Wings

21

The week after New Year's, Cassie started helping her father at the airport again. But before that, he took her to see an attorney in Chicago. He was an expensive one, with a good reputation, but her father said that she couldn't afford to see anyone less than that if she was going to defend herself against Desmond Williams.

She explained her situation to him, and he advised her that she had nothing to worry about. There wasn't a judge or a jury in the world who would feel that she hadn't fulfilled her contract in good faith, and at great risk and personal expense to herself. “No one's going to take money from you, or put you in jail, or force you to fly for him again. The man sounds like a monster.”

“And that brings up another matter,” her father said pointedly. The divorce. That was more complicated, but not impossible by any means. It would take time, but it would be easy to say that their marriage had not survived the trauma of her ordeal, and surely no one would contest that. It would be even easier to accuse him of adultery and fraud. And the attorney intended to wave those flags at him. And he was sure he would get Desmond's full cooperation.

He told her to go home, and not to worry about it, and three weeks later some papers arrived for her to sign to set the wheels in motion. And it was shortly after that that Desmond called her.

”How are you feeling, Cass?”

“Why?”

“It's a perfectly reasonable question.” He sounded very pleasant but she knew him better than that. He wanted something. She thought maybe he had called to argue about the divorce, but she couldn't imagine why he'd want to. He didn't want to be married to her any more than she wanted to be married to him. And she wasn't asking for money. Much to her surprise, he had sent her the full amount he owed her for the Pacific tour, even though she hadn't completed it, after her lawyer contacted him and pointed out that trying to shortchange her would look very bad to the American public after all she'd been through. Desmond had been furious, but the check for one hundred and fifty thousand was safely put away in her bank account, and her father was well pleased that it was. She had more than earned it.

“I just thought you might like to do a little press conference sometime… you know… tell the world what happened.” She had planned to, at first, just once, but in the meantime, she'd decided against it. Her career as a movie star was over.

“They heard it all from the Department of the Navy, after they rescued me. There's nothing else to say. Do you really think they want to know how Billy died in my arms, or about my dysentery? I don't think so.”

“You can leave those parts out.”

“No, I can't. And I have nothing to say. I did it. We went down. I was lucky enough to come back, unlike Billy, unlike Noonan, unlike Earhart, unlike a lot of fools like us. I'm here, and I don't want to talk about it anymore. It's over, Desmond. It's history. Find someone else you can mold into a movie star. Maybe Nancy.”

“You were good at it,” he said nostalgically, ‘the best.”

“I cared about you,” she said sadly. “I loved you,” she said very softly, but there was no one to love there.

“I'm sorry if you were disappointed,” he said pointedly. They were strangers again. They had come full circle. And then he realized that pushing her was pointless. “Let me know if you change your mind. You can have a great career if you ever get serious about it,” he said, and she smiled. It had gotten as serious as it gets, and miraculously she'd still survived it.

“Don't count on it.” She knew he hated people like her. In his mind, she was a quitter. But she didn't give a damn what he thought now.

“Good-bye, Cassie.” End of a career, end of a marriage. End of a nightmare.

They hung up and he never called her again. Her lawyer told her that Mr. Williams had agreed to the divorce, and even offered a small settlement if she would go to Reno. She didn't accept the money, she'd made enough flying for him, but she went to Reno in March for six weeks, and when she came back, she was free again. And predictably, Desmond released a statement to the press afterward that she had been so traumatized by her experience in the Pacific, that continuing their marriage had become impossible for her, and she was living “in seclusion with her parents.”

“It makes me sound like a mental case,” she complained.

“So what?” her father said. “You're rid of him forever. Good riddance.” The press had called a few times after that, and she always refused to talk to them or see them. They had written about her sympathetically, but they didn't pursue her for long. As much as they had loved her before the tour, they had other fish to fry now.

She certainly didn't miss them or Desmond. But she did miss her friends. With Billy gone, the airport was very quiet for her. She was so used to flying with him day after day, that it was odd now to be there without him. And by April, when she got back from Reno, all the young men she knew had either been drafted or enlisted. Even two of her brothers-in-law had gone, although Colleen's husband had flat feet and bad eyes and was 4-F and had stayed. But her two oldest sisters and their children were around the house most of the time now. And that spring, Annabelle and Humphrey's parents were killed in a bombing attack on London. Colleen and her husband had decided to adopt them. And thinking about it, Cassie almost wished that she could have them.

