“How . . . ? Why . . . ?” She looked at Blaise, who was obviously enjoying the reunion.
“Stutters a lot, doesn’t she?” he said to the two younger people, ushering the tall, blond youngster and his sister out of the bedroom. He looked back amiably at Pat. “This was why I spent so much time with old Jonathan. Actually, it takes very little time to say ‘go to hell.’ But convincing these two of the dream that you have took a bit longer. I got them to see it your way without alienating Aunt Rose—although that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” he said to Pat as they went back to the living room.
Guests had begun to arrive and it was several minutes before Pat found herself with Blaise again, having to play the good hostess and also make sure that her children were well provided for.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Pat said, sharing a glass of eggnog with Blaise as they stood off to the side of the long holiday-draped table and watched people mingle.
For the moment, she was actually feeling the joy of the holiday, despite the worry that lay beneath. It was Christmas and she had her loved ones with her. A time for joy, a time to reflect, and time to put things into balance. Turning closer to Blaise, she smiled and just enjoyed the sense of his presence.
“I told you, I’m a genius,” Blaise said easily, his eyes lazily glancing over her, making her warm.
“Now if you could only tell me who’s responsible for those accidents and that break-in at work ...”
“Well, I do have my suspicions about your inside ‘rat.’ “
“Who?” Pat asked, her eyes wide open.
But Blaise shook his head. “Uh-uh. This is a Christmas party. There’ll be no more shop talk now. I’ll tell you once I’m sure,” he said, as he began maneuvering her to the left.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she saw him grin.
“Mistletoe,” he said, pointing upward. And in front of Sara and Bucky, Blaise kissed her. No one seemed to disapprove.
A bit later, as the party was winding down, Blaise took her for a walk out into the chilly night air, to see the stars. The further they got from the house, the brighter the sky seemed.
“Who knew there could be so many stars in the sky?” Pat said musingly.
“I wanted you to see this,” Blaise told her. “And to know that miracles can happen. And wonders, and gifts from heaven. Just look at the stars. They put our puny human Christmas lights to shame, don’t they?” He kissed her. “Keep hope alive, Pat. Don’t give up.”
She kissed him back. “The same to you, mister.” And her heart was filled with love.
Pat stayed up late that night, talking with her children, catching up on everything. She found that they had plans for the day after Christmas and could stay with her only until then. But they were together almost constantly. During that time, Pat got sufficient additional insight into her late husband’s family to dislike them forever.
“Uncle Jonathan had us convinced you were a raving loony,” Bucky said flatly as they sat in the kitchen the morning of their departure.
“You might have remembered what I was like,” Pat pointed out gently.
“What we remembered,” Sara said, “was how devoted you were to Dad. How dinners were rescheduled for him and trips were cut short on his orders because he had to be back to take care of some detail or other. You always gave in to Dad— and he wasn’t always the most practical of men. And he did have inventions that failed miserably,” Sara concluded, putting down her coffee cup.
Pat knew that this was Jonathan speaking because Sara was too young to recall those things on her own. But she agreed. “He did that.”
“So, when Uncle Jonathan and Grandmother Rose pointed out that Dad’s mind was failing and he was giving away pieces of the company, pieces that belonged to us,” Bucky said matter-of-factly as he made himself another sandwich, “we believed him.”
“And Uncle Jonathan said that you were under his thumb with that deathbed promise to make a paper airplane,” Sara chimed in.
“What changed your minds?” Pat asked, toying with her food as they sat in the sun-splattered kitchen. She was due at the office an hour ago but could not tear herself away from Sara and Bucky.
“Blaise,” Sara told her. “He pointed out that it took a lot of guts on your part to go against everyone, and that a weak person who was pliable would have thrown in the towel a thousand failures ago. And then he threw a lot of technical stuff at us to explain why Dad’s plane could really fly.”
