And on December 30th, we decided to take advantage of a spot of clear weather and fly home under the blue skies between a succession of cold fronts moving like a parade across the map.

We bade goodbye to Greg and Hanna on the flightline after Cindy and I did the preflight. They laughed as Cindy ceremoniously pushed me aside and climbed into the left seat. The pilot's seat. At a thousand feet we turned to a direct heading for the Alabama version of home and Cindy trimmed up for a cruise-climb to cruising altitude.

"You know, I hate to leave, Dan," her voice came though my earphones over the intercom. "I never get over having FAMILY!"

"I know, rockstar," I said. "I was worried about you being there with the nieces and nephews..."

"Yeah, like Rick," she interrupted. "But he's cool. Bag of wind, sometimes..."

"That comes from his dad," I said.

"Yeah," she laughed. I did notice THAT! But Britney's good for him, and they love each other. And she's pushing him to get back into college for the summer semester."

"Yeah, you built us another engineer in the family," I laughed.

"Yeah," she giggled. "Britney told him he couldn't let himself be beat by some little girl."

"Uh-huh, but the little girl has an IQ off the end of the scale..."

I enjoyed the satisfied smile on her face when she glanced over at me. "IQ doesn't matter with family, love. They were nice to me. They accepted me. Just like I am. They accepted US. Now, what altitude do we need?" she asked.

"Seventy-five hundred feet. That's good for our course. We're going east." She leveled us off pretty close to the target altitude and we set up for a decent cruise speed.

"And that music thing. What d'ya call it? 'Fay-doe-doe'?"

"Close enough, doll," I said. "You liked that, huh!"

"Oh, yes I did. So many people, and there was so much fun there."

"That's the way it's supposed to be, sweetness," I said. "I'll take it if you get tired, Cin."

"Maybe I'll let you fly," she smirked. "But I kinda want to do this all by myself. So I can say I did it. It's important to me."

"It's yours, then, cutie," I said, making a big deal of leaning back away from the yoke. We flew along for an hour and a half, chatting about our time at home and the expectations of our return. I noticed her wiggling a little.

"Problem, sweetie?" I asked.

"Uh, yeah, husband. Your wife is starting her period a day early, I think."

"Oh, hell," I said. "This ain't the best place to find that out."

"Look at the chart. What's the closest field with that we can find a bathroom at? I could try to do that up here, but I'd really rather not."

I picked up the chart between the seats and opened it to show our path. "Yeah," I said, tracing my finger along our course. "We're here. Turn to uh... 175 degrees. We're about ten miles out. Cut the engine back pretty hard. Leave the cowl flaps closed to keep the engine temperature up until we get ready to land. We'll do a fast descent."

As I was giving directions her hand was dipping the right wing and backing off on the throttle. She kept the speed up and we descended handily.

"Call Unicom," she said, indicating that I make a general call to the little uncontrolled rural airfield. We slid tight around the pattern and this time I followed HER through the landing. We taxied to the hangar/office and the engine had hardly stopped when she was out the door with her purse. "Hi!" she said to the old guy walking out to the plane to meet us, almost running right past him.

I got out. "Sorry! She's in a hurry," I said. I told him where we were headed and where we started.

"Damn, boy," he laughed. "You're halfway there!"

"Yeah, I know, and we were planning on a single hop, but when a young lady announces, well, NEEDS..."

"I know whatcha mean there," he chuckled, shaking his head. "Got time for some bad coffee? By the way..." He extended his hand. "Ray Weston."

"Dan Richards. That little redhead in a hurry is my wife Cindy." I thought he might act like that announcement was unusual, but I was wrong.

"Young cutie, she is," he said. "She's flying left seat?"

"Yessir," I said. "And doing pretty good, too."

We walked through the door as Cindy came out of the bathroom.

"Cindy," I said, "this is Mister Ray Weston."

"Hi, Mister Weston. I'm sorry I didn't stop to introduce myself earlier." She smiled that smile that disarmed so many.

