jackson really thrust her into dealing with things she’d rather run from. But she’d been running long enough. She was a big girl now—time to act like one.
“You only saw my father’s side of things,” she explained. “I’m sure you think you know the situation, but I promise you don’t.”
As they neared the hangar, he slid off his headset and placed it between them. Bringing the plane to a complete stop, he turned to face her.
“Then tell me,” he stated, as if things were that simple, and that open, between them. “Tell me what it was like. Because I assure you that you also don’t know all the sides of the story. You have no clue that your father kept those little overalls you used to wear as a toddler hanging in his office behind the door until he died. You have no clue that he was sick when you left, and you can’t possibly know that he busted his ass to hold on to this when his medical bills had become so much that he almost had to sell. He stayed at the airport more than usual because he didn’t want you and your mother to see how run-down he was from the illness.”
Shock flooded her as Jackson eased the plane back to the front of the hangar. She sat in utter silence, letting his words penetrate her mind. Once they were parked, he shut the plane down and abruptly exited as if he had nothing else to say to her. Olivia let him go, because she truly had no clue how to respond.
Tears pricked her eyes and she knew she was at a point where she was going to have to get some answers before she could fully move on. She was going to have to revisit that time when she’d left, and Jackson was going to have to fill her in because, no, she’d had no clue her father had been sick.
And that bit of information just changed the dynamics of this entire situation.
Chapter Five
Jax didn’t give a shit what Olivia did. He’d put the plane up later. She could call a friend to come get her or she could come in and ask him. But right now, he just needed space.
It wasn’t a stretch to say that Paul Daniels was like a father to Jax. With both of Jax’s parents deceased, he’d grown up with his grandfather, who was wonderful, but he was older and tired. Paul had been amazing, teaching an eager Jax everything he’d known about planes and flying.
Jax had started tinkering after school, and then that turned into the weekends and summer breaks. He’d learned to fly a plane before he knew how to drive a car and he knew much more about the engine in a Skyhawk than he had about the one in his old Mustang.
But when Paul had gotten sick, Jax wondered why he hadn’t told his wife and daughter. At the time Jax had only been thirteen, so he didn’t feel it was his place to step in and say anything. Paul had his reasons, stating he didn’t want them to stay out of pity. He’d been a proud man, a man of integrity and compassion. Jax absolutely hated that Livie thought the worst of her father. The man would’ve done anything for her, but in the end, time had run out.
Jax paced the empty hangar, raking a hand over his hair, then rubbing his jaw. The bristles scraping against his palm reminded him he hadn’t shaved in a couple days. Having Olivia show up had thrown him off, and he was never thrown off his game.
Something about the hoity-toity city woman he’d once had a school-age crush on had set him into overdrive. Part of him wanted her to get the hell out and never return, just leave him alone with his business. But the other part, the strictly male part, wanted to kiss the hell out of her and mess up that perfect persona she portrayed.
Jax knew that same girl who used to have grease beneath her nails as she helped her father with his planes still lived in that big-city-girl body. She’d loved flying when they’d been up. He’d seen her gripping her hands and he knew she wanted to take the controls. Something that deeply rooted didn’t just disappear simply because you wanted it to.
“You can’t just drop news like that and walk away.”
Jax kept his back to Livie. Her footsteps echoed in
