The man stood watching her in the early-April twilight. Had he been alone, Lee Tait might have worried.
This was,after all, the third time in as many days he stopped to observe her tinker on the Cessna206 seaplane docked at the end of the boardwalk that curved within Burnt Bend's tiny cove. As before, the child accompanied him, a boy of perhaps six or seven whose dusty blond hair caught the sun's setting rays. His eyes, Lee noted, were plate-round with curiosity.
Still the guy's presence - yet again - couldn't stop the cold sluice of adrenaline down her torso. What did he want? Why didn't he continue along the shoreline path, which extended from the marina and wended past a smattering of cottages before looping back into the village, a distance of a quarter mile? Why stop each time to stare at her for five minutes, and then turn around? He stood in the fading light, rangy as a mountain climber,attired in gray cords, brown boat shoes and a black pullover. Except for a pair of gym shoes, the child emulated the dress code Obviously, father and son.
The boy murmured something and, while low indistinct, she heard the man's quiet response drift down the wooden Dock, trying to avoid the duo she opened the seaplane's door, stepped on the pontoon and hopped inside for a final check before tomorrow's flight across the puget sound.
Last fall, she had signed a year's contract with the Burnt Bend post office to courier expedited mail and parcels to the mainland, the daily service ensured a steady paycheck while weekend visitors and tourists to the region kept her fledgling charter company viable. One day soon-when she could afford rising fuel costs - she hoped to include a scheduled weekday passenger service.
Lee winced at the thought. Cutting into Lucien Duvall's passengers-only ferry service would not make the old guy happy, hopefully when the time comes, they'd be able to work something out.
Scanning for forgotten items left by passengers, she thought how the Cessna was the only good thing to come from her ex-husband, she hadn't selected the best of his Abner Air fleet out of spite or because he'd impregnated that cocktail waitress three years ago.
Then again, maybe she had....
Truth was, she'd picked the six-seater seaplane as the cornerstone of Sky Dash, a company she'd dreamed of founding since her twentieth birthday.
Spotting a crumpled island brochure under the farthest passenger seat, Lee recalled her last customer clutching the pamphlet in a death grip, Ah, well Edgy fliers came with the territory.