Love by Design

by Christine Johnson

  “You’re right about that.” Dan had trouble imagining why Jen would be interested in him. “They’re a fine family. Too bad everyone’s going in different directions.”

  “It’s a great opportunity. Ruth is a talented dress designer. She will do well in New York. Her father would be proud of her.”

  “I’m sure he would be proud of all of his daughters.” Yet Dan suspected Jen didn’t feel that way. Like Blake, she seemed to be trying to prove something. Unlike Blake, her father was no longer alive to acknowledge her success. “Would you like a tour of the plane?”

  Blake brightened. “Boy, would I.”

  That was the first time Dan had seen any excitement in the man. Maybe buying from his mercantile would do more than support a local merchant. “Ever been up in one?”

  Blake ran a hand over the fuselage. “Sure. With Jack Hunter. He let me take the controls.” He whistled. “I wanted to get my license. Should have.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Kensington sighed. “Life. A wife and children. Responsibilities.” He winced. “And bad choices.”

  Maybe that’s what had estranged father from son. Dan couldn’t believe that marrying one of the Fox girls was enough to set his father against him. “We all make bad choices now and then.” Dan made a split-second decision. “Would you like to take her up today? I’d like to make a test flight.”

  That spark ignited again. “Are you joking? Sure.”

  “It’ll take a little while before we can take off. I need to do the full preflight check. Say half an hour. If you have something to do—”

  “Nothing that can’t wait. Show me everything.” Every trace of bitterness had vanished, replaced by eager excitement.

  Who knew an airplane could do that? Dan had made the right decision. One flight could make a difference in a man’s life. He handed Kensington the clipboard with the preflight procedure. “Read out each item and check them off when I tell you to.”

  Dan would take his time. This flight had to go perfectly since he had no one aboard who could help in the event of trouble.

  * * *

  Darcy pressed both hands to her temples and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Headache?” Jen asked.

  “It’ll pass.” But she sounded breathless and weak.

  Jen hopped up. “I’ll get a cold compress. That might help.”

  She had been at the Hunters’ house often enough to know her way around their kitchen. She was surprised to see a telephone installed on the kitchen wall. The Hunters weren’t well-off. Maybe Darcy’s parents had insisted she have a telephone. Her father was the bank manager.

  Jen grabbed a small washcloth from the drawer and began pumping water with the hand pump. This time of year, the well water was ice-cold, but the old pump took a little muscle to get going. She wondered how Darcy managed since she was supposed to be confined to bed. Even if Jack filled a container of fresh water in the morning, she might need more throughout the day. They certainly didn’t have a maid.

  They could use a housekeeper and nurse.

  Jen’s hand stilled. She wasn’t good at either, but she knew how to clean and cook. She also knew more about nursing than the average person. Since she needed a place to stay starting next week, maybe Darcy would let her live with them in exchange for housekeeping services. Knowing Darcy, she would insist on paying Jen or complain that the guest bedroom wasn’t ready for a boarder. No, it would be better to go through Jack. She would talk to him when he returned.

  She squeezed the excess water from the cloth and brought it to the parlor. “Here.” She applied the compress to Darcy’s forehead. “Does that feel any better?”

  Darcy murmured her thanks. “You should be a nurse.”

  Jen chuckled. “I discovered I wasn’t tough enough. It takes a strong woman to be a nurse.”

  “I believe that.” Darcy leaned her head against the pillow and gasped softly.

  Jen’s pulse accelerated. “Is it time for more medicine?”

  “No. Please. I would rather the pain than that dreadful sedative.” She smiled wanly, though her eyes didn’t open. “It’s just this pain under my rib cage. It must be the baby kicking.” She rubbed her right side. “He is certainly strong.”

  “He? How do you know it’s a boy?”

  “I don’t, of course, but my mother insists I’m going to have a boy from the way I’m carrying the baby. We shall see.” She pulled the compress from her forehead. “Now, what were we discussing?”

