Dinner at the Hardesty house was relaxing once Cindy and Ann got over the hugs. Ann went through her "I'm so sorry, baby" phase and Cindy responded with "Thank you, Mizz Ann, but I'm FINE! Really!"

After a very good potroast meal, we retired to the living room and picked up instruments and laughed our way through a practice session. Jim's daughter Teresa worked with Cindy on a duet on a couple of songs and to our amazement, the two actually worked out a little harmony. Sounded pretty good. We figured we were ready for Saturday night.

Saturday morning we were up early, answering the knock of the guy who was going to repair our trailer door. He looked at Cindy. Cindy was in her "I'm knockin' around on Saturday" uniform of jeans, a sweatshirt that was a concession to the cool December morning, just a shade of blue just a bit darker than her jeans, and her hair glowed in contrast to it.

He said, "You're the little girl?"

She tilted her head. "Little girl?"

"Yah," he said. "I heard..."

"Oh, yes," she said. "That was me."

"Damn!" he said. "Uh, sorry ... I'm mighty glad that you're okay. I knew that guy. He was not a nice person. Went kinda goofy. Was on medication for a while, but he quit, an' got kinda crazy."

I stood behind MY Cindy. "He made a bad mistake."

The old guy brushed his bald head. "I guess he did. Twelve gauge? Three times?"

Cindy nodded.

"You're kinda small to do a twelve gauge, huh?"

She took my hand and pulled my arm around her. "My husband showed me how to shoot."

"I guess he did, huh? Baby girl, you did the right thing. That guy, well, they were investigatin' him for some other stuff, too. He could be violent."

He looked at me. "Mister Dan," he said, "I can get this to where it'll close an' lock today. An' I can fix it right next week when I can get the materials." He looked at the bare gravel six feet from the steps. "Not like anyone's gonna try to come in, now, though..."

Cindy didn't say anything. I did. "Not if Cindy's here." I paused. "And I appreciate you doing this for me. You need some up front money?"

"Nah," he said. "Helen said you're like her son-in-law. If Mizz Helen likes you, that's good enough for me."

"Thanks," I said. I handed him a key. "Just drop this at the office when you finish. Cindy and I are going for a ride."

"I'll leave the key with Helen. Ya'll be careful!"

"Thanks!" Cindy smiled, and we left. And hour and a half up the road it was lunchtime and we stopped in on a promising-looking country barbecue joint. It was plenty good enough. We turned around and drove back, chatting, interspersed with "Hey! I like this part!" on the stereo. We stopped at the office to retrieve my key. Helen was there, and Judge Charlie, in a new chair.

I laughed when I saw that. "I see you got your chair," I said.

He smiled and accepted Cindy's hug. "Yessir, I like my comforts, you know."

"Helen, you're still gonna run this place from here? I mean, married and all?"

"Yeah, Dan. Gives us something to do until our next trip. We're arguing about where to go." She started to hand me my key.

"Nah, keep that. When the guy comes to fiinish fixing the trailer next week, he'll need it. He just got us to where we could lock the door today. Needs stuff to finish."

"Oh, okay," she said. "He'll do you a good job. I use 'im all the time here."

"Seems like a nice guy."

Cindy reinforced my comment. "Yes ma'am! He does. Are ya'll gonna be at our concert tonight?"

Charlie smiled. "We wouldn't miss it for the world!"

Cindy said, "We'll see you there!" as she grabbed my hand and pulled me out the door. I waved over my shoulder, smiling.

We had a couple of hours to kill and in ten minutes we were in the trailer, door locked, curtains drawn, and Cindy and I were stark naked. I ate her up. She ate me up. We mated yet again. And tangled in each other's arms we dozed off for a short late afternoon nap. We woke up at five and went to help the Hardesty's move the gear for our concert. We were set up at six-thirty and sitting on the stage sipping cold drinks as the park crowd started filing in. Some of them were first–timers with us, and others had seen us before. And we had fun.

We played. Jim and I sang. Not too bad. But get two sweet, pretty teen-aged girls on stage singing, and you've got something. Cindy did a couple of solo numbers and Teresa joined her for a couple of duets. People clapped and hollered and whistled and Cindy and Teresa displayed poise and talent and a good time was had by all, us on the stage as well as our audience.

