Chapter 12

Jennifer and Will didn’t talk about it a great deal more over the weekend, since there were other things they had to discuss and do, many of them in bed. They both needed the time together to shake off the last few months, and just being around each other was more important to both of them just then. So she didn’t really think about it much until she was on her way back to Phoenix in Skyhook on Sunday evening.

It wasn’t as if a decision had to be made immediately, because it didn’t. The problem had been out there in the distant future for some time, but she really hadn’t thought about it much because Will still had ten years or thereabouts to do in the Air Force if he wanted to retire after twenty years. She knew that since he had come this far he had wanted to continue; ten years was a long way off.

Will still had another year and a half or so before his enlistment ran out, and he would likely be at Keesler for the whole term, unless he got called for temporary duty in the Persian Gulf again. There was no way of telling how likely that would be. If he did get out of the Air Force and move back to the ranch, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad for her to commute up to the ranch on weekends, even in Magic Carpet. Given a good healthy laptop with an auxiliary battery she might be able to stretch the weekends out and still get some work done.

As far as that went, the idea of working at Lambdatron by telepresence was still a valid one, although it would take some working out and she still would probably have to be in Phoenix from time to time. However, it would mean having to do a lot of modernization of their little house, expanding it considerably, and having to add satellite telephone, satellite Internet, and all that entailed. She could easily afford doing everything that needed to be done, but the problem was that it would ruin the rustic, rural atmosphere of the place she enjoyed. There was no reason she couldn’t live a relatively modern life “off the grid” out there in the Nevada desert, but it was something that couldn’t be built up overnight.

She hadn’t talked that option over very much with Will, partly because they’d had other things to do but also partly because she needed to think about it some more. One of the options that occurred to her as she and Skyhook hurtled westward into the slowly gathering darkness was to build an entirely new place, fairly close to the Bar H Bar ranch buildings, which were a little more easily accessible than their beloved little cabin. It could be acceptably modern and close to Will’s parents and the rest of the ranch buildings, but a house there would not have the charm of their little place out in the middle of nowhere. However, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a logical thing to do; the cabin could be saved as a place to get away during slow periods. It could also be used as a line camp for when work needed to be done out on that end of the spread.

It was all something that needed a much more serious discussion with Will, but then they would have time to do it later, and it wasn’t a decision that had to be made soon. However, it did need some thought, because there was more than just Lambdatron to think about. Whatever happened with her new business relationship with the Redlite Ranch, it probably didn’t matter whether she was at the Bar H Bar or in Phoenix, since she didn’t plan on being very active with the management. But that could change when George, Shirley, or both of them left the scene, which hopefully wouldn’t be anytime soon.

And then there was the question of Norma’s still rather fuzzy prostitute recovery project, which they had given the name of “Hearts of Gold,” referring to the old saw about prostitutes, although a final decision on it had not been made yet. Jennifer still thought she needed to be involved with that, and there were a number of reasons for it. The biggest one of those was that she was still concerned with the fallout of Fast World and the effect it might have had on impressionable girls. There was little chance that a girl coming into the business could be anywhere near as successful with it as she had been, mostly because her success didn’t come from prostitution but from hard work, education, and admittedly, some good luck here and there. For all that she and Norma had talked about the project over the last few months, it was clear that Learjet Jenn wouldn’t have a great deal to do with actually working with potential rescuees. Learjet Jenn’s fame and public relations value could be a bigger contributor to the project.

As Skyhook chased a much-prolonged sunset westward, it came to Jennifer that this was one place where moving to the ranch might make things a little simpler. She could emerge from the desert as Learjet Jenn only when she needed to, and easily keep out of the public eye the rest of the time – but it remained to be seen how big an issue that was really going to be.

Right at the moment the future seemed very murky and confusing. She and Will had been much too involved in the present during their brief weekend together to spend much time on the future, but there would be the chance to do it up at home in little more than a week’s time.

By the time she got Skyhook on the ground and then got it fueled so Joe would have full tanks in the morning, it was probably too late to call Nancy Hanneman to schedule the plane for a flight on Friday and then on Sunday a week later. But it was the first thing she attended to when she got to Lambdatron the next morning. As luck had it, it was free both times she needed it, but it would have to be back Sunday evening for another early Monday-morning departure, so there could be no running late.