“He told us we had a genius for a father,” Bucky continued, “and that while some of his inventions hadn’t worked, most of them had. He also said that in giving away pieces of the company, Dad was insuring that the top-notch crew he had assembled would stay with the project after he was gone.”
“In a way,” Sara said, her eyes dropping a little, “he made us ashamed of ourselves, putting money in place of the loyalty we should have given you. I guess there’s a lot of Uncle Jonathan in us,” Sara said.
Pat put her arm around her daughter for a moment, giving her a quick hug. “There’s a lot of your father in there too. Don’t you doubt it for a second,” she said fiercely. “And it’s all over. We’re a family again. Nothing can stop us now,” Pat said with enthusiasm.
Just as Pat was leaving, Sara stopped her. “I won’t be here when you get back,” Sara said in the doorway of her old room, “but I just wanted you to know something.”
“What?” Pat asked, cocking her head.
“I think you’re pretty terrific,” the girl blurted out, then disappeared from view.
Pat was humming as she went out to the car. A newly arrived Luis stood patiently waiting on the driver’s side. As she slid in, Pat found Blaise sitting in the back.
“Hi,” he said as casually as if they were meeting for a date.
Impulsively, Pat leaned over and kissed him in gratitude for bringing her children back to her.
“Well, I must remember to say ‘hi’ more often,” Blaise said just before he drew her into his arms and kissed her soundly. “God, that feels good. This behaving for the children was beginning to get to me. Are they still leaving?” he asked.
She nodded. “This afternoon.”
“Good,” he pronounced with a smile. “My celibacy can only last so long,” he said, looking at his watch. “And there’s only five hours left—if you don’t meet me in a local motel for ‘lunch,’ I might do something desperate.”
Pat began to laugh and it was a long, rich laugh. She laughed until her sides ached. She laughed from happiness and from her joy in life. “Blaise,” she said, trying to catch her breath, “you’re wonderful.”
“Absolutely no argument there,” he said as he closed the little curtain that separated Luis from the backseat and drew a tiny, private world around them.
“What are you doing?” Pat asked, her voice playful.
“I intend to do as much damage as is humanly possible in the next twenty-three miles,” he said just before his hands began to undo the buttons on the front of her dress.
Chapter Twelve
All that Blaise’s kisses and caresses managed to do was unsettle Pat terribly for the task that lay at hand. By the time Luis had pulled into her customary parking place, her clothing was back in place, but her heart was beating hard and her desire had mounted greatly, absolutely unquenched.
“Always leave them wanting more,” Blaise murmured into her ear as he helped her out of the car.
She knew it would be useless to hold her head high and pretend that she was unaffected. He had grown to know her far too well for that. Besides, it felt wonderful not to have to act anymore. The only acting that would be required was the performance she would give when he finally left her side. Then it would be a struggle not to cry out and ask him to stay. But she knew that if she did, she would cast a pall on all that had gone on between them. Blaise Hamilton needed no clinging vines, and until he had come into her life, she had not thought of herself in that light. But oh
, how she wished she could cling to him until all eternity melted into an abyss and left her with her lover.
Five days were all they had left before the major tests. Five days of constant work and agony. Part of her wanted to be alone with Blaise at all times, but there was too much responsibility on her shoulders to give in to that temptation. And Blaise seemed to understand it all, which made him that much more precious to her.
Sara called twice to wish her well and to make her apologies for not being able to be there “on the big day.” As it drew nearer, Pat began really to fear that it would not come into being at all, and then all their work would be for nothing.
To allow themselves a safety margin, Sam and Pat had decided on an actual test flight to be done on December 30th. That way, they had room for error. And error they had.
As they stood in the desert, waiting for the test pilot, one swaggering Monty O’Toole, to take the Eagle up and make her soar, Pat gripped Blaise’s hand so tightly that she suddenly realized her nails were digging into his flesh. But he kept on holding it, giving it a comforting squeeze.