  “How to convince Dan to teach me to fly.”

  “Ah, that’s right.” Darcy’s fingers kneaded her brow. “You need to show him that you aren’t a piece of porcelain.”

  Jen snorted. “Look at me. Who could ever think I’m fragile? That’s Beattie and Ruth and maybe even Minnie, but not me.”

  “You would be surprised. Jack thought I was. He still hovers over me in the worst way. Sometimes I want to scream.”

  “But you convinced him to teach you to fly.”

  “I convinced him that if he wouldn’t teach me, I would find someone who would.”

  “But of course you didn’t.”

  “No.” A faint smile lifted her lips for a moment before the pain stole it away. “He taught me. We had our problems. That first crash bothered him terribly.”

  “You hit your head in that one, right?”

  She nodded. “He was so upset. I thought he would never take me up in a plane again, but that wasn’t it. He’d begun to realize he was falling in love with me and couldn’t bear losing me. That’s when I had to use some extra persuasion. I rallied the town to fix his plane. When he saw what we’d done, why, he loved me more than ever.”

  Jen’s mind whirred. If she could fix that bothersome left engine, maybe Dan would realize she wasn’t a fragile flower. She leaped to her feet and paced the room. Hendrick had fixed the cowling and the cylinder bore. That should do it, but they needed that test. Perhaps instead of bargaining one against the other, she should offer the solution she’d come up with and trust Dan to follow through with lessons. He was a gentleman. He appreciated her mechanical skills. That might just do it.

  “That’s it! Thank you, Darcy. That’s exactly what I needed.”

  Instead of hearing Darcy’s agreement, only deathly silence came from the direction of the sofa.

  “Darcy?” Jen hurried across the dim room.

  Her friend’s entire body shuddered with the same terrifying convulsions Jen had witnessed in the hospital’s maternity ward.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jen froze.

  It was happening again. Her father. The woman in the maternity ward. Marie. They’d all died.

  But not Darcy. Please, Lord, not Darcy. She was finally going to have the baby she’d wanted for years. All those miscarriages. All that heartache. It couldn’t end now. It couldn’t end this way.

  A nurse leaps into action with a calm mind and a sure hand. The nursing instructor’s admonition rang in Jen’s mind.

  Calm down. She took a deep breath. Darcy needed help, not panic.

  Put a padded tongue depressor between her jaws. The instruction flashed into Jen’s mind, but she didn’t have a tongue depressor. She didn’t have any wood at all. She looked around the room. All sorts of bric-a-brac but nothing that would work.

  The compress. Jen rolled it tightly. Thankfully, the cloth was small and thin enough that it rolled into a size that fit between Darcy’s upper and lower jaws while leaving room to breathe.

  Now what? Darcy was breathing, but the seizure hadn’t stopped. Jen fought panic. What should she do? What could she do? She was alone here, and the nearest hospital was in Grand Rapids. Think. Think.

  What had the nurses done in the ward? After ensuring the patient could breathe and couldn’t bi
te her tongue, they had made sure a thrashing patient didn’t injure herself. But Darcy wasn’t thrashing. Her muscles quivered, but her limbs didn’t jerk. Then they had summoned the staff physician on duty. Jen should fetch Doc Stevens. But that meant leaving Darcy. Jen had left her father, and he’d died. She couldn’t leave Darcy.

  Then she remembered the telephone in the kitchen. She would have to leave Darcy for a moment, but she had to do something.

  “Hold on, Darcy, I’m calling for Doc Stevens.” Jen stroked her arm and noticed the spasms were easing. She was coming out of the convulsion. That gave her just enough time.

  She ran into the kitchen and rang the operator. Cora Williams took her sweet time answering.

  Jen didn’t wait for her to finish asking what she could do for her. “Get me Doc Stevens. Now. It’s an emergency.”

  “Doctor Stevens is at the Buncton farm. There was a terrible accident with the—”

  “Do they have a telephone? I need medical advice immediately. Mrs. Hunter has gone into convulsions.”