The crowd called for encores and we gave 'em encores. But it WAS a park and we were a family, well, TWO families, band, and at a little after ten we started packing up. Cindy and I followed the Hardesty's home and we unloaded the amps and the instruments and bid our friends good night.

In the truck, Cindy was sitting next to me in our favorite position, her holding onto my right arm, her head on my shoulder. "Babe," she said, "THAT'S what I call a great evening!"

I smiled at my young mate. "Yes, sweetie, it was. You were great! I liked the way you carried yourself. You and Teresa made 'em happy!"

"We did, didn't we? That's just cool! Making music and making people happy!" She grinned broadly. "But let's have some Beethoven! I need a break."

We soon pulled into the park and were in our home. Two showers. Two naked bodies. And a bed.

"Love me," she said.

I wrapped her in my arms and she rolled me on my back, our mouths engaged, tongues teasing each other. I ran my hands down her sides, over the sweet curves of her butt, and gripped her at the juncture of her thighs and that sweet ass. Her knees moved up as she straddled me. Cindy liked being on top, and I happily accommodated her. When she was there, she was in charge and she was as attentive to my desires as I was to hers.

She looked down at me, smiling angelically. "Babe," she said, "this is my favorite place." She grinned. Loving Cindy, loving WITH Cindy was fun, joyous, happy, and she liked to giggle. "It's my favorite place. Except for all the OTHER favorite places, like you on top of me, or behind me, or us eating each other..." and her mobile bottom lined her juicy expectant pussy up with the head of my dick and we merged into one.

I curled up to fasten my lips over one of her small but perfect titties and teased her nipple with tongue and teeth, biting gently, just the way she liked it. I knew she liked it, because she did the same to me, and when I did hers, she tossed her head back, that red hair fanning in the air, and bit her bottom lip and purred, "Mmmmnnnnnn, oh, Dan!" and put both hands on the back of my head and pulled my face into her chest. That's HOW I knew.

That, and her sliding forward and back over my dick as I plunged it up and back down inside her, and her hands got more desperate, grabbing me, pulling, squeezing, as our bodies tuned to one another and came, my semen squirting hot inside her, her pussy rippling, her cervix pushing against the head of my dick deep up inside her. She collapsed onto me, into my waiting arms and we kissed, at first hot and mobile, then just leaving our lips molded together, breathing each other.

When the kiss broke, she raised her head and smiled.

"I adore you, baby," I said.

She smiled. "I was thinking the same exact thing." And she switched ends and we cleaned up the juices of our copulation, a process which, if things were even close to right, resulted in her whimpering through yet another orgasm. And then she crawled up and fitted herself against me and we lay together. And we slept.

Sunday morning was a gray, drippy late autumn day, promising the passage of a cold front. Rather than venture out, we stayed in the trailer, had cereal for breakfast, and made a pot of soup, Cindy following me through the effort.

"I'm sorry, babe," she said. "I never learned to cook. I didn't exactly grow up with supermom, you know?"

"I know, sweetie. That's okay. But I'm not a TV chef myself. I know a few simple things that work well, and there's enough of 'em to where I don't get bored."

Mid-morning the phone rang. Tootie. Our weekly phone call.

"I didn't interrupt anything, did I?" she laughed.

"Nope. Just me an' Cindy making navy bean soup."

"Yum!" said Tootie. "How're things going?"

I took a deep breath. "You won't believe our week, sis!"

"Bad?" she questioned.

"You don't know the half of it." And I told her the short version of Cindy's ordeal. And Cindy got on the phone and filled in details. That pretty much sat Tootie back on her heels.

"But we're okay, Tootie. Really!" Cindy chirped. "And we're coming home for Christmas."

"That's what I was calling about, at least part of it." Cindy put the phone on the table and hit the "speaker" button.

"Yeah, we'll probably fly in on Saturday morning. If you want to get the house opened up again."

"I'll do that," Tootie said. "And Cindy, I'll put some potpourri in it this time so it smells nice."

"Good!" Cindy said. "And you guys need to come over so we can do one of those gumbos. And play cards."