They had news from Nick now and then, but not very often. He was still in England, flying fighter raids now with a vengeance. And killing as many Germans as he could shoot out of the skies, “just like the old days.” He was old for those games at forty-one, but with America in the war now, he had full military status in the American Army. He also didn't get leaves back to the States anymore. Not in wartime. Cassie knew that he was still at Hornchurch. He never wrote to her, only to her father. She had never written and told him of Desmond's betrayal and her divorce, and she still wasn't sure what to tell him, or if he'd care. She didn't know if her father had said anything, but she doubted it. Pat wasn't much at writing letters, or at discussing other people's business. Like all men, they discussed world events and politics. But she felt that one of these days, she ought to tell Nick herself what had happened. The question was when and how. She had to assume by now though that if Nick had still been interested in her, he'd have written. She hadn't seen him in almost a year now. And God only knew what he was thinking.

She didn't go out on dates, just with friends, or her sisters. And she worked hard for her father, at the airport. It was almost enough of a life for her, although she had to admit that she missed the thrill of flying Desmond's exotic planes now and then. But you couldn't have everything, and she liked her life just the way it was now. The press had started to forget her, they seldom called now, without Desmond prodding them, and she got an occasional request for endorsements, which she declined. It was a quiet life, and her father worried about her sometimes, and said as much to Oona.

“She's been through a lot, you know,” he said. They all had.

“She's a strong girl,” her mother said fondly, “she'll be all right.” She always was. She was just quiet sometimes, and lonely without the people she'd grown up with. Her brother, Nick, Bobby, even Billy, who had come a little later. But she missed them, and the camaraderie they had all shared in different ways. Now she was just another pilot flying to Chicago and Cleveland, but it felt good to be with her family again. It brought her a great deal of comfort.

In August, she got a phone call that amazed her. Her father took the call, and handed it to her with a blasé look. He didn't even recognize the name, which made her want to shriek at him. Some things never changed. It was Jackie Cochran.

“Are you serious?” She had thought he was kidding at first. She had just come in from a run to Las Vegas. It was hotter than hell. But when she got on the phone, Jackie Cochran said she wanted to meet with her if possible. She said she'd always admired her, and she asked her to come to New York to see her, if she could spare the time. “Sure,” Cassie agreed, jotting down the pertinent details. She had agreed to fly there two days later. She had nothing else to do, since it was her day off. And maybe she could even do a little shopping, since she had her money from the tour in the bank, and had never spent a penny. The funny thing was she had wanted to meet Jackie Cochran for ages, but once she got settled at home again, she got lazy and never did anything about it.

She was thinking about inviting her mother to come to New York with her, but then she decided to go alone. She had no idea what Jackie Cochran would want, but she thought it might be something her mother would disapprove of.

And as it turned out, it was something that fascinated Cassie. She had admitted readily that she was bored at home, and eager for some more exciting flying. Eight months after she had been rescued in the Pacific, she was ready to spread her wings again and do something a little more exciting. And what Jackie Cochran had in mind was right up her alley.

Jackie wanted Cassie to take charge of forming a small group of experienced women pilots under the Army Air Force Flying Training Command, to ferry planes to wherever they were needed in the war, for the moment. The women involved would fly as civilian pilots but have uniforms and honorary rank. Cassie was to start as a captain. There was another women's air corps too, the WAFS, Women's Auxiliary Flying Squadron, if she preferred it, being organized for domestic ferrying by Nancy Harkness Love, another extraordinary female pilot. But Cassie liked the idea of ferrying planes into England right past the Germans. She knew her parents were going to be upset if she left home again, but this was something she believed in. It served a purpose, it wasn't frivolous or self-serving, like her Pacific tour, which just made money for a lot of greedy people. This was something she could do for her country, and if she died… she was prepared to accept that. So had Chris… so had Billy… sadly, so had Bobby Strong by then. He had been killed six weeks after he enlisted. Peggy was a widow again, with four children now. Life was never simple.

The WAFS would begin training in September, for eight weeks in New Jersey, but she could hardly wait. It was time for her to be challenged again and for the first time, she would be flying with other women. She had never had the opportunity to do that.

