* * *
Forrest climbed behind the wheel, amused at the way Twyla was using the windshield frame as a mirror. When she’d finished and sat back, he asked, “Are you ready?”
“Indeed I am,” she answered with a full smile. “Indeed I am.”
He started the engine and drove slowly across the parking lot, not wanting to stir up dust. Her yellow-and-white dress looked brand-new and he wondered if he should have told her to go and change. Once the thought of taking her flying had formed, excitement had filled his blood. He hadn’t been up in his airplane for weeks and missed it. There’d been a time when he’d flown every day, and even then, he couldn’t wait to get back in the cockpit.
Currently his money was so limited he couldn’t squander it on fuel just for fun. This might be his only chance to take Twyla on a short flight. Practically every time he got in the cockpit, he’d found himself thinking about her, and how much she’d enjoy flying.
Forrest kept his speed low while driving along the curvy road that went from the resort to the main highway, and they had to stop to wait for the morning train at the tracks near the Bald Eagle depot. It was an oddity for a township to have its own depot when it didn’t have a town, but Bald Eagle was the exception. Jacob claimed Roger had a lot to do with that, and Forrest didn’t doubt it. Trains hauled as much moonshine as runners.
Once on the highway, Forrest increased the speed of the roadster. Even though the road was dirt, it was firmly packed and didn’t stir up dust like some of the side roads. Laughter had him glancing over to the passenger seat. Twyla had her head back and her arms in the air. Her yellow scarf flayed behind her in the wind.
“Haven’t you ever ridden in a convertible?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Father claims breezers are dangerous. He only buys cars with tops. This is wonderful.”
He laughed. “If you think this is wonderful, you’re going to love flying.”
“I know,” she said.
Forrest had to drag his eyes back to the road. She was a looker, with her yellow scarf flapping behind her. All the Nightingale girls had been cute, but the years had turned Twyla into a more-than-beautiful woman. Her tease-me attitude took her one notch above her sisters. She’d always had that quality, but now she knew how to use it.
A few miles later, Forrest turned off the highway and once again slowed his speed to accommodate the gravel road. He was still pondering Twyla’s attitude and beauty. Two things he’d never overlooked in the past—and two things he couldn’t get beyond right now.
“Isn’t this Dac Lester’s dad’s farm?” she asked.
Lester had a large dairy operation that kept the area, as well as most of St. Paul, supplied with milk. “No,” Forrest answered, “it runs alongside Lester’s land and he runs his cattle on it, but my grandfather owned it. It was part of my inheritance. I had a hangar and runway built on it a while back.”
“When? I never heard about it.”
“Not too many people know,” he said. “That’s how I wanted it.”
“Why?”
This was Twyla, the most inquisitive of the sisters. Forrest shrugged, hoping she’d stop probing if he didn’t make much of it. “I was just out of flight school and was considering coming home to stay.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He should have known she wouldn’t stop. He certainly couldn’t tell her it was because after he’d had the building built, Galen had informed him how his flying could assist the family business. Becoming a drug smuggler had never been on his to-do list. “I joined the air service reserve corps instead,” Forrest told her. Knowing she’d come up with more questions, he continued, “Within a few years I was flying regular airmail routes and didn’t have time to come back home until last fall.”
“When your father went to jail and you had to come home to run the family business,” she offered.
There was compassion in her tone, and Forrest wasn’t sure he liked it. “Something like that,” he said, while turning off the gravel and onto a field road that wasn’t used enough to wear out the grass. It was mostly weeds, and short enough he didn’t need to worry about it catching fire from the engine, here or on the runway.
“There you go again,” Twyla said. “Saying something I know has double meanings, but I can’t fathom what they are. You did it last night, too, when you kept calling your father ‘Galen.’”
Forrest held the wheel tight, for the road was more rutted than he liked, but also because he’d come to hate people thinking Galen was his father. “Because he’s not my father.”
Twyla’s gasp confirmed he’d said it aloud, when he truly hadn’t meant to. Forrest bit his lip, cursing himself and wishing he could retract his words.
“He’s not?” Twyla asked, looking more than slightly flabbergasted.
Forrest wanted to grin at her animated expression, but sighed instead. Then he recalled their wine-sampling incident and how she’d never told. If she had, her father wouldn’t have thought twice about punishing him. Roger had been like that; he’d been welcoming in having Forrest around but had laid down the law with him as readily and sternly as he had with his daughters. “Only a few people know,” Forrest said. “Mainly my mother, Galen and me.”
“Mum’s the word,” she whispered. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”
That would be impossible. Her keeping a secret like that. Yet he was tickled by the heartfelt smile on her face. Actually, he wouldn’t mind if she spread the word. It might help his reputation.
“How can that be?” she asked, now frowning. “I’ve never heard so much as a whisper on that subject.”
“Oh?” he asked. “Do you know everyone’s secrets?”
“I make it a point to,” she said smugly. “I know things about people they don’t even know themselves.”
One little grin from those lips was enough to turn the sky from dark to light. He shook his head at an internal reaction that kick-started his heart into a faster beat.
