I shoved my carry-on into the overhead bin and wondered if I’d made a mistake in not asking my brother if the company plane could fly me back to Atlanta. I wouldn’t have asked him to arrange a private plane again, not when it wasn’t an emergency, but the company plane belonged to Hunter Enterprises, and since part of my trip had been spent dealing with issues related to the business, I could’ve justified it to myself.

Who was I kidding?

No, I couldn’t have.

I felt guilty even thinking about the meeting with Germaine Klaveno, Grandfather’s attorney, as business. It had pertained to the company, but only because the inheritance of Grandfather’s shares – as well as the rest of the estate – were dependent on a few things.

Like my brothers and I reconciling our differences.

I folded myself into the window seat and mentally cursed myself for not being willing to wait one more day for an aisle seat. Coach seats weren’t made with a six-feet, five-inch frame in mind, but I couldn’t justify the expense of a first-class seat for a two-and-a-half-hour flight. Not when my money could be better spent elsewhere. The clinic where I volunteered was always short on funding. The cost differential between a coach ticket and a first-class ticket could mean the difference between the clinic getting an X-ray machine that worked and continuing to make do with one that gave fuzzy exposures half the time.

“That doesn’t look very comfortable.”

The woman looking down at me had tight gray curls, a blue cardigan, and those glasses with a chain that hung around her neck. Even though she looked nothing like my Grandma Olive, she had the same sort of caring, sweet air about her, and my throat closed up with the sudden memory.

She sat down in the aisle seat but stayed perched on the edge. “You know, whenever I fly out to see my son, I always buy an extra seat for my Sherlock.”

I gave her a tight smile. It didn’t matter if Sherlock was a dog or a cat, I’d be polite and not complain, even when I started sneezing.

“Except I had to put him down a few months back, and when I bought my tickets, I plum forgot that I only needed one.”

Where was she going with this? It took all my patience to bite my tongue and wait for her to get to the point. Usually, I had extraordinary patience, but after spending this past week with my brothers, it was wearing thin.

“You see, what I’m wondering is if you wouldn’t mind switching seats with me.” She gave me that grandmotherly smile again. “I think if I was by a window, I wouldn’t be thinking about my poor Sherlock. You’d be doing me a favor, sitting out here on the aisle, with an empty seat between us.”

I nodded, unable to speak just yet. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had done something kind for me without any thought of what they could receive in return. She might be saying that I was doing her a favor, but we both knew who was helping who.

When we were all settled in our new seats, I looked over at her. “Thank you.”

She reached over and patted my arm. “Don’t mention it, dearie. You looked like you’ve been having a rough time of it lately.”

She had no idea.

I knew Grandfather had done the best he could, raising us boys. Grandma Olive had made things easier, but she passed only four years after my parents and sister, another blow to our already fragile family. Instead of everything we’d been through bringing us together, it had pushed us apart, each for our own reasons. But it didn’t mean his death hurt any less.

“Pardon me.”

I looked up as a flight attendant leaned over me to put something in the overhead compartment. She was pretty, probably a few years younger than me, and smiling down at me in a way I easily recognized. I didn’t have the money that Jax and Blake possessed, or Slade’s charm, but I wasn’t hurting for it either, which usually made things worse when it came to women. Between my looks – a fluke of genetics – and my job – which I’d worked my ass off to get – I wasn’t hurting for female attention.

The flight attendant closed the compartment and shifted her position to allow a line of passengers to go by. The fact that it pressed her right up against my arm and shoulder wasn’t intentional at all, I was certain. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I appreciated confident people but brazen wasn’t an attractive quality, in my opinion.

“Is there anything I can get you?” she asked, her dark eyes making the invitation out to be more than the usual peanuts and sodas.

“No, thank you,” I said politely as I picked up my book.

“Whatcha reading?” The attendant rubbed against my arm with all the subtlety of a cat in heat.

“Infectious Disease Precautions and Protocols in Urban Environments,” I said lightly. “I’m on the chapter about quarantine in areas with rodent infestations.”

Horror and disgust were almost immediately covered by a plastic smile as she hurried along, but I knew I wouldn’t need to worry about her bothering me for anything other than her usual duties.

“Are you a doctor?”

I turned to my seatmate to find her watching me with an amused expression on her face.

“Yes,” I said. “My specialty is infectious diseases.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that you work for the CDC.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of hard candy. “You could have just told her to leave you alone because you needed to concentrate on an important case.”

I shrugged. “The truth seemed like a simpler and more logical deterrent than coming up with a story that might only pique her interest.”

The older woman held out another piece of candy. I took it and popped the peppermint into my mouth.

“Were you in Boston for business or pleasure?” she asked.

“Neither,” I answered honestly. “My grandfather died.”

Her face softened, and she reached over to pat my hand. “I’m sorry to hear that, dearie.”

I gave her a tight smile. “Thank you.”

The voice of the head flight attendant came over the intercom just then, interrupting any further attempt at a conversation for the moment. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I’d flown enough to know the speech given at the beginning of every flight. If I could clear my mind for a few minutes, I could be asleep before take-off and wouldn’t wake up until we started our descent.

Except I couldn’t clear my mind, and it wasn’t the fault of the flirting flight attendant, or the kind, older woman. For once, it wasn’t even my work that had my head buzzing.

No, it was those infernal requirements Grandfather had put on the distribution of his estate. My brothers and I had known that going our own ways was in everyone’s best interests, and Grandfather hadn’t said a word to the contrary. Why had he decided that, after his death, we should suddenly come together as a family?

We hadn’t been a true family for nearly twenty-five years.