Blue Skies Tomorrow (34 page)

“You’re serious?”

Her stomach knotted. “Oh goodness. What am I saying? I can’t ask that of you. You deserve a wife who loves you. You should—”

He let out a jerking little laugh. “Don’t you back out on me now. I don’t mind. Besides, you may not love me now, but you will.”

Helen’s chest collapsed, and she clamped her hand over her eyes. “You don’t want me to. You don’t. The men I love get killed.”

The desk creaked, footsteps approached, and Vic took the papers from Helen and set them on the desk. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed her head to his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I can handle myself. With you by my side, I can handle anything.”

Helen pressed her face against the navy wool. He was a better man than she deserved.

He pulled back, hesitation in his iodine-brown eyes. “May I kiss you?”

If Helen was going to be a good wife, she had to start now. She nodded.

Vic pressed his lips to hers, a sloppy kiss, but she kissed him back.

Once they were married, she would give her body to him and let him think she liked it. Why not? She’d made love to Jim when she hated him, feared him, and ached from his blows. Surely she could give herself to a man she felt indifferent about.

She sighed as her life turned from one performance to another.

Lechfeld
Friday, February 23, 1945

Claps of thunder roused Ray from his sleep for the second day in a row. Except thunder didn’t rattle the ground like an earthquake.

He huddled against the shivering wall of the cellar. Part of him recoiled from the terror that a bomb would snuff out what was left of his life, but most of him wanted to jump up and down and wave his hat to the bombers overhead.

The Allies were on the move. Perhaps Jack was up there, so close Ray could see the silver speck of his plane if he had the guts to go outside and look.

If only he could do something to help. All day long, he burrowed in his rabbit hole, and all night long, he foraged and wandered. He’d helped the Allied cause more when he bumbled around at the Sacramento Air Depot.

Restlessness jiggled his muscles. He’d rather die on his feet than cower underground.

By the time he dressed, with his belt cinched to the last hole, the rumbles had stopped.

Ray cringed from the sunshine and picked his way along the muddy path to the base. Inside the tree line he headed south along the edge of the airfield to survey the damage. A few smoke columns rose from buildings and craters, minor damage at best.

Men crisscrossed the airfield, scrambling to get jets in the air and rushing fire equipment around.

If Ray wanted to explore the base, now was the time.

He squatted behind a tree and huffed out a breath. What a crazy idea. It was one thing to chat with a sweet little lady in a bookstore, another to saunter around a military base.

A new sound built in the north, the throb of fighter planes, the good old kind with propellers, the best kind ever—American P-51 Mustangs.

Ray peered around the tree, his heart keeping beat with those Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. The Mustangs dove, silver birds spraying flashing tracers. Beneath them, chunks of earth shot up in a rippling line, like stones skipped on a lake. An Me 262 burst into flames, another toppled on its side. Neither would harass American boys again.

“Go knock out some jets,” Ray whispered. When Jack had given him his last order, neither of them dreamed Ray would be so close. Yet he’d done nothing.

The Mustangs wheeled west, back to their bases in England or France, and Ray got to his feet and strode onto the airfield.

He was dead to his family, dead to Helen, and soon he really would be dead, wasted away from dysentery and malnutrition. Or he’d get caught. If he was destined to be shot as a spy, he might as well act like one.

Purpose ran like an electric current through his veins and drove him into the chaos on the base. Planes burned, smoke blew in acrid clouds, and men ran around or stumbled in a daze. No one gave Ray a second glance. Deeper and deeper he walked, across runways, past huts for mechanics, and right up to a Messerschmitt.

Ray laid a hand on the bird’s jet engine, and goose bumps coursed up his arms. Was he the first of the Allies to touch one? So what if he was? No one would ever know.

No matter what he did here, no one would know. That made him smile. His family would never believe mild-mannered Ray would commit sabotage.

Only Helen would think him capable. Only she saw him as a courageous dragon slayer. He’d do it for her because she believed in him, and he’d do it to protect his brother and friends above.

He circled the plane, searching for ideas.

A man lay sprawled on the tarmac, dead.

Ray’s heart seized. The man looked so young, still with acne on his cheeks, and his blond hair fluttered in the breeze. He’d fallen midstride as if scrambling for the plane. Beside him lay a brown leather flight helmet and a heavy flight jacket of gray blue cloth with a fake fur collar.

Did this young man also have a family back home and a girl he loved? Ray squeezed his eyes shut.
Lord, comfort them in their grief.

Then Ray eyed the flight jacket. Sure looked warm. But stealing was wrong. Or could it be his first minor act of sabotage? Any equipment he took would have to be replaced, straining the system.

He stooped and picked up the jacket and helmet.
“Es tut mir leid,”
he said in apology to the boy who no longer needed them. Under the jacket lay a handbook.

“Pilothandbuch: Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe.”

The pilot’s manual?

Dry paper on the tarmac. Dry fleece on the wet ground.

Ray jammed the handbook under his coat and marched toward the woods, the blood pulsing in his ears.

Now he was officially a spy.

34

Antioch
Saturday, March 3, 1945

Vic smiled across the Llewellyns’ lavish dining room table and patted the breast pocket of his service jacket.

Although Helen’s insides coiled like the curlicues on the Llewellyn silver, she smiled back and glanced down to slice her roast beef. How had they procured such a roast with the serious nationwide meat shortage?

