“Of course, silly. How else does one fly? Lieutenant Guilford pulled a few strings so we wouldn’t have to ride in trucks the whole way. Wasn’t that swell of him? And it means we can get to our first stop that much quicker.”
“Marvelous.” Vi set the coffee cup down before her trembling hand spilled the contents. “Where is our first stop, anyway?”
“It’s all hush-hush for security reasons, but Lieutenant Guilford did say we were traveling north, so it should be cooler!”
“Well, that’s a relief.” Then Vi thought of Sergeant Dangerous, with his battle-roughened exterior. “I wonder if we’re bypassing Rome and heading even farther north.”
“Wherever we go, I hope it isn’t to the front lines.” Gertie’s narrow shoulders were strung tight. “I don’t want to die.”
“You’re not going to die,” Marcie said, sounding exasperated.
“Al Jolson nearly did,” Gertie pointed out.
“From malaria,” Marcie said, “which he caught in the South Seas, not Europe.”
“What about Jane Froman? She was on a USO tour in Europe when she almost lost her leg last year.”
“Can we talk about something else?” Vi asked, feeling even more ill as she recalled exactly how the famous performer was injured . . . in a plane crash.
Marcie ignored her. “Bad luck can strike anywhere. Besides, you knew what you were signing up for before we left the States. The Foxhole Circuit by its very name suggests we’re going close to the front.”
“It didn’t sound so scary at the time,” Gertie said defensively. “I’d never seen a bombed-out city before. And no one told me everyone overseas would be armed.”
“It’s all right, Gertie.” Vi rubbed her temples, struggling with her own bout of nerves. Cars she was okay with. Boats, too. Even pack mules. But airplanes? “I have to admit war zones look a lot different in color than they did in the black-and-white newsreels. Nor do they smell like popcorn and movie theaters.”
Marcie rolled her eyes at that. Then her gaze flicked to somewhere behind Vi. Abruptly she straightened on the couch. “He’s here again,” she hissed.
Vi frowned and turned to look. “Who?”
It took a second, but then she recognized the soldier in the doorway as a cleaner, more respectable version of Sergeant Dangerous. Gone was the road dust and scruffy beard, leaving his angular, attractive jaw—with its paler skin—on full display. And wasn’t it just her luck that he would choose this morning to make his reappearance, a morning when she looked like hell.
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Perhaps if she could find some flaw in his manly perfection, so as to balance the playing field? She narrowed her gaze. His cheekbones were a bit too high, and his full, lushly curved lips a tad on the feminine side . . . or would be on someone else. Everything else about him was too hard edged and steely to be anything but male. And his deceptively lazy ease of movement that she’d noticed that first day was completely masculine.
And those eyes . . . such a piercing, unworldly blue. She could gaze into them for days.
Sue clapped her hands, startling Vi out of her inspection.
“Attention, everyone. Some of you have already heard, but we’re moving out this morning. Sergeant Danger”—Vi choked on her coffee at his name—“here is our army liaison for the first leg of our journey. As he’s in charge of our safety, if he tells you to do something, please do it posthaste and without argument. And yes, Matthew, I’m looking at you.”
“Good luck to the sergeant with that,” Marcie said in a whisper. “Matt doesn’t listen to anyone except Mr. Stuart.”
Vi cocked an eyebrow at the handsome actor who played Ann’s love interest in the show. He lounged on the far side of the room, his shoulder against the wall, a small smile on his lips, looking anything but ashamed. “Well, if he wants to stay alive, he’ll need to change his tune.”
“Also,” Sue continued, “I’ve just been advised that I mispronounced our new liaison’s name. It’s Sergeant Dang-er, like hanger.” She gave the sergeant a small embarrassed smile. “So I do apologize.”
“I don’t care what his name is. I wish he wasn’t our liaison.” Gertie shivered. “He was so rude to Frances.”
