There was a serious knocking on the door. "Jennlynn!" they heard Shirley’s voice call. "If we’re going to go into Piute Wells today, we’re going to have to get moving."

"Oh, all right," Jennlynn called back, half-disgusted at the interruption. "It probably wouldn’t hurt us to stop at a restaurant, either. Give us twenty minutes or so."

"I think I’d better come in," Shirley laughed. "I mean, I need you to remember what you’re supposed to be doing."

Jennlynn glanced at the handsome young man lying at her side, a hand on one of her breasts, his tongue doing that wonderful thing with her earlobe. "What do you think?" she grinned.

"I hate to quit," Will smiled. "But I could manage a few minutes break and something to eat."

"We ought to clean up a little," Jennlynn observed. "And it might be a good idea if we didn’t shower together. That might get us going again. Take your clothes and head for the bathroom, I’ll let your grandmother in."

"I’ll be quick," he promised, getting out of bed, obviously reluctantly. "Just a minute, Gramma," he called.

Jennlynn got up out of the rather sweaty and wrecked bed herself. She looked for something to put on; even with Shirley, it wouldn’t do to go to the door naked. Her jacket seemed to be about the best possible thing within sight. In a moment, she went over to the door, popped the night latch, and let Shirley in. "Good grief!" Shirley said as she came inside. "Did the two of you go at it like that all night?"

"No, we took it easy," Jennlynn laughed, holding the coat closed around her while Shirley shut the door of the Sagebrush Motel room. "We finally crashed early, but when we woke up this morning, well, it was hard to get up."

"I was beginning to wonder," Shirley shook her head. "I mean, I remember that truck driver, and I was thinking about calling an ambulance. I think there was more action over here last night than from all the girls combined across the road. You two were putting on quite a show."

"Show?" Jennlynn asked. "What show?"

"You remember when I called over here an hour ago?" Shirley smiled.

"I know the phone went off," Jennlynn said. "I really get pissed when the phone rings when I’m trying to concentrate on something; you know that, so I just knocked it on the floor."

"It was really pretty interesting," Shirley shook her head. "We were sitting in the office, listening to the action on the speaker phone. Sara actually got a little green around the gills at the way her brother was going at you. That’s what got me to thinking about calling an ambulance."

"I wouldn’t worry about it," Jennlynn shook her head. "I hadn’t realized he was a cherry when we set that up last night, so it did start off a little slow. But you know what? If everything I’ve ever picked up about Carl and Duane runs to form, there’s something else that runs in your family. He may be green, but he’s talented, he learns quick, he’s strong, and he’s good-looking in a rough-cut sort of way. He’s going to make some young lady very happy. Maybe several young ladies."

"Doesn’t surprise me much," Shirley shook her head. "Thanks, Jennlynn. I was hoping he’d luck into someone who could start him out right. That thing last night was just about perfect."

"No big deal, I enjoyed it too," Jennlynn said. "You know, that’s one thing that doesn’t seem quite fair about this business."

"You mean that you’re getting paid for it when you want it as bad as the guy who’s having to pay for it? Or worse? Life’s not fair, Rebecca, and women get the short end of the stick a lot, but not in this case."

"I suppose," Jennlynn shook her head. "That’s one thing we didn’t talk about last night, though. Rebecca is no more."

"There’s no reason to change your work name. You’re sort of known by that name, anyway."

"Yeah, but I didn’t want to get into the details in front of the girls. The woman who handles security clearances down at the shop thinks that if I try to use a work name it might look like I’m trying to cover this up. If I do this, I have to be all the way out of the closet so someone can’t think they can blackmail me, or at least that’s what she thinks. That’s the way I play it from here on. As of now, my work name is Jennlynn Swift."

"There aren’t many girls who’ll let it all hang out like that," Shirley nodded. "Those who do, well, maybe sometimes it could be considered soliciting."

"I’m not planning on advertising," Jennlynn told her. "I mean, I will admit it if someone should ask, but I won’t go out of the way to make it public. It’ll probably get to be common knowledge around my office. I told that to the company president yesterday morning and pointed out that he may not like it to come out, but we can’t play it both ways. Probably once it gets out, I may have a little fun with it from time to time. But it really doesn’t matter."

"It’s unusual," Shirley shook her head. "Especially for someone in your position."