"That's okay, young lady," he said. "You gotta go when you gotta go. Lemme make a fresh pot of coffee if ya'll have a few minutes."

Oh, thank you!" Cindy chirped. "That would be so nice."

The three of us shared a few minutes over coffee, talking about airplanes and little airports, and then it was time for us to go. We shook hands all around, did an abbreviated preflight, and lifted off for two more hours in the air.

"Stop at fifty-five hundred feet, babe," I said. "No sense getting too high for a two-hour leg," I said.

"'Kay," she answered. "Sorry about the short stop."

"Hey, we HAD to. Things happen," I answered.

"I thought I was good at least till late this evening. I guess all the excitement got me off track..." She smiled at me and pointed out another plane off in the distance. "He's not even close. We'll be above him and behind."

I quickly searched and found the target. "You're right," I said. "Good call." Soon we were over the home field, circling to land. I kept my hands and feet near the controls, lightly following Cindy's control movement, just in case. Her landing had a little bounce, but we were home. Thirty minutes later we were in the truck and the plane was safely locked away.

"Home," she said, scooting against me in the truck's wide front seat.

"You miss our little box?" I asked.

"You're there. I'm there. That makes it home, baby," she said.

"What about dinner?"

"There's an idea. Visit our friends and have a salad?" she smiled. I knew the two old ladies would be happy to see us back.

We wheeled into the RV park to find it fairly full of vacationing snowbirds, and Steve waved at us as we drove by the office. Cindy waved back.

Entering the trailer after an absence of over a week, I was pleasantly surprised to find it NOT stale-smelling, but we opened up every window in the place anyway, letting the chilly late December wind clear the place out as we put away our luggage. Forty-odd degrees, though.

"That's enough, Dan," she said. "I'm closin' windows."

"Curtains too, baby," I added. I turned the thermostat up from the "freeze-stopper" setting of forty to a more respectable sixty-five. Both the propane-fired furnace and my little "hey, I'm an electrical engineer" heater came on to bring the interior temperature up.

My own temperature surged when Cindy slid into my arms, tilted that red head back, and kissed me.

She pulled away, with a smile and a little sigh. "It isn't much, but it's home when we're here, baby!"

I savored how her body formed against mine. She turned her head to rest her cheek against my chest and I bent my head forward to rest my own cheek on top of sleek hair, colored like aged copper. I felt her breathe, and for a moment I think the universe ceased to exist, such was the simple loving perfection of the moment. After a few seconds, I turned to kiss her head.

"Dinner," I said. "after a stroll around the park?"

Her eyes twinkled with her smile. "Uh-huh! Let me get my jacket!"

We walked a circuit around the park, holding hands. There were a few people who'd been there before we'd left for Louisiana, and these greeted us with a little more enthusiasm than the normal nods and hellos. Yes, we got questions: "When are you going to play us another concert?"

Cindy fielded that one with her disarming smile. "We have to talk to the rest of the band. But we're thinkin' it's going to be soon."

I raised an eyebrow.

We finished our walk, ending up in the truck, headed out, hoping that the little restaurant was open the day before New Year's Eve.

They were. We were greeted at the door as friends and enjoyed a convivial meal and conversation afterward as the two owners wanted to know about our trip home., Cindy was becoming a source of joy for the two elderly ladies, and every time Cindy looked at me, one of them patted my arm, smiling. We could've talked all night, but finally took our leave.

Belted in beside me, Cindy stretched her arms above her head. "You know, baby, I think I want to be in our own bed tonight," she said. "Family is wonderful, and so is travelling, and I love flying places, but right now I just want a shower and then I want to snuggle up with you."

I laughed. "We can do that," I answered. "And there's no reason to jump out of bed in the morning. We can sleep late."

"Not too late, okay? I want some pancakes at that diner up the road." She smiled as I turned to look at her.

"We can do that, little one," I said. An hour later, we were showered and sitting on the sofa playing a few hands of cards and listening to music. At nine we turned off the lights, except for the lamp next to the bed.

