"Police also asked if I wanted to press charges against him for attempted rape," Barbara said. "But after what he did to my airport and my friend's lumberyard and then got away with it, I figured he would pay his way out of a rape charge, too. Then he would just want to get back at me all the more. But don't get me wrong, Gail. You know I'm a fighter. I just prefer to choose how and when I'll fight back."
Gail reported that she had reluctantly accepted her parents' help and moved back to their home with the baby.
"It's only temporary. Until Timmy is about a year old.
Then we'll come out here and join you."
"You and your son are welcome to live here with us," Edna offered. "I'd love to spoil a baby again."
It was a hard offer to refuse, but Gail said she felt it was best for the time being to keep the arrangement with her mother and father as it was. In six months or a year, she might gladly accept Edna's kind offer.
"I want to return to flying," Gail said. "Just about any way I can make a living at it."
Barbara's hopes were up. "Then come here, when you're ready. We'll work to make the airport a success again. It won't be too long before I can reopen it. It's not only being rebuilt, but I'm starting negotiations to buy a couple of planes. I'll start up the air freight service again and put on more air shows. This time I'll try my darndest to get a US Mail run. We could be partners."
Gail became hopeful, too. "It would be wonderful. But what about your present partner?"
"I think I can buy Russ out. He's saying he wants to move to Hawaii. He pictures himself napping all day on a beach, beside an ice chest full of cold beer. I told him he could do all that just by going into politics."
"We could team up, like you suggested a while back..."
Neither she nor Barbara finished her thought, but both said it silently...
When the team would have been the three of us. After Gail left, the week of her visit having gone much too fast, Barbara missed her great friend even more.
When not consumed in work, running her delivery and handywoman businesses and rebuilding the airport, she stole precious moments to ride again. Edna gave her a choice of the half-dozen horses she had at the ranch. Barbara chose a chestnut stallion named Rudy because he reminded her the least of Becky. It would be a little easier on her.