Sentimental Journey (61 page)

A phone rang in the distance, irritatingly brash and loud. The swing creaked; it needed oiling. The breeze swept by, ruffled her hair, and smelled like salt and seaweed and hot dogs from the Pike down the beach.

The beginnings of summer were in the air on days like today, lazy days, lonely days, empty days. Kitty could not have cared less if it was summer or winter. She was waiting for the mailman, waiting for some word from her husband.

The screen door squeaked open. “Kitty! Come quick! J.R.’s on the telephone!”

“The telephone? Where is he?” She stood so quickly the swing hit on the backs of her knees.

“England, I guess. I didn’t ask him. Come on.”

Two steps away from the swing and Dennis, her sixteen-year-old brother, grabbed her hand and pulled her inside, shoving her through the house toward the phone on the kitchen wall.

She held the earpiece to her ear. “Cassidy?”

His wonderful deep voice crackled through the static on the line.

“Hi. Yes. I can hear fine. Are you okay? Where are you? What? England, not Scotland? Oh. I’m glad you’re busy. It’s smart of them to keep you out of trouble. Yeah, well. I’m the only person you can get into that kind of trouble with.” She laughed. “What? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m bored witless. No job yet. They think soon, but I’ve been waiting for months now. Why?”

She listened as he told her about Audrey Inskip, the blind mother of a buddy of his, who needed her skills very badly. “Do I want the job? There, near you? No, of course not. Why on earth would I want to be near my husband? You fool. Of course I want to come.” She pulled away from the phone.

Her brother was hovering nearby. Listening. He had opened the icebox and was drinking buttermilk—she could smell it—most likely right out of the milk bottle.

“Dennis, get something and write this down for me, please.” She repeated the mailing address and telephone number of the Inskip estate called Keighley. “Yes, we got it. When do I go and how?” She stood there unable to speak for an instant. “Did you say tomorrow? No . . . no. If that’s the only transport you can get me on, then I’ll be there. Yes, I’ll fly. I don’t care how cold it is. I’ll bring blankets, coats, mittens. Okay. I understand. Take care. Yes . . . me, too. Bye.”

She hung up the phone and said, “I’m going to England. I’m going to England!” She reached out and grabbed her brother. “Call Daddy for me, please.”

“Sure, sis.” He moved to the phone.

“Tell him J.R. found me a position near him, and I’m flying out tomorrow. I’ve got to pack.” She ran out of the room and was halfway up the stairs when she heard the mail slot scrape closed.

“The heck with the mail!” She kept running, around the corner and into her room. She didn’t need to wait for letters her brother would read to her. She pulled her suitcase down from the closet shelf and a hatbox tumbled onto the floor. She didn’t care. She tossed her suitcase on the bed and snapped it open. Then she sat down for a second because her heart was beating so fast.

“Pocatello, Idaho, my fanny!” She threw back her head and laughed. In three days, she would see Cassidy. Three days!

Two days, sixteen hours, and twenty-five minutes later she stood at the open door of the airplane as
J.R
. ran up the metal steps, swept her into those wonderful arms of his, and gave her a kiss that could melt the seams in her only pair of stockings.

She held on to her hat and broke off the kiss. The small bit of netting on her hat was scraping her eyebrow.

He brushed it aside. His face was mere inches away. She could taste his breath. She could smell the soap he used to shave, his hair oil, the starch in his uniform. Their bodies fit perfectly, his hand on her hip, his knee brushing her thigh.

She was wearing short gloves, but her hand still rested on his chest. She could feel his heart beating. “Hello, Cassidy.”

“Hello, Kincaid.”

“I missed you.”

“Me too, sweetheart. I didn’t have anyone to give me a hard time.”

She laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll make up for it.”

He helped her down the metal steps to the asphalt. “That’s what I’m hoping. We have a lot of things to make up for. The good news is we have plenty of time. Just you and me. We don’t have to go to Keighley until the weekend.”

“What day is this?”

“Tuesday. Long flight, isn’t it?”

“I don’t care. I would have flown on the back of a duck to get here.”

“Stay here. Let me grab your suitcases. They’re unloading now.”

She stood and waited. The stench of fuel was in the air, which was brisk and a little damp, as if it were foggy or getting ready to rain.

He took her hand, folded her fingers between his, and they walked to a car. He helped her into the backseat, then put her luggage in the trunk and climbed in beside her. “Take us to the
Connaught
.”

He drew her into his arms and kissed her long and deeply, his hands touching her body until their breathing was fast and her skin warm and flushed. She broke off the kiss and touched his lips with her gloved fingers. “Wait, my darling. Please.”

He kissed her fingers. “Okay, sweetheart, but once we’re in the room, look out.”

“Look out? I can’t look out. I’m blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other.”

“You know, Kincaid, I think it’s that smart mouth of yours that first made me notice you.”

“Somehow I doubt that, considering your constant references to my cup size. Now let’s stop this. You can tell me all you know about Skip’s mother.”