"We'll have plenty of time for all that. How long are ya'll gonna be down?"

"We start back up on the project the Monday after New Year's. So, like, two weeks."

"Oh, that's nice," Tootie commented.

"Yeah," Cindy said. "It will be."

"Okay, babe. Brother. I'll talk to ya'll later," Tootie said, and the phone clicked off.

Cindy sat back in her chair. "Family. We have family." She smiled. "I got you. And I have a family. And friends. And, you know, I always wondered how life could be, if it was like normal. And this is it, and it's good."

"I love you, babe. It's good because we have each other."

The rain let up a bit and we visited Helen and Charlie at the office. Cindy told them that we were heading out on Saturday to go home for the holidays.

"That's nice, ya'll," said Charlie. "We are going to Germany for Christmas. They make a big deal about it in Nuremburg. We'll enjoy ourselves. And Steve can take care of the place for us."

"Yeah he can. Sounds like we all have our plans."

Then Wednesday I brought Cindy to work with me. By this time the story of her exploits with a shotgun had gotten around. It made a noticeable difference in the way people talked with her. That, and the other bit of knowledge that had gotten around, a situation having to do with identical gold bands on our two ring fingers.

She was still like a mascot on the site, though. I worked in the office trying to get caught up on records and drawings and one of my fellow engineers after another came in, saw Cindy, and took her out to see what was going on. Lunch came and Cindy, I, the boss and two other engineers went to out to eat. Four o'clock came and we were out the gate.

"The people you work with treat me nice," she announced.

No doubt," I laughed, "Especially when the story got around about you and the shotgun." After a couple of weeks, Cindy was over the shock and realized that although she'd ended the life of another person, that person, as they say in the south, "needed killin'".

Still, it had been a process. I'd held her many a time when the enormity of ending another's life hit her, even if she was defending herself and our home.

"Oh, Dan," she said, faking exasperation, "It's not THAT at all. One of 'em said that I asked better questions than the people who are supposed to be working there. D'ya know I got INSIDE a boiler today?"

"Uh-huh," I said. "They mentioned that. And showed me the pictures you took. Saved somebody else a trip. And babe," I said.

"Yeah, babe?" she looked at me.

"Boilers are a lot more fun when they're new. Just so you know."

"I figured that out myself. Even if we ARE burning natural gas."

Which left me considering the enigma sitting next to me, a fourteen year old girl who even gave a thought to combustion characteristics in boilers. I laughed and freed a hand from the wheel to give her a hug. "Dammit! Cindy," I said, "If you were eighteen they'd have you out here as an intern."

"I know," she said. "Wouldn't that be cool?"

"That would be the coolest thing imaginable." I was serious. I knew couples who needed to be apart from one another. I'd been with Cindy every night since her mom left almost three months ago. And Cindy was just perfect. The right amount of funny. The right amount of serious. Inquisitive. Insightful. A joy to be around. Work with her all day and go home with her at night? You bet. More of the stuff dreams are made of.

We made our customary stop at the park office to visit a little with Helen and Charley. I finally, at this stage, stopped calling him "Judge" but he was still Mister Charley most of the time. And Helen was still Mizz Helen. Yeah, they both objected a bit, but I told 'em that training is hard to break.

Cindy recounted her day at the project, gaining Charley's rapt attention.

"You know, Dan," he said, "She REALLY gets excited about this stuff."

"She's almost the mascot out there. They call her "The Engineer's Apprentice". I tell 'em what day she's gonna be there and they always manage to figure out what's the most exciting thing going on for her."

"That's mighty fine," Charley said. "She's quite an impressive young lady."

I smiled at her when she realized we were talking about her and turned around. "Yessir, she truly is. She's got a mind even more dazzling than those eyes."

That got me a Cindy skipping over to give me a chaste kiss in front of our friends. "Mister Charley, you oughtta see Dan in HIS element. THAT'S my inspiration!"

I shook my head. "Darlin', you'll pass me up. I'm just another guy engineer. You're gonna show up one day and completely disarm the whole place when they look at you, and THEN you'll take 'em apart and put 'em together right."

