Unbound by Olivia Leighton Page A

of the best looking men I'd ever seen at that!
     
    Things were finally starting to look bright in my little world.
     
    ****
    I closed up forty minutes later, headed out for my lunch break. After Amber left, I decided that if I had to I was going to offer Mr. Tanner a sizable deposit on the plane just to secure it and let him know that I was serious. Yeah, he said he had already turned a deposit down from the other person that was interested in it, but I figured it couldn’t hurt my chances.
     
    It was a decision that had been made partly because my mood had shifted to something close to bliss. I couldn’t remember ever having been so excited and hopeful—at least not in the last three or four years, anyway. But I suppose it is better to make decisions based on the motivating factor of a good mood rather than a bad one.
     
    I reached Tanner’s Fresh Fish and looked out to the water behind the store. The float plane still sat there, the propeller catching the light that bounced from the gently-sloshing water. Warmth radiated through my body, not too dissimilar from the way I had felt when Jack had prolonged the eye contact in the store earlier.
     
    Jeez, Mac, I thought to myself. You sound like some crazy little love-struck teenage girl.
     
    Good, I countered. I think I deserve it after all I’ve—
     
    That last thought was cut short when I noticed something different about the plane.
     
    The banner with FOR SALE was no longer strapped to the propellers.
     
    I gasped as a heavy weight landed on my heart. It brought to mind old cartoons where a piano fell from some great height and crushed an unsuspecting bystander on the street below. I stood there for at least thirty seconds, starting at the place where the banner had been strung. Perhaps Mr. Tanner had taken it down because he knew how badly I wanted it and was saving it for me.
     
    Right.
     
    I knew that wasn’t true; it was just a naïve thought that was trying to spare me from disappointment.
     
    Steeling up my courage, I walked into Tanner’s Fresh Fish. Mr. Tanner saw me right away as he was behind the counter, wiping down one of his electronic scales where I had watched him weight numerous fish in the past. He looked pained to see me, like a man guilty of something that he wasn’t quite certain of.  Crap.
     
    “ Hey there, Mac,” he said. Even his voice betrayed him. He knew that I was going to be disappointed. It was a childish thing to think, but I sort of hoped that he would be uncomfortable and maybe even feel bad. That is, of course, if he had sold the plane in the first place.
     
    “ The banner is gone,” I said simply. “Did you sell it to the other party?”
     
    He looked away from me and nodded. “I did. I’m sorry. But I was trying to play a fair game, you know?”
     
    “ Fair how?” I asked. I heard the poutiness in my voice but I did nothing to contain it.
     
    “ Well now, when he came in with his money, I told him that I had someone else that was interested in the plane, too. He offered me another five thousand dollars if I’d seal the deal right there on the spot.  I'm sorry, Mac.”
     
    I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Just like that, in the blink of an eye, my hopeful day had morphed into one of hurt and disappointment. I wanted to lash out at Mr. Tanner but knew that I really didn’t have any right. Hell, I would have done the same thing. Five thousand dollars wasn’t anything to sneeze at, especially when you were a year or two away from retirement like Mr. Tanner.
     
    Apparently, I stood there, silent and frowning for too long. Mr. Tanner fiddled nervously behind the counter, wringing his cleaning rag behind the freshly cleaned scale. “I really am sorry,” he said.
     
    “ It’s okay,” I said. “I understand.”
     
    Mr. Tanner shrugged. “You never know…if you reach out to him, maybe he’ll sell it to you. He seemed sort of like you—he had a plan for it that I don’t think he was