“Rudeness doesn’t mean he’s a bad soldier.” Vi’s attention returned to the sergeant, whose gaze was traveling around the room, touching on each inhabitant. Then for a brief instant his gaze met hers, and her lungs forgot how to work. Time stretched as he paused, focusing on her.
And then his perusal of the troupe continued, releasing her.
She exhaled shakily, once again ruing her haggard appearance. “In fact, my impression is that if anyone can keep us safe, it would be him.”
“I agree. Rude or not, he makes me feel safer just by being in the same room.” Marcie made a purring sound. “Imagine how it would feel to be in his arms.”
Vi shot her travel buddy a sharp look. “Marcie . . .”
Marcie rolled her eyes and sighed. “I know, I know. But a gal can dream, can’t she?”
“The trucks taking us to the airfield should be here in”—Wyatt looked at his watch—“twenty minutes. Finish your breakfast and pack up. And remember to be in uniform unless you plan to walk. Only military personnel get to fly.”
Resigning herself to an aerial death, Vi tossed down the rest of her coffee and pastry. After busing her cup, she lingered for a moment, absorbing the ambiance of the room, trying to secure it in her memory.
Someday, God willing, she would want to look back on these days and reminisce.
“For I shall never pass this way again . . . ,” she said softly, reciting one of her father’s favorite sayings. Her father’s beloved face materialized in her mind, compassionate and kind. Yet firm, too. Resolute. Lord, how she missed him.
“Our time here on earth is limited,” he had told her and Fern, over and over. “So we must do as much good as we can, while we can.”
He had taken that philosophy to the bank, literally, since he was the owner. And had become much beloved by the community because of it. It had also been the reason she had run away. After all those lectures on how one had but a single chance at life, and how one shouldn’t ruin it with intemperance, how could she have possibly told him about the baby? If there was ever an unfortunate example of ruining one’s life before it even got started, that had to be it.
How could she even think of bringing a baby into such an environment? One of disappointment and public shame? She couldn’t do it. Not to the baby, not to herself, not to her family.
“The plane isn’t waiting around for stragglers.”
She looked up, startled to find herself alone with Sergeant Danger in the room.
“You look a bit lost,” he said not unkindly. “Do you need help?”
“No.” She drew a deep breath to gather her scattered thoughts. “I was . . . That is, it won’t take me as long as the others to pack.” Then she gave him a small smile. “So, no, thanks, I’ve got it in hand.”
It was a deliberate echo of what he had told her two days ago. Not that she was holding a grudge or anything.
Sergeant Danger’s lips twitched. “Sorry if I gave you the brush the other day. I wasn’t in the best of moods. And that limey’s disapproval didn’t help.”
“He was horrid, wasn’t he?” Vi agreed with a laugh. “I doubt I would’ve shown the restraint you did.”
“I’ve likely had more practice,” he said simply.
A fragile connection stretched between them as they stood there, smiling. Perhaps he hadn’t formed as awful an opinion of her as she had thought.
“Virginia!” Sue called from the hallway. “Get a move on.”
Startled and dismayed by how easily the sergeant had distracted her, she darted toward her room, not bothering to excuse herself. Darn her woolgathering. If she hadn’t been thinking about her dad, her mask wouldn’t have slipped so completely with the sergeant. Because it hadn’t been Virginia interacti
ng with him. Nor had it been Lily. It had been utterly, frighteningly herself. Violet.
She couldn’t let it happen again.
Thirty minutes later, firmly resolved to stay as far away from Sergeant Danger as humanly possible, she fetched her suitcase from the truck that had carried them to the airfield. The task wasn’t as hard as she feared thanks to Charles and Matt following the sergeant around like schoolchildren, pestering him with questions.
Safe for the moment, her suitcase in hand, she drifted away from the others. To her surprise, the airfield hadn’t been in Caserta, despite the palace having housed the Italian Air Force Academy, but several miles to the west, in another town altogether. Nervously, she gazed out over the tarmac toward the mountains hulking in the distance. A milky-blue heat haze filled the valley, blurring the peaks. The hills, what she could see, were raw and wild. Half volcanic rock, half green-and-gold vegetation, they were breathtakingly pretty. And also deadly if crashed into. She knew enough about airplanes to know that much.
