“WHAT DO YOU MEAN the shipment came in early? All three hundred and eighty boxes? Are you telling me there are three hundred and eighty boxes sitting in our warehouse?” Finn asked.
“Not boxes,” his partner Bill said. “Crates. Goddamn crates. What is he building? An ark?”
This wasn’t happening, Finn told himself. It couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not while he was stuck here.
The air charter company survived on contracts. That’s where the main money came from. The one-time deliveries were great, but the annual contracts paid the bills.
One of their largest customers had decided to build a boat. By hand. He’d ordered it from God knows where and had arranged to have the pieces delivered to South Salmon. Now they had to be airlifted to his property three hundred miles north of town.
When Finn had first heard about the project, he’d figured they were talking a half dozen boxes at most. Apparently, he’d been wrong.
“The weight’s listed on the side of each crate,” Bill said. “We’re talking three to four crates per trip, at best. You want to do the math?”
Finn swore. One hundred trips? “It’s not possible,” he said, more to himself than to Bill. “We have other customers.”
“He’s willing to pay,” Bill said. “Finn, we can’t lose this guy. He keeps us going all winter.”
His partner was right. The majority of their work came between April and October. But a hundred trips?
“I’ve already put the word out,” Bill told him. “We’ve got the planes. I’ve shifted around the schedule. What we need is pilots. You have to come back.”
Finn stared at the Southwest Airlines plane at the gate. The flight was already boarding. Stephen and the cougar were going to Las Vegas, and he had to be there to make sure everything was going to be okay. He didn’t trust that woman, or Geoff or anyone associated with the show. Excluding Dakota. Like him, she was doing what she had to.
“I can’t,” he said. “Sasha and Stephen need me.”
“That’s bullshit. They’re twenty-one. They’ll be fine on their own. This is where you belong, Finn. Get your ass back here.”
He’d been responsible for his brothers for the past eight years. There was no way he could walk away now.
“Who have you called? Did you try Spencer? He’s a good pilot and is usually available this time of year.”
There was a long silence before Bill spoke again. “So that’s your answer? Hire someone else?”
Finn turned his back on the other passengers and lowered his voice. “How many times have you needed me to cover for you? Before you got married, how many times did you have a hot date down in Anchorage or want to go trolling for lonely tourists in Juneau? I’ve always said yes to whatever you asked me to do. Now I’m asking you to give me a break. I’ll be back when I can. Until then you have to handle it.”
“All right,” Bill said, sounding pissed. “But you’d better get back here pretty quick. Or there’s going to be a problem.”
“I will,” Finn said, wondering if he was telling the truth.
He closed his phone and shoved it in his pocket, then joined the line of passengers waiting to board. Guilt battled with annoyance. To make matters worse, he was flying commercial. He hated flying commercial. He hated flying when he wasn’t in charge. But the tickets to Vegas had been cheaper than renting a plane, and Geoff was trying to save money.
Finn stalked onto the plane and shoved his small duffel into the first overhead compartment.
“Sir, you might want to take that with you,” the flight attendant said. “That way it will be closer to where you’re sitting.”
“Fine,” Finn growled between gritted teeth.
He grabbed the duffel and continued down the aisle. When he spotted Dakota with an empty seat next to her, he stopped. Of course there was no room for his carry-on here. Cursing under his breath, he stepped over her, dropped into the middle seat, and shoved his duffel into the space where his feet should go.
“Tell me this isn’t a five-hour flight,” he grumbled.
“Aren’t you perky this morning.” Dakota turned to him. “What has you all grumpy?”
He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Is grumpy the technical term? Are you asking me as a psychologist?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Maybe we could just skip the talk therapy and go directly to electric shock treatment.” A few thousand volts of electricity coursing through his body would put everything else in perspective, he thought.