by Anne Stuart
"You made an arrangement with Clancy—"
"Where's Clancy? I thought he was gone."
"Not yet. I imagine he's trying to get some shut-eye at Tony's. He's been up with your father, working on the Lockheed day and night. I don't think he's slept at all in the last forty-eight hours. He's—Where're you going, Angie?"
"We got enough fuel for the Lockheed?" she called without even looking back.
"The fire didn't touch the tanks, thank heavens. Why?"
"Gas up the Lockheed, Sparks," she said firmly. "I'm going flying."
Chapter Nineteen
Tony's was as still and deserted as any bar at eleven in the morning. In the yard out back, Angela could hear the cheerful voices of Tony's large family, the splash of water as they washed the Hudson. She moved swiftly and silently up the rickety outside stairs. The last thing she wanted was Tony's and Rosa's smothering attention. She had too many things to do in too short a time.
His room was dark and still, only the sound of the ticking alarm clock and the distant sound of laughter marring the quiet. He'd pulled the shades, and she could see his still form smack in the middle of the double bed.
For a moment she panicked. What if he didn't want her? What if she didn't really want him? And then she resolutely shoved those misgivings from her mind. She couldn't afford to waver during the next few days. She had to set her mind on her goals and carry through with them. And Clancy was one of those goals, even though she couldn't even begin to think, to hope, to what extent.
She slipped off the sundress, leaving it in a pool on the living room floor. She took off her tap pants and camisole, her garter belt and stockings, even the ribbon that held her hair back. And she tiptoed over to the bed, lifted the cover and very carefully slid in beside his sleeping form. He was wearing rumpled linen boxer shorts and nothing else, and the silver cross lay across his chest, against the light covering of hair. She moved infinitesimally closer, not wanting to wake him up, only wanting to take some warmth, some comfort from him.
"Did anyone ever tell you," he said in a conversational voice, not moving, not even opening his eyes, "that it's the man who makes the advances?"
"No." Her voice was uncertain.
He turned his head to look at her. "Good. If they do, don't listen." And he pulled her into his arms.
*
By the time she put her sundress on again, it was late afternoon. Clancy lay in bed, the sheet draped haphazardly around him as he smoked a cigarette, and his expression was troubled.
"Give me a drag of that," she said, kneeling over him on the bed and reaching for it.
"That's a pretty dangerous position," he murmured.
"I like danger." She took a deep drag, then scampered off the bed again before he could grab her.
"I know you do." His voice was thoughtful, and she held her breath, waiting for the inevitable.
"You're going, aren't you?" he said in a flat voice.
She sat down on the faded slipper chair and began rolling one stocking up her long leg, checking to make sure the seam was straight. "Tonight. Sparks tells me the Lockheed's in mint condition, thanks to you and...my father."
"Thanks to us," he said morosely.
She hooked the stocking on her garter, then slid the other one on. Standing up, she stepped into her flat shoes, busying herself with the little feminine details she usually ignored. And then she looked across at him. "Don't ask me not to go," she said. "It's something I have to do. For Hal. For AE. And for me. I can't let it beat me as it beat them. I have to end beating it."
"What's 'it?'"
"Come on, Clancy, you're a pilot." Her voice was intense with emotion. "You know as well as I do. 'It' is fear, the elements, fate, life, if you will. All the things we battle just to survive. It's wresting victory out of the jaws of defeat. It's spitting in the eye of disaster. It's not giving in when something seems a little too dangerous, a little too scary, a little too different." She stopped, suddenly self-conscious.
"Well, you sure as hell don't shy away from things that are a little too different," he said finally. "I hear Langston's going to take up on your job offer."
"Someone has to take your place," she said calmly.
"That's right, someone does. All right, Angel. I won't tell you not to go. I won't even ask you. I'll just ask you one thing."
"What's that?"
"Be careful. If you crash in a plane I worked on, trying to break my record, then it'll look pretty bad for me. And you know how important my reputation is to me."
