Read Online Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols - Free Book Online Page A

disappeared through the glass door into the office. After using the bathroom and buying a pack of M&M’s, which his wife did not allow in the house because of her weight struggles, he would get into his Infiniti parked on the street side of the building and drive home to their condo on the swanky end of Heaven Beach, where they would take an ocean-side stroll together before dinner. It seemed so foreign. I couldn’t imagine being retired. Or having enough money to do what I wanted.
    Grayson rocked slowly in his chair again, waiting for me to finish tying down the plane.
    There was just so long I could dawdle over a metal hook attached to a ring sticking through the asphalt. I stalked back toward Grayson, but if I had any idea of slipping past him into the office without continuing the argument, he ruled that out. “Who is your other job with?” he demanded, stepping into my path and towering over me.
    This was none of his business, but I felt bad about the Just like you always did comment. I felt worse now that the Admiral had been so nice to Grayson. I was trying to get rid of Grayson as politely as possible. Without stopping, I walked aroundhim and opened the door. “I’m flying a crop duster for Mr. Simon,” I said over my shoulder before I swung into the office. I hoped now Grayson would take no for an answer, and he wouldn’t follow me inside.
    He was right behind me. “Leah.” He trailed me all the way across the lobby, down the short hallway, to the open doorway that led behind the reception counter.
    Turning around at the threshold, I took off my sunglasses, tossed them on the counter, and eyed him. He seemed to get the message that the area beyond the doorway was my private territory. He walked back down the hallway, into the lobby.
    But instead of leaving, he leaned over and rested his elbows on the counter like he was there for a long discussion. “Leah,” he said in a coaxing tone. “What do you want that job for? Every organic fruit you’ve ever bought and eaten will be negated times a thousand with each pass you make spreading chemical filth over a field.”
    I’d never eaten an organic fruit as far as I knew, except maybe at Molly’s parents’ café. I wondered if they tasted different and whether I would be able to tell. I definitely hadn’t bought one. My mom would die twice if I paid that much for a banana. Grayson and I were from different worlds.
    “You’ll spend all day every day breathing that crap,” he said. “Aren’t you worried about your health?”
    I laughed. “Yeah. That’s why I’d rather spend my summer flying an airplane built this century.”
    He gaped at me in mock disapproval. “We keep up the maintenance on our planes. We have to. You know the FAA says any plane has to fly like it did when it was built.”
    “Yours were built in the 1950s.”
    “It was a very good decade for airplanes. It never bothered you before. And you’re completely trained in banner towing.You didn’t pay anything to learn it. Isn’t Simon making you pay for training? A lot of those crop-dusting jackasses will charge to teach you how to do it. They’ll promise to hold a job for you. You drop thousands of dollars for training and then your job mysteriously disappears.”
    I stared at him like he was an alien life-form. On what planet did an eighteen-year-old girl living in a trailer park have thousands of dollars to drop on anything, much less crop-duster training? I said, “No, I’m not paying for it.”
    One of Grayson’s eyebrows tilted up sharply behind his sunglasses. “How’d you manage that arrangement?”
    I thought I heard something ugly in his tone, but I didn’t want to call him on it without being sure. I asked innocently, “What do you mean? It’s not strange. I paid your dad for flying lessons and rented his airplane for a long time.” The rental and lessons had been cut-rate, but I had paid for them. Mr. Hall probably knew I wouldn’t have taken them otherwise.