His Very Own Girl (30 page)

“Hey, Davies,” said one of the flight engineers. “There’s a lieutenant waiting for you in the operations room.”

“U.S. or British?”

“U.S.”

Lulu’s face and neck went hot. The battered cod she’d eaten turned to lead in her stomach. A lieutenant. News.

Bad news.

Whether it had to do with her future as a pilot or with Joe, she couldn’t know.

She hurried along the icy walkway until she reached the main building of operations, where ATA personnel worked to match pilots and aircraft for the remaining hours of the day. Their words and actions were nothing but a buzz.

“Miller, there’s a lieutenant waiting for me?”

A clerk pointed to a conference room. The door was open. Lulu jerked as she recognized the man.

He’s here to see me? Why?

He rose to meet her and supported his weight on a pair of crutches. “Officer Davies. My, it’s good to see you again.”

Lulu nodded stiffly. Her neck bones felt forged of iron left out in the rain. She closed the conference door. From his pencil-thin mustache to the slicked hair, he still resembled Clark Gable. She just never expected to see him again.

“Welcome to White Waltham, Lieutenant Dixon.”

The lieutenant’s injuries, whatever he’d suffered, had changed him considerably. In his posture as he sat in the spindle-back chair, in the introverted way he regarded his cup of tea, he was a man reduced.

The room was cold and unfriendly, as if designed to keep essential meetings brief. Enduring the closing moments of Lt. Dixon’s chitchat, Lulu sat across from him and successfully kept from screaming. Drinking her tea helped.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here,” he said at last.

“To be frank, yes.”

He set aside his cup and smoothed his mustache. “I’m heading back to the States tomorrow afternoon. More rehabilitation.”

“I see,” said Lulu neutrally.

“I wanted to thank Joe Weber before I left, and thought maybe you could deliver a message for me.” He paused and frowned slightly. “You are still in contact with Doc Web, aren’t you?”

Doc Web? The last time Lulu had seen Lt. Dixon, he’d been hurling insults at Joe like artillery fire. Now he uttered Joe’s front-lines nickname as if reciting from a sacred text. Curious. Also curious was why he felt compelled to seek out Lulu. Why not contact Joe personally?

Despite her trepidation, she squared her shoulders and recalled the damage this man had inflicted on Joe and his family. Maybe a frostier nature would get him to admit his intent.

“Thank him for what, if I might be so bold?”

The corners of his mouth turned down and he laced and unlaced his fingers in his lap. Like every chap returned from combat, he still seemed to be sorting through the crumbled aftermath of what he’d endured. The contrast between that tangible confusion and the lieutenant’s vibrant, cocky air in Leicester turned Lulu’s thoughts to mourning—not for him, but for every young man who’d sacrificed his luster and verve.

“I had a bad jump,” he said haltingly. “A very bad jump. There was so much flak fire. I watched it all the way to the ground and forgot to count my descent. I’ve
never
forgotten to count. Like some green kid.” He made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “That’s how I broke my ankles.”

Lulu flinched. She finished the last of her chilled tea and pushed away the porcelain. Now she had nothing to hold. No place to put her hands.

Her eyes kept tugging downward to where his feet rested, primly, side by side. Broken ankles. She couldn’t begin to imagine the pain he’d endured, and neither could she restrain her sympathy, no matter his role in Joe’s past. Such was the nature of war, when the suffering of any man on the Allied side evoked her condolences.

“I don’t know how much Joe told you about D-Day, but we all wound up scattered to hell—oh, forgive me, ma’am.”

“No bother. Really.”

“I was in pain. I didn’t know where my stick had landed. I passed out. When I came to, I was at a makeshift aid station manned by Joe Weber.”

“No one else?”

“Not at first. Boys would bring in their wounded and drop them off with whatever medical supplies they’d scrounged from the drop. Then they’d cobble together a makeshift squad and head out. A few more medics stayed and did what they could, but Doc Web was in charge.” He laughed under his breath. “‘In charge’ seems too weak a phrase.”

Dixon shifted on his chair, grimacing slightly when one ankle brushed against the other. “When a real MD showed up that afternoon, Doc Web became his right hand. He did all the fetching and carrying, tending the less critical, helping the doctor perform surgeries. He even took dictation for a boy whose right arm had been cut clean off by shrapnel.”

