Danielle Steel: Wings

“I saw you at an air show once. You cleaned up everything. I think three firsts and a second.” It had been her last one. And he remembered correctly.

“I haven't done those in a while.”

‘they get old.”

“I lost my brother at the one the following year, it kind of took the fun out of them for me after that.”

“I'll bet.” And then he remembered the trick she had pulled, with admiration. “You almost ate it the time I saw you.”

“Nah, just looked like it,” she said modestly, and he laughed.

“Nervy broads. You guys are all the same. All guts and no brains.” He laughed and she grinned at him. To her, it was almost a compliment. She liked the guts part.

“Gee, thanks.” She smiled at him, and for an instant he reminded her of Billy.

“No problem.”

By the time they arrived over England, they had become friends, and she hoped to fly with him again. He was from Texas, and like all of them, had been flying since he was old enough to climb into the cockpit. He promised to look her up the next time he was in New Jersey.

They'd been lucky that night, there were no German pilots scouting for them. He'd gotten in a couple of dogfights before, and he was happy they hadn't for her first trip. “No big deal though,” he reassured her. And much to her delight, he let her land the plane, and she had no problem, despite her father's dire warnings. It was wonderful being treated as an equal.

She took the paperwork to the office they had told her to report to.

They thanked her politely for the paperwork, and handed her a slip of paper with her billeting. And as she walked back outside again, the pilot she'd flown over with invited her for breakfast. But she told him she had other plans. She did, but she wasn't sure where to start looking. She had his address but it meant nothing to her. Not yet, at least. She pulled the piece of paper she'd written it on out of her pocket, and was staring at it, fighting the exhaustion of the flight, when someone jostled her, and she looked up first in irritation, then in amazement.

It was ridiculous. Things didn't happen that way. It was too easy. He was standing there, staring down at her, looking as though he'd seen a ghost. No one had warned him she was coming. And there Cassie stood, in uniform, looking into the startled eyes of Major Nick Galvin.

“What are you doing here?” He said it as though he owned the place, and she laughed at him, her red hair framing her face as the autumn wind blew through it.

“Same thing you are.” More or less, except that his job was a lot more dangerous than hers. But they both had their jobs and their missions. And several ferry pilots had already been killed by Germans. ‘thanks for all the great letters, by the way. I really enjoyed them.” She tried to make light of the pain he had caused her by his silence.

He grinned boyishly at the comment. He could barely make himself listen to her, he was so overwhelmed with just seeing her again. The last time he had seen her was the morning after they had spent the night at their secret airstrip.

“I really enjoyed writing them to you.” He quipped back, but all he wanted to do now was reach out and touch her. He couldn't keep his eyes from her, his hands, his arms, his heart, his fingers. Instinctively, he reached out and touched her hair. It still felt like silk and looked like fire. “How are you, Cass?” he said softly, as people in uniform milled around them. Hornchurch was a busy place, but neither of them seemed to notice. They couldn't keep their eyes off each other. Despite the hardships they both had been through, nothing seemed to have changed between them.

“I'm okay,” she answered him, as he led her to a quiet spot, where they could sit down on a rock wall for a few minutes, and talk. There was so much to say, so much to catch up on. And he felt guilty suddenly for his silence.

“I was worried sick about you when you went down,” he said, and she looked away, thinking of Billy.

“It wasn't much fun,” she was honest with him. “It was pretty rough, and…” She had trouble saying it, and without thinking, he took her hand and held it in his own.“… it was awful when Billy…”

“I know.” She didn't have to say the words. He understood perfectly. “You can't blame yourself, Cass. I told you that a long time ago. We all do what we have to. We take our chances. Billy knew what he was doing. He wanted to fly the tour with you, for himself, not just for you.” She nodded, knowing the wisdom of his words, but it was small comfort.

“I never felt right that I made it back and he didn't.” It was the first time she'd said that to anyone, and she couldn't have said it to anyone but Nick. She always told him all her feelings.

‘That's life. That's not your decision. It's His.” He pointed toward the heavens, and she nodded.

“Why didn't you call when I got hack?” she asked sadly. They had gone right to the important things. They always did. He was like that.

“I thought about it a lot… I almost did call a couple of times,” he smiled, “when I had a pint or two under my belt, as they say here, but I figured your husband wouldn't like it much. Where is he now, by the way?” His question confirmed her suspicion and she smiled at him. It was funny sitting here, talking to Nick, as though he'd been waiting for her to arrive. It was all so simple suddenly. There they were, four thousand miles from home, and chatting on a rock wall in the autumn sunshine.

“He's in Los Angeles.” With Nancy Firestone. Or someone like her.

“I'm surprised he let you do this… or actually, I'm not,” Nick said, looking somewhat bitter. It had torn his heart out when he thought she was lost, and that bastard had risked her life to sell his airplanes. Desmond was the one he'd wanted to call, to tell him what a rotten sonofabitch he was. But he never did it. “I guess he figured this stuff would look good in the newsreels. Patriotic. One of the boys. Was it his idea or yours?” He wanted it to be hers, because he wanted to respect her for it.

“It was mine, Nick. I've wanted to do this for a long time, since the tour. But when I got back, I didn't feel right leaving Dad. It was hard on him even now. There's no one left to help him. He might even have to hire a few women finally, except that most of them are joining the WAFS, the FTC, or the Flying Training Command, like I did.”

“What do you mean you didn't feel right leaving him? Did you stay with them when you got back?” The bastard hadn't even had the decency to take care of her, and she must have been pretty sick after seven weeks starving on an atoll.

“Yes, I went back to them,” she said quietly, looking at him, remembering their one night of happiness in the moonlight. “I left Desmond, Nick. I left him when Dad had his heart attack,” It was over a year before, and Nick was stunned to realize he'd never heard it.

“When I went back to LA after the last time I saw you, things were just the way you said they were. He kept pushing me, press conferences, test flights, interviews, newsreels. It was everything you said it would be, but he didn't show his true colors until Dad got sick. He ‘ordered’ me to do the tour on schedule, and ‘forbade’ me to go back and see my father.”

“But you went anyway, didn't you?” He knew the trip had been postponed, and had seen a newsreel of her at the hospital, so he knew that much.

“Yeah, I went anyway, and Billy came with me. Desmond said he'd sue us if we didn't do the tour, and he made us sign contracts promising that we'd go in October no matter what.”

“Nice guy.”

“I know. I never went back to him. He never even called me. All he wanted was for me to keep it from the press till I got back. And you were right about the women too. Nancy Firestone was his mistress. Apparently, the only reason he married me was to publicize the tour, just as you said. He said it wouldn't have had ‘the same impact on the public’ without it. The marriage was a complete sham. And afterward, when they brought me back, he told me in Hawaii that I still worked for him, and he was going to sue me for not completing my contract. I'd promised him fifteen thousand miles in the North Star , and only made eleven before we went down. He figured he'd get some publicity out of me even then, but it was all over. Dad took me to a lawyer in Chicago, and I divorced him.”