"My position?" Jennlynn snorted. "If I was trying to hide it from my family, or protect my family, it might be different. But hell, I want my family to be more aware of it. I’d like to rub their noses in it."

"You ever hear anything from them?"

"Not in over two years," she shook her head. "I think I told you about that phone call I made to our local gossip at home, back when I was at school a couple years ago. The curiosity got the better of me last summer, and I called her up to chew the fat, and maybe to give her the message that I’m making over twice what my parents make combined in my first year on the job. We never talked about it directly, but I get the impression that I’m pretty well known back home for being the local girl who turned hooker and made good. My folks are still in town, so they must know about it, but Emily didn’t say anything about that."

"It still hurts, doesn’t it?"

"Damn straight it hurts," Jennlynn said. "I mean, I’m very proud of how well I did at school, proud that I got a very good job at a very good salary, and I can’t even crow about it to them, or to the people who used to matter to me. Damn it, Shirley, you know I never wanted to be a hooker. It got sort of forced on me, and it worked out that I enjoyed it and am good at it. Fine. If my folks don’t want to know me for being a Summa Cum Laude graduate of Caltech who is now working on her doctorate, and who’s making damn good money for being new on the job, well, I guess I’m just as glad that they know me for being a prostitute. I mean, if they don’t have pride in the good things, why should I let them have any pride at all?"

"I’m sorry, Jennlynn," Shirley said contritely. "I know that doesn’t lie too far below the surface, I shouldn’t have scratched it."

"Crap," Jennlynn shook her head. "If I can’t dump like that on you once in a while, who can I dump it on? You’re as close to a real friend as I have, Shirley, and your family is as close to a real family as it comes. They understand, you understand."

"That’s what I meant," Shirley nodded. "I knew it was there and I shouldn’t have scratched it." She heard the shower shut off. "Maybe we’d better change the subject. No point in getting Will involved."

"Yeah, I guess," Jennlynn nodded. "He really is a good kid. I think he’s always going to be a country boy, as in you can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy."

"I suspect you’re right," Shirley agreed. "I’m not sure how well the Air Force is going to go with him, but he’s got a few itches he needs to scratch, too. That might be the best way for him to scratch them."

"You’re probably right," Jennlynn agreed as the bathroom door opened.

Will came out just with jeans on. "You’re up, Miz Swift."

"Gol darn it, Will," Jennlynn grinned. "After last night and you’re still calling me that. You know my name."

"Yes I do, Miz Swift. But it wouldn’t be proper for me to use it in front of my gramma."

"I don’t know about you people," Jennlynn said, gathering up a few things to take in the bathroom with her and not worrying too much about the fact that her coat fell open in the process. "I mean, I just don’t know about you people. Don’t get me wrong, I like you a ton, I just can’t figure you out."

"You ain’t the first to say that, Jennlynn," Shirley laughed.

It was still fairly early in the day; with Sara along for the ride – and looking a little awed at her little brother – they drove into Piute Wells and found a restaurant that didn’t appear to be too bad. Afterwards they headed over to the sheriff’s office to start the application for Jennlynn’s Piute County card. The people there were fairly friendly, which hadn’t always been the case in Shelby County, but probably it was because they knew they were now getting a less troublesome class of prostitute. Still prostitutes, but a better class. It made Jennlynn wonder again about just how damn bad she wanted to go public, but really, she didn’t care that much. There were going to be obvious downsides and probably plenty of people who would react badly, but she figured rather callously that she might as well find out up front.

On thinking about it, she was just a little surprised that she really didn’t care that much. She was a loner, she’d known it for a long time, and when you got down to it, she didn’t really care much what people thought about her. If it kept people away, maybe so much the better.

It was along in the afternoon when they got back to Antelope Valley. In the daylight, the place wasn’t much to look at; just a drab and dusty collection of buildings in the middle of a flat sagebrush plain, just a few cottonwoods back around the handful of trailers where most people lived to lend a touch of green. It really was pretty desolate, and not the now-lost little green valley that Bettye’s had been. But it had a rough beauty all its own, like the Bar H Bar. And, as Shirley had said, it had beauty of location, and Jennlynn could feel in her gut that it was going to become pretty familiar.

"All right, Will," she said as they got back into Antelope Valley. "The way I see it, you’ve got a choice. There’s time enough today, I could hop back into Magic Carpet and make it into Phoenix, not that there’s a damn thing for me to do there over the weekend. Or, we can stay over another night. We can get up in the morning, and there’d be time for me to drop you off at home before I head back. Your choice."