He flicked his gaze up to meet Lulu’s, as if judging how candid he could be with the details. No matter how challenging, Lulu wanted more. The opportunity to hear all the good Joe had done during the invasion was an unexpected window into his world.

“Go on, Lieutenant. Please.”

He nodded. “Our farmhouse was out of the main combat areas, but we had no means of mounting a defense should the Germans come knocking. Doc Web and a soldier who’d lost his eye—they dug a trench outside the house and lined it with the wounded who could still shoot. He propped my legs and handed me a rifle, then gave another to a major who’d lost his leg below the knee.

“Can you imagine?” Dixon’s warped laughter sounded odd, his humor tainted by the madness of those days. “Two crippled officers on guard duty. We were the line of defense. When Kraut infantry decided to make trouble, we made trouble right back. I don’t know what we would’ve done if they’d pressed on, but they didn’t take that risk. They retreated from a pair of fellows who couldn’t even stand.

“The whole time, Doc Web was bringing us food he’d scrounged from the nearby farms and fields, or water he’d boiled and purified. That’s how we stayed for three days until the 307th medical company linked up and evacuated the wounded.” He exhaled heavily. “That was the last I saw of any of the medics, Doc Web included.”

“Is that why you wanted to thank him?”

“Partly. And because he’s the reason I’m able to stand. He splinted my ankles with my boots still laced up. When the MD showed up, he and Doc Web were able to set the bones right. Had the fractures compounded and broken the skin, the wounds would’ve festered for three days. I might’ve lost my feet.”

Pride swelled in her chest. She wanted to hug Joe tightly—not out of her persistent desire but out of amazed thanks. Dixon’s story wasn’t a singular one.

“Why don’t you tell him yourself? Why come to me?”

“When I learned I was going back home, I looked for him. I at least wanted to write.” He took a deep breath and held her gaze with an intensity that made Lulu’s skin go cold. “That’s when I found out he’d been wounded.”

The news whipped over her. All she could do was succumb to the shock of it, to let it steal her mind and crush her fluttering heart. She gripped the armrests and closed her eyes.

“How badly?” she managed to say.

“I don’t know. Last days of January, I believe.” He swallowed and put an unsteady hand to his brow. “I only learned this morning which hospital he’s in. But . . . God, I don’t have the nerve to go back to a hospital yet. I thought I’d come here instead, make sure you knew.”

Lulu was looking at the swirling wood grain of the polished tabletop. It swam and turned before her eyes. She heard herself saying, “Thank you.” Then, “Why didn’t you tell me from the start?”

“Cowardice. And heaven knows how many men he saved that day. I thought maybe if you heard the story from just one of us, it would be a kind of thanks from all of us.” He paused and glanced at her ring. “You will go to him, won’t you?”

Lulu cradled her left hand in her right. “Which hospital?”

“Orpington. You know it?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Dixon tried to stand. Lulu helped him without thought. He thanked her quietly. “Officer Davies, I’ve made . . . terrible mistakes in judgment. I’ll do whatever I can back home to set the record straight.”

Lulu remained still and somber. It was an apology of sorts, beyond what she’d ever imagined hearing from Lt. Harry Dixon.

“I’m grateful to Joe Weber and I’m sorry,” he said. “If he ever agrees to meet with me one day, I’ll tell him that face-to-face.”

She squeezed the lieutenant’s arm. “And I’ll tell him that when I see him this afternoon.”

“This afternoon yet?”

“Orpington’s not two miles from Biggin Hill RAF. I’m sure I can find an aircraft that desperately needs to find its way there.”

Yes, she would fly. Fate wasn’t letting her walk away from flight or from Joe. Good. She wanted both, no matter the quivering fear that congealed in her gut.

Lulu installed Lt. Dixon in a black cab, waved him off, and went to find Nicky. Accidents Committee or not, she needed a plane.

chapter twenty-seven

Joe awoke as he always did, with a start and a groan. He twisted away from the source of his pain, but it followed him. Heat hissed up his right side. With his face turned into a pillow moistened with sweat, he gasped like a beached catfish. He concentrated and labored for each inhale, each exhale, until he and the pain retreated to separate corners.