Helen commented to Charley, "See! They're like a set, bookends, salt and pepper shakers, whatever!"

Charley said, "Helen, my dear, I never doubted you. It's just that seein' 'em together makes me happy."

That's a good note to leave on. Cindy and I took off for dinner.

The next night was a pizza party at the Hardesty house. As in "Dan, you DON'T have to buy your way in here with food."

And Friday night we did fried catfish. And Saturday morning we were at the airfield early, loaded up, the plane rolled out onto the apron, Cindy perched on top of a ladder checking the fuel levels, the truck backed into the hangar. I touched the controls lightly as Cindy taxied us out onto the runway. I was only slightly more active when she did the run-up and take-off.

Yeah. It was like that. Show her once, and let her go. Well, to be honest, five feet three inches has problems getting on the toe brakes on the rudder pedals, and the nose of a Cessna 180 gets in the way of vision when taxiing even if you're over six feet tall, and a certain amount of flying is muscle memory that comes with practice, but her moves were in all the right directions even if they weren't polished. And she flew from the right seat, having to look across the cockpit at the instruments in front of me, but she did just fine.

Four hours later she had us on short final for the home runway and I followed her as she handled the toe-dance that was required to land the old tail-dragger. Tootie's SUV pulled up next to us as we tied the plane down on the apron. Cindy got the first hug as I was unloading luggage.

I sat in the back seat and let Tootie and Cindy talk. They laughed, giggled, and caught up on things. We walked into our house.

"Wow, Tootie! You made it smell soooo good!" Cindy squealed.

"Yeah! I'm gonna hate to see my potpourri bill."

"Oh, get over it, Dan! Cindy is a LADY! She doesn't need a house that smells like an armpit!"

I laughed as Cindy glided in beside me and took my arm.

"Put the luggage in the bedroom, babe," she said. "We need to go to Tootie's for gumbo. And be nice to your sister or she's gonna spit in your bowl."

As I hauled the bags into the room and dropped them, I heard Tootie comment, "You're trainin' 'im right, Cindy!"

I chose to ignore sister's gibes. I opened the garage door and checked to make sure our own SUV started. It did.

"We'll follow you home, Toot!" I said.

The gang was there when we walked in. Mike, Jerry and Sheila all lined up for hugs and then we trooped into Tootie's kitchen and filled up bowls of steaming gumbo, then sat around the dining table and started talking amongst the clink of spoons and bowls.

It was asshole brother who finally had to ask, "So Cindy, can you talk about your incident?"

Cindy's expression was a polite little smile. "What'd'ya wanna know?"

Jerry pressed. "So what exactly happened?"

"Well," she took a deep breath. "Dan had to work late so I was in the trailer by myself, doin' homework (ha!) and watching TV and reading, and somebody knocks on the door. I was thinkin' of who that might be, and I couldn't come up with anybody, so I said, "Who is it?" She breathed. "An' he said "I'm your Mom's old boyfrien' an' I wanna talk to you." And I said, "What do you want to talk to ME about? She moved to Vegas. An' he said he just wanted to come an' spend some time with me. And I said NO! and for him to leave. And he went away for a minute and came back and started pryin' on the door. I got the shotgun and dialed 9-1-1 and told him to go away, that I'd called the law. And then the door flew open and he stepped a foot into the trailer and I pulled the trigger. He fell down and when he tried to get up, I shot him twice more."

"It's a pump. She cycled the action three times. The deputy sheriff had to remove the round in the chamber and three more in the tube," I elaborated.

Mike said, "Damn!"

Jerry asked, "So you just lit his ass up?"

"Yeah," said Cindy. "It was him or me. And Dan showed me how to shoot. So I wasn't gonna let him hurt me. And he was in MY house!"

Sheila's question brought the house down. "But, Cindy! I mean, what did you FEEL when you SHOT the guy?"

Cindy smiled demurely and said, "Recoil."

My brother blew gumbo out of his nose.

"And THAT is why I married her," I said. "That, and the fact that she was taking photos inside a boiler on Wednesday. Of course, she fits through the manway a lot easier than my lard-assed associate."