Jackie Cochran took her to dinner that night at ‘21’ and they talked about their plans. Cassie couldn't remember anything she had wanted to do more, not even the world tour when Desmond had first asked her. This was so different.

It was exactly what she wanted and what she'd been waiting for. For Cassie it was time to move on now. She was still smiling when she flew home the next day, thinking about it.

Her father was at the airport when she got in; he was singing to himself, and filing some papers in his office. She hated to ruin his mood, and she decided to wait and tell him after dinner.

“How was New York?”

“Great,” she beamed at him.

“Oh oh. Do I smell romance in the air?” He smelled happiness, but not romance. Airplanes, but not boys. She was right hack to where she'd been in the beginning. In love with flying.

“Nope. No romance,” she smiled mysteriously. She was twenty-three years old and divorced, and she felt free and independent. And she was about to do exactly what she wanted.

She could hardly contain herself until that night after dinner, and when she told her parents, they stared at her in disbelief.

“Here we go again,” fat looked angry even before she explained it. “You want to do what now?” She had been swimming upstream all her life. It was nothing new for them, or to Cassie.

“I want to join… I did join the Army's Flying Training Command,” she said happily, and then she explained it to them.

“Wait a minute. You're going to be flying bombers to England? Do you know how heavy and hard to manage those are?”

“I know, Dad.” She smiled. She'd flown just about every difficult plane in the sky, when she'd worked for Williams Aircraft. “I'd have a co-pilot.” She knew that would make him feel better.

“Probably another woman.”

“Sometimes.”

“You're crazy,” he said tersely, “patriotic, but crazy.”

She looked at him hard then. He had to understand. She was grown-up and she had a right to do this. But she had also put them through a lot, especially in the last year and she didn't want to hurt them. She would have preferred to do it with their approval, but her mother was already crying.

“You and your damn flying,” Oona said unhappily to her husband, and he patted her hand apologetically.

“Now, Oonie… it's always made us a nice living,” And it had made Cassie a small fortune, but at what price glory.

She explained the Flying Command to them again, and they told her they'd think about it. But she had already signed the papers, she reminded them. Pit and Oona looked at each other. There was nothing left to do but support Cassie again. She was always doing this to them. Always putting herself out on a limb, and stretching to the limit.

“When do they want you, Cass?” her father asked, looking somewhat deflated. He hated losing her too. She was such a big help to him at the airport.

“I start in two weeks, on September first. In New Jersey,” and then she added gratuitously, “If I were a man, I'd be drafted anyway.”

“But you're not, thank God. And you won't be. It's bad enough to have our sons-in-law over there. And Nick,” who was like a son to them.

“You'd be there if you could,” she pointed out to her father, and he looked at her very strangely. She was right. He would. And Nick had volunteered long before, and he would never have had to go this time.

“Why can't I? Why can't I do something for my country, for a change? Flying is all I know how to do, and I do it well. Why can't I offer that to this country? You would. Why should I be prevented from that because I'm a woman?”

“Oh God,” her father rolled his eyes, “it's the Suffragettes again. Where do you get this from? Your mother and your sisters never talk about this nonsense. They stay home where they belong.”

“I don't belong there. I'm a flier. Like you. That's the difference.” It was hard to argue with her. She was smart, and she was right. And she was gutsy. He loved that about her. She had taught him a lot over the years, and he loved her more for it.

“It's dangerous, Cass. And you'd be flying Lockheed Hudson bombers. They're heavy planes. What if you go down again?”

“What if you go down tomorrow over Cleveland? What's the difference between the two?”

“Maybe nothing. I'll think about it.” He knew she was bored flying mail runs for him, after all the fancy flying she'd done. But at least she was safe here.

He thought about it for days, but in the end, as before, he didn't feel he had the right to stop her. And in September she left for New Jersey. Oona was proud of her too, and her parents flew to New Jersey with her.

‘Take it easy, Dad,” she said when he left her. She kissed both of them good-bye, and her father stood smiling at her.

‘Try not to embarrass yourself,” he said mock somberly and she laughed at him.

“Keep your tail up.”

“Mind your own!” He saluted her and was gone, and the next time he saw her he almost burst with pride. She was wearing her uniform, with a gleaming pair of silver wings, and she looked older and more mature than she ever had before. She had her long red hair tied into a neat bun, and the uniform looked sensational on her long, lean figure.

