Wings (51 page)

“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.”

Nick sat utterly amazed at what she was telling him, although the fact that Williams was a sonofabitch wasn't news to anyone, and certainly not Nick. But he was a lot worse than even Nick had suspected. “How did you keep all that quiet before you left?” “He's good at that. That's his business. When I went back to LA before the tour, I stayed at Billy's. No one knew anything. We left a few weeks after I got back from Good Hope anyway, and Desmond dressed it all up in clean linen. He's a real snake, Nick. You were right about everything. I always wanted to tell you that, but I wasn't sure what to say, or how to say it. At first, my pride was hurt, and I was ashamed to admit that the whole thing had been a farce. And then, I figured maybe you wouldn't want to know anyway. You were so definite about not wanting me. I don't know… I figured maybe
it
was better to leave it for a while. I kept hoping you'd come home and we'd talk, but I guess after Pearl Harbor, you couldn't.”

“We don't get leaves anymore, Cass. And what do you mean I was ‘definite about not wanting you.’ Do you remember that night?” He looked hurt that she would say that.

“I remember every minute of it. Sometimes that was the only thing that kept me going on the island… thinking of you… remembering… it was what got me through a lot of things… like leaving Desmond. He was so rotten.” ‘then why didn't you write and tell me?” She sighed, thinking about it, and then she looked at him honestly. “I guess I figured you'd just tell me again that you were too old and too poor, and that I should find myself a kid like Billy.” He smiled at the truth of it. He might just have been dumb enough to do that. But that was before she had almost died, before he had come to his senses. Just sitting there, looking at her, made him realize what a total fool he'd been when he left her.

“And did you? Find a kid like Billy, I mean?” He looked so worried that for a minute she wished she had the guts to make him jealous.

“I should tell you that I've been out with every man in seven counties.”

“I'm not sure I'd believe you.” He smiled and lit a cigarette, as he sat back against the wall, and looked at her with pleasure. It was so good to see her again. This was the little girl he'd always loved, all grown-up now.

“Why not? Think I'm too ugly for any man to take out?” she teased him.

“Not ugly. Just difficult. It takes a man of a certain age and sophistication to handle a girl like you, Cass. There aren't too many men in McDonough County who could do it.”

“You're so full of it. Does that mean you're the right age these days, or are you still too old for me?” she asked him pointedly, wanting to know just where they were going.

“I used to be. Mostly, I was just too stupid,” he said honestly; ‘they almost had to retire me when you went down, Cass. I thought I'd go crazy, thinking about you. I went nuts for a while there. I should have flown home as soon as I heard. Then at least I could have been in Honolulu when you got there.”

“It would have been wonderful,” she smiled gently, but she didn't reproach him. Not for anything. She just wanted to know where they stood now.

“I suppose Desmond was there with the reporters,” he said with a look of annoyance.

“Naturally. But I had a great nurse who kept throwing them out of my room before they got a foot in the doorway. She absolutely hated Desmond. That was when he was threatening to sue me for not fulfilling my contract. I think he's convinced I blew up his plane on purpose. It was the damnedest thing, Nick,” she said solemnly, “both engines caught fire. I don't think they've figured it out yet, and I'm not sure they ever will.” She looked far away for a moment as she said it, and he pulled her closer to him.

“Don't think about it, Cass. It's over.” So were a lot of things. A whole lifetime had ended for her, and now it was time for a new beginning. He looked down at her with a slow smile, feeling the warmth of her next to him, and remembered a summer night almost two years before that had sustained him ever since then. “So how long are you here for?”

“I get my orders on Thursday,” she said quietly, wondering what was in store for them, what he wanted from her, if it was going to be the same game as before, or if he had finally grown up now. “I'll be here anywhere from a week or two to three months. But I'll be back pretty often. I'm in the overseas ferry squadron, that's what we do, taxi service from New Jersey to Hornchurch.”

‘That's pretty tame for you, Cass. Most of the time at least.” He was relieved she hadn't found something more dangerous to do. She'd be just the one to do that. For Desmond, she had tested fighter planes to be adapted for the Army. But that was over.

“It'll do for now. What about you? Where are you now?” she asked him, with a look that searched his soul. There was no escaping her question.

At first he didn't understand what she was asking him, and then he laughed, and looked down at her. He understood perfectly. It was no accident that she had come here. The only coincidence was that he'd run into her so quickly.

“What are you asking me, Cass?”

“How brave are you? How smart have you gotten over here, risking your life against the Germans?”

“I'm smarter than I used to be, if that's what you're asking me. I'm a little older… just as poor…” He remembered his own words easily, and how foolish he had been when he said them. “How brave are you, little Cassie? How foolish? Is this what you want? After everything you've done and had and been in the last two years, is this what you still want? Just me and the old Jenny? That's all I've got, you know. That, and the Bellanca. It's never going to be fancy.” But they both knew she'd had that and it wasn't what she wanted. She wanted him, and everything he meant to her. Nothing more now.

“If I wanted fancy, I'd be in LA”

“No, you wouldn't,” he said quietly, with the stubborn look she knew so well.