I scooted in on one side and Cindy slid in on the other and we met in the middle, arms and legs entwined, kissing and fondling and finally settling down together, laughing. Laughing? Yes. Just happy that we were together, just soft caresses and we relaxed on another into slumber.

Morning came. I knew it was morning because I woke to little giggly kisses and "Let's go get those pancakes!"

The fact that she moved to stretch out her lithe young body full length atop mine made me question her resolve. That, and the wiggling. And the eyes. Definitely the eyes. Okay, pancakes can wait a little bit. We giggled and hugged and caressed.

She was lying full-length atopo me, our faces inches apart. "Darned blue, eyes," she said. "I love your eyes, Dan."

"So you've told me, sweetness. And those green ones of yours..." I didn't get to finish my sentence, silenced by her kiss. Then she rolled off me and out of bed.

In the truck and on the road, she turned to me. "It's New year's Eve in Alabama, Dan. Fireworks! Did you do fireworks back in Louisiana? I saw the fireworks stands."

"Oh, yes, red-head," I said.

"Why don't we see what the Hardesty's are doing for New Year's Eve?" she said. "I bet they'll have fireworks."

"Let's see," I said. "Sounds like a good idea." I flipped open my cellphone and punched a couple of buttons.

"Hey, Dan," Jim's voice answered. "Are you still in Louisiana?"

"No," I said. "Me and Cindy flew back yesterday. Didn't want to push the weather thing too hard. You know how nasty that can be."

"Yeah, I do," he said. And he beat me to the point of the call. "Why don't ya'll come over and spend New Year's Eve with us?"

"What can we bring?" I asked.

I heard Ann's voice in the background.

'Who's that you're inviting?" She asked.

Jim said, "Dan 'n' Cindy. What do they need to bring?"

"Themselves," she replied, laughing.

"You hear that?" Jim asked.

"Yeah ... but I feel like a bum, invitin' myself over..."

Jim laughed. "If it was JUST you, maybe so, but you're bringin' Cindy..."

"Fireworks!" Cindy shouted.

"Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to ask about fireworks."

Jim laughed again. "Uh-huh. The neighborhood is gonna sound like a young war tonight. I dropped a hundred bucks on stuff for the kids."

"I'll bring some big stuff, then," I said. "What time?"

"Any time this afternoon. My lovely wife is cooking..."

Thanks, Jim. We'll be there. And we're bringing junk food. And consumer explosives."

"Yeah," Jim chuckled, "Like you an' me didn't get enough explosives when we were younger..."

Cindy was smiling. "Wow, Dan! Friends an' family for New Year's Eve. Life is soooo good!"

And we pulled into the diner parking lot and attacked a couple of stacks of pancakes together. Of course, this was the same diner here we ate at least twice a week, so it was "Hi, Cindy! Hi, Dan! Go pick a table!" and conversation with our waitress and the manager about how slow things were with the holidays with all the construction folks gone on vacation.

After breakfast, we stopped at the grocery for necessities. And a head of cabbage and some black-eyed peas.

"What're you getting THOSE for?" my young wife asked.

"Old Cajun tradition, sweetness. You always eat cabbage and black-eyed peas for New Year's Day. For health and prosperity."

"And I get to help you cook that? So I can do it next year?" she grinned.

"Yes, my love, because any year that starts with you is a good one." And the last stop before home was a fireworks stand. Back in the park, we whipped out sandwiches and canned chili for lunch.

That gave us the afternoon to play, ending in me gazing at the closeness of Cindy's face as she relaxed for blissful little nap. I joined her in that, too. At three we woke up from the drifting afternoon nap. Time to go.

New Year's Eve. Blustery, breezy, chilly, and that put Cindy in jeans and a sweatshirt that went well with her red hair. And a big fluffy ski jacket. I put on my heavy canvas work jacket over a long-sleeved plaid flannel shirt.

"Got that lumberjack thing going, don't you babe," Cindy teased.