The panic of those first wheezing moments slowly ebbed. He closed his eyes against the sterile white glare of the hospital ward, where bleached privacy curtains girded each soldier’s convalescent bed. Ghostly nurses slipped between them with smooth, silent movements. His skin itched under his bandages, and his back ached from lying in the same bed for nearly three weeks.

The front was hell, but hospitals were purgatory.

A soft hand fluttered across his brow. The pinching tension in his chest eased. Lax muscles sank more deeply into the austere bedding. He was out of the cold, safe in England, wrapped in fresh sheets, and a woman was stroking his face with lulling patience.

If only she’d been Lulu.

He wasn’t complaining. Not really. He was simply playing with possibilities—games in his mind to pass the time as he healed. When he’d manned that farmhouse in Normandy, he’d taken dictation for soldiers too weak or injured to write. Some had been embarrassed by the process of opening their hearts for what might be the last time, with Joe as a go-between. He didn’t want that. He’d write his own letter to Lulu when he was strong enough, when he could tell her without a doubt that he would recover.

As if thoughts of Lulu possessed magical powers, Joe smelled a hint of lavender. He couldn’t inhale as deeply as he wanted; his right lung was still healing. Instead he took scant samples into his nose with shallow, measured breaths. He didn’t want to open his eyes and spoil the fantasy that rolled over him like a slow sunrise. No matter how pretty this nurse was, this graceful stranger who silently eased his misery, she simply wouldn’t be the
right
pretty face.

The woman sniffed, as if holding back tears.

Joe could no longer contain his curiosity. He peeled open an eyelid and blinked against the ward’s vivid white. When he saw Lulu sitting an arm’s length away, he blinked again. And again.

“Lulu?” he croaked.

“It’s me, Joe. How are you?”

“Lousy. But alive. That’s something.”

“Yes, it is.” She placed the slowest, gentlest kiss on his forehead. “I’m here now, my love. And I’m not going anywhere.”

He mouthed her name and lifted his hand to touch her hair. The strands teased his fingertips with silken softness. Sunlight-streaked rich brown with streaks of amber. Letting the strand fall, he couldn’t remember when he’d last seen her hair down. The second morning of his leave? All he could recall of that travesty was her tears and the feeling he’d shattered something priceless.

Near enough that Joe could see each individual lash, Lulu kissed him again and again: the tip of his nose, the top of his cheek, the spot below his earlobe. Finally she kissed him full on the lips. She was real—warm and soft and
real
. Seven months of fantasies made suddenly tangible. The kiss was far too brief, but it was all Joe’s damaged lung could endure. She pulled away, leaving him literally breathless.

“We’ll have to wait for more of that,” she said. “I won’t be held responsible for undoing all these good nurses’ work.”

Joe pressed his right hand against his bandage and strove for calm. But how could he be calm? Her presence was such a shock, her face an absolute revelation.

Two tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because . . .” Her voice cracked. She twisted his bedsheet until her knuckles matched the blanched cotton. “Oh, Joe. I was so frightened for you! When Lt. Dixon said you’d been injured—”

“Wait, wait.” Black spots flicked across his line of sight. He got angry at his body then.
Don’t you dare make me miss a glimpse. Not one.
“Start over.”

She reached an armistice with the bedsheet. Instead, she pulled a handkerchief from her plain black leather handbag and tortured it. She took a deep breath, one Joe found himself both envying and appreciating as it lifted her bustline.

Then she told him about Dixon’s visit to White Waltham.

“When I learned you were here, I asked Nicky for the first plane that touched down. He flew me straight here.”

Joe’s brain stuttered as he absorbed her story. Sweat slicked his forehead. Dixon seeking out Lulu? Apologizing? The possibility seemed too fantastic. But those harrowing few days following the Normandy jump had changed everyone—perhaps even Harry Dixon.

Lulu’s last words registered. He slowly drew a painful breath before asking, “Why didn’t
you
fly?”

“I’m on leave. I plan on quitting the ATA. I’ve decided.”

“Why?”

“I want to stay with you. All of this . . . this
delaying
and indecision—I can’t stand it any longer. What if I’d lost you? And what if those Messerschmitts had taken me down?”

He started to cough and doubled over. Pain flamed through his torso, centering where sutures held his flesh together.

“Joe?” Lulu eased behind him on the bed. She kept rubbing until the blazing coughs relented.