She just grinned at him. "That's all you care about, is it? Not whether I make it or not? Not whether I survive or not?"
"What do you think?"
"You won't be here when I get back, will you?"
"No," he said. "I've never made any secret of how I feel about being tied down. I'll never marry you, Red. You're better off without me."
"Am I?" Her voice was calm and steady.
"Yes." There wasn't the slightest bit of hesitation in his voice. "Good luck, Angel. I'll be seeing you."
She looked at him, sitting in the bed they'd just shared, watching her walk out of his life. She wasn't a woman who gave up on anything she wanted, be it an air-freight business, be it a record-breaking flight. She certainly wasn't going to give up when she'd found the only man she would ever love. "Yes, Clancy," she said, her voice definite. "You will."
Her landing in Newfoundland was perfect, judging the half-frozen turf to perfection. Sometime in the last three days someone had refilled the fuel barrels, and she knew she had one more thing to thank Clancy for. He may have hated like hell to have her make this trip, but he wasn't going to let that stop him from helping her any way he could.
She'd had the sense to bring a bed roll, and she slept surprisingly well in the cabin she'd shared with Clancy a few short days ago. She woke up early, before dawn, and had her tanks refueled and ready to go by sunrise. She took off just as the early-morning fog was lifting, soaring into the sky over the bitter blue North Atlantic, her nerves steady, her heart light.
This was her last great flight, and she knew it. And while that knowledge was bittersweet, it was also liberating. Never again would she face an endless, dangerous flight, trying to break someone else's record. Never again would she put her life on the line for something the world would probably find ultimately pointless. Only she knew how important it was.
Besides, it wasn't a solo flight. Hal was with her part of the way, pointing out dangers, keeping her alert. AE came along for the ride, with her usual no-nonsense good cheer. There were others, far too many others, who'd died over the last few years. She wasn't going to be one of them. And neither was Clancy.
She first heard the noise over Connecticut. She was following the coast, secure that if she did happen to go down, land might be close enough for a rescue, when the insidious little pinging sound invaded her imaginary conversation with the legendary Harriet Quimby, who'd died in the mud flats of Dorchester Bay almost twenty-five years ago. She immediately stopped her daydreaming, concentrating on the sound.
Why hadn't she learned more about the mechanics of a plane? She knew a fair amount, but nothing compared to fellow aviatrices like England's Amy Johnson or America's Jackie Cochrane. The time when she should have been learning how to take a Wasp engine apart and put it back together again had been spent shuffling paperwork, trying to keep her business alive, trying to keep enough money coming in to pay for fuel for her planes.
It sounded innocuous enough, that high-pitched little twang, but she simply couldn't be certain. The only thing she did know was that she wasn't going to stop short of the Teterboro Airport unless she crashed. That was her scheduled refueling stop, and that was where she was going. Her only acceptable alternative was the sea.
She didn't know what kind of mechanics Teterboro had; but she could only hope they'd know their stuff. It was a small New Jersey airport, but a great many people had used it, including AE for her landmark flight to Europe. Sure
ly someone would be on hand who understood Wasp engines.
By now the newspapers would have been alerted to her flight, though whether they cared or not made no difference. She dropped down to ten thousand feet to see whether she could pick up any of the local radio stations, but all she got was static, and she didn't dare go lower. Not if her engine might decide to conk out and she had to glide to a dubious safety.
Teterboro was in sight, a small, well-marked landing strip with far too many towns surrounding it, when the smoke started pouring out of her engine. Angela took one look, used a word Clancy would have deplored and promptly began heading downward, ignoring the streams of smoke obscuring her vision.
She landed safely enough, rolling to a stop as the smoke continued to pour from the engine. By the time she'd unfastened her belt and jumped down from her plane, a white-suited mechanic already had his head stuck inside the engine.
