Leslie Kelly - Play with Me

There was only one member of the Bauer clan who was at all like her: Uncle Frank. His motto was Live ’til your fuel tank is in the red and then keep on going. You can rest during your long dirt nap when you finally slide off the runway of life.

Live to the extreme, take chances, go places, don’t wait for anything you want, go out and find it or make it happen. And never let anyone tie you down.

These were all lessons Amanda had taken to heart when growing up, hearing tales of her wild uncle Frank, her father’s brother, of whom everyone else in the family had so disapproved. They especially disliked that he seemed to have his own personal parking space in front of the nearest wedding chapel. He’d walked down the aisle four times.

Unfortunately, he’d also walked down the aisle of a divorce courtroom just as often.

He might not be lucky in love, but he was as loyal an uncle as had ever been born. Amanda had shown up on his Chicago doorstep three days after her high school graduation and never looked back. Nor had her parents ever hinted they wanted her to.

He’d welcomed her, adjusted his playboy lifestyle for her—though he needn’t have. Her father might hate his brother’s wild ways, but Amanda didn’t give a damn who he slept with.

From day one, he had assumed a somewhat-parental role and harassed her into going to college. He’d made sure she went home for obligatory visits to see the folks. But he’d also shown her the world. Opened her eyes so wide, she hadn’t wanted to close them even to sleep in those early days.

He’d given her the sky … and he’d given her wings to explore it by teaching her to fly. Eventually, he’d taken her in as a partner in his small regional charter airline and together they’d tripled its size and quadrupled its revenues.

Their success had come at a cost, of course. Neither of them had much of a social life. Even ladies’ man Uncle Frank had been pretty much all-work-and-no-play since they’d expanded their territory up and down the east coast two years ago.

As for Amanda, aside from having a vivid fantasy life, when she wasn’t in flight, she was as boring as a single twenty-nine-year-old could be. Evidence of that was her disappointment at not getting to spend a day with a group of old ladies who bitched about everything from their lazy kids to the hair growing out of their husbands’ ears. Well, except Mrs. Rush, who sharply reminded her friends to be thankful for their husbands’ ear hair while they still had husbandly ear hair to be thankful for.

“Well, so much for a fun Halloween,” she said with a sigh.

“Honey, if sitting in a plane listening to a bunch of rich old ladies kvetch about their latest collagen injections is the only thing you’ve got to look forward to …”

“I know, I know.” It did sound pathetic. And one of these days, she really needed to do something about that. Get working on a real social life again, rather than throwing herself into her job fourteen hours a day, and spending the other ten thinking about all the things she would do if she had the time.

Picturing those things, even.

She closed her eyes, willing that thought away. Her fantasy life might be a rich and vivid one. But it was definitely not suitable for work hours.

Problem was, ever since she’d realized just how dangerous she was to men’s hearts, she really hadn’t felt like going after their bodies.

Her last relationship had ended badly. Very badly. And she still hadn’t quite gotten over the regret of it.

“What a shame. Mrs. Rush would have loved your costume.”

“Oh, God, don’t remind me,” Amanda said with a groan.

It was for the benefit of the ladies that she’d worn it. Mrs. Rush had ordered her to let loose on this one holiday trip.

Gulping, Amanda glanced around, hoping nobody was close enough to see her getup. She needed to dart up into the plane and change because while the old-fashioned outfit would have made her passengers cackle with glee, she didn’t particularly want to be seen by any of the workers or baggage handlers on the tarmac. Not to mention the fact that, even though the weather was great, it was October and she was freezing her butt off.

The Clear-Blue uniform she usually wore was tailored and businesslike, no-nonsense. Navy blue pants, crisp white blouse, meant to inspire confidence and get the customer to forget their pilot was only in her late twenties. Most customers liked that. However, the older women in the senior-gal group always harassed Amanda about her fashion sense. They insisted she would be one hot tamale if she’d lose the man-clothes and get girly.

She glanced down at herself again and had to smile. You couldn’t get much more girly than this ancient stewardess costume, complete with white patent-leather go-go boots and hot pants that clung to her butt and skimmed the tops of her thighs.

She looked like she’d stepped out of a 1972 commercial for Southwest Airlines.

As costumes went, it wasn’t bad, if she did say so herself. Shopping for vintage clothes on e-bay, she’d truly lucked out. The psychedelic blouse was a bit tight, even though she wasn’t especially blessed in the boob department, and she couldn’t button the polyester vest that went over it. But the satiny short-shorts fit perfectly, and the boots were so kick-ass she knew she would have to wear them again without the costume.

“Now, before you go worrying that your day is a total wash,” Ginny said, sounding businesslike again, “I wanted to let you know that the trip was not in vain. I’ve got you a paying passenger back to Chicago who’ll make it worth your while.”

“Seriously? A sudden passenger from Pittsburgh, on a Saturday?” she asked. This wasn’t exactly a hotbed destination like Orlando or Hartsfield International. Mrs. Rush was the only customer they picked up regularly in this part of Pennsylvania and most business types didn’t charter flights on weekends.

“Yes. When Mrs. Rush called to cancel, she told me a local businessman needed a last-minute ride to Chicago. She put him in touch with us, hoping you could help him. I told him you were there and would have no problem bringing him back with you.”

Perfect. A paying gig, and she could make it home in time to attend her best friend Jazz’s annual Halloween party.

Then she reconsidered. Honestly, it was far more likely she would end up staying home, devouring a bag of Dots and Tootsie Rolls while watching old horror films on AMC. Because Jazz—Jocelyn Wilkes, their lead mechanic at Clear-Blue and the closest friend Amanda had ever had—was a wild one whose parties always got crashed and sometimes got raided. Amanda just wasn’t in the mood for a big, wild house party with a ton of strangers.

Being honest, she’d much prefer a small, wild bedroom one—with only two guests. It was just too bad for her that, lately, the only guest in her bedroom had come with batteries and a scarily illustrated instruction manual written in Korean.

“Manda? Everything okay?”

“Absolutely,” she said, shaking the crazy thoughts out of her head. “Glad I get to earn my keep today.”

Ginny laughed softly into the phone. “You earn your keep every day, kiddo. I don’t know what Frank would do without you.”

“The feeling is most definitely mutual.”

She meant that. Amanda hated to even think of what her life might be like if she hadn’t escaped the small, closed-in, claustrophobic world she’d lived in with the family who had so disapproved of her and tried so hard to change her.

She had about as much in common with her cold, repressed parents and her completely subservient sister as she did with … well, with the swinging 1970s flower-power stewardess who’d probably once worn this uniform. When she’d stood in line to get doused in the gene pool, she’d gotten far more of her uncle Frank’s reckless, free-wheeling, never-can-stand-to-be-tied-down genes than her parents’ staid, conservative ones.