With her attempts to calm herself incinerated by the thought, she turned her attention to all the crates and bags waiting to be loaded into the plane. She might not be a pilot, but she could only imagine all that weight might be an issue when it came to clearing mountain peaks. Perhaps they should leave some of those crates behind?
“Is there a problem?” Sergeant Danger’s husky voice caught her off guard, and she jumped.
Placing a hand over her racing heart, she turned and then startled again. He was much closer than she had imagined him. An unexpected whiff of aftershave and warm, healthy male eddied around her, teasing and pleasant. Much more so than the heavier odors of oil and aviation fuel. She found herself leaning toward him despite her misgivings.
That this rough-and-ready man had bothered to slap on some aftershave this morning struck her as unexpected, though perhaps it shouldn’t. The draft, after all, called up young men from all walks of life. For all she knew the sergeant could have been a banker, like her father, before being called up.
The irony of such a possibility made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. She had never thought about it, but most of the men here had likely never wanted to be soldiers, had never wanted to leave their homes and fight in a war. And yet here they were, carrying out their orders until killed, or wounded enough to return home. It wasn’t right.
The whole situation wasn’t right, but what could she do?
She blinked away the sudden rush of emotion. “It’s nothing,” she managed in answer to his question, glad he couldn’t divine the real reason for her tears. “I’ve just never flown before.”
“You’ll be fine. Trust me, riding in a plane is a piece of cake compared to jumping out of one.” He winked at her, a breath-stealing smile curving his utterly kissable lips.
Then her stomach dropped as his words soaked in. “Jump out? Oh, good Lord, not on your life! I’d rather go down in a flaming wreck. There’s no way I would be able to make myself jump.”
His smile vanished. “Don’t say that. You’ll jinx the flight, which would be highly unappreciated by the pilots.”
“You’re kidding.” But he wasn’t, she could see, and being a theater person, she understood jinxes and superstitions. “I’m sorry. Hopefully you were the only one who heard me.”
“Apology accepted,” he said, his expression grim. “But be careful what you say—cursing a man’s luck, no matter how innocently, can be just as deadly to him and his unit as actual gunfire. A fellow who thinks his luck has run out tends to make bad choices, taking out his team as well.”
“I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well.” He exhaled tightly. “I realize this is your first tour, but I gotta be straight with you: it might be your last if you don’t start paying attention. It’s why I don’t like civilians mixing with GIs. You only make our lives more dangerous.”
She opened her mouth to apologize again, but he was already striding away toward the men loading the plane.
Angry tears filled her eyes. How dare he chastise her over something she had no way of knowing? Whatever connection she had felt with him earlier crashed and burned. She had been right the first time. He was a jerk.
Chapter 16
The noise inside the airplane was deafening as the twin engines roared in an effort to lift the bumping and swaying plane over the peaks. Vi closed her eyes and prayed. Fear and nausea created an unholy combination in her stomach, one that made her glad she hadn’t finished her breakfast. Her irritation at the sergeant had gotten her through the first fifteen minutes of the flight. Then the heart-stopping lurches and dips started, and any courage she’d had before fled.
Spending hours in the back of a truck would’ve been heaven compared to this. Who cared how long it took? Her chances of getting home to Chicago would be greater than they were at the moment.
She wasn’t alone in her misery. Most of the troupe was either wide-eyed and pale or turning an unhealthy shade of green, like Matt. Not all, though. Charles read his book, though how he could concentrate she had no idea. Mr. Stuart appeared to be napping, and Luciana was deep in conversation with Sergeant Danger.
The noise kept Vi from overhearing, but from Luciana’s hand gestures, Vi suspected they were talking about something important. The actress kept punctuating her speech by smacking the knife edge of one hand against the palm of the other, as if to make a point.