“And what do you do with all those secrets?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “I won’t tell anyone, Forrest. I promise.”
Maneuvering the car around an old fence line, he concluded that Twyla learning his true parentage was the least of his worries. “My mother was pregnant when she and Galen got married. My real father had died in New York, unfortunately for my mother, before they were able to get married.” That was his mother’s story, and the only one he had.
Twyla had been quiet for less than a second before she said, “Well, that certainly explains a lot.”
“It does?”
“Yes, your—Galen Reynolds, I mean, is not a very handsome man and is as ornery as the devil.”
Forrest laughed, but then asked, “Are you saying I’m handsome and not as ornery as the devil?”
“Yes,” she said, with a pink hue on her cheeks. “You are a rather handsome man and can be very nice, when you want to be.”
Due to the fact her cheeks were now bright red, Forrest chose to not comment. She was making him feel things he hadn’t felt in some time. Bringing the car to a stop, he pointed at the squat shed built against a backdrop of pine trees. “We’re here.”
She glanced around and frowned. “Where’s your airplane?”
“Inside there.”
“There? That building doesn’t look very big.”
“It’s called a hangar, and it’s big enough,” he said.
She turned to look at him with those questioning blue eyes, which were still shimmering with the delight that had sprung out of them back at the resort when he’d asked her to go flying with him. Laughing, he lightly chucked her beneath the chin. “Trust me.”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked.
That was Twyla, and he’d missed her. Missed the adventures they u
sed to have. The fun and excitement and the companionship. Though Josie had been the tomboy, interested in frogs, worms, bugs and animals, Twyla had been the most adventurous. There’d been little she wouldn’t do for a dare, and even less if there was a reward included. She’d fight tooth and nail for a promised dime out of his pocket, or the last cookie out of one of the tins his mother always sent with him when he went to visit the Nightingales.
Forrest climbed out of the driver’s door and walked around to open her door before going to the back of the car. There he opened the trunk and pulled out his flight jacket and goggles. He always kept them in the roadster, just in case. He also had his boots and heavy canvas pants. Pulling those out, he glanced at Twyla’s legs.
With her sheer stockings glistening in the sun, her long legs were a feast for any man’s eyes. His mouth almost went dry. “I should have had you change,” he said. “It’s cold up there.”
She pointed to the sky. “Up there? How can that be? It’s closer to the sun.”
He shook his head at her logic. “It’s cold, trust me, and windy. I have an extra flight jacket in the hangar, and goggles and a hat. I’m sure they’ll fit you, but these are the only extra pants. They’ll be big, but it’ll be better than getting cold.”
She took the pants. “They’ll be fine.”
Stepping out of her shoes, she stuck one leg in the pants and then the other. When she started to pull them up, Forrest forced his gaze to turn back to the trunk. He gathered up his boots and switched his shoes for them, tucking his pant legs into the boots to keep them out of the way. After gathering his jacket, hat and goggles, he closed the trunk lid.
By then, Twyla had pulled the canvas pants up and the lower half of her polka-dot dress was tucked into the waistband. She looked as fetching as she had before, perhaps even more so.
“I look like I’m pregnant,” she said, tucking her dress in deeper to flatten the area surrounding her stomach.
“No, you don’t,” he said. “You look good. I never looked that good in those pants, I’ll tell you that.”
She laughed. “Don’t bet on it.”
The undercurrent running between them was heating up his bloodstream. Although he was enjoying the sensation and wouldn’t mind exploring it a bit deeper, he understood that he couldn’t. That had been something he’d never been able to do. Forrest gestured toward the building. “Come on. I’ll find you a piece of rope to hold those pants up.”
“That’s all right,” she said, hooking the suspenders over her shoulders. “The suspenders will hold them up. It’s not like I’ll be walking around.”
She was right, and once again he was glad he’d asked her to go flying. Spending the number of hours he had in the cockpit, his mind had often wandered. He’d imagined this very moment more than once. She was going to love flying, and he was going to love watching her experience it. At the hangar, he handed her his jacket, hat and goggles, so he could pull open the two large doors.
“It’s huge!” she said as his plane came into view. “I’d never have imagined an entire plane could fit in this little shed.”
“It takes up every inch,” he said, a bit in awe himself. His plane never failed to do that to him. It always filled him with pride, too.
Twyla had already walked inside and was running a hand over the shiny yellow frame. “It’s the color of a goldfinch.”
“Yes, it is,” he answered, chuckling at how she’d chosen the bird he’d named the plane after. “That’s what I call her,” he said. “The Goldfinch.”
“That’s fitting.”
Her gaze was still on the plane, and she appeared completely mesmerized. “Haven’t you ever seen a plane before?”
“Not up close,” she said quietly.
“Not even at a fair?”
The blue eyes she turned at him had grown dim. “Father doesn’t allow us to go to fairs anymore.” Sighing heavily, she added, “A lot of things changed after you left.”
He knew that very well, yet for Twyla’s sake he chose to see the positive side. “Well, it’s time for another change, then, isn’t it?”