“So you’re going to be making the Biloxi run just about every weekend after that, I take it?” Nancy laughed.

“No, not every weekend,” Jennifer told her. “It’s expensive enough as it is, and doing it that often would really blow a hole in my bank account. Every second or third weekend, maybe, and if I have to take Songbird I guess I won’t mind.”

“I’d almost suggest you fly commercial, but I think I know what you’d say about that.”

“You got that right. Look at all the trouble flying commercial a year and a half ago got me into. I bought these airplanes so I can go somewhere without having to deal with airlines.”

“I don’t blame you a bit for feeling like that,” Nancy laughed. “That one airline flight sure changed your life, didn’t it?”

“More than I wanted it to, that’s for sure,” Jennifer replied. “Changing the subject on you, is there a day this week when Songbird is going to be free?”

“Either Wednesday or Thursday.”

“Put me down for Thursday, will you? I’ve got some running I need to do.”

The following Friday Jennifer met Mike just as he was taxiing up to the Skyhook Aviation hanger after getting the Learjet fueled, and was soon in the air bound for Biloxi. It was getting dark by the time she met Will at Gulfport-Biloxi Regional, and she didn’t have the engines shut down for more than a few minutes before her husband was strapping himself into the co-pilot’s seat.

Will was a low-time private pilot – when he got back to working at the ranch he wanted to have an airplane available there, and he’d taken advantage of Air Force flying clubs to get his license. Still, he enjoyed the faster and more professional world his wife operated planes in, and he was glad to have the seat time. He’d only flown Skyhook a few times, always with her present, but he was a careful pilot and with her help they soon were high in the sky hurrying westward.

They got back into Phoenix too late to think about going on up to the cabin since there were no lights on the dry lake there. Jennifer took him to her apartment for the night, setting a somewhat unusual landmark – it was the first time she’d ever had sex with anyone there, and it proved to be worth the wait. They lingered in bed the next morning, partly because they were enjoying themselves, and partly because for once they were in no hurry. They eventually got up, had a leisurely restaurant breakfast, and drove to the Skyhook Aviation hanger.

They got there to find Skyhook still there, but Songbird was gone. “Miz Hoffman,” Will asked. “How are we gonna get up to the cabin?”

“We’re going to take Magic Carpet,” she replied. “Both the big birds have charters this week, and the last I knew Mike was planning on taking a golf buddy to some match in San Diego in Songbird. I let him have it at cost when he wants to use it.”

“Are you sure it’s going to be all right? Don’t we have a bunch of stuff to take with us? I mean, I know you’re pushing gross weight limits pretty hard.”

“Just you, me, and your carry-on,” she smiled. “I hauled my stuff, food, and some other comfort items up to the cabin in Songbird on Thursday. I know we’re cutting gross weight pretty tight but there’s very little gas in the auxiliary tanks so we ought to be close enough. We’ll have to stop at Henderson both ways to fuel up, but that ought to work out all right and leave the big birds to pay their keep.”

“Miz Hoffman, you’ve done been plannin’ ahead, ain’t you?”

“Whenever I can, Will, whenever I can.”

Will had been in Magic Carpet several times over the years, but hadn’t been in it since the rebuild and the new engine installation. Once again, Jennifer let him fly the plane and just sat back and dealt with the problems of getting out of Phoenix herself. Even though the little Cessna was heavily loaded it sprang into the air like he’d never experienced in the plane before. Unlike the high flying they would normally have done in the bigger planes, they stayed fairly low, only a couple of thousand feet up, low enough that they could really see what was happening on the ground. The lower altitude made it seem like they were going faster than they really were.

After a brief fuel stop outside Las Vegas they flew on to the cabin and landed on the dry lake. They tied the little Cessna down and walked the short distance to the cabin. “Will,” she asked as they were coming up to the cabin, “could you stand something cold to drink?”

“I suppose we could fly into Ely and get it,” he said.

