With Every Letter (20 page)

The cargo door of the first plane swung open, and a man hopped to the ground. Another figure emerged. A curvy figure.

“That’s a woman!” someone cried.

It sure was. A dark-haired woman stood in the doorway wearing a blue jacket, trousers, and garrison cap. She shielded her eyes from the sun and looked into the distance, over the buildings and tents. As her gaze swept the landscape, a smile spread.

A smile unlike anything Tom had ever seen in his life, wide and brilliant, filling her face, filling Tom’s eyes.

One of the patients whistled. The woman glanced down, as if she’d just noticed the men before her. Her smile contracted, and Tom blinked.

“Holy cow! Look at that dame.” A soldier pointed to the next plane down, where a striking redhead disembarked and waved to the crowd. All the ambulatory men ran or wheeled to the second plane and hooted and hollered.

Tom stayed. The dark-haired woman jumped to the ground, her face relaxed again. She headed toward the tent, toward
Tom, and his heart rate picked up. At the last minute, he remembered to take off his helmet. A lady was present.

He saluted her. “Good afternoon, ma’am.”

She returned the salute. “Good afternoon, sir. Are you . . . ?” She glanced at the lapels of Tom’s olive drab wool shirt, partially hidden under his field jacket. He wore silver first lieutenant’s bars and the gold castle insignia for the engineers. “No, you’re not. Do you know—”

“Looking for the physician?” He grinned at her.

“Yes, sir.” She smiled back, soft and modest. Her complexion was darker than most girls he knew, and her coffee-colored eyes had a hint of an almond shape.

Exotic. Compelling.

“Well?” The corners of her eyes crinkled.

He was acting like a fool. “I’ll help you find him.” He scanned the area and waved over the doctor.

The physician and nurse exchanged salutes. “Capt. Marvin Richards.”

“Nice to meet you, sir. I’m Lt. Mellie Blake.”

Mellie Blake. Mellie Blake. Her hair shone like obsidian and curled below her chin.

The doctor led her away. “I heard you gals were in the theater. Not sure about this. It’s a dangerous place, and the hospitals could really use you.”

Mellie Blake was of average height, but she stood tall and assured. “You want the best for your patients, sir. That’s my job. I’ll give these boys first-rate, uninterrupted care from here to Algiers. And I’ve been in more dangerous places than this and done just fine.”

Captain Richards hiked up his eyebrows.

Tom clamped off a laugh. That little nurse could take care of herself. He’d love to get to know her better.

He scrunched his eyes shut. What was he doing? What
about Annie? They knew each other well. He cared for her deeply enough to wonder if he loved her. And she was in North Africa now, the same soil. Maybe God wanted them together. What if she could overlook his name? What if she could love him? He wanted to give that a chance.

Besides, all he knew about Mellie Blake was he liked her smile and her pluck. And she didn’t know anything about him, except that he was a bit daft.

“Gill? You think I’ll go home?” Butler’s eyes roamed in lazy circles.

Tom squatted by the litter. “Maybe. No matter what, you’ll get a few months’ vacation. Algiers, she said. By the shore in the sun. Not bad, huh?”

“I wanna go home.”

“Tell me about home. What’s it like?”

Butler rambled about the farmhouse in Indiana, his Ford with the rumble seat, and his parents and brothers. When he mentioned the cute little gal who liked to meet him in the barn, Tom diverted conversation back to family and crops.

His gaze kept hopping to Lieutenant Blake. She made her rounds, listened to Captain Richards’s reports, made notes on a clipboard, and questioned each patient in a warm voice. Richards prodded her onward, but she resisted and gave each wounded man her full attention.

She came closer and closer, and Tom’s throat swelled.

Captain Richards stood at the foot of Butler’s litter. “Last man. Private Butler. Just arrived. Closed complete fractures of the right tibia and fibula, needs surgery. Had half a grain of morphine at 1300.”

Lieutenant Blake wrote on her clipboard and knelt beside Butler. Beside Tom. Inches from him. She smelled . . . he couldn’t place the scent, but it tickled the edges of memory. Clean. She smelled clean. How long since he’d been around someone clean? And how much did he stink?

The nurse patted Butler’s arm. “How are you feeling, Private?”

“You . . .” He pointed at the nurse, but his finger made a wobbly circle. “You’re a girl.”

“Clever one, aren’t you?” She winked at him and made another notation. “I see half a grain of morphine is plenty for you.”