Her parents had come to New York because she was shipping out for England that weekend, though they'd only be there briefly. She would be going back and forth with planes, whenever they were needed somewhere else. But her first assignment was to report to Hornchurch with a bomber.

She had dinner with her parents the night before she left, and she took them to a little Italian restaurant she went to whenever she was in New York with the other pilots. She introduced some of them to her parents, and they could see that she had never been happier than she was now. Despite the hardships of the training she'd gone through, to Cassie, more often than not, it seemed like summer camp for female fliers. She liked the women she flew with, and the challenge of ferrying bombers through dangerous airspace suited her completely. She was used to difficult flying, and she liked the fact that she'd have to pay close attention. For this first trip, she had been assigned a male co-pilot, and they were going through Greenland.

“Keep an eye out for Nick,” her father had said when he left her at the barracks, and she had promised to write to them from England. She didn't think she'd be there long, but she didn't know yet. She would be doing some flying there, and she would have to wait for a return assignment. She might be there for as little as a week or two, or as long as three months. There was no way of knowing. But one thing she did know and that was that all through her training, she had thought of nothing but Nick Calvin.

She had done a lot of thinking, and she had made some decisions.

All her life she had had to wait for other people to make up their minds about her life, and she wasn't willing to let that happen anymore. She had had to pay her own brother to lie for her and take her up in the plane, so she could learn to fly it. She had had to wait for Nick to notice how badly she wanted to learn, and agree to give her lessons, hidden from her father. She had had to wait for her father to come to his senses years before, and let her fly from his airport.

She had had to wait for Nick to tell her he loved her, and then leave for the RAF. And she had had to wait for Desmond to let her fly his planes, and lie to her, and use her, and then finally tell her the truth of how little he cared for her. All her life she had had to wait for other people's decisions and manipulations. And even now, Nick knew where she was, he knew what she felt for him, but he never wrote her. The only thing he probably didn't know, since it had never been publicized, thanks to Desmond's good relations with the press, was that she had left him.

But she wasn't waiting anymore. It wasn't anyone else's decision this time. It was her turn. And ever since she had found out what a bastard Desmond had been, she had wanted to go to England. She had no idea what would happen when she got there, or what Nick would say. And she didn't care how old he was, or how young she was, or how much money he did or didn't have. All she knew was that she had to be there. She had a right to know what he felt for her. She had a right to a lot of things, she'd decided, and it was time for her to get them. This trip was one of them. It was just exactly what she wanted to be doing at that moment.

They left at five o'clock the next morning, and she found the flying challenging, though dull some of the time. She and her co-pilot chatted for a while, and he was impressed to realize who she was.

“I saw you at an air show once. You cleaned up everything. I think three firsts and a second.” It had been her last one. And he remembered correctly.

“I haven't done those in a while.”

‘they get old.”

“I lost my brother at the one the following year, it kind of took the fun out of them for me after that.”

“I'll bet.” And then he remembered the trick she had pulled, with admiration. “You almost ate it the time I saw you.”

“Nah, just looked like it,” she said modestly, and he laughed.

“Nervy broads. You guys are all the same. All guts and no brains.” He laughed and she grinned at him. To her, it was almost a compliment. She liked the guts part.

“Gee, thanks.” She smiled at him, and for an instant he reminded her of Billy.

“No problem.”

By the time they arrived over England, they had become friends, and she hoped to fly with him again. He was from Texas, and like all of them, had been flying since he was old enough to climb into the cockpit. He promised to look her up the next time he was in New Jersey.

They'd been lucky that night, there were no German pilots scouting for them. He'd gotten in a couple of dogfights before, and he was happy they hadn't for her first trip. “No big deal though,” he reassured her. And much to her delight, he let her land the plane, and she had no problem, despite her father's dire warnings. It was wonderful being treated as an equal.

She took the paperwork to the office they had told her to report to.

They thanked her politely for the paperwork, and handed her a slip of paper with her billeting. And as she walked back outside again, the pilot she'd flown over with invited her for breakfast. But she told him she had other plans. She did, but she wasn't sure where to start looking. She had his address but it meant nothing to her. Not yet, at least. She pulled the piece of paper she'd written it on out of her pocket, and was staring at it, fighting the exhaustion of the flight, when someone jostled her, and she looked up first in irritation, then in amazement.