“Truly a sight for the ages.” Judge Llewellyn puffed out his trim chest. “When they raised that flag on Iwo Jima, all American hearts swelled with pride.”

Around the table, heads nodded—Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle, George and Betty Anello, Dorothy Wayne, and Jeannie Llewellyn.

“And those poor civilians have been released from the prison camps in the Philippines.” Mrs. Llewellyn shook her head, with graying brown curls pinned up in a fashionable manner. “What horrors they endured under the Japanese. Mr. and Mrs. Crawford have been released and their three sweet children. I can’t believe citizens of humble little Antioch were caught up in such events. But why haven’t we heard anything about when they’re coming home? They should have notified us by now.”

“Don’t worry, Mother.” Jeannie shot Helen a mischievous look. “They’ll telegraph you before their own families.”

Helen sliced her asparagus almandine. Jeannie’s disrespect left as sour a taste as her mother’s gossip.

“Well, Mother, here’s one piece of news you’ll hear first.” Vic pushed his chair back from the table and got to his feet.

Helen wiped her mouth. Couldn’t he wait until after dinner?

He clasped his hands behind his back with a smug smile Helen didn’t care for but would get used to. “As you know, when I was younger, I tried to win the hand of the lovely Helen Jamison. I lost to a better man.” He dipped his chin to the Carlisles.

Mrs. Carlisle let out a faint whimper.

The knots in Helen’s stomach dragged her heart into the tangled mess. Tonight’s performance required a wide range of emotions. Did she have the skill to convince such a discerning audience? And why couldn’t she and Vic avoid the pomp and get this over with?

“But now,” he said in an expansive tone for his closing argument, “I have made a proposal of marriage to Helen, and she has honored me with her acceptance.”

The only sounds in the room were soft inhalations of breath and silver tinkling on china.

Helen needed to respond, to bolster Vic. “They need more of an explanation than that, dear.”

Someone gasped, probably Betty, but Helen kept her smile on Vic. He would never be
darling
as Jim and Ray had been, so
dear
seemed best, and in time she might mean it.

“Surprised you?” Vic grinned. “Well, no one’s more surprised than I am. I’ve loved Helen as long as I can remember, but it took months of working together and a deadly explosion to show her what a great fellow I am.”

“Are you serious?” The judge’s gaze dissected Vic as if he were on the witness stand. “Please tell me you’re serious.”

“You taught me to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, didn’t you?” Vic pulled a small white jewelry box from his pocket. “Most children get in trouble for lying, but Jeannie and I could have been charged with perjury.”

Mrs. Llewellyn gasped. “Oh, Victor, my lamb. How wonderful.”

“It’s about time.” Joyful relief colored Mr. Carlisle’s voice.

“How wonderful,” Mrs. Carlisle said. “I always dreamed our families would be united.”

Helen cringed at the fawning but smiled at Vic as he circled the table and dropped to one knee before her. This was necessary for Jay-Jay’s sake, and Vic was a good man who adored her. She could do far worse. She already had.

So she accepted Vic’s ring, a tasteful arrangement of diamonds in platinum, and she blinked away tears, an appropriate reaction for a fiancée, for a widow.

“Goodness, Helen. This seems sudden,” Betty said with a nervous laugh.

“Nonsense. I’ve known him all my life.” Her tone came out defensive, because she knew what Betty meant—it was too soon after Ray’s death, a harsh reaction to the loss of the man she loved, and how on earth could she marry a Llewellyn?

When they were alone, Betty would ask if Helen had prayed over her decision. Although she hadn’t beforehand, she had since. This was clearly God’s way of protecting Jay-Jay. So why did she get a squirmy sensation when she prayed?

Jeannie’s crimson lips spread in a smile. “I can’t wait for us to be true sisters.”

Helen gave a stiff smile to the sister she’d keep at arm’s length.

“I’m so happy for you.” Dorothy gave her a look full of warm understanding.

Helen’s jaw tightened and her eyes stung. She could hold herself together in the face of opposition, but compassion made her crumble.

“This summer’s too soon,” Mrs. Llewellyn said. “And fall and winter weddings are so unseemly, as if the couple couldn’t wait for the proper wedding season. Next spring then, or summer.”

Another year? She could get out sooner on her own. “No, it’s this year—April 28. We’ve set the date.”

“April? This year? Next month?” Mrs. Llewellyn’s smile sputtered. “Why, that won’t do. That simply won’t do. We have preparations to make. And your parents—they won’t be able to come on such short notice.”

Vic stood behind Helen’s chair and set his hands on her shoulders. “Didn’t I tell you Mother would want a wedding extravaganza?”

“But you promised.” Helen begged Vic with her eyes. She’d wanted to take the train to Reno this weekend, but Vic had insisted on a church wedding. This was their compromise. Yes, Papa and Mama would be disappointed to miss it, but they would insist upon an understated wedding for a second marriage anyway. The sooner they married, the less time Mrs. Llewellyn would have to fuss over wedding details.

“I keep my promises.” Vic patted her shoulder. “Sorry, Mother. We’re getting married April 28, and we’ve written the Jamisons. We want a simple church wedding. If you insist on postponing it or overdoing it, we’ll elope.”

Helen reached up and squeezed his hand. A marriage built on love and passion had failed her, but this marriage would be built on respect—a stronger, if less thrilling, foundation.

Lechfeld
Saturday, March 10, 1945