"Do you think it's something major?" she asked the man, a note of desperation in her voice. "I'm already two hours ahead of the old record, and I'm not going to give up now."
"Just a faulty oil ring," the mechanic said, lifting his head and looking at her out of her father's eyes. The beard was gone, the hair was short and the obscuring glasses had vanished. "Go on in and talk to the reporters, use the can and then get back here. She'll be ready for you."
"How'd you know I was here?" she demanded.
"The papers have been full of nothing else."
"Frank..." she said, her voice hoarse with sudden emotion.
"Go on with you, now." He waved her away with a huge wrench. "We've both got work to do if you're going to trounce Clancy." And he stuck his head back in the engine compartment, forestalling further conversation.
The small airport was swarming with the press, from the papers, radio and newsreels. She took long enough to use the bathroom and wipe some of the grime off her face, then gave them five minutes, answering their shouted questions. It seemed the world needed her flight as much as she did. Amelia Earhart's loss was devastating—Angela was giving them new hope.
The engine cover was down. Frank was waiting by the door when she ran back across the tarmac, waving goodbye to the reporters.
"Everything's all set," he said, opening the door for her. "I put some coffee and sandwiches in there. There's talk of a storm around the Carolinas—keep an eye out and fly over it if you have to."
She stopped, looking into the face of the man who'd taught her to fly, who'd taught her to love planes, who'd taught her about duplicity and despair. "Isn't this a little dangerous for you? Aren't the police still on the lookout for you?"
"It's not the police I'm worried about. Capone's men have long memories, and no one gets away with stiffing their boss, even ten years after the fact."
She squashed down the sudden pang of fear. "Too bad you didn't realize that sooner. Maybe Goldie and Mrs. McCarthy would still be alive."
"You think I don't realize that? If I stood here and told you just how sorry I was you wouldn't get to Havana for three days. I can't make up for what I've done. I can't change it. All I can do is pick up the pieces and go on."
"Will I ever see you again?"
"Who knows? I'm going to disappear for a while, but things might cool off eventually. At least I was around long enough to help my daughter wow 'em. Go on and make me proud, Angie."
She nodded, starting into the plane, and then she jumped back out and flung her arms around her father, hugging him fiercely.
He was frailer than she'd realized, older and thinner. "I love you, Pops," she said, her voice raw.
"I love you too, daughter. Now go get 'em."
*
Her takeoff was smooth as silk, considering she was flying blind, her eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away as best she could with the leather sleeve of her flight jacket, not daring to look down at the hordes of reporters waving her goodbye, afraid she'd get one last glimpse of the man in the white coveralls, the man she'd probably never see again.
It wasn't until she reached a cruising altitude that her eyes cleared, her mind cleared and she started to set her mind back on course. And then she saw the cross.
It was hanging from the cabin light, off to one side, in the same position of honor it held when Clancy flew. She reached out for it with trembling hands, knowing even before she touched it that it was Clancy's, not a duplicate. Clancy's luck was with her. Nothing could stop her now.
Not the storms over the Carolinas, with gale-force winds buffeting her around. Not the iced-up wings as she climbed too high to try to avoid the weather. Not the flock of seagulls who committed suicide against her windscreen when she flew too low, obscuring her vision with feathers and blood and bone.
Not exhaustion, second thoughts, worries about her father and sister, who were following their own self-destructive paths. Not even thoughts about Clancy could slow her down.
By the time she set out over the Gulf, the weather was clear and beautiful, matching her mood. She let her heart do the flying, letting her brain rest, and as she flew she started singing. And it was only natural that she sang "I Can't Get Started."
She switched over into "The Man I Love," her voice low and torchy, more Libby Holman than Helen Morgan, and then she switched into "Ain't Misbehaving" for a few bars, ending with a Snow White medley. And then she lapsed into silence, letting the quiet, safe hum of her engine carry her along through the fleecy white clouds into the apricot sunset.
