Kate Hoffmann - Paris or Bust!

With a wide smile, Daisy held up the newspaper. “See?” she whispered.

Yep, there it was, right on the front page for the whole world to see.

Our Own Daisy Birmingham!

National Mother Of The Year?

You Bet!

Kylie didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “Hold on.” She hit line two. “Birmingham Airport.”

“This is Flora’s Florist. We have a delivery for a Daisy Birmingham.”

“What?”

“They’re from the retirement center where she volunteers as bingo manager. We just want to make sure someone is there to receive before we bring the arrangement over.”

Kylie sank to her mother’s chair and set her head down on the desk.

Daisy just smiled.

Kylie groaned.

“Hello?” said the florist. “Hello? Hello?”

W HEN K YLIE GOT UPthe next morning, she’d convinced herself the publicity had died down. After all, her mother wasn’t a celebrity, Kylie wasn’t a celebrity and where they lived was little more than a one-horse town.

Why would anyone care about a silly little contest? Yes, today would be just fine. And indeed, when she got to work, the place was blessedly quiet.

Perfect.

Relieved, she went to her office and shut the door, determined to do something about the mountain of paperwork threatening to overtake her desk.

She worked through lunch, and was well on her way to having a deliriously good day due to lack of interruptions when Lou ambled in.

“You need money in the checking account,” her grandma announced. “Quite a bit of it.”

“A new lease is supposed to come through today. Some guy wants to park his two Learjets here for six months, and I’m just waiting for his call. Once that’s finalized, we’ll get a hefty deposit. Oh, and we sold a lot of fuel this week, so-”

“None of that is going to help you.”

Kylie frowned. “Why not?”

“Well, because I’m mailing the bills.” Lou lifted a shoulder. “So you’ll need to do something today. Okay, then, luvie…” She clapped her hands together. “Gotta run.”

It boggled the mind how quickly one old lady could destroy Kylie’s brain cells. “Maybe you can wait until next week to go to the post office.”

“Okay, dear. You’re the boss.”

Oh yeah, she had a headache now. A huge one. She watched Lou dance toward the door.

Suddenly Kylie realized the phones were flashing like crazy again. Damn it. With a sigh, she made her way to her mother’s desk. “Mom, I’ve told you, you can’t just tie up the phone like that!”

“Oh, I’m not the one doing it.” Daisy smiled sweetly. She leaned close. “The press is here,” she whispered. “They want to talk about what a great mom I am. Oh! And in an hour, the local television news is coming as well.”

“But the phones-”

“I know, isn’t it awful?” Daisy hit a few of the buttons, then shook her head. “Definitely, there’s something amiss. I tried to take care of it a while ago, but I couldn’t figure out what I did wrong…”

“A while ago…” Kylie let out a breath. She was going to blow up. Just poof, blow up. “Are you saying the phones are down, and have been for… a while? ”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Goodbye new client.

“So are you ready to talk to the press?” Daisy asked. “Maybe get your pic taken?”

“No!” Kylie pressed her fingers to her temples and turned in a slow circle, going still when she saw Wade standing there, smiling at her.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “Need some help?”

“Yeah, I need someone to shoot me and put me out of my misery.” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and ignored the flutter in her tummy at just the sight of the man she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since their plane ride. Nothing an antacid wouldn’t cure.

“What are you doing?” her mother asked.

“Calling the phone service, which you might notice I have on auto dial.” She rolled her eyes when her mother just sniffed in irritation.

“ I am not messing up the phones,” Daisy said. “The repair man told me the problem is on your roof.”

Or under it, Kylie thought crossly. Why was it so hard to be her? All she wanted was the airport running smoothly and good help to ensure that. She wanted to take care of Daisy and Lou. Simple. She’d be completely happy, just as her father had been. But somehow, it’d seemed easier when he’d done it.

“He said to check for a bird’s nest on the roof.”

That had been last week’s problem.

“Or a squirrel chewing the line.”

Which had happened the week before, but the line to the repair department was busy, which meant Kylie was on her own. “I’ll be on the roof,” she said, her mood not improving when Wade followed her outside. He looked good today, though she’d bite her tongue before admitting it. Having just come back from flying a charter, he had his aviator sunglasses shoved up on his head, a leather jacket tucked beneath his arm and a soda in his hand. He wore his pilot’s uniform-dark blue trousers and a stark white shirt with his logo over the breast that inexplicably made him look tall, dark and official.

Everything about him made her heart beat fast, and all she could think about was doing what he’d so brazenly suggested the other day-getting some. With him. In the air.

She had the feeling he would know exactly how to make her feel good, too. She’d probably, if her breathing problems from just looking at him were any indication, even have an actual orgasm. “Why are you following me?”

“I worked for the phone company one summer. Maybe I can help.”

She came to the back wall of hangar number one, where high above her was the phone box. There was already a ladder there, due to the problems she’d been having over the past few weeks, problems she now knew were directly related to her mother’s “help.” With a testing shake of the ladder, she started to climb.

“Why don’t you let me-”

“I’ve got it,” she said over her shoulder, and promptly forgot about Wade as she got to the top of the ladder and surveyed the phone equipment. Nothing obvious, no bird’s nest, no chewed wires from the squirrels. Climbing onto the roof, she sat and contemplated the situation. Basically, she had a phone system that didn’t work, she had a grandma who didn’t care about work and a secretary/mom who’d rather be in the paper and go to Paris than secure her future.

Oh, and she had an airport about to go under from lack of funds. Yep, it was official. Her life was in the toilet.

“Kylie?”

With a sigh, she lay back on the roof, studying the clouds overhead. It was a gorgeous day. “I’m still here.”

“I’m coming up.”

“Don’t.” If he did, he’d look at her with those eyes, the ones that made her melt. Then she might get a little desperate and ask if there was some sort of club involving sex on a roof. “I’ve got it under control. I’ve nearly got it handled.”

“Do you? Because from here it looks like you’re taking a nap.”

With a roll of her eyes, she pushed to her feet, moving more completely out of view.

And promptly sank through the old, half-rotten roof up to her hips, which, thanks to her daily morning habit of two old-fashioned chocolate-glaze donuts, stopped her from falling all the way through.

“Kylie? What was that crash?”

The sound of my ego hitting the earth at the speed of light. “Nothing,” she managed in a perfectly calm voice, wriggling her feet to make sure she hadn’t paralyzed herself. Actually she was wedged in nicely between the rotten roof and the supports. She couldn’t fall any farther, but neither could she pull herself out. She imagined the attic, which they used as storage space, and the view she presented to anyone in there looking up. Luckily, as all her employees were incredibly lazy, no one would be in there.