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Heath sucked in an audible breath at my announcement. Yeah, considering how fast it had happened, I’d been a little taken aback when I realized it, too. “Anyway, I won’t ask her to come back to California with me. Not only is this her home, but her business is here. She fits in, has a mostly normal life, and I’m not going to ask her to choose to live a life where she could be ridiculed or simply spend every day feeling out of place and uncomfortable.”
“Okay, I see your problem, but I will tell you right now that if your proposal is for me to buy your half out, you can forget it.”
“Just the opposite, in fact.”
“You want to buy me out?” he croaked.
I laughed and assured him, “No, I want to expand. The thing is, Isla owns a food delivery service. They cater to monsters and deliver the food via wings.”
Just chuckled. “Alright, that’s kind of brilliant.”
“Right? It got me thinking. Not all monsters have wings. And some who do can’t fly. So many of them never go anywhere because they aren’t willing to subject themselves to the eyes of humans. Particularly in a tin can where there’s no escape.”
“You want to open a new charter service that caters to monsters,” he guessed.
I knew he’d get it. However, relief trickled through me when I heard the undertone of excitement in his voice. “Yes. I think it would do very well, and it doesn’t mean we can’t take charters from humans in the local towns. But our main clients would be the residents of Screaming Woods, and we’d have separate hangars for them to use if they wish.”
Heath was silent for so long that I began to wonder if I’d actually heard the anticipation in his voice. Maybe he hated the idea. That would suck, because it didn’t matter what he said, I wasn’t leaving.
I wasn’t expecting him to ask, “So…everyone in that town is a monster?”
“No, there are some people who didn’t change. And many of the monsters have human significant others.”
“Sure…but nobody would look twice at someone who was disfigured?”
The point of his inquiry suddenly dawned on me. I should’ve thought of this from the very beginning. From the moment I saw the inhabitants of the town, it should have occurred to me.
“You’re not a monster, Heath. But having spent the last decade being the face of our business, I know you’ll never believe me. To be honest, I feel like an idiot for not thinking of this before. This place could be the opportunity for you to live somewhere that you feel accepted and never have to feel self-conscious about who you are or what you look like.”
“It would be hard to close the doors here,” Heath sighed.
“I don’t think we should,” I argued. “We both know Greg has been due for a promotion for a really long time. I think he should step into the role of president over that region while we expand out here.”
“He could do it.” Heath sounded certain, and I was glad to hear it because it meant it would take less convincing for him to pick up and leave. To open a business where I got to fly, work with my best friend, and be with the woman of my dreams all seemed too good to be true. But I wasn’t going to question my good fortune.
“Why don’t you come out here next week? We’ll look around for some real estate, and you can check out the town. Then we will have a conference call with Greg together.”
“I can’t believe I’m even considering this.” Heath commented with humor in his voice.
“Maybe we can even find you a woman,” I snarked.
Heath didn’t respond right away, and I wondered if he was actually considering my words. I wanted him to be happy, and maybe he could find that here. I certainly had. As well as many of the other inhabitants of Screaming Woods.
“I’ll send you my flight information as soon as it’s booked.”
“Excellent. So listen, I’ve done a lot of research, and run a bunch of numbers, why don’t we go through everything?”
Heath agreed, and we spent the next several hours going through all of the details and brainstorming new ideas.
When we finally hung up, it was nearly dark. I glanced at the clock to see that Isla would be home in about an hour. I shut down my computer and stood, stretching to work out the kinks from being hunched over the desk for so long.
It was time for dinner, so I wandered over to the kitchen and searched for something to cook. Unfortunately, I’d pretty much exhausted everything I bought before I brought Isla home.
Then another idea struck… Apparently, I was just full of them today.
I grinned as I jogged back to the desk and picked up my cell phone. I made a call, put in an order, and then relaxed as I waited for my food to be delivered while I fantasized about how I was going to tip my delivery woman.
11
