by Carrie Lofty
Bars on either side of the club ran lengthwise from front to back, each fit to busting with eager men in uniform. A massive parquet dance floor covered the center space. Lulu couldn’t see the gleaming wood, but she knew it was there beneath a couple hundred pounding feet.
She wanted to enjoy herself with that much happy abandon, but she was set to resume active flight rotation in the morning. A night of dancing would only lay her up again. Nicky Franklin, her commanding officer, would most certainly take her out of consideration for four-engine airplane training at Marston Moor. He was already sour on the idea of her returning to duty before the Accidents Committee’s ruling.
But he needed pilots.
Something big was on the horizon. Lulu could feel it. More Yanks arrived weekly, with some units withdrawing from the bloody Italian campaign in order to prepare. Lord, they could use a bright neon sign—a whopping victory to pin their hopes on. Bloody initiatives in faraway places such as Tripoli, Tarawa, and Monte Casino weren’t decisive enough to build morale in the middle of Leicestershire, where the leading concern had become where to billet tens of thousands of Americans. And every evening Lulu and the other pilots at Mersley huddled around the wireless and prayed that no Allied territory, no matter how distant, had been newly overrun.
Big plans, whatever those might be, meant the need for planes. Nicky had barely made do without Lulu for those few days as she’d recovered. She couldn’t imagine facing his assessing blue eyes and fatherly expression and admitting she’d set back her recovery on account of a few too many swing tunes.
She looked for Dawson but found no trace of him. The queue for drinks was nearly as long as the room, with bartenders hurrying to keep up with customers—those who were thirsty, those who wanted to get villainously drunk, and those who were eager to woo their sweethearts.
Dawson had been blond, hadn’t he?
Lulu fixed upon a particular man—a private. His jaw tight, drawn into himself, he regarded his beer stein with a peculiar tilt of his head, as if studying the spines of leather-bound classics. While desperate souls moved with the unhealthy vigor of tipsy mental patients, laughing and dancing through another wartime night on the town, he was calm. He was still.
With a blindsiding jolt, Lulu recognized him.
The medic from her crash.
Never had she imagined seeing him again. His face was unforgettable, like the lyrics to a favorite song. He’d been a beckoning pinprick of light when her body had liquefied and her senses turned traitor.
But more than his surprising calm, then and now, he was undeniably handsome. Hard, tall, simple, guileless—how did one describe an American man? Light brown hair cut close to his skull accentuated the cords of muscle along his neck and the blunt squareness of his jaw. He had substance, solid and strong. Lulu imagined digging her fingers into his wide shoulders and thick biceps until he flinched . . . if he even would.
Forget Dawson. She wasn’t thirsty anyway.
She was hungry.
Joe was ready to head back to the barracks. Alone.
This is ridiculous.
Smitty was a private, for God’s sake, and a freckle-faced kid from Philly to boot. Yet he’d ducked out with that pretty Scottish nurse almost an hour ago. What women saw in Pvt. Peter Smithson was impossible to figure. That left Joe to mull over his prospects, working on his second beer. He wished for just a fraction of the kid’s courage when it came to chatting with dames. But three years locked up at Plainfield had stripped much of Joe’s bravado. Surely girls could still catch a whiff of that clinging prison stink.
The club was swamped with officers, most of whom eyed him with barely concealed malice. Unless they wanted trouble, they couldn’t do a thing to kick him out. They were on civilian turf. Still, as the hooch flowed freely, Joe knew he was there on borrowed time. The restless energy in the room was gathering and building. Men turned to brawling when their prospects for getting lucky dried up, which meant a lot of the soldiers in the Henley were spoiling for it. In the three weeks since he’d arrived in England, Joe had yet to make it through an evening out without witnessing—or surviving—a brawl.
He set his beer stein on the bar counter and admitted the truth. Smitty wasn’t coming back. Joe should just head back to Rothley and hit the sack. What a waste.
A gal pushed between him and the man to his right. Without a word or a spare glance, she picked up Joe’s beer and took a long swig. Joe frowned, then his jaw went slack. It was her.