It was ridiculous. Things didn't happen that way. It was too easy. He was standing there, staring down at her, looking as though he'd seen a ghost. No one had warned him she was coming. And there Cassie stood, in uniform, looking into the startled eyes of Major Nick Galvin.

“What are you doing here?” He said it as though he owned the place, and she laughed at him, her red hair framing her face as the autumn wind blew through it.

“Same thing you are.” More or less, except that his job was a lot more dangerous than hers. But they both had their jobs and their missions. And several ferry pilots had already been killed by Germans. ‘thanks for all the great letters, by the way. I really enjoyed them.” She tried to make light of the pain he had caused her by his silence.

He grinned boyishly at the comment. He could barely make himself listen to her, he was so overwhelmed with just seeing her again. The last time he had seen her was the morning after they had spent the night at their secret airstrip.

“I really enjoyed writing them to you.” He quipped back, but all he wanted to do now was reach out and touch her. He couldn't keep his eyes from her, his hands, his arms, his heart, his fingers. Instinctively, he reached out and touched her hair. It still felt like silk and looked like fire. “How are you, Cass?” he said softly, as people in uniform milled around them. Hornchurch was a busy place, but neither of them seemed to notice. They couldn't keep their eyes off each other. Despite the hardships they both had been through, nothing seemed to have changed between them.

“I'm okay,” she answered him, as he led her to a quiet spot, where they could sit down on a rock wall for a few minutes, and talk. There was so much to say, so much to catch up on. And he felt guilty suddenly for his silence.

“I was worried sick about you when you went down,” he said, and she looked away, thinking of Billy.

“It wasn't much fun,” she was honest with him. “It was pretty rough, and…” She had trouble saying it, and without thinking, he took her hand and held it in his own.“… it was awful when Billy…”

“I know.” She didn't have to say the words. He understood perfectly. “You can't blame yourself, Cass. I told you that a long time ago. We all do what we have to. We take our chances. Billy knew what he was doing. He wanted to fly the tour with you, for himself, not just for you.” She nodded, knowing the wisdom of his words, but it was small comfort.

“I never felt right that I made it back and he didn't.” It was the first time she'd said that to anyone, and she couldn't have said it to anyone but Nick. She always told him all her feelings.

‘That's life. That's not your decision. It's His.” He pointed toward the heavens, and she nodded.

“Why didn't you call when I got hack?” she asked sadly. They had gone right to the important things. They always did. He was like that.

“I thought about it a lot… I almost did call a couple of times,” he smiled, “when I had a pint or two under my belt, as they say here, but I figured your husband wouldn't like it much. Where is he now, by the way?” His question confirmed her suspicion and she smiled at him. It was funny sitting here, talking to Nick, as though he'd been waiting for her to arrive. It was all so simple suddenly. There they were, four thousand miles from home, and chatting on a rock wall in the autumn sunshine.

“He's in Los Angeles.” With Nancy Firestone. Or someone like her.

“I'm surprised he let you do this… or actually, I'm not,” Nick said, looking somewhat bitter. It had torn his heart out when he thought she was lost, and that bastard had risked her life to sell his airplanes. Desmond was the one he'd wanted to call, to tell him what a rotten sonofabitch he was. But he never did it. “I guess he figured this stuff would look good in the newsreels. Patriotic. One of the boys. Was it his idea or yours?” He wanted it to be hers, because he wanted to respect her for it.

“It was mine, Nick. I've wanted to do this for a long time, since the tour. But when I got back, I didn't feel right leaving Dad. It was hard on him even now. There's no one left to help him. He might even have to hire a few women finally, except that most of them are joining the WAFS, the FTC, or the Flying Training Command, like I did.”

“What do you mean you didn't feel right leaving him? Did you stay with them when you got back?” The bastard hadn't even had the decency to take care of her, and she must have been pretty sick after seven weeks starving on an atoll.

“Yes, I went back to them,” she said quietly, looking at him, remembering their one night of happiness in the moonlight. “I left Desmond, Nick. I left him when Dad had his heart attack,” It was over a year before, and Nick was stunned to realize he'd never heard it.

“When I went back to LA after the last time I saw you, things were just the way you said they were. He kept pushing me, press conferences, test flights, interviews, newsreels. It was everything you said it would be, but he didn't show his true colors until Dad got sick. He ‘ordered’ me to do the tour on schedule, and ‘forbade’ me to go back and see my father.”

