Ruth stepped out of the bathroom at Meeks Field. She’d have to avoid fluids to make it to Newfoundland. She crossed the airfield with its fine layer of snow. Never had she dreamed of being in Iceland.
May jogged to catch up. “How was the first leg?”
Ruth smiled at the glow that hadn’t left May’s face since Charlie’s return. “It would have been better if we had bedpans.”
“I know. Can you believe it?”
“No, and did your Thermoses leak?”
“Leak?”
“You’d better check. One of my patients complained about a funny taste, and sure enough, the lining was cracked.”
May’s pale eyebrows bunched up. “The men griped, but I attributed it to Army food. I’ll check.”
“At least it solved the bedpan problem.”
May looked puzzled. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth and laughed.
Ruth hooked her arm through May’s. “Any problems on your flight?”
“None. And Lieutenant Shepard is rounding up bedpans. I’m glad she came along.”
“Me too. I need to talk to her.”
“What about?” May’s voice sounded strained.
Ruth paused. After all May’s hardships, she deserved to enjoy this idyllic time unblemished by worry for Ruth. May couldn’t help but hear the nurses side with Burnsey and snipe about Ruth, but must she hear Ruth’s complaints as well?
“I—I want to tell her about the Thermoses.” With that lie, a wall slammed between them. Ruth almost gasped from the pain, but it was a selfish pain. May needed peace and protection more than Ruth needed a confidante.
“Are you okay, Ruthie?”
She turned away and scanned the airfield. By a tanker truck refueling a C-54, Lieutenant Shepard stood with Sergeant Burns. “I need to—I’ll see you later.” She headed across the tarmac, and with each step separation ripped at her.
The chief and the tech had their backs to Ruth. Burnsey held up a Thermos for inspection. “See? After I discovered they were cracked, I realized they were good for nothing—except as urinals.”
Lieutenant Shepard laughed and patted his arm. “How resourceful of you. That’s the kind of independent thinking we want on our evac teams.”
Ruth stopped. Her jaw flopped open. Never had she expected accolades, but how despicable of Burnsey to steal credit. Of course, if Lieutenant Shepard knew it was Ruth’s idea, she’d proclaim it unhygienic and a misuse of government resources.
The chief leaned closer. “Any problems with Lieutenant Doherty?”
Ruth stood stock still.
Burnsey shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I hate to get her in trouble. She really is a good nurse. You should see her—”
“Sergeant, you know I rely on your assessment of her.”
“Well, it’s nothing much. She just dropped a syringe. I cleaned—”
“That’s a lie,” Ruth cried.
They spun to face her.
Ruth strode forward. “He’s lying. He dropped that syringe and on purpose, because I refused to go out to dinner with him.”
The chief raised her eyebrows and turned to Burnsey.
He spread his hands wide and shrugged. “I know better. I know the rules.”
Ruth stamped her foot. “You know them but you flaunt—I mean, flout them.”
“Lieutenant Doherty, come with me.” The chief grabbed her arm and pulled her down to the nose of the plane. “I have had enough of these—these ridiculous accusations.”
“They’re not ridi—”
“Enough. Now you’ve called him a liar. That’s slander.”
Ruth sucked her lips between her teeth. Temper would not help her case. “You will remember,” she said carefully, “I requested not to work with Sergeant Burns. Once again, I’d like to request to work with a different technician.”
“I fail to see how you could work with any man. You can’t work with the most amiable, the most competent, the most resourceful technician in the squadron.”
Ruth reminded herself to breathe evenly. In the distance, May stood across a snowy gulf. May had followed her to Bowman because they needed each other, but now that Charlie was back, May didn’t need her. And Ruth needed—Burnsey gave her a smile so smug it brought pains to her stomach—Ruth needed to get away from him no matter what.
Heaviness settled in her chest. “When we return to Prestwick, I’ll request a transfer to another squadron.”
The chief’s thin nostrils closed. “They’ll never approve it, not with the evaluations I’ve given you. Lieutenant Doherty, I’m afraid you’re not suited for flight nursing. Perhaps a return to the wards would be best for you—and for us.”
White flakes flurried about her. Back to the wards? She’d lose her flight pay and everything she’d worked for. She’d promised Ma she’d take care of the children. If Ruth failed, their futures would become as dark as the nose of the C-54, as Lieutenant Shepard’s face.