She thumped the empty stein on the counter and daintily wiped the corners of her ruby lips. Smiling when she met his eyes, she said, “I daresay I was thirsty after all.”
“You’re that pilot.”
“And you’re that medic.”
Nearly as dazed as when he’d first seen her in that downed Hurricane, Joe didn’t know what else to say. He needed a drink, but someone had just polished off his beer.
“Jamie,” he said, signaling the thin Limey behind the bar. “Two more, please.”
The woman grinned when the bartender brought the drinks right away. “However did you manage that?”
Joe shrugged, then handed over the unfamiliar money. “Enlisted men tip better than the officers.”
“Knowingly? You just gave him twice as much as you ought.”
“We got our beers, didn’t we?” He lifted his drink. “To second chances.”
“Soldier,” she said, tapping her stein against his, “you’re going to need more than second chances to survive this muddle.”
Joe laughed. “To eighth chances, then?”
“That sounds about right.”
“How’s your knee?”
She glanced down. “Better. I was laid up for a few days, but you were right. All things considered, I was lucky.”
Joe realized she was wearing slacks. The unfamiliar dark blue uniform sat neatly along the curve of her bosom, the inward nip of her waist, and the rounded flare of slender hips and athletic legs. He’d never thought slacks on a woman could be arousing, but they suited her: tidy, slim, conservative but with a heavy undercurrent of daring. Her hair was parted down the center and piled in waves that framed her pale face. Those wide brown eyes, eyes he hadn’t been able to forget, remained unchanged—still a little screwy, but her gaze was keener now.
“Can you dance?” he asked, surprising himself.
“Slow dances, if you don’t mind.” She’d given that blond American a different answer. But this fellow was an exception.
“Not at all.”
She smiled anew. Forgotten parts of Joe perked up and screamed for attention. Female attention. She was beautiful and completely unexpected. He wanted to touch her, kiss her, lay her across the bar . . . Jesus, his imagination had no manners.
He hurtled back to himself and wrapped both hands around his stein. Damp pewter would have to do when he really craved warm, womanly skin. Smoke clogged his nostrils and music pounded in his head. “What’s your name?” he asked, staring at the froth of her beer.
“Second Officer Lulu Davies, Air Transport Auxiliary.”
“Lulu.”
“Short for Louise.”
“I like that,” he said.
“Me, too. Now it’s my turn to guess.” She took hold of his shoulders and turned his upper body to face her squarely. Joe shivered when she gave his biceps a quick squeeze. A secret smile tilted the corners of her perfectly painted lips. “Only one chevron,” she said, glancing at his tunic sleeve. “Poor private.”
“First class, at least.”
“You don’t think I’d be seen with any less, do you?”
“I wouldn’t presume.”
She touched the insignia of wide eagles’ wings affixed above his right breast pocket. “No stars above your jump wings, which means despite being with the 82nd Airborne, you haven’t yet seen combat.”
“I’m impressed.”
“You shouldn’t be,” she said with a dismissive wave. “Simply means I’ve idled with too many soldiers.
Now all I need is your name.”
“Joe Weber.”
Lulu finished her drink and nodded for Joe to do the same. He complied. The beer wasn’t strong enough to cool how hot his blood was running. Not by half.
She took his hand. “Well, Pfc. Joe Weber, I’ll have that dance now.”
chapter three
Joe held a pilot named Lulu Davies. He held her and he danced with her.
Their bodies moved in time to the orchestra’s fair version of “As Time Goes By.” Her easy, graceful rhythm offset her crisp posture. Everything about her was ladylike and proper—everything except her slacks and that wild glint in her eye. But she wore even the slacks with feminine bravado, never letting him forget that, uniform be damned, she was all woman.
He wanted to dance for a year. Dance . . . and take her to bed.
She was going to his head like 180-proof alcohol, those savage spirits his uncle had brewed during the worst years of the Depression. Joe had been thirteen when he and his older sister discovered the still, then staggered home as drunk as lords. He’d sworn he would never forgive his old man for the humiliating beating and righteous lecture that followed—and he hadn’t. His father had died in a car crash three days later.