"There won’t be much for you to do if you have to wait and go back with me," Sara offered. "And as slow as it’s been, I wouldn’t mind stretching it out another couple days."

"You don’t leave me much choice, do you?" he shook his head. "Miz Swift, I really wouldn’t mind having dinner with Gramma and Sara and the girls again. I mean since we come this far and all."

"I promise, this time I won’t knock the phone off the hook when it’s time for dinner," Jennlynn grinned.

* * *

It was just as long of a flight to get back out to the H Bar H two days later, but it seemed to go quicker this time; all too soon, Jennlynn was landing Magic Carpet on the now-familiar field. She taxied up close to the house and shut the engine down.

Before they got out of the plane, though, Will turned to her and said, "Miz Swift, I just want to thank you for everything this weekend. It was absolutely wonderful, and something to remember when I go into the Air Force."

"I thought you needed the going away present," Jennlynn said. "And Will, it was something for me, too, and I’ll certainly remember it, also. I told your grandmother you’re a good kid, you’ve got talent, and you learn quickly, so I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I don’t know when I’m going to see you again, but I’ll be looking forward to it. You have a good time in the Air Force."

"I’m a little worried about that, you know," he said, revealing something he hadn’t said all weekend. "I mean, I grew up out here. I don’t know how I’m going to handle it around all those people and stuff."

"I think you’ll handle it," she said. "Look, it was pretty much the same thing for me when I went to college. It was hard, but I had to handle it. Things came out pretty good. They didn’t all come out in the end like I expected them to, but the ones I wasn’t expecting were pretty good, too."

"I’m just a little concerned that it’s going to change me in ways that I probably don’t want to get changed."

"Happened to me," she said. "Or you wouldn’t have had the weekend you just had."

"That’s not what I mean," he said. "I mean, I grew up here, and I love it here, but I don’t know that I’ll want to come back."

"I can’t help you on that one," she said. "The bottom line is that you will or you won’t. It can work out the best for you either way. The only way you’ll know is to go find out."

"I hope you’re right, Miz Swift," he said. "Look, I don’t know when I’m going to see you again, but I hope I’ll see you again."

"I hope so, too," she smiled. "Just remember one thing. You sort of caught me in a tight spot this weekend. You’re only the second freebie I’ve done in close to three years, so you got lucky. Next time, bring money – lots of it. Since it’s you, though, I’ll probably float you a discount."

"I might do that," he grinned. "I might just do that."

* * *

Of course, it was impossible to not go into the house and have a cup of coffee with Ellen, and Duane happened to be around this time. Will and Jennlynn reported that Shirley and Sara were doing fine, and yeah, there was a hell of a deal coming off down there. No one came out and said that she and Will had quite a weekend, but there was enough innuendo, talking around the subject, and knowing smiles to make the message quite clear – as was the message from Ellen and Duane that it was appreciated.

Really, she wasn’t pushing daylight, since she’d be flying into lighted airports from the ranch, but there was no point in pulling in late. So, she was soon on her way, reflecting on the fact that while some people might think her friends were a little odd, it couldn’t be denied that they were damn good people.

It was, of course, a long, slow flight down to Phoenix, made longer by a fuel stop at Las Vegas, and it gave Jennlynn time to think. It was clear that she’d be flying into that great big bomber runway in Antelope Valley regularly. Like commuting to Bettye’s from Pasadena, it was a little inconvenient in terms of flight operations. Magic Carpet, fine little plane though it was, had an awkward fuel range. It could make it from Pasadena to Bettye’s on a tank of fuel, and it could make it from Phoenix to Antelope Valley on a tank of fuel. But, at Antelope Valley, as had been the case at Bettye’s, there was no fuel, so she had to stop short to tank up, which meant that she didn’t have enough gas to make the return trip, which meant another stop on the way back.

The fuel stops took time; there was no doubt about it. Most small planes, she knew, have gas capacities for about four hours; it varied a little from plane to plane and some might have extra tanks, but that was a general rule. In Magic Carpet, that meant pushing it much over three hours was starting to dip into reserves – especially in lonely desert country like it appeared she’d be flying over for the foreseeable future. Even a little faster plane, say, a Cessna 172 at 125 miles an hour would make it feasible to fly from Phoenix directly to Antelope Valley, and then stop at Las Vegas on the way back for fuel – assuming she wanted to make a fuel stop at busy McCarran Airport. Cutting out even one fuel stop would save a lot of time, and if she were going to be making the trip even more regularly, say every other weekend, that would add up to a lot of time.