"Yeah," I laughed. "And with you posing as a ski bunny..."

"You've probably cut down more trees than I've been skiing," she giggled as we loaded food and fireworks into the truck. "Have you ever been skiing?"

"No," I admitted. "Hasn't been on the agenda. Is that something you want to try?"

"Maybe. But it's waaay down on the list. Now I'm thinkin, though. Have you ever flown the plane to Colorado?"

"I came through Colorado on the way home with the plane. From Alaska. It's not a big deal, as soon as you realize that when you take off you're already a mile above sea level. And there's times when the mountains are higher than you are. Makes for some pretty flying, though."

"Darn you," she laughed. "Now I want to go, just to sightsee. Like we did down on the Gulf Coast."

"Maybe when the project's over," I said. She was right. You can see a lot of mountains from the window of a light plane. "Summer in the mountains, flying, beats the heck out of the South in the summer. We may have to do us an adventure."

"Like this hasn't been one big adventure since August," she smiled. "Wonder what Mizz Ann's cookin'?"

"I didn't think to ask," I said. "I trust 'er, though."

"Oh, me, too," Cindy affirmed. "That last roast almost killed me. I need to learn to cook like that."

"Oh, I'm sure that you won't have any trouble, little one. A few basic ideas and you'll be quite serviceable."

"Uh, love, I don't want to be serviceable. I want to be GOOD!"

"Baby, nobody excels at everything." I smiled. Cindy was good at so many things. I envied her quick mind. All my life I thought I was the quickest study around. But now there was Cindy, my best friend, my wife, bright pretty precocious. And she was sitting next to me with her arm entwined around my bicep, her head resting against my shoulder. Perfect.

We pulled into the drive at the Hardesty's home. Jim was out front watching his son playing with fireworks. He met us at the door of the truck.

"Hey, Dan! Cindy! So how was Louisiana?" He smiled.

"Home and family, bud," I answered. "Good times."

Cindy laughed. "You missed it. Dan playin' bass in a Cajun band, Mister Jim."

"It wasn't much, Jim. My nephews and a couple of their friends. And all in the key of C, until they found out that Cindy sang."

"You sing Cajun, uh ... French?" Jim asked.

"Oh, no sir. But when they found out I sang here, they made me sing some old rock songs." Her grin...

"I wish you could've seen it, Jim. You think a bunch of aging Yankees like 'er, you should've seen her in front of a crowd of drunk Cajuns." I chuckled, then ducked as a bottle rocket whistled a bit closer than I expected.

"William Keith Hardesty!" Jim barked, "AIM those things towards the woods!"

"Yessir..." his son Bill answered.

"He mighta BEEN aimin' it at the woods, Jim. You know bottle rockets aren't noted for accuracy."

"Yeah," he laughed. "Like an Iraqi AA gun, but I'd hate to get hit, even if it WAS an accident. Come on inside. Let me help you with stuff!" He grabbed a couple of bags and I caught a couple of bottles of soft drinks, and a six-pack of beer. Shiner, of course.

I saw Cindy bent over near Bill, lighting off a skyrocket. After all, there was still a lot of 'fourteen years old' there in that cute red-headed frame. "Be carefully, sweetie," I called. "You don't want to be the first eighteen-year old, red-headed, little girl engineer wearing an eyepatch."

"Arrrrrrrr, matey!" she laughed.

As Jim and I walked inside, I said, "That's another thing to love about her. She's multilingual."

Ann walked in from the kitchen. "Hi, Ann," I said. "Smells good in here."

She kissed Jim on the cheek. "Where's Cindy?"

"Outside watching Bill shoot bottle rockets," I said. About that time, I heard the door open.

"Hi, Miss Ann," Cindy chirped. "Mmmm! Smells good in here!"

Ann laughed. "Ya'll make me feel good about my cookin'. Let's unload some of that stuff."

We arranged junk food around the sideboard then fixed drinks and retired to the den to talk about our recent adventures. Ann got up to go tend the cooking and Cindy followed her.