“Private?”
Joe inhaled and opened his eyes, wondering when he’d closed them. Lulu was looking up at him. A little frown pulled at the skin between her dark brows.
“Call me Joe,” he said. “‘Private’ makes me think I’ve done something wrong.”
“Well, that won’t suit. Joe it is, then.”
They only touched with arms and hands—their bodies still a frustrating, respectful distance apart—but Joe absorbed the contact like sunshine on a lazy summer afternoon. With his nose a mere inch from her hair, he inhaled the sweet lavender scent of her, grabbing at the smell as an antidote to Henley’s smoky, sweaty, beer-drenched stink.
Would she recoil if he kissed her on the temple? Maybe. Would he forgive himself if, by doing so, he lost the right to keep dancing with her? Not a chance. But the temptation remained, all soft and pearly skin.
“I never would’ve taken you for a pilot,” he heard himself saying. It was the truth, but he hadn’t meant to speak so bluntly.
She stiffened slightly, but then she smiled so deeply that a dimple appeared on her left cheek. “And I never would’ve taken you for a medic.”
A couple bumped Joe from behind. He tightened a protective hand along Lulu’s upper back. Her breasts brushed his chest. Joe’s muscles snapped to attention. Their eyes caught and held as an electrical current did the jitterbug up his spine.
Lulu giggled. “Crowded in here.”
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Not your fault. And I wouldn’t be dancing with you if I didn’t want to be close.”
Her smile, her body, her bold demeanor . . . she wanted to be with him. A sudden surge of confidence walled his doubts behind a brick wall.
Slow it down, Web. Pull it together.
“So why don’t I seem like a medic?”
Lulu blushed and lowered her eyes. This wild woman was capable of something as girlish as blushing? “Forget I mentioned it,” she said.
“I insist.” Not that Joe thought the red cross belonged on his arm, but he wondered if others could sense his misgivings.
“I’ll only embarrass myself.”
“I have embarrassment cornered, I think. I’m not much of a dancer.”
Lulu slid her hands up his arms. “You’re doing just fine.”
Joe couldn’t help his grin. The orchestra wound down and he prayed for another slow song. C’mon, boys. One more. They were under some sort of spell, which might be broken if they left the dance floor. Lulu seemed to hold her breath as well. Her hands still gripped his upper arms. When the slow, clean clarinet and swaying rhythm of “Moonlight Serenade” started, they both exhaled.
Lulu threw back her head, laughing. “It won’t end unless we want it to, Joe.”
“I like the sound of that.” He touched her chin. “Now . . . spill it.”
“Why?”
“Because I sure as hell don’t feel like a medic. I wonder if it shows.”
Shrugging, she rested her gaze on the hollow at the base of his throat. He fought the urge to swallow. “It’s not that,” she said. “It’s just that when I think medic, I think doctor. And when I think doctor, I think spectacles and books and studying—not, well, not . . . muscles.”
Joe lost the song’s rhythm and chugged to a graceless stop. She stole his breath with another impetuous squeeze of his biceps, as if testing his resilience, while delicate pink shaded the tip of her nose and the apples of her cheeks.
“I told you it was embarrassing,” she said, her voice husky.
“What’s embarrassing is how disarming you are.”
“That won’t do in the least! Not around Allied troops, at any rate. Perhaps I should jump with you into Berlin, help disarm the Germans?”
The idea of Lulu Davies or any woman making a combat jump pushed ice chips through his veins. Bad enough she was a civilian pilot, ferrying planes all over Britain—dangerous work that women shouldn’t need to do. Her crack wasn’t funny because it hit too close to home.
“No,” he said quietly. “I think you’re doing enough.”
For the first time since they’d started dancing, Lulu’s expression curdled. A hard gleam invaded her brown eyes. She ended their embrace. “I see. Is that the lay of it, Private?”
“Afraid so.”
Needing something to do with his prematurely empty hands, Joe crossed his arms over his chest. The two of them squared off in the midst of those swaying couples. Rarely had he been so frank with a woman. Now he was going to suffer.