At around ten in the evening we bid goodbye to family and drove back home. With doors locked behind us, I was somewhat surprised at the next question, although I guess I shouldn't have been.

"Uh, babe, do you have guns here too?"

"Yes, my love, we do." And I showed her.

The next move was a shared shower and then my shaving and her hair-drying and then a happy young redhead kneeling in the middle of the bed naked. Forty-five minutes later we were in each other's arms, breathless, the musky smell of recent sex hanging in the air.

"Babe," she said, "are you up for a serious talk?"

"Sure, sweetness." I had no idea of what serious subject she'd breech.

"I really like us having a house. Like this."

"I do too, sweetie," I said. "It's been my refuge and my home base. Now it's ours."

"Can we afford two?"

"Two? Why two?"

"Because next year I'm going to college. And there's no college close by here."

I had only given her point a tiny amount of thought before, but now she wanted it analyzed. "So what are we thinking about then?"

"Mister Hardesty says that if I graduate this year according to his plan, that I've got full scholarships. In Alabama."

"We don't have a house in Alabama," I noted.

"I know, baby," she sighed. "And please know that if all we ever had together was our trailer, I'd want us to stay in our trailer. Forever. But you gotta admit, the house thing is nice!"

My mind wandered to a giggly wet form in a shower an hour earlier. This was an easy answer. "Yes, my dear one, it is nice!"

She continued, "So your project finishes in February. You said you could stay where we are in the park until I finish school. Then what? Where?"

I considered a bit. "I guess then we need to have a place convenient to your university of choice, huh?"

"Can you do that?"

We'd talked a bit on the subject before. I had a few connections that might parlay into a full-time staff position with a regular office and mostly staying at one location. "Let me see what I can do, babe. I've been thinking about it. In January I can start making some calls. But you need to make a decision on which university you'll grace with your presence."

"Yeah," she said. "I need to talk to Mister Hardesty. He said something about visiting them. Maybe you and he and I can do that."

"I think that's a good idea, babe. We can talk to Jim when we get back, okay?"

"Okay!" Grin."Back yard?"

I looked at her. "What about the back yard?"

"It's a cool fall night and nobody can see in our back yard, and the sky is clear..."

"Uh ... oooohhhh!" I laughed. "Let's get a blanket, then..."

It was a little on the cool side, but there are many things about Cindy that are very warming. We used all of them. And Cindy naked out in the moonlight, wow! Forty-two year old guys aren't supposed to chug out two orgasms in two hours, but then most of them don't have redheaded, giggly Cindy, either. It was after midnight when we got back in the house, still glowing, but chilled. The blankets on the bed provided us a wonderful nest.

The next couple of days were just hanging out, visiting, riding around. And I had an issue to resolve.

A phone call to the airfield had me set up for my biennial flight review, a necessity to keep my license current. So in the early afternoon Cindy and I showed up to meet with the airpark manager, an old friend. He was also a flight instructor and he could do my check ride. He reviewed my logbook and asked a few questions to make sure I was staying current on regulations and such.

Then it was time for the actual flying. Cindy rode along in the back seat of the plane for the second time. Forty-five minutes later we were back on the ground.

"Greg," I asked, "What's the rules say about putting an unlicensed person in the left seat?" The left seat was the pilot's seat, even though the plane had dual controls.

"It doesn't matter, just so a licensed pilot can fly the plane from the right seat. Why?" he asked.

I nodded towards Cindy who was standing a bit off away from us. "Tell you what. I'll pay you for an hour's instruction. Let Cindy go through the motions. She's a little short, so she might need some help taxiing, and you want to follow real close on takeoffs and landings, but see what you think."

"Her? How old is she?"

Cindy could see we were talking about her. She smiled.

"Fourteen. I know, too young to get a student license, but humor me, okay?"

"Sure," he said. "Miss Cindy, take me flying."

Cindy bounced over and went through the steps we'd walked and talked through many times. At each step she explained her actions on the pre-flight inspection. I watched from a safe distance. Greg looked over at me and raised an eyebrow.

"It's your plane, little lady," he said.

"Then let's mount up!" she said.