The plane sputtered and they heard the jet engine whine, straining to make contact. With a crew of twenty-five standing around in a wide U at the rear, the plane moved several feet, then stopped, unable to continue.
Pat looked at Pardy, her heart in her mouth.
“What is it?” she asked, feeling as if her mouth had cotton in it.
He shrugged, looking somewhat disgusted. “The electrical system.”
Pat turned to Blaise, searching for some magic, comforting word, and saw that he was not looking at either her or the plane. He was looking at Pardy.
“How can you tell?” Blaise challenged.
Pardy stopped in his tracks, scowling at Blaise. His retort was directed at Pat. “Look, I’ve got better things to do than talk to all these people you keep pulling in as ‘advisers,’ Mrs. Hamilton.” He turned on his heel, about to go back to the Eagle.
“I don’t think so,” Blaise said, putting himself in front of the man and stopping his departure. Blaise stood a good five inches taller than Pardy, and although the foreman was younger, Blaise was in much better shape physically. “Sam,” Blaise called to the Indian, who had watched the exchange silently, “could you tell that it was the electrical system just by listening?” he asked casually.
“Nope.”
Blaise’s eyes seemed to bore into Pardy. “So what makes you so sure it’s the electrical system?” he asked smoothly, his voice deadly calm.
Pardy squirmed. “I’m not sure. It’s just a lucky guess,” he snapped nervously.
Pat stared at the two men, bewildered. She had known Pardy for so many years. . . .
Behind them, her crew was running to check out the problem as a disgruntled O’Toole stepped out of the cockpit. But the drama before Pat was far more intense.
“I think it’s more than a lucky guess,” Blaise said to the foreman. “I think you know something.”
“You’re crazy!” Pardy shouted, obviously anxious to get away from the whole scene.
“Sam,” Pat said quietly, her eyes never leaving Pardy, “see what Dale says,” she said, referring to the head engineer.
The answer came back a few minutes later. “He’s not sure, but he suspects a problem with the electrical system,” Sam said. All eyes were now on Pardy.
Blaise grabbed the shorter man by the collar. “And you’re going to tell him just what that problem is, aren’t you?” he asked.
Pardy refused to answer until a yelp of pain escaped his lips as Blaise twisted his arm behind his back.
“Aren’t you?” Blaise asked again, his voice still sounding pleasant to the untrained ear.
Pat felt shattered and angrier than she had been in a long time as she addressed the foreman. “So it was you all along,” she said, her voice bitter. How could she have neglected to notice the hostility that she saw in Pardy’s eyes? “Why in heaven’s name did you do it?” she demanded. “You were Roger’s right-hand man. I trusted you!”
“’Were,’ “ Pardy repeated, his lip curling in disgust. “Until that Indian came into the picture. Then all of a sudden, an ex-con’s advice was taken in the same light as mine.” His small eyes looked at her darkly.
“That’s still no reason to do this to the Eagle!” Pat said hotly.
“Maybe fifty thousand dollars is, though,” Blaise said, pushing Pardy toward the car that he and the others had arrived in.
“Fifty thousand dollars?” Pat echoed, waiting for an explanation.
“That was what Jonathan promised to pay him,” Blaise said, motioning Pardy into the backseat.
“Jonathan told you that?” Pat asked incredulously.
“Jonathan wouldn’t admit to his own name upon direct questioning,” Blaise said, sitting down beside Pardy as Pat got in the front seat next to Sam. “But when he asked me to help him, he alluded to the fact that I wouldn’t have to do any of the dirty work—that there was already someone there who was capable of doing plenty. He just wanted me along for insurance.”
“What made you suspect Wade?” she asked, looking at the foreman contemptuously. Pardy lowered his eyes, which glowed like red coals of anger.
“Sam saw him skulking around after the break-in. He wasn’t really supposed to be there that day, but made up some story that he was worried about the project and didn’t trust the security men I had hired. Sam felt that if he accused him, the accusation would be discarded because of the situation between these two and because Pardy had seniority. So he told me,” Blaise concluded, as if that said it all.