Jim looked at me. "Dan, are things still good with you two?"

I smiled. "Jim, d'you ever do something and have a little voice in your head kind of talkin' to you about things you need to do?"

"Uh ... yeah, I guess..." he said.

"Cindy's like that to me. It's like I married that little voice. Seriously, Jim ... You and I never talked about it, but since you asked..."

"Look," Jim said, "I admit it took me a bit of swallowing to accept it, but Ann just told me that there are so many worse things. But..."

"Okay," I said. "You need to know that I was helping her with homework, and just being a friend, and she turned out to be this amazing creature. And now, it's like half the time she finishes my sentences for me. And quick. She flew us back from Louisiana, from the tie-down to the hangar. The only time I helped was when we had to make a fast stop in Mississippi for a little female emergency."

Jim smiled. "She's got you pretty well impressed, Dan."

"And you?" I asked.

"Yeah ... academically ... You guys need to do some visits to the universities and talk with them. I know you're thinking engineering, but hard science might be a choice too. And there's some talk from the liberal arts department at Auburn. One of our teachers has been trying to move into a university position there and she's sent some of Cindy's writing."

"You know," I said, "if that's what she wants, we could do it. It's not like we have to worry about her income with a liberal arts degree. Hard sciences, though ... interesting."

I saw a red head peek around the corner.

"Are you talking about me, Dan?" she smiled.

"My favorite subject," I said. "Dan says we need to go talk to some colleges about you."

"That's kind of, well, not exactly scary, but Mister Jim, it's a whole new world for me." She shook her head sideways, flipping her bangs off her eyebrows. "Are you gonna help?"

Jim smiled. "I'll do everything I can, Cindy. But it's uncharted territory for me, too. I've never had to deal with somebody like you."

"Is that good or bad?" she asked.

"I'm thinkin' it's a good thing. When school gets started back up, we'll make some phone calls, see what we can stir up. D'you want to look at both universities?" Jim asked.

Cindy looked at me, then at him, then back at me. "We should, don't you think, baby?"

I was amused by being called 'baby' by a fourteen year old girl, but then, I was, after all, her husband. "I would think so. Jim?"

Jim laughed. "I'm liable to really throw some choices, people. I sent her package to a bunch of schools. Like Stanford, MIT..."

My breath stopped for a second... "My Cindy ... MIT..."

Cindy looked at Jim. "You really think..."

"You can fly, Cindy. That sky you fly in, it's NOT YOUR LIMIT." And I'm just a guidance counselor in Armpit, Alabama. I don't want my lack of imagination to limit you."

I sat back on the sofa. Cindy sat down by me. "Dan, you look shocked."

"Uh-huh ... that's a good word for it." A million thoughts were going through my head. How was I going to tailor my life to give Cindy the best path forward for her own. I knew I could work things out down here in the South, where I was known, but how could I support an MIT or Stanford bid?

Jim said, "Dan, Cindy ... We don't have to do ANYTHING right now. Let THEM see what they can do, what they want to do, and let them come to us. In the meantime, Cindy, you have a wrap here in Alabama."

Ann showed up and surveyed the faces. "Jim, did you drop those other colleges on them?"

"Yeah, hon," he said.

Ann sighed. "I told him to break that to you easy. He was proud of himself for thinking of it."

"I hadn't even thought of it myself," I said. "I was still getting my mind around a full scholarship for State."

Cindy said, "Oh, come on, ya'll. We'll figure it all out, and it'll be good. My whole life has been soooo good since August. This is just another thing..."

"Yeah, Dan," Jim said. "It's a gift. Like ... Well, that's what you get for marryin' a gifted girl."

"Don't worry, Dan," Ann said. "It'll work out."

"Yeah, I'm sure it will," I smiled. But inside, I wasn't sure how it would work out.

Cindy's arms around my bicep helped. And the smile. "Adventure, babe," she said. "We were talking about another adventure on the way over here."