I walked back into the office and waited. An hour later I heard the ticking of the engine and looked out to see Greg with his hands raised, indicating he was controlling the aircraft. Cindy was just visible over the instrument panel. The plane swung into place at the tie-downs. I walked back outside.

"So how'd she do?"

Cindy was smiling, and that was a pretty good indication to me, but Greg verbalized it. "Take her up and let 'er shoot touch and goes and landings to a full stop. Show her the prescribed maneuvers for a flight test. Get her ground schooled. But she can fly pretty darned good right now. When she's sixteen she can get a student license and accumulate hours, and she can get her private license and fly this thing when she's seventeen."

"That's what we read," Cindy said. "But I still like to fly."

"And you can fly all you want as long as you're with a licensed pilot," Greg said to her. To me he said, "Seriously, no problem at all. I'd probably sign off her solo in four hours, just like she is."

We tied our plane down and went inside so Greg could sign off the entry in my logbook and I was good for another two years. He refused payment for Cindy's hour. "Your plane, your gas. And you're my friend."

On the drive home Cindy was giggly. "Mister Greg was nervous. He kept watching REAL close when I was taxiing and I made extra sure to stay slow and careful. And I lined up exactly right for take-off..." She recounted the rest of her day's adventures. "You know what an Extra is? Airplane?"

"Uh, yeah ... unlimited aerobatics. Why?"

She grinned. "Mr. Greg has one. Said if it was okay with you, he'd take me up in it."

"And you're gonna leave me for a guy with a faster airplane."

She giggled. "Yeah, after we meet him and his wife for supper. Besides, he says it's tandem, not side by side seating. So I can't reach over and give him a squeeze like YOU get." Another giggle.

"Babe," I said, "I've done aerobatics with Greg before he got the Extra. I don't get airsick, but some people might. Like you." I was thinking of Greg's first plane after the army, a little Citabria.

"I won't know unless I try, huh?" She smiled. "You know, most kids my age are happy to ride a four-wheeler around the woods. YOU get me rides in aerobatic airplanes."

I snorted. "Just so you look at that as a "plus" when it's over, babe."

She wrapped my right arm with her hands. "I love you, babe. I hope you don't mind me sayin' we'd have supper with 'em."

"Oh, not in the least, cutie. Let's do it right. We'll bring Greg's wife flowers. That ought to get him goin'."

"Flowers?" she asked.

"Yeah, Fred married a German girl. We were on the same post in Germany, and good German etiquette says that when you visit, you bring flowers or a bottle of wine. Heck, we may just do both."

"Ohhhhhh," she said.

Dinner was fun. Greg's wife, Hanna, was much matured from the days when she met a young American pilot in Germany, and she laughed after I ran through my entire, very rusty German vocabulary, but she thought Cindy was adorable, so that made a roomful of us. Greg and I talked about old times and current events and flying and Cindy helped Hanna out in the kitchen and played gracious server and joined the conversation, very interested when she found that Hanna was also a licensed pilot and had participated in aerobatic competition.

Three hours later we were bidding good night with Greg's invitation modified to where Hanna would be doing the flight with my Cindy. As Hanna put it in English tinged with her German roots, "I vill fly mit her ... Men vish to show offfff too much."

I had an excited Cindy at my side on the way home, and she was excited for a different reason than normal.

After showers and giggly lovemaking, we lay together in bed talking.

"That's so cool, Dan! Hanna's the first female pilot I ever met."

"They're out there, sweetie. And in a couple of years you'll count yourself as one. If it wasn't for that whole "She's fourteen" thing, you'd be getting a license in a couple of months."

"I like flying ALMOST as much as I like YOUR engineering stuff. Can I do both?"

"I dunno, babe. Depends on how you want to do it. I do it as a hobby and a nice way to travel. Greg does it because it's what he does for a living. Hanna does it because it's a joy to her. All of those are valid reasons. We can't justify it on economic grounds, but who applied economics to a hobby? Especially when it gives us such flexibility in travel. But to own a quarter of a million dollars' worth of airplane that's burning a hundred dollars of gas an hour just to cut interesting holes in the sky? It's gotta be what you LOVE!"

"When you put it like that..." she sighed. "Sometimes reality sucks."