“He doesn’t want us to tell her why you’re there.”

“That might be wise if she isn’t going to be accepting. You implied she’s a handful.”

“So he tells me.”

“It’s a fine line to walk. Pride and pain and pity, all mixed up at once. You fight to prove to the world that you don’t need them, that you want desperately to show you can be like everyone else. At the same time you are consumed with shame and self-doubt because you know you aren’t going to, and never can, be like everyone else.”

He slid his arm around her. “You are a brilliant woman, you know that?”

“Sure. I married you, didn’t I? Is there anything else I should know about Audrey?”

“Skip thinks she shouldn’t know you’re blind.”

“Okay. I’ve done that one before. More times than you can count. It works with the stubborn ones. So what’s our story?”

“You’re my wife and will be welcome to stay there. As a house-guest. The place is huge, I take it. We won’t be the only ones there this weekend. There’s Skip’s girl, Charley.”

“Charley?”

“Charlotte. She’s an ATA pilot. Tall, over six feet, blond, and gorgeous. Legs that go on forever.”

“Don’t start, Cassidy.”

He laughed. “You are so easy.”

She punched him in the arm with her bony knuckles.

“Okay. Truce. Her father is Bob Morrison. He designs and manufactures planes. He’s here on business with the government, and Skip asked him along. His aunt stays there, along with the staff. So there will be a houseful of us. But then, the English like it that way. They’re very open and warm. I think you’ll feel right at home.”

“I’m just glad to be here.”

The car stopped and J.R. helped her out, then gave the porter the luggage, and they followed him up to the room. As they were riding up in the lift, he slid his hand onto her butt and squeezed it, then slid a little lower and snapped her garter.

She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow and whispered, “Behave.”

She had to smile when he opened the door, took the suitcases from the poor porter, and handed him some money, saying. “Thanks, I’ve got it.”

He closed the door, turned around. For a few moments he didn’t say anything; then quietly, he said, “You’re wearing too many clothes, Kincaid.”

“So are you, Cassidy.” She took off her hat and tossed it away.

“How do you know I’m not naked?”

“I can hear the change jangling in your pockets.”

He was behind her, and he unzipped her dress, pushed it off her shoulders, and it fell to her feet. He did the same thing with her slip; then he knelt in front of her and unhooked her garters, one by one, rolling down her stockings and kissing her calves, the backs of her knees, her lower thighs. He rolled down her girdle. He pressed his lips against the front of her panties, and she gripped his head and held it there.

His hands held her hips; then he drew down her panties. She stepped out of the pool of her clothes, and he slowly pushed her back a couple of steps.

He put his hand flat on her belly and gently pushed her backward.

She went down on the bed. He went down on her.

“LADY IN RED”

Red Walker’s actions in France had earned him a Distinguished Flying Cross and a captain’s silver bars. But finishing those twelve weeks of training at Achnacarry Castle was what made him into a different kind of soldier, maybe even a different man.

He wasn’t just one of the select few who had completed commando training and were given a green beret. He’d learned to shoot accurately while running and to kill silently with a knife or a garrote.

Marching fifteen miles? He did it in the required two and a quarter hours, repeatedly. He could climb a mountain, scale a cliff, or cross a river with a few lengths of rope, a wooden toggle, and a loop, and from somewhere deep inside of him, he found the confidence, ability, and attitude to fight and survive on misty moors, sheer cliffs, or wide, boulder-edged lakes, all while under fire from live ammo.

He’d surprised himself and had wondered at first where all this came from. On one of those nights when there was nothing to do but lie on a cot, his hands folded behind his head, he realized that maybe, just maybe, he had his parents to thank.

Growing up in a house no bigger than a latrine, with walls so thin he could hear his parents’ angry quarrels, his mother’s bitter voice unrestrained by the alcohol she loved and needed, was war to a kid. He figured it was kind of like growing up on the front lines. And it served him well.

Sure, he felt something that might have been fear. He figured every soldier felt that. There were plenty of times when he held his breath to the point of bursting, when danger was what scared the hell out of him. But it was also what made him jump up and run toward an enemy machine-gun nest with a grenade pin between his teeth.

He’d been on his first two assignments, both with Cassidy, now a Lieutenant Colonel, and Commander Inskip. One to Belgium. One back to France. They quickly melded into the best of what the instructors at Achnacarry called “butcher-and-bolt teams.”

He liked and respected the men he worked with. They’d fought together, slipped past the enemy’s lines, and drank together at the local pubs. They had invited him along with them this weekend, but Red felt out of place without a date and decided to put his leave to good use.

The train pulled into the station. The engine was one of those old locomotives with a cow-catcher that the
U.S.
had sent to
England
at the outset of the war. It was a strange sight to him, the lush peaceful English countryside, spotted with silver barrage balloons—miniature Hindenburgs—and a train engine that looked like it came out of the
Great Train Robbery.