2 "I'm Lee Tait"

Reaching down, she snagged the leaflet.

"Hello, there," a deep voice said from behind. Snapping around, she bumped her head on the cockpit's ceiling, she hadn't heard him approach but there he and the boy stood on the weathered pier, gazing at her rump in army green coveralls, no less, as she leaned over the seat.

Swell.The guy wanted a tete-a-tete now? While her backside hung in his face?. Ignoring the warmth climbing her neck, she scrambled into the pilot's seat.

"Hey," she said, as if they hadn't seen each other three times at precisely 6:30pm in the past seventy-two hours."Be friendly Lee, he could be a future weekend fare," she thought. His eyes held humor. "Are you Amelia Earhart the Second?"

"I'm Lee Tait," she stated, a little irked the guy would zero in on a nickname the townsfolk had given her when she received her wings fifteen years ago. "Owner and pilot of Sky Dash."

"Sorry, ma'am." He looked askance as if another thought chased through his mind. Then, with the boy close to his side, he offered a handshake. "Nice to meet you, Captain Tait."

She leaned out the door. His grip was firm, large and a frisson of electricity shot up her arm. "No apology needed."I'm use to the nickname."And you are...?" shaking his head, he issued a short laugh. "I'm losing it. Rogan Matt".

"Rogan."she tested the name, found it oddly pleasing. But.... Something niggled. Where had she heard his last name....?

He had quiet, gray eyes and soot-black hair. Although his voice suggested the South, his face revealed a non too-genteel life. A nose too brash to be handsome, a square, tough jaw and cheekbones embracing the genes of an Italian ancestor. Not handsome, yet appealing in a rudimentary sense.

Disregarding a scurry of nerves at how his eyes imprisoned hers, Lee jumped out of the plane. On the Dock, she saw he was taller than she assumed;she could lay her head on his chest, if she chose.

........

She closed the seaplane's door and picked up her metal toolbox. "what can I do for you, Mr Matt?" she asked.

"I understand you make daily flights to the mainland."

"I courier the island's critical mail Monday through Friday."

"Do you take passengers on those runs?" he asked.

"Sometimes. However, it depends on their destination and schedule. If I'm flying mail and we're going in the same direction at the same time, passengers are welcome."

"Are they welcome at other times during the day?" he asked. She stopped. They were at the junction of her Dock and the boardwalk, the boy held his dad's hand.

"Of course," she said. "As long as I'm back on time if there's a mail run."

"Ah." Matt gazed momentarily across the water where the sun sank below the horizon, leaving a blood stain on the ocean. Glancing down at the boy, his eyes softened; on her they were all business. "In a week or so I'll need temporary shuttling to Renton, Captain Tait. Three, four days at most. My son's attending the elementary school here, so I need to be back in time to pick him up."

"What's wrong with Lu's foot ferry?" she asked.

"Nothing's wrong with his ferry, but you stop at Renton, which means I can walk to work. Lu docks at seattle, and he leaves at 7:30am and returns at five-thirty. Your eight and three o'clock schedules fit my son" (another glance at the boy) "and me better".

My son and me. Did that mean the child's mother lived elsewhere? she thought. Oddly, the notion of a wife waiting in the wings sent a shaft of disappointment through Lee.

"I'm willing to pay the going rate," Matt went on.

Unable to withhold her amazement, Lee blinked. Temporary or not, a week of daily returns flights would cost him a lot of money. Since he was a stranger to the island and she knew practically every one of its souls, she'd bet he was the one with money. Probably another of the rich who came to Jeju Island looking for a chunk of so called "nature",while building a mansion with an ocean view.