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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 thrilling, but he had to set her straight. This wasn’t a little jaunt she was talking about. “Do you have any idea how much funding and preparation it takes to make a flight like that? Plus there’s no money in it. Now, be the first to make the transatlantic flight in one hop, and you’ll get yourself fifty thousand dollars. That’s a prize worth going for.”
She didn’t blink. She didn’t breathe. “That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”
He ran his thumb around the rim of his cup. “It’s not possible.”
“Not now, with the war, but later, after it’s over, you can do it. You can be the first.”
She was so close he could see tiny drops of perspiration on her upper lip.
He cleared his throat. “Others have the jump on me, and the planes aren’t capable of that distance yet.” Though true, his excuse did nothing to break the charge between them, so he joked, “I can’t even make New York to Chicago without engine failure.”
If she thought it funny, she didn’t laugh. She didn’t move an inch. He was uncomfortably aware of the smells of violet and petroleum, not to mention the heat she generated.
“That’s a test flight with a new plane,” she said, seemingly oblivious to the electric moment. “Take an aeroplane you’ve tested and run for hours, one you know inside and out, and you can do it.”
“First I need to get this plane running again.” He cleared his throat, but it was too late. She’d noticed its rough edge.
“Let me fly with you when it’s fixed,” she said, looking at the open field. “I want to know. I need to know what it’s like to fly, even if it’s just for a minute.”
This was what he knew had been coming, but the faraway gaze, reddened cheeks and desperate hope undid him. Memories rushed back. He and his little sister, twenty years ago, playing in the sunlight. The river rushing past. Sissy laughing. Come along, Jackie. Are you afraid? He’d gone with her to the riverbed and look what happened.
He shook his head, banishing the past.
Miss Shea looked at him with the same eager eyes and tense anticipation. Such desire could not be crushed by one refusal. If he didn’t give her that plane ride, she would find another plane and another pilot, likely less scrupulous and willing to risk her life for money or a cheap thrill. Jack wouldn’t see the disaster, but it would be his fault all the same. But if he gave her a ride, he would be in control. He could scare her just a little and rid her of these romantic notions once and for all.
“Promise you’ll tell no one?” He would regret this.
She brightened. “I do, I do! Oh, thank you.” She clapped her hands together, her cheeks flushed with excitement.
His boss would kill him if he knew what he was doing. “That means no newspaper stories. No magazine stories. No stories at all. Promise?”
She nodded. “Absolutely.”
“It also depends on the weather,” he cautioned.
“I know.”
“And it has to be early in the morning, at first light. I want you here at four o’clock, the morning after the plane is repaired. Wind, rain or storms, and the flight is called off.”
“I understand. I’ll be there.” She impulsively squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”
“Thank me later.” After he’d scared her enough that she’d never fly again.
Two days later, Darcy stomped her feet in the cool morning air, while Burrows tinkered with the aeroplane’s motor. They’d rolled the plane out of the barn well before dawn, but the engine wouldn’t stay running. By now the horizon had lightened to pale gray rimmed with gold. Jack said they had to fly at first light. If this took much longer, the flight wouldn’t happen.
She glanced toward town. No one coming yet, but the longer this took, the better the chance she’d be spotted. Soon Mum would rap on her bedroom door to wake her. When she didn’t show for breakfast, they’d know.
She nipped her lower lip.
“Be patient,” said Jack, hands buried in the pockets of his jacket. “You don’t want to fly unless everything’s perfect. Haste leads to crashes.”
“That and weather.” Darcy hoped she sounded informed. The Chicago newspapers had blamed the 1911 aviation meet fatalities on high winds. “Today is dead calm.”
“Perfect weather, if it warms up.”
She tucked her hands into the folds of her skirt, wishing she had thought to wear gloves, and watched Jack work. He looked so assured talking to Burrows. This was his element. He belonged in the air.
Excitement tugged at her. If only they’d go.
Jack walked over to her. “You cold?”
She balled her hands and shook her head.
He fetched her a scarf from the cockpit. “It gets colder the higher you fly. Wrap this around your neck and tuck it in. Don’t let the ends come loose or you’ll be flying that plane alone.”
“What?”
“This girl has dual controls,” he explained, “and if your scarf gets tangled in the controls, you’ll find yourself with one hard to handle lady.”
“That won’t happen,” she said, tucking the ends into her coat and trying not to be nervous. “I promise.”
His lips snaked into that lopsided grin.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is there an end loose? Do I look foolish?”
“Not at all.” But his gaze lingered a little too long.
“Something’s not right.”
He shook his head. “You’ll have a time of it climbing into the cockpit with that skirt. Tuck it tight around your legs once you’re settled or it’ll blow into your face and my field of vision. You should have worn the outfit you had on yesterday.”
Darcy inched up her skirt a little. His eyes widened as she revealed overalls.