Cuba was sitting in the middle of the Caribbean, a green gem amidst the blue water. She was four and a half hours ahead of Clancy's record, but the knowledge brought her only passing satisfaction. For the last few hundred miles, all she could think of was finishing her flight and what she'd find when she landed.
At the end her plane set down at Havana with the grace and delicacy of a ballerina, rolling to a stop just short of the astonishing crowd that had gathered to cheer her arrival. She was practically pulled from the plane, hoisted on strangers' shoulders as the warm Cuban night settled around her and the cheers rang in her ears. It was all she could do to hold on to Clancy's cross as she was jostled this way and that, and by the time the police calmed the crowd down and extricated Angela from her over-enthusiastic admirers, she was feeling battered and bruised and at the point of tears.
She was bustled into a private waiting room, with the American ambassador and his wife and half the diplomatic staff there to greet her. "You'll be staying with us at the embassy, of course, my dear," the ambassador was saying. "The president has offered to put you up at the palace, but we thought you'd be happier with your own people. There's a small reception set for late tonight, and then a breakfast with some of the local bigwigs, a luncheon—"
"She's staying with me." Clancy's beloved voice broke through the ambassador's high-handed dictates.
Angela turned, the cross still clutched in her hand, relief washing over her. "Clancy," she breathed, as unaccustomed tears filled her eyes. "You're here."
"Where else would I be, Red? I knew you'd make it."
The ambassador's stout wife and three young diplomats were in her way. She plowed through them as if she were the Normandie, flinging herself into Clancy's waiting arms. "You flew without your cross," she said.
"I figured you needed it more than me. Come on, Red. Let's get out of here."
"But Miss Hogan..." the ambassador protested.
"Sorry," Clancy said, wrapping his arms around Angela and herding her out the door. "But my fiancée’s not finished flying for the night."
She didn't know quite how Clancy managed it, but within moments they were outside, alone in the warm night, away from prying eyes and loud voices, the starry Cuban sky hanging over them like a velvet canopy.
"Did you mean what you said?" she asked.
"About what?"
"About me being your fiancée. I thought you said you wouldn't marry. That marriage and white picket fences and children weren't for you?"
"We can live at the hangar, and the k
ids can be pilots," he said easily.
"Who says I'm going to agree? I don't recall a proper proposal."
Clancy raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you're going to seduce me like you did yesterday and then fob off your responsibility? We're getting married, Red, as soon as I can find a preacher. There are churches on just about every corner in Havana—we'll just head for the nearest one."
"The ambassador probably could have arranged it."
"Yeah, but do you want to spend your wedding night surrounded by bureaucrats?"
"I want to spend my wedding night surrounded by you."
He kissed her then, hard, and then continued moving across the tarmac. "I'm going to fly DC-3s out of O'Hare Airport," he said in a conversational tone. "Langston's moving out with his wife and kids next week, and you were right about Sam Watson. He says as long as you fulfill the contract, he doesn't care if a cocker spaniel flies the planes."
She stopped short, her hand on his arm. "I don't trust this, Clancy."
"Don't trust what?"
"I don't trust being this happy. What if a war comes? What if you die?"
He stopped then, pulling her into his arms with surprising gentleness. "Listen, Red, if a war comes, I'll fight in it. Probably fly bombers and risk getting my butt shot off. But I'll come home to you. I know that deep in my heart, just as I knew I'd better be here waiting for you when you landed. Trust me, Angel. We're going to live happily ever after." And leaning down, he kissed her, a deep, passionate kiss that was a promise of a lifetime.
The night was clear and beautiful around them, and tomorrow would be a perfect day for flying. And Angela, twining her arms around his neck, believed that promise, as the warm Cuban night closed down around them, wrapping them in love and warmth and safety. The future was theirs.
About Anne Stuart
Anne Stuart is a grandmaster of the genre, winner of Romance Writers of America's prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, survivor of more than thirty-five years in the romance business, and still just keeps getting better.