“But you went anyway, didn't you?” He knew the trip had been postponed, and had seen a newsreel of her at the hospital, so he knew that much.

“Yeah, I went anyway, and Billy came with me. Desmond said he'd sue us if we didn't do the tour, and he made us sign contracts promising that we'd go in October no matter what.”

“Nice guy.”

“I know. I never went back to him. He never even called me. All he wanted was for me to keep it from the press till I got back. And you were right about the women too. Nancy Firestone was his mistress. Apparently, the only reason he married me was to publicize the tour, just as you said. He said it wouldn't have had ‘the same impact on the public’ without it. The marriage was a complete sham. And afterward, when they brought me back, he told me in Hawaii that I still worked for him, and he was going to sue me for not completing my contract. I'd promised him fifteen thousand miles in the North Star, and only made eleven before we went down. He figured he'd get some publicity out of me even then, but it was all over. Dad took me to a lawyer in Chicago, and I divorced him.”

Nick sat utterly amazed at what she was telling him, although the fact that Williams was a sonofabitch wasn't news to anyone, and certainly not Nick. But he was a lot worse than even Nick had suspected. “How did you keep all that quiet before you left?” “He's good at that. That's his business. When I went back to LA before the tour, I stayed at Billy's. No one knew anything. We left a few weeks after I got back from Good Hope anyway, and Desmond dressed it all up in clean linen. He's a real snake, Nick. You were right about everything. I always wanted to tell you that, but I wasn't sure what to say, or how to say it. At first, my pride was hurt, and I was ashamed to admit that the whole thing had been a farce. And then, I figured maybe you wouldn't want to know anyway. You were so definite about not wanting me. I don't know… I figured maybe it was better to leave it for a while. I kept hoping you'd come home and we'd talk, but I guess after Pearl Harbor, you couldn't.”

“We don't get leaves anymore, Cass. And what do you mean I was ‘definite about not wanting you.’ Do you remember that night?” He looked hurt that she would say that.

“I remember every minute of it. Sometimes that was the only thing that kept me going on the island… thinking of you… remembering… it was what got me through a lot of things… like leaving Desmond. He was so rotten.” ‘then why didn't you write and tell me?” She sighed, thinking about it, and then she looked at him honestly. “I guess I figured you'd just tell me again that you were too old and too poor, and that I should find myself a kid like Billy.” He smiled at the truth of it. He might just have been dumb enough to do that. But that was before she had almost died, before he had come to his senses. Just sitting there, looking at her, made him realize what a total fool he'd been when he left her.

“And did you? Find a kid like Billy, I mean?” He looked so worried that for a minute she wished she had the guts to make him jealous.

“I should tell you that I've been out with every man in seven counties.”

“I'm not sure I'd believe you.” He smiled and lit a cigarette, as he sat back against the wall, and looked at her with pleasure. It was so good to see her again. This was the little girl he'd always loved, all grown-up now.

“Why not? Think I'm too ugly for any man to take out?” she teased him.

“Not ugly. Just difficult. It takes a man of a certain age and sophistication to handle a girl like you, Cass. There aren't too many men in McDonough County who could do it.”

“You're so full of it. Does that mean you're the right age these days, or are you still too old for me?” she asked him pointedly, wanting to know just where they were going.

“I used to be. Mostly, I was just too stupid,” he said honestly; ‘they almost had to retire me when you went down, Cass. I thought I'd go crazy, thinking about you. I went nuts for a while there. I should have flown home as soon as I heard. Then at least I could have been in Honolulu when you got there.”

“It would have been wonderful,” she smiled gently, but she didn't reproach him. Not for anything. She just wanted to know where they stood now.

“I suppose Desmond was there with the reporters,” he said with a look of annoyance.

“Naturally. But I had a great nurse who kept throwing them out of my room before they got a foot in the doorway. She absolutely hated Desmond. That was when he was threatening to sue me for not fulfilling my contract. I think he's convinced I blew up his plane on purpose. It was the damnedest thing, Nick,” she said solemnly, “both engines caught fire. I don't think they've figured it out yet, and I'm not sure they ever will.” She looked far away for a moment as she said it, and he pulled her closer to him.