  Jen regretted giving that information to the town gossip, but it did spur Cora into action.

  “Please wait while I make the connection.”

  It probably took only seconds, but it felt like minutes before someone’s scratchy voice came on the line.

  “Get me Doc Stevens,” Jen shouted. “It’s an emergency.”

  “It’s an emergency here, too,” the woman snapped. “Doc is preparing for surgery.”

  Jen gathered herself. “I’m sorry. Could you ask him for some advice? Mrs. Hunter has gone into convulsions. I know from my time at the hospital that this could be fatal.”

  The woman didn’t answer. Jen heard only static. Had the woman hung up?

  Then Doc Stevens came on the line. “What are the symptoms?”

  Jen repeated what she had observed.

  “Is she in labor?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Find out. If she gives birth, she may make it.”

  Jen’s knees went weak. Then she remembered. “She did complain about some abdominal pain. Maybe she is starting labor. I’ll check.”

  “You may not have much time. Did you birth any babies at the hospital?”

  “No, sir, but I did witness a birth.”

  “It’ll have to do. You could send for Mollie Humphries.”

  Jen recognized the midwife’s name. “I’m alone. Does she have a telephone?”

  “No. Don’t leave the patient. You need to stay with her. Now listen carefully. If she’s in labor and dilated sufficiently, you may need to hurry the baby along by breaking the membranes. Understand? If Mrs. Hunter is conscious, have her push. Even so, you might need to ease the baby out the birth canal. Since you don’t have forceps, use your hands. Be sure to scrub them thoroughly.”

  Jen felt sick, but Darcy needed her to be strong and keep her wits about her. “What do I do if she’s not in labor?”

  “She needs to get to a hospital at once. Have Jack drive her there.” The connection crackled.

  “Doctor Stevens? Doc?” she cried into the telephone mouthpiece. “Jack’s not here.”

  With a click, the line disconnected.

  “I’m sorry, Jen,” the operator, Cora Williams, said. “I’ll try to reconnect the call.”

  “No. I got the information I needed.” Jen hung up.

  Please God, let Darcy be in labor.

  If not, she needed to find another way to get Darcy to the hospital. Who could drive the distance fast enough?

  The answer came in a flash, so obvious. He wouldn’t be near a telephone, though. She picked up the telephone receiver again.

  Cora came on the line so quickly that she must have been waiting.

  Jen rushed past formalities. “Try the flight school. If there’s no answer, send someone fast as you can to the airfield and have him bring Dan Wagner to the Hunters’ house.”

  * * *

  Blake Kensington seemed truly interested in the workings of the airplane. He asked questions about every checklist item, absorbed the information and asked more questions. A student couldn’t have done better. The man would have made a fine aviator, but he had chosen the responsible path of raising a family.

  Dan knew he was being unfair to Jen. If he was going to take any novice on a test run, it ought to be her. She at least knew how the plane worked. Kensington didn’t. This rash decision of his didn’t look fair on the surface, but Dan didn’t trust himself at the controls with Jen on board. It was too much like that bad decision to teach Agnes—only worse. He hadn’t loved Agnes. Jen, on the other hand, occupied his thoughts day in and day out. Maybe it wasn’t love, but it was getting close.

  No, this little flight would last only minutes. Dan would take the plane up, circle the airfield and come down. Simple. Quick. Jen wouldn’t even know. Except the Hunters lived across the road from the airfield and Jack said Jen was staying with his wife today.

  She’d know.

  And he’d hear about it tomorrow.

  For a second, Dan considered canceling the flight. He could claim the winds weren’t right. Kensington wouldn’t know. But the man had come alive at the prospect of flying. Dan could explain things to Jen, and the flight wouldn’t last long enough to put a family man in danger.

  “Elevator,” Kensington called out.

  Dan verified its operation from the controls, and then checked it visually while explaining its function.