“No need,” she smiled as they walked into the cabin, where there were a couple of large, odd-looking coolers sitting in the middle of the room.

Will noticed a cord from the coolers run out the back door of the cabin. “What’s this?” he asked.

“Thermo-electric coolers,” she smiled. “They’re powered by a solar array sitting outside the back door, running through a golf cart battery. That was heavy and I had a heck of a time getting it in here, but unless we get solid overcast for the next week we’ve got cold stuff to last us for while we’re here. Now, how does a cold beer sound?”

“Sounds good to me,” he said. “Doesn’t hardly seem right, though, not out here.”

“I figured for once we might as well be comfortable,” she said. “Since it’s nothing permanent, I figured we could get away with it. I thought about bringing coolers with ice, but I didn’t think it would last.”

“Probably not,” he conceded as she opened a cooler and came up with two cans of beer that were cold indeed. “But it still seems a little like cheatin’, though.”

“I know,” she replied as he cracked open his beer. “It bothers me a little, too, but if it works out that we’re going to be moving up here permanently, we’re not going to be able to get along without electricity and some other modern conveniences, especially if I’m going to still be working at Lambdatron over the Internet. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, Will. If you want to get out of the Air Force and come back here, then I want to be here with you, at least most of the time. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and there are some angles to it I need to run by you.”

“You’re serious, ain’t you?”

“I am, Will. We can put up with this stuff of getting together for the odd week or the odd weekend for a while if we have to, but I don’t want to have to do it for the next ten years. I want to be with you, and I don’t want to have to burn an ocean of Jet-A to do it.”

“We’re surely thinkin’ alike on that, Miz Hoffman. This flyin’ back and forth to Biloxi is all right for a while but I don’t want to have to do it more than we have to, either. I’d really rather have you with me so we really can be husband and wife, not just playin’ at it, so I’ve been thinkin’ about it, too.”

Jennifer opened her beer and took a swallow. It was nicely cold. “So what have you figured out?” she asked.

“Nothin’ is settled yet,” he replied, pulling out one of the two chairs at the kitchen table and sitting down while she took a seat in the other one. “What it comes down to is that my enlistment is up in about a year and a half. I should be at Keesler a little less than that. Miz Hoffman, I’ve been thinking about it. You know I want to get my twenty in, and you know why, and that’s so I can come back here and live the life I want to live. I should be getting notice for my next tour about this time next year, or maybe a little longer. If my orders ain’t to someplace around you, like say Luke or maybe Davis-Monthan down in Tucson, well, unless you talk me out of it, I’m just going to let my enlistment run out. They can ship me to some shit hole halfway around the world but they can’t keep me there once my enlistment is up.”

“Will, do you mean it?”

“Miz Hoffman, I couldn’t mean it more. I had a lot of time to think about what was happenin’ with my life and where it was goin’ to go while I was sittin’ there in the Persian Gulf. I could go into all the ins and outs of what I thought about, but what it comes down to is that you are a hell of a lot more important to me than the Air Force. I’d hate to have to give it up after I’ve gone this far, but I’ve got other things in my life, too, and bein’ with you is at the head of my list. Now, all that said, if I do wind up havin’ to get out of the Air Force there’s nothin’ to keep me from joining the Reserves. That might mean I’d get deployed somewhere again if it was needed, but I wouldn’t be stationed permanently anywhere but home. The retirement ain’t as good but I’d still get it.”

“So you’re saying if you get out, we come back here?”

“Pretty much, if you’re willin’. I know you like your job there at Lambdatron and you’ve got that deal workin’ with Norma like you told me about, so I’d guess you’d want to keep your finger on what’s happenin’ down in Phoenix, too. There’s several ways we could handle it by livin’ in two places but we don’t have to work it out this afternoon.”

“It sounds good to me, Will. I’ve been thinking about how we’d work it out if you were to come back here. While I love our little cabin here, I don’t think it’s the best place for us if we were to live here full time. I think we ought to be closer to the main ranch buildings and your folks, and I don’t think it would bother me as much if we were to build a place there that’s a lot more comfortable to live in full time. If I was to continue with Lambdatron as a consultant or whatever, I’d have to have electricity and Internet, but that’s not going to be all that hard to manage.”

