Free Time for Grace by Kate Welsh Page B

us, we’re flying a bigger plane today, Sarah. We can take more of your stuff that way and I thought you two should finally meet.”
    So she is your girlfriend and this is your way of warning me off? She felt herself blush. “You’re a pilot, too? Do you work with Kip?” Sarah asked the tall blonde since she could hardly voice her real question.
    “Joy is my partner,” Kip put in. “Or more to the point, I’m hers since she let me buy into Agape Air.”
    How much more embarrassing could this get? Kip’s blonde was also the other person who’d helped pay Sarah’s hotel fees. Thank heaven she’d sent the woman a thank-you note, she thought just as Joy turned a bit in her seat and said, “I got your note and the wonderful picture of Grace.”
    “I wanted you to know that I appreciate all you did. You and Kip.”
    Kip looked up and into the mirror at her and she prayed her blush had subsided. “I met Joy through the Angel Flight East organization. She and her uncle were trying to build up their airline at the time and I was freelancing. I hired on with her and her uncle. After he retired, she was looking for a partner so I bought into the company.”
    “It’s nice you two have the business to share.”
    “It’s been a godsend to have a partner with the same values as I have to share the responsibility with,” Joy said with a bright smile before turning front.
    “I’m sure it is,” Sarah replied, troubled by her jealousy.
    She hadn’t realized how much she’d been hoping Kip might turn out to be someone she could build a future with. It wasn’t that she felt she needed a man to lean on. It was simply that she needed someone to care for and to care for her other than Grace. She’d been alone for so many years. She also felt unfulfilled and lonely—as if God had intended her to be a wife and mother. Not just a single parent.
    But that begged the question of why the Lord had let Scott die. Tired of circular thinking, Sarah put her head back and closed her eyes. Hopefully, they’d think she’d fallen asleep because of the early hour.
    She found the flight less awkward than she’d thought she would because she sat in one of the passenger seats behind the cockpit separated by a bulkhead. Kip showed her the cargo space before they took off so she’d know how much of her furniture she’d be able to bring. It was clear she’d be able to bring more of her things than she’d dared to hope for. She might not have to sell much at all to her friend Mary Jane, and that would eliminate her need to replace those items in Pennsylvania.
    Joy and Kip had managed to borrow a truck through their airport contacts so they all squeezed into the front seat and went right to her apartment.
    In the few days between the end of their honeymoon and his departure with his Guard unit, she and Scott hadn’t wasted any of their precious time together on moving him in. They’d just stuffed the extra bedroom with all his boxes with the idea that she’d unpack after he left. She’d worked slowly incorporating his things with hers those first few weeks. Then after his death, it had been too painful to go through the rest of his things so she’d moved the rest of the boxes down to the basement. She’d left them packed alongside the empty boxes she’d already unpacked.
    Sarah suggested Kip and Joy handle her linens and the kitchen cabinets. She knew she wanted all of that so they wouldn’t need her further input. And she hoped that way she wouldn’t be intruding on what private time they could find after giving up their day off to help her.
    Her friend was waiting for their arrival so after they handled the lease with the superintendent, Mary Jane packed up Scott’s clothes and hauled them to her car to drop off at the Salvation Army store. Then she set about packing Sarah’s clothes and the few she’d bought for Grace.
    Which left Sarah free to retire to the basement storage bin while everyone else worked on the apartment.