A nurse appeared. Her auburn hair was gathered into a bun as severe as her expression. “Miss, you’ll have to leave if you’re upsetting him.”

“No! She stays,” Joe said firmly.

The woman’s tight lips marred her good looks. He didn’t blame her for caring, but Joe wanted her gone. Messerschmitts? What the hell had Lulu gotten herself into?

“This is your warning,” the nurse said, then withdrew.

Joe gingerly lay back in Lulu’s arms. He liked her hand on his forearm, but he liked the one she eased down his back even better—the only good thing he’d yet discovered about airy hospital gowns.

“Now tell me,” he said on a shallow exhale. “All of it.”

Like the details of a nightmare came Lulu’s story of her flight home from France. Only her arms around him and her body supporting his proved that she’d truly survived. The vivid pictures she conjured were terrifying.

“But that’s all over now, Joe.” Her breath was warm against his ear. “I won’t go back, not now that we have the chance to be together.”

His skin cooled and the nightmare images faded. Yes. They could be together now. That simple idea had all the makings of a miracle.

He tugged her left hand from behind his back and laced their fingers together. The ring he’d practically tossed at her, the ring she’d worn to far-off places, glinted against her delicate skin. “Marry me?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Let me see you.”

Lulu slipped out from behind his back and gently lowered him back to the mattress.

“Say it again.”

“Yes, Joe. I will marry you. I love you. I remembered what you wrote about the damage you did when you were young, how you were still hurting. That was me, too. All these years, I thought I’d moved past my mum and dad and Robbie, and those horrible months alone in Aldwych.” She was crying again, wiping her face. Joe swallowed the lump in his throat as her words unmanned him. “But there I was, flying that bloody plane full of boys who had a chance—
if
I got them home. I thought
we
would have a chance. We’ve wasted so many already.”

Joe brought her hand to his lips. But he knew what he had to do. He’d known for months, ever since they’d started talking about a future. He had to let Lulu be the woman he loved.

“Don’t quit.”

Tipping her head, she frowned. “What was that?”

“Don’t quit the ATA.”

“You cannot mean that.”

He motioned her nearer. Then nearer still. With such a tantalizing picture of her cheek, he kissed her there and along her neck and behind her ear.

“You need to, Lulu. Just think of those boys who can go home to their families now. Because of you. You’ve got to keep working. The Allies still need you.”

“Joe, I’m not leaving you again.” She pulled back, her dark eyes wide and restless. “You’re mad if you believe I will.”

“No, just practical. The docs say I’ll be in hospitals for months. Then I might be fit enough to go back to active duty—not with my unit, most likely. But even if Hitler keeled over tomorrow, there’d be plenty of cleanup. What would you do? Sit here and count my breaths?”

Her mouth tightened.

“Lulu, it’s
boring
. I’m enjoying it because it’s not the front. But you wouldn’t last a day or two.”

“But flying? Joe, those things you said—”

“Were a mistake. Blame me. War. Pride. I needed something to cling to when the rest was so uncertain. The idea of you flying all over Europe . . . What would be left for me if something happened to you?” He met her eyes and squeezed her hand again. “Do what you love, honey. And be patient as I find what that means for me.”

Unbound hair trailed softly down over her shoulders. Having her so near but being unable to hold her as fiercely or as tenderly as in his dreams was sweet agony.

“Thank you.”

“Lulu, I love you—your passion and your daring. We’ll be together. I promise. But I have to heal up first. When I’m discharged, I’ll head home. And maybe Lt. Dixon . . . maybe I can set some things right. Maybe not. I can see my family, at least, and find a means of supporting you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Don’t,” he said wearily. “Don’t, please. I need to.”

A brilliant smile lit her face. “You need to because you’re a good man. You love me and want to protect me. And you want to honor me as a man ought.”

He relaxed in bed with a sigh. “So, you finally understand me, woman.”

Lulu petted the hairs on his hand until they lay smoothly across his skin. “The war might not end for months. How will we stand it?”

“You’ll know I’m safe, at least for now. And I’ll know you’re, well . . .” He coughed twice and smiled through the pain. “You’ll be as safe as you can manage. And when I’m all healed up, we’ll get married.”

“Sounds like heaven, my love.”

The soft touch of her lips tasted of salt and sunshine and promises for the future he was only now beginning to believe. “Yes, it does.”