“I gave him a syrette.” Tom wanted to be included for some stupid reason.

Her dark eyes shifted to him. “Thank you, sir. Are you . . . ?”

“I’m his platoon leader. He wanted me to stay.”

“Don’t go, Gill. Don’t leave me.”

She glanced at Butler’s grasp on Tom’s hand and she smiled. “I see.”

“He’s the best,” Butler said. “Ferris is mean. Mean, I tell you. But Gill, he cares.”

Lieutenant Blake shot Tom a brief smile, not nearly enough. “You can accompany him onto the plane and stay until it’s time to depart.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He gave her a smile in the hopes she’d return it. She did, but only a smidgen.

She looked up at the doctor. “I need help loading the patients. May I borrow some of your hospital staff?”

“I’ll send out some medics.” The doctor went into the tent.

“You don’t need to do that.” A sergeant swaggered over from the plane and pointed his long chin at the nurse. “I can handle it. Always have.”

Lieutenant Blake got to her feet and lifted her own chin. “Thank you, Sergeant, but we were trained to load patients as quickly as possible. Someday we may need to do so under fire.”

The sergeant snorted. “Don’t see no planes.”

Fire rose in Tom’s belly and pulled him to his full height.
Thank goodness he had a few inches on the sergeant. He turned his back on the man and addressed the nurse. “We have air raids almost daily. Loading quickly is smart. I’d be glad to help.” Then he sent a smile over his shoulder to the sergeant. “And you’ll address the lieutenant with respect, as an officer but also as a lady. I’m sure your mother taught you right.”

The sergeant’s eyes flicked back and forth. “Yes, sir.” He turned to leave.

Would she be angry at Tom for interfering? He faced her.

She had a keen gaze fixed on him, her lips in a slight curve. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome. Now, put me to work, boss.”

A flash of that smile he’d first seen, but she hauled it in as if ashamed. “Come with me, please.”

Gladly. He bent down to Butler. “I need to help the lady. I’ll be back.”

Butler flapped his hand at Tom. “Bye-bye.”

Tom followed the nurse, who instructed the medics in a voice of authority.

A voice of authority. He needed that. Once again he looked to a woman as an example. Mom had taught him all his life, he sought Annie’s advice, and now he studied the way this young lady spoke.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t toss out cold orders. She didn’t cuss or insult. But she didn’t apologize or bribe or ingratiate herself. She just told them what she wanted as if she expected them to obey. And they did.

So did Tom. He carried litters onto the plane and held them steady while that snake of a sergeant fastened clamps. As the men worked, Lieutenant Blake tucked blankets around her patients and sang “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” Her voice flew like a bird, rising high, gliding, and landing with a calming touch on each man on the plane.

Tom tried not to watch her, but her voice soaked through his skin and warmed his blood. An enchanting voice had been the downfall of man since the Sirens and the Lorelei.

Before long, twelve litters lined the sides of the cargo plane, stacked three high, and another half-dozen men sat in seats toward the front. Butler’s litter was on the lowest level nearest the cockpit, and Tom sat on the floor beside him.

Finally Lieutenant Blake knelt beside Butler. “How did this happen?” she asked Tom.

“Got mowed down by a dozer. I couldn’t get him out of the way in time.”

“He tried,” Butler said. “He tried.”

“I’m sure he did.” She examined the splint on his leg.

“S’working as fast as I could. Gotta keep this runway in shape. S’what we do.”

“What do you do here?” She eyed Tom’s lapels again. “I don’t know all the insignia. What’s the castle for?”

“Engineers,” Tom said.

“Really.” She searched Tom’s face. Her gaze roamed his eyes, his forehead, his mouth, and gripped him in its intensity. “You—you build things?”

He couldn’t speak. With a sharp move, he nodded and broke the hold she had on him. “Airfields. I’m in the 908th Engineer Aviation Battalion. I build airfields. And fix them.”

“That’s important work.” She flipped pages on her clipboard and got to her feet. She wobbled and grasped the litter rack.

Her clumsiness relaxed him and loosed his grin. “I’d rather build bridges. That’s what I want to do after the war. I want to build bridges all over the world, bring people together, help people explore new places.”

A small smile, almost sad. “That would be lovely.”

The door to the cockpit opened, and a man in a leather flight jacket leaned out. “We’re about to start engines.”

Tom squeezed Butler’s arm. “Okay, I’ve gotta go. Enjoy your vacation.”

“Uh-huh.” His eyes drifted shut. “Say bye to Sesame. Love that dog.”