Her grin returned like a golden sunrise. “Yes, it is. How do I climb in?”
“Hold on,” he said. “I have to get the rest of your gear, and do an inspection, and remove the wheel blocks, and—”
Her laugher interrupted him. “Okay already, tell me what I can do to help.”
She made herself useful, following each of his instructions to the T. When they had little more to do except put on their gear and climb in, he held up the extra jacket he’d retrieved. She shrugged it on and he zipped it up. Then he covered her golden-red hair with the leather hat while she arranged the scarf still tied around her neck above the coat’s collar.
“It’s going to be loud,” he said, pushing up her chin to fasten the hat’s strap. “When I first start the plane inside the building, and the entire time we’re flying, so keep the flaps over your ears at all times. Don’t unhook the chin strap or you may lose the hat completely.”
“Roger wilco,” she said saucily.
He shook his head, but smiled, all the while captivated by her gaze. He hadn’t forgotten her beauty, but was amazed by how intense it truly was. She was even more beautiful than he remembered, and seeing her up close was like examining the petals of a flower and the spectacular perfection that put it all together. His lips quivered slightly. He’d never kissed Twyla, except for last night, but he wanted to, and not in a brotherly way.
“Don’t take these off, either,” he said, grabbing the goggles and sliding them over her head. After adjusting the strap and making sure they were snug, he made her turn around, inspecting her from top to bottom. “I wish I had a different pair of shoes for you to wear.”
“These will be fine,” she assured him.
“At least pull the backs up so they won’t fall off,” he said.
“That’s all right,” she answered, spinning to the plane. “They won’t fall off. Now, how do I get up there?”
After he put on his own gear, he grasped her waist. “You climb.” Hoisting her upward, he instructed, “Grab that bar, now put this foot here...” He guided her the entire way into the front hollowed-out area that contained little more than a seat. Forrest climbed up and then strapped her in firmly before he climbed into the area behind her.
“Shouldn’t I be in the backseat?” she asked over one shoulder.
“No,” he said. “This is the cockpit, and it’s for the pilot.”
“But how will you see around me?”
“I’ll see around you just fine,” he assured her. “Normally, bags of mail are piled in that area.”
Twisting about as much as the straps allowed, she frowned. “Mail?”
“Yep, up to five hundred pounds,” he said, settling into his seat and strapping himself in. Taking the opportunity to tease her, he said, “You don’t weigh more than five hundred pounds, do you?”
“Very funny,” she replied sarcastically, turning forward. A moment later, she spun back around. “Wait. Shouldn’t we have pulled it out of the garage first or something?”
“Nope, we’ll drive out and head straight down the runway,” he said, checking his instrument panel, which was little more than a horizon indicator and oil pressure gauge. If he were to fly a regular mail route, he’d need an updated plane, especially for night flying. Ignoring that thought, he asked, “Ready?”
She nodded, but before turning around, asked, “Don’t we need parachutes, in case we go down?”
“We aren’t going to go down,” he said. “I’ve never crashed yet.”
“Well, just in case...” Her voice faded as she cringed slightly.
He shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t have an extra parachute.”
“Oh.” Her frown increased. “But you do have one
?”
“I do have one.” Taking account of her nervousness, he said, “And I’ll share it with you if needed.”
“But I won’t know—”
“Twyla,” he interrupted.
The blue of her eyes shimmered even through the thick goggles. “What?”
“Shut up.”
She stuck her tongue out at him.
He laughed and hit the ignition switch.
* * *
Twyla grabbed the edges of the curved wood around her. The rumble of the plane reverberated through her, making her shake, and the noise made her ears ring. The wooden propeller in front of her started turning slowly, then faster and faster. So did her excitement. Twisting, she glanced back at Forrest. Son of a gun, but he was handsome in his flyboy getup. Especially up close. His lips moved, and she assumed he was asking if she was ready. She knew for sure when he held up a thumb.
She copied the action, but quickly grabbed the side of the plane again and turned forward.
The wheels started rolling, and slowly they eased out of the building into the bright sunshine. A hint of fear tickled her spine, but anticipation overrode it. She’d always felt safe with Forrest years ago, and now wasn’t any different. He’d never let her get hurt back then, and she trusted him as much as ever.
The speed of the plane increased. Soon the field zipped past faster than she’d ever seen, and with a bump that made her stomach drop, they started skyward.
Even though her teeth were clenched, she emitted a squeal that kept slipping out the entire time the plane flew upward. The pitch of her squeal went higher, too, stealing her breath until all she could do was let it all out. She could feel her scream, but couldn’t hear it over the roar of the engine.
The thrill of it all made her laugh. She eased her tight grip on the side, gave Forrest another thumbs-up and then let go with the other hand to stick both arms high over her head. The air wanted to push her arms back, but she held them straight up and let out another full-blown bout of laughter. The wind was a force like she’d never felt against her face; it tugged at her hat and her yellow scarf pressed firmly against her neck as the ends flapped behind her. All in all, it felt marvelous.
The Rebel Daughter (Daughters Of The Roaring Twenties Book 2) Page 9
