"Sounds like breathing, in swimming. I've got to learn how to do that, too. So far, I just splash around."
She hugged him close again, thinking how proud Paul would be of his son. She knew how proud Gail had been of him.
"And have you been up in an airplane yet?"
"No, but you'll take me up, won't you? Soon as you can?
Mommy said you're the best flier she's ever known, after Daddy. He was a terrific pilot too, wasn't he?"
"He was terrific, period," Barbara replied. "And you're going to be just like him. I can see that already."
Then she had to ask him the most important question.
"Your grandmother wants you to live with her and your grandfather. But I want to adopt you. Which do you want?"
Tim hugged her harder than ever. "You, Auntie Barbara! Please?"
Barbara did not know what Tim's counselor wanted to see her about, but after she and Tim said their good-byes and he returned to class, she went to Stephen Collier's office in the administration building. He greeted her more than politely, she thought. He seemed friendly.
She certainly liked what she saw. If she wouldn't exactly think of it as love at first sight, at the very least it was intense interest.
On second look, he did not disappoint. What Barbara saw in the tall, athletically-built young man who stood up from his desk to greet her was not a pretty-faced man. He was not like some of her heroes on the movie screen, but more ruggedly good-looking.
Stephen Collier's slender, handsome face had a few character lines she thought life had given it after even only about thirty years. She also thought his silver-gray hair was even more attractive with his youthful face. It was not a lion's wild mane, but rather a full head of hair close-cropped, yet not a crew-cut, either.
Stephen smiled. "You're wondering about my hair. I wasn't frightened by a ghost, or one of the boys. It runs in the family. My father was prematurely gray at twenty-one. I guess that means I'm a slow bloomer."
She liked his sense of humor, but didn't laugh at his self-deprecation, though she also liked him for it.
What attracted Barbara the most were his deep blue eyes. Besides being sexy as hell, they seemed to mirror a kind nature; a caring person. She almost melted into their softness, and the soft tone of his voice. It still had a slight laugh in it, like Paul's, and a gentleness she had rarely found in other men's voices. His voice was masculine, yet not -- yes, she had to admit -- not macho-sounding. In fact, nothing about him projected a macho image. She liked that perhaps best of all about him.