“The main ranch is a long way from a power line, Miz Hoffman. That’s why there’s a wind generator there.”

“So? We could have a bigger one, maybe a solar array like I set up out back, only bigger. I think we want to keep this place as our rustic little hideaway, but we can afford to build a nice, modern place down there.”

“You mean you could afford it.”

“It strikes me that when we got married there was a line, ‘With all my worldly goods I thee endow.’ It’s our money, Will, not mine. If you want to consider it my money, consider that I’m spending it so I can live comfortably and continue to work at what I like.”

“Well, you might have a point on that, considering that the Air Force has gotten me pretty used to flush toilets.”

“I can live with an outhouse but it doesn’t mean I want to,” she laughed.

“Well, maybe it’s not somethin’ that has to be considered right away,” he conceded – and considering how much he had protested in the past about using her money, it was a major concession. “Look, I don’t have a lot of control over where they actually wind up sending me next, but I do have the last word. I can make it known that if the Air Force wants to keep me they’ll have to send me to Luke. If they do wind up sending me to Luke, that means it could be four years or even longer before we have to consider moving up here, and there ain’t no way of telling how that’s going to go for at least another year. That means we can do some planning and thinking and don’t have to do it in a rush.”

“Will, all I can say is that it works for me, however it happens to work out. There are some things that I’m not anxious to leave behind in Phoenix but you’re more important to me. I’m pretty sure I can continue with Lambdatron working over the Internet and putting in some time with them down there on a now-and-then basis. The deal with Norma Franceour and Hearts of Gold interests me but it’s not going to be a full-time thing. It might be a while before I could live up here on a full-time basis, but after thinking about it all week I don’t see anything that can’t be worked out.”

“There might be somethin’,” he grinned. “Like I said, I want us to be husband and wife, not just married fuck buddies who get together once in a while. Miz Hoffman, I don’t know if you’ve thought about it very much, but there’s somethin’ else that goes along with bein’ man and wife. I ain’t sayin’ that we have to rush into it, but after we’re more or less livin’ together full time, I think we ought to be thinkin’ about startin’ a family of our own.”

That one came close to stopping Jennifer in her tracks. It was something that had crossed her mind from time to time but she had never given it any real consideration. Maybe before she left her father and her mother back east she’d occasionally thought about what it would be like to be a mother, but it literally was not something that had crossed her mind with any real consideration ever since then.

She knew she wasn’t alone in that. She knew that Jon and Tanisha had never really given any thought about parenthood until one day when they realized that she was pregnant, and not just a little pregnant but nearly four months along. But it had worked out well for them, and now she was about six months along with their second kid.

Realizing that Will was waiting for some sort of an answer, she managed to say casually, “Yeah, that’s something we really ought to be thinking about. I’m not getting any younger and the clock will be running out in not too many more years.”

“That’s what I was thinkin’, that you can’t be puttin’ it off too much longer. Let’s face it, Miz Hoffman. I know I ain’t a rich man, but what with everythin’ I’m going to be a lot better off than I ever dreamed I was gonna be in another few years. That’s not even considerin’ your money or the shares we’re gonna have in the Redlite after Gramma Hoffman passes on.”

“I hope you realize that came out of the clear blue sky at me,” she smiled.

“Well, I sort of realized the part about Gramma Hoffman,” he shrugged. “But it never really hit home with me until you told me about you getting a piece of the operation. But honestly, if we just treat it as an investment and make sure there’s management that’s reasonable, it shouldn’t be more than just an investment. Now, after Gramma Hoffman and George are out of the picture, things could change, but I don’t see either of us trying to manage it ourselves.”

“I hope you’re right on that, and I really am trying to get away from being active with it, even if it’s just day-to-day management. I’m not your grandmother, Will. I don’t want to make a life out of it. In fact, it’s been more of my life than I’m comfortable with. Unfortunately, we may have a tough time finding someone who runs it like we want them to.”

“Yeah, I’d really rather be dealin’ with horses myself,” he admitted. “Well, horses and kids. I guess what I was sayin’ earlier is that I really would like to be a father so I could have the satisfaction of passin’ on my knowledge and my life to them.”