The sergeant, for his part, listened attentively, with his long legs stretched out, his body relaxed. Every once in a while he would grab the hanging strap above him for stability, but otherwise he might as well have been sitting on a bus for all the concern he showed. It was infuriating. Worse, he seemed so at ease with Luciana, answering her points with comments of his own, smiling briefly at something she said. A couple of times they even laughed together.
A stab of envy made her look away. So what if the sergeant didn’t seem to mind Luciana “mixing with GIs”? The actress was welcome to him. Vi had far more important things to fret over than how not a single man had ever listened to her as if what she said actually mattered. Certainly not Robert, who had been more interested in the sound of his own voice. Not even her own father, kind and loving as he was. It had gotten only worse in recent years, as most men didn’t really care what a burlesque dancer had to say, no matter how smart or well read she might be.
A sudden sway of the plane made her break out in a nauseated sweat. Desperate for a distraction, she turned her thoughts to her future—assuming she had one beyond this flight. As much as she loved dancing and creating her own acts, it would be nice to be valued for something more than a pair of big knockers. Perhaps an actress, though she would have to go back to school and get her high school diploma. Every Hollywood actress she had ever read about had at least gotten that far. And it shouldn’t be that hard. She’d been an honor student up until she’d dropped out to have Jimmy.
Or maybe she should consider secretarial school. Actresses could become too old for work, the same as dancers, even legitimate ones.
Speaking of dancers . . . She glanced at her travel buddy and found her twisted around on the metal bench and staring out the round window at the countryside below. Frowning slightly, Vi reached over to check all Marcie’s buckles and belts to make sure they were still fastened. Two weren’t, so Vi cinched them up, forcing Marcie back onto the metal bench that passed for a seat.
Marcie slapped her hand away. “Stop that! What are you doing?” she shouted over the roar of the engines.
“Making sure you don’t go bouncing around the cabin. Head injuries are hard to dance with.”
“Yes, well, I’m going to throw up if I don’t look out the window.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Vi shouted back. “I’m not dancing by myself during the dinner party scene.”
“I tell you, I’m f—” Marcie didn’t finish as a loud bang came from outside the plane, the reverberation palpable through the seats.
All conversation i
n the cabin stopped as the plane’s tail skidded to the left.
“The engine!” Gertie yelled, her white face pressed to a window. “It’s on fire!”
Vi and Marcie immediately joined her. Flames were indeed shooting out of a hole in the metal and streaking back toward the wing. Vi’s heart stopped. Oh no, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. She had not jinxed the plane. She hadn’t.
Abruptly the flames went out, but the relief was short lived as the propellers slowed almost to a stop, indicating the engine was dead. At the same time, the plane yawed even harder to the right. Then it fishtailed abruptly to the left. Both Ann and Frances screamed. Even Luciana paled, her hand gripping the sergeant’s knee. Vi understood the actress’s impulse, wishing she could do the same. Then, before she could catch her breath, the plane swooped back to the right and began to tilt toward the remaining engine.
As the floor tilt increased, sobs and prayers filled the cabin. The frantic pounding of her heart made it difficult to tell, but she was pretty sure the remaining engine was starting to stutter, too. Vi bit her lip to keep from crying. Keep it together, Vi. Falling apart will lessen your chances of survival.
“Don’t panic,” Sergeant Danger shouted over the roar of the remaining engine. His gaze, alert and focused, swept the cabin, reassuring everyone. “As long as we have one engine, we’re still good.”
Vi had no way to know if he was telling the truth, as the airplane continued to bounce through the air, one wing significantly lower than the other. But then, maybe it didn’t matter. Not panicking was always good advice, and there was nothing any of them could do about the engines.
And if worse came to worst . . .
A spike of terror shot through her as she realized just what that would entail.
She glanced at the sergeant, his joking comment about jumping out of airplanes suddenly—terrifyingly—a real possibility. To her surprise, he was looking back at her. For a moment she imagined she saw blame in those cool blue eyes. After all, he had heard her jinx the flight.
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