by Jill Barnett
“He sounds like a man of high intelligence.”
“Funny. My point is, how will her family feel about her being over here?”
“I did ask about that. She’s from California, and Cassidy said he didn’t figure after Pearl Harbor that she would be any more at risk here than on the West Coast. He laughed and said it wouldn’t matter anyway. No one in her family, including him, would dare make the mistake of telling her what to do. Then he told me how they met. Apparently she was living in Morocco with the family of a college friend. They were in the diplomatic corps and had two blind children. When the war broke out, they left, but her papers were delayed. Got herself in some kind of fix. They sent him in to get her out of it.”
“Oh, good,” she said, grinning. “I think I like her already.”
“Of course you do. I’m surrounded by contrary females. I’m counting on Mother to react the same way.”
“We wouldn’t want you to grow complacent and bored. National heroes need a little humbling.”
“You sound like Helen.” He signaled for the bill.
“I adore Helen. We’ve met twice since you introduced us.”
“An action I will live to regret, no doubt.”
They left arm in arm and wound their way along the London streets, which were filled with people in uniform—olive drab, nut brown, crisp white, and deep blue. They walked in the park and had a photograph taken near the Serpentine, then went to Oxford Street and stopped at Selfridges, where she bought a new red ribbon and a small box of tea-olive soap for one of her ferry chums.
On the way out of the store they passed a fragrance counter that showed the effects of the war. The few bottles of fine perfume there were dearly priced and locked away in a glass case. The fragrances that were on the counter were plain vials of cheap scent. A salesclerk stopped her and sprayed a small amount of cologne made from rose oil and alcohol on her wrist.
Charley sniffed it and raised her wrist for him to smell.
“It smells like a sot fell in a rose garden.”
She laughed and put the bottle down.
“Show us that one.” Skip pointed to the glass doors.
The salesclerk perked up, took a silver key from her belt, and unlocked the cabinet. “Skip?” Charley put her hand on his arm.
“It’s for my mother.”
“Oh.”
The salesclerk set the bottle on the counter. “You’ll have to sniff the stopper. I can’t let you sample this one. There are only three bottles left.”
Charley held up a hand. “No. I don’t need to try it. It’s for his mother.”
“See if you like it.”
Charley looked at him, frowning.
“Go on.”
She sniffed the glass cap, and she smiled softly, then handed it back to the salesclerk. “It’s just lovely.”
“I’ll take it.” Skip paid for it and he watched Charley while the salesclerk wrapped up the bottle of perfume.
Charley was smelling the cheap bottles and frowning with each one.
The salesclerk handed him the box and they left. The wind picked up from a dark and roiling storm blowing in from the distance. The temperature had dropped while they were inside, and the rain began to fall in fat drops.
“We’d best head for the hotel.” He put his arm around her shoulders, and they ran the few blocks to their hotel.
Once inside the lobby, he handed her the box. “This is for you.”
She stopped walking. “You said it was for your mother.”
“I lied.”
“I can’t accept this.”
“It’s done. Be gracious and accept my gift.”
“Skip. This is Ma Griffe. It’s terribly expensive.”
“I can afford it.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I didn’t get you a Christmas gift.”
“We didn’t know each other at Christmas.”
“When is your birthday?”
She stood there, stubbornly silent, her lips thin as a pencil line.
“Fine, I’ll ask your father when he arrives next week.”
“Okay, fine. It’s July fourth.”
“Your Independence Day?”
She nodded.
“No wonder you’re so stubborn. You were born on the day those colonial anarchists rose up against the Mother Country.”
She was still laughing when he pulled her along with him toward the lift and walked her inside, blocking her with his body before he leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Think of it as a gift for me. As soon as we get to the room, you can dab that scent on all the soft spots I’m going to suck.”
He could see the moment she gave in. She leaned her head into his shoulder. All he could see was the part in her hair.
“Thank you. I love your exorbitant gift.”
A few minutes later he unlocked the door and they went inside. Her bag had been delivered from the station and was sitting in the dressing room, but the last thing he wanted on her was more clothes. The useless ones she was wearing ended up on the floor. They went straight to bed and stayed there.
He awoke sometime in the early morning. There had been no raid that night. The weather had turned terribly bad. He smoked a cigarette and stood near the bed, watching her sleep, listening to the soft sound of her even breathing and thinking about what was beginning between them.
She’d made the mistake of falling in love with him. He had seen it on her face that night and the last time they had been together. He took a deep drag off the cigarette. Some decent part of him wanted to warn her, to tell her the women he loved were killed or blinded, that loving him was suicide for the heart and perhaps the spirit.
But he couldn’t tell her. He wanted her to love him, even though he couldn’t love her back.
He stubbed out the cigarette in a marble ashtray and moved closer to the bed.
He had lost his sense of honor, ironically, because of war—where honor, duty, and valor were supposed to be what made fighting men. None of those things motivated him. He asked himself if his lack of them made him a coward.
It was an odd thing to him that of late, and with regularity, he thought that he did not want to die, which . . . wasn’t exactly the same thing as wanting to live.
He wondered if there was a God. If there was purity after death. Or did we just exist only to die and there was nothing more to life and death than that? He stood there in a dark room with a woman he craved, with unsettling emotions he didn’t understand, in a world he couldn’t control.
The wind outside whispered through the curtains in time and meter with her soft, easy breathing. He felt nothing of ease; he felt awkward, out of place; he had a sudden sense of lost time. Her perfume was in the air, light and familiar, but it didn’t make him any more comfortable. He looked across the room.
A huge mirror hung on the opposite wall above a clothes chest, and he could see his silhouette reflected in it. No features. Nothing familiar, merely the dark outlines of a man who appeared to be a stranger. Then he realized that perhaps it wasn’t time he had lost, but himself.
“WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER”
It was June in southern California, that time of year when mornings were gray and overcast, but by noon the sun would come through and burn your nose to a crisp if you forgot to wear a hat. Kitty sat on the front porch swing, idly pushing it back and forth with her bare toes as the seagulls called out from overhead, the breeze made the palm tree fronds sway in whispers, and the waves drummed deeply on the beach across the street.
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 d
own 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.”