“It doesn’t always work out that way, Will.”

“I know it. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to try.”

“Will, I’m going to be honest. I haven’t thought about having kids very much, so the idea of doing it is a little strange to me. I don’t want to give you a flat yes right now. I want to spend a little time getting used to the idea and processing it a little before I do.”

“Just as well, since I don’t think we want to get started until we can be living together a little more regularly. That means we’ve got a year or more before we have to make up our minds.”

“I imagine that in a year or more I’ll be able to talk myself into it,” she sighed. “Especially since I’ll be the one trying to talk myself into it.”

“Oh, I think you’re going to make a fine mommy,” he laughed. “You care about people, you like to make them happy, and you don’t do anything half-assed. That counts for a lot in my book.”

“I hope you’re right,” she sighed. “I just hope that if we have a daughter she doesn’t think that she has to go down to the Redlite and get a job.”

“Well, in one way I hope you’re right, but in another way, if she does, she’ll just be carrying on a family tradition.”

“I guess she would,” Jennifer sighed again. “Damn, that would be a hard one to say ‘no’ to, wouldn’t it? I mean, given everything. I guess if she has a real good idea of what she was getting herself in for it would be hard to be too much against it, but I sure wouldn’t want her to be working the streets or something. I guess I’ll be just as happy if she doesn’t think she has to do it because her mother and father threw her out of the house, like what happened to me.”

“I’d surely be happy if it worked out that way myself,” he agreed. “But what would you say to hikin’ up to the waterpocket and soakin’ for a while just to let the peace of this place get into the both of us?”

Jennifer and Will wound up having a relaxing, loving week at their home on the range. They didn’t spend all of their time in bed, but spent all of it together as a couple. A couple of times they went for daylong hikes up in the hills, and twice they got into Magic Carpet and flew over to the main ranch buildings to spend some time with Will’s folks, who were not strangers by any means.

Jennifer had felt very alone after she’d had to leave her family and turn herself out over near Carson City years before, but in her time at Bettye’s Ranch she’d gotten friendly with Shirley, and then her son and daughter-in-law, Will’s parents Duane and Ellen. The Hoffmans had proved to be something of a family for her, and they went a long way toward filling the hole caused by Jennifer’s estrangement from her own family. Even though she had gotten back onto speaking terms with her parents, their relationship was still pretty touchy and distant, so flying into the Bar H Bar was something like flying into the family home.

The family was close enough that they discussed the idea of building a new home close to the ranch buildings, although just exactly when it would happen was well up in the air. Both of Will’s parents had a few ideas on the subject. They even pointed out a spot about a mile away that might have some advantages, along with a better prospect for an airstrip rather than the narrow path through the sagebrush that Jennifer had used to land Magic Carpet. Jennifer and Will spent some time on horseback checking out the site, which had a nice view of a dry wash coming down a low ridge, although nothing like as appealing as the one back at the cabin.

Still, it felt good to be on horseback again, and Jennifer could see that there was going to be more of it in her future.

It was with a degree of sadness that they loaded up Magic Carpet on Sunday morning a week later and took off for Phoenix again. They had to leave some things behind, but Jennifer planned on being up that way in Songbird or Magic Carpet again sooner or later and could pick them up then. They paused in Phoenix only long enough to put the Cessna away and roll out Skyhook to take Will back to Keesler.

By that point they’d only had the cabin for about a year and a half, and they’d only managed to spend a few weeks together there, mostly just short visits at widely scattered intervals. But more and more it seemed like home, and Jennifer was satisfied with the realization that sooner or later the Bar H Bar would really be their home. This time, their week in the cabin meant that their lives were really starting to come together.

They had a long kiss at Gulfport-Biloxi before Jennifer had to start back toward Phoenix. The parting wasn’t quite as painful this time; it would only be two or three weeks before they’d be seeing each other again, this time probably just staying with Claudia and Cindy again. Being so far apart and only able to see each other occasionally was as uncomfortable as ever, and perhaps more so – but now it seemed like there was an end in sight.

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