Blue Skies by Robyn Carr Page A

if I have to be alone till I die, I’m not getting back to that mean old game.”
    Â 
    Summer peaked, and the heat drove everyone indoors. Nikki divided her time between her job at the airline, the paperwork for the property sale and, gratefully, full-time motherhood. Buck chauffeured the kids around so they could keep their connections with friends from school and the old neighborhood.
    Nikki saw little of Carlisle and Dixie, and she hadn’t seen them together since the day they’d helped her sort through Drake’s things. Neither of them would admit they weren’t speaking, but they hadn’t spoken.
    Meanwhile, life at Buck’s was crowded and complicated. There was a definite difference between having the kids there two to four days a week and having them all the time. While no one was given to anal-retentive housekeeping in their family, even Nikki was starting to get edgy because of the constant clutter. She knew it was time to start thinking about finding a place of herown for her and the kids. A place her father could visit. Although Buck didn’t complain too loudly, he was sixty-six and set in his ways. The only real advantage to living with him was that Opal didn’t visit.
    She had just begun to tumble around ideas in her mind about what kind of fresh start they needed when a name floated up in front of her. “Do you remember Joe Riordan?” Dixie asked her.
    â€œYeah, of course. I know him real well. Why?”
    â€œOne of the captains I flew with a month or so ago said he’s starting a new airline, in Las Vegas of all places. Danny Adams is thinking of leaving Aries to join Joe.”
    â€œReally?” Nikki asked. “Why would he do that? He’s got a lot of seniority here.”
    â€œI know, but he says he hates all them bellyachin’ pilots, whining about money all the time and threatenin’ to go on strike. It’s makin’ him think fondly of those good old days when everyone was having a good time. Workin’ hard but having some fun. Like back when Joe Riordan was runnin’ it.”
    â€œThat’s when I was hired,” Nikki reflected. “They brought him in to expand the company. He’s a deal-maker, a closer. Aries was about six aircraft strong and losing money. Riordan came in and tripled the size of the company in a year, then did it again and again. I was hired in that first big expansion. Under him I got a chance to work in management, first in training and then in flight standards. Hmm. I agree with Danny. That’s when it was fun. But starting an airline now? He must be crazy.”
    But Nikki couldn’t stop thinking about it. It woke her up at night, preoccupied her at work, caused her to miss snatches of conversation. Five years ago, if anyone hadsuggested to her that she would even consider a job change when she had a perfectly good position as a 767 captain, she would have called him crazy. Even one year ago. Even six months ago.
    But everything had changed—in her personal life and in the industry she had grown up loving.
    When she told Buck the news about Riordan, he said, “Crazy like a fox. He’s got a whole country full of equipment to shop from—all the airlines have been cutting back, not growing. Jumbo jets that leased for two to three hundred thousand a month are available for fifty. There must be a couple hundred thousand talented airline professionals looking for work. The major airlines can’t compete—their costs have gotten too high while the ticket prices are too low for them to make any money. They’re dropping like flies….”
    â€œLike three-hundred-ton flies…” Nikki corrected him.
    â€œBut can you make money in the business? Now and then you can make a fortune. JetBlue did it when they went public.”
    Nikki looked at her dad. The thing about Buck Burgess was this—if you looked at him and didn’t know anything about him,