Pat turned to look at Sam, who looked forward impassively as he guided the ear back to the plant. “My God, you’ve even got Sam in your corner. Is there anything you can’t do?” she asked, turning back to Blaise.
“I can’t think of one thing,” he said and let the matter drop there.
Pat turned back around, not saying anything.
The Eagle was brought back, and with Pardy’s admission of what he had done, the crew at least knew what they were up against. They worked until the wee hours of the morning, trying to rectify the problem, but it wasn’t until two the next afternoon, the afternoon of their deadline, that the plane was once more perched on the runway in the desert, waiting for its maiden voyage.
O’Toole wore his lucky scarf jauntily around his neck as he climbed in again, his fingers crossed and held aloft.
“I think he sees himself as the Red Baron,” Blaise muttered. “But, whatever works.. . .” He and Pat were standing in the same spot they had been in the day before.
Pat was rigid with tension as she witnessed the Eagle’s growing success. It went through its low-speed tests without a single problem. Thank God they had managed to fix the electrical system in time, she thought with relief, shading her eyes from the bright winter sun. Her spirits began to soar as high as she hoped the plane would go. One after another, the tests were passed satisfactorily as the government official at her elbow checked off a list he held on a clipboard. Thomas Blakely, the man representing the Canadian government, stood next to him, his face just as mesmerized as Pat’s was.
The high-speed tests were gone through in haste, as if the pilot was afraid if they dallied, they would not make it. Suddenly Pat saw smoke coming from the brake area.
“They’re overheating!” she cried to Blaise, pointing. She noted that Blaise looked a little worried himself, and panic gripped her heart. Blaise had never looked worried before.
Oh, please let them hold, she thought. Just let them hold until the test is over. Only one more to go, she prayed, looking at the government official’s list.
On the last test, the high-speed taxi test, one of the brakes almost exploded. Sparks flew, and a tire went up in flames. Then another blew, and another, and another.
Pat stood on the edge of the runway, numb. The plane had no wheels and was engulfed in a cloud of black smoke as several people ran around it with fire extinguishers. As the fire
went out, so did Pat’s spirits.
“It’s over,” she said in a voice that was devoid of emotion. She was so drained, she was surprised that she was standing up at all. “All those hours of work, over, in one cloud of smoke. Gone. Vanished.” She sighed deeply, not even seeing the expression on Blakely’s face.
She was aware of the fact that it was Sam who took her home, not Blaise. Blaise did not come home until several hours after that, and by then Pat had gone to bed, refusing Angelica’s offer of dinner, turning down the invitation she had gotten earlier to attend a New Year’s Eve party. There was nothing to celebrate anymore. It was all over. Done. Tomorrow need not come, she thought as she pulled the covers over her head, trying hard to shut out all thoughts.
A sleepless eternity later, Pat felt a light tug on her blanket.
“Is this a private party, or can anyone join in?” Blaise asked.
Her arm felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds as she went to pull back the blanket. But Blaise beat her to it. The smile on his face was endearing, and for a moment she forgot her depression.
“I thought only little girls pulled the covers over their heads when they try to pretend the world isn’t there.”
“I wish I were a little girl,” Pat said heavily, lying against her sky-blue pillow. “Then I wouldn’t be involved in any of this.”
“Ah, but then I’d be hauled away on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” he said.
He succeeded in making her smile. “Well, that’s the first step,” he said, sitting down next to her and putting his feet up on the bed. “Now that we’ve established the fact that you are back among the living and are smiling—sort of—let’s find out what else you can do. Besides cry,” he said, tracing the path where her tears had dried. His touch was so very gentle, she thought.
But she shook her head. “All those people were depending on me,” she said, her voice echoing hollowly in her head.
“You’re not the one who blew a tire,” he said gently.
“I might as well have been,” she said dejectedly. “All I can keep thinking is—now what?”
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