“I’ll do that.”

The nurse headed to the cargo door, grasping the poles as if the plane were in turbulent flight.

He followed her down the aisle. “Thanks, Lieutenant Blake. I know you’ll take good care of him, of all these men.” He held out his hand.

She hesitated, then shook his hand, her fingers small and warm and alive in his. Their joined arms swooped like the cable of a suspension bridge, and a sense of connection raced through Tom’s arm and straight to his heart.

“Thank you.” She gazed at their clasped hands. “Thank you for your help, Lieutenant Gill.”

He could leave it at that and have her think highly of him. But truth welled up inside him and forced itself out as always, and for the best, now more than ever. He had to shatter his illusions. “Actually, it’s MacGilliver. Lieutenant Tom MacGilliver. And let’s get this over with. Yes, I’m his son.”

Her eyes widened with the shock he was used to, but a tempered shock, and she searched his face again, almost as if she recognized him. “Tom. Tom Mac—”

He cracked a smile. “Not every day you meet a celebrity, huh?”

Lieutenant Blake nodded, and her eyebrows arched with compassion. Her full lips worked. “I—I’ve always prayed for you.”

It was Tom’s turn to be shocked. “You have?”

“When your father . . . when he was convicted, I saw your picture in the paper. So sad. I cut it out, and I’ve prayed for you ever since.”

Tom’s mouth drooped open. How many years? How many years had this fascinating woman prayed for him? For him?

She wriggled her fingers.

He still held her hand. He released it. “Thank you.” His voice came out thick.

“I always thought it must have been hard for you.” She gazed out the door, a distant look, and she pulled those lips in between her teeth.

“You did?”

“Everyone hated your father so much. But you were just a little boy. You must have loved your father. You must have sweet, warm memories. How difficult to be torn between the man you loved and the man the world hated.”

Tom’s heart spun and stopped, hung up on the truth. Nothing good about that man, his mother said. He was a bum, a wino, a murderer, and Tom couldn’t be anything like him, anything at all.

Lieutenant Blake’s eyes rounded. “I’m sorry. That was too much. I shouldn’t have—”

“No. No. It’s fine.” He jumped down to the ground. The jolt started his heart again. He tried to smile at the nurse but failed. He lifted a salute. “Thank you. Thank you for your prayers.”

She looked down at him, forehead knit together. “Good-bye.”

“Bye.” Tom walked away. He’d never see her again, thank goodness. That woman could do serious damage to his heart.

21

Mellie leaned her forehead against the cool aluminum of the closed cargo door, and her pulse thrummed in her ear. An engineer. In the 908th. Sesame. He was Ernest.

Her world swirled about her. Oh goodness, she’d met Ernest. Did he know? Did she say anything, anything at all, that would link her to Annie?

“Please, Lord,” she whispered. “Don’t let him figure it out.”

She pressed her palms to the door, fingers splayed wide. Ernest was Tom MacGilliver, the son and namesake of a convicted murderer, the boy she’d prayed for. She took all she knew of little Tommy and all she knew of Ernest and tried to match them like two ripped pieces of paper. Did they form a whole? A soft moan slipped out. She never thought she’d meet either man, certainly never dreamed they’d be the same man.

An engine sputtered to life, and Mellie jerked up her head.

She needed to focus. A planeload of patients needed her. The next two hours would be critical. In New Guinea the 801st MAETS had yet to fly, so the 802nd led the way. A failure today would jeopardize the flight nursing program.

Today of all days, why did she have to meet Ernest?

Tom.

From his newspaper picture, she’d always imagined him with dark eyes, but he had blue eyes, the same bright blue as the Mediterranean, shaped like teardrops. When he smiled, which was often, they narrowed into commas.

“Lord, help me.”

“I told them. Dames can’t handle this.”

Mellie jumped. Why did they have to send Sergeant Early today? Captain Maxwell paired Vera and Kay with friendly technicians, but Mellie with flight nursing’s most vocal opponent. As if the surgeon wanted her to fail.

However, Mellie knew how to deal with condescending men, from jungle guides to physicians. Be cool and firm and professional.

She leveled her gaze at him. “I like to start with prayer. Now, excuse me, please. I’d like to talk to the men.” She strolled down the aisle and patted the patients’ arms. “We’re ready for takeoff, gentlemen. Everyone is strapped in. Sergeant Early and I need to take our seats, but once we’re in the air, we’ll tend to your needs.”