“Don't think about it, Cass. It's over.” So were a lot of things. A whole lifetime had ended for her, and now it was time for a new beginning. He looked down at her with a slow smile, feeling the warmth of her next to him, and remembered a summer night almost two years before that had sustained him ever since then. “So how long are you here for?”

“I get my orders on Thursday,” she said quietly, wondering what was in store for them, what he wanted from her, if it was going to be the same game as before, or if he had finally grown up now. “I'll be here anywhere from a week or two to three months. But I'll be back pretty often. I'm in the overseas ferry squadron, that's what we do, taxi service from New Jersey to Hornchurch.”

‘That's pretty tame for you, Cass. Most of the time at least.” He was relieved she hadn't found something more dangerous to do. She'd be just the one to do that. For Desmond, she had tested fighter planes to be adapted for the Army. But that was over.

“It'll do for now. What about you? Where are you now?” she asked him, with a look that searched his soul. There was no escaping her question.

At first he didn't understand what she was asking him, and then he laughed, and looked down at her. He understood perfectly. It was no accident that she had come here. The only coincidence was that he'd run into her so quickly.

“What are you asking me, Cass?”

“How brave are you? How smart have you gotten over here, risking your life against the Germans?”

“I'm smarter than I used to be, if that's what you're asking me. I'm a little older… just as poor…” He remembered his own words easily, and how foolish he had been when he said them. “How brave are you, little Cassie? How foolish? Is this what you want? After everything you've done and had and been in the last two years, is this what you still want? Just me and the old Jenny? That's all I've got, you know. That, and the Bellanca. It's never going to be fancy.” But they both knew she'd had that and it wasn't what she wanted. She wanted him, and everything he meant to her. Nothing more now.

“If I wanted fancy, I'd be in LA”

“No, you wouldn't,” he said quietly, with the stubborn look she knew so well.

“Why not?”

“Because I wouldn't let you. I'll never let you go back to that. I shouldn't have let you go in the first place.” They had both learned some expensive lessons. But they were wiser now. They had both come for, and paid dearly for everything they learned and wanted. “I love you, Cass, and always have,” he said quietly as he pulled her close to him, and she looked up at him and smiled. It was the face she knew so well, and had always loved since she was a child. The same lines around the eyes from squinting at the sun, the same face she had grown up with. It was a handsome face with character and purpose and kindness, the only one she wanted to look at for an entire lifetime. She had come here to find him again. And she had. With Nick, she had everything she wanted.

“I love you too, Nick,” she said peacefully as he held her close to him, feeling the warmth of her, the nearness he had longed for so often. It had been hell being away from her, a hell he'd made for himself, and bitterly regretted, but didn't know how to get out of. It took Cass to come over and find him.

“And if either of us doesn't come back from this?” he asked her honestly. “What then?” He still didn't want to ruin her life, tying her to him, and then dying. That was the price you paid sometimes for loving a flier.

‘That's a chance we both take every day. We always have. You taught me that. If this is what we want, we have to have the guts to live with that. And each let the other do what they have to.” It was a high price to pay for loving someone, but they had always been willing to do that.

“And afterward?” He still worried about all that, but she had crossed those bridges long since, and she wouldn't have cared anyway if he'd had absolutely nothing.

“Afterward, we go home, my father retires eventually, and he gives us the airport. And if we live in a shack because that's all you've got, so be it. I don't care, and if we do, we'll change it.” This time he didn't argue with her. This time he knew it was enough for both of them. They had had more, and less, in their lives, and it didn't matter to them. All they needed was what they had, each other, and a sky to fly in.

He kissed her gently, and afterward she looked into the autumn sky and smiled, remembering the hours they'd spent in his old Jenny. She reminded him of her first loops and spins, and he laughed.

“You used to scare the pants off me.”

‘The hell I did… you told me I was a natural.” She pretended to be insulted as they stood up and he walked her slowly toward her barracks. They had resolved a lot that morning.

“I just said that because I was in love with you.” He laughed happily, feeling like a kid again. She did that to him. She always had.

“No, you didn't. You weren't in love with me then,” she argued with a broad smile, wondering if he had been.

“Yes, I was.” He looked happy and at ease and young. And he felt immeasurable pride as he walked along with her.

“Really?”

They laughed and talked and teased like children. Suddenly, life was very simple. She had done what she had come here to do. She had found him, and everything he had always been to her. She was home at last. They both were.