Carrying the logic still further, say a Cessna 182, at about 155 miles an hour – that would be a savings right there; she could easily stretch the one gas stop from Las Vegas to Kingman, where she could get in and out with a lot less fuss. But the 182 was a little heavy handed on fuel, so there was that cost.

Cost really didn’t matter that much, but she began to have the feeling that speed would, especially with the amount of flying back and forth. Even if she left work early on a Friday to make it to Antelope Valley before dark, it was time off work. Cutting the trip time to less than half, by speed and no fuel stop, meant that part of the year she wouldn’t even have to take off early and still be able to make it early enough to have a full Friday evening. A fast retractable, say, a Cessna 210, or maybe a Mooney Mark 21 or something like that – if she was a little careful and willing to squeeze it just a little tight – she could make the round trip without refueling. And, at a little less than 200 mph for the Mooney, it would take less than half the time that it took in Magic Carpet, even ignoring the fuel stops.

Maybe she was outgrowing Magic Carpet anyway. After all, she’d bought it when she had barely thirty hours, and got it to do her advanced ratings. It had seen her through her commercial and flight instructor and instrument ratings, and done it with good serviceability at a good price. Only her multi-engine rating had to be done in a different airplane, a Cessna 310, which had seemed like kind of a beast to herd around at first, but she’d soon become comfortable with it, and it was fast. She was far beyond being a beginner, now, and the slow speed and the fact of only two seats were beginning to be a pain in the butt. She’d made that one trip for the office over to Los Angeles in Magic Carpet and barely beat airline speed; it was mostly for an excuse to get out of the shop and go flying on a nice day. A 182, a Mooney, something like that – it would beat airline speeds hollow to LA, even farther. Hell, as far as that went, it would increase her range on just those odd times that she got in the plane to go somewhere for the sake of going there. Flying up to Flagstaff or Grand Canyon was fun, but she’d been there. Four seats would be more useful to the company, if it worked out that way: she could take people with her.

She did have that instrument rating, and it took practice to stay proficient with it. While Magic Carpet hadn’t made a bad instrument platform, in practice it was kind of a pain in the butt because it was so slow. Under instruments it would very often be the slowest thing out there, unless some instructor was out with a student in another Cessna 150 or something similar. That slowed up production all around, and made it kind of a pain in the ass for air controllers, so she didn’t file IFR as often as she should for practice. Hell, she ought to be IFR for this trip – it’d be a good practice run, but it was just simpler to go on Visual Flight Rules on a day as nice as this, especially starting from the Bar H Bar.

And the cost: it was only money. Magic Carpet had been a cheap solution to the cost of aircraft rental at a time when money was tight. Even working at Bettye’s, it would probably have been impossible to work through her ratings on rentals – they just cost too damn much. But that need was gone now, and money was not as tight, not nearly. She’d financed the condo she was living in not far from Lambdatron, but only because Maureen had sat her down and shown her that it was to her financial advantage to do it that way. While things stayed slow at the Redlite, it wouldn’t be a big deal right away – but that money was pretty well marked as play money in her mind anyway. There was no reason that the money she earned there couldn’t be directed back into her other passion.

It wasn’t a critical issue just yet. There were some other issues to be faced, the big one again being how a legal prostitute would go over at Lambdatron, not with Stan, but with the other workers and shareholders. She wasn’t a shareholder yet, but it would only be about three months before it became an issue. As cranky as she’d been the last few months, she realized now that there was some concern about whether she’d get voted in over the first round or not; they may have liked her talent, but a lot of people didn’t like her – were scared of her, for that matter. Maybe the leaf she was turning back over might change that. Or it might make it worse. There was no way of telling.

On the third hand, did being a shareholder matter all that much? When times were good, financially it was a pretty good deal – but with the Cold War all but wound down, and even more military cutbacks coming with a new president, the company might not do as well. In a bad year, the shareholders took it on the chin, and even associates might do better. That could happen. And there were the extra duties of being a shareholder . . . most of them administrative, not engineering. Realistically, if she wasn’t accepted as a shareholder, it wasn’t all downside. It was pretty close to a case of crossing that bridge when she got to it.

