Soaring Home. Christine Johnson
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The ground was littered with thousands of acorns. “I don’t suppose you remembered a blanket and wine.”
“It’s lunch, not a picnic. Besides, Michigan happens to be dry, Mrs. Lawrence’s notwithstanding.”
“I know that,” he said, though he found the tone a bit too temperance for his liking. Jack didn’t drink alcohol for personal reasons, not due to some self-righteous cause. He brushed the acorns away so he could sit with reasonable comfort.
“How do you know Michigan’s dry? You’re from New York.”
A wet state doesn’t need blind pigs, Jack wanted to say, but that was a conversation Jack did not care to have, so he turned its direction. “I live and work on Long Island, but I grew up in Buffalo.”
She gave him a peculiar look. “Buffalo? You’re from Buffalo? How odd. Everyone seems to be from there these days.”
“Who is ‘everyone’?”
She shrugged. “No one important.”
After an awkward silence during which the ants made progress toward the lunch basket and Darcy fussed with her napkin, Jack ventured, “Did you make the pie?”
“What if I say I did?”
“It’s not a competition. I don’t care who baked the pie. I’m just making conversation.”
“Oh.” A lovely, dusky blush rose in her cheeks. It was nice to know Miss Darcy Shea could be embarrassed. “I thought, well…never mind.”
He stretched out on the grass, leaning on one elbow, and tipped his cap back so he could watch her every move. If she’d give up that defensive shield she put around herself, she’d be downright attractive.
She unscrewed the lid on the mason jar. “We’ll have to share, unless you still have coffee.”
“Tough luck. It ran out a half hour ago.”
“I suppose I have enough for two.” She set the jar between them and took a bite of her sandwich. She even looked attractive chewing.
He checked the sandwich. Beef and mustard. Homemade bread, with its rich, yeasty aroma. It had been ages since he’d eaten anything other than bakery bread.
“What happens when your mechanic arrives?” she asked while he was chewing. “Will he have the replacement parts? Does he know what to bring? What did you tell him when you talked on the telephone?”
Jack choked down the food. “Is this an interview?”
This time no blush, just an enigmatic twist of the mouth. “I’m just curious.”
Jack ripped his gaze away. “He’ll bring everything he can. But if he doesn’t have a replacement part, we’ll have to wire the factory.”
It looked as if she perked up, but maybe it was his imagination.
“Where is the factory?”
He poured some lemonade into his coffee cup. “Do you have a cup? I’ll pour.”
“Oh, yes.” She dug around in the basket and came up with a glass.
While he poured, she repeated her question. “So where is the factory?”
“The main plant is in Buffalo, but all the prototypes come out of Long Island, under the direct supervision of G.H. himself.”
“G.H.?”
“Curtiss. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of G.H. Curtiss.”
“Of course I have,” she said rather quickly, and for a second he thought she was lying, but she followed with a litany of facts that would impress anyone. “Flew the Rheims Racer to the Gordon Bennett trophy at Rheims. Winner of The Scientific American Cup and the New York World prize for flying between Albany and New York in less than a day. Maker of the JN biplanes.”
“All right, all right. I don’t need a history lesson.”
“So he designed this plane?”
“At least in part.” He sampled the lemonade. Tart but refreshing.
“I’m guessing it’s designed for distance flight.”
What was she getting at? “The plane’s ultimate use is not my concern.”
“You just fly them, right?”
“That’s right.” But there was something about the brightness of her eyes that got to him, that made him say things he shouldn’t. “This flight was a special test.”
“For distance.” She leaned forward. “It had to be. How far can it go on one fueling?”
He shrugged and picked up a hard-boiled egg. “Farther than here.”
She laughed at his joke, but he could see her calculating. “To Chicago and back is a long way. Hundreds of miles in each direction. How many miles can a gallon of fuel go? Not that many. Oh, my. That’s a lot of fuel. The military must be spending a fortune on this.”
He rolled the egg between his hands. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Do they know you’re here?” she asked breathlessly. Her lips parted, moist from the lemonade. She couldn’t possibly know what that did to him.
He blinked, trying to remember what she’d asked. Oh—if his bosses knew he’d been forced to land here. “The proper people know.”
“Do you think Mr. Curtiss is anxious?”
She was assuming he had a greater knowledge of Curtiss than he did. He’d met the boss a few times. It wasn’t as if they were friends.
“Maybe a little,” he said with a wink, glad to see she followed with a smile, “but I can handle it.”
She leaned toward him, and a curl drifted across her brow. He resisted the urge to brush it aside.
“You mean your mechanic can handle it,” she said.
He laughed. “Touché.”
For a moment she stilled, deep in thought, and he wondered if he’d somehow offended her. Then, slow as a propeller starting to turn, her eyes widened. He wanted to believe that glow in her face was for him, but he’d only be kidding himself. She had hit on something, something important.
“I want to do it, what you do,” she breathed, rising to her knees and sweeping her arms to the open sky. “I want to fly. Ever since the Chicago air meet, I knew that one day, no matter what it took, I would fly.”
He could have looked at her all day, but he had to open his mouth. “But you didn’t.”
She lowered her gaze to meet his, jaw set with determination. “I will.”
Jack began peeling the egg. He knew what she meant, that he could be the one to fulfill her dream. This was the danger point. Rushing in was easy. Getting out wasn’t. Especially with a banker father lurking in the background.
“There are good flight schools around the country,” he said carefully. “Chicago would be closest.”
She sat back on her heels, deflated. “They’re closed. The war.”
“They’ll reopen after the war.”
“I don’t want to wait. Who knows how long the war will last. You’re an instructor. You could teach me.”
The desperation in her voice made him want to help, but he couldn’t. “I teach recruits.”
“I know. But what’s one more person? They’ll hardly know I’m there. I’m not meant to be here, in this small town. I want to do something, set a record, go places no woman has ever gone. Someday I will be the first to fly over the North Pole.”
Jack gagged on the lemonade. “Excuse me?” Her intensity was