  Kensington took it all in. “You sure have the life. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t married.”

  The comment shivered through Dan. “Sometimes I wish I had, but the right woman never came along.”

  “Why not have both? The Hunters are married.”

  “That might work for them but not for me. Not with stunt flying, anyway. I had to comfort too many widows to ever put a woman through that.” Dan’s hand stilled. “Sometimes I envy guys like you. You get to come home every night to a woman who loves you and children eager to see you. I’ve spent years going from hotel to hotel. Not the fine ones, either. This is the longest I’ve been in any one place since I started flying, but a boardinghouse is not a home. My brothers have families, children to carry on their name. That’s what’s important.”

  “It’s a burden sometimes.”

  Dan sensed the man’s chafing against circumstances. He had to make Kensington see what a treasure he had. “Everything has its downside, believe me. Flying isn’t all glory. There’s a lot of loneliness and heartache. At the end of the day, a plane can’t love you. It can only perform or not perform.”

  Kensington considered his words. “You sound like a man ready to retire.”

  “I’m done with stunt flying.” Dan crawled down from the ladder. “I’d like what you have. A family. Time at home. Maybe children someday.”

  “With Jen Fox?”

  The pointed question hit Dan hard. Was Jen the deciding factor? He’d given up stunt flying before he met her, but if she hadn’t captured his interest, he would probably be starting the airmail route about now. Yes, he cared for her. A lot. Maybe even loved her, but he wasn’t sure she felt the same. That impulsive hug and kiss had come from gratitude, not love. She never talked about having a family or children. She bristled whenever he got too close.

  “I doubt she’d have me,” Dan joked. “I manage to set her off pretty much every time I open my mouth.”

  Kensington laughed, but not harshly like the night of the ball. Today it held a surprising measure of sympathy. “I know the feeling, old sport. They’re pretty much all like that. At least the Fox women. Good through and through. Maybe too good for the average guy and pretty near impossible to figure out.”

  “I can’t disagree with you there.” Dan wiped his hands on a rag, more than ready to turn back to
business. “That should be the last thing on the preflight checklist. I fueled her earlier.”

  Blake handed him the clipboard, and Dan looked it over.

  “Mister Wagner. Mister Kensington.” A boy’s breathless cries drew Dan’s attention away from the airplane.

  Dan looked up to see a dark-haired, olive-skinned boy of perhaps fourteen or fifteen running toward them.

  “Luke? What are you doing here?” Kensington asked.

  “Missus Hunter is sick, and Miss Jen needs help. She needs Mister Wagner to go to Mister Hunter’s house right away.”

  Dan didn’t hear anything past “Miss Jen needs help.” He threw the clipboard on the table and sprinted from the barn, Blake Kensington on his heels.

  * * *

  Darcy came out of the convulsion confused and angry. She yanked the rolled cloth out of her mouth and flung it to the floor. “What is that doing in my mouth? What are you doing to me?”

  Jen imitated the calm yet firm tone the head nurse always used. “You had a seizure. The cloth was to prevent you from injuring yourself.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m right here and perfectly fine.”

  Darcy didn’t know what had happened.

  Jen’s heart pounded in her throat, and her palms sweated. She had to follow Doc’s instructions, even though she knew nothing about birthing a baby. She had only witnessed the early pangs from a distance. Those women had screamed as if being torn in half.

  Darcy wasn’t screaming. Yelling at her, yes, but not screaming.

  On the other hand, many of the women suffering the pangs leading up to childbirth had done so in silence or with only the faintest of moans. Jen had mopped their foreheads and consoled them that their time would come soon. It seldom did. Hours would pass. Sometimes a day, leaving the woman exhausted.

  Darcy looked uncomfortable, but her face didn’t twist with pain.

  Jen picked up the rolled compress and set it on the end table while she figured out how to ask the question Doc Stevens had posed to her. In the end, she decided asking straight out was best. “Are you having labor pains?”