But good Lord, he didn’t regret it. He was there to claw his way onto the Continent and wrest each inch of territory back from Hitler. The job of every last GI was to protect those weaker than himself, not to laugh at a joke that any civilized man should’ve found insulting.
Women near the front lines? His stomach twisted.
Lulu sighed. Her shoulders dipped slightly, the first time he’d seen her posture turn lax. She scrubbed a hand along the back of her neck, then offered a smile tinged with a sort of resignation. Joe wanted her dimple back, but that didn’t look likely.
“At least you didn’t backhand me some warmed-over insult,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Well, you haven’t asked if I’m hiding male anatomy inside my trousers, nor have you wondered if I enjoy the feel of the throttle stick in my hands.”
Suddenly Joe felt ashamed for his sex. He didn’t want dames to fly planes—only wartime created a climate for such desperate measures—but he wasn’t an ape, either. Defending women and children didn’t have to come at the cost of insulting them.
“Does that mean we can finish our dance?”
Lulu Davies licked her lower lip and stepped back into his arms. Relief surged over him. And this time Joe didn’t hesitate when he thought to kiss her temple.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
But Lulu wasn’t listening to her brain. She was enjoying Joe Weber too much.
She liked his square jaw and precise nose, his funny candor, and his voice as sweet and rich as sticky caramels. She liked the contrast between his blunt language and his lazy way of speaking. She liked that he hadn’t eyed another girl all night. And the urge to dig deep into his tall, well-knit body hadn’t eased in the least.
All that kept her sane and calm was the knowledge she’d never see him again. That made her sudden infatuation bearable. Anything more would be like propeller blades mincing her heart into a thousand pieces. She wouldn’t break her rule for any man, not even for a Yank who looked at her as if she’d been made of pure gold, something precious to be guarded and cherished.
But the heat in his gaze was unmistakable. Hot chills slowly twisted up her spine. No man looked at gold with that much pure, sparkling lust.
He d
idn’t approve of her piloting. That much was obvious. Few men did without reservation. But what did it matter for another few hours? At least he was respectful and curious, regarding her as a puzzle rather than an abomination. She didn’t suffer the same defensive reaction she’d experienced around some other Americans. Their entrenched skepticism and snide comments were commonplace. With Joe she could breathe and smile and flirt.
Having retreated from the dance floor, finding a place along the wall, she watched as he bought another round of drinks. He leaned against the bar, his shoulders cocked at a casual angle, all demure power. He seemed so modest—easy in his own skin, easy with those around him. The bartenders didn’t ignore him like they did so many other soldiers. Men made way for him as he pushed through the crowd, another pair of drinks in his big, square hands. Even two sergeants from the Women’s Royal Army Corps, looking sharp in their freshly pressed dark green uniforms, were reduced to giggling schoolgirls as he passed. But he paid no notice.
Could he really be so unaware of his effect on people?
Blimey, Lulu would be lost if he knew his effect on her. It was bad enough making such a frank admission about his body, as if his muscles had addled her brain. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d reacted this way to a man.
No, that’s not true.
She simply didn’t want to remember. Not Robbie. Not right then.
“Hey, you all right?”
Lulu looked up and made room enough for Joe to slide down and sit beside her. There were no empty tables to be had, so she’d secured a few square feet of throbbing brick to lean against. Now she could lean against him, too.
“I’m just fine.” She accepted a glass of gin and took a hefty swallow. The sudden warmth helped dull her throbbing knee. “I want to thank you, Joe, for being there after I crashed.”
“Just doing my job.”
“Don’t be modest. Yours was the first face I saw, and I needed that—something to bear me up.” She released a shaky breath and confronted those moments after the plane crash with more honesty than she’d previously had courage for. “I can’t explain how I did what I did. It’s as if . . . well, as if I simply switched off. I just . . . flew. And you were the first person I saw when I came out of that trance.” After another gulp of gin she closed her eyes. Dizziness waited there, so she focused once again on his open, patient face, with its squared edges and furrowed brow. “There you were. You made it real for me, that I’d survived.”