“Why not?”

“Because I wouldn't let you. I'll never let you go back to that. I shouldn't have let you go in the first place.” They had both learned some expensive lessons. But they were wiser now. They had both come for, and paid dearly for everything they learned and wanted. “I love you, Cass, and always have,” he said quietly as he pulled her close to him, and she looked up at him and smiled. It was the face she knew so well, and had always loved since she was a child. The same lines around the eyes from squinting at the sun, the same face she had grown up with. It was a handsome face with character and purpose and kindness, the only one she wanted to look at for an entire lifetime. She had come here to find him again. And she had. With Nick, she had everything she wanted.

“I love you too, Nick,” she said peacefully as he held her close to him, feeling the warmth of her, the nearness he had longed for so often. It had been hell being away from her, a hell he'd made for himself, and bitterly regretted, but didn't know how to get out of. It took Cass to come over and find him.

“And if either of us doesn't come back from this?” he asked her honestly. “What then?” He still didn't want to ruin her life, tying her to him, and then dying. That was the price you paid sometimes for loving a flier.

‘That's a chance we both take every day. We always have. You taught me that. If this is what we want, we have to have the guts to live with that. And each let the other do what they have to.” It was a high price to pay for loving someone, but they had always been willing to do that.

“And afterward?” He still worried about all that, but she had crossed those bridges long since, and she wouldn't have cared anyway if he'd had absolutely nothing.

“Afterward, we go home, my father retires eventually, and he gives us the airport. And if we live in a shack because that's all you've got, so be it. I don't care, and if we do, we'll change it.” This time he didn't argue with her. This time he knew it was enough for both of them. They had had more, and less, in their lives, and it didn't matter to them. All they needed was what they had, each other, and a sky to fly in.

He kissed her gently, and afterward she looked into the autumn sky and smiled, remembering the hours they'd spent in his old Jenny. She reminded him of her first loops and spins, and he laughed.

“You used to scare the pants off me.”

‘The hell I did… you told me I was a natural.” She pretended to be insulted as they stood up and he walked her slowly toward her barracks. They had resolved a lot that morning.

“I just said that because I was in love with you.” He laughed happily, feeling like a kid again. She did that to him. She always had.

“No, you didn't. You weren't in love with me then,” she argued with a broad smile, wondering if he had been.

“Yes, I was.” He looked happy and at ease and young. And he felt immeasurable pride as he walked along with her.

“Really?”

They laughed and talked and teased like children. Suddenly, life was very simple. She had done what she had come here to do. She had found him, and everything he had always been to her. She was home at last. They both were.

WATCH FOR THE NEW NOVEL FROM
DANIELLE STEEL

On Sale in Hardcover
June 27, 2006

COMING OUT

Olympia Crawford Rubinstein has a way of managing her thriving family with grace and humor. With twin daughters finishing high school, a son at Dartmouth, and a kindergartener from her second marriage, there seems to be nothing Olympia can't handle … until one sunny day in May, when she opens an invitation for her daughters to attend the most exclusive coming out ball in New York—and chaos erupts all around her….

From a son's crisis to a daughter's heartbreak, from a case of the chickenpox to a political debate raging in her household, Olympia is on the verge of surrender… until a series of startling choices and changes of heart, family and friends turn a night of calamity into an evening of magic. As old wounds are healed, barriers are shattered and new traditions are born, and a debutante ball becomes a catalyst for change, revelation, acceptance, and love.

Please turn the page for a special advance preview.

COMING OUT
on sale June 27, 2006

Chapter 1

Olympia Crawford Rubinstein
was whizzing around her kitchen on a sunny May morning, in the brownstone she shared with her family on Jane Street in New York, near the old meat-packing district of the West Village. It had long since become a fashionable neighborhood of mostly modern apartment buildings with doormen, and old renovated brownstones. Olympia was fixing lunch for her five-year-old son, Max. The school bus was due to drop him off in a few minutes. He was in kindergarten at Dalton, and Friday was a half day for him. She always took Fridays off to spend them with him. Although Olympia had three older children from her first marriage, Max was Olympia and Harry's only child.

Olympia and Harry had restored the house six years before, when she was pregnant with Max. Before that, they had lived in her Park Avenue apartment, which she had previously shared with her three children after her divorce. And then Harry joined them. She had met Harry Rubinstein a year after her divorce. And now, she and Harry had been married for thirteen years. They had waited eight years to have Max, and his parents and siblings adored him. He was a loving, funny, happy child.

Olympia was a partner in a booming law practice, specializing in civil rights issues and class action lawsuits. Her favorite cases, and what she specialized in, were those that involved discrimination against or some form of abuse of children. She had made a name for herself in her field. She had gone to law school after her divorce, fifteen years before, and married Harry two years later. He had been one of her law professors at Columbia Law School, and was now a judge on the federal court of appeals. He had recently been considered for a seat on the Supreme Court. In the end, they hadn't appointed him, but he'd come close, and she and Harry both hoped that the next time a vacancy came up, he would get it.