“I’ll—I’ll make it work here.” Her lips tingled. Her head whirled.
“See to it that you do.” Lieutenant Shepard walked away. “No more complaints. Not one.”
Ruth braced her hands on her knees and sucked in drafts of air as icy as the knowledge that she couldn’t get away.
Bury St. Edmunds Airfield
Thursday, March 30, 1944
Jack swallowed hard. Ruth wore the evening gown that matched her eyes. Curves that were alluring in wool were downright eye-popping in silk. Every man at the party would want her. Jack would have to keep her close to his side.
Ruth chewed her lips and clutched one elbow, her bare arms forming the numeral four.
His brother Walt used to complain about clamming up around women, but now Walt was about to get married, and Jack was struck dumb. However, Ruth was nervous about the party and the dress, and Jack had to say something. Not a compliment. She’d received too many compliments from too many men with impure motives. Instead, he grinned at her. “You didn’t burn the dress.”
She laughed, and her posture relaxed. “How could I? It’s beautiful.”
Jack crossed the floor of the air base’s Aeroclub, where May and Ruth were staying with the Red Cross girls. He took Ruth’s hands in his. “I’m glad you came.”
Her chin edged up. “I just came for May, you know.”
“I know.” He suppressed a smile. Sure, she came to escort May on the train, but Jack caught a whiff of perfume, borrowed, no doubt. She never wore perfume.
He turned to Charlie, who helped May put on her cape over a long pink dress. “Got your pistol, de Groot? No man comes within twenty feet of these ladies.”
Ruth laughed. “Won’t that be hard on the dance floor?”
He turned back. She’d only accepted the invitation because Ed Reynolds’s drinking finally got him booted to infantry, and because Jack promised she wouldn’t have to dance. “Remember—”
“This is your party. One hundred missions for the 94th is something to celebrate.” She whisked her cape around her shoulders before he could help her.
“Poor Jack’s flown almost half of them.” Charlie held open the door for May.
“No kidding.” Twenty-five on the first tour, twenty on the second, and ten to go. With missions escalating and losses falling, the Eighth Air Force had increased the length of a tour to thirty missions.
Jack offered his elbow to Ruth and led her out into the cool, damp evening. He’d hoped she’d dance with him ever since his visit to Prestwick a few weeks before, the day she returned from her first evacuation flight. When she saw him, she clapped her hand over her mouth, then walked to him, then ran to him. He held her and let her cry and offered to beat up that Burns jerk.
That’s when he developed his new plan, designed for her, not him, and he had prayed over it—a lot.
Jack tucked Ruth’s arm close to his side. “How are things at Prestwick?”
“Busy. We’re evacuating two hundred patients a day.”
Jack nodded. Clearing the hospitals. The invasion would come as soon as weather permitted. “Any more problems?” He kept his voice low, although Charlie and May fell several paces behind.
Ruth sighed. “The same. Innuendoes, double entendres, but I don’t dare complain, not with my job in jeopardy. I have to make do.”
“I don’t trust this guy. Did you check? Can you do anything about the return leg?”
She shook her head and released a hint of perfume. “Lieutenant Shepard is so fed up with me, she won’t let me return on another plane, and the air crews say I’d get in the way up front. But he hasn’t bothered me on the cargo leg. He clacks away on his typewriter, doing paperwork for his business, and then he sleeps.”
“Good,” Jack grumbled. “I still wish you’d let me beat him up.”
Ruth’s laughter mingled with the music from Hangar Number One. “A sweet thought. But you do more good just listening to me. You’re the only one I can talk to.”
She followed the “no complaining” order so strictly she wouldn’t even confide in May, which bothered Jack at first. Now he agreed. Why dim May’s light? Besides, being Ruth’s only confidant had benefits, like the stars in her eyes right then, which did funny things to his stomach.
He led her through the gigantic hangar doors, open enough to let people in but keep the cold out.
Hundreds of men in dress uniform milled about, and almost as many women—American nurses and Red Cross personnel, and British girls trucked in from local villages. A makeshift bar stood along one wall, tables dotted the concrete floor, and the base band played on a stage decorated with red, white, and blue bunting. The Latin tune “Frenesi” bounced off the high ceiling, and the clarinet soloist did a fair imitation of Artie Shaw.
