Piper took the flashlight. “Now.”
Jax’s soft chuckle from the other side of the room mocked her. Oh, so he thought she couldn’t do them?
Olivia held up her hand in some obscure angle and watched on the far wall. Yeah, she was terrible at this. But there hadn’t been a need to learn such social skills. Drawing up spreadsheets and attending forced cocktail parties for clients was pretty much as social as she got.
“What animal is that?” Piper asked.
Olivia put one of her fingers down until it looked somewhat like . . . a dog?
“Dog,” she quickly said. “Roof, roof, roof.”
She bounced her hand around in the circle of light and kept barking.
“That’s not a dog,” Jax stated, coming to stand beside her. “This is a dog.”
He was all too eager to show her, not with his own hand, but he reached around her from behind and adjusted her fingers. The warmth from his back, the weight of his daughter, it was all so much. Too much. Was he doing this to torture her? Did he want to shove her deeper into this rabbit hole? Because at this point she was having a difficult time recalling why she wanted in and out of Haven so fast.
Yes, she had to get back to her job, to the potential promotion, but part of her was growing more and more content here. When did that happen? How did that happen?
“That’s a dog,” Jax stated once he got her hand in position.
Light briefly flashed in the room as the thunder boomed and lightning streaked across the sky.
“Okay, squirt. You climb into the fort first.” Jax lifted Piper from Olivia’s arms. “Keep the flashlight you have with you. We have others.”
Piper crawled into the mound of pillows and blankets. “This is huge. We need this size all the time.”
“What were you thinking giving me a hickey?” Olivia gritted between her teeth in a low whisper. “Do I look like someone who wants to be marked?”
Jax curled his fingers around her neck and stroked his thumb over where the mark was. “You didn’t seem to mind anything I did earlier. In fact, you were beg—”
“All right.” She batted his hand away. “Let’s get in the fort where I know you’ll be on your best behavior.”
He aligned their torsos and nipped at her lips. “You’ve already seen my best behavior.”
The next second he released her and disappeared inside the fort. Piper’s giggles started instantly while Olivia remained standing in the dark trying to figure out how her life had gone from trying to dodge this small town to suddenly finding herself falling for it.
But it wasn’t Haven she worried about missing when she left.
Chapter Seventeen
“Dude, that was so awesome. When can we go again?”
Jax rounded the Cessna and met Brock’s wide grin. “I’m here every day. You tell me what your schedule is.”
“I’m free Thursday,” he replied.
With a nod, Jax started heading from the hangar toward his office in the main building next door. “Follow me and let me look over my flight schedule.”
After the storm last night, Jax had barely gotten up in enough time to fix Piper breakfast and run her over to the sitter. Thankfully, the sitter was just next door to their house, which was handy on days he had to come in and she couldn’t fly with him. There was no school for her today and he was going to be here until at least six.
Jax wasn’t even going to entertain the flashbacks of this morning and when Olivia hurried out the door like she was being chased.
Because that’s what she did. She ran, and he wasn’t going to be the one chasing her anymore. Her own insecurities and demons did that. But, damn it, he thought they were getting somewhere last night. He thought when she’d opted to stay after they’d been intimate that she was finally coming to the realization they were so much more.
Apparently not, because she’d freaked out this morning and left wearing his clothes with an awkward wave and quick smile . . . all directed to Piper. She’d completely ignored him.
The wind kicked up just a little and the sound of metal scraping against metal had Jax stopping between buildings. Both he and Brock turned toward the clanging.
“Up there,” Brock pointed.
Sure enough on top of the hangar was a piece of the metal roofing blowing in the breeze. The wind wasn’t even strong, or he never would’ve taken Brock up in the sky, but obviously, the storm last night had done something to the hangar. Of course it did. Because they needed more issues with this place.
“I’ll look at it in a bit,” Jax stated. “Let’s get you on the schedule so you can get those hours in.”
“Macy said she would work around my schedule for this and school.” Brock stepped into the office behind Jax. “My family has been pretty awesome in their support. I think they just want me to fly in guests for the resort.”
“Not a bad idea,” Jax agreed. “Especially if this renovation goes through.”
Brock rested his knuckles on the edge of the scarred wood desk. “You think you’re going to renovate this whole place?”
Jax stared down at his schedule for the next few weeks and mentally calculated how to get in more hours.
“I think it’s going to take quite a bit of work before we could actually begin the labor part,” he replied honestly as he glanced up. “But Livie is confident it will happen and she and her friends know more about these dealings than I do.”
“Do you want the expansion?”
Jax considered Brock’s genuine question. Did he actually want to grow the airport? Whenever the thought or question crossed his mind, Jax immediately considered what Paul would’ve wanted. Ultimately, as long as the doors were open, they had paying customers, and Livie wasn’t gearing up to sell the property, Jax figured this was the most logical step.
“I want this airport to stay