"Don't I know..." I sighed in concert with my cutie. "But we do the best we can. Anyway, fly with Hanna tomorrow. Maybe we'll get lucky and you'll hurl all over the cockpit."

Giggle. "Not a chance."

"Well," I said, "If you're thinking you've got it under control, ask her for a lomcevak. If you can keep your stomach after THAT maneuver..." A lomcevak is a radical, tumbling, move in three axes. I've done 'em. And had to fly along straight and level for ten minutes afterward to retain MY decorum. At the house, I showed her videos.

"Maybe I can try just one," Cindy said. "Just to say I did."

I smiled. When I'd flown with Greg, the airplane he owned was much less capable. One of his buddies had something a little sturdier and I got my introduction to a maneuver that I swear gave me the opportunity to see myself going backward in time.

The next couple of days were spent just living, enjoying days where neither of us had anything pressing other than happy life. We visited the old folks who were still around, old friends, drove endless miles though the countryside, flew a few hundred more, skimming at scenic altitude over the marshes and coastal beaches.

Cindy got her aerobatic flight in, too. She and Hanna taxied the Extra out as Greg and I looked on.

"Be very afraid, Dan. I thought I was going to give Hanna a thrill and she'd never bother me again. Now she's got a quarter of million dollars out there."

"You get to use it too, though, don't you?"

"Oh, I do, Dan, but the sad thing is, she's BETTER with it than I am." He smiled sheepishly.

We watched the red monoplane disappear heading south from the airfield, then went back inside and sipped coffee and talked about airplanes and work and money and politics, waiting for our wives to return. The office's Unicom radio crackled with Cindy's voice giving the aircraft identifier and notifying us that they were five miles out.

"She doesn't SOUND sick, Dan. You're screwed." Greg laughed. "Best I can offer you is her and Hanna can fly together whenever you're down here."

"Yeah ... I can't imagine doing a cross-country in that thing," I said, following him out the door. I could spot the little red airplane in the distance.

"It's not as bad as you might think, Dan. But it's not that ol' flying pickup truck of yours, either."

We standing side by side when the Extra taxied back in, canopy open, Hanna grinning like a Cheshire cat, Cindy obviously concentrating. When the propeller stopped, I was there to help Cindy out.

Squeal! "I landed it, Dan. It's just like ours except I can see better!" Cindy was ebullient. "I just LOVED it!"

Hanna was smiling.

"Lomcevak?" I asked.

Hanna held up three fingers. "Und snap rolls, und spins. Zhe is a happy girl, Dan."

"You're screwed, Dan." Greg gibed. Together we pushed the little plane back into the hangar, Hanna and Cindy walking behind us, chattering excitedly.

Cindy and I bid our hosts goodbye and left. In the car on the way home, I asked, "So, it was that good?"

"Oh, yes, babe," she giggled. "And that PLANE! It's like all you have to do is IMAGINE something and you're THERE!"

"I've heard that," I said. "It's a whole different design idea."

"Yeah, I know," she said. "Our plane, you know how we can take our hands off the yoke and let it fly by itself? You can't do that with this one," she said. "I mean, you CAN trim it up, but if you tilt your head, you're going in another direction. But it's some kind of fun!"

"What about the maneuvers? You didn't get sick?"

"Nuh-uh," she said. "Hanna warned me, and we started off with the easy stuff. And then ... wow! Snap rolls. And that lomcevak thing."

"Uh-huh. And where's this put Cindy?"

She smiled, green eyes twinkling. "Just another thing you've given me that I'd have never gotten without you. It's exciting. And might be fun to play with, you know ... but not too practical. Wasn't enough room for Christmas presents in that Extra."

"Oh," I said, "You're not ready to go out and buy an Extra?"

"Nah," she answered. "But Hanna said I could fly with her whenever I'm down here." She giggled. "Why? You thought I was gonna go off the deep end over that?"

"I gave it an eighty percent chance that you'd enjoy it, babe. But when I saw you when you stopped out there on the apron, I figured you were hooked."

"Almost. Let me get thought college. And a job. And two incomes. And we'll think about it, okay? One thing at a time."

Practical, was my Cindy.