Jack checked in his overcoat and Ruth’s cape, and then took her arm. “What do you think?”
“A lot of people.” Her face seemed pale.
That great, protective urge swelled inside him. “And you’re stuck with me, poor kid.”
She didn’t look up, but her cheeks rounded in a smile. He had to get her on the dance floor before she changed her mind. Why did the band have to be at the far end of the hangar?
Jack plotted a course through the crowd to avoid men from his squadron. Along the way, Ruth left a trail of dropped jaws, but Jack made sure the men knew she was with him.
At the back of the hangar, couples jitterbugged to “American Patrol.” Jack pulled Ruth into his arms and relished how she drew in her breath. Good, he still had an effect on her.
“Remember, just follow me.” He led her in a simple foxtrot as he had in the abbey months before, and she slowly relaxed, and soon he could swing her around and make her laugh. Now he needed a slow song, but “American Patrol” kept up its lively pace.
“Do you like the band?” he asked.
“Oh yes, and the stage. It’s …” She grinned and tilted her head. “It’s festooned.”
He laughed at their rhyming game and swung her around. “Over by the bar—spittoons.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Ah, you never know around here. One big muddy pigsty. Even when we dress things up, this is still a greasy old hangar.”
The music slowed, and Ruth scowled at him. “You planned this.”
The band played “Sleepy Lagoon.” Jack shook his head hard. “Honestly, I—”
Then she laughed, and Jack drew her close, and she didn’t even stiffen, and he rubbed his cheek against her soft hair and filled his lungs with her perfumed cleanness. “I do love you, Ruth Doherty.”
Now she stiffened. She pulled back to look him in the eye. “What?”
He kept his arm around the silky curve of her waist. “Back in October I said I loved you, but I only loved a woman I had imagined. Now I know you, and I love you more each day.”
“Jack …” Her gaze slipped over his shoulder, toward the exit.
He rocked her around until she faced the bandstand. “I have something to discuss with you. No protests until I’m done. Then after a reasonable time of protest, we’ll continue to enjoy the evening. Agreed?”
“Jack, I—”
“Agreed?”
She sighed, and creases striped her forehead. “Agreed.”
His heart accelerated, an engine raring to go, but he held back the throttle.
Lord, if this isn’t your will, stop me now.
“Jack, what is this about?”
“I want to marry you.”
Her eyes widened, the same greenish blue as the dress.
“I’ve thought this out, and I’ve covered all your objections. First of all, we won’t get married until the war’s over. We both have jobs to do.”
“Jack—”
“No protests yet.” He brought their clasped hands in front of her face and lifted one finger. “Hear me out. Now, you’re worried about kisses and—well, not to embarrass you—but the things that go on in marriage, but I promised you. I know now. I understand. I don’t need any of that. I just need you. We’ll have separate rooms, and if you want children, we can adopt. Goodness knows, this war is making too many orphans. We can take in your sister Maggie for starters.”
Her entire face agitated. “This—”
“I’m not done yet.” He swayed to the music, although it was like dancing with a concrete post. “Once you told me you could never marry because of your family, but I’d be honored to provide for them. Your family will be my own.”
Ruth’s face twitched a million protests, but she kept her mouth shut.
“I love you so much.” Jack’s voice deepened, and his throat felt thick. He pressed his lips to her fingers until his throat loosened. “I want to provide for you. I want to protect you. I want to love you for the rest of my life.”
She stared at his chest as if she could see how hard his heart beat, and her eyelids fluttered. “I—I don’t know what to say.”
He drew her close and nuzzled in waves of auburn. “Say yes.”
She burrowed her face in his shoulder. “No, I can’t. This is crazy.”
“No, it’s—”
“Yes, it is. It’s wrong, all the way through. I don’t even know why. It’s just wrong.”
“Ruth …”
She shook her head and clutched his shoulder. “It’s not fair to you.”
“Of course, it is.”
“No, it’s not. You deserve a normal wife and children of your own if God provides.”
Jack held the smooth body that would never be his, but he didn’t care. “Darling, I don’t want any of that. I just want to love you. Please let me love you.”
“If God provides.” She lifted her head and squinted. “That’s why it’s wrong.”