Even if she did buy a new plane and things went sour around Lambdatron, it wasn’t as if she couldn’t sell it for about what she had paid for it. Granted, on a forced sale it might hurt a little, but it wasn’t as if she were hurting for money now, and that situation was only going to get better. A significant chunk of her pay was going into the stock market now; she could roll up a little of that and not have to finance as much. In fact, if she got a good price for Magic Carpet, and given time there was no reason she shouldn’t be able to match the purchase price – well, with a little fiddling she might be able to pay cash for a much more capable plane. She’d have to talk with Maureen, maybe it would be better to finance that, too; she’d have to work that out.

But, getting down to the bottom line, there were some good reasons to have a more capable plane, it was appealing and it could be done. It was something that needed serious consideration.

* * *

Lambdatron really wasn’t all that big of a company; everybody on the staff pretty much knew everybody else. Because of the frequent reorganizations for new projects, everyone involved directly with engineering sooner or later worked with everyone else. Everyone around Lambdatron had more or less been witness to, and sometimes the subject of, Jennlynn’s violent fits of temper over the last four months or so. It was therefore no surprise that when she walked into the office with a big grin on her face and dressed a little hot that people mentally began to duck and cover anyway.

But there was an awful lot of surprise when she walked through the office upbeat and wisecracking, greeting everyone cheerfully, even a little saucily – "Hi Griz! I hope Mona was extra nice to you this weekend." It was, at a minimum, unexpected.

Pleasant surprise turned to downright shock when Jennlynn sat down at her desk, picked up the phone, and called Wolfowitz over at N&J Manufacturing, the guy she’d been about ready to kill on Thursday morning. "Hi, Paul," she purred in a sexy voice. "Hey, I’m real sorry I was a little snotty with you Thursday. I was under a lot of stress, but that shouldn’t be any excuse. Look, while I was on my way back yesterday, I was thinking about that atomizer a bit. I really think we have a better way to do it, but it struck me that it’s got to be pretty foreign to your production team, and that’s bound to affect the cost factor. Maybe that’s one paradigm we really shouldn’t bother to break right now, but keep on the back burner for a while."

The call went on for a bit, and there were jaws hanging open around the office well before it was over with. "Jesus, Jennlynn," Mike said as soon as she hung up the phone. "What happened to you?"

"I got a few things settled and a lot of stress relieved," she said contritely. "Look, everybody, I’m sorry about that scene last Thursday and the way I’ve been so bitchy for a while. I think I got several things straightened out, and with any kind of luck it won’t happen again. At least if it does, it won’t be from the same problem."

"Jennlynn," Griz shook his head. "What in hell got into you?"

"A good-looking young cowboy," is what she wanted to say, but in spite of the policy decision last week she wasn’t quite ready to go that far, at least not yet. And, as far as that went, she wanted to touch base with Sam, and maybe Stan, before she made the announcement. "I made some arrangements that should be to my benefit and probably will make things go better for me. It’s just an occasional weekend thing for now, so shouldn’t impact my schedule here much," she replied. "Anyway, I just got off the phone with Wolfowitz, and I think we had what diplomats call a frank and productive discussion. He may come around yet, but let’s put that new atomizer controller on the back burner for a while and take another look at updating the old one . . . "

Later that morning she was able to break free and head for Sam’s office. "So, how’d it go?" he asked as soon as she got in the door.

"Pretty good," she said. "I had a hell of a party, although it was a freebie. Did you know that Bettye’s has changed hands and most of the old staff is now down at the Redlite?"

"The Redlite?" he frowned. "I can’t imagine that. Are you sure?"

"Imagine it with a new multi-million-dollar building and a whole new management and staff," she smiled. "Including me, starting next weekend. Is that still all right, or did you guys have second thoughts after I left?"

"Hell," Sam snorted. "We had second thoughts long before we talked last Thursday. I think we’re up to maybe seventeenth thoughts, but it’s still a go."

"I haven’t let the cat out of the bag yet," she said. "But you’re going to have to realize that when it’s out, it’ll have to stay out. No turning back."

"I realize that. So does Stan; we talked about it. I suppose you’re going to want us to run interference for you, too."

"It’s about going to have to happen," she said. "Some people will bitch, no doubt, but maybe you can help them think it through."

"Have you figured out how you’re going to do it?" he asked.

"Well," she smirked. "I did have one idea."

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