“Harriet Quimby had a flying suit that could convert from bloomers to a skirt,” she said. “I thought such an arrangement might prove practical today, given the circumstances.”
He whistled, long and low and with obvious appreciation. “Miss Shea, you surprise me sometimes.”
“Darcy,” she insisted. “If I’m going to put my life in your hands, you should call me Darcy.”
The warm notes of his laughter resonated deep within her. “Is that all you think of my ability to pilot this plane? Well Darcy, let me tell you a little secret. I have never wrecked an aeroplane, and I don’t intend to start today.”
The little flutter inside her roared into full-blown excitement. He wasn’t just any aviator. He was the best, the absolute best—and he was taking her up in his plane.
Burrows hopped down and indicated the plane was ready to go. At last. Hunter confirmed a few last-minute details while Darcy gathered her skirt and climbed aboard. From atop the lower wing, she could see clear to town. No one coming.
“Forward cockpit,” Jack said.
“I know.” Once in the cockpit, she stretched her legs past the rudder bar and eyed the wheel. Good heavens, she could actually fly the plane from here. She placed her hands on the wheel and closed her eyes, imagining for a moment what it would be like to be in control.
“Ready?”
Darcy’s eyes popped open, and she hastily secured her seat belt. She pulled the motor hood over her hair. Jack passed her a pair of goggles, and their hands touched. That same spark. She jerked away and fumbled with the eye gear.
“Remember, we won’t be able to talk in flight,” he said while she retrieved the goggles, “so a thumb down means you want to land.”
Darcy nodded.
Jack shouted to Burrows, and the mechanic gave the propeller a tug. With a whir and a roar, the motor gained speed. The plane began moving forward, slowly at first, then bumping more and more rapidly across the field. The Baker house and barn vanished behind them, and the village approached. She could see Terchie’s and the roof of the bank. Papa.
A wave of regret washed over her. She hadn’t exactly told him what she was doing. He’d only forbid it. But still, it was wrong. Forgive me, she prayed.
The end of the field loomed closer and closer. She gripped the edge of the cockpit. If they didn’t get in the air soon, they’d clip the trees. She could end up like so many aviators: dead or severely injured.
“Watch out,” she yelled, though there was no way Jack could have heard her. She wished they could stop now, wished she’d gotten her father’s approval, but it was too late. Soon she’d be smashed to bits.
They hurtled toward the trees. Then, when it seemed certain they’d crash, the bumping stopped and the plane rose.
Darcy screamed. The icy air blasted her face and made her shiver, but as soon as she looked below, she forgot how cold she was. Trees and houses shrank below her until they looked like toys.
Jack banked to the right, toward town. Pearlman looked so small, so insignificant from above. There stood her house, the kitchen window lit. Maybe her parents would hear the noise and look out, never suspecting their daughter was flying overhead.
She was flying! In the air, above the earth, like the eagle. God had not created her to fly, but she’d done it. She had done it on her own—well, with the help of Jack Hunter—and it was every bit as wonderful as she’d imagined.
From this height she could see how rivers and roads and railways connected the scattered houses one to the other in a great web. This was how God had made the world. How He watched over it. She leaned back, letting the air flow past her face, and gazed straight into the heavens.
This was where she belonged. In the sky. Here, above the busy-ness of the world, she would make her place, and it would truly matter. She’d show the world that women deserved to be treated equally. Same wages, same voting privileges, equal stakes in marriage. She would change the world.
Then the engine coughed. It almost died before racing madly. The plane accelerated.
Darcy looked back.
Jack was frantically working on something in the cockpit. He wasn’t watching where they were going. He wasn’t even steering.
She grabbed the wheel and tried to hold it in place.
Then the engine died.
It grew deathly quiet, with only the whistle of wind rushing past.
The wheel yanked in her hands. She held on tighter.
“Let go,” Jack yelled.
She released it like a hot stove iron. The village, once so far away, was coming nearer and nearer in great swooping circles. They’d stalled and gone into a spin. Spins were fatal.
“Do something!” she yelled.
“I am.”
But the buildings and trees kept coming closer. They were going to crash.
“Brace yourself,” he yelled.
She bent low. An exposed head could be snapped off if the plane tumbled end to end.
In the eerie silence she heard Jack moving around behind her. Why wasn’t he bracing himself for impact?
Then, as she offered a fervent prayer for undeserved forgiveness, the engine sprang to life. The plane shot upward, leaving her stomach on the ground.
Her scream trailed across the dark-edged sky. Were they really going to live? She looked back. Jack stared at the controls. She checked below. Yes, the ground was where it belonged. She gulped in the sweet air, but she couldn’t stop shaking.
Jack circled, lined up the field and brought the plane down. It bumped and hopped over the uneven earth, bouncing her brain against her skull. But after the plane came to a halt and the propeller turned slower and slower until it stopped, a fierce ache took hold.
